The Enemies of Women Part 21

In the immediate neighborhood, there were no business houses except jewelry stores, branches of the government p.a.w.n shop, and millinery shops. Women who played small stakes felt like satisfying their longing for an expensive hat on coming out of the Casino. Those who needed fresh capital to carry out their systems had only to take a few steps to p.a.w.n their valuables. In the show windows of the jewelry shops, pearl necklaces worth a million francs and emeralds worth three hundred thousand, were exhibited during the winter, waiting for a buyer; and in summer they were sent to the fashionable bathing resorts to continue being a mute and dazzling temptation. The jewelers, with Semitic profiles, were waiting behind their counters, more for sellers than buyers, and calmly offered a fourth of the price for a gem bought in that very shop the year before.

From a distance it was easy for the Prince to guess the character of the many people who at that early hour were sitting on the benches opposite the stairs leading up to the edifice. Here those condemned to misery by gambling, and accursed by fate, remained all day, suffering the most atrocious torment of living close to the door of the sanctuary without being able to enter. They had lost their last cent, and the directors of the establishment, who generously send ruined gamblers back to their respective countries, had handed over the _viatic.u.m_ to them for their return. But they had staked the money given to aid them and had lost; and since they were debtors to the Casino they could not reenter it until they had fulfilled their obligations. So there they remained, stranded in the Square for all time, with the false hope of getting some money. None of them had any idea of how or from what source. They mingled together there in the companionship of misery, watching for fellow-countrymen who were better off, to besiege them with requests for a loan; or else they spent their time discussing numbers and colors.

Perhaps they would succeed in getting together a few francs after turning all their pockets inside out, and they might choose, as the emissary of their illusions, a comrade who was as poor as they, but who had not "_taken the viatic.u.m_" and was free to enter.

Michael saw a crowd of people extending as far as the j.a.panese palm trees, near the Ma.s.senet monument. They had just arrived by various street cars from Nice. They were all hurrying, anxious to enter the motley edifice as soon as possible, as though fortune were expecting them in the gaming rooms and might leave at any moment, tired of waiting.

He looked at the clock above the facade. It was ten o'clock. The daily occupations were being resumed and the devotees who lived in Monte Carlo were likewise flocking there, and mingling with the people who had come from other places. They all mounted the marble steps, following the three stair-carpets held in place by bra.s.s rods that glistened in the sun.

"And to think that we're at war!" Michael thought. "And many of those who have gotten up early to make the trip, and those who live here, too, have sons or brothers or husbands, who at the present moment are fighting, and dying perhaps!"

Love of life, love of pleasure, and the vain hope of winning, worked like an anaesthetic, causing them all to rise above their worries and forget, so that they were able to live entirely in the present moment.

This general rush for the opening of the gaming hall disgusted the Prince and caused him to halt in his descent of the gentle slope of the gardens. It was repugnant to him to mix with the crowd that was loitering in the neighborhood of the Casino.

His desire to retrace his steps gave him an idea. "Supposing you go and surprise Alicia at her home? She would be so pleased!"

She had been at Villa Sirena twice since her first visit. A chance meeting in the street with the Prince, when she was walking along with her friend Clorinda, had served as a pretext for another visit to the refuge in their beautiful gardens of "the enemies of women." He found the "General" less hostile and dominating than he had imagined; but he could not understand Castro's pa.s.sion for her. In spite of her beauty it seemed to him that he was talking to a man. They had been accompanied by Valeria, a young French girl, who had been a protegee of Alicia's, a traveling companion in the days of dazzling wealth, and who now accompanied her in poverty, out of grat.i.tude and fidelity. Later the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille had returned alone a second time to consult him about various projects for her future, all of them lacking in common sense; and she had finally accepted a loan of a thousand francs. Luck was against her in gambling: she needed new "tools to work with." The capital that had irritated her so by never varying, never going much above thirty thousand, had finally heard her complaints, and dwindled with lightning rapidity, leaving merely a few remnants of its former self.

In spite of the Prince's loan the d.u.c.h.ess had complained.

"I'm always the one who is looking you up: you never deign to visit my house. How poor I really am!"

Remembering her humble protest, the Prince no longer hesitated. Turning his back on the Casino, he began to ascend the sloping streets in the direction of the frontier line separating Monte Carlo from Beausoleil; streets that displayed names recalling Spring: the Street of the Roses, of the Carnations, of the Violets, of the Orchids.

He entered a short avenue formed by a double row of garden fences. He caught a glimpse of the houses between the columns of palm trees, and the firm leaves of the large magnolias. As he went along he read the names of the small estates carved on little plaques of red marble, placed at the entrance to the grounds. "Villa Rosa", here it was. He pushed open the iron gate, which was ajar, without hearing the sound of a voice or the barking of a dog to greet his presence. He saw a small garden half deserted, overgrown with weeds at the foot of the untrimmed trees, and covering the s.p.a.ce that had formerly been occupied by flower beds. The rest was more carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.

Lubimoff approached without meeting anyone. It occurred to him that the gardener must have been the man with the dog, whom he had met as he turned into the street.

Then he mounted the four steps at the entrance. Here too the door was half ajar, and upon pushing it all the way open, he found himself in a hallway with stairs leading to the upper story.

There was no one in sight. He tried the doors of the adjoining rooms and found them locked. There was not a sound. It was as though the house were deserted. But the silence was suddenly broken by a voice floating down the stairway. It was a faint voice, singing a slow, sad English air. The song was accompanied by a sound of dull blows, as though hands were beating and shaping up some large unresisting object.

Michael thought he recognized Alicia's voice. He coughed several times without result; he was not heard. He was about to call to let her know that he was there, but refrained, through a sudden impulse to play a little joke on her. Why shouldn't he surprise her by going up-stairs the one part of the house where she was now living, he thought? His hesitation vanished. Up-stairs he would go!

From the first landing he saw several doors, but only one was open; and it was from that one that the sounds of the song and the thumping were coming. A woman bending over a bed, was holding out her arms and vigorously shaking up a pillow. Instinctively she felt that some one was standing behind her, and turning around she gave an exclamation of surprise on seeing Michael in the doorway. The latter was no less surprised to recognize the woman as Alicia; an Alicia dressed in an elegant but old negligee, with crumpled gloves on her hands, and a veil wrapped around her hair.

"You! It's you!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me!"

Immediately she recovered her composure, and smiled at the Prince, as the latter tried to excuse himself. He had not met any one; the gate and the door had been open. She, in turn, now excused herself. It was Sunday; Valeria, her companion, had gone to Nice to take lunch with a family she knew; her maid and the gardener's wife were at ma.s.s; the old man had gone out a moment before to see some friends.

After these mutual explanations they both remained silent, looking at each other hesitatingly, not knowing what to say, but still smiling.

"You making your bed!" he remarked, just to say something.

"So you see. This is rather different from my bedroom in Paris. It is hardly the 'study' that I took you to either. Times have changed!"

Michael gravely nodded a.s.sent. Yes, times had changed.

"At any rate," she continued, "you must confess that there is a certain novelty in seeing the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille, madcap Alicia, making her bed."

The Prince nodded again. Indeed it was a novelty: something one could not see every day.

Alicia persisted in her explanations. It had not been at all hard for her to do housework. She cleaned her room herself, in order to save her elderly maid the extra bother. She did not want Valeria to help her.

They were each keeping their own rooms in order, now that help was scarce. Besides, she herself sometimes went into the kitchen, and she would have liked to help the gardener cultivate the little garden, just for her own pleasure.

"We are living in war times; things are getting dearer every day, and as for me, I'm poor. We ought to return to the simple primitive life. But I don't dare work in the garden, on account of the neighbors. They watch you all the time from their windows. There is a Brazilian gentleman, even, who seems to have fallen in love with me."

She herself was proud of her industriousness. Who would ever have guessed such qualities some years before in the mistress of the luxurious residence on the Avenue du Bois, who was in the habit of getting up at three o'clock in the afternoon?

"I owe it all to mamma. She had me educated in a girls' school in England, when it was the fashion to subst.i.tute domestic work for the physical exercise of sports. I think it's called 'Corinthianism.' And I feel better than ever. In the old days I had to get up several mornings a week with Valeria and Clorinda and go to a tennis club and play until I was exhausted. Now, after taking care of my room and helping with the others I don't need any exercise. I'm doing poor man's gymnastics."

There was a long silence. Michael looked at the room; a woman's bedroom, still in disarray, with clothes lying on the arm chairs, giving out the perfume of a fastidious femininity. Through a narrow door he saw a corner of the adjoining bath room, where a wet spot had been left on the mosaic floor, from the morning bath. An odor of eau de cologne and tooth paste hung in the air. From several toilet jars, in disorder, vague scents of more precious essences were escaping. Mingling with the toilet articles and objects of intimate apparel, he could distinguish cards such as are given out to the patrons of the Casino, to mark their plays; some with red or blue marks in the columns, others p.r.i.c.ked with a hat pin, for lack of a pencil. He observed larger cards, with a roulette wheel indicating the numbers and colors; and also many books of the sort sold by the stationers and at newspaper stands; illuminating treatises on "How to win without fail in all kinds of play." On the mantelpiece, half hidden by various fashion magazines, was a small roulette wheel, a real one, used undoubtedly in studying out and trying various theories.

On the lamp stand beside the bed the latest copy of the Monte Carlo Review was lying open, with statistics of all the winning numbers during the past week at the various tables; interesting reading, with mysterious annotations which had kept Alicia up perhaps till dawn.

In the meantime she was dexterously causing to disappear everything which she considered prejudicial to her appearance since the surprise.

When Michael looked at her again the old gloves had vanished from her hands and the veil was hidden somewhere. Her hair, now left free, was black and l.u.s.trous, a trifle coa.r.s.e, perhaps, but it rose luxuriantly in large ringlets in disarray.

They prolonged the silence with an embarra.s.sed smile, as though neither of them could find a way of relieving the situation.

"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I don't want to be in the way."

As though seeing a challenge to her embarra.s.sment in these words, and anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must help her.

"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition seemed to her unthinkable.

The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of a fire.

He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the movements of the d.u.c.h.ess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it completely with his strong hands.

"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish glee.

Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she added:

"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in these hard times!"

They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.

"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.

Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the bounds of time and s.p.a.ce. He had a presentiment that this insignificant event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself, living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded, seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating in the sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked negligee trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.

Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant silence.

"You have been weeping!"

The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were indeed slightly reddened.

"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and troubled curiosity.