“and now,” said gaspard, “i must be going.”
he had been for half an hour in the café palmiste opposite m. seguin, a cup of coffee, and a box of cigars.
he rose from the table and his companion rose also, accompanying him to the door.
“well, if you have business, i will not detain you—so you start on friday? i may see you before you go, anyhow, remember paul seguin, who is always your friend, and be careful with that shark of a sagesse—you say you will be back in a few months’ time, well, when you come back, come right over to grand anse and we will arrange a future for you, you must not leave the island, you will marry and settle here; i will find you a home and work, not at st. pierre, but over at grande anse where it is cool and where the trade wind is always blowing.”
they shook hands and m. seguin returned to his coffee and his eternal cigars, whilst gaspard struck up town, taking the rue carcenet which was the nearest way to his destination.
ten minutes later he was at the commencement of the road to morne rouge, at the exact spot where on the evening before, he had stood with marie looking down at the lights of st. pierre.
he was before his time; the sun would not reach the horizon for two hours and a half, and leaning on the old,187 moss-grown, lizard-haunted wall that protected the road to seaward, he looked down at the city, the harbour and the bay.
it was that beneficial moment of the tropic day when, “getting towards evening” the world, released from the ferocious kisses of the vertical sun, breathes again.
the light was still tremendous and triumphant, but the shadows were lengthening, and the old road broken, now, by wall and palm shadows, shadows of tamarind and ceiba, filled with scents of tropical wood life and perfumes from the sea, had regained the poetry robbed from it by the glare of noon.
ah, that old road to morne rouge, trodden by the feet of the porteuse and the labourer, the gardeners bringing their fruit to the market of st. pierre, and the cane cutters with their heavy cane knives making for the fields, how beautiful it seems, viewed across the past. he who has seen from it the city below and the blue enchanted bay, will never see a vision more beautiful—and no man will ever see it more.
and its true beauty, one would imagine, only revealed to a child like marie, fresh-sighted to the beauty of the world, or a man like gaspard, made clear-sighted by love.
he flung the cigarette he was smoking away, and, leaning on the wall, looked down at the view, lazily tracing the streets below.
he could see the pale green stripe that indicated the verandahs of the rue victor hugo; the little place de la fontaine; the rue petit versailles, and, away below, the tamarinds on the place bertine. there lay la belle arlésienne, a toy ship, and to southward of la belle arlésienne, fussing along across the bay, the little steamer from fort de france; the indescribable splendour of the blue beyond lay unruffled by the slightest breeze.
188 never was there a more profound calm; towards dominica where the deep violet of the water proclaimed the great depths, an inter-island schooner lay becalmed like a thing that had made part of the picture forever. and the silence of it all, the coloured city, the painted bay, the illimitable distance! with the help of that majestic silence completing her work, beauty could do nothing more.
“ché!”
the word half whispered, spoken behind him, broke his reverie and made him turn.
she had come along the road moving soundless as a breeze, she had reached him without his knowing, she scarcely bore a stain or sign of her long journey; straight as a caryatid beneath her burden, it was as if she had carried with her through the long day all the freshness of the dawn.
all day over morne and mountain, from morne rouge to calabasse, through the heat and blinding light, she had followed his image, and she told him so, not with her lips, but with her eyes, cast straight at him under their long, black, upcurving lashes.
the first breath of the evening breeze stirred the fronds of the palms above her, fluted gently her robe of delicately-coloured striped foulard. the western sunlight enveloped her in its flame as she stood like the incarnation of the tropics, the spirit of the western islands, a strophe from the poem of the palm tree, and the azure.
gaspard took her hands in his and drew her towards him, she shuddered slightly. he would have kissed her but they were not alone, a woman had just turned the bend of the road, and from below, the bells of a mule told of some market gardener coming up by the steep path from the rue vauclin.
189 “you have come.”
“ah, yes—did you not think i would come?”
“o, if i had not thought so i would have flung myself into the sea.” (proven?al!)
“you would have cared, then?”
“sweet—my only care is now for you.”
straight as a flame beneath her load, she listened to him, and as she listened, her gaze seemed to pass beyond him to some happy vision in infinity. she seemed like a child listening for the first time to the voice of spring. the man holding her hands was quite taken away from the world, it was as though she had led him to some extraordinary height beyond the clouds and was holding him there by the hands lest he should fall.
“ah, yes, for you, that is all i care—just for you—”
he held her hands to his heart.
a bell bird from the trees beyond the road sent her golden notes floating on the wind, a shadow passed them, it was a woman, a mulatress, old, wrinkled, the picture of age.
then the mule bells jangled as the mule driven by a negro scrambled from the steep path on to the road and marie, suddenly, like a person awakening from a dream drew her hands away. gaspard turned, more people were coming up the steep way from the rue vauclin.
“come,” said he, “let us go away from all these people, where is there, here, that we may be quiet, and where you can rest after your journey?”
“come with me,” she said.
she led the way down towards the town, they passed along one of the higher streets and at the door of a heavily-built house, whose green window shutters were drawn against the afternoon sun, she knocked.
190 a woman opened the door, she was a calendeuse, a friend of marie’s, and the girl asked her to take her tray to keep till the next morning.
then, released from her load, she kissed the woman on the cheek, thanked her, and turned to gaspard.
“come,” she said, and the woman closed the door as they passed away down the road. they passed along by the highest streets and then down a steep way by an old convent wall above which the palms of the convent garden bent to the evening wind. then, by a path between two great cactus hedges she led him and lo! they were upon the road leading over the morne de parnasse and close to the gates of the jardin des plantes.
the old garden had drawn her to it at last. often and often she had passed the gates, glancing in at the trees and the gloom, bright and heedless as a butterfly. one might imagine the spirit of the place watching the girl as she passed, singing, light-hearted, walking alone and content, the spirit which is neither malignant nor benign, the spirit which sets the siffleur de montagne singing to his mate, calls flowers into being, sets blossom calling to blossom and bird to bird, one might imagine him casting his spell upon the bright figure, as she passed his gates the other day, and, now, one might have fancied this spirit of nature sighing contentedly in the wind-bent trees—she had obeyed the spell and found a mate.
they passed the gateway and entered a world of twilight and perfume. palm stems soared away into the gloom above; air shoots of the wild pine, ropes of convolvulus, lianas, festooned and trellised the twilight; gigantic ferns called the eye into glades where orchids hung like birds come to ruin, butterflies caught in some trap of the air.
there was not a sound except the sound of the evening191 wind bending the palms and ceibas gently like the caress of a vast hand.
here they found themselves alone at last.
he took her hands in his; then, releasing them, he held her round the waist whilst their lips met and clung together in an endless kiss.
