But a culmination impended, and arrived with an uncompromising finality. Vanny collapsed first under the strain of the unnatural union. Edmond entered the arch of the library one day to find her lying senseless before the fire-place in a limp heap of iridescence, with the flames almost licking at her robe, and a reddening bruise between her eyes. He bore her to his chair and used what means he had to restore her; for several minutes thereafter she seemed dazed, and clung fearfully to him.
“It came out of the wall,” she murmured. “It came out on ragged wings.”
“The fire has vitiated the air here,” said Edmond. “You were overcome, and struck your head on the mantel.”
“No! I saw it, Edmond! It flew out at me!”
“You fainted and struck your head,” Edmond repeated. He drew the girl erect, led her up the stairs.
“I saw it! I saw it!” she was murmuring. “It came out on ragged wings, with eyes that bit—”
He supported her to her bed, easing her gently down. He placed long fingers on her forehead, and held her eyes with a gaze grown suddenly intense.
“There were no shadows, dear,” he said. “There will be no shadows hereafter. You are to sleep now. You are very sleepy, dear.”
Vanny obediently slept. Edmond watched her for a moment and then left her with slow thoughtful steps. He felt again the surge of unaccustomed pity; she was too beautiful to be thus tormented.
“I must not destroy her!” he thought in his complex minds, and repeated almost fiercely: “I must not destroy her!”
CHAPTER VIII
OLD EYE
IT was several days before Vanny felt quite herself again; she wandered about the house in her purple robe with a bemused air; but the shadows remained quiescent in their comers, and chairs and walls were properly inert. Edmond was pleasantly considerate, and spent much of his afternoons amusing her with dagger-like comment, description, or fancy, but there were no more visions. In the main, he held the conversation to commonplace topics and routine affairs. He had casually liquidated the bonds which had supplied her modest income, and purchased a variety of stocks for her. The two months of their union had witnessed a considerable appreciation of these, and he brought her a sheaf of certificates to endorse. He was going to sell them, he told her, as she reclined on her bed.
“Fools are patting fools on the back,” he said. “The rise will not outlast the month.”
He saw that the considerable profit cheered her; Vanny had never been close to poverty, but had likewise never hitherto known the carefree sensation of affluence. She was familiar with the argot of the Street; Walter and others brought the talk of the rampant market to the old gatherings.
“Why don’t you sell short, dear? Wouldn’t it be wise?”
“Very wise. The balloon is inflated to the bursting point. However, your profit, and mine as well, is considerable even in this year and this city. More would be burdensome, and involve a routine of management I prefer not to shoulder.”
Her confidence was complete; she did not question him further.
After a day or two she was up and about as usual; except for a dawning sense of distance in her black eyes, she was quite the Vanny of old, laughing again at the little incidents of living, happy again merely because it was easy to be happy. October was slipping quietly along with its unexpectedly early evenings; she had been alone with Edmond for eight weeks and had not yet missed her old companions.
Edmond, after her recovery, had fallen into his old routine. He spent his mornings in town casually taking care of the details of living, and his afternoons mostly in his laboratory or the library. She grew accustomed to his habitual comings and goings, and adjusted the machinery of housekeeping to them, though Magda, of course, bore most of this burden with the methodical efficiency of two decades of service.
But as the month closed, she was not always happy. Edmond had changed. He was kind enough, thoughtful enough, but the old wild nights of flame were no more. There was some barrier between them, something of his building that kept them apart as if in separate cells. Had he ceased to love her? Was her bright body already growing stale to his senses?
She worried a little as the days dropped one by one into the past; perhaps she herself was at fault somewhere—but in what respect? She was utterly at a loss, and thought wistfully of the nights that already seemed long ago.
She offered her body as a lure. She used it in ways of which she could not have dreamed in the days past; she danced for Edmond like a votary before her deity, improvising a costume of the half-transparent robe. And all her reward was an almost reluctant admiration, for she perceived that he was not entirely unmoved. The prey rose often to the bait, but would not strike.
And so October dragged into its final week. The days shortened, there were new songs on the radio, and the tottering market crashed with a world-wide rumble that she scarcely heard. She was puzzled and hurt by Edmond’s indifference; the word “experiment” popped out of memory to harass her.
There entered another element, equally puzzling in their relationship—she began to perceive the strangeness of her husband’s character. There was a difference between Edmond and other men, a subtle something that she could neither express nor identify. This was less to be worried about than his coldness, for it seemed to her proper that he should be a being above others; if this superiority involved certain physical differences in eyes and hands—well, that was as it was. At times, indeed, she was startled by stranger differences, curious inhuman distinctions in his very thoughts. She sensed these things occasionally even in casual conversation, and sometimes in rather terrifying manner. One night when she danced for him she became suddenly positive that two people stared at her; she sensed another presence that watched her with desirous eyes. She stopped momentarily to gaze startled at Edmond; it was for that instant as if four eyes stared at her from his lean face. Thereafter the thing recurred with unsettling frequency, and she began to imagine thoughts and presences of peculiarly disturbing nature behind Edmond’s pale eyes. November was dawning on a puzzled, wistful, more-than-half-frightened bride, in whose nature an ancient Eve was struggling newly awakened and demanding sustenance.
CHAPTER IX
OLD EVE REBELS
EDMOND was not unaware of Vanny’s predicament. From his sympathy and knowledge he knew, almost to the wording of her thoughts. However, for perhaps the first time in his life he found himself helpless to solve a problem he might have attempted. Continue the deadly intimacy of their first few weeks? He foresaw disaster to both of them. Explain his position to her? Impossible, since he himself was not cognizant of” it. Send her away? A cruelty as burning as that he was now perpetrating. He was surprised by the intensity of the love which he himself had evoked in this being who was his wife.
“I played Eros too well,” he reflected. “My arrows wounded too deeply.” And his other consciousness repeated its old admonition: “The fault is neither hers nor mine, but lies in this union unnatural to both of us. Too close an intimacy will end by killing me and driving Vanny mad. Our separate strengths attack each the other’s weakness; we are acid and alkali which are mutually destructive even to complete neutralization. Neither of us can sustain the other.”
So he followed his policy of procrastination, confident that in time elements would enter that might make possible a solution. The situation presented a deadlock; only a disturbing force could upset the balance to permit his intellect to play. He had no presentiment as he left on his customary morning’s visit to town that this force was about to emerge. He diverted himself by reasoning out certain trends he pre-visioned in the world of finance.
“The system has passed a climax,” he thought. “Of the several rational methods to rebuild the structure of prosperity I see none likely of adoption save that of a population-devouring war. The little minds are too well in control of things, though doubtless they will muddle through as in the past. This is a rather hospitable planet, and provides a large margin of s
afety for the errors of its inhabitants. Likely enough in the next several years some new industry will rescue the phantom called prosperity, which was aided by the automobile and abetted by mass credit.”
Vanny felt a surge of real pleasure as she greeted Paul, who entered looking rather woebegone, with his yellow hair in greater disarray than usual.
“Oh, Paul! I’m glad you came.”
Paul was somewhat ill at ease, and too buried in his own unhappiness to look directly at Vanny. She led him into the living room, sat facing him on the davenport.
“Tell me about yourself, Honey.”
Paul shrugged. “I starve on.”
“I’m sorry.” Vanny felt his aversion to pity; she turned to another subject. “What’s happened to Walter?”
“Walter’s nearly nutty! He was in the market-cleaned out last Thursday.”
Vanny felt a thrill of pride. “Edmond sold out both of us ten days ago. He told me what was coming. He says it’s not over yet.”
“Then he’s Babson, or the Devil!” He looked sharply at Vanny, his attention drawn by her sudden start.
For the first time he noted the distant look behind her dark eyes. “What’s the matter, Vanny?”
“Why, nothing, silly! What should be?”
“You look different. Not so sparkling—more serious.”
“I was sick a few days, Honey. Nothing important.”
“He treats you all right?”
“You’re being ridiculous!”
“Are you happy, Vanny?” he insisted. “You’ve changed so!”
The girl looked at him, a trace of speculation in her eyes. She was surprised to discover that her trouble was plain in her face—or was it simply that Paul loved her, shared her feelings? She felt a rush of compassion; surely she had treated him shabbily enough! This was Paul, her Paul, who loved her, and whom she had casually and cruelly kicked aside. She reached out her hand, ran her fingers through his yellow hair. With the gesture, Vanny felt a strange stirring within her; her body was aching for the love her mate withheld. She drew back her hand, closing her eyes with die intensity of her aroused desire. Paul was leaning toward her, watching her.
“What is the matter, Vanny?”
The question recalled her.
“Nothing. I guess I’m still a little under the weather.”
“Listen to me a minute, Vanny. I’m not welshing on the deal. I’ve lost you, and that’s that. But you do see I was right in refusing to bring him around, don’t you? I wanted you, and I had to fight. You see that.”
“Yes, Paul. You were right.”
“I was angry and bitterly hurt, Vanny. I thought it was a scurvy trick of yours to toss me aside so—well, so carelessly. I thought that at least I was entitled to a warning, a chance to plead my case.” He paused. “Now—I don’t know. You’ve changed. I hardly recognize you as the same Vanny. Perhaps you acted in the only way you could.”
“I did, Honey. Believe me, I did not try to hurt you.”
“It’s all right; what’s the difference now? But it was an awful wrench at first, with the feel of your lips still poignant. Your lasses haunted me for days.”
“You may kiss me now, Paul.”
He smiled wryly. “No thanks, dear. I know these married kisses with the fire carefully smothered. About as much kick as an extinct cigarette.”
Vanny pursued the discussion no further in that direction; she smothered an unexpected impulse to insist, to repeat her offer, and returned to casual topics. For an hour the two sat talking; their old intimacy, the easy frankness of their long friendship, blanketed them, and Vanny was aware of a decided enjoyment. Paul was so solid, so real! He who thought himself a poet, an aesthetic spirit, and lover of beauty—how simple he was after all, how simple and human and understandable! No wizard here to evoke dreams and practise demiurgy and summon terrible and not-to-be-understood shadows out of comers! Just Paul, plain and lovable.
“But he’s not Edmond!” she thought. “He’s not Edmond. I master Paul too easily—he’s a sweet, normal, intelligent youth and he loves me, but he’s not the flaming, dominating sorcerer I happen to love!” And again, while Paul talked of something—she scarcely knew what: “But oh God! I wish Edmond loved in the same way as Paul!”
And an hour passed. As noon approached, the press of household duties made themselves felt; she could hear old Magda clattering in the kitchen. Paul, she recalled with a smile, never had any conception of the exigencies of time; she’d have to remind him.
“It’s near lunch-time, Honey. I’d ask you to stay, only I wasn’t expecting you, and there’s hardly enough for you and me and Edmond.” She hesitated to voice her actual doubts as to the advisability of his encountering Edmond—not that she mistrusted Edmond’s finesse, but she was skeptical of Paul’s delicacy in such a situation. However, Paul himself realized the conditions.
“Thanks,” he said wryly. “I’d be uncomfortable anyhow, under the circumstances.”
He rose to depart; Vanny followed him to the door with a curious reluctance, for he seemed to take with him a sense, a memory, of the old carefree days. Not that she regretted their passing, for she knew that she was Edmond’s, flesh and spirit, utterly, for so long as he demanded; but the past too had its charms. “Paul, Honey!”
He paused at the door.
“You’ll come back soon, won’t you?”
“Of course, Vanny. As often as you’ll permit—tomorrow if I may.”
“Not tomorrow.” It would be pleasant, she thought. “Come Wednesday morning, then.”
He was gone. Vanny watched him for a moment through the glass of the front door, watched with a reflective smile that was somehow a little wistful. But Edmond was due to arrive; she turned toward the kitchen and Magda, and the ancient spirit of Eve slept very quietly within her.
CHAPTER X
THE APPLE IN EDEN
EDMOND was not entirely unhappy in his marriage, nor on the other hand, did he find his complete fulfillment in it. While he still delighted in the flashing loveliness of his mate, he still lacked the companionship he desired, and was almost as lonely as in the solitary days. Nowhere could he find understanding, and conversation was of necessity limited to topics and viewpoints that seemed to him elementary. As always, his recourse was his own self, and his conversation was constrained to the give-and-take possible between his two minds. He still read, but with lessening interest and growing boredom—philosophy, literature, science, all had a familiarity and a sameness that disgusted him, and the rare jewel of novelty was becoming almost undiscoverable. He began to perceive that he had exhausted human resource; the nature of man and his works were too familiar to intrigue him longer. So, for the most part, he sat and thought his own thoughts. These mostly devolved upon highly theoretical and extrapolated deductions, since he had abandoned for the time his routine of experiment. His esoteric labors were largely in the field of philosophy, as for instance, when he reflected in this fashion:
“Flammarion, a nice thinker, glimpsed one interesting fact, though it is a truth based rather on man’s limitations than on actuality. In eternity, says Flamarion, whatever can happen must happen, which is to say that all possible combinations of events will occur if only enough time be granted. Then, he reasons, since there is an eternity behind us as well as before, in the past as well as in the future, it follows that everything possible has already happened. Specious and logical; let us consider it.”
And his other self at the same time promulgated its answer: “The error is obvious. What Flammarion has done is merely to consider Time as one-dimensional. In effect, he takes an infinite fine, places a dot on it to represent the present, and argues thus: Since there is an infinite number of points on this line to the left of my dot, it follows that every possible point is located there. A fallacy, obviously, since there is an infinity of points, to one side or the other, not on the line at all! There exists, in fact, not one Time but innumerable parallel times, as Einstein infers in his p
leasant little fantasy. Each system, each individual, possesses his own little time, and these may be curved as Flammarion argues, but certainly not in the sense he believed.”
So Edmond amused himself with his own cogitations, finding a dim and unsatisfactory companionship within his own mind. For here Vanny failed him as utterly as all the rest of the human world; however much she wished, she was simply unable to enter into an understanding conversation with her strange husband.
Not that she didn’t try; she strained her bright little mind to its capacity in an endeavor to interest him, retailing scraps of knowledge she had culled from her reading, questioning him, and listening with tense attentiveness to his sometimes incomprehensible answers. Edmond was always ready to listen to her, and always kindly explicit in his explanations, yet she realized the perfunctory nature of his interest; she sensed always an attempt at simplification, as one might explain to a child. The thing worried her, puzzled her. “I’m no moron,” she told herself. “I’ve always held my own with the old crowd, and some of them were considered brilliant. It’s just that Edmond’s so much more wonderful than anyone else in the world!”
However, an element that troubled her in far greater degree than his intellectual casualness was his physical indifference. He seemed satisfied by the optical sensation of beauty; when Vanny presented herself in a guise she thought becoming, he was ready enough with admiration, but his caresses were dishearteningly rare. There were few of the nights of ecstasy; little indeed of the glorious abandon of those early weeks! Edmond refused to revive that disastrous intimacy, knowing that neither could sustain it, and Vanny danced in vain before the grinning skull of Homo.
“I am no more than an ornament, a pet, or a dancing doll,” she thought unhappily. “I have nothing of companionship to give, and now already my body palls.” She was puzzled, weary, and wistful. Her body, having once known the caress, ached endlessly for it.
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