The Story of a Genius Part 8

The child had tripped away: the old woman had hobbled off; for the last time Gesa's eye searched the church, then he went on to the high altar and kneeled down to say a prayer. In spite of the fantastic pantheism in which Delileo had brought him up, Gesa had always retained a strong leaning toward Catholic devotion. Suddenly he heard a sound,--a sigh.

In the deepest shadow, almost at his feet, crouched a dark form. A tender trouble overcame him.

"Annette!" he whispered--"Annette!"

She rose up out of the shadow. She stared at him, gave a short cry, and clung shuddering to a pillar.

"Annette! What ails you!" he cried, shocked, almost angry. "Are you afraid of me?"

She shook her head. Was it the dusk that made her look so ashen pale?

"You come so suddenly, and I am ill;" she said.

"Ill, poor heart! Then truly I must have appeared to you like a ghost.

And I wanted to enjoy your surprise! Foolish egotist that I am! Forgive me!" Thus he stammered, and forgetting where he was would have drawn her to him. She motioned him from her. "Not here!" she cried. Looking around at the sacred walls, with an intense gaze--"Not here!" Leaning on his arm she pa.s.sed out of the church door.

The air was moist and sultry, clouds hung low, a swallow fluttered anxiously across the square. In comparison with the dusky gloom of the church it was still quite light here. Gesa raised questioning, longing eyes to the face of his beloved. It was deathly pale, the cheek thinner, the eyes larger, the lips darker than formerly; little lines about the mouth and nose, melancholy shadows around the eyes idealized its heretofore purely material beauty.

"I had quite forgotten how charming thou art," he murmured, in a voice stifled with pa.s.sion. She smiled at him, a wild strange smile, in which she grew still more beautiful, and the shadows around her eyes deepened.

It suddenly seemed to him that she reminded him of some one, of something, but he searched his soul in vain. It could not be of the pale Malmaison roses whose tender heads drooped, on the pavement,--or,--no,--and yet--yes,--a little,--Annette reminded him of Guiseppina!

Her hand, which she had left to him pa.s.sively in the beginning, nestled now more tenderly on his arm. When they would have turned their steps toward the Rue Ravestein, she held him back.

"What if we should make a detour," she whispered, "take me to the park, to all your favorite places, will you?"

"My heart! My treasure!" he murmured, drunk with the rapture of her presence.

An odor of withering flowers impregnated the air, mixed with the faint breath of fresh acacia blossoms. They entered the park. It was as if dead. Through the dark crowns of the trees there pa.s.sed, from time to time, something like a shudder of fear.

"And you are really ill, Annette?" he asked.

"Yes," and her voice sounded hollow, like a suppressed cry of anguish: then she burst out pa.s.sionately, "Why did you leave me alone!"

"You sent me away yourself," he replied, half playfully, "and then I had to go."

"That is true," she said, simply.

They were silent. It grew darker. All at once she stood still. "Here was a mire last autumn and you used to carry me over. Do you remember?"

He nodded smiling. They went a few steps further. The white reflection of the evening light played over the water of a reservoir.

"And here you told me about Nice and the Angers Bay."

Again he smiled, and they went on. They came to a statue. "There you gave me a villa in Bordighera. Have you forgotten how we built air castles?" said the girl.

The shuddering in the tree tops grew stronger.

She bent back her head and gazed up at her lover as if in a dream. "No one sees us," she whispered. "Kiss me!"

He kissed her long and pa.s.sionately. "Again!" she whispered, so softly that her voice sounded like the rustling of the leaves.

He kissed her again, murmuring, "I never knew how fair life was until to-day!"

A long sobbing sigh pa.s.sed through the trees. "Come home, or the thunderstorm will overtake us," she said--her voice had suddenly grown harsh. They turned back.

XVII

"I will not expect you to wear it, but you must keep it sacred, as a relic. It was the best thing she possessed," said Gesa to Annette, when he gave her Guiseppina's cross.

He had told the girl about the pale singer and the touching manner in which she had offered her gift. Annette had kissed the cross on the threshold of the house, when she stood to take leave of him. "My father will not be home before midnight"--she whispered "farewell"--whereupon at first he looked most longingly in her face, and then yielding to her decision, said quietly--"To-morrow." And now he sat in his old attic room, opposite, and mused the evening through. His veins throbbed with a happiness that was painfully sweet. Never had Annette appeared to him so enchantingly beautiful, never had she met him with such heart-winning gentleness. The memory of her tender smile, of her great dark eyes softened his heart like a caress.

But she was ill. A cold shudder broke his warm dream. She was very ill.

A fearful anxiety overcame him. The heavy, sultry air of the coming tempest brooded without, and from the street below rose an odor of filth and decay.

He looked across at Annette's window; it was open. A delicate head appeared there, listening. Against the wall in the pale moonlight a dainty silhouette was thrown.

"Annette!" cried Gesa, across the sleeping street.

Through the dusk he saw her smile.

"Good-night!" she breathed, laid both hands on her lips and sent him one kiss. Then she disappeared. A heavy silence settled down on the Rue Ravestein.

Dizzy and drunk with happiness, that smile in his heart, Gesa von Zuylen laid himself down and fell asleep.

It was not yet five o'clock in the morning when a mysterious stir in the little street awoke him. Excited voices and hasty steps sounding confusedly together. Was it fire? The confusion increased. Something had happened. He hurried on his clothes and went down. The air was raw.

In the l.u.s.treless morning light there was a pale, reddish shimmer. The sparrows on the roofs twittered over loud. Under Delileo's window stood a few people; untidy women rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, some men in blouses, on their way to work. Like a little flock of vultures, with greedy eyes and outstretched heads, they jostled one another.

The woman of the green grocer shop was speaking. Her face expressed pride at having a.s.sisted at some awful event Gesa heard her say:

"I tell you they have just sent my boy to the apothecary. But it's too late--much too late!"

"Has Monsieur Delileo had a stroke?" cried Gesa, breathlessly.

"Mon-sieur De-lileo?" repeated the women. A few of them turned away.

"Annette!" he reeled. "What! What!"

Half beside himself he rushed up the stairs, and burst open the door of his promised bride's chamber. He knew the room well. It was the same which years ago he had occupied with his mother. Only now it was more daintily furnished.

Old Delileo sat on the edge of the little bed, and gazed in tearless despair at something which the white curtains hid.

"Father!" cried Gesa.