Complete Works of Emile Zola (381 page)

Could the tree which Serge and Albine sought be one of those colossal oaks? or was it one of those lovely planes, or one of those pale, maidenly birches, or one of those creaking elms? Albine and Serge still plodded on, unable to tell, completely lost amongst the crowding trees. For a moment they thought they had found the object of their quest in the midst of a group of walnut trees from whose thick foliage fell so cold a shadow that they shivered beneath it. Further on they felt another thrill of emotion as they came upon a little wood of chestnut trees, green with moss and thrusting out big strange-shaped branches, on which one might have built an aerial village. But further still Albine caught sight of a clearing, whither they both ran hastily. Here, in the midst of a carpet of fine turf, a locust tree had set a very toppling of greenery, a foliaged Babel, whose ruins were covered with the strangest vegetation. Stones, sucked up from the ground by the mounting sap, still remained adhering to the trunk. High branches bent down to earth again, and, taking root, surrounded the parent tree with lofty arches, a nation of new trunks which ever increased and multiplied. Upon the bark, seared with bleeding wounds, were ripening fruit-pods; the mere effort of bearing fruit strained the old monster’s skin until it split. The young folks walked slowly round it, passing under the arched branches which formed as it were the streets of a city, and stared at the gaping cracks of the naked roots. Then they went off, for they had not felt there the supernatural happiness they sought.

‘Where are we?’ asked Serge.

Albine did not know. She had never before come to this part of the park. They were now in a grove of cytisus and acacias, from whose clustering blossoms fell a soft, almost sugary perfume. ‘We are quite lost,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t know these trees at all.’

‘But the garden must come to an end somewhere,’ said Serge. ‘When we get to the end, you will know where you are, won’t you?’

‘No,’ she answered, waving her hands afar.

They fell into silence; never yet had the vastness of the park filled them with such pleasure. They joyed at knowing that they were alone in so far-spreading a domain that even they themselves could not reach its limits.

‘Well, we are lost,’ said Serge, gaily; then humbly drawing near her he inquired: ‘You are not afraid, are you?’

‘Oh! no. There’s no one except you and me in the garden. What could I be afraid of? The walls are very high. We can’t see them, but they guard us, you know.’

Serge was now quite close to her, and he murmured, ‘But a little time ago you were afraid of me.’

She looked him straight in the face, perfectly calm, without the least faltering in her glance. ‘You hurt me,’ she replied, ‘but you are different now. Why should I be afraid of you?’

‘Then you will let me hold you like this. We will go back under the trees.’

‘Yes, you may put your arm around me, it makes me feel happy. And we’ll walk slowly, eh? so that we may not find our way again too soon.’

He had passed his arm round her waist, and it was thus that they sauntered back to the shade of the great forest trees, under whose arching vaults they slowly went, with love awakening within them. Albine said that she felt a little tired, and rested her head on Serge’s shoulder. The fabulous tree was now forgotten. They only sought to draw their faces nearer together that they might smile in one another’s eyes. And it was the trees, the maples, the elms, the oaks, with their soft green shade, that whisperingly suggested to them the first words of love.

‘I love you!’ said Serge, while his breath stirred the golden hair that clustered round Albine’s temples. He tried to think of other words, but he could only repeat, ‘I love you! I love you!’

Albine listened with a delightful smile upon her face. The music of her heart was in accord with his.

‘I love you! I love you!’ she sighed, with all the sweetness of her soft young voice.

Then, lifting up her blue eyes, in which the light of love was dawning, she asked, ‘How do you love me?’

Serge reflected for a moment. The forest was wrapped in solemn quietude, the lofty naves quivered only with the soft footsteps of the young pair.

‘I love you beyond everything,’ he answered. ‘You are more beautiful than all else that I see when I open my window in the morning. When I look at you, I want nothing more. If I could have you only, I should be perfectly happy.’

She lowered her eyes, and swayed her head as if accompanying a strain of music. ‘I love you,’ he went on. ‘I know nothing about you. I know not who you are, nor whence you came. You are neither my mother nor my sister; and yet I love you to a point that I have given you my whole heart and kept nought of it for others. Listen, I love those cheeks of yours, so soft and satiny; I love your mouth with its rose-sweet breath; I love your eyes, in which I see my own love reflected; I love even your eyelashes, even those little veins which blue the whiteness of your temples. Ah! yes, I love you, I love you, Albine.’

‘And I love you, too,’ she answered. ‘You are strong, and tall, and handsome. I love you, Serge.’

For a moment or two they remained silent, enraptured. It seemed to them that soft, flute-like music went before them, that their own words came from some dulcet orchestra which they could not see. Shorter and shorter became their steps as they leaned one towards the other, ever threading their way amidst the mighty trees. Afar off through the long vista of the colonnades were glimpses of waning sunlight, showing like a procession of white-robed maidens entering church for a betrothal ceremony amid the low strains of an organ.

‘And why do you love me?’ asked Albine again.

He only smiled, and did not answer her immediately; then he said, ‘I love you because you came to me. That expresses all.... Now we are together and we love one another. It seems to me that I could not go on living if I did not love you. You are the very breath of my life.’

He bent his head, speaking almost as though he were in a dream.

‘One does not know all that at first. It grows up in one as one’s heart grows. One has to grow, one has to get strong.... Do you remember how we loved one another though we didn’t speak of it? One is childish and silly at first. Then, one fine day, it all becomes clear, and bursts out. You see, we have nothing to trouble about; we love one another because our love and our life are one.’

Albine’s head was cast back, her eyes were tightly closed, and she scarce drew her breath. Serge’s caressing words enraptured her: ‘Do you really, really love me?’ she murmured, without opening her eyes.

Serge remained silent, sorely troubled that he could find nothing further to say to prove to her the force of his love. His eyes wandered over her rosy face, which lay upon his shoulder with the restfulness of sleep. Her eyelids were soft as silk. Her moist lips were curved into a bewitching smile, her brow was pure white, with just a rim of gold below her hair. He would have liked to give his whole being with the word which seemed to be upon his tongue but which he could not utter. Again he bent over her, and seemed to consider on what sweet spot of that fair face he should whisper the supreme syllables. But he said nothing, he only breathed a little sigh. Then he kissed Albine’s lips.

‘Albine, I love you!’

‘I love you, Serge!’

Then they stopped short, thrilled, quivering with that first love kiss. She had opened her eyes quite widely. He was standing with his lips protruding slightly towards hers. They looked at each other without a blush. They felt they were under the influence of some sovereign power. It was like the realisation of a long dreamt-of meeting, in which they beheld themselves grown, made one for the other, for ever joined. For a moment they remained wondering, raising their eyes to the solemn vault of greenery above them, questioning the tranquil nation of trees as if seeking an echo of their kiss. But, beneath the serene complacence of the forest, they yielded to prolonged, ringing lovers’ gaiety, full of all the tenderness now born.

‘Tell me how long you have loved me. Tell me everything. Did you love me that day when you lay sleeping upon my hand? Did you love me when I fell out of the cherry tree, and you stood beneath it, stretching out your arms to catch me, and looking so pale? Did you love me when you took hold of me round the waist in the meadows to help me over the streams?’

‘Hush, let me speak. I have always loved you. And you, did you love me; did you?’

Until the evening closed round them they lived upon that one word ‘love,’ in which they ever seemed to find some new sweetness. They brought it into every sentence, ejaculated it inconsequentially, merely for the pleasure they found in pronouncing it. Serge, however, did not think of pressing a second kiss to Albine’s lips. The perfume of the first sufficed them in their purity. They had found their way again, or rather had stumbled upon it, for they had paid no attention to the paths they took. As they left the forest, twilight had fallen, and the moon was rising, round and yellow, between the black foliage. It was a delightful walk home through the park, with that discreet luminary peering at them through the gaps in the big trees. Albine said that the moon was surely following them. The night was balmy, warm too with stars. Far away a long murmur rose from the forest trees, and Serge listened, thinking: ‘They are talking of us.’

When they reached the parterre, they passed through an atmosphere of sweetest perfumes; the perfume of flowers at night, which is richer, more caressing than by day, and seems like the very breath of slumber.

‘Good night, Serge.’

‘Good night, Albine.’

They clasped each other by the hand on the landing of the first floor, without entering the room where they usually wished each other good night. They did not kiss. But Serge, when he was alone, remained seated on the edge of his bed, listening to Albine’s every movement in the room above. He was weary with happiness, a happiness that benumbed his limbs.

XII

For the next few days Albine and Serge experienced a feeling of embarrassment. They avoided all allusion to their walk beneath the trees. They had not again kissed each other, or repeated their confession of love. It was not any feeling of shame which had sealed their lips, but rather a fear of in any way spoiling their happiness. When they were apart, they lived upon the dear recollection of love’s awakening, plunged into it, passed once more through the happy hours which they had spent, with their arms around each other’s waist, and their faces close together. It all ended by throwing them both into a feverish state. They looked at each other with heavy eyes, and talked, in a melancholy mood, of things that did not interest them in the least. Then, after a long interval of silence, Serge would say to Albine in a tone full of anxiety: ‘You are ill?’

But she shook her head as she answered, ‘No, no. It is you who are not well; your hands are burning.’

The thought of the park filled them with vague uneasiness which they could not understand. They felt that danger lurked for them in some by-path, and would seize them and do them hurt. They never spoke about these disquieting thoughts, but certain timid glances revealed to them the mutual anguish which held them apart as though they were foes. One morning, however, Albine ventured, after much hesitation, to say to Serge: ‘It is wrong of you to keep always indoors. You will fall ill again.’

Serge laughed in rather an embarrassed way. ‘Bah!’ he muttered, ‘we have been everywhere, we know all the garden by heart.’

But Albine shook her head, and in a whisper replied, ‘No, no, we don’t know the rocks, we have never been to the springs. It was there that I warmed myself last winter. There are some nooks where the stones seem to be actually alive.’

The next morning, without having said another word on the subject, they set out together. They climbed up to the left behind the grotto where the marble woman lay slumbering; and as they set foot on the lowest stones, Serge remarked: ‘We must see everything. Perhaps we shall feel quieter afterwards.’

The day was very hot, there was thunder in the air. They had not ventured to clasp each other’s waist; but stepped along, one behind the other, glowing beneath the sunlight. Albine took advantage of a widening of the path to let Serge go on in front; for the warmth of his breath upon her neck troubled her. All around them the rocks arose in broad tiers, storeys of huge flags, bristling with coarse vegetation. They first came upon golden gorse, clumps of sage, thyme, lavender, and other balsamic plants, with sour-berried juniper trees and bitter rosemary, whose strong scent made them dizzy. Here and there the path was hemmed in by holly, that grew in quaint forms like cunningly wrought metal work, gratings of blackened bronze, wrought iron, and polished copper, elaborately ornamented, covered with prickly
rosaces
. And before reaching the springs, they had to pass through a pine-wood. Its shadow seemed to weigh upon their shoulders like lead. The dry needles crackled beneath their feet, throwing up a light resinous dust which burned their lips.

‘Your garden doesn’t make itself very agreeable just here,’ said Serge, turning towards Albine.

They smiled at each other. They were now near the edge of the springs. The sight of the clear waters brought them relief. Yet these springs did not hide beneath a covering of verdure, like those that bubble up on the plains and set thick foliage growing around them that they may slumber idly in the shade. They shot up in the full light of day from a cavity in the rock, without a blade of grass near by to tinge the clear water with green. Steeped in the sunshine they looked silvery. In their depths the sun beat against the sand in a breathing living dust of light. And they darted out of their basin like arms of purest white, they rebounded like nude infants at play, and then suddenly leapt down in a waterfall whose curve suggested a woman’s breast.

‘Dip your hands in,’ cried Albine; ‘the water is icy cold at the bottom.’

They were indeed able to refresh their hot hands. They threw water over their faces too, and lingered there amidst the spray which rose up from the streaming springs.