In those pure and blue mornings when, at the end of a golden twilight, an entirely white bird appeared, having come from the land beyond the gray hills, from a nest lost in the mysterious Alps, it flew above the Nice coast of the splendid Baie des Anges. It doubled Mont Boron and descended, very gently, as if to rest, in the Baie de Villefranche. Then, resuming its flight, it coiffed the near-isle of Cap Ferrat and settled again on the tranquil waters of the little port of Beaulieu. It was then seem, without quitting the sea, to glide along the coast and double Cap Roux. In the sea at Eze it took off again, climbed very high, passed over the Tête-de-Chien and, like a hawk that had suddenly caught sight of a prey, fell vertiginously, beyond Monte Carlo, on to an ideal sea overlooked by a fairy-tale landscape. For a long time, the bird remained thus, as if asleep on the serene sea. On the blue with emerald transparencies, it made a lovely immaculate patch, lightly swayed by an imperceptible swell. And suddenly, the lovely white patch fled, like a frightened animal; it gained height very quickly, leaving nothing on the surface of the beautiful liquid mirror but a slivery wake. Soon, above the hills, the fantastic bird disappeared, returning to the mysterious nest from which it had come.
IV. A Dream, Fading Away
“What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
“Liar! If you were thinking about me, your eyes wouldn’t be raised toward that great bird piloted by some madman...”
“He’s not a madman, he’s a poet. See how he understands the harmony of this décor. He has come from high in the mountains, it seems, and he has landed, gracefully, in the coves where his silhouette is reminiscent, from afar, of a majestic swan on the waters of a lake. Now, between the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky, he’s extending his white wings, and one might think he were a dream, fading away...”
“A dream that carries your regrets...”
“I love you!”
“Yes, but you also love the great bird...”
“I love that which is beautiful—and you, Nelly, because you are, now, for me.. All the Beauty of Life.”
“My Henri! Object of my adoration…my universe!”
V. Fear of Thieves
They were side by side on a terrace in Monte Carlo at dusk, hidden by syringa bushes, happy to belong to one another, savoring identical joys before the splendid landscape. The sun was setting behind the point of Cap Ferrat, setting fire to the near-isle and he blue-tinted pines in the midst of which the villas resembled dolls’ houses.
The amorous woman, more smitten than ever, pressed herself against her husband, and implored him in a low voice: “My darling…my darling…how good it is to be in love here. No other corner of the Earth can match this enchanted shore as a frame for a happiness that is almost superhuman. Tell me, then, that we aren’t leaving yet?”
There was so much discreet passion and so many promises in the glow of her gaze that he shivered. Vanquished, he sighed: “We’ll leave when you wish...”
“Never, then—for here, you’re mine, mine to love, and I don’t have to share you with anyone not even your aviation.”
Rozal’s face had become so dolorous, his eyes so hard, that the anguished your woman said; “I beg your pardon, my darling…your little egoist loves you too much, you see…she isn’t reasonable. You’re right, to look at me like that...”
He gave her a long kiss on her eyelids, imbued with pleasure, to make her forget that she had caused him any chagrin—and they stood there together, mutely, moved by the magnificent spectacle. At their feet was the rotunda of the shooting-gallery; further away, a sea whose color was darkening by the minute, lapping between the rocks with the petty melancholy that everything assumes in the twilight, even when it is delightful. To their right, faint reddish gleams striated with somber violet capped the summits of the pines and the hill of olive-groves. A vague slow expanded over nature like the veil of sleep—and to the left, Cap Martin profiled its muzzle against the flat, congealed water, while in front of them, the extent was confused with the sky, for the line of the horizon had melted into a gray halo that limited the marvelous view in the remote distance.
Behind the lovers, however, feverish life continued. The elegant and sumptuous mass of the Casino, with its famous theater, its Oriental palace from a tale in the Thousand-and-One Nights, amid the foliage of exotic plants, surged forth, constellated with lights. In there were roulette, trente-et-quarante, gamblers from all over the world, all hopes, battles with impassive chance, all the gambles, all the intoxications, and also, perhaps, tragic despairs. Beyond the Edenic gardens, with foliage, flowers and rare essences of exceptional diversity, was Monte Carlo, a curious amphitheater, gripped and extended over the mountain-side, with outcrops of verdure in places; higher up, Beausoleil, Turbie and all the other enchanted sites, bait for the Palais des Jeux.
He broke the silence. “It’ll be dark soon, my darling...”
Tearing herself away from the dream of the exquisite hour with difficulty, she said: “Oh well, I’ll go in. I’ll send the car back for you, since you have to go to your rendezvous with the organizers of the meeting.”
“Yes, I can’t do otherwise. At present, there are constructors from Paris here: colleagues and brothers-in-arms—or, rather, aviators—some of whom, you’ll remember, accompanied us when we left Villacoublay. I have to go shake their hands.”
“Go—but in talking about that which you love, don’t commit too much treason against the one to whom you belong, and who will defend you against the thieves.”29
“The aviators?” he said. “I understand.”
Without further delay, they went along a narrow lane to the Hôtel de Paris. There, Rozal put his wife into the automobile, watched her depart, and stood there pensively for a little while, his eyes enigmatic, while the veil that the American woman had wrapped around her face floated behind the roadster.
VI. An Escapade in the Sky
“Are you ready?”
Rozal turned round abruptly, and saw George Turner.
“Yes, the car’s here. Everything’s arranged, as we agreed.”
“Then let’s go, quickly—I only have an hour.”
The two men climbed into a low-slung automobile with an elongated hood; Turner took the steering-wheel. Soon, it moved off, amid the fusillade of a powerful engine, and disappeared around a bend in the road.
The car stopped a few minutes later below Roquebrune, not far from the sea, in front of a wooden hangar. A man with greasy hands, dressed in a kind of tanned canvas suit, came forward.
“Are you ready, Mayeux?” said George Turner.
“Yes, boss.”
“Open the hangar doors, then, and fetch out the apparatus, quickly.”
Rozal, having got out of the automobile, helped the mechanic, with an ardent fever. In a matter of seconds, Turner’s mechanical bird was outside, and the three men pushed it to toward the beach, along a flat causeway adapted for that purpose. When it was on the sand, in front of the fringe of white foam that was brushing their feet gently, Turner turned to his friend and asked: “It’s decided, then? In spite of the promise you’ve made to your wife, you want to take the seaplane up?”
“Yes, old chap, certainly…have no fear! If she finds out about my escapade, I’ll be able to arrange things so that she doesn’t hold you responsible...”
“Oh, she’ll forgive you, of course! You can always settle things with loving words and kisses—but whatever you say, my goose will be coked—she’ll hold it against me, I know. And I’ll he heart-broken to have offended her, for if I can no longer see you and your wife, what do you think will become of me?”
Henri Rozal, half-joking and half-emotional, clapped his comrade on the shoulder. He was touched by his friend’s slightly comical dread. But he was sincerely radiant. The idea of this flight gave him a crazy desire to jump for joy. It would not have taken much or him to start dancing like a schoolboy on the first day of the vacation.
“It means that much to you?” said T
urner, astonished.
“You can’t imagine how I feel! For years, I’ve known the violent pleasure of trips through the air. I’ve savored the voluptuousness of improbable speeds, through the blue of the pure air. I’ve experienced terrible vertigoes that make you forget everything. And all of a sudden—no more. I feel gripped, captured by a delightful power, by Love—the Love by which, like a coward, I’m enslaved...”
“You don’t have the poorer share.”
Now he was installed in the fuselage of the apparatus. Turner made a sign to the mechanic.
“Go on, Mayeux.”
A sudden roar of the engine, a brutal trepidation that shook the carcass of the bird—and the latter set off, rolling across the sand in the direction of Monaco. After fifty meters, it rose smoothly into the air, climbed, veered to the left and was soon over the sea.
As the moon was bright, Turner’s mechanic, left behind on the beach looking up, saw the great bird rise further into the sky, until it was no more than an uncertain image en route to the realm of the stars. Between his teeth, he muttered: “They’ll come a cropper, for sure. Taking a trip by night, over the sea—they must be crazy. They must be suffering from heartache!”
Then, satisfied with his perspicacity, he went back into the hangar.
The aircraft was flying toward the tip of Cap Ferrat at an altitude of 500 meters, its wings extended in the silence of the stars. Henri Rozal, mute behind Georges Turner, who was piloting the apparatus, savored the enjoyment of a sort that was henceforth forbidden to him. Never before had he flown by night over a coast, and the novelty of the spectacle, mingled with the spice of a forbidden pleasure, procured him sensations all them more vivid because they would have to be brief, and because he would not be able to feel them again when the trip was over—for this escapade would undoubtedly not be repeated.
To the right and down below, beneath the aircraft’s wing, he could see the bizarrely indented coastline. The moonlight put diamond gleams into the line of surf snaking around the rocks—and that long, slender, barely-perceptible capricious ribbon seemed to him, at times, to be a garland of white roses or a string of pearls at the extremity of the water’s robe. Further away was a dark mass, in various shades of black, according to the vegetation: the shore, and the swollen hill, on the blanks of which were thousands and thousands of luminous points, like so many amorous fireflies. Along the edge of the marine field trailed an uninterrupted file of winking lights, marking out the road from Monte Carlo to Monaco; then, in the idle, a glittering agglomeration: the Casino, the big hotels, the cafes, the haunts of pleasure, where unseen beings were living a terribly intense life!
Seen from above, that enchanted panorama was almost reminiscent of another sky, with all its constellations; the firmament above was a virtual counterpart—and Rozal, amazed, allowing his imagination to create chimeras, was able to wonder whether he might not be flying through the Heavens, with the Earth eliminated or extremely distant, unperceived in the field of stars, among the points of fire above and below, scintillating in every direction.
They were soon above the marine depths of Villefranche, and Turner took the apparatus down in order to pass, close to the waves, over the harbor where heavy battleships lay dormant. The bird skimmed the tops of the masts. The echoing cry of a sentry on one of the black monsters seemed sinister in the nocturnal silence—and the bird, as if it were afraid, rapidly gained height ahead.
The moonlight, more intense, illuminated the varying landscape more brightly. As the bird flew on, the décor was incessantly modified; there were hillocks succeeded by hollows, valleys suddenly replaced by flat surfaces on which immaculate villas appeared, in splendid gardens. Then there were steep, tragic rocks, great black cracks in the tormented hill. Suddenly, a crag higher than the others reared up, as if it wanted to block the route for the audacious...and they were over the Cap d’Ail.
Then, Rozal felt his heart skip a beat as he recognized the large white house, the Villa des Aigles, all lit up, where his wife was waiting for him. If she suspected! He thought.
Turner, doubtless mischievously, went down—and the guilty husband was embarrassed. But now the apparatus was flying straight ahead, toward the scrap that was Monaco. Suddenly, there was an abrupt silence, after the dull roar of the engine; Turner had just cut off the power.
As if on a gentle, padded slope, the aircraft glided vertiginously. The keen air lashed the faces of the two men; they felt that they were being drawn into an exciting race into the unknown—for in the darkness, they could no longer calculate distances, in spite of the moonlight and the lights of the town; the return over the water might be brutal. Prudently, however, Turner described spirals in order to slow down the descent. The graceful bird leaned over on one wing, and Rozal, amused by the landscape that was rotating around them, never took his eyes off the ground, which they were approaching with terrible rapidity.
A thrust of the steering-mechanism, and the bird abruptly began climbing again. It glided horizontally for a few more moments, then descended the padded slope again, this time in the direction of the harbor. There was a little somersault, a brief ascent, a gentle fall, an imperceptible shock, and Turner turned round to face his friend, laughing.
“What do you think of that?”
“Marvelous! That decent on to the water is unimaginable gentle. I remember all the ‘wood’ we broke learning to land correctly on the ground of aerodromes.”
“The conclusion is that hydroplaning is the sport of the future, for rich men. Nothing but pleasure, and no danger.”
“If Nelly had come with me, even she would have wanted to do it again.”
“Well, let’s go look for her.”
Rozal smiled skeptically. Privately, however, he was not despairing. On the contrary! That short voyage in the air had reawakened his ardor, his desire to work, his dormant enthusiasm.
“Oh, when one can travel faster—very fast, faster than the speediest albatross! Turner, my friend, I feel that I’m in the seam of discovery. Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow, old chap—I’ll pack my bags, return to the factory, pick up the threads of the abandoned problem, and within a month, I’ll entrust you with an apparatus with which you can go all around the world!”
His enthusiasm was so sincere and so amusing that Turner burst out laughing. “And in the meantime,” he said, “let’s go home.”
He started up the engine and, this time without quitting the water, the bird glided slowly toward the beach, where the mechanic was waiting
In front of the Hôtel de Paris, Rozal found the car that he wife had sent back. He got into it hastily, for he was late. And as he saw once again, as he went home, the landscape he had admire from above, he thought that the sixty horse-power automobile was not moving very rapidly along the sinuous road. Impatiently, he had the sensation of having been abruptly taken back in time, almost to the era of Sedan chairs and diligences.
Then, thinking about the time he had lost, of his entire life henceforth held captive by love, that prisoner of Eros sighed with regret for an extraordinary airplane which, having departed from Paris and crossed the Atlantic non-stop—like a kind of human arrow of which he, Rozal, was the brain—landed in America, the first to do so, in New York. And his eyes misted over.
VII. Enchained by Roses and Lips
Rozal was still in Turbie and Monte Carlo. He had seen George Turner and the comrades who had taken part in the aviation “meet” depart. He had watched, sadly, the packing up of the birds that would no longer fly over the Cote d’Azur. He had been fêted when he had put in a appearance at the end-of-season banquet and—in response to a witty and teasing toast proposed by Camille Blanc,30 the king of the Riviera—he had promised the aviators that he would soon return to their midst. In a sincere fit of impetuosity, electrified by the ambience, infected by the sort of heroic folly in which all his friends seemed to live unfalteringly, he had even announced—yes, had almost glimpsed—the imminence of the magnificent performance, the goal o
f all the efforts of his youth: the crossing of the Atlantic in an airplane. He would accomplish it soon, in the apparatus he had realized.
But he was still in Turbie and Monte Carlo. Fresh and ardent lips, slightly intoxicated by the new wine that he poured into them, the nectar of Venus that he had introduced to them, intoxicating his own lips in their turn, offered him and returned to him an interminable kiss from which he could not detach himself. In the dreamlike décor, where the flowers had tender and perfidious perfumes, where nature sang a languid hymn to eternal spring, he had lingered, his eyes lost in his wife’s eyes, and his lips forever tremulous.
Yes, his brain was full of sublime ardors, and his brain still encaged a splendid will that might astonish the world. He wanted—oh yes, still wanted, ardently and sincerely—to be someone…and he sometimes raged to think of the efforts of others, of the transoceanic journey that someone audacious and lucky individual might succeed in making before him, as Garros had traversed the Mediterranean in a single bound. But he was in love, madly—and all his ambition, his ardor and his courage melted, in spite of everything, in the pleasure of loving and being loved. Every morning, he thought about the future; every evening, he thought about the delirious sensuality in which he was plunged.
The days went by. The precocious spring added more piquant beauties to an already rich nature, and the flowers became more strongly scented. The fields of anemones overflowing the hill burst out in the sunlight in multicolored squares and rectangles, alternating with blooming rose-bushes, enormous carnations, irises and gladioli, tuberoses odorous enough to make one faint, hyacinths with red or violet or white or salmon-pink buds, while purple clusters of wisteria draped the dry stone walls built into the hillsides like a stairway. From the thick hedges, tangles of white hawthorn, mimosas and lilacs, extended their branches, overladen with other perfumed clusters. And Rozal and Nelly, clinging tightly to one another, besotted to the point of forming but one thought, one flesh and one desire, wandered through all the beauty and charm of that galloping, frenetic spring, in advance of Paris’s, intoxicated, unconscious and careless of everything that was not their enchanted idyll.
The Human Arrow Page 15