While she leaned upon the maternal arm of Bibiane, who was always tolerant of her weaknesses, Arabella looked up at the magnolia’s branches, dazedly.
“He is dying like the autumn flowers of the magnolia, which have withered on the branches. The one who should have nourished the flower that I am with the drops of his vital fluid is dying, and now I am destined to remain eternally pale!”
“There is still one flower left,” said Bibiane.
It was a flower which had not yet opened fully: a bud which stood out among the complacent leaves by virtue of its virginal purity.
“The last one!” Arabella complained. “It will be my bridal ornament. But is it really the last? No – see, Bibiane, there is one more yet, faded and nearly withered. They are like us – the two of us! Oh, it is a sign! It frightens me … I am all a-tremble … there we are, he and I, our fates mirrored in these two flowers. I will pluck myself, Bibiane – see, here I am! Shall I also have to die, like him?”
Mutely, Bibiane lovingly embraced her trembling sister. She was afraid herself, but she led Arabella from the sad and sorry garden, away from the magnolia which had now been stripped of the last relic of its former glory.
They went into the sad house, from which the prospect of happiness had so unexpectedly fled, leaving grief to reign in its stead.
“How is he?” asked Bibiane, while she lifted from Arabella’s shoulders the mantle which marked her as a bride.
While Arabella sat down, as timidly as a child, to contemplate the unopened flower which she clutched between her fingers, the mother of the dying man replied: “There is no time to lose. He is dying, and his greatest desire is still to be realised. Come with me, my daughter Arabella – I must call you that although your husband-to-be lies dying – and let the presence of your beauty bring forth a final flourish of love amid the last round of prayers. Death awaits you, my darling – would that it might be otherwise! The kiss which his lips will place upon the forehead of his bride is the kiss of one bound for the tomb – but his last smile will defy the invincible shadows with its radiance, a glimmer of light echoing in that darkness which lies beyond the reach of your own beautiful eyes. The son I bore is going to die; he is dying, and I am deeply sorry that you must be given in marriage to a dead man. To you, alas, who are so full of the joys of life, who was born to lie in a bed of fragrant flowers, I can offer nothing but the putrefaction of the tomb – oh, would that it might be otherwise!”
They wept together while they waited for the arrival of the men who were to witness the last rites which would unite Death with Life. The priest came with them, not quite sure whether he had been brought here to tie the indestructible knot or merely to anoint the forehead, the breast, the feet and the hands of the moribund son.
They all went upstairs together, in silence, stepping as leadenly as a troop of pall-bearers. “He might as well be in his coffin as in his bed,” whispered one of the men, “prepared for a burial instead of a wedding.”
They hesitated at the top of the stairway, but the mother urged them on, repeating what she had said before: “There is no time to lose. He is dying, and his greatest desire is still to be realised.”
In the bedroom, they all sank to their knees, save for Arabella, who took her place beside the nuptial bed, wearing her bridal gown like a shroud. When she too knelt down in her turn, touching her forehead to the edge of the pillow, the hearts of all those present went out to her, sharing her anguish. It almost seemed, as she lowered her pretty head to rest it on the pillow, that she was dying too. The bride-to-be laid her right hand upon the thin and wasted hand which lay on top of the coverlet, while her left hand pressed to her lips the unopened magnolia flower, emblem of her virginity.
The priest began to pronounce the solemn words of the marriage service. All eyes were fixed upon the bed where the son was propped up, supported by his mother. His face was tormented by knowledge of the impending catastrophe, his expression so despairing as to seem satanic; it was bitter with envy of those who possessed the life which was deserting him, angrily resentful of the love which must be left behind. The nearness of the young and beautiful Arabella served only to ignite a fervent but impotent flame of hatred in his hollow eyes. How terrible his suffering must be! thought the onlookers.
The dying man managed to raise himself up a little further. From purple lips which had already been touched by the cold hand of death he spoke, while the men made a final effort to smile and the frightened women sobbed like mourners:
“Goodbye, Arabella – you belong to me! I must go, but you must follow me. I will be there – every night, I will wait for you beneath the magnolia, for you must never know any other love but mine. None but mine, Arabella! Ah, what proof you shall have of my love! What proof! What proof! Your soul must be reserved for me.”
And with a smile which wrought a diabolical transfiguration of the shadows which lay upon his wasted face, he continued to repeat himself. His voice struggled against its imminent extinction, perhaps devoid of any sense but perhaps mysteriously infused with some unholy wisdom drawn from beyond the grave, saying: “Beneath the magnolia, Arabella, beneath the magnolia!”
For many days and many nights thereafter Arabella could not sleep. Her spirit was sorely troubled, and her heart was heavy. At night, when the wind rattled the dying leaves of the deflowered tree, and when the moon stood high in the sky, bathing its magical crown with bright rays cast down between the October clouds, Arabella frequently trembled with fear, and threw herself into her sister’s arms, crying: “He is there!”
He was indeed there, beneath the magnolia: a shadow amid the fallen leaves which swirled in the wind.
One night, Arabella said to Bibiane: “We loved one another, so why should he seek to harm me? He is there. I must go to him!”
“When the dead call out to us,” Bibiane replied, “the living must obey. Go, and do not be afraid. I will leave the door open, and I will come out to you if you call me. Go: he is there.”
He was indeed there, among the fallen leaves which swirled in the wind. When Arabella came out to him beneath the magnolia, the shadow extended its arms to her – sinuous and serpentine arms which fell upon her shoulders, writhing and hissing like hellish vipers.
Bibiane heard a stifled scream. She ran out.
Arabella was stretched out on the ground. Bibiane picked her up and carried her back into the house.
There were two marks on Arabella’s neck, like the imprints of two thin and bony fingers. Her once-beautiful eyes were glazed, transfixed by horror – and tightly clasped in the clenched fingers of her hand Bibiane found the second flower which they had seen on the day of her sister’s wedding: the sad, withered flower which they had compassionately left upon the tree; the flower which was the Other; the flower which flourished beyond the grave.
THE ADULTEROUS CANDLE
She had a certain fantasy and a certain perversity.
This was what she wished: that on the very night when her husband returned from his excursion, her somewhat timid lover, tender and frail, would remain beside her until the morning hour when the train was due; and still remain, until they heard the noise of the carriage drawing up before the door; and still remain, until the key was tremulously turned in the lock!
For it is liable to tremble, the master’s key, at the moment of opening the casket of its amours: he loves me, and already the thrill of impending pleasure has excited his heart, and the cage is closed upon the shivering bird. It expands with the warmth of seeing me; but as for me, my own thrill is of a different kind. I have no love at all for the man who has the right to take me by surprise, and to impose on me, at any hour decided and determined by him, his lordly pleasure. My meagre kisses signify nothing but the hatred I have for him!
And why do I love him not? What reasons have I? Alas, alas, there are none!
“There you are, my love! Give me your lips, my darling. You’re very pale. Are you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Of what we’re going to do. Look at me! There’s nothing untoward in my eyes.”
“But there is! Little flames, almost. …”
“Almost?”
“Almost miserable.”
“Oh yes, my darling, tonight I am miserable with all the affection which has built up in me for you. I melt like wax; I run like a burning candle set at the head of a bed where joy lies dying – but I must compose myself, for the funeral ceremony which we must undertake.”
“Is it ended, madwoman?”
“It is ended. He is returning. I feel the vibration of the train, the disengagement of the signals, the swarming crowds at the station, the opening of the carriage-doors. That door opens, too – the one there, by which you will leave!”
“When? Already? What time?”
“We have the time.”
Ah yes! Shall I amuse myself? A dream: he thinks of me, he sees me. Yes, my dear, he sees me all alone, somnolent, ears pricked, eyes straining to see what time it is, avid for the exquisite and definitive moment – he sees me! Does he see me with your lips upon my mouth? Here is something I want you to know! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Her darling understood his lover’s kiss far better than her earlier ramblings. He was wont to call her Lover, or even Madwoman, but she had never before seemed to him so impudently the Lover, or so completely the Madwoman. To believe it, or not to believe it, was equally hazardous; she was capable of bizarre imaginings, of hallucinations – and also capable of being true and certain. What had he understood, after all? The kiss. The return? Yes, to be sure, he needed to know about that …
“Seriously,” he said, “what time will he be back?”
“At four.”
“You are right, madwoman, we do have the time … but it is sad, sad, sad.”
“Sad? Not at all,” said the Lover/Mistress. She undressed her darling, and her little darling stripped his mistress; they gave themselves to pleasure now, teasing one another as if they were male and female cats; but it was the frail amoroso who seemed the timid she-creature, because his mistress was taller and stronger than he, an imperious queen of sensuality.
They enjoyed one another, and they loved one another; and while she leant her own head over the pale forehead of her happy lover, she lost herself in contemplation …
He is so pale and so still. There is not the least quiver in the muscles of his face! That half-open mouth, those half-closed eyes – it is as though he has fainted!
What of his heart, his little heart? Oh, they are so feeble, the beats of his little heart! So feeble, indeed that one can hardly hear them …
They cannot be heard at all.
“My darling!”
No reponse at all: no movement; no flutter of the eyelashes.
She takes him in her arms then, but he is a dead weight, and quite heavy. Unexpectedly heavy. So heavy, this frail lover, that even the powerful arms of the queen of sensuality are too weak to lift him up.
Spirits! Water … vinegar … smelling salts!
But he is dead.
Little darling is dead. He is dead, he is dead, he is dead …
He is dead!
She says it, she sings it, she weeps it: dead, dead, dead! And it is true.
She dresses herself, once she has come to her senses and is once again mistress of herself. She is no longer mad with love, nor with pain. She is serious, and decisive, and brave.
In the rumpled bed of their union, now carefully remade, she calmly laid out her lover in the most chaste attitude she could contrive, in the purest attitude possible, with the bedclothes tucked under his chin, his arms on the counterpane, his hands crossed upon his breast. She put a crucifix in his hand, because that is the most evident symbol of death, which clearly proclaims the final truth and the final state of man in a voice which is mute, but nevertheless eloquent, funereal, and absolute!
When she had placed the crucifix between the fingers of her darling, the courageous adulteress became fearful again, and so afflicted by her fear that a momentary weakness made her incline her head towards the pale head which sank into the pillow, and her lips towards his pale and cold lips; but she straightened up immediately.
This display must be taken to a grander extreme. A more startling ostentation was required to provide a proper satisfaction and a worthy justification of her love.
She stripped the antechamber and the drawing-room of all their flowers. All the favours of spring were strewn upon the funeral bed: lilacs and roses, lilies and mimosas; all the scented tresses of a fairy garden!
When she had done that, she felt almost contented and slightly intoxicated.
Standing up straight, her fingers clenched and her breathing rapid, she surveyed the mad heap of flowers, and the pale head that was now nearly hidden beneath the roses. Suddenly, feeling that her discomfited brain was under assault from a chaotic army of sensations, she set out to arrange the flowers – artistically!
She did not wish to pause for reflection, nor to give a moment’s thought to what had gone before and what might happen afterwards. She wished only to be brave; to exceed the bounds of womanly bravery and to be recklessly heroic. She wished to do her duty as a beautiful and benevolent adulteress, and then to lay herself down beneath the anger which would explode like a thunderclap in that insolent room, over the insolent peace of the vainglorious lover.
But how best to light the scene?
This final concern finally and decisively chased away the army of chaotic sensations.
She lit the candelabras which stood on the mantelpiece. Placed at the head of the bed, on a side-table, they looked like two burning bushes, their flames solemn and inextinguishable. But beneath that avalanche of light the dead man became hideous: the pale head displayed a whiteness more livid than the bedsheet, ghastly against the cambric of the pillow; pits of shadow were hollowed out under his eyes, and his nose was villainously elongated, and even the mouth seemed wicked – his mouth, which was so very gentle!
It was necessary to put it all in proper focus, carefully organising the play of the rays of light, maintaining an appropriate pallor on the pale head, arranging the shadows so as to display his calmness and his beauty. One of the candelabras remained at the bed-head, the other was set up at the foot of the bed.
And last of all: the devotional candle.
She found it in a drawer, scarcely diminished. It had wept but a few tears. It was a paschal candle, a candle of glory which he himself had taken pleasure in acquiring. It was a candle both adulterous and blasphemous, for had it not illuminated, in weeping its first tears, the first kisses of the Mistress and her Idol?
That candle! Oh what durance there was for her in the sight of this torch of love, encrusted with grains of incense: a torch of consolation and of remembrance which they had intended only to light on anniversaries, which had been destined to be the measuring-device of their years of joy – and which now would bestow upon the dead man his last illumination, weeping for his death its paramount tears.
At that moment, the bitterness of her sin constricted her throat and troubled her heart.
The adulterous candle! In buying it, in profaning it, in igniting within the sacred wax a sacrilegious flame, in erecting it to bear witness to illicit amours, had she not bought death? Had she not secured the damnation of one whom she adored – and her own, for was she not condemned also? Did she not know exactly what would come to pass, all that which would come to pass, when the tremulous key had opened to her lord and master the door of the house of adultery?
But she did not wish to think of it – not now, not ever! Her bravery was in her acts and not in her thoughts.
She lit the adulterous candle and immediately knelt down, with her hands together and set a little apart from her body. And without the slightest commotion in her frightened breast she awaited the hour at which her master was due to return: a beautiful, benevolent, brave and glorious Adulteress.
THE DRESS
That very day, he encountered
her: the new dress!
She came towards him, slow and proud, with the smiling and mysterious majesty appropriate to the aesthetic realisation of the long-awaited hour, with the teasing grace of an original.
It was definitely she; it was definitely the new dress.
For a week he had lain in wait for her at the corners of the streets: the wide, clear streets where she might deign to disport herself, displaying to watchful eyes all her unexpected glory, turning about, coming to a halt, setting off again, slipping by like a seagull soaring over the beach. Costumes “for the carriage” had no effect on him; all his affection was reserved for the “promenade dress”, and for one occasion only: the first time he saw her.
The new dress, the spring dress, was for him the great annual event; he dreamed of it for months in advance, worrying about the weather forecasts, always hoping for an early warm spell, offering as a Parsee might his prayers to the sun.
In the universal renewal, the rejuvenation of the flesh and the leaf, the flower and the grass, there was nothing of interest to him but the dress, and the dress alone.
The individual details of the dress – the particular style and the particular material; what kind of bodice she had and what kind of skirt; whether she was modelled on the chalice or the cup; whether high-cut or low-cut; whether she was secured by hooks or buttons; whether her shoulders were padded and how she was gathered and where her hemline was – none of that occupied his imagination for an instant. It was sufficient for him that the dress was well made, well carried and new. That she could, by her artifice, hide grave corporeal faults on the part of her wearer was the last of his fears and the last of his cares.
The Angels of Perversity Page 9