The Enemies of Women Part 20

Once more Michael felt compelled to talk to him about the call he had received that morning. It was better to have a frank explanation and avoid ironical allusions.

"Yes, I saw her," Castro said. "I watched you from a window while you were walking through the gardens."

The Prince looked at him, astonished at his brevity. Was that all he had to say? At present he felt he would have preferred his joking.

"What of it if she did come?" at last he said brusquely. "That's natural; poor woman! I warn you that you've begun the conquest of an enemy."

He had met "the General" in the Casino. She and Alicia had just had another reconciliation, and to seal their renewed friendship with a fresh burst of confidence, the d.u.c.h.ess Delille had related her interview with the Prince.

"Dona Clorinda used to be unable to stand you. She considered you a frivolous fellow, a worthless loafer. But now she praises you to the skies, because of your cancelling that enormous debt, and proposing to help the d.u.c.h.ess. She says you are like a knight of old times, and that you are big hearted."

Michael shrugged his shoulders. A lot he cared what Dona Clorinda thought! This exasperated Castro.

"Why shouldn't your relatives come here?" he said sharply. "You're getting bored living just among men all the time. You don't believe it, but it's true. It's the same with all of us. One has to talk with a woman from time to time, even if it's only out of friendship. What you claimed when you came from Paris is impossible."

"Perhaps you think I'm going to fall in love with Alicia?"

And the Prince laughed for a long time, as though never tiring of seeing the funny side of such an absurd supposition.

"You'll find that out later on," Castro replied. "All I have to say is that we can't live much longer as enemies of women. Look at the Colonel: he's your 'Chamberlain,' your Aide, the man who obeys you blindly. Well, even he is deserting you. Just notice: whenever he can, he spends his time in the Porter's lodge. He has to talk to the gardener's daughter, a little brat he used to see crawling around on all fours, but who is sixteen now, and not bad looking. She worked in a millinery shop in Monte Carlo, but follows the styles like a young society girl. The Colonel keeps her provided with high-heeled shoes, short skirts, tams, and smart hats, and buys her imitation amber beads.

That's how he spends all the money you allow him to take for his services. Sometimes he follows her at a distance in the street, admiring her seductive outline and her ankles, much in evidence, and always in silk-stockings. He patiently cultivates his garden; and smiles like a fool when he thinks of his future harvest."

CHAPTER VI

One Sunday, as he got out of bed, the Prince felt like singing. Perhaps he was unconsciously following the example of some birds, which, deceived by the Spring-like warmth of a midwinter's day, had been warbling in the eaves of Villa Sirena since sunrise.

He looked out of his bedroom window. The Mediterranean, without a single sail, stretched away in far-off undulations, to where it met the sky.

The gulls were wheeling in circles, continually drooping into the water, folding their wings, and letting themselves be carried along by the waves. The sandy depths, stirred by the swells, gave the blue sea a lighter shade, which attained, along the sh.o.r.e, an opalescent hue, like that of absinthe. Around the promontory, white luminous foam was constantly being churned among the projecting rocks of the reefs.

The Prince heard voices above him. Castro and Spadoni were talking from window to window. The mysterious call of the early morning beauty had caused them to jump out of bed. They were admiring the sky, which did not have a trace of mist to dim the brightness of its farthest reaches.

The mountains stood out in extraordinary relief: they seemed larger and nearer. Above Cap-Martin, the Italian Alps descended to the sea, their outlying b.u.t.tress, at the water's edge, white with the frontier towns: Vintimiglia and Bordighera.

Through some freak of the atmosphere, a dense, elongated cloud, like a snow-covered island, was floating directly overhead in the clear sky.

Its whiteness seemed to radiate an inner light.

"I recognize it," Atilio said with a tone of conviction to the musician, who did not seem to tire of looking at it. "I have seen it often. When the day turns out too bright, the Directors of the Casino are afraid that the patrons may be bored by so much sunlight, and the vast expanse of azure: blue sea and blue sky. 'Have the big cloud brought out,' they order over the telephone. You must have noticed that that cloud always appears from behind the mountains. That's where the Casino has its storehouses. They don't neglect details here when it comes to entertaining their patrons."

Michael heard two exclamations: one of surprise and the other of indignation. Next he heard the sound of a window suddenly closed. The pianist, not in a mood for joking at so early an hour, was going back to bed, to sleep until lunch time.

The Prince hurried through his toilet. He felt the need of getting out and going somewhere, as though his gardens seemed too small for him. In the distance the bells of Monte Carlo were ringing, and still farther off those of Monaco were replying; and the merry pealing of the chimes caused the clear brittle air to vibrate like a crystal gla.s.s.

He went down stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise, and when he reached the gate he breathed freely. He had not met any of his companions, not even the Colonel. As though attracted by the Sunday morning atmosphere of gaiety which, as the afternoon wears on, changes to tiresome ennui, he decided to walk to the city alone.

Outside the gate, a girl was waiting for the street car. She was very young; but her feet slanted at a sharp angle on her high-heeled shoes.

Her skirt, falling scarcely below her knees, showed her well-rounded calves. The finely woven stockings revealed the whiteness of her flesh.

Prominent against the salmon colored silk sweater, was a necklace of large imitation amber beads. Her hair, cut short just below the ears, fell smoothly from underneath a jaunty velvet tam o'shanter of graceful line. The air of profound respect with which she spoke to him made him recognize her. It was the gardener's daughter. But at the same time she looked at him in a sly way with ill-concealed curiosity, as though her eyes made a distinction between the master and the man whom women adored and of whom she had heard so many things.

The Prince went on, after speaking to her as he would have to a young lady of his own social rank. He was gay that morning, and he laughed inwardly as he thought how later on that little bundle of mischief and ambition would keep men busy. Then he thought of Don Marcos, and what Atilio had told him. Poor Colonel! Imagine a person, at his age, trying to tame a young wildcat!

He walked lightly, with a springy step, in the direction of Monte Carlo.

He pa.s.sed the villas and the gardens as though contact with the ground had given his step fresh vigor, and as though the Spring-like air had abrogated to some extent the laws of gravity.

When he reached the city he stopped in front of the steps of San Carlos Church. Through the door he could see the twinkling tapers, smell the odor of flowers, and hear the droning of the organ, and the voices of young girls singing. He felt like a boy once more, buoyant and fresh as the morning, and had an impulse to follow the various families, in their Sunday best, who were ascending the steps. He was a Catholic through his father, a member of the Greek church through his mother, and nothing by his own inclination. Suddenly he felt a certain repugnance for the cave-like darkness, laden with perfumes, and dotted with lights. So he went on, breathing the open air with delight.

"Oh, your Ladyship! Good morning!"

A long, thin female hand shook his with masculine vigor. The bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of her khaki colored uniform, like that of an English soldier, were gleaming in the sun. The uniform, instead of being completed by breeches, ended in a short skirt and tan leather leggings.

It was Lewis's niece. She had spent two afternoons at Villa Sirena rambling about the gardens. Once more Michael observed her unhealthy emaciation, which was beginning to take on the miserable appearance of consumption. Her Sam Brown belt buried itself in her blouse, as though failing to meet the resistance of a body underneath the cloth. The face under the visor of the military cap was as sharp as a knife. Her skin, drawn and lined in spite of her youth, showed all the bones and hollows.

It was impossible to judge her age: she might have been twenty-five, or she might have been sixty. Only the eyes had retained their freshness; eyes that still kept the guilelessness of adolescence, and looked one squarely in the face with the serene confidence of a virgin sure of her strength.

She had gone through the horrors of war, as through a flame that dries up and parches everything it touches, and in the end converts it to dust. She was like a mummy, burned by the fire of the blazing towns that she had seen, and shaken by the tears and moans of thousands of human beings. "Think what those ears have heard!" Michael said to himself. And he understood the sad expression of the pale mouth which hung wearily between two drooping furrows. "And think what those eyes have seen!" he continued mentally. But the eyes did not care to remember and smiled at him, happy in the present moment.

She had just come out of a large hotel converted into a hospital, and was waiting for the street car to go to Menton. More wounded soldiers had arrived there, and owing to the scarcity of nurses the doctors had been obliged to accept her services. For the present they would not bother her any more with solicitude about her health! As she thought of the hard work that lay before her, of the long night watches, and the fight with death to save so many lives, she was filled with joy. She was anxious, as though she were going to a celebration to take the short trip as soon as possible, and seeing the car coming, she shook hands with the Prince again, with a firm grip.

"I shall go on abusing your permission. Next time I shall pillage your gardens even worse. Flowers ... lots of flowers! If you would only see the joy they give the poor fellows when you put them beside the beds!

Some of the doctors are vexed; they think it is silly. But all I say is: as long as we have to die, why not die with a little poetry, with something around us to remind us of the beauty we are losing. It doesn't hurt any one."

Lubimoff went on his way, but his heart was less light. This woman, fighting death so generously and so manfully, seemed to have torn away the rosy veil that had made his eyes rejoice.

Everything was the same, but of a darker hue, as though he were looking at the landscape through smoked gla.s.ses. He noticed things which he had not observed until then. The large hotels had been converted into hospitals. Their porches and large balconies were filled with men basking in the sun; men whose heads were white b.a.l.l.s, bound with bandages that left only the eyes and mouth visible; half finished men, as it were, lacking a leg or an arm, like a sculptor's rough models.

Others were lying motionless, with both legs amputated, like corpses in a dissecting room, but still breathing.

On the sidewalks he met soldiers of various nations: French, English, Serbian, officers, and a few Russians, who reminded him of the former importance his country had had in the war. Every variety of uniform worn by the various armies of the French Republic pa.s.sed before his eyes: the horizon blue of the home troops, the mustard color of the soldiers from Morocco, the yellow fatigue caps of the Foreign Legion, and the red fez of the Algerians and the negro Sharpshooters.

Each one was maimed. This sunny land, with its lovely views of sea and sky, seemed peopled with a race that had survived a cataclysm. Elegantly dressed officers, with handsome figures, limped along, cautiously dragging one leg, or else stepping gingerly on a foot so swathed in bandages that it was several times its natural size. Some of them were leaning on canes, bent over like old men. Men of athletic proportions trembled as they walked, as though their skeletons were rattling about in the hollow wrapper of their bodies wasted by consumption. Fingers were missing on hands; arms had been cut off until the shapeless stumps looked like fins. Under their pads of cotton, cheeks retained the gashes made by hand grenades, scars like those left by cancer; the horrible cavity of the nose, which had been torn away in some of the men, was hidden by a black tampon attached to the ears. The faces of others were covered by masks of bandages, leaving nothing visible save the eyes--sad eyes that seemed to look with fear to the day when they would have to grow accustomed to the horror of a face that a few months before had been youthful and now was like a vision in a nightmare. The bodies of some were intact, retaining their former strength and agility in all their limbs. Seen from behind they had kept all the vigor and suppleness of youth. But they walked abreast, holding tightly to one another's arms, their eyes lost in darkness, tapping the pavement with a stick which had taken the place of the vanished sword, and which would accompany them until the hour of their death.

And this procession of sadness and resignation, this grievous masquerade comforted by the joyousness of the morning, and feeling love of life once more renewed, was coming from the gardens. Others were going in the direction of the Casino and its terraces, pa.s.sing among the Brazilian palm trees, with smooth, hollow trunks covered with elephant hide; among the cacti, held up by iron supports like a tangle of green reptiles bristling with thorns; among the p.r.i.c.kly pears as high as trees; among the Himalayan fig trees, with towering trunks and wide spreading domes of branches which seemed to have been made to shelter the motionless meditation of the fakirs; among all the trees that come from tropical and temperate America, from China, Australia, Abyssinia, and South Africa. A tiny rivulet descended the slope in zig-zags through the openings in the green lawn, forming back waters among the bamboos and j.a.panese palms, until it flowed into a miniature lake, bordered with foliage, as tranquil, pleasing, and dainty as one of those centerpieces in which the water is represented by a mirror.

Michael stopped in the upper gardens to look at the Casino from a distance. He had never realized before the fussiness and bad taste of the architecture of this building, which was the heart of Monaco. If the "gingerbread monument"--as Castro called it--closed its doors, all Monte Carlo would be wrapped in a deathly stillness like the loneliness of those cities which in former centuries were ports, and now are sleepy and deserted, far from the sea, which has withdrawn. It was the work of the architect of the Paris Opera House, an ornate, gaudy, childish structure, of the color of soft b.u.t.ter, with multi-colored roofs, balconied turrets, niches with nameless statues, many tile friezes and gilded mosaics. At the corners there were green porcelain escutcheons, imitating roughly cut emeralds. The outstanding decorative motif of this building, famous throughout the world, was the imitation of gold and precious stones.

Owing to the prosperity of the establishment, they had added to the main body flanked with four towers, an extensive wing in which the best gaming rooms were located. Various green and yellow cupolas of different sizes revealed the existence of the latter, rising above the upper bal.u.s.trade. On this bal.u.s.trade a number of bronze angels or genii, entirely nude and with golden wings, had been set up. With black extended arms they were offering golden tributes, the significance of which no one had been able to guess. Other white or metal statues of half nude women were sheltered in the niches in the walls, and the names and significance of these were likewise a mystery.

Although the edifice was erected with the pretense of dazzling and charming with its gold and soft colors, those who went there paid scarcely any attention to its splendors.

"The ones who are arriving," Castro would say, "go in on the run; they want to get placed at the gaming tables as soon as possible. The ones who are coming out take a gloomy view of everything; and even though the Casino were as beautiful as the Parthenon, they would take it for a robber's cave."

The Prince looked to the right of the building, where a strip of blue sea was visible, with the hairy trunks and rounded tops of a few j.a.panese palms standing out against the blue. There at the entrance to the terraces along the Mediterranean rose the only two monuments of the city, dedicated to the fame of two musicians from the simple fact that some of their works had been played for the first time in the theater of the Casino. Carved in marble, Berlioz and Ma.s.senet greeted with a vague stare in their sightless eyes the cosmopolitan crowd that came to the gambling house. "They are honorary _croupiers_," Castro used to say.

"Ma.s.senet--that isn't so bad," thought Michael. "He was fortunate, he had money, and his gifts were recognized during his lifetime. But imagine Berlioz, who spent his years struggling against poverty and public indifference, standing guard after death over the Casino's millions!"

Next, he looked at the foreground, observing the open Square in front of the edifice. There was a round garden in the center. People called it the "cheese" and some even particularized and called it the "Camembert."

Around the garden rail and on the benches backing up to it, one could observe the living soul of Monte Carlo. Here people gathered, to exchange jokes and gossip, ask news from those who were coming out of the Casino, and comment on the good or bad fortune of the most celebrated gamblers.