_Chapter 16_
Feeling him abstract, withdrawn from her, Helena experienced the dreadof losing him. She was in his arms, but his spirit ignored her. That wasinsufferable to her pride. Yet she dared not disturb him--she wasafraid. Bitterly she repented her of the giving way to her revulsion alittle space before. Why had she not smothered it and pretended? Why hadshe, a woman, betrayed herself so flagrantly? Now perhaps she had losthim for good. She was consumed with uneasiness.
At last she drew back from him, held him her mouth to kiss. As hegently, sadly kissed her she pressed him to her bosom. She must get himback, whatever else she lost. She put her hand tenderly on his brow.
'What are you thinking of?' she asked.
'I?' he replied. 'I really don't know. I suppose I was hardly thinkinganything.'
She waited a while, clinging to him, then, finding some difficulty inspeech, she asked:
'Was I very cruel, dear?'
It was so unusual to hear her grieved and filled with humility that hedrew her close into him.
'It was pretty bad, I suppose,' he replied. 'But I should think neitherof us could help it.'
She gave a little sob, pressed her face into his chest, wishing she hadhelped it. Then, with Madonna love, she clasped his head upon hershoulder, covering her hands over his hair. Twice she kissed him softlyin the nape of the neck, with fond, reassuring kisses. All the while,delicately, she fondled and soothed him, till he was child toher Madonna.
They remained standing with his head on her shoulder for some time, tillat last he raised himself to lay his lips on hers in a long kiss ofhealing and renewal--long, pale kisses of after-suffering.
Someone was coming along the path. Helena let him go, shook herselffree, turned sharply aside, and said:
'Shall we go down to the water?'
'If you like,' he replied, putting out his hand to her. They went thuswith clasped hands down the cliff path to the beach.
There they sat in the shadow of the uprising island, facing the restlesswater. Around them the sand and shingle were grey; there stretched along pale line of surf, beyond which the sea was black and smeared withstar-reflections. The deep, velvety sky shone with lustrous stars.
As yet the moon was not risen. Helena proposed that they should lie on atuft of sand in a black cleft of the cliff to await its coming. They layclose together without speaking. Each was looking at a low, large starwhich hung straight in front of them, dripping its brilliance in a thinstreamlet of light along the sea almost to their feet. It was astar-path fine and clear, trembling in its brilliance, but certain uponthe water. Helena watched it with delight. As Siegmund looked at thestar, it seemed to him a lantern hung at the gate to light someone home.He imagined himself following the thread of the star-track. What wasbehind the gate?
They heard the wash of a steamer crossing the bay. The water seemedpopulous in the night-time, with dark, uncanny comings and goings.
Siegmund was considering.
'What _was_ the matter with you?' he asked.
She leaned over him, took his head in her lap, holding his face betweenher two hands as she answered in a low, grave voice, very wise and oldin experience:
'Why, you see, dear, you won't understand. But there was such a greyishdarkness, and through it--the crying of lives I have touched....'
His heart suddenly shrank and sank down. She acknowledged then that shealso had helped to injure Beatrice and his children. He coiledwith shame.
'....A crying of lives against me, and I couldn't silence them, norescape out of the darkness. I wanted you--I saw you in front, whistlingthe Spring Song, but I couldn't find you--it was not you--I couldn'tfind you.'
She kissed his eyes and his brows.
'No, I don't see it,' he said. 'You would always be you. I could thinkof hating you, but you'd still be yourself.'
She made a moaning, loving sound. Full of passionate pity, she moved hermouth on his face, as a woman does on her child that has hurt itself.
'Sometimes,' she murmured, in a low, grieved confession, 'you lose me.'
He gave a brief laugh.
'I lose you!' he repeated. 'You mean I lose my attraction for you, or myhold over you, and then you--?'
He did not finish. She made the same grievous murmuring noise over him.
'It shall not be any more,' she said.
'All right,' he replied, 'since you decide it.'
She clasped him round the chest and fondled him, distracted with pity.
'You mustn't be bitter,' she murmured.
'Four days is enough,' he said. 'In a fortnight I should be intolerableto you. I am not masterful.'
'It is not so, Siegmund,' she said sharply.
'I give way always,' he repeated. 'And then--tonight!'
'Tonight, tonight!' she cried in wrath. 'Tonight I have been a fool!'
'And I?' he asked.
'You--what of you?' she cried. Then she became sad. 'I have littleperverse feelings,' she lamented.
'And I can't bear to compel anything, for fear of hurting it. So I'malways pushed this way and that, like a fool.'
'You don't know how you hurt me, talking so,' she said.
He kissed her. After a moment he said:
'You are not like other folk. "_Ihr Lascheks seid ein anderesGeschlecht_." I thought of you when we read it.'
'Would you rather have me more like the rest, or more unlike, Siegmund?Which is it?'
'Neither,' he said. 'You are _you_.'
They were quiet for a space. The only movement in the night was thefaint gambolling of starlight on the water. The last person had passedin black silhouette between them and the sea.
He was thinking bitterly. She seemed to goad him deeper and deeper intolife. He had a sense of despair, a preference of death. The German sheread with him--she loved its loose and violent romance--came back to hismind: '_Der Tod geht einem zur Seite, fast sichtbarlich, und jagt einemimmer tiefer ins Leben._'
Well, the next place he would be hunted to, like a hare run down, washome. It seemed impossible the morrow would take him back to Beatrice.
'This time tomorrow night,' he said.
'Siegmund!' she implored.
'Why not?' he laughed.
'Don't, dear,' she pleaded.
'All right, I won't.'
Some large steamer crossing the mouth of the bay made the water dash alittle as it broke in accentuated waves. A warm puff of air wandered inon them now and again.
'You won't be tired when you go back?' Helena asked.
'Tired!' he echoed.
'You know how you were when you came,' she reminded him, in tones fullof pity. He laughed.
'Oh, that is gone,' he said.
With a slow, mechanical rhythm she stroked his cheek.
'And will you be sad?' she said, hesitating.
'Sad!' he repeated.
'But will you be able to fake the old life up, happier, when you goback?'
'The old life will take me up, I suppose,' he said.
There was a pause.
'I think, dear,' she said, 'I have done wrong.'
'Good Lord--you have not!' he replied sharply, pressing back his head tolook at her, for the first time.
'I shall have to send you back to Beatrice and the babies--tomorrow--asyou are now....'
'"Take no thought for the morrow." Be quiet, Helena!' he exclaimed asthe reality bit him. He sat up suddenly.
'Why?' she asked, afraid.
'Why!' he repeated. He remained sitting, leaning forward on the sand,staring intently at Helena. She looked back in fear at him. The momentterrified her, and she lost courage.
With a fluttered motion she put her hand on his, which was pressed hardon the sand as he leaned forward. At once he relaxed his intensity,laughed, then became tender.
Helena yielded herself like a forlorn child to his arms, and there lay,half crying, while he smoothed her brow with his fingers, and grains ofsand fell from his palm on her cheek. She shook with dry, withered sobs,as
a child does when it snatches itself away from the lancet of thedoctor and hides in the mother's bosom, refusing to be touched.
But she knew the morrow was coming, whether or not, and she cowered downon his breast. She was wild with fear of the parting and the subsequentdays. They must drink, after tomorrow, separate cups. She was filledwith vague terror of what it would be. The sense of the oneness andunity of their fates was gone.
Siegmund also was cowed by the threat of separation. He had moredefinite knowledge of the next move than had Helena. His heart wascertain of calamity, which would overtake him directly. He shrank away.Wildly he beat about to find a means of escape from the next day and itsconsequences. He did not want to go. Anything rather than go back.
In the midst of their passion of fear the moon rose. Siegmund started tosee the rim appear ruddily beyond the sea. His struggling suddenlyceased, and he watched, spellbound, the oval horn of fiery gold come up,resolve itself. Some golden liquor dripped and spilled upon the farwaves, where it shook in ruddy splashes. The gold-red cup rose higher,looming before him very large, yet still not all discovered. By degreesthe horn of gold detached itself from the darkness at back of the waves.It was immense and terrible. When would the tip be placed upon the tableof the sea?
It stood at last, whole and calm, before him; then the night took upthis drinking-cup of fiery gold, lifting it with majestic movementoverhead, letting stream forth the wonderful unwasted liquor of goldover the sea--a libation.
Siegmund looked at the shaking flood of gold and paling gold spreadwider as the night upraised the blanching crystal, poured out fartherand farther the immense libation from the whitening cup, till at lastthe moon looked frail and empty.
And there, exhaustless in the night, the white light shook on the floorof the sea. He wondered how it would be gathered up. 'I gather it upinto myself,' he said. And the stars and the cliffs and a few trees werewatching, too. 'If I have spilled my life,' he thought, 'the unfamiliareyes of the land and sky will gather it up again.'
Turning to Helena, he found her face white and shining as the emptymoon.