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 THE UNIVERSITY 
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 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
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 THE MODERN LIBRARY 
 
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 THE RED LILY
 
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 THE RED LILY 
 
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 THE RED LILY 
 
 SHE looked round at the arm-chairs, grouped in front of 
 the fire, at the tea-table with its tea-things glittering 
 like shadows, at the big bunches of delicately coloured 
 flowers in Chinese vases. Lightly she touched the sprays of 
 guelder roses and toyed with their silver buds. Then she 
 gazed gravely in the glass. Standing sideways and looking 
 over her shoulder, she followed the outline of her fine 
 figure in its sheath of black satin, over which floated a thin 
 drapery, sown with beads and scintillating with lights of 
 flame. Curious to examine that day's countenance, she ap- 
 proached the mirror. Tranquilly and approvingly it re- 
 turned her glance as if the charming woman it was reflecting 
 lived a life devoid of intense joy and profound sadness. On 
 the walls of the great empty silent drawing-room, the tap- 
 estry figures at their ancient games, vague in the shadow, 
 grew pale with dying grace. Like them, the terra cotta 
 statuettes on pedestals, the groups of old Dresden china, 
 the paintings on Sevres, displayed in glass cases, spoke of 
 things past. On a stand decorated with precious bronzes 
 the marble bust of some royal princess, disguised as Diana, 
 with irregular features and prominent breast, escaped from 
 her troubled drapery, whilst on the ceiling a Night, pow- 
 dered like a marquise and surrounded by Cupids, scattered 
 flowers. Everything was slumbering, and there was heard 
 only the crackling of the fire and the slight rustling of 
 beads on gauze. 
 
 Turning from the glass, she went to the window, raised 
 one corner of the curtain, and looked out into the pale twi- 
 light, through the black trees on the quay to the yellow 
 waters of the Seine. The grey weariness of sky and water
 
 6 THE RED LILY 
 
 was reflected in the greyness of her beautiful eyes. One of 
 the "Swallow" boats passed, coming out from under an arch 
 of the Pont de 1'Alma, and bearing humble passengers to- 
 wards Crenelle and Billancourt. She looked after it as it 
 drifted down the muddy current; then she let the curtain 
 fall, and, sitting down in her accustomed corner of the sofa, 
 under the flowers, she took up a book, laid upon the table 
 just within hand's reach. On its straw-coloured linen cover 
 glittered in gold the title: Yscult la Blonde, by Vivian 
 Bell. It was a collection of French verse written by an 
 Englishwoman and printed in London. She opened it by 
 chance and read: 
 
 Like to a worshipper who prays and sings, 
 The bell on the quivering air "Hail Mary !" rings ; 
 And there in the orchard, 'mid the apple trees, 
 The messenger the shuddering virgin sees, 
 Awed, his red lily takes, whose perfum'd breath 
 Makes her who breathes it half in love with death. 
 
 In the wall'd garden, in the cool of the day, 
 Through her cleft lips her soul would speed away, 
 Her life, at some unconquerable behest, 
 Even as a stream, pour from her ivory breast.* 
 
 Waiting for her visitors to arrive, she read, indifferent 
 and absent-minded, thinking less of the poetry than of the 
 poetess: that Miss Bell, her most delightful friend perhaps, 
 but one whom she hardly ever saw. At each of their rare 
 meetings. Miss Bell embraced her, pecked her on the cheek, 
 called her darling, and then gushed into prattling talk. 
 Ugly ard yet attractive, slightly ridiculous and altogether 
 
 ' Quand la cloche, faisant comme qui chante et prie, 
 Dit dans le ciel emu : "Je vous salue, Marie," 
 La vierge, en visitant les pommiers du verger, 
 Frissonne d'avoir vu venir le messager 
 Qui lui presente un lys rouge et tel qu'on desire 
 Mourir de son parfum sitot qu'on le respire. 
 
 La vierge au jardin clos, dans la douceur du soir, 
 Sent 1'ame lui monter aux levres, et croit voir 
 Couler sa vie ainsi qu'un ruisseau qui s'epanche 
 En limpide filet de sa poitrine blanche.
 
 THE RED LILY 7 
 
 exquisite, Miss Bell lived at Fiesole as aesthete and philos- 
 opher, while in England she was renowned as the favourite 
 English poetess. Like Vernon Lee and Mary Robinson, she 
 had fallen in love with Tuscan life and art; and, without 
 staying to complete her Tristan, the first part of which had 
 inspired Burne- Jones to paint dreams in water-colours, she 
 was expressing Italian ideas in Provengal and French verse. 
 She had sent her Yseult la Blonde to "darling," with a 
 letter inviting her to spend a month at her house at Fiesole. 
 She had written, "Come; you will see the most beautiful 
 things in the world, and you will make them more 
 beautiful." 
 
 And "darling" was saying to herself that she would not 
 go, that she was detained in Paris. But she was not in- 
 different to the idea of seeing Miss Bell and Italy again. 
 Turning over the pages of the book, she fell upon this line: 
 
 The self-same thing a kindly heart and love.* 
 
 And she wondered ironically but kindly whether Miss Bell 
 had ever loved, and if so what her love-story had been. 
 The poetess had an admirer at Fiesole, Prince Albertinelli. 
 He was very handsome, but he seemed too matter-of-fact 
 and commonplace to please an aesthete for whom love would 
 have something of the mysticism of an Annunciation. 
 
 "How do you do, Therese? I am done up." 
 
 It was Princess Seniavine, graceful in her furs, which 
 were hardly distinguishable from her dark sallow complex- 
 ion. She sat down brusquely, and in tones harsh yet 
 caressing, at once bird-like and masculine, she said: 
 
 "This morning I walked right through the Bois with 
 General Lariviere. I met him in the Alice des Potins, and 
 took him to the Pont d'Argenteuil, where he insisted on 
 buying from a keeper and presenting to me a trained mag- 
 pie, which goes through its drill with a little gun. I am 
 tired out." 
 
 "Why ever did you take the General so far as the Pont 
 d'Argenteuil?" 
 
 "Because he had gout in his big toe." 
 
 * Amour et gentil coeur sont une meme chose.
 
 8 THE RED LILY 
 
 Therese shrugged her shoulders, smiling: 
 
 "You are wasting your malice; and you are blundering." 
 
 "And you, my dear, would have me economise my kind- 
 ness and my malice with a view to a serious investment?" 
 
 She drank some Tokay. 
 
 Announced by the sound of loud breathing, General 
 Lariviere came in, treading heavily. He kissed the hands 
 of both women. Then, with a determined, self-satisfied air, 
 sat down between them, ogling and laughing in every wrinkle 
 of his forehead. 
 
 "How is M. Martin-Belleme? Still busy?" 
 
 Therese thought that he was at the Chamber and making 
 a speech there. 
 
 Princess Seniavine, who was eating caviar sandwiches, 
 asked Madame Martin, why she was not at Madame Meil- 
 lan's yesterday. There was a play acted. 
 
 "A Scandinavian play. Was it a success?" 
 
 "Yes. And yet I don't know. I was in the little green 
 drawing-room, under the Duke of Orleans's portrait. M. 
 le Menil came and rendered me one of those services one 
 never forgets. He saved me from M. Garain." 
 
 The General, who was a regular Who's Who, storing in 
 his big head all kinds of useful information, pricked up his 
 ears at this name. 
 
 "Garain," he asked, "the minister who was a member of 
 the Cabinet at the time of the Princes' exile?" 
 
 "The very same. He was extremely occupied with me. 
 He was explaining his heart's longings and looking at me 
 with a most alarming tenderness. And from time to time 
 with a sigh he glanced at the Duke of Orleans's portrait. 
 I said to him: Monsieur Garain, you are making a mis- 
 take. It is my sister-in-law who is Orleanist. I am not in 
 the least. At that moment M. le Menil arrived to take me 
 to have some refreshment. He complimented me on my 
 horses. He told me there were none finer that winter in the 
 Bois. He talked of wolves and wolf cubs. It was most re- 
 freshing." 
 
 The General, who never liked young men, said that he 
 had met Le Menil in the Bois the evening before galloping 
 a* a break-neck pace.
 
 THE RED LILY 9 
 
 He declared that it was only old horsemen who main- 
 tained the good tradition, and that the men of fashion of 
 the day were wrong in riding like jockeys. 
 
 "It is the same in fencing," he added. "Formerly " 
 
 Princess Seniavine suddenly interrupted him: 
 
 "General, see how pretty Madame Martin is. She is 
 always charming, but at this moment she is more so than 
 ever. It is because she is bored. Nothing becomes her bet- 
 ter than boredom. We have been wearying her ever since 
 we came. Just look at her overcast brow, her wandering 
 glance, her mournful mouth. She is a victim." 
 
 She jumped up, kissed Therese affectionately, and fled, 
 leaving the General astonished. 
 
 Madame Martin-Belleme entreated him to pay no atten- 
 tion to such a madcap. 
 
 He was reassured and asked: 
 
 "And how are your poets, Madame?" 
 
 He found it difficult to pardon Madame Martin's liking 
 for people who wrote and did not belong to his circle. 
 
 "Yes, your poets? What has become of that M. Chou- 
 lette, who used to come and see you in a red com- 
 forter?" 
 
 "My poets are forgetting me; they are forsaking me. 
 You can't depend on any one. Men, things nothing is 
 certain. Life is one long treachery. That poor Miss Bell 
 is the only one who does not forget me. She has written 
 from Florence and sent me her book." 
 
 "Miss Bell; isn't she that young person with frizzed 
 yellow hair, who looks like a lap-dog?" 
 
 He made a mental calculation and concluded that by 
 now she must be at least thirty. 
 
 A white-haired old lady, modestly dignified, and a little 
 keen-eyed, vivacious man entered one after the other: 
 Madame Marmet and M. Paul Vence. Then very stiff, 
 wearing an eye-glass, appeared M. Daniel Salomon, sover- 
 eign arbiter of taste. The General made off. 
 
 They talked of the novel of the week. Madame Marmet 
 had dined with the author several times, a very charming 
 young man. Paul Vence thought the book dull. 
 
 "Oh!" sighed Madame Martin, "all books are dull. But
 
 io THE RED LILY 
 
 men are much duller than books; and they are more 
 exacting." 
 
 Madame Marmet asserted that her husband, a man of 
 fine literary taste, had felt an intense horror of realism 
 to the end of his days. 
 
 The widow of a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, 
 sweet and modest in her black dress, with her beautiful 
 white hair, Madame Marmet prided herself in society on 
 being the widow of an illustrious man. 
 
 Madame Martin told M. Daniel Salomon she would like 
 to consult him about a porcelain group of children. 
 
 "It is Saint-Cloud. Tell me if you like it. You must 
 give me your opinion too, Monsieur Vence, unless you scorn 
 such trifles." 
 
 M. Daniel Salomon gazed at Paul Vence through his 
 eye-glass with sullen haughtiness. 
 
 Paul Vence was looking round the drawing-room. 
 
 "You have some beautiful things, Madame. And that 
 in itself would be little. But you have only beautiful things 
 and those which become you." 
 
 She did not conceal her gratification at hearing him speak 
 thus. She considered Paul Vence to be the only thoroughly 
 intelligent man among her visiting acquaintance. She had 
 appreciated him before his books had made him famous. 
 Ill-health, a gloomy temper, hard work kept him out of 
 society. This bilious little man was not very agreeable. 
 Nevertheless he attracted her. She thought very highly of 
 his profound irony, his untamed pride, his talent matured 
 in solitude; and she justly admired him as an excellent 
 writer, the author of fine essays on art and manners. 
 
 The drawing-room filled gradually with a brilliant assem- 
 bly. The big circle of arm-chairs now included Madame de 
 Vresson, about whom terrible stories were told, but, who, 
 after twenty years of partially suppressed scandals, re- 
 tained a youthful complexion and looked out on the world 
 through child-like eyes; old Madame de Morlaine, viva- 
 cious, scatter-brained, giving utterance to her witty re- 
 marks in piercing shrieks, while she agitated her unwieldy 
 figure, like a swimmer in a life-belt; Madame Raymond, 
 the <yife of an Academician; Madame Garain, the wife of
 
 THE RED LILY n 
 
 an ex-Minister, three other ladies; and standing by the 
 mantelpiece, warming himself at the fire, M. Berthier 
 d'Eyzelles, editor of Le Journal des Dlbats and deputy, 
 who was stroking his white whiskers and trying to show 
 himself off, while Madame de Morlaine was screaming 
 at him: 
 
 "Your article on bimetallism a treasure, a gem! The 
 end especially, pure inspiration." 
 
 Standing at the end of the drawing-room, a few young 
 clubmen were solemnly drawling their conversation. 
 
 "How is it he has managed to hunt with the Prince's 
 hounds?" 
 
 "He did nothing. It was his wife." 
 
 They had their philosophy of life. One of them never 
 believed in promises. 
 
 "There's A kind of person I can't stand: a man with 
 his heart in his hand and on his lips. When you are 
 standing for a club, he says: 'I promise to vote for you.' 
 'Yes, but what will your vote be?' 'Why, of course not a 
 black-ball.' But at the election it turns out he has put 
 in a black-ball. Life is full of dirty tricks when you come 
 to think of it." 
 
 "Then don't think of it," said a third. 
 
 Daniel Salomon, who had joined them, was whispering 
 scandalous gossip, with an air of decorum. And at each 
 interesting disclosure concerning Madame Raymond, Ma- 
 dame Berthier d'Eyzelles, and the Princess Seniavine he 
 added carelessly: "Every one knows it." 
 
 Then gradually the crowd of visitors melted away. There 
 remained only Madame Marmet and Paul Vence. The lat- 
 ter went up to the Countess Martin and asked: 
 
 "When shall I bring Dechartre to see you?" 
 
 It was the second time he had asked her. She was not 
 fond of new faces. Very carelessly she replied: 
 
 "Your sculptor? When you like. At the Champs de 
 Mars I saw some medallions by him which were very good. 
 But he produces little. He is an amateur, isn't he?" 
 
 "He is sensitive. He does not need to work for a live- 
 lihood. He caresses his statues with a lingering affection. 
 But be assured, Madame, he knows and he feels; he would
 
 12 THE RED LILY 
 
 be a master if he did not live alone. I have known him 
 since he was a child. He is thought to be malicious and 
 irritable. He is really passionate and shy. His defect, a 
 defect which will always hinder him from attaining the 
 highest point of his art, is a lack of simplicity of mind. 
 He grows anxious, distracted, and spoils his finest impres- 
 sions. In my opinion he is less suited for sculpture than 
 for poetry or philosophy. He knows a greal deal, and 
 his well-stored mind would astonish you." 
 
 The benevolent Madame Marmet approved. 
 
 She pleased in society because she appeared as if so- 
 ciety pleased her. She listened well and spoke little. Very 
 kind-hearted, she made her kindness valued by not be- 
 stowing it at once. Whether it was that she really liked 
 Madame Martin or that she made a point of showing dis- 
 creet signs of preference in every house she visited, she 
 was warming herself contentedly, like a grandmother, in 
 a corner by the fire under that Louis XVI mantel-piece 
 which was an effective background to the tolerant old lady's 
 beauty. The only thing lacking was her lap-dog. 
 
 "How is Toby?" asked Madame Martin. "Monsieur 
 Vence, do you know Toby? He has long silky hair and 
 a lovely little black nose." 
 
 Madame Marmet was enjoying this praise of Toby when 
 there entered a fair rosy-cheeked old man, with curly hair; 
 short-legged and short-sighted, almost blind under his 
 gold spectacles. He came in, knocking against the furni- 
 ture, greeting empty arm-chairs and running into mirrors. 
 Then he pushed his beaked nose in front of Madame Mar- 
 met, who looked at him indignantly. It was M. Schmoll, 
 of the Academy of Inscriptions. His smile was an affected 
 grimace. He recited madrigals in honour of Countess 
 Martin in that hereditary unctuous tone in which his Jewish 
 fathers had importuned their creditors, the peasants of 
 Alsace, Poland, and the Crimea. He drawled out his sen- 
 tences. A member of the French Institute, this great 
 philologist knew every language except French. His gal- 
 lantry amused Madame Martin. As rusty and heavy as 
 the pieces of old iron sold by second-hand dealers, its 
 only adornment was a few dried flowers culled from the
 
 THE RED LILY 13 
 
 Greek Anthology. M. Schmoll was a lover of poets and 
 of women; and he was intelligent. 
 
 Madame Marmet pretended not to know him, and went 
 out without returning his greeting. When he had exhausted 
 his madrigals, M. Schmoll became sad and discontented. 
 He groaned frequently. He complained bitterly at the way 
 he was treated; he was neither sufficiently decorated nor 
 sufficiently provided with sinecures, nor were he and 
 Madame Schmoll and their five daughters sufficiently well 
 housed at the State's expense. There was a certain great- 
 ness in his lamentations. Something of the soul of Ezekiel 
 and Jeremiah was in him. 
 
 Unfortunately looking along the level of the table with 
 his gold spectacles, he perceived Vivian Bell's book. 
 
 "Ah! Yseult la Blonde," he cried bitterly: "that is the 
 book you are reading, Madame. I should like you to know 
 that Vivian Bell has robbed me of an inscription, and 
 that worse still she has distorted it by putting it into 
 verse. You will find it in the book, page 109: 
 
 "Weep not, lowered lids between, 
 
 What is not, never has been " 
 "Stem not my tears, dear maid, 
 
 A shade may weep for a shade !" * 
 
 "You hear, Madame: A shade may weep for a shade. 
 Well! those words are literally translated from a funeral 
 inscription which I was the first to publish and to criticise. 
 Last year, when I was dining at your house, finding myself 
 next to Miss Bell at table, I quoted that sentence, which 
 greatly pleased her. At her request the very next day I 
 translated the whole inscription into French and sent it 
 to her. And now I find it dismembered and disfigured in 
 this volume of verse, with the title: On the Via Sacra! The 
 Sacred Way! I am that way." 
 
 And he repeated with grotesque bad temper: 
 "It is I who am that Sacred Way, Madame." 
 
 * "Ne pleure pas, toi que j'aimais: 
 Ce qui n'est plus ne fut jamais. 
 Laisse couler ma douleur sombre; 
 Unc ombre peut pleurer une ombre."
 
 14 THE RED LILY 
 
 He was annoyed that the poet had not mentioned him 
 in connection with the inscription. He would have liked 
 to read his name at the head of the poem, in the lines, 
 in the rhyme. He was always wanting to see his name 
 everywhere. He was always looking for it in the news- 
 papers with which his pockets were stuffed. But he was 
 not vindictive. He bore Miss Bell no ill-will. He agreed 
 with a good grace that she was a very distinguished woman 
 and the most prominent English poet of the day. 
 
 When he had gone, Countess Martin very ingenuously 
 asked M. Paul Vence if he knew why kind Madame Marmet, 
 generally so benevolent, had greeted M. Schmoll with such 
 angry silence. He was surprised that she did not know. 
 
 "I never know anything." 
 
 "But the quarrel between Joseph Schmoll and Louis 
 Marmet, with which the Institute resounded for so long, 
 is very famous. It was only ended by the death of Marmet 
 whom his implacable colleague pursued even to Pere- 
 Lachaise. 
 
 "The day that poor Marmet was buried sleet was fall- 
 ing. We were frozen and wet to the skin. By the grave- 
 side, in the mist, in the wind and the mud, Schmoll, under 
 his umbrella, read a discourse inspired by cruel jocularity 
 and triumphing pity. Afterwards still in the mourning 
 coach, he took it to the newspapers. When an indiscreet 
 friend showed it to Madame Marmet, she faint. Can it 
 be possible, Madame, that you have never heard of this 
 erudite and bitter quarrel? 
 
 "The Etruscan language was its cause. Marmet de- 
 voted his life to the study of Etruscan. He was nicknamed 
 'Marmet the Etruscan.' Neither he nor any one else knew 
 a single word of that completely lost language. Schmoll 
 used to be always saying to Marmet: 'You know that you 
 don't know Etruscan, my dear brother; that's why you are 
 so greatly honoured as a scholar and a wit.' Piqued by 
 such ironical praise, Marmet determined to know some- 
 thing of Etruscan. He read his brother Academicians a 
 paper on the use of inflexions in the ancient Tuscan idiom." 
 
 Madame Martin asked what an inflexion was. 
 
 "Oh! Madame, if I stop to explain we shall lose the
 
 THE RED LILY 15 
 
 thread of the story. Be content to know that in this paper 
 poor Marmet quoted Latin texts and quoted them incor- 
 rectly. Now Schmoll is an accomplished Latin scholar, 
 who, after Mommsen, knows more than any one about in- 
 scriptions. 
 
 "He reproached his young brother (Marmet was not 
 quite fifty) with knowing too much Etruscan and not 
 enough Latin. From that moment he never let Marmet 
 alone. At each meeting he chaffed him with a mirthful 
 ferocity, so much so that, in the end, Marmet, in spite 
 of his usual good temper, grew angry. Schmoll is not 
 vindictive. It is a virtue of his race. He bears those whom 
 he persecutes no ill-will. One day, going up the stairs 
 of the Institute, accompanied by Renan and Oppert, he 
 met Marmet and held out his hand to him. Marmet re- 
 fused to take it and said: 'I do not know you.' 
 
 " 'Do you take me for a Latin inscription?' replied 
 Schmoll. That saying hastened Marmet's death. You now 
 understand why his widow, who piously venerates his mem- 
 ory, should be horrified by the sight of his enemy." 
 
 "And to think that I should have asked them to dine 
 here together, and placed them side by side!" 
 
 "Madame, that was not immoral, but it was cruel." 
 
 "My dear sir, perhaps I shall shock you, but if it were 
 absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty 
 of an immoral act than of a cruel one." 
 
 A tall young man, thin and dark, wearing a long mous- 
 tache, now entered and greeted Madame Martin in an 
 easy but brusque manner. 
 
 "Monsieur Vence, I think. you know M. Le Menil." 
 
 In reality they had already met at Madame Martin's 
 and more than once at the fencing-school, which Menil 
 attended assiduously. The day before they had met at 
 Madame Meillan's. 
 
 "At Madame Meillan's it is always dull," said Paul 
 Vence. 
 
 "And yet," said M. Le Menil, "she receives Academicians. 
 I do not exaggerate their importance, but, after all, they 
 are the elect." 
 
 Madame Martin smiled.
 
 1 6 THE RED LILY 
 
 "We know, Monsieur Le Menil, that at Madame Meil- 
 lan's you were more occupied with women than with 
 Academicians. You took Princess Seniavine to have some 
 refreshment, and talked to her about wolves." 
 
 "About what? About wolves?" 
 
 "About wolves she-wolves and wolf-cubs and the bare 
 Avoods of winter. We thought your topics rather too bar- 
 barous for so pretty a woman." 
 
 Paul Vence rose. 
 
 "So, if you will permit me, Madame, I will bring you 
 my friend, Dechartre. He is very desirous to know you, 
 and I trust you will like him. He has an active mind. 
 He is full of ideas." 
 
 Madame Martin interrupted him. 
 
 "Oh, I don't ask for so much as that. People who 
 are natural and who appear what they really are rarely 
 bore me and sometimes amuse me." 
 
 When Paul Vence had gone, Le Menil listened to the 
 sound of his footsteps dying away down the hall and to 
 the noise of the front door closing; then drawing nearer 
 to Madame Martin: 
 
 "Shall we say three o'clock to-morrow, at home?" 
 
 "Do you still love me, then?" 
 
 He urged her to give him an answer while they were 
 alone; she tantalisingly replied that it was late, that she 
 expected no more visitors, and that her husband was likely 
 to come in. 
 
 He entreated her to give him an answer. Then, with- 
 out waiting for any further persuasion, she said: 
 
 "You really wish it? Then listen. To-morrow I shall 
 be free the whole day. Expect me at three o'clock in the 
 Rue Spontini. We will go for a walk afterwards." 
 
 He thanked her with a glance. Then, having returned 
 to his place opposite her on the other side of the fire- 
 place, he inquired who this Dechartre was whom she was 
 asking to come and see her. 
 
 "I am not asking him to come. Monsieur Vence has 
 asked if he may bring him. He is a sculptor." 
 
 He complained of her always wanting to see new faces. 
 
 "A sculptor? Sculptors are frequently not gentlemen."
 
 THE RED LILY if 
 
 "Oh, but he is so little of a sculptor! Still, if you don't 
 wish it, I will not receive him." 
 
 "I should be very annoyed if society were to mo- 
 nopolise any of the time you devote to me." 
 
 "My friend, you have no reason to complain of my 
 giving too much time to society. Yesterday I did not 
 even go to Madame Meillan's " 
 
 "You are quite right in going there as seldom as pos- 
 sible: it is not a house for you to visit." 
 
 He explained. All the women one met there had a 
 past which was known and talked about. Besides Madame 
 Meillan was said to promote intrigues. He enforced his 
 statement by one or two examples. 
 
 Meanwhile, with her hands on the arms of her chair, 
 in a charming attitude of repose, her head inclined to one 
 side, she was gazing at the dying fire. Her thoughts had 
 fled: there remained no sign of them, either in her face 
 which was rather sad or in her languid pose; she was more 
 desirable than ever in this slumber of her soul. For some 
 time she continued in that absolute immobility which 
 enhanced her natural attractiveness by an artistic 
 charm. 
 
 He asked of what she was thinking. Half escaping from 
 the melancholy mesmerism of the embers, she said: 
 
 "To-morrow, if you are willing, we will go to the re- 
 mote quarters of the town, to those curious neighbour- 
 hoods where you can observe the lives of poor people. 
 I like streets that are old and poverty-stricken." 
 
 While promising to gratify her fancy, he did not con- 
 ceal that he thought it absurd. These excursions on which 
 she made him accompany her bored him sometimes ; and he 
 considered them dangerous; they might be seen. 
 
 "And since so far we have succeeded in avoiding being 
 talked about . . ." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Do you think we have never been talked about? 
 Whether people know or do not know, they talk. Every- 
 thing is not known, but everything is said." 
 
 She returned to her dreaming. He thought her dissatis- 
 fied, vexed at something she would not confide to him. He
 
 i8 THE RED LILY 
 
 leaned forward gazing into her fine dreamy eyes in which 
 the firelight was reflected. But she reassured him: 
 
 "I don't know whether people talk about me. And what 
 does it matter if they do? Nothing matters." 
 
 He left her. He was going to dine at the club, where 
 his friend Caumont, who was passing through Paris, ex- 
 pected him. She followed him with a glance of tranquil 
 sympathy. Then she returned to contemplate the embers. 
 
 There she beheld the days of her childhood, the chateau 
 in which she used to pass long sad summers, the trim woods, 
 the damp and gloomy park, the pond with its green stag- 
 nant water, the marble nymphs under the chestnut-trees, 
 and the bench, on which she used to weep and long to 
 die. Even to-day she did not know the cause of her 
 youthful despair, when the tumultuous awakening of her 
 imagination and a mysterious physical evolution cast her 
 into an agitation in which desires were mingled with fears. 
 As a child, life had inspired her at once with fear and 
 longing. And now she knew that life is not worth such 
 anxiety and such hope, that it is a very ordinary matter. 
 She ought to have expected it. Why had she not fore- 
 seen it? She continued her revery. 
 
 "I used to look at mama. She was a good woman, very 
 simple-minded but not very happy. I dreamed of a lot 
 very different from hers. Why? I felt that the atmos- 
 phere around me was enervating, and I longed for the 
 stronger, salter air of the future. Why? What did I want, 
 and what did I expect? Had I not warning enough of 
 the sadness of everything?" 
 
 She was born rich and surrounded by the glaring bril- 
 liance of a newly made fortune. The daughter of that 
 Montessuy, who, at first a mere clerk in a Parisian bank, 
 had founded and directed two great banking houses, and 
 by using all the resources of an inventive mind, invincible 
 strength of character, a rare blend of cunning and hon- 
 esty, had piloted them through a difficult crisis, and dealt 
 with the Government on an equal footing. She had grown 
 up in the historic chateau of Joinville, which, bought, re- 
 stored, and magnificently furnished by her father, with its 
 park and its extensive lakes, had come to equal Vaux-le-
 
 THE RED LILY 19 
 
 Vicomte in splendour. Montessuy enjoyed to the full all 
 that life had to give. By instinct a pronounced atheist he 
 was determined to have every material benefit and every 
 desirable thing that earth produces. He crowded into the 
 gallery and reception rooms of Joinville pictures by the 
 great masters and precious marbles. At fifty he was pay- 
 ing for the luxuries of the most beautiful actresses and 
 a few women in society. With all the brutality of his 
 temperament and the keenness of his intelligence he enjoyed 
 social life. 
 
 Meanwhile poor Madame Montessuy was languishing at 
 Joinville. Anxious and frugal, she appeared poor and 
 diminutive by the side of the twelve gigantic caryatides 
 which, around her bed enclosed by a gilded balustrade, sup- 
 ported the ceiling painted by Lebrun with Titans pursued 
 by the thunderbolts of Jupiter. There one evening on 
 a little iron bedstead, put up at the foot of the great 
 state bed, she died of sorrow and weakness, her only loves 
 having been her husband and her little red damask drawing- 
 room in the Rue de Maubeuge. 
 
 There had never been any intimacy between mother and 
 daughter. The mother felt instinctively that Therese had 
 nothing in common with her. Her daughter's intellect was 
 too capacious, her will too vigorous. Although she was 
 good and docile, there flowed in her veins the strong blood 
 of Montessuy. Therese had her father's ardour of soul 
 and body, an ardour from which the mother had suffered 
 so bitterly and for which she found it easier to forgive 
 the father than the daughter. 
 
 But Montessuy saw himself in his daughter and loved 
 her. Like all bon-vivants, he had his times of charming 
 gaiety. Although he was much away from home, he man- 
 aged to lunch with her nearly every day, and sometimes 
 he took her out. He was a connoisseur in dress and 
 trinkets. At a glance he noticed and corrected in his daugh- 
 ter's toilet the mistakes made by Madame Montessuy's bad 
 taste. He was educating and forming Therese. Coarse yet 
 entertaining, he amused her and won her affection. In his 
 dealings even with her he was inspired by his instinct, 
 his passion for conquest. He, who must always win, was
 
 2c THE RED LILY 
 
 winnitig his daughter. He was capturing her from her 
 mother. Therese admired him, adored him. 
 
 In her revery, she saw him in the background of her 
 past, as the one joy of her childhood. She was still fully 
 persuaded that there was no more charming man than her 
 father. 
 
 As soon as she entered society she despaired of finding 
 elsewhere such natural qualities, such fulness of strength 
 of body and of mind. This disappointment had persisted 
 when she came to choose a husband, and later when she 
 made a secret and a freer choice. 
 
 She had really not chosen her husband at all. She 
 hardly knew how, but she had let herself be married by 
 her father. He, being a widower embarrassed and trou 
 bled by the responsibility of a daughter in the midst of 
 an agitated, busy life, had as usual wished to act quickly 
 and well. He thought only of external distinctions and 
 social conventions; he appreciated the advantage of the 
 eighty years of imperial nobility offered by Count Martin, 
 and the hereditary glory of a family which had provided, 
 with ministers the Government of July and the Liberal 
 Empire. The idea of his daughter finding love in mar- 
 riage never occurred to him. 
 
 He persuaded himself that in marriage she would find 
 the satisfaction of that desire for splendour with which 
 he had inspired her. He hoped that she would have the 
 joy of being rich and appearing so, that she would gratify 
 the vulgar pride, the desire for material superiority, which 
 for him constituted the essence of life. For the rest, he 
 had no very definite ideas concerning the happiness of 
 a respectable woman in society; but he was quite sure that 
 his daughter would always be a respectable woman. That 
 was an innate conviction; on that point his mind was 
 perfectly at rest. 
 
 Reflecting on that confidence, foolish and yet natural, 
 which was so contrary to Montessuy's own experiences and 
 ideas of women, she smiled a smile of ironic melancholy. 
 She admired her father all the more for being too wise 
 to indulge in importunate wisdom. 
 
 After all, he had not married her so badly, according
 
 THE RED LILY 21 
 
 to the standards of marriage among the leisured classes. 
 Her husband was as good as many another. He had be- 
 come quite tolerable. Of all the memories, which, in the 
 half-light of the shaded lamps, the embers recalled to her, 
 that of their life in common was the least vivid. All that 
 returned to her were the painfully distinct recollections of 
 one or two incidents, some foolish imaginings, an impression 
 vague and unpleasant. That time had not lasted long, and 
 had left nothing behind it. Now after six years she hardly 
 remembered how she had gained her liberty, so prompt 
 and easy had been that victory over a husband, cold, valetu- 
 dinarian, egotistical, and polite. Ambitious, industrious, 
 and commonplace, he had grown sere and yellow in busi- 
 ness and politics. It was only through vanity that he loved 
 women, and he had never loved his wife. Their separa- 
 tion had been frank and complete. And since then, 
 strangers one to the other, they were both grateful for 
 their mutual deliverance. She would have regarded him 
 as a friend, had she not found him cunning, sly, and too 
 artful in obtaining her signature when he needed money. 
 This money he employed in enterprises prompted less by 
 cupidity than by a desire for ostentation. Except for this 
 the man with whom she dined, lived, travelled, and talked 
 every day was nothing to her and had no share in her 
 life. 
 
 Absorbed in her own thoughts, sitting chin in hand, be- 
 fore the dead fire, like an anxious inquirer consulting a 
 sibyl, as she reviewed those years of solitude, she beheld 
 the face of the Marquis of Re. It was so clear and dis- 
 tinct that she was astonished. Introduced by her father, 
 who was proud of the acquaintance, the Marquis of Re 
 appeared tall and handsome, decked with the glories of 
 thirty years' private and social triumphs. He had enjoyed 
 a long series of successes. He had seduced three genera- 
 tions of women and imprinted on each mistress's heart an 
 imperishable memory. His virile grace, his refined ele- 
 gance and his gift of pleasing prolonged his youth far be- 
 yond the usual limits. The young Countess Martin had 
 been especially distinguished by him. She had been flat- 
 tered by the homage of such a connoisseur. Even now to
 
 22 THE RED LILY 
 
 recollect it still gave her pleasure. He had a wonderful 
 gift in conversation. She had found him entertaining and 
 had let him see it. Thenceforth, light-hearted hero that 
 he was, he had determined to bring his gay life to an 
 appropriate close, by possessing this young woman, whom 
 he admired more than any one, and who obviously liked 
 him. To entrap her he laid all a rake's most ingenious toils. 
 But she escaped from them very easily. 
 
 Two years later she had become the mistress of Robert 
 Le Menil, who, with all the ardour of his youth and all 
 the simplicity of his heart had resolved to win her. "I 
 gave myself to him because he loved me," she told her- 
 self. It was true. It was also true that an unconscious, 
 powerful instinct had impelled her, and that she had obeyed 
 secret forces of her nature. But these proceeded from her 
 subconscious self; what she had consciously done was to 
 accept his love, because she believed it to be informed by 
 that sincerity she had always sought. She had yielded 
 directly she found herself loved to the point of suffering. 
 She had given herself quickly, simply. He thought she had 
 given herself lightly. He was mistaken. The irreparable 
 act had brought on a feeling of overwhelming dejection and 
 shame at suddenly having something to hide. All the whis- 
 perings she had heard about women who had lovers were 
 buzzing in her burning ears. But, proud and sensitive, 
 and with perfect taste, she was careful to hide the cost 
 of the gift she bestowed and to say nothing which might 
 engage her lover to go further than his own feelings would 
 carry him. He never suspected that moral suffering, which 
 after all only lasted a few days and was succeeded by 
 perfect tranquillity. After three years she approved of her 
 conduct as having been innocent and natural. Having done 
 no one any wrong, she had no regrets. She was content. 
 This relationship was her greatest happiness. She loved, 
 she was loved. True she had never experienced the rap- 
 ture she had dreamed of. But is it ever experienced? She 
 was the mistress of a good honourable bachelor, who was 
 much liked by women and popular in society, where he 
 was considered haughty and fastidious; and he loved her 
 sincerely. The pleasure she gave him and the joy of being
 
 THE RED LILY 23 
 
 beautiful for him were the bonds which bound her to him. 
 He rendered her life, not always rapturously delightful, but 
 tolerable and sometimes pleasant. 
 
 What she had not guessed in her solitude in spite of the 
 warning of vague misgivings and unaccountable sadness, 
 her own inner nature, her temperament, her true vocation, 
 he had revealed to her. She learned to know herself by 
 knowing him. And her self knowledge brought her some 
 pleasant astonishment. Their sympathies were neither of 
 the head nor of the heart. She had a simple definite liking 
 for him, which did not wear out quickly. And at that very 
 moment she took pleasure in the thought of meeting him 
 on the morrow, in the little flat in the Rue Spontini which 
 had been their rendezvous for three years. It was with 
 rather a brusque movement of her head and a more violent 
 shrug of the shoulders than one would have expected from 
 so exquisite a lady, that, alone in the chimney-corner, by 9 
 dead fire, she said to herself: "Ahl what I want is to b* 
 n Jove."
 
 n 
 
 NIGHT had already fallen when they came out of the little 
 entresol in the Rue Spontini. Robert Le Menil hailed 
 a passing cab, and looking anxiously at the man and his 
 horse, entered the carriage with Therese. Qose side by 
 side, they drove among the vague shadows relieved by sud- 
 den lights, through the phantom town; in their hearts there 
 were only sweet impressions now vanishing as rapidly as 
 the fleeting lights shining through the blurred carriage win- 
 dows. Everything outside appeared to them confused and 
 fleeting, and in their hearts there was a sweet calm. The 
 cab stopped near the Pont Neuf, on the Quai des Augustins. 
 
 They got out. A dry cold invigorated the dull Janu- 
 ary day. Therese under her veil breathed with delight the 
 gusts of wind, which, crossing the river, swept the dust, 
 as bitter and white as salt, along the hard ground. It 
 pleased her to walk freely among strange sights. She loved 
 to gaze upon that landscape of stone enveloped in the dim 
 light of the atmosphere, to walk briskly along the quay 
 where the black gauze-like branches of the trees stood out 
 against the horizon reddened by the smoke of the town. 
 It delighted her, leaning over the parapet, to watch the 
 narrow arm of the Seine bearing its tragic waters, and to 
 drink in the sadness of the river between its low banks, 
 devoid of willows or beeches. Already the first stars were 
 twinkling high up in the sky. 
 
 "It looks as if the wind would put them out," she said. 
 
 He remarked that they were scintillating brilliantly. He 
 did not consider it a sign of rain, as the peasants believe. 
 On the contrary, he had observed that nine times out of 
 ten the scintillation of the stars announced fine weather. 
 
 Near the Petit Pont on their right (lit by smoky lamps) 
 were booths where old iron was sold. She gazed eagerly 
 among the dust and rust of the wares displayed. The in- 
 stinct of the curiosity-monger had been aroused in her; she 
 turned the street corner and ventured as far as a lean-to 
 
 24
 
 THE RED LILY 25 
 
 in which some dark coloured rags were hanging from the 
 damp beams of the ceiling. Behind the dirty windows, 
 by the light of a candle, were to be seen saucepans, porce- 
 lain vases, a clarionette, and a bridal wreath. 
 
 He could not understand the pleasure she took in looking 
 at these things. 
 
 "You will be covered with vermin. What can interest 
 you there?" 
 
 "Everything. I am thinking of that poor bride whose 
 wreath lies under the glass shade. The wedding break- 
 fast was at Porte Maillot. There was a garde republicain 
 in the procession. There nearly always is in the wedding- 
 parties one sees in the Bois, on Saturdays. Don't they ap- 
 peal to you, my friend, all these poor miserable trifles which 
 in their turn are sharing the greatness of the past?" 
 
 Among the odd chipped cups with flowered patterns, she 
 discovered a little knife with an ivory handle carved to 
 represent a long thin woman with her hair dressed a la 
 Maintenon. She bought it for a few pence. She was de- 
 lighted because she possessed the fork to match. Le Menil 
 confessed that he did not understand curios. But his aunt 
 de Lannoix was quite a connoisseur. She was the talk of 
 all the dealers of Caen. She had restored and furnished 
 her chateau in the old style. It had once been the country 
 house of Jean le Menil, councillor in the Rouen Parliament 
 in 1779. This house, which existed before his time, was de- 
 scribed in a document of 1690, as a hunting-lodge. In a 
 room on the ground floor, at the back of white cupboards, 
 protected by wire net-work, had been found books collected 
 by Jean le Menil. His aunt de Lannoix, he said, had wanted 
 to arrange them, but she had discovered among them such 
 frivolous works, with such indecent engravings, that she 
 had had to burn them. 
 
 "How stupid your aunt must be! " said Therese. 
 
 She had long been bored by stories about Madame de 
 Lannoix. In the provinces her lover had a mother, sisters, 
 aunts, a large family, whom she did not know and who irri- 
 tated her. He used to talk of them admiringly, and it an- 
 noyed her. She grew impatient of his frequent visits to his 
 family, from whom he returned, with a musty air, narrow
 
 26 THE RED LILY 
 
 ideas, and sentiments that wounded her. He on his side was 
 naively astonished and hurt by this antipathy. 
 
 He was silent. The sight of a tavern with windows all 
 aglow through the railings, suddenly reminded him of the 
 poet Choulette, who was considered a drunkard. With 
 some irritation he asked Therese if she still saw Choulette, 
 who used to visit her wrapped in a plaid with a red com- 
 forter over his ears. 
 
 She was vexed at his speaking of the poet in the manner 
 of General Lariviere. She avoided confessing that she had 
 not seen him since the autumn and that he neglected her 
 with the indifference of a busy man who did not belong to 
 her circle. 
 
 "I like him," she said. "He is witty, imaginative, and 
 original." 
 
 And when he reproached her with a taste for the eccentric, 
 she retorted sharply: 
 
 "I have not a taste; I have many tastes. Surely you 
 don't condemn them all." 
 
 He did not condemn anything. He merely feared lest 
 she should put herself in a false position by receiving a 
 Bohemian of fifty who was out of place in any respectable 
 house. 
 
 She objected: 
 
 "Choulette out of place in a respectable house? You 
 don't know then that every year he spends a month at the 
 Marchioness of Rieu's . . . yes, the Marchioness of Rieu, 
 a Catholic, a Royalist, an old chouane as she calls herself. 
 But since you are interested in Choulette, I will tell you of 
 his latest adventure. You shall hear it just as Paul Vence 
 told it me. I understand it better in this street, where 
 there are bodices and flower-pots in the windows. 
 
 "This winter, one evening when it was raining, at a spirit- 
 bar in a street, the name of which I have forgotten, but 
 which must have been as poor as this one, Choulette met a 
 wretched girl, whom the waiters at the bar had turned 
 away, but whom he in his humility loved. She was called 
 Maria. But even this name was not her own; she had found 
 it on the door plate at the top of the staircase of a fur- 
 nished house where she lodged. Choulette was touched by
 
 THE RED LILY 27 
 
 the depth of her poverty and her shame. He called her his 
 sister and kissed her hand. Since then he has never left 
 her. He takes her bare-headed with a shawl over her 
 shoulders to the cafes in the Latin quarter, where rich 
 students are reading reviews. He says sweet things to her. 
 He weeps; she weeps. They drink; and, when they have 
 drunk, they fight. He loves her. He calls her very chaste. 
 He says she is his cross, his salvation. She was bare- 
 footed; he has given her a skein of coarse wool and knit- 
 ting needles to knit herself some stockings. And he himself 
 mends the poor girl's shoes with huge nails. He teaches 
 her easy verses. He fears to spoil her moral beauty by tak- 
 ing her from the shame in which she lives in perfect sim- 
 plicity and admirable destitution." 
 
 Le Menil shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "But this Choulette must be mad; and these are pretty 
 stories that M. Paul Vence tells you! I am certainly not 
 strict; but there is a kind of immorality which disgusts me." 
 
 They were paying no heed to where they were going. 
 She became absorbed in her reflections: 
 
 "Yes, morality, duty, I know! But how hard to discover 
 what is duty. I assure you that for three-quarters of my 
 time I do not know where duty lies. It is like the hedge- 
 hog that belonged to our English governess at Joinville: we 
 used to spend the whole evening looking for it under the 
 furniture; and when we had found it it was time to go to 
 bed." 
 
 He thought there was a great deal of truth in what she 
 said, more perhaps than she imagined. He often reflected 
 on it when he was alone. 
 
 "So keenly do I realise it that sometimes I regret not 
 having remained in the army. I foresee what you are going 
 to say. One vegetates in that profession. Doubtless, but 
 one knows exactly what one has to do, and that is much. 
 It seems to me that the life led by my uncle, General de La 
 Briche, is a fine life, honourable and quite pleasant. But 
 now that the whole nation is merged in the army, there are 
 neither officers nor soldiers. It is like a railway station on 
 Sunday when officials are pushing bewildered travellers into 
 their carriages. My uncle de La Briche knew personally all
 
 28 THE RED LILY 
 
 the officers and all the private soldiers of his brigade. He 
 still has their names on a great board in his dining-room. 
 From time to time it amuses him to read them over. Now- 
 adays how would it be possible for an officer to know his 
 men?" 
 
 She had stopped listening to him. She was looking at a 
 corner of the Rue Galande, where there was a woman selling 
 fried potatoes. Nestling behind a pane of glass, her face 
 surrounded by shadow, lit up by the glowing fire, she was 
 plunging her ladle into the frizzling fry, and bringing up 
 golden crescents with which she filled a screw of common 
 yellow paper. Meanwhile an auburn-haired girl, watching 
 her attentively, was holding out a penny in her red hand. 
 When the girl had carried off her packet, Therese grew 
 envious and realised that she was hungry; she insisted on 
 tasting some of the fried potatoes. At first he objected. 
 
 "You don't know what they are fried with." 
 
 But in the end he must needs ask the woman for a penny 
 packet and see that she put some salt in it. 
 
 While she was eating the yellow crescents with her veil 
 turned back, he took her into side streets, away from the 
 gas lamps. Thus they found themselves back again on the 
 quay, and saw the black mass of the cathedral rising be- 
 yond the narrow arm of the river. The moon high up over 
 the serrated ridge of the nave, shed a silver light over the 
 slope of the roof. 
 
 "Notre Dame," she said. "Look, it is as heavy as an 
 elephant and as finely made as an insect. The moon climbs 
 up it, looking at it with the malice of an ape. She is not 
 like the country moon at Joinville. At Joinville, I have 
 my own path, a level path, with the moon at the end. She 
 is not there every evening; but she returns faithfully, full, 
 red, and familiar. She is a country neighbour, a lady of the 
 district. Politely and with a friendly feeling I go gravely 
 to meet her ; but this Paris moon I should not wish to visit. 
 She could hardly mix in good society. Think what she must 
 have seen during all the time she has been shining on the 
 roofs!" 
 
 He smiled a tender smile. "Ah! Your little path down 
 which you used to walk alone and which you said you loved
 
 THE RED LILY 29 
 
 because the sky was at the end, not very high and not very 
 far above you, I see it now as if I were there!" 
 
 It was at the chateau of Joinville, where he had been in- 
 vited to hunt by Montessuy, that he had first seen her, and 
 had immediately loved and desired her. It was there one 
 evening, on the border of the little wood, that he had told 
 her he loved her and that she had listened to him in silence, 
 with a sad smile and wondering eyes. 
 
 The memory of that little path, where she used to walk 
 alone on those autumn nights, touched and agitated him ; it 
 brought back the enchanted hours of early desires and fear- 
 ful hopes. He sought her hand in her muff, and pressed 
 her slight wrist under the fur. 
 
 A little girl with violets on a piece of flat basket-work, 
 strewn with pine branches, saw they were lovers, and of- 
 fered them her flowers. He bought a bunch for a penny 
 and gave them to Therese. 
 
 She was walking towards the cathedral and thinking: "It 
 is like some gigantic beast, a beast out of the Apocalypse." 
 
 At the other end of the bridge, another flower-seller, this 
 one wrinkled, bearded, grey and grimy, pursued them with 
 her basket of mimosa and Nice roses. Therese, who was at 
 that moment holding her violets in her hand, trying to 
 fasten them in her coat, replied gaily to the old woman's 
 pleading : 
 
 "Thank you, I have all I want." 
 
 "It is easy to see you are young," the old woman said 
 gruffly as she turned away. 
 
 Therese understood almost at once and half smiled. They 
 passed into the shadow cast by the cathedral, in front of 
 the crowned and sceptred stone figures in the niches. 
 
 "Let us go in," she said. 
 
 He did not wish to. In entering a church with her he 
 felt vaguely constrained, almost fearful. He said it was 
 closed. He thought it was, and he hoped so. She pushed 
 open the door and slipped into the immense nave, where 
 the lifeless trees of columns rose into the darkness above. 
 At the end candles were moving before phantom priests and 
 the last groans of the organ were dying away in the dis- 
 tance. She shuddered in the silence, and said:
 
 30 THE RED LILY 
 
 "The sadness of churches at night always moves me; it 
 makes me feel the impressive mystery of annihilation." 
 
 He replied: 
 
 "But we ought to believe in something. It would be too 
 sad if there were no God. if our souls were not immortal." 
 
 For a time she remained still beneath the great curtains 
 of shadow which hung from the vault, then she said: 
 
 "My poor friend, we don't know what to do with this 
 short life, and do you want another which shall be eternal!" 
 
 In the carriage which took them home, he said gaily that 
 he had enjoyed his day. He kissed her, pleased with her 
 and with himself. But she did not share his good humour. 
 That was what generally happened between them. The last 
 moments they passed together were always spoilt for her by 
 the foreboding that he would not say the right word when 
 they parted. Usually he left her abruptly as if for him 
 everything was over. At each of these separations she had 
 a vague feeling that it was a final parting. She suffered in 
 anticipation and became irritable. 
 
 Under the trees of the Cours-la-Reine, he took her hand 
 and kissed it repeatedly. 
 
 'It is rare to love as we love, isn't it, Therese?" 
 
 'Rare, I don't know; but I believe that you love me." 
 
 'And you?" 
 
 'Yes, I love you." 
 
 'And you will always love me?" 
 
 'How can one know?" 
 
 And, seeing a cloud come over her lover's face: 
 
 "Would you be happier with a woman who would swear 
 to love none but you all her life?" 
 
 He remained anxious and looked sad. She was consider- 
 ate, and completely reassured him. 
 
 "You know, my friend, I am not a light woman. I am 
 serious, not like Princess Seniavine." 
 
 Almost at the end of the Cours-la-Reine, they said good- 
 bye under the trees. He kept the carriage to take him to 
 the Rue Royale. He was dining at his club and going to 
 the theatre. He had no time to lose. 
 
 Therese went home on foot. When she was in sight of
 
 THE RED LILY 31 
 
 the hill on which the Trocadero stands glistening like a set 
 of diamonds, she recalled the flower-seller on the Petit- 
 Font: "One can see that you are young"; those words, 
 cast upon the wind and the darkness, came back to her no 
 longer as a rude jest but with an accent of sad foreboding. 
 Yes, she was young, she was loved, and she was discon- 
 tented.
 
 m 
 
 JN the middle of the table was a centre-piece of flowers 
 in a basket of gilded bronze. On the basket's edge, 
 among stars and bees eagles spread their wings, beneath 
 heavy handles formed by horns of plenty. On each side of 
 the basket winged victories supported the flaming branches 
 of the candelabra. This Empire epergne Napoleon had in 
 1812 presented to Count Martin de 1'Aisne, grandfather of 
 the present Count Martin-Belleme. Martin de 1'Aisne, 
 deputy in the Corps Legislatif of 1809, was nominated the 
 following year member of the commission of finance, for 
 which secret and laborious task his industrious, cautious 
 nature was well fitted. Although liberal by birth and in- 
 clination, he pleased the Emperor by his diligence and hon- 
 esty, exact but not importunate. For two years favours 
 rained upon him. In 1813, he was a member of that mod- 
 erate majority in favour of the report in which M. Laine, 
 when it was too late, taught the tottering Empire a lesson 
 and censured at once power and misfortune. On January 
 i, 1814, he accompanied his colleagues to the Tuileries. 
 They had a terrible reception. The Emperor met them with 
 a volley of abuse. Violent and melancholy, in all the horror 
 of his actual power and his imminent ruin, he overwhelmed 
 them with wrath and scorn. 
 
 Walking up and down among his terrified ministers, as if 
 without thinking, he seized Count Martin by the shoulders, 
 shook him and dragged him across the floor, crying: "A 
 throne, what is a throne? Is it four pieces of wood covered 
 with velvet? No! A throne is a man, and that man is I! 
 You wanted to throw mud at me. Is this the moment to 
 remonstrate with me when two hundred thousand Cossacks 
 are crossing the frontiers? Your M. Laine is a malicious 
 person. One does not wash one's dirty linen in public." 
 And while his wrath was thus finding expression in ut- 
 terances sublime or commonplace, he was wringing in his
 
 THE RED LILY 33 
 
 hand the embroidered collar of the deputy for the depart- 
 ment of Aisne. "The people know me. They do not know 
 you. I am the chosen of the nation. You are the obscure 
 delegates of a department." He prophesied that theirs 
 would be the fate of the Girondins. Amidst the loud out- 
 bursts of his voice there sounded the clinking of his spurs. 
 Count Martin trembled and stammered for the rest of his 
 life. Hidden in his house at Laon, it was with trembling 
 that he called in the Bourbons after the Emperor's defeat. 
 It was in vain that two Restorations, the Government of 
 July, and the Second Empire covered his palpitating breast 
 with ribbons and crosses. Raised to the highest offices, 
 loaded with honours by three kings and an emperor, he still 
 felt the hand of the Corsican upon his shoulder. He died a 
 senator under Napoleon III, leaving a son afflicted with 
 the hereditary trembling. 
 
 This son had married Mademoiselle Belleme, daughter 
 of the First President of the Court of Bourges; and with 
 her he had espoused the political glory of a family which 
 had provided the limited monarchy with three ministers. 
 The traditions of the Bellemes, who had been lawyers under 
 Louis XV, corrected the Jacobin past of the Martins. The 
 second Count Martin sat in every assembly until his death 
 in 1 88 1. Charles Martin-Belleme, his son, had no difficulty 
 in getting elected to the Chamber. Having married Made- 
 moiselle Therese Montessuy, whose dowry provided him 
 with the means of pushing his political fortunes, he dis- 
 creetly took his place among those four or five titled and 
 rich bourgeois, who, having rallied to the democracy and 
 the Republic, were received with no ill grace by noted re- 
 publicans, flattered by their aristocratic names and reas- 
 sured by the mediocrity of their wits. 
 
 In the dining-room, where, above the doors, in the 
 shadow, one now and then caught a glimpse of the spotted 
 coats of the Oudry dogs, opposite the epergne with its gilded 
 bees and stars, between the Victory candelabra, Count Mar- 
 tin-Belleme was doing the honours of his table with a some- 
 what dejected grace, a melancholy politeness, formerly indi- 
 cated at the Elysee to represent for the benefit of a northern 
 court the isolation and reserve of France. From time to
 
 34 THE RED LILY 
 
 time he was addressing insipid remarks on the right to Ma- 
 dame Garain, the wife of the former Keeper of the Seals, 
 and on the left to Princess Seniavine, who, loaded with 
 diamonds, was being bored to death. Opposite him, on the 
 other side of the epergne, Countess Martin, supported on 
 the one hand by General Lariviere, and on the other by M. 
 Schmoll of the Academy of Inscriptions, was languidly fan- 
 ning her delicately moulded shoulders. On the two sides 
 of the table were M. Montessuy, robust with blue eyes and 
 a high colour, a young cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint- 
 Norn, who did not know what to do with her long thin arms, 
 the painter Duvicquet, M. Daniel Salomon, Paul Vence, 
 Deputy Garain, M. Belleme de Saint-Nom, an obscure 
 senator, and Dechartre, who was dining at the house for 
 the first time. The conversation at first was thin and slight ; 
 but it gradually grew more vivacious, until it became one 
 confused murmur, dominated by the voice of Garain. 
 
 "Every false idea is dangerous. Dreamers are thought to 
 be harmless; it is a mistake; they do a great deal of harm. 
 Utopias, apparently the most inoffensive are really injurious. 
 They tend to make one disgusted with reality." 
 
 "But," said Paul Vence, "perhaps reality is not so per- 
 fect, after all." 
 
 The Keeper of the Seals protested that he was in favour 
 of every possible reform. And, without recalling that under 
 the Empire he had demanded the abolition of a standing 
 army, and, in 1880, the separation of Church and State, he 
 declared that, faithful to his programme, he remained the 
 devoted servant of the democracy. His motto, he said, was 
 "Order and Progress." And he really believed that he was 
 the first to use it. 
 
 Montessuy retorted with his rough good-nature: 
 
 "Come, Monsieur Garain, now be sincere, and confess 
 that there is not a reform left to accomplish, and that the 
 most one could do would be to change the colour of the 
 postage-stamps. Good or bad, things are as they must be. 
 Yes," he added, "they are as they must be. But they are 
 always changing. Since 1870, the industrial and financial 
 condition of the country has passed through four or five 
 revolutions which economists had not foreseen and which
 
 THE RED LILY 35 
 
 they don't yet understand. In society, as in nature, changes 
 proceed from within." 
 
 In politics he believed in views which were short and 
 clear. Strongly attached to the present and caring little for 
 the future, Socialists did not much trouble him. Without 
 considering whether the sun and capital would endure for 
 ever, he enjoyed them for the time being. In his opinion one 
 must let oneself drift. Only idiots resisted the current, only 
 madmen anticipated it. 
 
 But Count Martin, who was naturally melancholy, had 
 gloomy presentiments. In veiled words he indicated the 
 approach of catastrophe. 
 
 His ominous talk reached Monsieur Schmoll across the 
 flowers of the centre-piece and moved him; he began to 
 groan and prophesy. He explained that Christendom was 
 of itself incapable of rising from barbarism, and that if it 
 had not been for Jews and Arabs, Europe would be to-day 
 what she was in the time of the Crusades, enveloped in 
 ignorance, wretchedness, and cruelty. 
 
 "It is only in those historical manuals given to children 
 in our schools to pervert their minds that the Middle Ages 
 have passed away. In reality barbarians are always bar- 
 barians. Israel's mission is to instruct the nations. It was 
 Israel, who in the Middle Ages, introduced into Europe the 
 wisdom of Asia. Socialism alarms you. It is a Christian 
 evil just like monasticism. And anarchy? Don't you see 
 that it is the old Albigensian and Vaudois leprosy? The 
 Jews, who educated and civilised Europe, can alone to-day 
 save her from that mischievous propaganda which is prey- 
 ing upon her. But the Jews have failed to do their duty. 
 They have become Christians among Christians. And God 
 is punishing them. He is permitting them to be plundered 
 and driven into exile. Everywhere anti-semitism is mak- 
 ing alarming progress. In Russia my co-religionists are 
 being hunted like wild beasts. In France civil and military 
 offices are closed against the Jews. They are no longer 
 admitted into aristocratic circles. After having brilliantly 
 passed his examinations, my young nephew, Isaac Coblentz, 
 was forced to renounce a diplomatic career. When Ma- 
 dame Schmoll calls upon the wives of certain of my col-
 
 36 THE RED LILY 
 
 leagues they ostentatiously open anti-semite periodicals 
 under her very nose. And would you believe that the Min- 
 ister of Education refused me the cross of the Legion of 
 Honour for which I asked him? There's ingratitude! 
 There's madness! Anti-semitism, you must understand, 
 means death to European civilisation." 
 
 There was a naturalness in this little man which surpassed 
 the highest art. Grotesque and terrible, his sincerity over- 
 whelmed every one. Madame Martin, who found him en- 
 tertaining, congratulated him on it. 
 
 "At least," she said, "you defend your fellow-believers; 
 you, Monsieur Schmoll, are not like a beautiful Jewess I 
 know, who, having read in a newspaper that she was in the 
 habit of receiving the elite of Israelitish society, went about 
 complaining that she had been insulted." 
 
 "I am sure, Madame, that you are unaware of the ex- 
 cellence of Jewish ethics and of their superiority to all 
 other ethical systems. Do you know the parable of the 
 Three Rings?" 
 
 This question was lost in the noise of the various dia- 
 logues, discussions on foreign politics, exhibitions of pic- 
 tures, fashionable scandals, and academical speeches. The 
 last novel was discussed as well as a new play about to be 
 acted. It was a comedy with an episode in which Napoleon 
 figured. 
 
 The conversation centred round Napoleon. He had 
 been frequently represented on the stage. He had been 
 lately studied in works widely read, where he appears as an 
 object of curiosity, a popular character, no longer the peo- 
 ple's hero, the military demi-god of the fatherland, as in 
 the days when Norvins and Beranger, Charlet and Raffet, 
 invented his legend. Now he was regarded as a remarkable 
 personage, a type entertaining in every one of its most 
 intimate details, just the figure to please artists and to in- 
 terest the idly curious. 
 
 Garain, who had built up his fortune on hatred of the 
 Empire, sincerely believed this reaction in national taste to 
 be nothing but an absurd infatuation. He did not consider 
 it dangerous and was not alarmed by it. He was one of 
 those in whom fear breaks out suddenly and violently. For
 
 THE RED LILY 3," 
 
 the moment, his mind was at rest; for he did not talk of 
 forbidding the representations of plays, nor of seizing 
 books, nor of imprisoning authors, nor of suppressing any- 
 thing. Calm and severe, he regarded Napoleon merely at 
 Taine's condottiere who kicked Volney in the stomach. 
 
 Every one had his own definition of the true Napoleon. 
 Count Martin, opposite the imperial epergne and the winged 
 Victories, appropriately described Napoleon as organiser 
 and administrator, ranking him high as President of the 
 Council of State, where his words shed light on many points 
 hitherto obscure. 
 
 Garain asserted that during those unjustly famous coun- 
 cil meetings, Napoleon, saying that he wanted some snuff, 
 would ask the councillors for their gold boxes painted with 
 miniatures and adorned with diamonds, which they never 
 saw again. They ended by never bringing any but leather 
 snuff-boxes to the Council. Mounier's son had told him the 
 story himself. 
 
 What Montessuy admired in Napoleon was his orderly 
 mind. 
 
 He had a liking for efficiency, Montessuy said, a taste 
 which has almost died out. 
 
 The painter Duvicquet, who had a painter's ideas, was 
 puzzled. On the funeral mask brought from Saint-Helena 
 he failed to find the features of that handsome powerful 
 face reproduced in medals and busts. Any one might ob- 
 serve the discrepancy now that the bronze reproductions 
 of the mask no longer stored away in attics were to be 
 seen in all the dealers' shops, surrounded by eagles and 
 sphinxes of gilded wood. And in his opinion since Na- 
 poleon's real force was not Napoleonic, Napoleon's real soul 
 might well not be Napoleonic either. Perhaps it was the 
 soul of a good bourgeois; some one had said so, and he 
 was inclined to believe it. Besides, Duvicquet, who prided 
 himself on having painted the century's portraits, knew that 
 famous men are quite different from the popular estimate of 
 them. 
 
 M. Daniel Salomon observed that the mask of which 
 Duvicquet had spoken, the cast taken from the Emperor's 
 countenance after death, and brought to Europe by Dr.
 
 38 THE RED LILY 
 
 Antommarchi, was first produced in bronze and exposed to 
 public view under Louis-Philippe, in 1833, and had then 
 occasioned surprise and incredulity. This Italian, a quack 
 apothecary, a chatterer eager for fame, was suspected of 
 having hoaxed the public. The followers of Dr. Gall, whose 
 system was then in favour, doubted whether the mask were 
 genuine. They could not find that it had the protuberances 
 which indicate genius, and the forehead, examined accord- 
 ing to the master's theories, presented no extraordinary for- 
 mation. 
 
 "Exactly," said Princess Seniavine; "all that is remark- 
 able about Napoleon is his having kicked Volney in the 
 stomach and stolen snuff-boxes set with diamonds. M. 
 Garain has just told us so." 
 
 "And are we quite sure," said Madame Martin, "that 
 he was really guilty of that kick?" 
 
 "After all, everything is dubious," retorted the Princess 
 gaily. "Napoleon did nothing; he did not even kick Vol- 
 ney, and he had the head of an idiot." 
 
 General Lariviere felt it incumbent upon him to fire his 
 shot. And this was what he said: 
 
 "Napoleon's campaign of 1813 has given rise to much 
 criticism." 
 
 The General's one idea was to please Garain. Neverthe- 
 less he made an effort and formulated a comprehensive 
 opinion : 
 
 "Napoleon made mistakes; and in his position he ought 
 not to have made any." 
 
 And, very red in the face, he stopped abruptly. 
 
 Madame Martin asked: 
 
 "And you, Monsieur Vence, what do you think of Na- 
 poleon?" 
 
 "Madame, these bloated soldiers are not to my taste; and 
 frankly, conquerors always seem to me to be dangerous 
 lunatics. Nevertheless, the Emperor interests me as he in- 
 terests the public. He has character and vitality. No 
 poem or novel of adventure is equal to the Memorial, writ- 
 ten however in an absurd style. What I really think of Na- 
 poleon, if you wish to know, if, that, having been created 
 for glory, he appears in all the brilliant simplicity of
 
 THE RED LILY 39 
 
 an epic hero. A hero must be human. Napoleon was 
 human." 
 
 These remarks were greeted with loud exclamations. 
 But Paul Vence continued: 
 
 "He was violent and frivolous, and thus profoundly hu- 
 man. By that I mean, like other people. He aspired to 
 enjoy unlimited power, which is what the ordinary man 
 esteems and desires. He himself was possessed by the illu- 
 sions with which he inspired the people. They consti- 
 tuted his strength and his weakness, and were his chief 
 adornment. He believed in glory. Concerning life and 
 society he held about the same opinions as one of his 
 grenadiers. He never lost that childish seriousness which 
 takes a delight in sword-play and the beating of drums, and 
 that kind of innocence which makes good soldiers. He had 
 a sincere respect for force. He was a man among men, 
 flesh of their flesh. He never had a single thought that did 
 not express itself in action; and all his actions were gran- 
 diose and yet ordinary. Heroes are the product of this 
 vulgar greatness. And Napoleon is the perfect hero. His 
 brain never travelled more quickly than his hand, that 
 beautiful little hand which ground the world. He never 
 for a single moment cared about anything he could not 
 realise." 
 
 "Then you do not consider him an intellectual genius," 
 said Garain. "I agree with you." 
 
 "Certainly," resumed Paul Vence, "he had the genius 
 necessary to cut a brilliant figure in the civil and military 
 arena of the world. But he had no speculative genius. 
 That genius is 'quite another pair of cuffs,' as Buffon used 
 to say. We possess the collection of his writings and his 
 speeches. His style is vivacious and graphic. And in this 
 mass of ideas there is not a hint of any philosophical curi- 
 osity, of any interest in the unknowable, of any preoccupa- 
 tion with the mystery of destiny. When, at Saint-Helena, 
 he talks of God or the soul, he seems like a good little school- 
 boy of fourteen. His soul cast into the world found itself 
 proportioned to the world and embraced everything. Not 
 a particle of this soul was ever lost in the infinite. A poet, 
 he knew no poetry but that of action. His great dream of
 
 40 THE RED LILY 
 
 life was earth-bound. In his terrible and pathetic puerility 
 he believed that man may be great; and time and misfortune 
 never robbed him of that illusion. His youth, or rather his 
 sublime adolescence, endured to the end, because all the 
 days of his life were powerless to form in him a conscious 
 maturity. Such is the abnormal condition of all men of 
 action. They live entirely for the moment, and their genius 
 is concentrated on one single point. They are constantly 
 renewed, but they do not grow. The hours of their lives are 
 not bound one to another by a chain of grave disinterested 
 reflection. They do not develop; one condition merely suc- 
 ceeds another in a series of deeds. Thus they have no 
 inner life. This absence of any inner life is particularly 
 noticeable in Napoleon. Hence that lightness of heart which 
 enabled him to bear easily the weight of his misfortunes 
 and mistakes. His soul, ever new, was born again every 
 morning. He possessed to the highest degree a capacity for 
 self-amusement. The first time he saw the sun rise over his 
 gloomy rock of Saint-Helena he leapt from bed, whistling 
 the air of a song. His was the repose of a mind superior to 
 fortune, and above all things the lightness of a mind ever 
 apt for renewal. He lived outside himself." 
 
 Garain, to whom such an ingenious turn of thought and 
 speech appealed little, wished to bring the discussion to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 "In a word," he said, "the man had something of the 
 monster in him." 
 
 "Monsters do not exist," replied Paul Vence. "And men 
 who are said to be monsters inspire horror. Napoleon was 
 loved by a whole nation. His power lay in kindling love 
 in men's hearts wherever he passed. It was his soldiers' 
 joy to give up their lives for him." 
 
 Countess Martin would like Dechartre to have given his 
 opinion. But he seemed afraid to speak. 
 
 Schmoll was still asking whether any one knew the par- 
 able of the Three Rings, the sublime inspiration of a Portu- 
 guese Jew. 
 
 Garain, while congratulating Paul Vence on his brilliant 
 paradox, regretted that intellect should thus be brought into 
 olay at the expense of morals and justice.
 
 THti RED LILY 41 
 
 "There is one incontrovertible principle," he said: "men 
 must be judged according to their actions." 
 
 "And what about women?" asked Princess Seniavine 
 brusquely; "do you judge them according to their actions? 
 And how do you know what they do?" 
 
 The sound of voices was mingled with the clear, bell-like 
 ring of the plate. The atmosphere of the room became 
 heated and loaded with vapour. Drooping roses shed their 
 leaves on the table-cloth. In the minds of those assembled 
 there ideas multiplied: 
 
 General Lariviere indulged in dreams of the future. 
 
 "When they have done for me," he said to his neighbour, 
 "I will go and live at Tours, and grow flowers." 
 
 And he boasted of being a good gardener. A rose had 
 been named after him. He was proud of it. 
 
 Schmoll was still asking if any one knew the parable of 
 the Three Rings. 
 
 Meanwhile the Princess was teasing the deputy. 
 
 "Don't you know, Monsieur Garain, that people do iden- 
 tical things for very different reasons?" 
 
 Montessuy said she was quite right. 
 
 "It is true, Madame, as you say, that actions prove noth- 
 ing. This idea strikes one in an episode in the life of Don 
 Juan. Neither Moliere nor Mozart was aware of it; but 
 it is related in an English legend, told me by my friend, 
 James Lovell, of London. It relates how the great seducer 
 wasted his time with three women: one was a bourgeoise 
 who loved her husband; another a nun who refused to vio- 
 late her vows; the third, who had long lived a life of de- 
 bauchery, having become ugly, was servant in a low lodging- 
 house; after the life she had lived, and after what she had 
 seen, love was nothing to her. The conduct of these three 
 women was the same, but for very different reasons. One 
 action proves nothing. It is the mass of actions, their 
 weight, their sum, that constitutes the value of a human 
 being." 
 
 "Certain of our actions," said Madame Martin, "resem- 
 ble us; they are like us. Others do not resemble us 
 at all." 
 
 She rose and took the General's arm.
 
 42 THE RED LILY 
 
 As Garain was taking her into the drawing-room, the 
 Princess said: 
 
 "Therese is right. . . . Some of our actions do not re- 
 semble us at all. They are little negresses conceived in our 
 sleep." 
 
 The tapestry nymphs in their faded beauty smiled down 
 on the guests who heedlessly passed them by. 
 
 Madame Martin poured out the coffee, assisted by her 
 young cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom. She com- 
 plimented Paul Vence on what he had said at dinner. 
 
 "You spoke of Napoleon with a freedom which is very 
 rare among us. I have often noticed how pretty children 
 when they are sulking resemble Napoleon on the evening 
 of Waterloo. And you brought home to me the cause of 
 that resemblance." 
 
 Then, turning to Dechartre: 
 
 "Do you like Napoleon?" 
 
 "Madame, I do not like the Revolution. And Napoleon 
 is the Revolution in full military dress." 
 
 "Why didn't you say that at dinner, Monsieur Dechartre? 
 But I see you refuse to display your wit except in tete-a- 
 tete." 
 
 Count Martin-Belleme took the men to the smoking- 
 room. Paul Vence alone remained with the ladies. Princess 
 Seniavine asked him if he had finished his novel and what 
 it was about. It was a study, an attempt to arrive at truth 
 by means of a logical sequence of appearances which become 
 cumulative evidence. 
 
 "By such a method," he said, "the novel acquires a moral 
 power which the dull details of history can never pos- 
 sess." 
 
 She asked if it would be a book for women to read. He 
 replied that it would not. 
 
 "You make a mistake, Monsieur Vence, in not writing 
 for women. It is the only thing that a superior man can do 
 for them." 
 
 And when he wanted to know how she came by that idea: 
 
 "Because," she said, "I notice that intelligent women al- 
 ways marry fools." 
 
 "Who bore them."
 
 THE RED LILY 43 
 
 "Certainly! But superior men would bore them still 
 more." 
 
 "They would have greater chances of succeeding." 
 
 "But tell me the story of your novel." 
 
 "You insist." 
 
 "I never insist." 
 
 "Well! Here it is. It is a story of manners among the 
 lower classes. The hero is a young artisan, serious and 
 chaste, as beautiful as a girl, with a soul innocent and re- 
 served. He is an engraver and does good work. In the 
 evenings he studies at home with his mother, to whom he is 
 devoted. He reads books. In his simple unfurnished mind 
 ideas fix themselves as tightly as shots fired into a wall. He 
 has few wants. He has neither the passions nor the vices 
 which bind most of us to life. He is solitary and pure. 
 Endowed with strong virtues, he becomes proud of them. 
 He lives among miserable wretches. He sees them suffer. 
 He is kind, although he is not human; he possesses that 
 cold charity which is called altruism. He is not human be- 
 cause he is not sensual." 
 
 "Ah! Must we be sensual to be human?" 
 
 "Certainly, Madame. Whilst tenderness is but skin deep, 
 pity lies far below the surface. This young man is not 
 critical enough to grasp this. He is too credulous. He 
 easily believes what he has read. And he has read that 
 universal happiness will be established by the destruction 
 of society. He is devoured by a thirst for martyrdom. One 
 morning, having kissed his mother, he goes out. He lies in 
 wait for the Socialist deputy for his district, sees him, throws 
 himself upon him and plunges his graving-tool into his 
 stomach, crying: 'Long live anarchy!' He is arrested, 
 measured, photographed, examined, tried, condemned to 
 death and guillotined. That is my novel." 
 
 "It will not be very amusing," said the Princess. "But 
 that is not your fault; your anarchists are as timid and 
 moderate as other Frenchmen. When Russians go in for 
 anarchy they are more audacious and original." 
 
 Countess Martin came up to Paul Vence and asked him 
 if he knew that very mild gentleman who said nothing and 
 looked about him in the bewildered manner of a lost dog.
 
 44 THE RED LILY 
 
 Her husband had invited him. She did not know him, nor 
 his name, nor anything about him. All that Paul Vence 
 knew was that he was a Senator. He had noticed him one 
 day in the Luxembourg, in the gallery which is used as a 
 library. 
 
 "I had just been to see the cupola painted by Delacroix 
 with heroes and sages of antiquity in a wood of blue-green 
 myrtles. He was warming himself with a poor and pitiful 
 air; and his clothes smelt musty. He was talking to some 
 old colleagues and saying as he rubbed his hands: 'In my 
 opinion, what proves that the Republic is the best of gov- 
 ernments, is that in 1871, in one week, it shot down sixty 
 thousand rebels, without rendering itself unpopular. Such 
 violence would have ruined any other government.' " 
 
 "Then," said Madame Martin, "he is quite a malicious 
 person, while I was pitying him for his shyness and awk- 
 wardness." 
 
 Madame Garain, her chin resting softly on her breast, 
 was slumbering peacefully; and her domestic soul was 
 dreaming of her kitchen garden by the Loire, where choral 
 societies were in the habit of coming to pay their respects 
 to her. 
 
 Joseph Schmoll and General Lariviere came out of the 
 smoking-room, still smiling over the indecorous topics they 
 had been discussing. The General sat down between Prin- 
 cess Seniavine and Madame Martin. 
 
 "This morning I met the Baroness Warburg in the Bois. 
 She was riding a superb animal. She said to me: 'General, 
 how do you manage always to have such fine horses?' f 
 replied: 'Madame, in order to have fine horses, one must 
 be either very rich or very shrewd.' " 
 
 He was so pleased with this retort that he repeated it 
 twice, winking the while. 
 
 Paul Vence came up to Countess Martin: 
 
 "I know the Senator's name: it is Loyer; he is Vice- 
 President of a group and author of a propagandist book, en- 
 titled 'The Crime of December the Second.' " 
 
 The General continued: 
 
 "It was a terrible day. I went into the shelter. There 
 I met Le Menil. I was in a bad temper. I saw that he
 
 THE RED LILY 45 
 
 was laughing at me in his sleeve. He thinks that because I 
 am a general I ought to like wind, hail, ana sleet. But it is 
 absurd. He said he did not mind bad weather, that next 
 week he was going to stay with friends for the hunting." 
 
 There was a silence. The General resumed: 
 
 "I trust he may enjoy himself; but 1 don't envy him. 
 Foxhunting is not amusing." 
 
 "But it is useful," said Montessuy. 
 
 The General shrugged his shoulders: 
 
 "A fox never molests the hen-house except in the spring, 
 when he is feeding his young." 
 
 "A fox," replied Montessuy, "prefers the rabbit-warren 
 to the poultry-yard. He is a stealthy poacher who injures 
 the farmer less than the sportsman. I know something 
 about that." 
 
 Therese seemed absent-minded; she was not listening to 
 the Princess who was addressing her. 
 
 "He never even told me that he was going away," she 
 pondered. 
 
 "Of what are you thinking, my dear?" asked the Princess. 
 
 "Of nothing at all interesting."
 
 IV 
 
 THE little room was dark and silent. Curtains, portiere, 
 cushions, bear-skins, oriental rugs, hushed every sound. 
 Swords, reflecting the fire-light, glistened on the cretonne 
 of the walls, among targets and the faded relics of three 
 winters' cotillions. On the rosewood chiffonier stood a 
 silver cup, a prize awarded by some sporting society. On 
 the painted porcelain top of the little table, a horn-shaped 
 glass vase, over which ran a gilded convolvulus, was filled 
 with branches of white lilac. 
 
 And the shadows were everywhere broken by glinting 
 lights. Therese and Robert, their eyes accustomed to the 
 darkness, moved freely amidst these familiar surroundings. 
 He lit a cigarette, while she did her hair, standing, with her 
 back to the fire, before the long glass, in which she was 
 hardly able to see herself. But she would have neither lamp 
 nor candles. For three years she had been in the habit of 
 taking her hairpins from the little cup of Bohemian glass, 
 which stood on the table, just within hand reach. He 
 watched her threading her light fingers through her hair 
 which f ell in streams of yellow gold. Meanwhile her face, 
 hardened and bronzed in the shadow, assumed a mysterious, 
 almost an alarming expression. She did not speak. 
 
 He said to her: 
 
 "You are no longer vexed, my love?" 
 
 And when he urged her to reply, to say something: 
 
 "What would you have me say, dear? I can only repeat 
 what I told you on my arrival. I think it strange that I 
 should be informed of your projects by General Lariviere." 
 
 He knew well that she still bore him ill-will, that she had 
 been reserved and stiff, with none of that self -surrender that 
 generally made her so delightful. But he pretended to be- 
 lieve that her fit of the sulks was nearly over. 
 
 "My dear, I have already explained. I told you and I 
 repeat that when I met Lariviere, I had just received a 
 letter from Caumont, reminding me of my promise to hunt 
 
 46
 
 THE RED LILY 47 
 
 in his woods, and I had replied by return of post. I was 
 intending to tell you to-day. I regret that General Lari- 
 viere anticipated me; but it really is not important." 
 
 With her arms raised handle-like above her head, she 
 turned towards him with a tranquil gaze, that he did not 
 understand. 
 
 "So you are going?" 
 
 "Next week, Tuesday or Wednesday. I shall be away 
 ten days at the most." 
 
 She was putting on her sealskin toque in which was stuck 
 a branch of mistletoe. 
 
 "It is a matter that admits of no delay?" 
 
 "Oh! no; the fox's fur will be worth nothing in a month's 
 time. Besides Caumont has invited some of our common 
 friends whom my absence would disappoint." 
 
 Sticking a long pin into her toque, she knit her eye-brows. 
 
 "Is your hunting very interesting?" 
 
 "Yes, very, because a fox plays all kinds of tricks which 
 you have to thwart. The intelligence of the beast is won- 
 derful. I have watched foxes hunting rabbits at night. 
 They had organised everything and had regular beaters. 
 I assure you it is not easy to dislodge a fox from his den. 
 These hunting-parties are very gay. Caumont's wine is ex- 
 cellent. That doesn't appeal to me, but it is generally ap- 
 preciated. Would you believe it, one of his farmers told 
 him that he had learnt from a sorcerer how to tame a fox 
 with magic words? I shan't adopt that method, but I prom- 
 ise to bring you back a dozen fine skins." 
 
 "What would you have me do with them?" 
 
 "They make very nice rugs." 
 
 "Ah! . . . And you will be hunting for a week?" 
 
 "Not quite. As I shall be near Semanville, I shall spend 
 two days with my Aunt de Lannoix. She is expecting me. 
 Last year at this time she had made up a delightful party. 
 There were her two daughters and her three nieces with 
 their husbands; they are all five pretty, gay, charming, and 
 irreproachable. At the beginning of next month I shall 
 doubtless find them all assembled for my Aunt's birthday; 
 and I shall stay two days at Semanville." 
 
 "Stay as long as ever you like, dear. I should be ex-
 
 48 THE RED LILY 
 
 tremely sorry if you were to cut short such a delightful visit 
 on my account." 
 
 "But you, Therese, what will you do?" 
 
 "I? Oh! I shall be all right." 
 
 The fire was dying down. The shadows thickened. In a 
 dreamy tone with a note of expectation she said: 
 
 "It is true that it is never very wise to leave a woman 
 alone." 
 
 He came near her, trying to look at her in the darkness. 
 He took her hand. 
 
 "You love me?" 
 
 "I assure you I do not love another. But " 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Nothing. I am thinking ... I am thinking that, as 
 we are parted the whole summer, and as, in the winter, you 
 pass half your time with your family and your friends, if we 
 are to meet so seldom it is hardly worth while our meeting 
 at all." 
 
 He lit the candles. In the light her face appeared hard 
 and frank. He looked at her with a confidence proceeding 
 less from that self-conceit common to all lovers than from 
 his reliance upon a certain conventional propriety. A strong 
 prejudice acquired in his youth and the simplicity of his 
 intelligence caused him to believe in her. 
 
 "Therese, I love you and you love me, I know it. Why 
 will you torment me? Sometimes your hardness and reserve 
 are very painful." 
 
 She tossed her little head brusquely. 
 
 "I can't help it. I am bitter and self-willed. It is in my 
 blood. I inherit it from my father. You know Joinville; 
 you have seen its chateau, its ceilings by Lebrun, its tapestry 
 made at Maincy for Fouquet; you have seen its gardens 
 designed by Le Notre, its park and its game; you said there 
 were none finer in France; but you did not see my father's 
 workshop, with its deal table and mahogany desk. All the 
 rest originated there, my friend. On that table, standing at 
 that desk, my father worked at figures for forty years, first 
 in a little room in the Place de la Bastille, then in the flat 
 in the Rue Maubeuge, where I was born. We were not 
 very rich then. I have seen the little red damask drawing-
 
 THE RED LILY 49 
 
 room, with which my father set up housekeeping, and which 
 mama loved so much. I am the child of a self-made man or 
 of a conqueror, for it comes to the same thing. We are 
 people who have had to make our way. My father was 
 determined to make money, to possess what pays, that is 
 everything. I am determined to win and to keep. What? 
 I don't know . . . whether it be the happiness I possess 
 ... or one that I have not. In my own way I also am 
 greedy, greedy of dreams, of illusions. Oh! I know well 
 that they are not worth the effort one makes to enjoy them, 
 but it is the effort itself that is worth something, because 
 that effort is I, is my life. I am bent upon enjoying what 
 I love, what I thought I loved. I am determined not to lose 
 it. I am like papa: I stand upon my rights. And then . . ." 
 
 She lowered her voice. 
 
 "And then I too have senses. There, my dear, I am 
 boring you. I can't help it. I ought never to have sur- 
 rendered to you." 
 
 This petulance, to which he was accustomed, marred his 
 pleasure. But it did not alarm him. Extremely sensitive 
 to her acts, he did not care what she said, and attached little 
 importance to words, especially a woman's. Himself a taci- 
 turn person, he was far from imagining that words may also 
 be actions. 
 
 Although he loved her, or rather because he loved her 
 ardently and trustfully, he thought it his duty to oppose 
 whims that he considered absurd. When he did not vex her 
 she was pleased for him to assume a masterful air; and, 
 naively, he always assumed it. 
 
 "You know, Therese, that my one thought is to please 
 you in everything. Don't be capricious." 
 
 "And why should I not be capricious? If I gave myself 
 to you, it was an act neither rational or dutiful; it was a 
 caprice." 
 
 He looked at her surprised and saddened. 
 
 "The word wounds you, dear? Say that it was love. 
 And really the impulse did come from my heart; it was 
 because I knew you loved me. But love should be a pleas- 
 ure; and if I do not find that it satisfies what you call my 
 caprices, what really is my desire, my life, my very heart,
 
 50 THE RED LILY 
 
 I will have no more of it; I prefer to live alone. You aston- 
 ish me. My caprices! Is there anything else in life? Is 
 not your hunting a caprice?" 
 
 He replied very frankly: 
 
 "If I had not promised, I swear that I would gladly 
 sacrifice this little pleasure for your sake." 
 
 She knew that what he said was true. She knew how 
 exact he was in keeping his word in the most trifling mat- 
 ters. Always true to his promises he was minutely and 
 conscientiously scrupulous in the performance of all his 
 social duties. She saw that if she insisted he would not go. 
 But it was too late: she no longer wished to gain that point. 
 Now all that she sought was the bitter joy of losing it. A 
 reason she really considered absurd she now pretended to 
 take seriously. 
 
 "Ah! you promised." 
 
 And she affected to yield. 
 
 Surprised at first, he was soon secretly congratulating 
 himself on having brought her to reason. He was grateful 
 to her for not having persisted in her obstinacy. He put his 
 arm round her, and, as a reward, in a frank, friendly man- 
 ner, kissed her on the eyelids and the nape of her neck. 
 He showed himself eager to devote to her the rest of his 
 days in Paris. 
 
 "We can meet three or four times before my departure, 
 my darling, and oftener still, if you like. I will be here 
 ready for you whenever you wish to come. Shall it be to- 
 morrow?" 
 
 She took a delight in saying that she could return neither 
 to-morrow nor the following days. Very sweetly she ex- 
 plained what would prevent her from coming. The obstacles 
 appeared trivial at first: calls to be paid, a frock to be fitted, 
 a bazaar, exhibitions, hangings she wanted to see and per- 
 haps buy. But on examination these difficulties grew more 
 important, more numerous: the calls could not be post- 
 poned; it was not one bazaar but three she had to attend; 
 the exhibitions were on the eve of closing; the hangings were 
 going to America. In short, it was quite impossible for her 
 to see him again before he started. 
 
 As it was not like him to be content with such trivial
 
 THE RED LILY 51 
 
 reasons, he perceived that neither was it like Therese to 
 give them. Bewildered by this tangle of trifling social ob- 
 ligations, he did not resist, but remained silent and unhappy. 
 
 With her left arm raised above her head, she lifted the 
 portiere, and with her right hand turned the key in the 
 lock. And there in the sapphire and ruby coloured folds 
 of the oriental curtain, her head turned towards the lover 
 she was leaving, she said in tones half mocking but almost 
 tragic: 
 
 "Good-bye, Robert! Enjoy yourself. My calls, my shop- 
 ping, your visits are mere trifles; but it is true that destiny 
 depends on such trifles. Good-bye." 
 
 She went out. He would have liked to go with her; but 
 he deemed it unwise to be seen in the street with her, when 
 she did not insist upon it. 
 
 Outside Therese suddenly felt alone, alone in the world, 
 without joy and without sorrow. As usual she returned 
 home on foot. It was dark, the night was cold, clear, and 
 calm. But the streets she followed in the darkness, broken 
 here and there by lights, enveloped her in that tepid warmth 
 of towns, which penetrates even through the winter's cold 
 and is so grateful to town-dwellers. She was passing be- 
 tween lines of sheds, cottages, and booths, remnants of the 
 rural days of Auteuil, with here and there a high-storied 
 house, displaying its coping stone in dismal isolation. These 
 little shops and monotonous windows were nothing to her. 
 Nevertheless, in some mysterious manner her surroundings 
 seemed friendly; and the stones of the street, the doors of 
 the houses, the lights high up in the windows appeared to 
 her not unkind. She was alone, and she wished to be alone. 
 
 The road she was traversing between those two dwellings, 
 which were almost equally home-like to her, that road she 
 had travelled so often, it now seemed as if she were passing 
 over for the last time. Why? What had the day brought 
 her? Hardly a vexation, not even a quarrel. Nevertheless, 
 there hovered over its past hours a faint, curious, yet per- 
 sistent suggestion, a strange memory that would cling to 
 that day for ever. What had happened? Nothing. And 
 that nothing effaced all. She had a kind of sub-conscious 
 conviction that she would never again enter that room.
 
 52 THE RED LILY 
 
 which once contained all that was dearest and most secret 
 in her life. Hers was a serious relationship. She had given 
 herself gravely to realise a joy that was necessary to her. 
 Made for love, and very rational, she had not lost, in the 
 abandonment of her person, that instinct for reflection, that 
 aspiration after serenity which were very strong in her. 
 She had not chosen ; one hardly ever does. Neither had she 
 allowed herself to be taken by chance or by surprise. She 
 had done what she had wished to do as much as one ever 
 does in such matters. She had nothing to regret. He had 
 behaved irreproachably towards her. She must in justice 
 admit it with regard to a man much sought after in society 
 and having all the women at his feet. Nevertheless, in 
 spite of everything, she felt that it was over and that its 
 conclusion was quite natural. She was thinking with dull 
 melancholy: "Three years of my life, a good man who 
 loves me and whom I loved, for I did love him. Otherwise 
 I could not have given myself to him. I am not an un- 
 scrupulous woman." But she could no longer revert to the 
 sentiments of those days, the impulses of her soul and of 
 her body. She recalled trivial quite insignificant details: the 
 flowers on the wall paper, the pictures in the room; it was a 
 room in a hotel. She remembered the words somewhat 
 ridiculous and yet almost touching that he had said to her. 
 But it seemed as if these experiences were those of another 
 woman, some stranger whom she did not much like and 
 hardly understood. 
 
 And what had just happened, those caresses she had so 
 recently received, all that was far away. The couch, the 
 lilac in its glass vase, the little cup of Bohemian glass where 
 she kept her pins she saw it all as if gazing into the room 
 from the street. She knew no bitterness, not even sadness. 
 She had nothing to pardon, alas! That week's absence was 
 no infidelity, no wrong done her; it was nothing, that was 
 all. It was the end. She knew it. She wished it to be the 
 end. She willed it just as the falling stone wills to fall. 
 She was obeying all the secret forces of her being. She was 
 saying to herself: "There is no reason why I should love 
 him less. Do I no longer love him? Have I ever loved 
 him?" She did not know, and she did not care to know.
 
 THE RED LILY 53 
 
 Three years during which their rendezvous had been 
 twice, occasionally four times a week. There had been 
 months when they had met every day. Was that nothing? 
 But life is no great matter. And how little one puts into it! 
 
 After all she had no cause to complain. But it was better 
 to make an end of it. All her reflections brought her back 
 to that. It was not a resolution. Resolutions may be 
 changed. This was graver; it was a mental and a physical 
 condition. 
 
 Having reached the square, with a fountain in the middle 
 and on one side a Gothic church with its bell enclosed in a 
 turret open to the sky, she remembered the penny bunch of 
 violets he had given her one evening on the Petit-Pont, near 
 Notre Dame. That day they had loved each other more 
 passionately than usual. Her heart softened as she remem- 
 bered it. She felt in her coat, but found nothing. In her 
 memory alone lived the little nose-gay, that poor little 
 skeleton of flowers. 
 
 While she was walking dreamily, passers-by followed her, 
 misled by the simplicity of her dress. One invited her to a 
 restaurant, to dine in a private room and then go to a 
 theatre. Far from being embarrassed by these proposals, 
 she was entertained by them. Her nerves v/ere not in the 
 least unstrung by the crisis she had passed through. "What 
 do other women do?" she was wondering. "And I who con- 
 gratulated myself on not wasting my life. What is life 
 worth after all?" 
 
 When she came within sight of the Neo-Greek lantern 
 tower of the Museum of Religions, she found the road up. 
 Over a deep ditch, between banks of black earth, heaps of 
 cobbles and piles of paving stones, a narrow bending plank 
 had been thrown. She had already begun to cross it when 
 before her she saw a man who had stopped to let her pass. 
 He had recognised her and was taking off his hat. It was 
 Dechartre. As she advanced she thought he was pleased 
 at meeting her, and she thanked him with a smile. He 
 asked if he might walk a little way with her. And together 
 they entered the broad square, where the air was keener, 
 where the tall houses were farther apart and the sky could 
 be seen.
 
 54 THE RED LILY 
 
 He said he had recognised her in the distance by the out- 
 line of her figure and the rhythmic movement of her walk. 
 
 "Graceful motion," he said, "is to the eyes what music 
 is to the ears." 
 
 She replied that she loved walking, that it pleased and 
 invigorated her. 
 
 He also liked to take long walks in populous towns or in 
 the beautiful country. The mystery of the road tempted 
 him. He loved travel; and even now, when it had become 
 common and easy, it still attracted him. He had seen 
 golden days and transparent nights in Greece, Egypt, and 
 the Bosphorus. But it was always to Italy he returned as 
 to the home of his soul. 
 
 "I am going there next week," he said. "I want to see 
 Ravenna again, asleep among the dark pine trees of that 
 barren coast. Have you ever been to Ravenna? It is an 
 enchanting tomb out of which rise dazzling phantoms. 
 
 "There is the magic of death. The mosaics of Saint Vita- 
 lis and of the two Saints Apollinaris, with their barbaric 
 angels and their empresses with halos recall the delightful 
 monsters of the East. The tomb of Galla Placidia, now that 
 it has been robbed of its silver plates, looks terrible in its 
 crypt, dark yet luminous. Looking through a crack in the 
 sarcophagus it seems as if one saw the daughter of Theo- 
 dosius seated on her golden chair, very straight in her be- 
 jewelled gown embroidered with scenes from the Old Testa- 
 ment, her handsome cruel face hardened and blackened by 
 the aromatic spices used for embalmment, and her ebony 
 hands motionless upon her knees. For thirteen centuries 
 she remained in funereal majesty, until a child, passing with 
 a candle near the opening in the tomb, burnt the body and 
 the dalmatic." 
 
 Madame Martin-Belleme asked what had been the life of 
 this corpse so inflexible in her pride. 
 
 "Twice a slave," said Dechartre, "she became twice an 
 empress." 
 
 "She was beautiful doubtless," said Madame Martin. 
 "Your description of her in her tomb is so vivid that she 
 alarms me. Will you not go to Venice, Monsieur De- 
 chartre? Or are you tired of gondolas, of canals fringed
 
 THE RED LILY 55 
 
 with palaces, and of the pigeons of Saint Mark? I confess 
 that after having visited Venice three times I still love 
 her." 
 
 He agreed with her. He too loved Venice. Whenever he 
 went there he was converted from a sculptor into a painter, 
 and he was always sketching. But it was the atmosphere 
 that he would like to paint. 
 
 "Elsewhere," he said, "even at Florence, the sky is dis- 
 tant, high up, far away in the background. At Venice it is 
 everywhere: it caresses earth and water; it lovingly en- 
 velops leaden domes and marble fagades and casts its pearls 
 and its crystals into purple space. The beauty of Venice 
 consists in its sky and its women. How beautiful are 
 Venetian women and of so clear and pure a cast. How 
 slender and supple a figure beneath the black shawl. Were 
 nothing left of these women but a single bone, that bone 
 would suggest the charm of their exquisite form. On Sun- 
 day, at church, they gather in groups, laughing and viva- 
 cious, a medley of slim figures, graceful necks, tender smiles, 
 and ardent glances. And, with the suppleness of a young 
 doe, the who'e group bows when a priest with the head of a 
 Vitellius, his chin hanging over his chasuble, passes bearing 
 the ciborium, preceded by two choristers." 
 
 He walked with unequal step impelled by the flow of his 
 ideas. Her pace was more regular ana slightly more rapid 
 than his. And, looking at her from the side, he saw the 
 measured step and supple gait that he loved. He noticed 
 how the determined motion of her head every now and then 
 made the sprig of mistletoe in her toque quiver. 
 
 Without realising it he was experiencing the charm of an 
 association almost intimate with a young woman whom he 
 scarcely knew. 
 
 They had reached the place where the broad avenue dis- 
 plays its four rows of plane trees. They were following 
 that stone parapet crowned by a box hedge, which happily 
 conceals the ugliness of the military buildings on the lower 
 side of the quay. Beyond, the river was indicated by that 
 thickness of the atmosphere which even on days when there 
 is no mist is to be found over the surface of water. The 
 sky was clear. The lights of the town mingled with the
 
 56 THE RED LILY 
 
 stars. In the south shone the three golden nails of Orion's 
 Belt. 
 
 "Last year at Venice, every morning as I went out, I used 
 to see a charming girl, with a small head, a round and solid 
 neck, and well-developed figure in front of my door, three 
 steps above the canal. There she was in the sunshine, 
 amidst vermin, as pure as an amphora, as captivating as a 
 flower. She smiled. What a mouth! The richest jewel in 
 the finest light. I perceived in time that this smile was in- 
 tended for a butcher boy, encamped behind me, with his 
 basket on his head." 
 
 At the corner of the short street which leads down to the 
 quay, between two rows of little gardens, Madame Martin 
 slackened her pace. 
 
 "It is true that Venetian women are beautiful." 
 
 "They are nearly all beautiful, Madame. I speak of the 
 women of the people, cigarette makers, glass-workers. The 
 others are the same everywhere." 
 
 "By the others, you mean society women; and those you 
 do not love?" 
 
 "Society women? Oh! some are charming. But as for 
 loving them, that is a serious matter." 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 She gave him her hand and abruptly vanished round the 
 corner of the street.
 
 THAT evening she was dining alone with her husband. 
 There were no winged victories or basket with gilded 
 eagles on the table now reduced in size. The dogs of Oudry 
 were no longer illuminated by hanging lights above the 
 doors. While he was talking of everyday matters, she was 
 in revery far away. It seemed to her that she was lost in a 
 fog and remote from all things. It was a placid, almost a 
 pleasant kind of suffering. Dimly as if through a mist she 
 beheld the little room in the Rue Spontini carried by black 
 angels on to one of the heights of the Himalayas. And, in 
 an earthquake which seemed like the end of the world, her 
 lover disappeared quite calmly while putting on his gloves. 
 She felt her pulse to see if she was suffering from fever. 
 Suddenly the clear tinkling of silver on the dinner-wagon 
 roused her. She heard her husband saying: 
 
 "My dear, in the Chamber to-day Gavaut made an ex- 
 cellent speech on the pension fund. It is extraordinary how 
 lucid his ideas have become, and how he now always seizes 
 the point. He has made great progress." 
 
 She could not help smiling: 
 
 "But, my dear, Gavaut is a poor creature who has never 
 thought of anything beyond rising from the crowd and mak- 
 ing his own way. His ideas are all on the surface. Can it 
 be that he is really taken seriously in the political world? 
 Believe me, he has never imposed upon a woman, not even 
 on his own wife. And yet that kind of illusion can so easily 
 be created, I assure you." 
 
 Then she added abruptly: 
 
 "You know that Miss Bell has invited me to spend a 
 month with her at Fiesole. I have accepted, I am going." 
 
 Less surprised than displeased, he asked with whom she 
 was going. 
 
 She had the answer ready immediately and replied 
 
 "With Madame Marmet." 
 
 57
 
 58 THE RED LILY 
 
 There was nothing to be said. Madame Marmet was a 
 very respectable companion, especially suitable for Italy; 
 for her husband, Marmet the Etruscan, had explored Italian 
 tombs. He merely asked: 
 
 "Have you told her? And when do you start?" 
 
 "Next week." 
 
 He was prudent enough to offer no objection for the mo- 
 ment, thinking that opposition would only intensify what 
 he considered a whimsical caprice. He remarked suavely: 
 
 "Travel is certainly very pleasant. I have been thinking 
 that in the spring we might visit the Caucasus and the 
 country beyond the Caspian. That is a region interesting 
 and little known. General Annenkoff would place car- 
 riages and whole trains at our disposal on the railway he 
 has constructed. He is a friend of mine and he admires 
 you. He would provide us with an escort of Cossacks. 
 Such an expedition would create an impression." 
 
 He insisted on appealing to her vanity, for he found it 
 impossible to imagine that she was anything but worldly 
 minded, and, like himself, actuated entirely by self love. 
 She replied indifferently that it might be a pleasant trip. 
 Then he praised the mountains, the ancient cities, the 
 bazaars, the costumes, the weapons of the Caucasus. He 
 added: 
 
 "We will take a few friends, Princess Seniavine, General 
 Lariviere, perhaps Vence or Le Menil." 
 
 She replied with a dry little laugh that it was rather soon 
 to decide whom they would invite. 
 
 He became attentive and kind. 
 
 "You are not eating. You are losing your appetite." 
 
 Although he did not believe in this sudden departure, the 
 thought of it disturbed him. They had both resumed their 
 liberty; but he did not like to be alone. He only felt him- 
 self when his wife was at home and his household was com- 
 plete. Besides, he had decided to give two or three big 
 political dinners during the session. His party was coming 
 to the front. Now was the moment to strengthen his own 
 influence and to shine before the public. He said mys- 
 teriously: 
 
 ''There may come a crisis in which we shall need the sup-
 
 THE RED LILY 59 
 
 port of all our friends. You have not been following the 
 course of public events, Therese?" 
 
 "No, my dear." 
 
 "I am sorry. You have sense and an open mind. If you 
 had taken an interest in politics you would have observed 
 the growth of moderate opinions. The country is tired of 
 extremes. It will not have men compromised by a Radical 
 policy and religious persecution. 
 
 "A day will come when we shall have to form another 
 Casimir-Perier ministry, but with new men, and then " 
 
 He paused. She was barely listening. 
 
 Sad and disillusioned, she was lost in revery. It seemed 
 to her that the pretty woman who, not long ago, in the 
 warmth and shadow of a darkened room, was standing bare- 
 foot on a brown bearskin rug, while her lover kissed her 
 neck, as she twisted her hair before the glass, was not her- 
 self, was not even a woman whom she knew well or wished to 
 know, but a lady whose affairs did not interest her. A 
 hairpin, one of those out of the Bohemian glass cup, fell 
 from her hair down her neck. She shuddered. 
 
 ''But we must give three or four dinners to our political 
 friends," said M. Martin-Belleme. "We will invite former 
 Radicals as well as members of our own circle. We ought 
 to have some pretty women too. We might quite well invite 
 Madame Berard de la Malle: it must now be two years 
 since anything was said against her. What do you 
 think?" " 
 
 "But, my dear, I am going next week." 
 
 He was alarmed. 
 
 Together, both silent and gloomy, they went into the 
 little drawing-room, where Paul Vence was waiting. He 
 often came unceremoniously in the evening. 
 
 She shook hands. 
 
 "I am very glad to see you. I must bid you farewell for 
 a short time. Paris is cold and dull. This weather makes 
 me tired and sad. I am going to spend six weeks at Flor- 
 ence with Miss Bell." 
 
 M. Martin-Belleme raised his eyebrows. 
 
 Vence asked whether she had not already been to Italy 
 several times.
 
 to THE RED LILY 
 
 "Three times. But I saw nothing. This time I am de- 
 termined to see, to bathe myself in the life of the country. 
 From Florence I shall make excursions into Tuscany and 
 Umbria. And I shall end by going to Venice." 
 
 "You will do well. Venice is the Sabbath rest concluding 
 Italy's great divine week of creation." 
 
 "Your friend Dechartre has been talking to me eloquently 
 of Venice, of the pearl-like atmosphere of Venice." 
 
 "Yes, at Venice the sky is a painter. At Florence it is a 
 spirit. An old author writes: 'The Florentine sky inspires 
 men with beautiful ideas.' I have passed delightful days in 
 Tuscany. I should like to go there again." 
 
 "Come and see me there." 
 
 But he murmured with a sigh: "Newspapers, reviews, 
 one's daily work." 
 
 M. Martin-Belleme said that these were weighty reasons, 
 and that the readers of Monsieur Paul Vence enjoyed his 
 books and articles too much to wish him to be separated 
 /rom his work. 
 
 "Oh! as for my books! . . . One never says anything 
 m a book as one would really like to say it. It is impossible 
 to render one's thoughts exactly! Yes, I know how to talk 
 with my pen as well as any one. But talking, writing, how 
 pitiable! When one comes to think of it, how trivial are 
 those little signs which form syllables, words, and phrases. 
 Among such hieroglyphics at once commonplace and bizarre 
 what happens to the idea? What does the reader make of 
 my written page? Either wrong sense or nonsense. To 
 read, to understand is to translate. There may be fine 
 translations; there are no accurate ones. What does it mat- 
 ter to me if they admire my books, since they always put 
 into them what they admire? Every reader substitutes his 
 ideas for ours. All we do is to tickle his imagination. It is 
 horrible to have to furnish material for such a proceeding. 
 Ours is an infamous profession." 
 
 "You are joking," said M. Martin. 
 
 "I think not," said Therese. "He is suffering because he 
 realises that no soul can see into another. He feels alone 
 when he thinks, alone when he writes. Whatever one does 
 one is always alone in this world. That's what he means.
 
 THE RED LILY 61 
 
 He is right. One may be always explaining oneself, one is 
 never understood." 
 
 "But there are actions," said Paul Vence. 
 
 "Don't you think, Monsieur Vence, that they are a kind 
 of hieroglyphics? Tell me about M. Choulette. I never 
 see him now." 
 
 Vence replied that for the moment Choulette was very 
 busy reforming the third order of St. Francis. 
 
 "The idea of this work, madame, occurred to him in a 
 marvellous manner, one day when he was visiting Maria, 
 at her lodging in the street behind the Hotel Dieu, a street 
 which has over-hanging houses and is always damp. Maria, 
 you know, is the saint and martyr who atones for the si is 
 of the people. He pulled the bell-rope worn out by two 
 centuries of callers. The martyr was either at the tavern, 
 which she frequents constantly, or busy in her room; she 
 did not open the door. Choulette continued pulling, and so 
 vigorously that the handle and the rope remained in his 
 hand. Quick to conceive the symbolism and hidden mean- 
 ing of things, he understood at once that the rope had not 
 broken without the interposition of supernatural powers. 
 Over this incident he pondered. The hemp v/as black and 
 sticky with dirt. He made a girdle of it and realised that 
 he had been chosen to restore the third order of St. Francis 
 to its primitive purity. He renounced the beauty of women, 
 the delights of poetry, the brilliance of fame, to study the 
 life and teaching of the blessed saint. Meanwhile he has 
 sold his publisher a book entitled Les Blandices, which, he 
 says, contains a description of every kind of love. He is 
 proud of appearing in it as a criminal with an air of distinc- 
 tion. But this book will in no way interfere with his mysti- 
 cal enterprises. On the contrary, corrected by a subsequent 
 work, it will appear exemplary ; and the gold, or, as he says, 
 the pieces of gold he received for it, which v/ould not have 
 been so many if the work had been more decent, will enable 
 him to make a pilgrimage to Assisi." 
 
 Highly entertained, Madame Martin inquired how much 
 truth there was in the story. Vence replied that she must 
 not ask. 
 
 He half admitted that he idealised the poet's history, and
 
 62 THE RED LILY 
 
 that the adventures he related must not be interpreted in 
 their literal and Hebraic sense. But he maintained that 
 Choulette was actually publishing Les Blandices and that he 
 wished to visit the cell and tomb of St. Francis. 
 
 "Then," cried Madame Martin, "I will take him to Italy. 
 Monsieur Vence, find him and bring him here. I start next 
 week." 
 
 M. Martin regretted having to leave them; but he had a 
 report to finish, which must be given in the next day. 
 
 Madame Martin said that there was no one who inter- 
 ested her more than Choulette. Paul Vence also considered 
 him a singular type of humanity. 
 
 "He does not greatly differ from those saints whose won- 
 derful lives one reads. Like them he is sincere, with the 
 most sensitive feelings and terribly violent emotions. If 
 many of his actions shock us it is because he is weaker, 
 less self-controlled, or perhaps more closely observed than 
 the saints of history. Besides, there are fallen saints as 
 there are fallen angels. Choulette happens to be a fallen 
 saint. But his poems are really spiritual, and much finer 
 of the kind than any composed by the courtly bishops and 
 dramatic poets of the seventeenth century." 
 
 She interrupted: 
 
 "While I think of it, I want to congratulate you on your 
 friend Dechartre. He is extremely interesting. Perhaps a 
 trifle too self-centred," she added. Vence reminded her that 
 he had always said she would find Dechartre interesting. 
 
 "I know him by heart; he is a friend of my childhood." 
 
 "Did you know his family?" 
 
 "Yes; he is the only son of Philippe Dechartre." 
 
 "The architect?" 
 
 "The architect. He who under Napoleon III restored 
 so many castles and churches in Touraine and the Orleanais. 
 He was a man of both taste and knowledge. Although by 
 nature reserved and gentle, he was so imprudent as to at- 
 tack Viollet-le-Duc, who was then all-powerful. He re- 
 proached him with restoring buildings according to their 
 original plan and making them what they had been or ought 
 to have been in the beginning. Philippe Dechartre on the 
 contrary would respect everything the centuries have gradu-
 
 THE RED LILY 63 
 
 ally added to church, abbey, or chateau. To banish an- 
 achronisms and restore a building to its primitive unity ap- 
 peared to him a barbarism of science as atrocious as that of 
 ignorance. He was always saying: It is a crime to efface 
 what the hands and souls of our fathers have imprinted 
 upon the stone throughout the ages. New stones cut in an 
 old style are false witnesses! He would limit the work of 
 the architect-archaeologist to the strengthening and support- 
 ing of the structure. He was right; but no one agreed with 
 him. He completed the failure of his career by dying young 
 at the height of his rival's triumphs. Nevertheless he left 
 his widow and son a modest fortune. Jacques Dechartre 
 was brought up by an adoring mother. No mother ever 
 loved her child more passionately. Jacques is a fine fellow, 
 but he is a spoilt child." 
 
 "Nevertheless he appears so easy-going, so indifferent, so 
 detached." 
 
 "Don't you believe it. His is a mind in itself restless and 
 a cause of unrest in others." 
 
 "Does he like women?" 
 
 "Why do you ask?" 
 
 "Oh, I am not thinking of arranging a marriage for him." 
 
 "Yes, he does like women. I told you that he is an egoist. 
 And on'y egoists really love women. After his mother's 
 death, for a long while, he had an affair with a well-known 
 actress. Jeanne Tancrede." 
 
 Madame Martin thought she remembered Jeanne Tan- 
 crede t. very pretty, but a fine figure, languidly graceful 
 when playing the part of a woman in love. 
 
 "Hut is the woman," said Paul Vence. "They nearly 
 always lived together in a little house in the cite des Jas- 
 mins at / uteuil. I often went to see them. I used to find 
 him lost in his dreams, forgetting to model a figure drying 
 beneath its linen covering; he would be wrapt in revery, 
 concerned only with his own thoughts, quite incapable of 
 listening to any one. She meanwhile would be studying her 
 parts, her checks burning with rouge, love in her eyes, pretty 
 in her intelligence and her energy. She used to complain 
 to me that he was absent-minded, sullen, irritable. She 
 really loved him, and never betrayed him, except to get a
 
 64 THE RED LILY 
 
 part. And when she did betray him it was quickly over, 
 and afterwards she thought no more about it. She was a 
 serious-minded woman. But she allowed herself to be seen 
 with Joseph Springer, and cultivated his society in the hope 
 that he would give her a part at the Comedie Frangaise. 
 Dechartre was vexed and parted from her. Now she finds 
 it more convenient to live with her directors, and Jacques 
 prefers to travel." 
 
 "Does he regret her?" 
 
 "How can one know the thoughts of a mind so restless 
 and so versatile, so eager to give itself, so quick to take 
 back the gift, so egotistical and so passionate? He loves 
 with fervour whenever he finds the personification of his 
 own ideals." 
 
 She changed the subject abruptly. 
 
 "And what about your novel, Monsieur Vence?" 
 
 "I am writing the last chapter. My poor little engraver 
 has been guillotined. He died with the calm of a placid 
 virgin who has never felt the warm breath of life on her 
 lips. Newspapers and the public conventionally approve 
 of the act of justice which has just been performed. But 
 in a garret another artisan, a chemist, serious and sad, is 
 swearing to avenge his brother's death." 
 
 He rose and took his leave. 
 
 She called him back. 
 
 "Monsieur Vence, you know I am in earnest. Bring me 
 Choulette." 
 
 When she went up to her room her husband was waiting 
 for her on the landing. He was wearing a reddish-brown 
 frieze dressing-gown and a kind of doge's cap encircling his 
 pale hollow face. He looked grave. Behind him, through 
 the open door of his study, appeared under the lamp a pile 
 of documents and the open blue-books of the annual budget. 
 Before she entered her room he signed that he wished to 
 speak to her. 
 
 "My dear, I don't understand you. Your inconsistency 
 may do you harm. Without motive, without even an excuse, 
 you abandon your home and travel through Europe, with 
 whom? With this Choulette, a Bohemian, a drunkard."
 
 THE RED LILY 65 
 
 She replied that she would travel with Madame Marmet, 
 and there was nothing unconventional in that. 
 
 "But you are telling every one of your departure, and 
 you don't yet know whether Madame Marmet can go with 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, dear Madame Marmet can soon pack up and go. 
 It would only be her dog that would detain her in Paris. 
 She will leave him with you; you can look after him." 
 
 "And does your father know of your plans?" 
 
 When his own authority was defied it was always his last 
 resource to invoke that of Montessuy. He knew that his 
 wife was afraid of displeasing her father and giving him a 
 bad opinion of her. 
 
 He insisted. 
 
 "Your father is full of common sense and tact. I have 
 been so fortunate as to find myself in agreement with him 
 in the advice I have given you on several occasions. Like 
 me he considers that a woman in your position ought not to 
 visit Madame Meillan. Her society is very mixed and she 
 is known to facilitate intrigues. I must tell you plainly 
 that you make a great mistake in holding the opinion of 
 society of so little account. I am very much mistaken if 
 your father will not consider it strange for you to go off in 
 this frivolous manner. And your absence will be all the 
 more remarked because, permit me to remind you, through- 
 out this session I have been very much in the public eye. In 
 this matter my personal merit counts for nothing. But, if 
 you had been willing to listen to me at dinner, I should 
 have proved to you that the political group to which I be- 
 long is on the verge of coming into power. It is not at 
 such a moment that you should forsake your duties as mis- 
 tress of this house. You must understand this." 
 
 She replied: 
 
 "You are boring me." 
 
 And, turning her back upon him, she shut herself in her 
 room. 
 
 In bed that evening, as was her custom, she opened a book 
 before falling asleep. It was a novel. Turning over its 
 pages haphazard, she came upon these lines: 
 
 "Love is like devoutness in religion; it comes late. One
 
 66 THE RED LILY 
 
 is seldom either in love or devout at twenty, unless one has 
 an unusual disposition, a kind of innate holiness. Even 
 the elect strive long with that grace of loving which is more 
 terrible than the lightning on the road to Damascus. A 
 woman does not generally yield to the passion of love until 
 age and solitude have ceased to alarm her. For passion 
 is an arid desert, a burning Thebaid. Passion is a secular 
 asceticism as severe as the asceticism of religion. 
 
 "Therefore a great passion is as rare in women as great 
 religious devotion. Those who know life and society know 
 that women do not willingly wear upon their delicate bodies 
 the hair-shirt of a true love. They know that nothing is 
 rarer than a life-long sacrifice. And reflect how much a 
 woman of the world must sacrifice when she loves: liberty, 
 peace of mind, the charming play of a free imagination, 
 coquetry, amusements, pleasures, she loses everything. 
 
 "Flirting is permitted to her. That is consistent with all 
 the exigencies of a fashionable life. But not love. Love is 
 the least worldly of the passions, the most anti-social, the 
 wildest, the most barbarous. Therefore the world judges it 
 more severely than gallantry and than profligacy. In one 
 sense the world is right. A Parisian woman in love belies 
 her nature, and fails to perform her function which is, like 
 a work of art, to belong to us all. She is a work of art and 
 the most marvellous that man's industry has ever produced. 
 She is an enchanting artifice, resulting from the conjunction 
 of all the mechanical arts and all the liberal arts; she is 
 their common production, and she is the common good. 
 Her duty is to show herself." 
 
 As Therese closed the book, she reflected that these were 
 the dreams of novelists who did not know life. She knew 
 well that in reality there existed no Mount of Passion, no 
 hair-shirt of love, no terrible yet beautiful vocation against 
 which the elect strove in vain ; she knew that love was only 
 a brief intoxication, which when it passes leaves one a little 
 sorrowful. And yet, if after all she did not know every- 
 thing, if there should be a love in which one might drown 
 oneself with delight. . . . She put out her lamp. The 
 dreams of her early youth returned to her from the dim 
 background of her past.
 
 VI 
 
 IT was raining. Through the streaming windows of her 
 carriage, Madame Martin-Belleme dimly saw a multi- 
 tude of umbrellas passing through the rain like tortoises. 
 She was dreaming. Her thoughts were as misty and vague 
 as the appearance of the streets and squares, rendered in- 
 distinct by the rain. 
 
 She could not remember how the idea had occurred to 
 her of spending a month with Miss Bell. Indeed she had 
 never realised why she had formed this resolution. It had 
 been a spring hidden in the beginning beneath a few sprigs 
 of water plantain, now it was a deep and rapid stream. She 
 recollected that on Tuesday evening at dinner she had sud- 
 denly said that she wanted to go, but she could not trace 
 her desire back to its origin. It was not a wish to act to- 
 wards Robert Le Menil as he had acted towards her. Cer- 
 tainly it seemed to her excellent that she should be walking 
 in the Cascine while he was hunting. It was pleasant and 
 fitting. Robert, who was generally very pleased to see her 
 after an absence, would not find her when he returned. It 
 was good and just that he should have to submit to that 
 disappointment. But she had not thought of that reason 
 before her decision. And since she had seldom thought of 
 it. It was really not the pleasure of making him vexed or 
 the fun of a little act of vengeance that was the motive for 
 her departure. Her feeling towards him was not so keen as 
 that, but harder, more serious. She was especially desirous 
 to postpone their meeting. Without their having come to 
 any rupture, he had become a stranger to her. He ap- 
 peared a man like the rest, although better than most of 
 them; very good looking, with excellent manners, an esti- 
 mable character; a man she did not dislike, but who did not 
 deeply interest her. He had suddenly passed out of her 
 life. How intimately he had been associated with it she 
 did not care to recall. The idea of belonging to him shocked 
 her and seemed indecorous. The anticipation of meeting 
 
 67
 
 68 THE RED LILY 
 
 him again in the flat in the Rue Spontini was so painful that 
 she banished it immediately from her mind. She preferred 
 to believe that their reunion would be prevented by some 
 event unforeseen but inevitable, the end of the world for 
 example. The previous evening, at Madame de Morlaine's, 
 M. Lagrange, of the Academy of Science, had spoken of a 
 comet. One day, he said, coming from the depths of the 
 firmament, and meeting this planet, it might envelop the 
 earth in its flaming tail, burn it in its fire, breathe into its 
 animals and plants unknown poisons, and slay the children 
 of men who would die in frantic laughter or pass away in 
 a dull stupor. Either that or something of that kind must 
 happen before next month. Thus her desire to go away was 
 not without an explanation. But why a vague joy should 
 enter into her wish to depart, why she should feel herself 
 already under the charm of what she was going to see, that 
 she could not understand. 
 
 The carriage put her down at the corner of the narrow 
 Rue de la Chaise. 
 
 There since her husband's death lived Madame Marmet, 
 in a small but very neat flat, on the top floor of a high 
 house. Her five windows looked on a balcony and were 
 brightened by the morning sun. It was her afternoon at 
 home, and the Countess Martin had come to call. In the 
 modest highly polished salon, she found M. Lagrange slum- 
 bering in an arm-chair opposite the kind lady, who looked 
 sweet and tranquil beneath her crown of white hair. 
 
 This old scholar and man of the world had always been 
 her faithful friend. On the day after Marmet's funeral it 
 was he who had brought the unhappy widow Schmoll's 
 waspish oration, and, thinking to console her, had beheld 
 her consumed by grief and anger. She had fainted in his 
 arms. Madame Marmet thought him lacking in judgment. 
 He was her best friend. They often dined together at the 
 tables of the rich. 
 
 Madame Martin, tall and beautiful, in her sable furs 
 opening over a fall of lace, by the sparkling brilliance of 
 her grey eyes, awoke the good man who was susceptible to 
 feminine grace. The evening before, at Madame Morlaine's, 
 he had described the end of the world. He asked her
 
 THE RED LILY 69 
 
 whether she had not been afraid when in the night watches 
 there recurred to her those pictures of the earth eaten up 
 by fire, or dead with cold and white as the moon. While 
 he was talking to her with affected gallantry, she was look- 
 ing at the mahogany book-case, which occupied a recess in 
 the drawing-room wall opposite the windows. It contained 
 few books, but on a lower shelf was a skeleton in armour. 
 It was strange to find established in the kind lady's home 
 this Etruscan warrior, wearing on his skull a helmet of 
 greenish bronze and on his disjointed body the rusty plates 
 of his cuirass. All unkempt and wild he slept among sweet- 
 meat boxes, gilded porcelain vases, holy virgins in plaster 
 and delicate souvenirs of carved wood from Lucerne and the 
 Righi. In the poverty of her widowhood, Madame Marmet 
 had sold the books with which her husband worked ; and of 
 all the antiquities the archaeologist had collected she had 
 kept only the Etruscan. Her friends had tried to induce 
 her to get rid of it. Marmet's former colleagues had found 
 a purchaser. Paul Vence had persuaded the directors of the 
 Louvre to offer to buy it. But the good widow would not 
 sell it. She imagined that if she were to part with the 
 warrior in his helmet of tarnished bronze crowned with a 
 wreath of gilded leaves, she would forfeit that name she 
 bore with such dignity and cease to be known as the widow 
 of Louis Marmet of the Academy of Inscriptions. 
 
 "Be assured, Madame. The earth will not come into col- 
 lision with a comet just yet. Such an event is extremely 
 improbable." 
 
 Madame Martin replied that the immediate annihilation 
 of the earth and humanity would matter little to her. 
 
 Old Lagrange strongly protested. He was extremely de- 
 sirous that the catastrophe should be delayed. 
 
 She looked at him. On his bald head there remained but 
 a few tufts of hair dyed black. His eyelids hung limply 
 over his eyes which were still bright; his wrinkled face was 
 as yellow as parchment, and the hang of his clothes sug- 
 gested a shrunken body. 
 
 And she thought: "He enjoys life." 
 
 Neither did Madame Marmet desire that the end of the 
 world should be near.
 
 7o THE RED LILY 
 
 "Monsieur Lagrange," said Madame Martin, "don't you 
 live in a pretty little house, with windows overhung by 
 wistaria, looking on to the Jardin des Plantes? It must be 
 delightful to live in that Garden, which always reminds me 
 of the Noah's Arks of my childhood and the Garden of Eden 
 in the old picture Bible." 
 
 But he did not find the house delightful. It was small, 
 badly built, and infested with rats. 
 
 She realised that every life has its vexations, and that 
 everywhere there are rats, real or symbolic, legions of tiny 
 creatures bent on tormenting us. Nevertheless she liked 
 the Jardin des Plantes; she was always wanting to go there, 
 but never went. There was the Museum too which she had 
 never entered but was curious to visit. 
 
 Smiling and delighted he offered to do her the honours of 
 the house. It was his home. He would show her the 
 bolides; there were some very fine specimens. 
 
 She had no idea what a bolide was. But she remembered 
 having been told that in the Museum there were reindeers' 
 bones worked by primitive man, and pieces of ivory en- 
 graved with pictures of animals long since extinct. She 
 asked if it were true. Lagrange had lost his smile. He re- 
 plied with sullen indifference that these matters concerned 
 one of his colleagues. 
 
 "Ah!" said Madame Martin, "they are not in your line." 
 
 She perceived that scholars lack curiosity and that it is 
 unwise to question them about anything which is not in 
 their department. It is true that thunderbolts had made 
 Lagrange's fortune in science. And that they had led him 
 to the study of comets. But he was prudent. For twenty 
 years his chief occupation had been dining out. 
 
 When he had gone, Countess Martin told Madame Mar- 
 met what she had planned for her. 
 
 "Next week I am going to Fiesole, to Miss Bell's, and 
 you must come with me." 
 
 Kind Madame Marmet, keen eyed beneath her placid 
 brow, was silent for a moment; then she refused feebly, but 
 was entreated and at last consented.
 
 VII 
 
 E Marseilles express was drawn up at the platform, 
 where porters were hurrying to and fro, pushing their 
 trucks in the smoke and the noise and the blue light that fell 
 through the glass of the roof. Before the open carriage 
 doors travellers in long cloaks came and went. At the ex- 
 treme end of the station, half veiled by dust and smoke, 
 there appeared, just as if at the end of a telescope, a little 
 arch of sky. No bigger than a man's hand, it represented 
 the infinitude of travel: Countess Martin and kind Ma- 
 dame Marmet were already seated in their carriage beneath 
 a rack loaded with bags; and newspapers were lying near 
 them on the cushions. Choulette had not come, and Ma- 
 dame Martin had given him up. Nevertheless he had 
 promised to be at the station. He had made arrangements 
 for his departure and received the money for Les Blandices 
 from his publisher. One evening Paul Vence had brought 
 him to the Quai de Billy. He had been gentle, polite, wittily 
 gay and naively happy. Since then she had looked forward 
 with great pleasure to travelling with a man of genius, so 
 original, so fascinatingly ugly, so entertainingly mad, such 
 a thorough old prodigal, so abounding in natural vices and 
 yet so innocent. They were shutting the carriage doors. 
 He was evidently not coming. She had been foolish to rely 
 on any one so impulsive and Bohemian. Just as the engine 
 was beginning to snort, Madame Marmet, looking out of the 
 window, said calmly: 
 
 "I think I see M. Choulette." 
 
 He was limping down the platform, wearing his hat on 
 the back of his head, which showed some curious bumps. 
 His beard was untrimmed and he was dragging an old 
 carpet-bag. His aspect was almost terrifying; and yet in 
 spite of his fifty years he looked young; his bright blue 
 eyes shone clearly and there was an ingenuous audacity in 
 his furrowed yellow face: for in this dilapidated old man 
 
 71
 
 72 THE RED LILY 
 
 there still flourished the eternal youth of the poet and 
 the artist. As she looked at him, Therese regretted having 
 chosen so strange a companion. As he walked down the 
 train he cast into each carriage a quick glance which 
 became gradually suspicious and sinister. But when 
 he reached the carriage in which the two ladies were, 
 and recognised Madame Martin, he smiled so gracefully 
 and bade her good-day in such a soft voice, that there 
 was no longer anything to suggest the wild vagabond, 
 who had been wandering on the platform, except the old 
 carpet-bag which he was dragging by its half-broken 
 handles. 
 
 He put it carefully in the rack side by side with the 
 trim bags, covered with grey linen, which made it look 
 tawdry and common, and showed up its yellow flowers on 
 a ground of blood-red. 
 
 Quite at his ease he congratulated Madame Martin on 
 the capes of her travelling-coat. 
 
 "Forgive me, ladies," he added, "I fear I am late. I 
 toent to six o'clock mass at Saint-Severin, my parish church, 
 in the Lady Chapel beneath those beautiful but incon- 
 gruous reed-like pillars climbing heavenwards like us poor 
 sinners." 
 
 "So to-day you are pious," said Madame Martin. 
 
 And she asked whether he had brought the cord of the 
 order he had founded. 
 
 He became sad and grave. 
 
 "I am afraid, Madame, that M. Paul Vence has told you 
 some absurd tales on that subject. I have heard that 
 he goes about saying that my cord is a bell-rope! I should 
 be sorry to think that any one should for a moment be- 
 lieve such a wicked story. My cord is symbolic. It is 
 represented by a thread worn next the skin, after having 
 been touched by a poor person as a sign that poverty is 
 holy and will save the world. Goodness is impossible with-, 
 out poverty; and since receiving the money for my Blan- 
 dices, I have felt myself growing hard and unjust. It does 
 me good to remember that I have a few of these mystic 
 cords in my bag." 
 
 And, pointing to the hideous blood-red bag:
 
 THE RED LILY 73 
 
 "I have also got there a wafer, given me by a bad priest, 
 the works of M. de Maistre, a few shirts and several other 
 things." 
 
 Madame Martin, somewhat alarmed, raised her eyebrows. 
 But kind Madame Marmet retained her accustomed 
 placidity. 
 
 Whilst the train was going through the suburbs, that ugly 
 black fringe of the town, Choulette took out a pocket-book 
 and began to look in it. Beneath the vagabond the scribe 
 was revealing himself. Choulette was fond of hoarding doc- 
 uments, although he did not wish to appear to do so. 
 He made sure that he had lost nothing, neither the scraps 
 of paper with ideas for his poems jotted down in a cafe, 
 nor the dozen complimentary letters, dirty, finger-marked, 
 ragged at the folds, which he always carried and read at 
 night beneath the gas lamps to any chance acquaintance 
 he might happen to meet. Having seen that everything 
 was there he took a letter in an unsealed envelope out of 
 his pocket-book. He fidgeted with it for some time with 
 an air of rather impudent mystery and then gave it to 
 the Countess Martin. It was a letter of introduction, given 
 him by the Marchioness of Rieu, to a princess of the 
 French royal family, a very near relative of the Comte 
 de Chambord, who, old and widowed, lived in retirement 
 near the gates of Florence. Having enjoyed the effect which 
 he thought this letter must have produced, he remarked that 
 he might perhaps call on the Princess; she was a good 
 pious person. 
 
 "She is a real fine lady," he added, "one who does not 
 display her magnificence in her gowns and hats. She wears 
 her underclothing six weeks and sometimes longer. The 
 noblemen of her suite have seen her wearing very dirty 
 white stockings hanging over her shoes. She revives the 
 virtues of the great queens of Spain. Those dirty stockings 
 are a true glory." 
 
 He took back the letter and restored it to his pocket- 
 book. Then, having armed himself with a horn-handled 
 knife, he began to carve a figure already half finished on 
 the handle of his walking stick. Meanwhile he was pro- 
 nouncing a eulogy on himself.
 
 74 THE RED LILY 
 
 "I am skilled in all the arts of beggars and vagabonds. I 
 know how to open locks with a nail and carve wood with 
 a cheap clasp-knife." 
 
 The head was beginning to be defined. It was the thin 
 face of a woman weeping. 
 
 Choulette meant it to express human suffering, not in 
 its touching simplicity as in an earlier civilisation when 
 barbarism was mingled with goodness, nor painted and 
 hideous with that ugliness into which it had been degraded 
 by the middle-class freethinkers and the militarist patriots, 
 the children of the French Revolution. In his opinion the 
 present government was the personification of hypocrisy 
 and brutality. 
 
 "Barracks are a horrible invention of modern times. 
 They originate in the seventeenth century. Formerly there 
 was nothing but the guard-house, where veterans played 
 cards and told fairy stories. Louis XIV is the precursor of 
 the Convention and of Bonaparte. But the evil has come 
 to a head in the monstrous institution of universal mili- 
 tary service. To have forced men to kill each other is 
 the disgrace of emperors and republics, the crime of crimes. 
 In the so-called barbarous ages, cities and princes en- 
 trusted their defence to mercenaries who made war delib- 
 erately and prudently; in some great battles there were 
 only five or six slain. And when the knights engaged 
 in war they were not forced to it; they were killed of their 
 own free will. It is true they were good for nothing else. 
 In the days of Saint Louis no one would have dreamt of 
 sending a man of learning and intelligence into battle. 
 Neither was the labourer dragged from his plough and 
 forced to join the army. Now it is considered the duty 
 of a poor peasant to serve as a soldier. Now he is driven 
 from his home with its chimneys smoking in the golden 
 evening light, from the fat meadows where his oxen are 
 grazing, from his cornfields and ancestral woods. In the 
 court-yard of some miserable barracks he is taught how to 
 kill men methodically; he is threatened, insulted, impris- 
 oned; he is told that it is an honour, and if he desire no 
 such honour, he is shot. He obeys, because, like all the 
 gentlest, gayest, and most docile domestic animals, he is
 
 THE RED LILY 75 
 
 afraid. We in France are soldiers and we are citizens. Our 
 citizenship is another occasion for pride! For the poor 
 it consists in supporting and maintaining the rich in their 
 power and their idleness. At this task they must labour in 
 the face of the majestic equality of the laws, which forbid 
 rich and poor alike to sleep under the bridges, to beg in 
 the streets, and to steal their bread. This equality is one 
 of the benefits of the Revolution. Why, that revolution 
 was effected by madmen and idiots for the benefit of those 
 who had acquired the wealth of the crown. It resulted 
 in the enrichment of cunning peasants and money-lending 
 bourgeois. In the name of equality it founded the empire 
 of wealth. It delivered France to those moneyed classes 
 who have been devouring her for a century. Now they 
 are our lords and masters. The so-called government, com- 
 posed of poor creatures, pitiable, miserable, impoverished, 
 and complaining, is in the pay of financiers. Throughout 
 the last hundred years any one caring for the poor in 
 this plague-stricken country has been held a traitor to 
 society. And you are considered dangerous if you assert 
 that there are those who suffer poverty. There are even 
 laws against indignation and pity. But what I am saying 
 now cannot be printed." 
 
 While Choulette was growing animated and brandishing 
 his knife, they were passing fields of brown earth, clumps 
 of purple trees that winter had robbed of their leaves, 
 and curtains of poplars on the banks of silver rivers, lying 
 in the winter sunshine. 
 
 He looked pathetically at the figure carved upon his 
 stick. 
 
 "There you are," he said, "poor Humanity, emaciated 
 and in tears, stupefied by shame and poverty, such as you 
 have been made by your masters, the soldier and the 
 plutocrat." 
 
 Kind Madame Marmet, whose nephew was a captain of 
 artillery, a charming young man, strongly attached to his 
 profession, was shocked by the violence of Choulette's 
 attack upon the army. Madame Martin regarded it as an 
 amusing caprice. Choulette's ideas did not alarm her. She 
 was afraid of nothing. But she thought them rather ab-
 
 76 THE RED LILY 
 
 surd; she could not conceive that the past could ever have 
 been better than the present. 
 
 "I believe, Monsieur Choulette, that men have always 
 been what they are to-day, selfish, violent, greedy, and 
 pitiless. I believe that the unfortunate have always been 
 harshly and cruelly treated by laws and customs." 
 
 Between La Roche and Dijon, they lunched in the 
 restaurant-car, and then left Choulette there alone with 
 his pipe, his glass of Benedictine, and his vexed soul. 
 
 When they had returned to their carriage, Madame Mar- 
 met talked with tranquil affection of her dead husband. 
 Theirs was a love match. He had written her beautiful 
 verses, which she kept and showed to no one. He was 
 vivacious and gay. No one would have believed it pos- 
 sible that he would ever succumb to overwork and dis- 
 ease. He had laboured till the very last. Suffering from 
 an enlarged heart, he could never lie down, and used to 
 pass the night in his arm-chair, with his books on a table 
 at his side. Only two hours before his death he made 
 an effort to read. He was kind and affectionate. His suf- 
 ferings never rendered him irritable. 
 
 For lack of anything better, Madame Martin said: 
 
 "You have the memory of long years of happiness, and 
 in this world that is to have a share of good fortune." 
 
 But Madame Marmet sighed; and a cloud over- 
 shadowed her tranquil brow. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "Louis was the best of men and the 
 best of husbands. Nevertheless, he made me very unhappy. 
 He had only one fault, but I suffered bitterly from it. He 
 was jealous. He who was otherwise so kind, so affectionate, 
 and so noble-minded was rendered unjust, tyrannical, and 
 violent by that hateful passion. I can assure you that my 
 conduct gave no ground for suspicion. I was not a co- 
 quette. But I was young and fresh-looking; I was con- 
 sidered almost pretty. That was enough. He forbade me 
 to go out alone or receive callers in his absence. When 
 we went to a ball together, I trembled in anticipation of 
 the scene he would make in the carriage on our way 
 home." 
 
 And kind Madame Marmet added with a sigh;
 
 THE RED LILY 77 
 
 "It is true that I loved dancing. But I was obliged to 
 give it up. It pained him too much." 
 
 Countess Martin did not conceal her surprise. She had 
 always regarded Marmet as a shy self-absorbed old gentle- 
 man, appearing rather ridiculous between his corpulent wife, 
 with her white hair and her sweet temper, and the skele- 
 ton of his Etruscan warrior in its gilded bronze helmet. 
 But the excellent widow confided to her that when he 
 was fifty-five and she fifty-three, Louis was as jealous 
 as in the early days of their married life. 
 
 Therese remembered that Robert had never troubled 
 her by his jealousy. Was it a proof of his tact and good 
 taste or had he never loved her enough to be jealous? She 
 did not know and she had not the courage to inquire. It 
 would have involved searching in those secret chambers 
 of her heart which she had decided never to open again. 
 
 She murmured almost involuntarily: 
 
 "We want to be loved; and when we are loved we are 
 either tormented or bored." 
 
 They closed the day with reading and meditation. Chou- 
 lette had not reappeared. Night was gradually casting a 
 grey veil over the mulberry trees of Dauphine. Madame 
 Marmet slept peacefully, her head resting on her breast 
 as if on a pillow. Therese looked at her and thought: 
 
 "She is happy indeed if she can take delight in recalling 
 the past." 
 
 The sadness of the night seemed to enter into her heart. 
 And when the moon rose over the olive fields, as she gazed 
 upon the soft outline of plains and hills and the fleeting 
 blue shadows, surrounded by a landscape in which every- 
 thing suggested peace and oblivion, Therese longed for the 
 Seine, the Arc de Triomphe with its radiating avenues, and 
 the glades of the Bois, where at least the trees and stones 
 knew her. 
 
 Suddenly, with an artful abruptness, Choulette precipi- 
 tated himself into the carriage. Armed with his knotted 
 stick, his head enveloped in rough fur and a red shaw.1, 
 he almost alarmed her. That was what he wanted. His 
 violent pose and savage mien were affectations. 
 
 Always occupied with bizarre and trivial effects it was
 
 78 THE RED LILY 
 
 his delight to appear alarming. Himself very easily fright- 
 ened, he liked to inspire the terror he experienced. Smok- 
 ing his pipe alone at the end of the passage only a few 
 moments before, as he saw the moon behind the fleeting 
 clouds, over the Camargue, his imaginative, versatile soul 
 had been struck by childish fears. He had come to take 
 refuge with Countess Martin. 
 
 "Aries," he said. "Do you know Aries? It is pure 
 beauty! In the cloisters of St. Trophimus I have seen 
 doves perched on the shoulders of statues, and little grey 
 lizards warming themselves on the tombs in the Aliscamps. 
 The tombs are now arranged on each side of the road lead- 
 ing to the church. They are cistern-shaped, and at night 
 beggars sleep in them. One evening, as I was walking with 
 Paul Arene, I met a nice old woman who was spreading 
 dried grass in the tomb of a virgin who died long ago 
 on her wedding-day. We wished her good-night. She re- 
 plied: 'May God hear you. But an evil fate has willed 
 that this cistern should be open to the north-west wind. 
 If only the crack had been on the other side, I should 
 have slept like Queen Jane.' " 
 
 Therese did not reply. She was sleepy. And Choulette, 
 shivering in the aaight cold, thought of death and was 
 afraid.
 
 VIII 
 
 MISS BELL had driven the Countess Martin-Beileme 
 and Madame Marmet in her trap from the Florence 
 station, up the steep hill, to her house at Fiesole, painted 
 pink, surrounded by a balustrade, and looking down on 
 the incomparable city. The maid was following with the 
 luggage. Choulette, whom Miss Bell had quartered on 
 a verger's widow in the shadow of Fiesole cathedral, was to 
 come to dinner. Pleasant and plain, with short hair and 
 slim, flat figure, almost graceful in her tailor-made coat 
 and skirt of masculine cut, the poetess welcomed her French 
 friends to her home. The house betrayed the refined deli- 
 cacy of her taste. On the drawing-room walls pale virgins 
 of Sienna, with long hands, reigned tranquilly over angels, 
 patriarchs, and saints in triptychs with fine gilded mould- 
 ings. On a pedestal was a standing figure of a Magdalen, 
 enveloped in her long hair, terribly old and wasted, some 
 beggar on the road to Pistoia, her skin hardened by sun 
 and snow, copied in clay, with horrible pathetic realism, 
 by an unknown precursor of Donatello. And Miss Bell's 
 armorial bearings, big bells and little bells, were every- 
 where. The largest, in bronze, were in the corners of the 
 room; others formed a chain round the bottom of the walls. 
 Smaller ones bordered the cornice. There were bells on 
 the stove, on the coffers and the cabinets. There were 
 glass cases full of bells in silver and silver gilt. There were 
 big bronze bells engraved with the Florentine lily, little 
 Renaissance bells composed of a woman wearing a full 
 farthingale, funeral bells decorated with tears and bones, 
 filigree bells, covered with leaves and symbolic animals, 
 which rang in churches in the days of St. Louis, table bells 
 of the seventeenth century with a statuette for handle, little 
 flat clear-sounding cow-bells of the Rutli valleys, Indian 
 bells made to ring softly with a stag's horn, Chinese bells 
 of cylindrical form; they had come there from all coun- 
 
 79
 
 8o THE RED LILY 
 
 tries and from all times in obedience to the magic summons 
 of this little Miss Bell. 
 
 "You are looking at my vocal coats of arms," she said 
 to Madame Martin. "I think all those Misses Bell are 
 happy here, and it would not astonish me if one day they 
 began to sing together. But you must not admire them 
 all equally. You must keep your highest praise for this 
 one." 
 
 As she struck with her finger a dark plain bell, there re- 
 sounded a shrill note: 
 
 "This one," she resumed, "is a holy country-woman of 
 the fifth century. She is the daughter in the faith of 
 Paulinus of Nola, he who first made music in the sky above 
 us. It is made of a rare metal, called Campanian brass. 
 Soon I will show you at her side a most charming Floren- 
 tine, the queen of bells. She is to come. But I am weary- 
 ing you with these toys, darling. And I am boring kind 
 Madame Marmet also. It is too bad of me." 
 
 She took them to their rooms. 
 
 An hour later, Madame Martin, refreshed and rested, in 
 a tea-gown of soft silk and lace, came down on to the 
 terrace, where Miss Bell was waiting for her. The damp 
 air, warmed by the sunlight, not yet strong but already 
 abundant, breathed the disquieting sweetness of spring. 
 Therese, leaning against the balustrade, bathed her eyes 
 in the light. At her feet the cypresses raised their dark 
 pyramids and the olive trees clustered on the slopes. In 
 the hollow of the valley was Florence with its domes, its 
 towers, the multitude of its red roofs, among which was 
 faintly discernible the winding thread of the Arno. Be- 
 yond were the blue hills. 
 
 She tried to make out the Boboli gardens, where she had 
 walked during a previous visit, the Cascine, which she did 
 not care for, the Pitti Palace, Santa Maria del Fiore. Then 
 the glorious spaces of the sky attracted her. She followed 
 the fleeting forms of the clouds. 
 
 After a long silence, Vivian Bell stretched out her hand 
 towards the horizon. 
 
 "Darling, I cannot express myself, I don't know how 
 to say it. But look, darling, look again. What you see
 
 THE RED LILY 81 
 
 is unique. Nowhere else is nature so subtle, so elegant, 
 so delicate. The god who created the Florentine hills 
 was an artist. Yes, he was a worker in jewels, an en- 
 graver of medals, a sculptor, a bronze founder, and a 
 painter; he was a Florentine. And he produced nothing 
 else, darling. The rest is the work of a less delicate hand, 
 a less perfect creation. How could that violet hill of San 
 Miniato, standing out in such pure and firm relief, be by 
 the author of Mont Blanc? It is not possible. This land- 
 scape, darling, has all the beauty of an ancient medal and 
 a costly painting. It is a perfect and harmonious work 
 of art. And there is something else that I can't express, 
 that I can't understand, and yet it it true. In this coun- 
 try, I feel, and you will feel like me, darling, half alive 
 and half dead, in a state very noble, very sad and very 
 sweet. Look, look well; you will discern the melancholy 
 of these hills which surround Florence, and you will be- 
 hold a delicious sadness ascending from the Country of the 
 Dead." 
 
 The sun was declining towards the horizon. One by 
 one the lights faded from the hills and the clouds became 
 on fire. 
 
 Madame Marmet sneezed. 
 
 Miss Bell had shawls brought and warned her French 
 guests that the evenings were cold and dangerous. 
 
 Then suddenly she said: 
 
 "Darling, do you know M. Jacques Dechartre? Well, 
 he writes that he is coming to Florence next week. I am 
 glad that M. Jacques Dechartre should be in our city at 
 the same time as you. He will go with us to churches 
 and museums; and he will be a good guide. He under- 
 stands beautiful things because he loves them. His sculp- 
 ture is exquisite. His figures and medallions are even more 
 highly appreciated in England than in France. Oh! I am 
 so glad that M. Jacques Dechartre will be at Florence 
 with you, darling!"
 
 DC 
 
 next day, as they were coming out of Santa Maria 
 JL Novella, and crossing the square, where, as in an 
 ancient circus, stand two obelisks of marble, Madame Mar- 
 met said to Countess Martin: "I think I see Monsieur 
 Choulette." 
 
 Sitting in a cobbler's booth, pipe in hand, Choulette 
 was gesticulating rhythmically, and appeared to be recit- 
 ing verses. The Florentine shoemaker, as he worked with 
 his awl, was listening with a good-natured smile. He was 
 a little bald man, a favourite type in Flemish pictures. On 
 the table, among the wooden lasts, nails, pieces of leather, 
 and balls of wax, was a basil plant. A sparrow with a 
 false leg, made of a bit of match, was hopping gaily from 
 the old man's shoulder to his head. 
 
 Delighted at such a sight, Madame Martin stood on 
 the threshold and called Choulette, who was reciting in a 
 soft, singing voice, and asked him why he had not come 
 with her to visit the Cappella degli Spagnuoli. 
 
 He rose and replied: 
 
 "Madame, you are occupied with vain imaginings. I am 
 concerned with life and reality." 
 
 He shook hands with the cobbler, and followed the two 
 ladies. 
 
 "On my way to Santa Maria Novella," he said, "I saw 
 this old man, leaning over his work, holding the last be- 
 tween his knees as Jf in a vise, and stitching clumsy shoes. 
 I felt that he was simple and good. I said to him in 
 Italian, 'Father, will you drink a glass of Chianti with 
 me?' He was quite willing. He went to fetch a bottle 
 and glasses, while I minded his shop." 
 
 And Choulette pointed to two glasses and a bottle stand- 
 ing on the stove. 
 
 "When he returned we drank together; I repeated good 
 words of obscure meaning, the music of which delighted 
 him. I shall return to his booth. I shall learn from 
 
 82
 
 THE RED LILY 83 
 
 him how to make shoes and live a contented life. After 
 that I shall never know sadness, which arises solely from 
 discontent and idleness." 
 
 Countess Martin smiled. 
 
 "Monsieur Choulette, I am not discontented, and yet 
 I am not gay. Must I also learn to make shoes?" 
 
 Choulette replied gravely: 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 When they reached the Oricellari Gardens, Madame Mar- 
 met dropped on to a seat. At Santa Maria Novella she 
 had carefully examined the serene frescoes of Ghirlandajo, 
 the choir-stalls, the virgin of Cimabue, and the pictures in 
 the monastery. She had taken great pains in honour of 
 her husband's memory, who was said to have loved Italian 
 art. She was tired. Choulette sat down by her and said: 
 
 "Could you tell me, Madame, if it is true that the Pope 
 has his robes made by Worth?" 
 
 Madame Marmet did not think so. Nevertheless Chou 
 lette had heard it in the cafes. Madame Martin was sur- 
 prised that Choulette, a Catholic and a Socialist, should 
 speak so disrespectfully of a Pope who was the friencr 
 of the Republic. But he had little admiration for Leo XIII. 
 
 "The wisdom of princes is short-sighted," he said. "The 
 Church's salvation will be effected by the Italian Republic; 
 and this is what Leo XIII believes and desires; but the 
 Church will not be saved in the way that pious Machiavelli 
 expects: the revolution will deprive the Pope of his in 
 iquitous tribute with the rest of his temporal dominion. 
 And that will be the salvation of the papacy. Poor and 
 stripped of his temporal power, the Pope will once more 
 be powerful. He will move the world. The Peters, the 
 Linuses, the Cletuses, the Anacletuses, the Clements,* the 
 humble, the ignorant, the saints of early times who changed 
 the face of the earth, will return. If such an impossible 
 thing were to happen as that to-morrow there were to sit 
 in the chair of St. Peter a true bishop, a true Christian, I 
 should go to him and say: 'Cease to be an old man buried 
 
 * St. Peter, St. Linus, St. Cletus, St. Clement, St. Anacletus are 
 said to have been the first five Popes, A.D. 65-109 (cf. Butler's 
 "Lives of the Saints"). W.S.
 
 84 THE RED LILY 
 
 alive in a golden tomb. Leave your chamberlains, your 
 noble body-guards, and your cardinals; abandon your throne 
 and the empty shows of power. Come, and, supported by 
 me, beg your bread from the nations. Ragged, poor, sick, 
 dying, bear in yourself the image of Jesus. Say, I beg 
 my bread in order that the rich may be reproached. Enter 
 the towns and cry from door to door: Be humble, be gentle, 
 be poor! Proclaim peace and charity in dark cities, in 
 barracks, and in miserable hovels. You will be despised, 
 you will be stoned. Soldiers will drag you to prison. To 
 the humble as to the powerful, to the poor as to the rich, 
 you will be a laughing-stock, a subject for disgust and 
 pity. Your priests will depose you and elect an anti- 
 pope. Every one will call you mad. And they must 
 speak the truth; for you must be mad: the world has 
 always been saved by madmen. Men will crown you with 
 a crowns of thorns, and put in your hands a sceptre of 
 reeds; and by these signs they shall know you to be the 
 Christ, the true King. By these means you shall establish 
 Christian socialism, which is the kingdom of God on 
 earth.' " 
 
 Having thus spoken, Choulette lit a long Italian cigar 
 with a straw running through the middle. He inhaled a 
 few whin's of noxious smoke and then tranquilly resumed: 
 
 "And it would be quite practical. I am nothing if not 
 clear-headed. Ah! Madame Marmet, you will never know 
 how true it is that the great tasks of the world have always 
 been accomplished by madmen. Do you think, Madame 
 Mlartin, that if St. Francis of Assisi had been reasonable, he 
 could have shed abroad among the nations the living wa- 
 ters of charity and quickened them with the perfumes of 
 love?" 
 
 "I do not know," replied Madame Martin. "But I al- 
 ways find reasonable persons very wearisome. I need not 
 hesitate to say this to you, Monsieur Choulette." 
 
 They returned up the hill to Fiesole by steam tram. It 
 was raining. Madame Marmet fell asleep, and Choulette 
 grumbled. He was overwhelmed with misfortunes: the 
 dampness of the atmosphere gave him pains in the knee 
 and be couldn't bend his leg; his carpet-bag, lost on the
 
 THE RED LILY 85 
 
 way from the station to Fiesole, couldn't be found, and 
 that was an irreparable disaster; a Parisian review had just 
 published one of his poems with glaring misprints. 
 
 He accused men and things of being against him, bent 
 on his ruin. He was childish, absurd, disagreeable. Ma- 
 dame Martin, depressed by Choulette and by the rain, 
 thought the ascent would never come to an end. When she 
 entered the house of bells, she found Miss Bell in the 
 drawing-room. In a handwriting modelled on the Aldine 
 type she was copying, in golden ink, on to a piece of 
 parchment, the verses she had composed during the night. 
 At the sight of her friend, she raised her plain little face, 
 glorified by her fine brilliant eyes. 
 
 "Darling, let me introduce Prince Albertinelli." . 
 
 The prince, in all the beauty of a young Adonis, hu- 
 manised by a straight black beard, was standing near the 
 stove. He bowed to Madame Martin. 
 
 "Madame would inspire us with a love for France had 
 not that sentiment already taken root in our hearts," he 
 said. 
 
 The Countess and Choulette asked Miss Bell to read 
 them the verses she was writing. She said it would be 
 impossible for her to make her halting numbers compre- 
 hensible to the French poet whom she admired most after 
 Frangois Villon; then, in her pretty, shrill, birdlike voice, 
 she recited: 
 
 Where the stream, like a water-sprite, laughing and singing, 
 
 And waving cool arms, to the Arno down-springing, 
 
 In spray-lifting leaps, skips o'er rugged rock-ledges, 
 
 Two comely young lovers changed rings as love's pledges. 
 
 And the transport of love in their bosoms was swelling, 
 
 As the riotous drops in the torrent upwelling, 
 
 The maiden was Gemma, but name for her lover 
 
 No chronicler ever was known to discover. 
 
 As day followed day, lips to lips closely pressing, 
 
 With arms interlaced in their artless caressing, 
 
 The goats cropping thyme all unstartled would brook them, 
 
 Till at eve to their home in the town they betook them. 
 
 And there the tired toilers, 'neath linden trees seated, 
 
 The dream-enwrapped lovers nor heeded nor greeted. 
 
 Yet they wept when they thought there remained not to capture 
 
 From life, aught of bliss that could heighten their rapture.
 
 86 THE RED LILY 
 
 In that meadow where first they gave ear to love's singing, 
 Where like as the vine to the green elm-tree clinging, 
 O'erarched by the sky their first kisses they blended, 
 Its blood-tinted petals a strange plant extended, 
 All lance-like and wan were the leaves of its growing, 
 Herb of Silence its name of the shepherds' bestowing. 
 
 And Gemma was 'ware it was potent in lending 
 The slumber eternal, the dream without ending, 
 To all who should taste its ineffable savour. 
 
 One day, 'neath the branches with breezes a-quaver, 
 With a leaflet she parted the lips of her lover, 
 And straightway ElysiurA received him, a rover ; 
 Then she, of the peace-bringing leaf having tasted, 
 In pursuit of her love to the silent shades hasted. 
 
 And the dove, that at twilight complains as it hovers, 
 Alone breaks the silence enwrapping the lovers.* 
 
 "That is very pretty," said Choulette; "it suggests an 
 Italy veiled in the mists of the Land of Thule." 
 
 "Yes," said Countess Martin, "it is pretty. But, my dear 
 Vivian, why did your two innocents want to die?" 
 
 "Why, darling! because they felt as happy as possible, 
 and they desired nothing more. Nothing was left to them 
 to hope for. Don't you understand?" 
 
 "Then you believe that hope keeps us alive?" 
 
 "Yes, darling, we live in the expectation of what To- 
 morrow, To-morrow, King of Fairyland, will bring in his 
 
 * "Lors au pied des rochers oil la source penchante, 
 Pareille a la Naiade et qui rit et qui chante, 
 Agite ses bras frais et vole vers 1'Arno, 
 Deux beaux enfants avaient echange leur anneau, 
 Et le bonheur d'aimer coulait dans leurs poitrines 
 Comme i'eau du torrent au versant des collines. 
 Elle avait nom Gemma. Mais I'amant de Gemma, 
 Nul entre les conteurs jamais ne le nomma. 
 
 Le jour, ces innocents, la bouche sur la bouche, 
 Melaient leurs jeunes corps dans la sauvage couche 
 De thym que visitait la chevre. Et vers le soir, 
 A 1'heure ou 1'artisan fatigue va s'asseoir 
 Sous les tilleuls, surpris, ils regagnaient la ville. 
 Nul n'avait souci d'eux dans la foule servile, 
 Et souvent ils pleuraient, se sentant trop heureux. 
 He comprirent que vivre etait mauvais pour eux,
 
 THE RED LILY 87 
 
 mantle of black or blue, embroidered with flowers, with 
 stars, and with tears. Oh bright king To-morrow!" 
 
 Or, dans cette prairie ou dechires de joie, 
 Us etaient 1'orme vert et la vigne qui ploie, 
 Et tordaient sous le ciel leur rameau gemissant, 
 S'elevait une plante etrange, aux fleurs de sang, 
 Qui dardait son feuillage en pales fers de lance. 
 Les bergers la nommaient la Plante du silence. 
 
 Et Gemma le savait, que le sommeil divin 
 Et Feternel repos et Je reve sans fin 
 Viendraient de cette plante a qui 1'aurait mordue. 
 
 Un jour qu'elle riait sous 1'arbuste etendue, 
 Elle en mit une feuille aux levres de 1'ami. 
 Quand il fut dans la joie a jamais endormi, 
 Elle mordit aussi la feuille bien-aimee. 
 Aux pieds de son amant elle tomba pamee. 
 
 Les colombes au soir sur eux vinrent gemir, 
 fit rien plus ne troubla leur amoureux dormir."
 
 ' I A HEY were dressed for dinner. In the drawing-room 
 JL Miss Bell was drawing monsters, suggested by those of 
 Leonardo da Vinci. She created them in order to see what 
 they would say, convinced that they would speak and 
 express rare ideas in curious rhymes. Then she would 
 listen to them. It was thus that she generally conceived 
 her poems. 
 
 Prince Albertinelli was strumming on the piano the 
 Sicilian air, O Lola! His fingers passed lightly over the 
 keys. 
 
 Choulette, more uncouth than usual, was asking for a 
 needle and thread with which to mend his clothes. He 
 was groaning over the loss of a modest needle-case he 
 had carried in his pocket for thirty years, and which was 
 precious on account of the sweet memories it recalled and 
 the wise counsels it suggested. He thought he must have 
 lost it in that impious hall of the Pitti Palace, and he held 
 the Medicis and all the Italian painters responsible. 
 
 Looking at Miss Bell reproachfully, he said: 
 
 "I compose my poems when I am mending my clothes. 
 I take delight in manual labour. I sing my songs as I 
 sweep my room. That is why those songs go straight 
 to the hearts of men, like the old songs of ploughmen and 
 artisans, which are more beautiful than mine but not 
 more natural. I take a pride in waiting on myself. The 
 verger's widow offered to mend my rags. I would not 
 permit it. It is wrong to employ others to do servilely 
 what we could ourselves accomplish in noble free- 
 dom." 
 
 The Prince was playing slight airs mechanically. Therese, 
 who for the last week had been visiting churches and 
 museums with Madame Marmet, was meditating on the 
 vexation her companion caused her by insisting on recog- 
 nising resemblances to persons among her acquaintance in 
 the portraits by the old masters. That morning at the
 
 THE RED LILY 89 
 
 Riccardi Palace, merely in the frescoes of Benozzo Goz- 
 zoli, she had recognised M. Garain, M. Lagrange, M. 
 Schmoll, Princess Seniavine dressed as a page, and M. 
 Renan on horseback. M. Renan she was quite alarmed 
 to find everywhere. Her ideas were always revolving 
 around her little academical and social circle with a facility 
 which annoyed her friend. In her sweet voice she was 
 always describing the public meetings of the Institute, lec- 
 tures at the Sorbonne, assemblies adorned by fashionable 
 theosophists. As for the women, in her opinion they were 
 all charming and irreproachable. She visited them all. And 
 Therese reflected: "Kind Madame Marmet! She is too 
 discreet. She bores me." And Madame Marmet thought of 
 leaving her behind at Fiesole and visiting the churches 
 alone. She said to herself, using an expression that Le 
 Menil had taught her: 
 
 "I must drop Madame Marmet." 
 
 A thin old man entered the drawing-room. His waxed 
 moustache and little white pointed beard made him look 
 like an old officer. But beneath his spectacles his glance 
 betrayed the cunning geniality of eyes worn out in the 
 service of science and pleasure. He was a Florentine, 
 a friend of Miss Bell and of the Prince, Professor Arrighi, 
 once adored by women, now famous throughout Tuscany 
 and the Emilia * for his essays on agriculture. 
 
 Countess Martin liked him at once. Although she had 
 not been favourably impressed by rural life in Italy, she 
 carefully questioned the Professor concerning his methods 
 and their results. 
 
 He proceeded, he said, with energy tempered by prudence. 
 
 "The earth," he continued, "is like a woman. She re- 
 quires you to be neither timid nor brutal." 
 
 The Ave Maria sounding from all the campanili con- 
 verted the sky into one vast musical instrument playing 
 religious music. 
 
 "Darling," said Miss Bell, "do you hear how in the 
 evening the air of Florence is sonorous and tinkling with 
 the sound of bells?" 
 
 *A district composed of three duchies, Parma, Piacenza and Mo 
 dena.- -W.S.
 
 90 THE RED LILY 
 
 "It is strange," said Choulette, "but we all seem as if 
 we were waiting for some one." 
 
 Vivian Bell replied that they were indeed waiting for 
 some one, for M. Dechartre. He was rather late. She was 
 afraid he must have missed his train. 
 
 Choulette went up to Madame Marmet and said very 
 gravely: 
 
 "Madame Marmet, can you ever look at a door, a sim- 
 ple door of painted wood, like yours for instance or mine, 
 on that one or any other, without being filled with fear 
 and horror at the thought of the visitor who may enter at 
 any moment? The door of our dwelling opens into the 
 infinite. Have you ever thought of it? Do we ever know 
 the true name of him or her, who, in human form, with 
 a familiar face, in commonplace clothes, enters our 
 house?" 
 
 For his part, shut up in his own room, he could never 
 look at the door without fear making his hair stand on 
 end. 
 
 But Madame Marmet was able to look at her drawing- 
 room doors without experiencing the slightest alarm. She 
 knew the names of all her visitors; all delightful people. 
 
 Choulette looked at her sadly and shook his head: 
 
 "Madame Marmet, Madame Marmet, those whom you 
 call by their earthly names have another name, which you 
 do not know, but which is their true name." 
 
 Madame Martin asked Choulette if he believed that when 
 misfortune descended upon people there was any need 
 for it to cross the threshold. 
 
 "It is subtle and ingenious. It comes through the win- 
 dow, it passes through walls. It is not always seen, but 
 it is always there. The poor doors are quite innocent 
 of the advent of this evil visitor." 
 
 Choulette reproached Madame Martin severely for call- 
 ing the advent of misfortune evil. 
 
 "Misfortune is our greatest master and our best friend. 
 It teaches us the meaning of life. Ladies, when you suf- 
 fer, you will know what you ought to know, you will 
 believe what you ought to believe, you will do what you 
 ought to do, you will be what you ought to be. And
 
 THE RED LILY 91 
 
 you will possess that joy which pleasure banishes. Joy 
 is shy and delights not in feasting." 
 
 Prince Albertinelli said that neither Miss Bell nor her 
 two French friends needed misfortune to make them per- 
 fect, and that the doctrine of perfection through suffering 
 was barbarously cruel and held in horror beneath the beau- 
 tiful Italian sky. Then, when conversation languished, he 
 returned to the piano and tried to finger out the melody 
 of the graceful conventional Sicilian air, fearing to glide 
 into the somewhat similar one in II Trovatore. 
 
 Vivian Bell was questioning in whispers the monsters she 
 had created and grumbling at their absurd jesting replies. 
 
 "At this moment," she said, "I only want to listen to 
 tapestry figures talking of things pale, ancient, and as 
 precious as they." 
 
 And now the handsome Prince was singing, carried away 
 on the flood of melody. His voice swelled, spread itself 
 out like a peacock's tail, and then died away softly. 
 
 Kind Madame Marmet, with her eyes on the glass door, 
 said: 
 
 "I think here is M. Dechartre." 
 
 He entered with a vivacious animated air. His face, gen- 
 erally grave, was beaming with joy. 
 
 Miss Bell welcomed him with little bird-like cries. 
 
 "Monsieur Dechartre, we were growing very impatient. 
 M. Choulette was speaking evil of doors. Yes, doors in 
 houses; and he was saying that misfortune is an obliging 
 old gentleman. You have lost ail these fine things. You 
 have kept us waiting, Monsieur Dechartre; why?" 
 
 He made his excuses: he had barely had time to go to 
 his hotel and dress quickly. He had not even been to 
 greet his dear good friend the bronze San Marco, so pa- 
 thetic in its niche, on the wall of Or San Michele. He 
 complimented the poetess and greeted Countess Martin with 
 an ill-concealed delight. 
 
 "Before leaving Paris, I called at your house on the 
 Quai de Billy, where I was told that you had gone to 
 meet the spring at Miss Bell's at Fiesole. Then I hoped 
 I might find you in that country which now I love more 
 than ever."
 
 92 THE RED LILY 
 
 She asked him if he had been first to Venice and ta 
 Ravenna to see the haloed empresses and the glistening 
 phantoms. 
 
 No, he had not stayed anywhere. 
 
 She said nothing. Her glance remained fixed on one 
 corner of the wall on the bell of St. Paulinus. 
 
 He said: 
 
 "You are looking at the bell from Nola." 
 
 Vivian threw down her papers and pencils. 
 
 "You will soon see a marvel which will appeal to you 
 more than that, M. Dechartre. I have discovered the queen 
 of little bells. I found it at Rimini, in a ruined wine- 
 press, which is now being used as a shop, where I had 
 gone for some old wood saturated with oil, hard, dark, and 
 shiny. I bought the bell and had it packed myself. I 
 shall not live until it arrives. You will see. On its cup is 
 a Christ on the Cross, between the Virgin and St. John, 
 with the date 1400 and the arms of the Malatesta. 
 
 "Monsieur Dechartre, you are not attending. You must 
 listen. In 1400, Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was fleeing from 
 war and plague, had taken refuge at Rimini with Paolo 
 Malatesta. It must certainly have been he who modelled 
 the figures on my bell. Next week you will see a work 
 by Ghiberti here." 
 
 Dinner was announced. She asked them to pardon her 
 giving them an Italian dinner. Her cook was a poet 
 of Fiesole. 
 
 At table, before the fiasconi, encased in maize straw, they 
 talked of that blessed fifteenth century that they loved. 
 Prince Albertinelli praised the universality of the artists 
 of that period, their passionate love of art and their 
 genius. He spoke emphatically, in a caressing voice. 
 
 Dechartre admired them, but in a different manner. 
 
 "An appropriate eulogy," he said, "of those men who 
 from Cimabue to Masaccio laboured with such whole- 
 hearted devotion, should be both modest and precise. One 
 must regard them first in the studio, and then in the work- 
 shop, where they lived like artisans. It is by studying 
 them at their work that one comes to appreciate their 
 simplicity and their genius. They were rough and igno-
 
 THE RED LILY 93 
 
 rant. They had read little and seen little. The hills 
 around Florence enclosed their visual and mental horizon. 
 They knew nothing beyond their own town, the Bible and 
 a few fragments of ancient sculpture, tenderly studied and 
 cherished." 
 
 "You are quite right," said Professor Arrighi. "All they 
 cared about was to use the best process. Their minds were 
 entirely occupied in preparing glaze and mixing colours. 
 He who first thought of pasting linen over a panel ix 
 order that the painting might not crack with the wood, 
 was heralded as a man of genius. Every master had his 
 own recipes and formulae, which he guarded in strict 
 secrecy." 
 
 "Happy days," resumed Dechartre, "when no one 
 dreamed of that originality to which to-day we so eagerly 
 aspire. The apprentice was content to follow his master. 
 His sole ambition was to resemble him, and it was quite 
 involuntarily that he appeared different from the others. 
 They worked not to win fame, but to earn a livelihood." 
 
 "They were right," said Choulette; "there is nothing 
 better than to work for a livelihood." 
 
 "To desire that their names should be handed down 
 to posterity," continued Dechartre, "never occurred to them. 
 Knowing nothing of the past, they did not think of the 
 future, and their dreams were confined to the present. On 
 doing good they concentrated all the force of a strong will. 
 And, being simple, they did not go far wrong; they beheld 
 truths which our intelligence hides from us." 
 
 Meanwhile Choulette was beginning to tell Madame Mar- 
 met of a call he had paid that day on the French royal 
 princess, to whom the Marchioness of Rieu had given him 
 a letter of introduction. He took a delight in insinuating 
 that he, a Bohemian, had been received by a royal princess, 
 who would not have seen either Miss Bell or the Countess 
 Martin, and whom Prince Albertinelli boasted of having 
 met at some public reception. 
 
 "She practises the most austere piety," said the Prince. 
 
 "Her nobility combined with simplicity is admirable," 
 said Choulette. "Surrounded by the gentlemen and ladies 
 of her suite, she observes the strictest etiquette, and makes
 
 94 THE RED LILY 
 
 a penance of her high rank. Every morning she washes 
 the church floor. It is a village church, the floor of 
 which is often overrun by fowls, while the priest is playing 
 at cards with the verger." 
 
 And Choulette, leaning over the table, imitated with 
 his serviette the princess at her work. Then raising his 
 head, he said gravely: 
 
 "After a fitting time, spent in waiting in a long series 
 of ante-chambers, I was admitted to kiss her hand." 
 
 And he was silent. 
 
 Madame Martin eagerly curious, asked: 
 
 "Well, what did this charmingly simple and noble prin- 
 cess say to you?" 
 
 "She asked me: 'Have you been to Florence? I hear 
 that some very fine shops have recently been opened there, 
 and that at night they are brilliantly lighted.' She re- 
 marked further: 'We have a very good chemist here. No 
 Austrian chemist could be better. Six weeks ago he put 
 a plaster on my leg which has not come off yet.' Such were 
 the words that Marie Therese deigned to address to me. 
 O simple greatness! O Christian virtue! O daughter of 
 St. Louis! O marvellous echo of thy voice, holy Elizabeth 
 of Hungary!" 
 
 Madame Martin smiled. She thought ChouleUe must 
 be joking. But he insisted that he was serious. Miss 
 Bell reproached her friend. The French, she said, are 
 always too ready to think people are not in earnest. 
 
 Then they resumed the discussion of those artistic ideas 
 which in that country are always in the air. 
 
 "For my part," said Counters Martin, "I am not learned 
 enough to admire Giotto and his school. What strikes me 
 most in the fifteenth century is the sensuality of that so- 
 called Christian art. The onlv piety and purity is to be 
 found in the figures of Fra Angelico, and they too appeal to 
 the senses as well as to the soul. The rest, virgins and 
 angels, are voluptuous, caressing, and even perverse. What 
 religious idea do they express, those royal magi as beauti- 
 ful as women and that St. Sebastian, brilliant in his youth- 
 fulness, like the suffering Bacchus of Christianity?" 
 
 Dechartre replied that he agreed with her and that they
 
 THE RED LILY 95 
 
 must both be right, since Savonarola was of their opinion. 
 Failing to discover piety in any work of art, 2*o had con- 
 demned them all to be burnt. 
 
 "In the days of that superb Manfred, who was half 
 a Mussulman, men. said to be followers of Epicurus, tried 
 to argue against the existence of God. The handsome Guido 
 Cavalcanti despised those ignorant persons who believed in 
 the immortality of the soul. He was represented as hav- 
 ing said that 'The death of a man is like that of a beast.' 
 Later when the beauty of antiquity rose from the tfmb, the 
 Christian sky was overclouded. The painters who worked 
 in churches and monasteries were neither chaste lor de- 
 vout. Perugino was an atheist and did not deny it '' 
 
 "Yes," retorted Miss Bell, "but he was said to lave a 
 hard heart into which celestial truth could not per.etrate. 
 He was bitter and avaricious, wrapped up in materi; 1 con- 
 cerns. He thought of nothing but buying houses." 
 
 Professor Arrighi defended Pietro Vannucci of Perugia. 
 
 "He was an honest man," he said. "And the prnr of 
 the Gesuati at Florence was wrong in mistrusting him. This 
 monk practised the art of -making ultra-marine bUy. by 
 pounding lapis-lazuli to a powder. The ultra-marine was 
 worth its weight in gold, and the prior, who knew a secret 
 way of preparing it, considered his more precious ' ban 
 rubies and sapphires. He asked Pietro to decorate the 
 two cloisters of his monastery, and he expected wonoVrs, 
 less from the skill of the master than from the beai ty 
 of the sky-blue ultra-marine. While the artist was paint- 
 ing the story of Jesus Christ on the cloister walls, the prior 
 stayed by his side, holding the precious powder in a little 
 bag, of which he never let go. Under the old man's eye, 
 Pietro took from it and dipped his brush covered with paint 
 into a cup of water, before using it on the plaster of the 
 wall. In this manner he used a great quantity of powder. 
 And the good Father, seeing the contents of his bag rapidly 
 growing less and less, groaned: 'Jesus, what a lot of ultra- 
 marine it takes to cover this white-wash!' 
 
 "When the frescoes were finished, and Perugino had re- 
 ceived from the prior the price agreed upon, he put into 
 his hand a packet of blue powder. 'This is yours. Father '
 
 96 THE RED LILY 
 
 he said; 'your ultra-marine, which I took on my brush, 
 descended to the bottom of my cup, from which I abstracted 
 it every day. I give it back to you. Now learn to trust 
 good men.' " 
 
 "Oh!" said Therese, "there is nothing extraordinary in 
 Perugino's having been both avaricious and honest. It is 
 not always self-seeking persons who are the most unscrupu- 
 lous. There are many who are honest and avaricious." 
 
 "Of course, darling!" said Miss Bell. "The avaricious 
 will owe no man anything, while the prodigal is quite con- 
 tent to have debts. He thinks little of the money he pos- 
 sesses, and still less of what he owes. I never said that 
 Pietro Vannucci of Perugia was a dishonest man. I said 
 that he had a hard heart, and that he bought many houses. 
 I am very glad to hear that he gave back the ultra-marine 
 to the prior of the Gesuati." 
 
 "As your Pietro was rich," said Choulette, "it was his duty 
 to restore the ultra-marine. It is incumbent upon the rich 
 to be honest, but not upon the poor." 
 
 At this moment the butler was offering Choulette a silver 
 basin ; and the poet held out his hands to receive the scented 
 water poured from the ewer. It was a jug of chased silver 
 and a basin with a false bottom, which, according to an 
 ancient custom, Miss Bell had passed round to her guests 
 at the end of a meal. 
 
 "I wash my hands," he said, "of the harm that Madame 
 Martin does or may do by her words or in any other 
 manner." 
 
 And he rose, furious, and followed Miss Bell who left 
 the table on the arm of Professor Arrighi. 
 
 In the drawing-room, while coffee was being served, she 
 said: 
 
 "Monsieur Choulette, why must you be ever condemn- 
 ing us to the barbaric sadness of equality? The flute of 
 Daphnis would not produce such sweet music if it were 
 made of seven reeds of equal length. You would destroy 
 those fine harmonies of master and servant, aristocrat and 
 artisan. Oh! Monsieur Choulette, you are a barbarian. 
 You have pity upon the poor, but you have no pity for 
 the divine beauty you are driving from the world. You
 
 THE RED LILY 97 
 
 are driving her away, Monsieur Choulette; she is naked and 
 in tears, you turn from her. Be assured, she will cease 
 to dwell upon the earth when mankind becomes weak, puny, 
 and ignorant. To banish from society the grouping of men 
 of various ranks, from the humble to the great, is to be 
 the enemy of rich and poor alike; it is to be the enemy 
 of the whole human race." 
 
 "The enemies of humanity!" replied Choulette, dropping 
 a knob of sugar into his coffee, "by that name did the 
 hard-hearted Roman call the Christians who preached to 
 him of love." 
 
 Meanwhile Dechartre, sitting by Madame Martin, was 
 questioning her concerning her artistic tastes, supporting, 
 directing, animating her admiration, stimulating it some- 
 times with an affectionate abruptness, desiring that she 
 should see all that he had seen, and love all that he had 
 loved. 
 
 He wanted her to go into the garden in the delicate dawn 
 of spring. In his mind's eye he saw her on the grand 
 terraces; already he beheld the sunlight, playing on her 
 neck and in her hair, and the bay-trees casting a shadow 
 over her eyes. It seemed to him now that the earth and 
 sky of Florence existed only as a background for this 
 woman. 
 
 He congratulated her on the simplicity of her dress, on 
 the lines of her figure and her grace, on the charming 
 ease of her every movement. He liked, he said, those 
 supple, graceful, flowing gowns that one sees so seldom and 
 never forgets. 
 
 She had received many compliments, but never any that 
 had given her greater pleasure. She knew that she dressed 
 well, with a pronounced but unerring taste. But no man, 
 except her father, had ever given her the praise of a con- 
 noisseur. She had believed men capable of appreciating 
 the general effect of dress without understanding its mi- 
 nute details. Some, who were said to understand chiffons, 
 disgusted her by an effeminate air and doubtful taste. She 
 resigned herself to seeing her dress appreciated only by 
 women, whose judgment was warped by petty malice and 
 envy. The masculine artistic admiration of Dechartre sur-
 
 98 THE RED LILY 
 
 prised and pleased her. She received his praise with delight, 
 and never thought of considering it too familiar and almost 
 indiscreet. 
 
 "Then you take an interest in dress, Monsieur 
 Dechartre?" 
 
 No, he seldom looked at it. There are so few well- 
 dressed women, even now when they dress as well and 
 perhaps better than ever before. It gave him no pleasure 
 to look at walking bundles. But to a woman whose figure 
 presented good lines and who walked rhythmically he felt 
 grateful. 
 
 He continued in a slightly higher voice: 
 
 "I can never think of a woman carefully adorning her- 
 self every day, without being reminded of the lesson she 
 teaches us artists. It is for so short a time that she dresses 
 and arranges her hair; but her labour is not wasted. Like 
 her, we ought to adorn life without thinking of the future. 
 To paint, to carve, to write for posterity is mere empty 
 pride." 
 
 "Monsieur Dechartre," asked Prince Albertinelli, "how 
 do you think a mauve gown with silver flowers would be- 
 come Miss Bell?" 
 
 "As for me," said Choulette, "I am so little concerned 
 with any earthly future that I have written my finest poems 
 on cigarette papers. They perish easily and my verses 
 retain only a kind of metaphysical existence." 
 
 He piqued himself on this air of indifference towards his 
 own co ipositions. In reality he had never lest a single 
 line of his writings. Dechartre was more sincere. He 
 did not desire posthumous fame. Miss Bell blamed him 
 for it. 
 
 "Life to be full and great must contain the past and 
 the future, Monsieur Dechartre. We must produce our 
 poetry and our works of art in memory of those who 
 are dead and looking forward to those who will follow us. 
 Thus we partake of what was, what is, and what will be. 
 You do not wish to be immortal. Monsieur Dechartre. Be- 
 "ire lest God grant your desire." 
 
 He replied: 
 
 "It is enough for me to live for the moment."
 
 THE RED LILY 99 
 
 And he took his leave, promising to return on the mor- 
 row to take Madame Martin to the Brancacci Chapel. 
 
 An hour later Therese was lying in a room, furnished 
 in aesthetic style, hung with tapestry, on which lemon-trees, 
 bearing golden fruit of immense size, formed a kind of 
 fairy forest. Her head was on the pillow and over it she 
 had thrown her beautiful bare arm. She was dreaming in 
 the lamplight. Passing confusedly before her she beheld 
 visions of her new life: Vivian Bell and her bells; those 
 religious pictures, in which slight shadowy Pre-Raphaelite 
 figures, ladies and cavaliers, appeared isolated, indifferent, 
 and rather sad, but all the more human through their 
 charming languor; the evening at the Fiesole villa, Prince 
 Albertinelli, Professor Arrighi, Choulette, the brisk con- 
 versation, the curious play of ideas, and Dechartre with 
 young eyes but rather worn countenance, to which his 
 swarthy skin and pointed beard gave an almost East- 
 ern air. 
 
 She realised that he possessed a delightful imagination, 
 a mind richer than any she had known, and a charm she 
 could no longer resist. She had known from the first that 
 he was endowed with the gift of pleasing. She now knew 
 that he wished to please. This idea filled her with delight; 
 she shut her eyes as if to retain it. Then suddenly she 
 shuddered. 
 
 In the depths of her inner consciousness she felt a dull 
 blow and a smarting pain. She had a sudden vision of 
 her lover in the wood, his gun under his arm. He was 
 walking with his firm regular step down a long path. She 
 could not see his face and it troubled her. She no longer 
 bore him any ill-will. She was not vexed with him now. 
 At present she was vexed with herself. And Robert went 
 straight on never turning his head, on and on, till he be- 
 came a black spot in the desolate wood. She felt that she 
 had been abrupt, hard, and capricious to leave him with- 
 out saying good-bye, even without writing a letter. He 
 was her lover, her one lover. She had never had another. 
 "I should not like him to be unhappy through me," she 
 thought. 
 
 Gradually she was reassured. It was true that he loved
 
 ioo THE RED LILY 
 
 her; but he was not very sensitive, and fortunately not 
 very quick to grow anxious and uneasy. "He is hunting. 
 He is happy. He is with his Aunt de Lannoix, whom he 
 admires. . . ." She forgot her anxiety and gave herself 
 up to the enchanting deep-seated gaiety of Florence. At 
 the Uffizi there was a picture she had not cared for and 
 which Dechartre admired. It was the detached head of 
 Medusa, a work into which, the sculptor said, Leonardo 
 had put all his wonderful power of detail and delicate 
 sense of the deepest tragedy. Disappointed with herself 
 for not having thoroughly appreciated it at first, she wanted 
 to see it again. 
 
 She put out her lamp and fell asleep. 
 
 Towards morning she dreamt she met Robert Le Menil 
 in an empty church, that he was wrapped in a fur coat 
 which was unfamiliar to her. He was waiting for her, but 
 they were separated by a crowd of priests and worshippers, 
 who had suddenly appeared. She did not know what 
 became of him. She had not been able to see his face 
 and that alarmed her. Awake, she heard at her open 
 window a little sad monotonous cry, and, in the milky dawn, 
 she saw a swallow flit by. Then, without cause and with- 
 out reason, she wept. With the sorrow of a child she shed 
 tears over herself.
 
 XI 
 
 SHE rose early and took delight in dressing carefully 
 with an art delicately disguised. Her dressing-room 
 was one of Vivian Bell's aesthetic fancies. With its roughly 
 glazed pottery, it copper pitchers and tiled floor, it resem- 
 bled a kitchen, but a fairy's kitchen. It was so mediaeval 
 and so uncommon that Countess Martin had no difficulty 
 in imagining herself a fairy princess. While her maid 
 was doing her hair she heard Dechartre and Choulette talk- 
 ing underneath her window. She undid Pauline's work and 
 boldly displayed the fine line of the nape of her neck. 
 Then, having taken a last look at herself in the mirror, 
 she went down into the garden. 
 
 In the garden, shaded by yew trees like some peaceful 
 cemetery, Dechartre was looking down on Florence and 
 repeating lines from Dante: 
 
 "And when our soul, more alien from the sphere." * 
 
 Near him Choulette, sitting on the balustrade, his legs 
 hanging and his nose in his beard, was carving the face 
 of Poverty on his wanderer's staff. 
 
 And Dechartre repeated the lines of the poem: 
 
 "And when our soul, more alien from the sphere 
 Of flesh, and less to rush of hot thoughts given, 
 As half-divine looks forth in visions clear"; 
 
 In her maize-coloured gown, shaded by her parasol, she 
 came along the trim box hedge. The soft winter sun clothed 
 her in a pale golden light. 
 
 Dechartre joyfully bade her good morning. 
 
 She said: 
 
 "You are reciting lines I do not know. Metastasio is 
 the only Italian poet with whose works I am familiar. The 
 professor who taught me Italian adored Metastasio and 
 
 * "Purgatory," canto ix. 16. Plumptre's Translation. W.S.
 
 102 THE RED LILY 
 
 did not care for any one else. When does the mind become 
 divine in its visions?" 
 
 "At the break of day, or it may be also in the dawn of 
 faith or of love." 
 
 Choulette did not think the poet meant morning dreams. 
 They leave so vivid and sometimes so painful an impres- 
 sion on awaking, and they are not dissociated from the 
 body. But Dechartre had only quoted those lines in his 
 rapture at the golden dawn which he had seen that morn- 
 ing on the fair hills. He had long wondered about the 
 visions that come to us in the night, and he had arrived 
 at the conclusion that they proceed not from what has 
 most occupied our minds during the day, but from thoughts 
 from which we have turned away. 
 
 Then Therese recalled her dream that morning of the 
 hunter on the long path leading into the deep wood. 
 
 "Yes," said Dechartre, "at night we see the sad vestiges 
 of what we have neglected during the day. A dream is 
 often the revenge of things neglected or of persons deserted ; 
 hence its unexpectedness and sometimes its sadness." 
 
 For a moment she remained silent and thoughtful, and 
 then she said: 
 
 "Perhaps it is true." 
 
 Then, turning eagerly to Choulette, she asked him i'f 
 he had finished carving the figure of Poverty on the handle 
 of his walking-stick. But Poverty had become a Pieta, 
 and Choulette was pleased to call her the Virgin. He had 
 even composed a quatrain to be written on a scroll beneath; 
 the quatrain was both didactic and moral. His style was 
 henceforth to be that of the Ten Commandments translated 
 into French verse. The four lines were good and simple. 
 He consented to repeat them: 
 
 Prone 'neath His Cross, will ye 
 Not weep, love, hope with me? 
 Beneath that Tree of Grace 
 Refuge of all our rac^? * 
 
 * "Je pleure au pied de la Croix. 
 Avec moi pleure, aime et crois, 
 Sous cet arbre salutaire 
 Qui doit ombrager la terre."
 
 THE RED LILY 103 
 
 As on the day of her arrival, Therese leant against the 
 balustrade and looked far into the distance, beyond the 
 ocean of light, to where rose the summits of Vallombrosa, 
 almost as liquid as the clouds. 
 
 Dechartre was watching her. It seemed to him as if 
 he saw her for the first time, such new charm did he dis- 
 cover on her delicate face, which life and thought had lined, 
 but had not robbed of their youthful grace and freshness. 
 The light that she loved enhanced her beauty. And she 
 was beautiful indeed, bathed in that soft Florentine light 
 which glorifies beautiful forms and fosters noble thoughts. 
 There was a slight colour on her finely moulded cheeks. 
 There was a laugh in her grey-blue eyes; and when she 
 spoke she displayed the brilliant whiteness of her teeth. 
 In a glance he appreciated all the graceful details of her 
 supple figure. With one hand she held her parasol, with 
 the other ungloved she was toying with some violets. 
 Dechartre had a passion for beautiful hands. For him a 
 hand had a character, a soul, a physiognomy as pronounced 
 as a countenance. Therese's hands delighted him. They 
 were at once sensual and spiritual. It seemed to him that 
 they were bare from sheer voluptuousness. He adored their 
 tapering fingers, their pink nails, their slender skin, marked 
 with graceful lines, and rising gently and harmoniously to- 
 wards the knuckles. He gazed entranced until she closed 
 them on the handle of her parasol. Then, slightly behind 
 her, he looked again. Her bust, her arms, graceful and 
 correct in line, her well-developed hips, her fine ankles, 
 her whole figure, in the beautiful form of a living amphora, 
 pleased him. 
 
 "That black spot down there is the Boboli gardens, isn't 
 it, Monsieur Dechartre? I saw them three years ago. 
 There were hardly any flowers then; and yet I loved them 
 with their great dark trees." 
 
 That she should speak, that she should think, almost 
 astonished him. The clear tones of that voice came upon 
 him as if he had never heard them before. 
 
 He answered in the first words that occurred to him, and 
 smiled a forced smile, attempting to hide the stirrings 
 of passion. He was awkward and confused. She did not
 
 104 THE RED LILY 
 
 seem to notice it. That deep husky, faltering voice uncon- 
 sciously caressed her. She, like him, uttered common- 
 places: 
 
 "What a fine viewl What a lovely day."
 
 XII 
 
 IN the morning, with her head upon a pillow embroidered 
 with a coat of arms in the form of a bell, Therese was 
 meditating on what she had seen on the previous day: those 
 finely painted Virgins surrounded by angels, those countless 
 children, painted or in sculpture, all beautiful, all happy, 
 singing simply through the town their alleluias of grace 
 and beauty. In the famous Brancacci Chapel, before those 
 frescoes pale and gleaming like a divine dawn, he had talked 
 of Masaccio, in such glowing words that she seemed to 
 see the youth, master of masters, with half open mouth 
 and dark blue eyes, dying in an ecstasy. And she was 
 filled with adoration for the marvels of that dawn more 
 delightful even than the noon-day. And for her Dechartre 
 was the soul of all these magnificent forms, the vivifying 
 spirit of all these good things. Through him and in him 
 she understood life and art. The sights of the world inter- 
 ested her only so far as they interested him. 
 
 How had this sympathy grown up between them? She 
 did not exactly know. At first, when Paul Vence wished 
 to introduce him to her, she had no wish to know him, 
 no presentiment that she would like him. She recalled the 
 beautiful bronzes and fine wax figures signed with his name 
 that she had noticed in the Salon of the Champ-de-Mars 
 and at Durand-Ruel's. But she never imagined that he 
 himself would be interesting or more attractive than so 
 many artists and amateurs whom she invited to her lunch- 
 eon parties. On their first meeting he pleased her; and she 
 made up her mind to attract him and see him often. The 
 evening that he dined at her house she perceived that 
 her liking for him was of an intellectual kind which flat- 
 tered her own amour propre. But soon afterwards he irri- 
 tated and vexed her by appearing too self-centred, too much 
 occupied with himself and too little with her. She would 
 have liked to agitate him. In this dissatisfied mood, and 
 troubled by other things, feeling herself alone in the world,
 
 106 THE RED LILY 
 
 she had met him one evening, in front of the Museum of 
 Religions, and b" had talked of Ravenna and the empress 
 in her tomb, on her golden chair. In the shades of night 
 she had thought him charming, with his soft voice, and his 
 pleasing glance, but too reserved and distant. He made her 
 feel ill at eave, and, at that moment, walking along the 
 terrace, by the box hedge, she could not decide whether 
 she wanted *,o see him always or never again. 
 
 Since she had met him at Florence her one delight was 
 to feel hire near her and hear him talk. He made her 
 life attractive by introducing into it variety, novelty, and 
 colour. He initiated her into the delicate delicious melan- 
 choly of thought. He called into activity a taste for pleas- 
 ures hitherto undreamed of. Now she was quite decided 
 to retain him. But how? She foresaw difficulties; her 
 lucid rrind and her intense feeling called them all up before 
 her. For a moment she tried to deceive herself: she argued 
 that a dreamer, an enthusiast, wrapped up in the study of 
 art, he had perhaps no violent passion for women, and 
 would remain assiduous without becoming exacting. But 
 immediately, shaking her beautiful head half lost in the 
 ripples of her dark hair, she cast this idea from her. If 
 Dochartre were not a lover then he lost all his charm 
 f<T her. She dared not think of the future. She must 
 *>ve in the present; happy, but anxious and blindfold. 
 
 She was meditating thus in the shadow broken by arrows 
 of light, when Pauline brought her letters with her morn- 
 ing tea. She recognised Le Menil's writing on an envelope, 
 stamped with the name of his club in the Rue Royale. She 
 had expected to receive this letter, and now, as in her 
 childhood when the infallible clock struck the hour of her 
 music-lesson, she was merely surprised that what was bound 
 to come had actually happened. 
 
 Robert's letter was full of just reproaches. Why had 
 she gone away without telling him, without even leaving 
 a line of farewell? Since his return to Paris, every morn- 
 ing he had expected the letter which had not arrived. How 
 different from last year, when, two or three times a week, 
 on awaking, he used to find such nice letters, so well ex- 
 pressed that he had regretted not being able to publish
 
 THE RED LIL^V 107 
 
 them. He had become very anxious n-iJ had called at her 
 house. 
 
 "I was thunderstruck to hear of your departure. Your 
 husband received me. He told me, that, following his ad j 
 vice, you had gone to pass the last weeks of winter at Miss 
 Bell's, at Florence. For some time he had noticed you 
 growing pale and thin. He had thought that a change of 
 air would do you good. You had not wanted to go; but, 
 as you became less and less well, he had succeeded in 
 persuading you. 
 
 "I had not noticed that you were growing thin. On the 
 contrary I thought you looking extremely well. Besides 
 Florence is not a winter resort. I can't understand your 
 departure; it troubles me very much. Write at once, I 
 pray you, and reassure me. . . . 
 
 "I leave you to imagine how pleasant it is for me to 
 hear of your movements from your husband and to receive 
 his confidences! He is distressed by your absence and 
 regrets that his public duties keep him in Paris. At the 
 club I hear there is a chance of his entering the Govern- 
 ment. I am astonished, for it is not usual for a leader 
 of society to become a Minister." 
 
 Then he told her of his hunting. He had brought her 
 three fox's skins, one very fine: the coat of a brave beast, 
 he had dragged from his den, that had turned and bitten 
 him in the hand. "After all," he said, "the creature was 
 standing on his rights." 
 
 At Paris he was worried. A young cousin was standing 
 for election to the club. He was afraid that he would 
 be blackballed. But his candidature was already announced. 
 And at this point he dared not advise him to withdraw; it 
 would be assuming too great a responsibility. On the other 
 hand, a defeat would be extremely disagreeable. He ended 
 his letter by entreating her to write and to return soon. 
 
 Having read the letter, she tore it up slowly, threw it 
 in the fire, and sadly, gloomily, and thoughtfully watched 
 it burn. 
 
 Doubtless he was right. He said what he might be ex- 
 pected to say; he complained as he had a right to com- 
 plain. How should she reply to him? Should she prolong
 
 io8 THE RED LILY 
 
 the quarrel and continue to sulk? But it was no longer 
 a question of sulking. The subject of their quarrel was 
 so indifferent to her that she must needs think before she 
 could remember it. Oh, no, she had lost all desire to vex 
 him. On the contrary she felt kindly towards him. The 
 realisation that he loved her trustfully and with an un- 
 disturbed tranquillity of mind saddened and alarmed her. 
 He had not changed. He was the same as before. But she 
 was no longer the same. They were separated now by 
 things imperceptible and yet as strong as the vivifying or 
 deadening effects of the atmosphere. When her maid came 
 to dress her she had not yet begun to write the reply. 
 
 She was thinking anxiously: "He trusts me. His mind 
 is at rest." That was what irritated her most. Simple per- 
 sons mistrustful neither of themselves nor of other people 
 always irritated her. 
 
 When she went down into the drawing-room of bells, 
 she found Vivian Bell there writing; she said to her: 
 
 "Darling, would you like to know what I was doing while 
 I was waiting for you? Nothing and yet everything. I 
 was writing verses. Oh! darling, poetry must be the natural 
 flowering of the soul." 
 
 Therese kissed Miss Bell, and, with her head on her 
 friend's shoulder, she said: 
 
 "May I look?" 
 
 "Oh! yes, look, darling. They are verses written in the 
 ttyle of the popular songs of your country." 
 
 And Therese read: 
 
 The milk-white stone she threw 
 Pierced the lake-waters blue, 
 And as its surface grew 
 Still, took a darker hue. 
 Tihen she, the stone that threw, 
 Both shame and dolour knew 
 The load from her heart to view 
 The treacherous waters through.* 
 
 * EHe jeta la pierre blanche 
 A 1'eau du lac bleu. 
 La pierre dans 1'onde tranquille 
 Sombra peu a peu.
 
 THE RED LILY 109 
 
 "The lines are figurative, Vivian; explain them to 
 me." 
 
 "Why should I explain, why? A poetical figure may 
 have many meanings. The one that you put into it will 
 be the true meaning for you. But one is very clear, my 
 love: that you must not lightly part with your heart's 
 treasure." 
 
 The carriage was ready. They started as they had ap- 
 pointed to visit the Albertinelli Gallery, in the Via del 
 Moro. The Prince expected them and Dechartre was to 
 meet them at the Palace. On the way, as the carriage 
 glided over the broad highroad, Vivian Bell talked in short, 
 disjointed sentences uttered in a sing-song voice. Thus she 
 gave expression to the gaiety of a temperament rare and 
 precious. As they went down among the pink and white 
 houses, with storied gardens, adorned with statues and 
 fountains, she pointed out to her friend, the villa half hid- 
 den among the pine-trees, to which the ladies and gentle- 
 men of the Decameron fled from the plague, which was 
 ravaging Florence, and amused themselves by telling stories, 
 gallant, facetious, or tragic. Then she disclosed a brilliant 
 idea which had occurred to her the day before. 
 
 "You, darling, had gone to the Carmine with M. Dechar 
 tre. You had left Madame Marmet at Fiesole. She is a 
 nice old lady of moderate opinions and excellent manners. 
 She is full of stories of distinguished Parisians. And when 
 she tells them she is like my cook, Pampaloni, when he sends 
 up poached eggs: he does not salt them, but he puts the 
 salt-cellar by the side of the dish. Madame Marmet is 
 a sweet-tongued old lady. But the salt is there in her 
 eyes. It is Pampaloni's dish, my love; and every one sea- 
 sons it to his taste. Oh! I am very fond of Madame Mar- 
 met. Yesterday, after you had gone, I found her sad and 
 lonely in a corner of the drawing-room. She was thinking 
 of her husband, and her thoughts were sad. I said to her: 
 'Would you like me to join you in your meditations on your 
 
 Alors la jeteuse de pierres 
 Eut honte et douleur 
 D'avoir mis dans le lac perfide 
 Le poids de son cceur.
 
 i io THE RED LILY 
 
 husband? 1 shall be very pleased to do so. I have heard 
 that he was a scholar and a member of the Paris Royal So- 
 ciety. Tell m * about him.' She replied that he was devoted 
 to the Etrust ans and had consecrated his whole life to 
 them. And, ,it once, darling, I venerated the memory of 
 this Monsieui Marmet who lived for the Etruscans. And 
 then a brilliant idea occurred to me. I said to Madame 
 Marmet: 'At Fiesole, in the Palazzo Pretorio, we have a 
 modest little Etruscan museum. Come with me and see it. 
 Will you?' She replied that that was what she wanted to 
 see more tlun anything in Italy. We went together to 
 the Pretorio Palace; and we saw a lioness with her numer- 
 ous young and little grotesque bronze men, either very fat 
 or very thin. The Etruscans were a people who took their 
 pleasures saaly. They used to make caricatures in brass. 
 But these grotesque figures, some with protruding stomachs, 
 others with an astonished air, displaying bare bones, Ma- 
 dame Marmet regarded with sorrowful admiration. She 
 considered them as ... there is an expressive French word 
 I am trying to find ... as the monuments and trophies of 
 M. Marmet." 
 
 Madame Martin smiled. But she was depressed. The 
 sky appeared to her dull, the streets ugly, die passers-by 
 vulgar. 
 
 "Oh! darling, the Prince will be delighted to welcome you 
 to his palace." 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 "But why, darling, why?" 
 
 "Because he does not like me." 
 
 Vivian Bell declared that on the contrary the Prince 
 greatly admired Countess Martin. 
 
 The carriage stopped before the Albertinelli Palace. On 
 the dark Gothic fagade were bronze rings which in former 
 days, on festive nights were used to hold pine torches. 
 At Florence these rings indicate the residences of the most 
 illustrious families. They imparted to the palace an ag- 
 gressively arrogant air. Inside it appeared empty, unused, 
 and neglected. The Prince met them and conducted them, 
 through unfurnished reception rooms, to the gallery. He 
 apologised for showing them pictures which were not very
 
 THE RED LILY in 
 
 pleasing. The collection had been made by Cardinal Giulio 
 Albertinelli at the time of the vogue of Guido and Carracci. 
 His ancestor had delighted in collecting the works of the 
 Bolognese school. But he would show Madame Martin 
 a few pictures which had found favour with Miss Bell; 
 among others a Mantegna. 
 
 At a glance Countess Martin saw that the pictures were 
 commonplace and of doubtful authenticity. She was bored 
 at once by the numerous examples of Parrocel, all with 
 figures in armour mounted on white horses amid darkness 
 made visible by gleams of lurid light. 
 
 A footman brought in a card. The Prince read aloud 
 the name of Jacques Dechartre. Just at that moment he 
 had his back towards his two visitors. His countenance as- 
 sumed that expression of malicious vexation which is to 
 be seen on the statues of Roman emperors. Dechartre was 
 on the landing of the state stair-case. 
 
 The Prince advanced to meet him with a languishing 
 smile. He was no longer Nero, but Antinous. 
 
 "Yesterday I myself invited M. Dechartre to come to 
 the Albertinelli Palace," said Miss Bell to the Prince. "I 
 knew I should give you pleasure. He wanted to see your 
 pictures." 
 
 And it was true that Dechartre had wished to come 
 in order to meet Madame Martin. Now all four, they 
 were wandering past the Guidos and Albanis. 
 
 Miss Bell was chirping to the Prince pretty things about 
 the old men and virgins whose mantles were being blown 
 by a motionless tempest. Dechartre, pale and nervous, 
 came near to Therese and whispered: 
 
 "This gallery is the rubbish-heap on which the picture- 
 dealers of the whole world have deposited the refuse of 
 their stock. And here the Prince succeeds in selling what 
 the Jews have failed to dispose of." 
 
 He took her to a Holy Family, displayed on an easel 
 draped in green velvet and bearing in the margin the 
 name of Michael Angelo. 
 
 "I have seen that Holy Family in picture shops at Lon- 
 don, Bale, and Paris. As the dealers have not been able 
 to get for it the twenty-five louis it is worth, they have
 
 H2 THE RED LILY 
 
 commissioned the last of the Albertinelli to sell it for 
 fifty thousand francs." 
 
 The Prince, seeing them whispering together, and guess- 
 ing what they were saying, approached very graciously. 
 
 "A replica of this pitcture has been offered for sale every- 
 where. I don't maintain that this is an original. But it 
 has always been in my family, and old inventories attribute 
 it to Michael Angelo. That's all I can say." 
 
 The Prince turned to Miss Bell, who was looking for 
 Primitives. 
 
 Dechartre was ill at ease. Since yesterday he had been 
 thinking of Therese. He had dreamed of her all night and 
 conjured up her image. Now he found her delightful, but 
 delightful in a different way, and even more desirable 
 than she had appeared to him in the visions of the night; 
 her materialised form more irresistibly attractive, her soul 
 more mysterious and inscrutable. She was sad; she ap- 
 peared to him cold and absent-minded. He told himself 
 that he was nothing to her, that he was becoming im- 
 portunate and ridiculous. He grew gloomy and irritable. 
 He murmured bitterly in her ear: 
 
 "I had thought better of it. I didn't want to come. 
 Then why am I here?" 
 
 She understood immediately what he meant, that he 
 feared her now, and so was impatient, shy, and awkward. 
 She liked him thus, and was grateful to him for the agi- 
 tation and desire, with which she saw she inspired him. 
 
 Her heart beat quickly. But, pretending to understand 
 that he was vexed at having taken the trouble to come 
 and see bad pictures, she replied that the gallery was in- 
 deed very uninteresting. 
 
 Already terrified at the idea of displeasing her, he was 
 reassured and really believed that, absent and indifferent, 
 she had not remarked either the tone or the significance of 
 the words that had escaped from him. 
 
 "Very uninteresting," he repeated. 
 
 The Prince, who was entertaining his two visitors to 
 lunch, invited their friend also. Dechartre excused him- 
 self. He was going out, when, in the great drawing-room 
 empty of everything but consoles on which were piled con-
 
 THE RED LILY 113 
 
 fectioners' boxes, he found himself alone with Madame 
 Martin. He had thought of avoiding her, now his one 
 idea was when he should see her again. He reminded her 
 that on the morrow she was to visit the Bargello. 
 
 "You were kind enough to say I might come with you." 
 
 She asked him if he had not found her dull and heavy 
 that day. 
 
 Oh! no, but he had thought her rather sad. 
 
 "Alas!" he added, "your sadness, your joys, I have not 
 even the right to know them." 
 
 She turned round upon him quickly, almost severely, 
 saying: 
 
 "You surely don't think I am going to make you my 
 confidant?" 
 
 And she left him abruptly.
 
 XIII 
 
 AFTER dinner, in the drawing-room of bells, under the 
 lamps, the deep shades of which permitted but a half 
 light to reach the long-handed Virgins of Sienna, kind Ma- 
 dame Marmet was warming herself at the stove with a 
 white cat on her knee. The evening was cold. Madame 
 Martin was smiling happily, in spite of fatigue, and gaz- 
 ing mentally at the purple hill-tops in the clear atmosphere 
 and at the ancient oaks twisting their huge branches across 
 the road. With Miss Bell, Dechartre, and Madame Marmet 
 she had been to the Certosa of Ema. And now, in the 
 intoxication of the day's memories, she forgot the cares of 
 two days ago importunate letters, reproaches from a dis- 
 tance; and it seemed to her as if there were nothing in 
 the world but carved and painted cloisters, with a well in 
 the grass-grown court, red roofed villages, and roads, where, 
 soothed by flattering words, she had watched the dawn 
 of spring. Dechartre had just roughly modelled a little 
 Beatrice in wax for Miss Bell. Vivian was painting angels. 
 Lazily leaning over her, in an effeminate pose, Prince Alber- 
 tinelli was stroking his beard and casting languishing 
 glances around him. 
 
 Replying to a remark of Vivian Bell's on marriage and 
 love: 
 
 "A woman must choose," he said. "With a man whom 
 women like she is never at rest. With a man whom women 
 do not like, she is never happy." 
 
 "Darling," asked Miss Bell, "which lot would you choose 
 for a very dear friend?" 
 
 "Vivian, I should wish my friend to be happy, I should 
 wish her also to be free from anxiety. And she would wish 
 to be so and yet to hate treachery, humiliating suspicion, 
 and mean mistrust." 
 
 "But, darling, since the Prince said that a woman could 
 not at once enjoy happiness and peace of mind, say which 
 you would choose for your friend." 
 
 "4
 
 TH RED LILY 115 
 
 "One does not choose, Vivian, one does not choose. 
 Don't make me say what I think of marriage." 
 
 At this moment Choulette appeared, with the magnifi- 
 cent air of one of those beggars who honour the gates 
 of little towns. He had just been playing cards with 
 peasants in a Fiesole wine-shop. 
 
 "Here is M. Choulette," said Miss Bell. "He will tell 
 us what to think of marriage. I am ready to listen to 
 him as to an oracle. He does not see what we see, and 
 he sees what we do not see. Monsieur Choulette, what do 
 you think of marriage?" 
 
 He sat down and raised a Socratic finger. 
 
 "Do you speak, Mademoiselle, of the solemn union be- 
 tween man and woman? In this sense marriage is a sac- 
 rament. Hence it is nearly always sacrilege. As for civil 
 marriage, that is a mere formality. The importance at- 
 tached to it by present day society is a folly which would 
 have appeared laughable to women of the old regime. We 
 owe this prejudice with many others to that bourgeois 
 movement, to the rise of financiers and lawyers, which is 
 termed the Revolution and which seems admirable to those 
 who profit by it. It is the fruitful mother of all foolish- 
 ness. Every day for a century she has been bringing forth 
 new absurdities. Civil marriage is nothing but one of 
 many registrations, instituted by the state in order that it 
 may be informed concerning the condition of its citizens: 
 for in a civilised state every one must have his label. And 
 of what value are all these labels in the eyes of the Son 
 of God? Morally, this entry in a register is not even 
 enough to induce a woman to take a lover. Who would 
 scruple to break an oath sworn before a mayor? In order 
 to taste the true joys of adultery one must be pious." 
 
 "But, sir," said Therese, "we have been married at 
 church." 
 
 Then in a tone of deep sincerity, she added: 
 
 "I cannot understand how any man or woman, having 
 attained to years of discretion, can commit the folly of 
 marriage." 
 
 The Prince looked at her suspiciously. He was quick 
 witted, but he was incapable of believing that any one
 
 ii6 THE RED LILY 
 
 ever spoke disinterestedly, merely to express general ideas 
 and without some definite object. He imagined that 
 Countess Martin had discovered his scheme and determined 
 to thwart it. And, as already he was thinking of defending 
 himself and taking his revenge, he ogled her and addressed 
 her with affectionate gallantry. 
 
 "You, Madame, display the pride of all beautiful and 
 intelligent Frenchwomen, who chafe beneath the yoke. 
 Frenchwomen love liberty, and not one of them is worthier 
 of it than you. I myself have lived a little in France. 
 I have known and admired the fashionable society of Paris 
 in drawing-rooms, at dinner tables, in public assemblies, 
 and sports. But among our mountains, beneath our olive- 
 trees, we relapse into rusticity. We return to our country 
 manners, and marriage seems to us a sweet romantic idyll." 
 
 Vivian Bell examined the model which Dechartre had left 
 on the table. 
 
 "Oh! that is the living image of Beatrice, I am sure. 
 And do you know, Monsieur Dechartre, there are wicked 
 men who say that Beatrice never existed?" 
 
 Choulette declared that he was one of those wicked men. 
 He did not believe that Beatrice existed any more than 
 those other ladies in whose personalities the old love poets 
 expressed some ridiculously subtle scholastic idea. 
 
 Intolerant of any praise not bestowed on himself, jealous 
 of Dante, and of the whole universe, and also a keen man 
 of letters, he thought he had discovered a joint in the 
 amour, and struck: 
 
 "I suspect," he said, "that the young sister of the angels 
 never lived except in the dry imagination of the illustrious 
 poet. Even there she appears as a pure allegory, or rather 
 a mathematical calculation or an astrological exercise. 
 Dante, who between ourselves was a good doctor of Bo- 
 logna, and had several bees in his poked bonnet, believed 
 in the virtue of numbers. This passionate geometrician 
 dreamt in figures, and his Beatrice is the flower of his arith- 
 metic. That's all!" 
 
 And he lit his pipe. 
 
 Vivian Bell protested: 
 
 'Oh! don't talk like that, Monsieur Choulette. You hurt
 
 THE RED LILY 117 
 
 me. If our friend M. Gebhart heard you, he would be very 
 angry. To punish you, Prince Albertinelli shall read you 
 the canto in which Beatrice explains the spots in the moon. 
 Take the Divina Commedia, Eusebio. It is that white 
 book on the table. Open it and read." 
 
 During the reading under the lamp, Dechartre, sitting 
 on the sofa near Countess Martin, spoke enthusiastically 
 of. Dante in whispers, calling him the greatest sculptor 
 among poets. He reminded Therese of the picture they 
 had seen together two days ago, at Santa Maria, on the 
 Senates' door, a half-effaced fresco, in which it was diffi- 
 cult to distinguish the poet with his laurel-wreathed hood, 
 Florence, and the seven circles. Enough of .it remained 
 however to enrapture the artist. But she had not been 
 able to distinguish anything; it had not appealed to her. 
 And then she confessed that Dante was too gloomy and 
 attracted her but little. Dechartre, who had grown accus- 
 tomed to her sharing all his poetical and artistic ideas, 
 felt surprised and vexed. He said aloud: 
 
 "There are things both great and strong that you do not 
 realise." 
 
 Miss Bell, raising her head, asked what were those things 
 that darling did not realise; and, when she heard that one 
 was the genius of Dante, she exclaimed with simulated 
 wrath: 
 
 "Ohl don't you honour the father, the master worthy 
 of all praise, the River God? I don't like you any more, 
 darling. I detest you." 
 
 And, as a reproach to Choulette and Countess Martin, she 
 recalled the piety of that Florentine citizen who took from 
 the altar the candles lit in honour of Jesus Christ and 
 placed them before Dante's bust 
 
 After this interruption the Prince had resumed his 
 reading: 
 
 "Within 'itself the ever-during pearl 
 Received us ;" * 
 
 Dechartre insisted on wishing to make Therese admire 
 what she did not understand. For her sake certainly he 
 
 * "Paradise," Canto ii. Gary's Translation. W.S.
 
 ii8 THE RED LILY 
 
 would have sacrificed Dante and all the poets, with the 
 rest of the universe. But by her side, in the ardour of his 
 desire, beholding her tranquil, he was irritated by her 
 smiling beauty. He felt bound to impose on her his ideas, 
 his artistic passions, even his fancies and caprices. In a 
 low voice and in quick argumentative words he remonstrated 
 with her. 
 
 "How vehement you are," she said. 
 
 Then he whispered in her ear, in a passionate voice which 
 ne vainly sought to moderate: 
 
 "You must take my soul with me. It would give me no 
 joy to win you with a soul that was not my own." 
 
 At these words there passed over Therese a little shudder 
 af fear and joy.
 
 XIV 
 
 next day, on awaking, she told herself that she 
 JL must answer Robert's letter. It was raining. Lan- 
 guidly she listened to the raindrops falling on the terrace. 
 With thoughtful and delicate taste, Vivian Bell had had 
 the table furnished with artistic writing materials: sheets 
 of paper in imitation of the parchment of missals, and 
 others pale violet glistening with silver; celluloid penholders, 
 white and light, requiring to be used like brushes; and 
 purple ink, turning on the page into an azure shot with 
 gold. Such precious and unusual equipments irritated 
 Therese, who considered them out of keeping with the sim- 
 ple direct letter she wanted to write. When she perceived that 
 the name of "friend," by which she addressed Robert in 
 the first line, cut a curious figure on the silvered paper, 
 outlined in shades of dove colour and mother-of-pearl, she 
 half smiled. She found the first sentences difficult. The 
 rest she hurried over. She wrote at length of Vivian Bell 
 and Prince Albertinelli, a little of Choulette, and said that 
 she had met Dechartre, who was passing through Florence. 
 She praised a few pictures in the museums, but without 
 enthusiasm and merely to fill the pages. She knew that 
 Robert did not understand pictures, that the only one 
 he admired was a little cuirassier by Detaille, bought at 
 Goupil's. In her mind's eye she saw once more that little 
 cuirassier, which he had proudly shown her one day, in 
 his bedroom near the mirror, underneath his family por- 
 traits. Looked at from a distance it all seemed mean, weari- 
 some, and sad. She ended her letter with a few kind 
 friendly words which were sincere. She had really never 
 before felt so calmly benignant towards her lover. In four 
 pages she had said little and implied less. She had merely 
 told him that she would stay another month at Flor- 
 ence, where the air was doing her good. Afterwards she 
 wrote to her father, her husband, and Princess Seniavine, 
 With her letters in her hand she went downstairs. In the
 
 120 THE RED LILY 
 
 hall she placed three of them on the silver salver intended 
 for letters. Mistrusting Madame Marmet's curious eyes 
 she put Le Menil's letter in her pocket, intending to post 
 it herself when out walking. 
 
 Almost immediately Dechartre arrived to go with the 
 three friends into the town. While he was waiting for 
 a moment in the hall he noticed the letters in the salver. 
 
 Without believing in the slightest in the reading of char- 
 acter by means of handwriting, he became aware of the 
 form of the letters, which assumed a certain grace as if 
 they were a kind of drawing. Because it was a memorial, 
 a sort of relic of Therese, her writing charmed him, and 
 he appreciated also its striking frankness and bold sim- 
 plicity with an admiration entirely sensual. He looked at 
 the addresses without reading them. 
 
 That morning they visited Santa Maria Novella, where 
 Countess Martin had been already with Madame Marmet. 
 But Miss Bell had reproached them with not having seen 
 the beautiful Ginevra de' Benci, in a fresco in the choir. 
 "You must see that figure of the dawn in the fine morning 
 light," said Vivian. While the poetess and Therese were 
 talking together, Dechartre, attached to Madame Marmet, 
 was listening patiently to anecdotes of academicians dining 
 with fashionable ladies, and was sympathising with the 
 good lady in her vain endeavours to procure a tulle veil. 
 She could not find any to her liking in the Florence shops, 
 and she longed for the Rue du Bac. 
 
 Coming out of the church they passed the booth of 
 the cobbler whom Choulette had adopted as his master. 
 The good man was patching a countryman's boots. The 
 pot of basil was at his side, and the sparrow with the 
 wooden leg chirped close by. 
 
 Madame Martin asked the old man if he were quite well, 
 if he had enough work to do, and if he were happy. To 
 all these questions he replied the charming Italian "Yes," 
 the 5* coming musically from his toothless mouth. She 
 made him tell them his sparrow's story. One day the poor 
 little creature had put his foot into the boiling wax. 
 
 "I made my little friend a wooden leg out of a match, 
 and now he is able to perch on my shoulder as of old."
 
 THE RED LILY 121 
 
 "He is a kind old man," said Miss Bell, "who teaches 
 M. Choulette wisdom. At Athens there was a cobbler, 
 named Simon, who wrote works on philosophy and was 
 the friend of Socrates. I have always thought M. Chou- 
 lette resembled Socrates." 
 
 Therese asked the shoemaker to tell them his name and 
 his story. His name was Serafino Stoppini and he came 
 from Stia. He was old. His life had been full of trouble. 
 
 He put back his spectacles on to his forehead, revealing 
 his blue kindly eyes, growing dim beneath their reddened 
 lids: 
 
 "I had a wife and children, now I am alone. I have 
 known things, which now I have forgotten." 
 
 Miss Bell and Madame Marmet had gone to buy the 
 veil. 
 
 "His tools, a handful of nails, the tub in which he 
 soaks his leather, and a pot of basil are all he has hi 
 the world," thought Therese, "and yet he is happy." 
 
 "This plant smells sweet, and soon it will flower," she 
 said. 
 
 "If the poor little thing flowers, it will die," he replied. 
 
 When she went away, Therese left a coin on the table. 
 
 Dechartre was near her. Seriously, almost sternly, he 
 said to her: 
 
 "You knew it?" 
 
 She looked at him and waited. 
 
 He concluded: 
 
 ". . . that I love you." 
 
 For a moment she continued to look at him silently 
 with bright eyes and quivering lids. Then she bowed 
 her head as a sign of affirmation. And, without his at- 
 tempting to detain her, she went towards Miss Bell and 
 Madame Marmet, who were waiting at the end of the 
 street
 
 XV 
 
 ON leaving Dechartre, Therese went to lunch with her 
 friend and Madame Marmet at the house of an old 
 Florentine lady, whom Victor-Emmanuel had loved when 
 he was Duke of Savoy. For thirty years she had never 
 once quitted her palace on the Arno, where painted and 
 powdered, wearing a violet wig, she played upon the guitar 
 in her great white halls. She received the highest society 
 in Florence, and Miss Bell frequently went to see her. 
 During lunch, this recluse of eighty-seven questioned Coun- 
 tess Martin concerning the fashionable Paris world, the 
 life of which she followed in newspapers and conversation 
 with a frivolity which was rendered august by its persist- 
 ence. In her solitude she continued to cherish a respect and 
 adoration for pleasure. 
 
 Coming out of the palazzo, in order to avoid the wind, 
 which was blowing across the river, the keen libeccio, Miss 
 Bell took her friends through the old narrow streets, lined 
 with houses of dark stone, suddenly opening on a broad 
 space where a hill with three slender trees stands forth 
 in the clear atmosphere. As they went, Vivian pointed out 
 to her friend, on sordid facades from which red rags were 
 hanging, some precious statue, a Virgin, a lily, a St. Cath- 
 erine beneath a scroll of leaves. They walked down the 
 little streets of the ancient city as far as the church of Or 
 San Michele, where it had been agreed that Dechartre 
 should meet them. 
 
 Therese was thinking of him now with intense interest. 
 Madame Marmet was bent on finding a veil; she had been 
 encouraged to hope that there might be one on the Corso. 
 Her errand reminded her of the absent-mindedness of M. 
 Lagrange who, one day, when he was lecturing, took from 
 his pocket a veil with gold beads and wiped his forehead 
 with it, mistaking it for his handkerchief. His astonished 
 hearers giggled. It was a veil belonging to his niece, Made- 
 moiselle Jeanne Michot, who had confided it to his care 
 
 172
 
 THE RED LILY 123 
 
 when he had taken her to the theatre on the previous 
 evening. And Madame Marmet explained how, finding it in 
 his overcoat pocket, he had taken it with him, intending 
 to give it back to his niece, and how, by mistake, he had 
 unfolded it and waved it before his smiling audience. 
 
 The name of Lagrange reminded Therese of the comet 
 predicted by the scholar, and she said to herself with a 
 sad irony, that now was the time for it to come and end 
 the world and relieve her from embarrassment. But, above 
 the beautiful walls of the old church, she beheld the sky 
 gleaming and cruelly blue, swept by the wind blowing in 
 from the sea. 
 
 Miss Bell directed her attention to one of the bronze 
 statues, which, in carved niches, adorn the fagade of the 
 church. 
 
 "Look, darling, how proud and young that St. George 
 is. St. George used to be a girl's ideal knight. You remem- 
 ber how Juliet cried when she saw Romeo: 'What a hand- 
 some St. George!' " * 
 
 But darling thought he looked conventional, common- 
 place, and obstinate. At that moment, she remembered the 
 letter in her pocket. 
 
 "I think there is M. Dechartre," said kind Madame 
 Marmet. 
 
 He had been looking for them in the church, near Or- 
 cagna's shrine. He ought to have remembered how irre- 
 sistible Miss Bell always found Donatello's St. George. 
 He also admired the famous figure. But the frank less 
 conventional figure of St. Mark appealed to him more. 
 They might see it in its niche on the left, near that little 
 street, overspanned by a massive arched buttress, near the 
 old House of the Wool-staplers. 
 
 As they were approaching the statue, Therese saw a 
 letter-box in the wall of the narrow street at the end 
 of which stood the saint. Meanwhile Dechartre, standing 
 so as to have a good view of his St. Mark, was speaking 
 of him as if he were an intimate friend. 
 
 "I always come to him before going anywhere else in 
 
 * I have been unable to discover this reference in Shake- 
 speare's Romeo ind Juliet. W.S.
 
 124 THE RED LILY 
 
 Florence. Only once did I fail. But he will forgive me; 
 he is an excellent man. He is not appreciated by the ma- 
 jority and attracts little attention. But I delight in his 
 company. He is alive. I can understand why Donatello, 
 after having created his soul, cried: 'Mark, why don't you 
 speak?' ' 
 
 Madame Marmet, tired of admiring St. Mark and feel- 
 ing nipped by the libeccio, carried away Miss Bell to help 
 her buy the veil in the Via dei Calzaioli. 
 
 They left "darling" and Dechartre alone to continue 
 their worship of St. Mark. They arranged to meet at 
 the milliner's. 
 
 "I have always loved him," continued the sculptor, "be- 
 cause I recognise here more than in the St. George, the 
 hand and soul of Donatello, who was all his life a poor 
 and honest workman. And to-day I love him more in- 
 tensely, because, in his venerable touching candour, he 
 reminds me of the old cobbler of Santa Maria Novella, to 
 whom you were talking so sweetly this morning." 
 
 "Ah!" she said. "I have forgotten his name. We and 
 M. Choulette call him Quentin Matsys because he reminds 
 us of the old men that artist painted." 
 
 As they turned the church corner to inspect the fagade 
 opposite the old Wood-staplers' House, bearing the heraldic 
 lamb on its red-tiled gable, she found herself close to the 
 letter-box, so covered with grime and rust that it looked 
 as if the postman never cleared it. She slipped in her 
 letter, under the ingenuous eyes of St. Mark. 
 
 Dechartre saw her and immediately felt pierced to the 
 heart. He tried to talk, to laugh, but he could not forget 
 the gloved hand posting the letter. He remembered having 
 seen Therese's letters in the morning on the hall table. 
 Why had she not put that one with the others? It was 
 not difficult to guess. 
 
 He stood still, lost in thought, gazing vacantly. He tried 
 to reassure himself: perhaps it was only an unimportant 
 letter she wanted to hide from Madame Marmet's irritat- 
 ing curiosity. 
 
 "Monsieur Dechartre, it must be time for us to go and 
 f fiv friends at the milliner's on the Corso."
 
 THE RED LILY 125 
 
 Perhaps she was writing to Madame Schmoll who had 
 quarrelled with Madame Marmet. And immediately he 
 realised the improbability of such suppositions. 
 
 It was quite clear. She had a lover. She was writing 
 to him. Perhaps she was saying: "I have seen Dechartre 
 to-day, the poor fellow is in love with me." But whatever 
 she wrote, she had a lover. He had never dreamt of such 
 a thing. The idea of her belonging to another caused him 
 agony of soul and body. And the vision of that hand, 
 that little hand posting the letter, remained before his 
 eyes and seemed to burn them. 
 
 She could not imagine why he had suddenly become silent 
 and gloomy. But she guessed at once, when she saw him 
 look anxiously at the letter-box. She thought it strange 
 that without having the right he should be jealous; but 
 it did not displease her. 
 
 When they reached the Corso, in the distance they saw 
 Miss Bell and Madame Marmet coming out of the milliner's. 
 
 Dechartre said to Therese in a voice at once imperious 
 and entreating: 
 
 "I want to speak to you. I must see you alone; 
 come to-morrow evening at six o'clock to the Lungarno 
 Acciajoli." 
 
 She said nothing.
 
 XVI 
 
 II 7HEN, wrapped in her rough coat, she reached the 
 V V Lungarno Acciajoli, about half-past six, Dechartre 
 welcomed her with a humble and radiant glance which 
 touched her heart. 
 
 The setting sun was shedding a purple hue over the 
 swollen waters of the Arno. For a moment they were 
 silent. Following the monotonous line of palaces, they 
 walked towards the Ponte Vecchio. She was the first to 
 speak: 
 
 "You see I have come. I thought it my duty to come. 
 I am not innocent of what has happened. I know it: I 
 have done everything in order that your attitude toward? 
 me should be what it is now. My conduct has inspired 
 you with thoughts which would not have otherwise occurred 
 to you." 
 
 He seemed not to understand. She resumed: 
 
 "I was selfish, I was indiscreet. I liked you; your in- 
 telligence appealed to me; I could not do without you. 
 I did everything in my power to attract and retain you. 
 I flirted with you. But not in coldness of heart or intending 
 to deceive. Still I flirted." 
 
 He shook his head, denying that he had ever perceived it. 
 
 "Yes, I flirted. But it is not my custom. However, 
 I flirted with you. I don't say that you attempted to take 
 advantage of it, as you had a perfect right to do, or that 
 you were puffed up by it. I never thought you vain. Pos- 
 sibly you did not perceive it. High-minded men some- 
 times lack insight. But I know well that I was not what 
 I should have been. And I ask you to forgive me. That 
 is why I came. Let us remain good friends while we 
 may." 
 
 With a sorrowful tenderness he told her that he loved 
 her. In the beginning his love had been sweet and delight- 
 ful. All he wanted was to see her and see her again. But 
 soon she had agitated him, rent his heart, made him beside 
 
 126
 
 THE RED LILY 127 
 
 himself. His passion had broken forth suddenly and vio- 
 lently one day on the terrace at Fiesole. And now he lacked 
 the courage to suffer in silence. He cried out for her help. 
 He had come with no settled plan. If he had told her of 
 his passion it was because he could not help it and in 
 spite of himself, because of his overpowering craving to 
 speak of her and to her, since for him she alone existed. 
 His life was lived in her. She must know then that he 
 loved her, not with any mild, indefinite love, but with an 
 all-consuming, cruel passion. Alas! His imagination was 
 precise. He knew exactly and always what he wanted, and 
 it was torture to him. 
 
 And then it seemed to him that together they would have 
 joys which made life worth living. Their existence would 
 be a beautiful but secret work of art. They would think, 
 they would comprehend, they would feel in unison. Theirs 
 would be a wonderful world of emotions and ideas. 
 
 "We would make life a beautiful garden." 
 
 She pretended to interpret this dream in all innocence. 
 
 "You know how strongly your mind appeals to me. It 
 has become necessary to me to see you and hear you. I 
 have shown you this only too plainly. Be assured of my 
 friendship, and be at rest." 
 
 She offered him her hand. He did not take it, and re- 
 plied abruptly: 
 
 "I will not have your friendship. I will not have it. 
 You must be mine entirely, or I must never see you again. 
 Why with mocking words do you offer me your hand? 
 Whether you intended it or not you have inspired me with 
 a passionate desire, a fatal longing. You have become my 
 heart's anguish and torture. And now you ask me to be 
 your friend. It is now that you are cruel and a flirt. If 
 you cannot love me, let me leave you; I will go, I do not 
 know where, to forget you and hate you. For in the depths 
 of my heart I feel towards you both anger and hatred. Oh! 
 I love you, I love you." 
 
 She believed what he said. She feared lest he should go 
 away; and she dreaded the sad dulness of life without him. 
 
 "I have found you in my life. I will not lose you. No, 
 I will not," she said.
 
 128 THE RED LILY 
 
 Timid, passionate, he tried to murmur something, but 
 the words stuck in his throat. Darkness was descending 
 on the distant mountains, and in the east, over the hill of 
 San Miniato, were fading the last gleams of the setting sun. 
 
 She spoke again. 
 
 "If you had known my life, if you had seen how empty it 
 was before you came into it, you would know what you are 
 to me, and you would not think of leaving me." 
 
 But the even tones of her voice and measured step upon 
 the pavement irritated him. He cried out that he was in 
 anguish; his desire burnt within him; this one thought pos- 
 sessed and tortured him; always and everywhere, by night, 
 by day he saw her, he called her, he stretched out his arms 
 to her. The divine passion had entered into his soul. 
 
 "Like incense I breathe the charm of your intellect, the 
 inspiration of your courage, the pride of your soul. When 
 you speak I seem to see your soul on your lips, and I die be- 
 cause I cannot press mine to yours. Your soul is for me but 
 the expression of your beauty. Deep down within me there 
 slumbered the instincts of primitive man. You have awak- 
 ened them. And I feel that I love you with the simplicity 
 of a savage." 
 
 She looked at him tenderly and in silence. Just then they 
 saw lights and heard mournful songs approaching them out 
 of the darkness. And then, like phantoms, driven by the 
 wind, there appeared before them black-robed penitents. 
 The crucifix was carried before them. They were the 
 Brothers of the Misericordia. With their faces hidden by 
 cowls they were holding lighted torches and singing psalms. 
 They were bearing a corpse to the cemetery. It was the 
 Italian custom for the funeral procession to take place at 
 night and to pass along rapidly. On the deserted quay 
 there appeared cross, coffin, and banners. Jacques and 
 Therese stood against the wall to let pass the crowd of 
 priests, choristers, and hooded figures, and, in their midst, 
 importunate Death, whom no one welcomes on this pleasure- 
 loving earth. The black stream had passed. Weeping 
 women ran after the coffin borne by weird shapes in hob- 
 nailed boots. 
 
 Therese sighed:
 
 THE RED LILY 129 
 
 "Of what avail is it to torment ourselves in this world?" 
 
 He appeared not to hear her, and resumed in a calmer 
 voice: 
 
 "Before I knew you I was not unhappy. I loved life. 
 It inspired me with dreams and with curiosity. I delighted 
 in form and in the spirit of form, in the appearance which 
 charms and soothes. To see and to dream were my joys. I 
 enjoyed everything, and I was independent of everything. 
 I was borne up on the wings of my insatiable curiosity. I 
 was interested in everything; I longed for nothing: and it is 
 only desire that makes us suffer. I realise that to-day. 
 Mine was not a melancholy disposition. I was happy with- 
 out knowing it. I possessed little, but all that was neces- 
 sary to make me contented with life. Now that has de- 
 parted from me. My pleasures, the interest I took in life 
 and in art, the joy of expressing in material form the visions 
 of my brain, you have robbed me of them all, and without 
 leaving me one regret. I no longer desire my liberty. I 
 would not return to the tranquillity of past years. It seems 
 as if I never lived till I met you. And now that I know 
 what life really is, I can live neither with you nor away 
 from you. I am more wretched than the beggars we saw 
 on the road to Ema. They at least had the air to breathe. 
 But I have not that, for you are the breath of my life, and 
 you I have not. Nevertheless I rejoice that I have known 
 you. It is all that counts in my life. Just now I thought 
 I hated you. I was mistaken. I adore you, and I bless you 
 for the suffering you have caused me. I love everything 
 that comes from you." 
 
 They were approaching the dark trees at the entrance to 
 the Porta San Niccola. On the other side of the river the 
 land looked vague and infinite in the darkness. Seeing him 
 once more calm and gentle, she thought that his passion, ex- 
 isting only in his imagination, had been appeased by expres- 
 sion and that his desire was merely a dream. She had not 
 expected his resignation to come so quickly. She was almost 
 disappointed at having escaped the danger she had so 
 greatly feared. 
 
 She now offered him her hand more boldly than at first. 
 
 "Come, let us be friends. It is late. We must return,
 
 130 THE RED LILY 
 
 and you must take me to my carriage, which I have left on 
 the Piazza della Signoria. I shall always be your good 
 friend as I was before. You have not vexed me." 
 
 But he led her towards the open country, along the river 
 bank, which became more and more deserted. 
 
 "No, I will not let you go before saying what was in my 
 mind. But I cannot express myself; the words will not 
 come. I love you ; I want you. I long to know that you are 
 mine. I swear to you that I will not pass another night in 
 the horror of doubt." 
 
 He took her and clasped her in his arms. With his face 
 close to hers he gazed through her veil and looked deep into 
 her eyes. 
 
 "You must love me. I will it, you also have willed it. 
 Say that you are mine. Say it!" 
 
 Having gently freed herself from his embrace, she replied 
 in a weak hesitating voice: 
 
 "I cannot. I cannot. You see I am quite frank with you. 
 Just now I told you that you had not vexed me. But I can- 
 not do as you wish." 
 
 And thinking of the absent lover awaiting her, she re- 
 peated: 
 
 "I cannot." 
 
 Bending over her, anxiously he questioned her wavering 
 downcast glance. 
 
 "Why? You love me. I see it. Why do me the wrong 
 of refusing to be mine?" 
 
 He drew her towards him and tried to kiss her lips be- 
 neath her veil. This time she withdrew quickly and de- 
 cisively. 
 
 "I can't. Don't ask me. I can't be yours." 
 
 His lips trembled. His whole countenance was convulsed. 
 He cried: 
 
 "You have a lover and you love him. Why do you trifle 
 *ith me?" 
 
 "I swear that I never thought of trifling with you, and 
 that if ever in this world I were to love it would be you." 
 
 But he no longer listened to her. 
 
 "Leave me. Leave me," he cried. 
 
 And he fled through the darkness. The Arno had over-
 
 THE RED LILY 131 
 
 flowed its banks on to the pasture lands. There the water 
 lay in shallow sheets, on to which the half veiled moon cast 
 its quivering beams. Past these lagoons and over the muddy 
 fields he hastened sadly and distractedly. 
 
 She was afraid and uttered a cry. She called him. But 
 he neither replied nor turned his head. With alarming 
 decision he continued on his way. She ran after him. With 
 her feet bruised by the stones, her skirt heavy with water, 
 she rejoined him and drew him towards her. 
 
 "What were you going to do?" 
 
 Then as he looked into her eyes, he read there the fear 
 that had possessed her. 
 
 "Don't be afraid. I did not see where I was going. I 
 assure you I was not seeking death. Set your mind at rest. 
 I am despairing, but I am calm. I fled from you. Forgive 
 me. But I could not bear to look at you. Leave me, I 
 entreat of you. Good-bye." 
 
 Weak and intensely agitated, she replied: 
 
 "Come. We will see what can be done." 
 
 But he remained sorrowful and silent. 
 
 She repeated: 
 
 "Come." 
 
 She took his arm. The gentle touch of her hand cheered 
 him. 
 
 "Will you?" he asked. 
 
 "I am determined not to drive you to despair." 
 
 "Will you promise?" 
 
 "I must." 
 
 Even in her anguish of spirit she half smiled to think how 
 quickly his wildness had given him his desire. 
 
 "To-morrow?" he asked. 
 
 She replied eagerly with an instinct of self-defence: 
 
 "No, not to-morrow." 
 
 "You don't love me. You regret your promise," he said. 
 
 "No. I don't regret it, but ... " 
 
 He implored her, entreated her. She looked at him for a 
 moment, turned away her head, hesitated, and then said in 
 a very low voice: 
 
 "Saturday."
 
 XVII 
 
 AFTER dinner Miss Bell was drawing profiles of bearded 
 Etruscans on canvas for a cushion Madame Marmet 
 was to embroider. Prince Albertinelli was choosing the wool 
 with a feminine eye for colour. The evening was well ad- 
 vanced when Choulette appeared. As was his wont he had 
 been playing briscola * at an eating-house with the cook. 
 He was gay and god-like in the exuberance of his wit. He 
 sat down on the sofa, by Madame Martin, and looked at her 
 tenderly. His green eyes sparkled voluptuously. His com- 
 pliments, poetical and picturesque, had the air of a caress. 
 It was as if he were composing a love-song in her honour. 
 In short, abrupt, curiously turned sentences he explained the 
 charm by which she attracted him. 
 
 "He too," she thought. 
 
 And she amused herself by teasing him. Had he not dis- 
 covered in the lower quarters of Florence one of those per- 
 sons whose society he mostly enjoyed, she inquired. For 
 his preferences in such matters were well known. It was 
 useless for him to deny it; every one knew where he had 
 found the cord of his third order. His friends had seen him 
 on the Boulevard Saint-Michel with women of the street. 
 And he had avowed his interest in these miserable creatures 
 in his finest poems. 
 
 "Oh! Monsieur Choulette, by all I hear your friends are 
 very wicked." 
 
 He replied solemnly: 
 
 "Madame, you may if you like throw in my face calum- 
 nies originating with M. Paul Vence. I will not defend my- 
 self. That you should be convinced of my chastity and 
 pure-mindedness matters little. But do not lightly judge 
 those whom you call wretched, whom you should regard as 
 holy because they are miserable. The outcast is the docile 
 clay in the potter's hand, the sin offering at the sacrifici** 
 
 *A game at cards. W.S.
 
 THE RED LILY 133 
 
 altar. Prostitutes are nearer God than honest women: they 
 have lost aJl vainglory; they have been shorn of pride. 
 They are unadorned by those empty nothings, the matron's 
 boast. They possess humility, that is the corner-stone of 
 the heavenly house of virtue After a brief repentance they 
 will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven ; for, committed with- 
 out malice and without joy, their sins are their own atone- 
 ment. Their vices, in that they are sorrows, have the merit 
 of all suffering. Slaves to the brutality of passion, these 
 women have denied themselves pleasure. Thus they re- 
 semble men who have become celibate that they may enter 
 the Kingdom of God. Like us they are sinners, but by their 
 shame they atone for their sins; suifering purifies like fire. 
 Therefore the first prayer they address to Him God will 
 hear. He has prepared for them a throne on the right hand 
 of the Father. In the Kingdom of God, the queen and the 
 empress will be happy to sit at the feet of women of the 
 street. For do not imagine that the heavenly house is con- 
 structed on any human plan. It is different in every detail. 
 Madame." 
 
 Nevertheless he agreed that there was more than one road 
 leading to salvation. There was the road of love. 
 
 "Men's love," he said, "is base. It is but a steep and 
 stony path, but it leads to God." 
 
 The Prince had risen. Kissing Miss Bell's hand, he 
 said: 
 
 "Till Saturday." 
 
 "Yes, till the day after to-morrow, till Saturday," re- 
 peated Vivian. 
 
 Therese shuddered. Saturday! They spoke so calmly 
 of Saturday as if it were an ordinary day and near at hand. 
 Until then she had not let herself believe that Saturday 
 would come so soon or so naturally. 
 
 It was half an hour since the party had broken up. 
 Therese, tired and weary, was lying in bed thinking, when 
 she heard a knock at her bedroom door. It opened, and 
 Vivian's little head appeared round the great lemon-trees 
 of the portiere. 
 
 "Am I disturbing you, darling? Are you sleepy?"
 
 134 THE RED LILY 
 
 No, "darling" was not sleepy. She raised herself on her 
 elbow. Vivian sat down on the bed, upon which her slender 
 form made no impression. 
 
 "Darling, I know that you are very sensible. Oh! I am 
 sure of it. You are as sensible as Mr. Sadler, the violinist, 
 is musical. Sometimes he plays a little out of tune on pur- 
 pose. And you when you make a mistake indulge in the 
 pleasure of a virtuoso. Oh! darling, you are a person of 
 sound judgment. And I come to ask your advice." 
 
 Surprised and a little anxious, Therese declared that she 
 was not sensible. She denied it absolutely. But Vivian did 
 not listen to her. 
 
 "I have read Frangois Rabelais a great deal, my love. 
 Rabelais and Villon taught me French. They are grand old 
 masters of language. But, darling, do you know Pantagruel? 
 Oh! Pantagruel is a fine and beautiful town, full of palaces, 
 splendid in the dawn, notwithstanding that the sweepers 
 have yet to arrive to remove the filth and the servants to 
 wash the marble pavements. No, darling, the sweepers have 
 not yet removed the filth, and the servants have not yet 
 washed the marble pavements. And I have noticed that 
 French ladies don't read Pantagruel. You don't know it? 
 Well, that does not matter. In Pantagruel, Panurge asks 
 whether he should marry, and he appears ridiculous, my 
 love. Well, I am as absurd as he, for I ask you the same 
 question." 
 
 Therese replied with ill-concealed constraint: 
 
 "As for that, my dear. Don't ask me. I have already 
 told you my opinion." 
 
 "But, darling, you merely said that men do wrong to 
 marry. I can't take that advice for myself." 
 
 Madame Martin looked at Miss Bell's little close clipped 
 head, which seemed in some curious manner to suggest the 
 bashfulness of love. 
 
 Kissing her, she said: 
 
 "There isn't a man in the world distinguished enough and 
 charming enough for you." 
 
 Then gravely and tenderly she continued: 
 
 "You are not a child: if you love and are loved, do what 
 you think right, and don't complicate love by material in-
 
 THE RED LILY 135 
 
 terests which have nothing to do with feeling. That is the 
 advice of a friend." 
 
 For a moment Miss Bell failed to understand. Then she 
 blushed and rose. She was shocked.
 
 XVIII 
 
 AT four o'clock on Saturday Therese went to the Eng- 
 lish cemetery, according to her promise. At the gate 
 she met Dechartre, grave and agitated. He said little. She 
 was glad he did not appear elated. He led her past the 
 cemetery walls to a narrow street she did not know. "Via 
 Alfieri," she read on a tablet. After walking a few steps, 
 he stopped in front of a dark entry. 
 
 "Here it is," he said. 
 
 She looked at him with infinite sadness. 
 
 "Do you want me to go in?" 
 
 She saw that he was resolute, and she followed him 
 silently into the damp gloom of the passage. He crossed a 
 grass-grown courtyard. At the end was a little house with 
 three windows, with pillars and a pediment carved with 
 goats and nymphs. On the moss-grown doorstep, slowly 
 and with a grating sound, he turned the key in the lock. 
 
 "It is rusty," he murmured. 
 
 "In this country all keys are rusty," she replied me- 
 chanically. 
 
 They went up the staircase, so tranquil beneath its Greek 
 moulding, that it seemed to have forgotten the sound of 
 footsteps. He opened a door and showed Therese into the 
 room. Without staying to examine it, she went straight to 
 the open window, looking on the cemetery. Over the wall 
 rose the tops of pine-trees, which, in that country, have no 
 funereal aspect ; for their mourning casts no gloom over joy, 
 and the sweetness of life is felt even in the grass growing 
 over the tomb. He took her by the hand and led her to an 
 arm-chair. She remained standing, gazing round the room, 
 which he had arranged so that she might feel at home. A 
 few strips of old printed calico represented on the walls the, 
 melancholy delights of past gaiety. In one corner he had 
 hung up a faded pastel they had looked at together in an 
 antiquary's shop, and which she had called the shade of 
 Rosalba on account of its vanishing grace. One or two 
 
 13*
 
 THE RED LILY 137 
 
 white chairs and a grandmother's arm-chair; on the table 
 a few painted cups and some Venetian glass. In the corners 
 were screens of coloured paper, painted with masks, gro- 
 tesque figures, and sheep-cotes, representing the gay life of 
 Florence, Bologna, and Venice, in the days of the grand- 
 dukes and the last doges. She noticed that he had carefully 
 hidden the bed behind one of these gaily painted screens. 
 A mirror, a carpet, and hangings, that was all. He had not 
 dared to procure more in a town where ingenious dealers 
 were always on his track. 
 
 He shut the window and lit the fire. She sat down in 
 the arm-chair; and, while she sat there stiffly, he knelt 
 before her, took her hands, kissed them, and gazed at her 
 long with an admiration proud yet fearful. Then he bent 
 down and kissed the tip of her shoe. 
 
 "What are you doing?" 
 
 "I am kissing the feet that brought you here." 
 
 He rose, drew her gently to him, and kissed her long on 
 the lips. 
 
 She remained passive, her head thrown back, her eyes 
 closed ; her toque slipped off, her hair fell down. 
 
 She yielded without resistance. 
 
 Two hours later, when the setting sun was casting its long 
 rays over the pavement, Therese, who had wished to go 
 back through the town alone, found herself in front of the 
 two obelisks of Santa-Maria-Novella, without knowing how 
 she had come there. At the corner of the square she saw 
 the old cobbler drawing his thread in the same monotonous 
 manner. He was smiling, with his sparrow on his shoulder. 
 
 She went into his booth and sat down on a stool, and 
 there she said in French: 
 
 "Quentin Matsys, my friend, what have I done, and what 
 will become of me?" 
 
 He looked at her calmly, with cheerful good nature, mak- 
 ing an effort to understand. He was past being astonished. 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "What I did, my good Quentin, was because he was suf- 
 fering, and I loved him. I do not regret it." 
 
 To which he answered, as was his custom, the sonorous 
 Italian "yes":
 
 138 THE RED LILY 
 
 "Si, si." 
 
 "I did no wrong, did I, Quentin? But what will happen 
 now?" 
 
 She was going, but he signed to her to wait a moment. 
 He carefully picked a spray of basil and gave it to her. 
 "Take it for its sweet smell, Signora."
 
 XIX 
 
 ON the morrow Madame Martin was reading at the win 
 dow. Choulette greeted her, having first tenderly 
 placed on the table his knotted stick, his pipe, and his car- 
 pet-bag. He was going to Assisi. He wore a goatskin 
 jacket, and looked like the old shepherds in the story of the 
 Nativity. 
 
 "Good-bye, Madame. I am leaving Fiesole, you, De- 
 chartre, the effeminate Prince Albertinelli, and that charm- 
 ing ogress, Miss Bell. I go to visit the mountain of Assisi, 
 which, says the poet, should be called not Assisi, but 'the 
 Orient,' for thence rose the sun of love. I shall kneel before 
 that happy crypt where reposes the naked body of St. 
 Francis in a trough of stone, with a stone for a pillow. For 
 he would not bear away even so much as a shroud from this 
 world, to which he had revealed the secret of true happiness 
 and true holiness." 
 
 "Good-bye, Monsieur Choulette. Bring me a Santa 
 Chiara medal. I like Santa Chiara." 
 
 "You are right, Madame. She was a woman of strength 
 and prudence. When, ill and almost blind, St. Francis 
 came to spend a few days with his friend at San Damiano, 
 with her own hands she built him a cell in the garden. His 
 soul rejoiced. A painful weariness and burning of his eye- 
 lids deprived him of sleep. Rats attacked him by night. It 
 was then that he composed that joyful hymn in honour of 
 his splendid brother, the Sun, and our chaste, useful, and 
 pure sister, Water. My finest lines, even those of Le Jardin 
 Clos, have less irresistible charm and natural splendour. 
 And it is right that it should be so; for the soul of St. 
 Francis was more beautiful than mine. Although I am 
 better than any of my contemporaries, whom I have been 
 privileged to know, I am worthless. When Francis had 
 composed his hymn to the Sun, he was happy. He thought: 
 My brethren and I will go through the towns, playing our 
 lutes in the market-places on market-days. When the good
 
 Kfo THE RED LILY 
 
 people draw near us we will say: 'We are God's minstrels; 
 we will sing you a lay. If it pleases you, you must reward 
 us.' /ney will promise. And when we have sung, we shall 
 say to *hem: 'Now for our reward; what we ask is that 
 you shall love one another.' Doubtless, in order to keep 
 their pr&ririse, and so please God's poor minstrels, they will 
 forbear frvn doing each other harm." 
 
 Madame Martin thought St. Francis the most lovable of 
 saints. 
 
 "His work," Choulette resumed, "was destroyed during 
 his lifetime. Nevertheless he died happy, because joy and 
 humility were his. He was indeed God's sweet singer. 
 And it is fitting that another poor poet should take up his 
 work, and teach the world true religion and true joy. That 
 poet shall be I, Madame, if only I can cast away pride and 
 wisdom. For all moral beauty is the result of that incom- 
 prehensible wisdom which comes from God and resembles 
 madness." 
 
 "I will not discourage you, Monsieur Choulette. But I 
 am anxious about the lot of poor women in your new so- 
 ciety. You will shut them all up in convents." 
 
 "I confess," replied Choulette, "that in my project for a 
 reformation they cause me much embarrassment. The vio- 
 lence with which they are loved is bitter and bad. The 
 pleasure they give brings no calm, and does not lead to joy. 
 I, in my life, have for the sake of women committed two or 
 three abominable crimes, of which no one knows. I doubt, 
 Madame, whether I shall invite you to supper in the new 
 Santa Maria degli Angeli." 
 
 He took up his pipe, his carpet-bag, and his stick with 
 its human head. 
 
 "The faults of love will be pardoned or, rather, one 
 can do no wrong when one really loves. But sensual pas- 
 sion is compact of hatred, egoism, and wrath as much as of 
 love. One evening, for having thought you beautiful as 
 you sat on this sofa, I was assailed by a whole army of 
 passionate thoughts. I had come from the Albergo, where 
 I had heard Miss Bell's cook improvise two hundred mag- 
 nificent lines on spring. My soul was flooded with a celes- 
 tial joy which vanished at the sight of you. Eve's curse
 
 THE RED LILY IA* 
 
 contains a profound truth. For in your presence I grew 
 sad and wicked. Soft words were on my lips. But they 
 lied. Within I felt myself your adversary; I hated you. 
 When I saw you smile, I wanted to kill you." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Oh, Madame, it is a very natural feeling, and one that 
 you must have often inspired. But the ordinary man feels 
 it without knowing what it is, whilst my vivid imagination 
 defines it clearly. I am in the habit of contemplating my 
 own soul; sometimes I find it splendid, sometimes hideous. 
 If you had seen it that evening, you would have been 
 horrified." 
 
 Therese smiled. 
 
 "Good-bye, Monsieur Choulette; don't forget the Santa 
 Chiara medal." 
 
 He put his bag on the ground, and, stretching out his arm, 
 with his forefinger raised in the manner of one who teaches, 
 he said: 
 
 "From me you have nothing to fear. But him whom 
 you shall love and who shall love you will be your enemy. 
 Farewell, Madame." 
 
 He took up his bag and went out. She saw his tall quaint 
 form disappear behind the shrubs in the garden. 
 
 In the afternoon she went to San Marco, where Dechartre 
 was waiting for her. She longed and yet she feared to see 
 him again so soon. Her anguish of heart was appeased by 
 a new feeling of intense sweetness. The moral numbness of 
 her first yielding to passion, followed by a sudden vision of 
 the irreparable, did not recur. She was now under serener, 
 vaguer, more powerful influences. This time the memory 
 of caresses and the violence of passion was veiled in a 
 charming revery. She was troubled and anxious, but not 
 ashamed or regretful. It was not so much by her own will 
 as in obedience to a higher power that she had acted. She 
 justified her action by its unselfishness. She counted on 
 nothing, having expected nothing. Certainly she had been 
 wrong to yield when she was not free, but then she on her 
 part had exacted nothing. Perhaps she was for him only a 
 passing fancy all absorbing, yet serious only for the mo- 
 ment. She did not know him. She had not put to the test
 
 142 THE RED LILY 
 
 those fine imaginings, which are so far above mediocrity in 
 evil as well as in good. If he were suddenly to depart and 
 disappear, she would not reproach him, she would not bear 
 him ill-will, at least she believed so. She would treasure the 
 memory of what is rarest and most precious in the world. 
 Perhaps he was incapable of an enduring love. He had 
 thought he loved her. He had loved her for an hour. She 
 did not dare to hope for more in the embarrassment of a 
 false position in which her frankness and her pride were 
 outraged and the usual clearness of her thought obscured. 
 While the carriage was bearing her to San Marco, she suc- 
 ceeded in persuading herself that he would not mention 
 what had happened on the previous day, and that the mem- 
 ory of that room, looking on the dark pine-trees, would be 
 to them both but the dream of a dream. 
 
 He gave her his hand as she got out of the carriage. 
 Before he spoke she saw by his glance that he loved her 
 and that he wanted her still ; and she perceived at the same 
 time that she was pleased it should be so. 
 
 "It is you," he said, "really you I have been here since 
 noon, waiting, knowing that you would not come yet, but 
 feeling that I could not live away from the place where I 
 was to see you. It is you! . . . Speak that I may see 
 you and hear you." 
 
 "Do you still love me?" 
 
 "It is now that I really love you. I thought I loved you 
 when you were but a phantom pursued by my desire. Now 
 you are the body of my soul. Is it true, say, can it be true 
 that you are mine? What have I done that I should possess 
 the greatest, the only good upon earth? And those other 
 men who fill the earth! They think they live! But I alone 
 live! Say what have I done to possess this treasure?" 
 
 "Oh! what has been done has been done by me. I tell 
 you frankly. If we come to that, it is my fault. She may 
 not always avow it, but it is always the woman's fault. So, 
 whatever may happen, I shall never reproach you." 
 
 An active noisy troop of beggars, guides, and profligates 
 came out of the church porch and surrounded them with an 
 importunity mingled with that grace always characteristic 
 of the nimble Italian. They were subtle enough to guess
 
 THE RED LILY 143 
 
 they had to deal with lovers, and they knew that lovers are 
 generous. Dechartre threw them a few silver pieces, and 
 they all returned to their happy idleness. 
 
 A policeman met the visitors. Madame Martin regretted 
 that it was not a monk. At Santa-Maria-Novella, the white 
 robes of the Dominicans looked so beautiful under the 
 arches of the cloister. 
 
 They visited the cells where Fra Angelico, aided by his 
 brother Benedetto, painted innocent pictures on the white 
 walls for his comrades, the monks. 
 
 "Do you remember that winter evening when I met you 
 on the little bridge over a ditch in front of the Guimet 
 Museum and accompanied you to that little street bordered 
 by gardens and leading to the Quai de Billy? Before part- 
 ing, we paused for a moment by the thin box hedge running 
 along the parapet. You looked at the box which the winter 
 had dried and withered. And after you had gone, I stayed 
 and gazed at it." 
 
 They were in the cell of. Savonarola, the prior of the 
 monastery of San Marco. The guide showed them the por- 
 trait and the relics of the martyr. 
 
 "What could you see to admire in me that day? It was 
 nearly dark." 
 
 "I could see you walk. It is by motion that forms speak. 
 Each of your steps revealed to me the secret of your regular 
 beauty and your charm. Oh! when you are concerned my 
 imagination has never kept within the bounds of discretion. 
 I did not dare to speak to you. The sight of you filled me 
 with fear. I was terrified before her who could do every- 
 thing for me. In your presence I adored you with trembling. 
 Away from you I felt all the irreverence of desire." 
 
 "I never guessed it. But do you remember the first time 
 we met, when Paul Vence introduced you? You were sit- 
 ting by the screen, looking at the miniatures hanging on it. 
 You said: 'That woman, painted by Siccardi, is like Andre 
 Chenier's mother.' I replied: 'That's my husband's grand- 
 mother. What was Andre Chenier's mother like?' And 
 you said: 'We have her portrait, that of a degenerate 
 Levantine woman.' " 
 
 He was sure he had not spoken so rudely.
 
 144 THE RED LILY 
 
 "But yes. My memory is better than yours." 
 
 They walked, surrounded by the white silence of the 
 monastery. They visited the cell that Blessed Angelico 
 adorned with the softest painting. And there before the 
 picture of the Virgin on a pale blue sky receiving the im- 
 mortal crown from God the Father, he took Therese in his 
 arms and kissed her on the lips, almost in sight of two Eng- 
 lishwomen, passing down the corridor, reading Baedeker. 
 
 "We must not forget to visit St. Anthony's cell," she said. 
 
 "Therese, I cannot bear that any part of you should 
 escape from me. It is terrible to think that you do not live 
 in me and for me alone. I long to possess entirely you and 
 your past." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Oh! as for the past!" 
 
 "The past alone is real. The past alone exists." 
 
 She looked up at him with eyes like the sun shining 
 through the rain: 
 
 "Well I can say very truly: I never really live except 
 when I am with you." 
 
 On her return to Fiesole, she found a short threatening 
 letter from Le Menil. He could not understand her silence 
 and her prolonged absence. If she did not immediately 
 name the date of her return he would come to Florence. 
 
 She read his letter, not in any way surprised, yet over- 
 whelmed by the realisation that the inevitable was happen- 
 ing and that she would be spared nothing of all she had 
 feared. She might yet pacify and reassure him. She had 
 only to write that she loved him, that she was soon coming 
 back, and that he must renounce the wild idea of meeting 
 her at Florence, which was only a village, where they would 
 be recognised immediately. But she must write: "I love 
 you." She must soothe him with loving words. She had 
 not the courage. She allowed him to guess the truth. In 
 vague terms she accused herself. She wrote mysteriously 
 of souls carried away on the waves of life and how powerless 
 one is on the ocean of vicissitude. Sadly and tenderly she 
 asked him to keep a kindly memory of her in one corner of 
 his heart. 
 
 She herself went to post the letter on the Piazza, of
 
 THE RED LILY 145 
 
 Fiesole. In the twilight some children were playing at hop- 
 scotch. From the top of the hill she looked down on the 
 beautiful basin and Florence like a lovely jewel nestling in 
 the hollow. The peacefulness of evening made her shudder. 
 She dropped the letter into the box. And then only did she 
 clearly realise what she had done and what would be its 
 result.
 
 XX 
 
 THE bright spring sun was casting its golden beams on 
 the Piazza, della Signoria, when at the striking of the 
 hour of twelve the country crowd of corn-dealers and 
 macaroni merchants began to break up. At the foot of the 
 Lanzi, in front of the group of statues, the ice-cream sellers 
 had erected little castles with the inscription Bibite ghiac- 
 ciate, on tables covered with red cotton. Joy and gaiety 
 seemed to have come down to earth from heaven. Therese 
 and Jacques, on their way home from a morning walk in the 
 Boboli Gardens, were passing the famous loggia. Therese 
 was looking at John of Bologna's Sabine woman, with that 
 curious interest with which one woman looks at another. 
 But Dechartre had eyes for Therese alone. 
 
 "It is wonderful," he said, "how the bright daylight en- 
 hances your beauty; it seems to linger lovingly on the pearl 
 white of your cheeks." 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Candle-light always hardens my fea- 
 tures. I have noticed it. It is unfortunate that I am not 
 an evening beauty; for in the evening women have most 
 opportunity of displaying their good looks. In the evening 
 Princess Seniavine has a lovely olive complexion; by day- 
 light she is as yellow as a guinea. I must admit that it does 
 not trouble her. She is not a coquette." 
 
 "And you are." 
 
 "Oh! yes. I used to be for my own sake, now I am for 
 yours." 
 
 She looked again at the robust, long-limbed Sabine 
 woman, who was endeavouring to escape from the Roman's 
 embrace. 
 
 "Is that angularity and length of limb a necessary quality 
 in a beautiful woman? I am not like that." 
 
 Dechartre hastily reassured her. But she had not really 
 doubted. Now she was looking at the ice cream man's little 
 chateau, with its copper walls gleaming on the scarlet table- 
 cloth. She suddenly felt a desire to eat an ice there, stand* 
 
 146
 
 THE RED LILY 147 
 
 ing at this table, as she had just seen the working women 
 of the town do. 
 
 "Wait a moment," he said. 
 
 He ran to a street on the left of the Lanzi and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 In a minute he returned with a little silver gilt spoon, 
 from which the gilding was partly worn away, and the 
 handle of which was formed by a Florentine lily with its 
 calyx enamelled in red. 
 
 "This is for you to eat your ice with. The ice-cream man 
 does not provide spoons. You would have been obliged to 
 use your tongue. It would have been charming. But you 
 would not have known how to do it." 
 
 She recognised the spoon; it was a little gem she had 
 noticed the day before in a shop window near the Lanzi. 
 
 They were happy. The fulness of their simple joy over- 
 flowed in trivial, meaningless words. And they laughed 
 when the Florentine with excellent mimicry told them the 
 time-honoured tales of old Italian story-tellers. She was 
 entertained by the play of his classic, jovial countenance. 
 But she did not always understand him. 
 
 "What is he saying?" she asked Jacques. 
 
 "Do you want to know?" 
 
 She did. 
 
 "Well! he says he would be happy if the fleas in his bed 
 were as pretty as you." 
 
 When she had finished her ice, he urged her to revisit Or 
 San-Michele. It was so close. They would cross to the 
 opposite corner of the square and there they would see the 
 jewel in stone. They went. They looked at the bronze St. 
 George and St. Mark. On the encrusted wall of the house, 
 Dechartre saw the letter-box, and remembered with painful 
 vividness the little gloved hand posting the letter. The 
 copper mouth that had swallowed Therese'^ secret appeared 
 to him hideous. He could not look away from it. All his 
 gaiety had vanished. Meanwhile she was trying to appreci- 
 ate the rough statue of the Evangelist. 
 
 "Yes, indeed he looks frank and honest. If he could 
 speak his words would always be true." 
 
 "His is no woman's mouth," Dechartre retorted bitterly.
 
 148 THE RED LILY 
 
 She understood, and said very sweetly: 
 "My friend, why do you say that? I am frank." 
 "What do you call being frank? You know that a woman 
 is bound to lie." 
 
 She hesitated. Then: 
 
 "A woman," she said, "is frank when she does not lie use- 
 lessly."
 
 XXI 
 
 'TpHfiRESE, in grey, was gliding among the flowering 
 J. broom bushes. The silver stars of the arbutus covered 
 the steep slope of the terrace, and on the hill-side gleamed 
 the sweet scented flame-like flowers of the oleander. The 
 Florentine valley was one mass of flowers. 
 
 Vivian Bell, dressed in white, came into the perfumed 
 garden. 
 
 "You see, darling, Florence is really the city of flowers; 
 and it is right she should have the red lily for her emblem. 
 To-day is a festival." 
 
 "Ah! is it a feast-day?" 
 
 "Darling, don't you know that it is the first of May, the 
 Primavera? Did you not awake this morning in fairyland? 
 Aren't you keeping the Festival of Flowers, darling? Don't 
 you feel gay, you who love flowers? For you do love them, 
 I know. You feel tenderly towards them. You said that 
 they feel joy and sorrow, that they suffer as we do." 
 
 "Did I say that they suffer like us?" 
 
 "Yes, you said so. To-day is their festival. You must 
 celebrate it according to the custom of our ancestors, in 
 rites depicted by the old masters." 
 
 Therese heard without comprehending. Crushed in her 
 gloved hand was a letter she had just received, bearing the 
 Italian post-mark and containing only two lines: 
 
 "I arrived to-night at the Hotel de la Grande Bretagne, 
 Lungarno Acciajoli. I expect you to-morrow morning. 
 No. 18." 
 
 "Oh! darling, don't you know that at Florence it is our 
 custom to welcome the springtime on the first of May? 
 Then you can't have understood Botticelli's picture of the 
 Feast of Flowers, his delightful Spring, so full of happy 
 revery. Formerly, darling, on this first day of May, the 
 whole town was merry. The girls of Florence, in festive 
 garb, crowned with hawthorn, passed in procession up the 
 Corso, beneath arches of flowers, to dance under the olean- 
 
 149
 
 ISO THE RED LILY 
 
 ders on the fresh green grass. We will imitate them. We 
 will dance in the garden." 
 
 "Are we going to dance in the garden?" 
 
 "Yes, darling, and I will teach you some fifteenth-century 
 Tuscan dances, discovered in a MS. by Mr. Morison, the 
 doyen of London librarians. Come back quickly, my love; 
 we will wreathe our heads with flowers and then we will 
 dance." 
 
 "Yes, dear, we will dance." 
 
 And, opening the gate, she hurried down the little path 
 with channels worn by the rain like the bed of a mountain 
 torrent, and stones hidden beneath briar roses. She jumped 
 into the first carriage she met. The driver had cornflowers 
 in his hat and on his whip-handle. 
 
 "Hotel de la Grande-Bretagne, Lungarno Acciajoli," she 
 said. 
 
 She knew where it was, Lungarno Acciajoli. . . . She 
 had been there, in the evening, and she remembered the 
 golden light of the setting sun on the surging waters of the 
 river. Then night had come; and she heard the water's 
 dull murmur in the silence; words and glances had agitated 
 her, and her lover's first kiss, the beginning of an irreparable 
 love. Oh! Yes, she remembered Lungarno Acciajoli and 
 the river bank beyond the Ponte Vecchio . . . Hotel de la 
 Grande Bretagne . . . She knew: a broad stone fagade 
 on the quay. It was fortunate, if he must come, that he 
 was staying there. He might have gone to the Hotel de la 
 Ville, on the Piazzi Manin, where Dechartre was staying. 
 It was fortunate that their rooms were not side by side in 
 the same corridor . . . Lungarno Acciajoli! . . . That 
 corpse they had seen hurrying by, borne by cowled monks, 
 it was at rest in some little garden cemetery. 
 
 Number 18. 
 
 It was a bare Italian hotel room with a stove. A set of 
 brushes was carefully set out on the table, and by them a 
 railway guide. Not a book, not a newspaper. He was 
 there: she read suffering and feverish excitement on his thin 
 face; and its sad expression pained her. He awaited 
 a word, a sign; but she remained silent, motionless, and 
 afraid.
 
 THE RED LILY 151 
 
 He offered her a chair. She put it on one side and con- 
 tinued standing. 
 
 "Therese, there is something that I do not know. Speak." 
 
 After a moment's silence, she replied with painful hesi- 
 tation: 
 
 "Why did you leave me in Paris?" 
 
 The sadness of her tone made him believe, and he wished 
 to believe, that she was reproaching him. He blushed and 
 replied eagerly: 
 
 "Ah! If I had foreseen! You must know that at heart 
 I cared little for that hunting-party! But you, your letter 
 of the zyth (he had a good memory for dates) made me 
 terribly anxious. Something had happened when you wrote 
 it. Tell me everything." 
 
 "I thought, dear, that you had ceased to love me." 
 
 "But now you know that to be untrue." 
 
 "Now ..." 
 
 She was still standing with her hands clasped. 
 
 Then with assumed tranquillity, she said: 
 
 "Our union was formed in ignorance. One never knows. 
 You are young, younger than I, since we are nearly of an 
 age. Doubtless you have plans for the future." 
 
 He looked her haughtily in the face. She continued with 
 less assurance: 
 
 "Your relatives, your mother, your aunts have made plans 
 for you. It is quite natural. I ought to have guessed that 
 there was some obstacle. It is better that I should disap- 
 pear from your life. We shall keep a kindly memory of 
 each other." 
 
 She offered him her gloved hand. He folded his arms. 
 
 "And so you are tired of me," he said. "You think that 
 when you have made me happier than any other man has 
 ever been, you can put me on one side, that everything is 
 over! . . . And what have you come to tell me? That 
 a union such as ours is quickly sundered. That a parting 
 is easy? ... I tell you, no! You are not the kind of 
 woman from whom one parts." 
 
 "Yes, you probably loved me with an affection stronger 
 than is usual in such cases. I was more to you than a pass- 
 ing fancy. But, what if I were not the woman you thought
 
 152 THE RED LILY 
 
 nie, what if I were a flirt, and betrayed you. . . . You 
 know what has been said. . . . Well! what if I have not 
 been all that I ought to have been ..." 
 
 She hesitated and resumed in a grave serious tone which 
 contrasted with her words: 
 
 "Supposing that while I was your mistress I yielded to 
 other attractions and was possessed by other longings. Per- 
 haps I am not made for a serious passion. ..." 
 
 He interrupted her. 
 
 "You lie," he said. 
 
 "Yes, I lie. And I do not lie well. I wanted to spoil 
 our past. I was wrong. It is what you know it was. 
 But . . ." 
 
 "But . . .?" 
 
 "Well! I always told you I am not to be depended on. 
 There are women, so I am told, who are mistresses of their 
 feelings. I warned you that I was not like them, that I am 
 not answerable for mine." 
 
 He looked left and right and turned his head like a 
 creature irritated and yet hesitating to attack. 
 
 "What do you mean? I don't understand. I understand 
 nothing. Explain yourself. There is something between 
 us. I don't know what. But I am determined to know. 
 What is it?" 
 
 "It is because I am not sure of myself, dear. You ought 
 never to have placed your confidence in me. No, you 
 ought never to have done it. I never promised anything. 
 . . . And, then, if I had promised, what are words?" 
 
 "You love me no longer. You have ceased to love me, I 
 see it well. But, so much the worse for you! I love you. 
 You ought never to have given yourself to me. It is no use 
 your thinking you can take back that gift. I love you and 
 L keep you. ... Ah! You thought you were easily rid 
 of me? Listen. You made me love you; you charmed me; 
 it is your fault that I cannot live without you. You enjoyed 
 your share in our raptures. I did not take you by force. 
 You were willing. Six weeks ago you asked for nothing 
 better. You were everything to me. I was everything to 
 you. So complete was our union that our very lives were 
 mingled. And then all of a sudden you ask me to forget
 
 THE RED LILY 153 
 
 you, to regard you as a stranger, a casual acquaintance. 
 Ah! you have an unparalleled assurance. Tell me, was I 
 dreaming when I felt your kisses and your breath upon my 
 neck? Was it not true? Am I imagining it all? Oh! I 
 cannot doubt that you loved me once. I feel the breath of 
 your love upon me still. And yet, I have not changed. I 
 am what I was. You have nothing with which to reproach 
 me. I have never deceived you. Not that it is any credit 
 to me. I could not have done it. When one has known 
 you, all other women, even the most beautiful, appear in^ 
 sipid. The idea of deceiving you never occurred to me. I 
 always treated you honourably. Then why have you ceased 
 to love me? But tell me, speak. Say that you still love me, 
 Say so, since it must be true. Come, come! Therese, you 
 will feel at once that you love me, as you used to love me 
 in our little nest in the Rue Spontini, where we were so 
 happy. Come!" 
 
 Passionately, eagerly he threw his strong arms around 
 her. She, with tears in her eyes, repulsed him icily. 
 
 He understood and said: 
 
 "You have a lover." 
 
 She bowed her head, and then raised it, grave and silent 
 
 Then he struck her on the breast, on the shoulder, and m 
 the face. But immediately he drew back ashamed, and 
 looked down in silence. With his fingers on his lips, biting 
 his nails, he noticed that his hand had been scratched by a 
 pin in her bodice. He threw himself into an arm-chair, took 
 out his handkerchief to dry the blood, and remained as if 
 benumbed and stupefied. 
 
 She, leaning against the door, pale, her head erect, her 
 glance uncertain, was instinctively unpinning her torn veil 
 and readjusting her hat. 
 
 At the sound, once so delicious, of the rustling of her 
 clothes, he shuddered, looked at her, and relapsed into fury. 
 
 "Who is it?" he asked. "I must know." 
 
 She did not move. On her white face was a red mark 
 where his hand had struck her. She replied firmly and 
 gently: 
 
 "I have told you all I could. Ask me no more. It would 
 be useless."
 
 154 THE RED LILY 
 
 He looked at her with a cruel glance she had never seea 
 before. 
 
 "Oh! you need not tell me his name. I shall have no 
 difficulty in finding him." 
 
 She was silent, sad for him, anxious for another, full of 
 fear and anguish, yet without bitterness, sorrow, or regret, 
 for her heart was elsewhere. 
 
 He seemed to know what was passing within her. In his 
 wrath at beholding her so sweet and serene, beautiful, but 
 not as he had known her, beautiful for another, he felt a 
 desire to kill her, and he cried: 
 
 "Go go." 
 
 Then overpowered by the passion of that hatred, which 
 was not natural to him, he put his head in his hands and 
 sobbed. 
 
 His grief touched her and gave her hope that she might 
 be able to calm him and render her departure less agonising. 
 She imagined that she might console him for losing her. In 
 a friendly and confiding manner she sat down beside him. 
 
 "You must blame me," she said. "I deserve blame but 
 also pity. Despise me, if you like, and if you can despise a 
 miserable creature who is life's plaything. Judge me, as 
 you will. But in your wrath feel a little friendliness to- 
 wards me; let me be a bitter-sweet memory like those 
 autumn days when there is sunshine and east wind. That is 
 what I deserve. Don't be hard on the pleasant but frivolous 
 visitor who has crossed your path. Bid me farewell as if I 
 were a sad traveller who goes away she knows not whither. 
 It is always so sad to part! You were angry with me just 
 now. I don't reproach you. But it grieves me. Show me 
 some sympathy. Who knows? The future is always un- 
 known. It lies vague and dark before me. Let me be able 
 to say that I have been kind, simple, and frank with you, 
 and that you have not forgotten me. In time you will come 
 to understand and to forgive. But to-day, just be pitiful." 
 
 He was not listening to the words she said, but the soft 
 clear sound of her voice soothed him. He said suddenly: 
 
 "You do not love him. It is I whom you love. Then " 
 
 She hesitated, then said: 
 
 "Oh: to say whom one loves and whom one does not love
 
 THE RED LILY 155 
 
 is no easy matter for a woman, at least for me. I don't 
 know how others do; for life is not merciful. One is bat- 
 tered and thrown and driven " 
 
 He looked at her very calmly. An idea had occurred to 
 him. He had made a resolve. It was quite simple. He 
 would forgive, he would forget, if only she would return at 
 once. 
 
 "Therese, you don't love him? It was a mistake, a mo- 
 ment's forgetfulness, a horrible stupid thing that you did, 
 surprised in an instant of weakness, or perhaps out of pique. 
 Swear to me that you will never see him again." 
 
 He took hold of her arm, saying, " Swear." 
 
 She was silent, her lips tightly closed, looking darkly. 
 
 "You are hurting me," she cried. 
 
 But he did not desist. He dragged her to the table, 
 where, as well as the brushes, were an ink-pot and a few 
 sheets of letter-paper each bearing a picture of the hotel 
 fagade with its numerous windows. 
 
 "Write what I dictate. I will send the letter." 
 
 And, when she resisted, he forced her on to her knees. 
 Proudly and calmly, she said: 
 
 "I cannot. I will not." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because ... Do you want to know? . . . Because 
 I love him." 
 
 Suddenly he let her go. If he had had a revolver at 
 hand, perhaps he would have killed her. But almost im- 
 mediately his wrath melted into sadness; and, then despair- 
 ing, it was his own life he would have taken. 
 
 "Are you speaking the truth? Is it possible? Is it true?" 
 
 "Do I myself know? Can I tell? Can I understand 
 yet? Can I think? Can I feel? Can I see any ray of 
 light? Can I . . 
 
 Then with a slight effort, she added: 
 
 "At this moment can I realise anything but my sadness 
 and your despair?" 
 
 "You love him! You love him!" he cried. "How has he 
 made you love him?" 
 
 He was stupefied by surprise, overwhelmed with astonish- 
 ment. Nevertheless, what she had said had separated them.
 
 156 THE RED LILY 
 
 He no longer dared to handle her roughly, to seize her, to 
 strike her, and treat her as his chattel. He repeated: 
 
 "You love him ! You love him ! But what did he say to 
 you, what has he done to make you love him? I know you: 
 I did not always tell you when your ideas shocked me. I 
 wager that this lover of yours is not even a man in society. 
 And you think he loves you? You think so? Well you are 
 mistaken: he does not love you. He will give you up at the 
 first opportunity. He will have had enough of you when he 
 has compromised you. Then you will pass from one affair 
 to another. Next year the worst things will be said of you, 
 I am sorry for your father, who is my friend. He will know 
 of your conduct; for you will not be able to deceive 
 him." 
 
 She listened, humiliated and yet consoled, for she knew 
 she would have suffered more deeply had she found him 
 nagnanimous. 
 
 He despised her in his simplicity; and his scorn consoled 
 him. He tested it to the full. 
 
 "How did it happen?" he asked. "You need not hesitate 
 to tell me." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders with such obvious pity for 
 him that he did not dare continue in this strain. He re- 
 sumed bitterly: 
 
 "Do you think I shall help you to save the situation, that 
 I shall continue to visit your husband and be a third in 
 your household?" 
 
 "I expect you to do what a gallant man ought to do. I 
 ask you for nothing. I should have liked to remember you 
 as a dear friend. I had expected you to be kind and chari- 
 >able. It is impossible. I see such partings must always 
 be bitter. Later you will think better of me. Good-bye." 
 
 He looked at her. Now his face was more expressive of 
 sorrow than of wrath. She had never seen his eyes look 
 so hard or deeply ringed, or his temples appearing so plainly 
 beneath his thin hair. He seemed to have aged in an hour. 
 
 "I must warn you," he said. "It will be impossible for 
 me to meet you again. You are not the kind of woman 
 whom, after what has passed between us, one can continue 
 to meet in society. As I have said, you are a woman apart.
 
 THE RED LILY 15? 
 
 You have a poison of your own, which you have given me; 
 I feel it within me, in my veins, everywhere. Why did I 
 ever know you?" 
 
 She looked at him kindly. 
 
 "Good-bye! Say to yourself that I am not worth such 
 bitter regrets." 
 
 Then, when he saw her with her hand on the door handle, 
 when he felt that he was about to lose her, that he would 
 never possess her again, he uttered a cry and rushed forward. 
 He remembered nothing. All that he felt was the numbness 
 which follows a great misfortune, an irreparable loss. But 
 this feeling of having been stunned gave place to desire. 
 He wanted once more the mistress, who was going, never 
 to return. He drew her to him. With all the strength of 
 his physical nature he wanted her. She was on the watch 
 and resisted him with all the power of her will. Dishevelled 
 and disarranged, she freed herself without having even felt 
 afraid. 
 
 He understood that it would be useless ; the lost sequence 
 of facts returned to him, and he realised that she could not 
 be his because she was another's. His anguish revived; he 
 hurled insults at her and pushed her out of the room. 
 
 For a moment she lingered in the passage, proudly wait- 
 ing for a word, a look worthy of their past love. 
 
 But again he cried: "Go," and banged the door. 
 
 Via Alfieri! She returned to the little house at the back 
 of the courtyard, overgrown with pale green grass. It 
 seemed peaceful, silent, faithful, with its goats and nymphs, 
 carved for the lovers of the days of the Grand-Duchess 
 Eliza. Already she felt a sense of escape from a sorrowful 
 and brutal world, as if she had been carried through the 
 ages to a life where suffering was unknown. At the bottom 
 of the staircase, the steps of which were strewn with roses, 
 Dechartre was waiting for her. She fell into his arms and 
 remained there passive, while he carried her upstairs like 
 the precious relic of her before whom he had once grown 
 pale and trembled. With eyes half closed she tasted the 
 superb humiliation of feeling herself his. Her weariness, 
 her sadness, the mortifications of the day, the memory of 
 violence, her re-conquered liberty, the desire to forget, some
 
 158 THE RED LILY 
 
 vestige of fear, all intensified her tenderness. Lying on the 
 bed, she clasped her arms round her lover's neck. 
 
 They were as gay as children. They laughed, talked non- 
 sense, and played as they sucked lemons, oranges, and 
 water-melons piled near them on painted plates. 
 
 She was flushed with pride in the comeliness of the body 
 she was offering upon the altar of love. For she had dis- 
 carded her clothes save for one thin rose-hued garment, and 
 this had slipped scarfwise from her shoulder, laying bare one 
 breast, whilst the warmer tinted tip of the other glowed 
 through the rosy gossamer that veiled it. 
 
 Her half open lips displayed the whiteness of her teeth. 
 With coquettish anxiety, she asked whether, after all his 
 glowing dreams of her, he had not been disappointed. 
 
 In the half-light which he had contrived he contemplated 
 her with youthful ardour, mingling kisses with his praises. 
 
 In pretty caresses, loving disputes, and happy glances 
 they passed the time, till all of a sudden grave, with looks 
 overcast and compressed lips, a prey to that sacred wrath 
 which brings love near hatred they plunged into the abyss 
 of passion. 
 
 Then her head upon the pillow, her hair flowing, she 
 would open her eyes bathed in tears, and smile sweetly. 
 
 He asked her how she had come by that little red mark 
 on the temple. She replied that she did not know and that 
 it was nothing. 
 
 It was hardly a lie. For really she had forgotten. 
 
 They recalled their beautiful short story which yet cov- 
 ered all their life, for life began the day they first met. 
 
 "You remember being on the terrace the day after your 
 arrival. You talked vaguely and incoherently. I guessed 
 then that you loved me." 
 
 "I was afraid you thought me stupid." 
 
 "You were rather. But that was my triumph. I was 
 beginning to grow impatient with your serenity in my pres- 
 ence. I loved you before you loved me. Oh! I am not 
 ashamed of it." 
 
 He poured into her mouth a few drops of sparkling Asti. 
 But on the table was a bottle of Trasimene wine. She 
 wanted to taste it in memory of that lake lying in the eve-
 
 THE RED LILY 159 
 
 ning light so melancholy and beautiful in its opal cup. She 
 had seen it during her first visit to Italy, six years ago. 
 
 He reproached her with having appreciated beauty with- 
 out his aid. 
 
 "But, without you, I should never have seen anything," 
 she said. "Why did you not come sooner?" 
 
 He silenced her with a kiss. 
 
 And she exhausted with joy cried: 
 
 "Yes, I love you! Yes, I have never loved any one but 
 you."
 
 XXII 
 
 LE MfiNIL had written: "I leave to-morrow evening at 
 seven. Be at the station." 
 
 She had come. As she approached the hotel omnibuses, 
 there she saw him in his long grey Inverness, calm and 
 correct. He merely said: 
 
 "Ah! You here!" 
 
 "But you asked me to come." 
 
 He would not confess that his letter had been written in 
 the wild hope that perhaps after all she might love him 
 again, that everything might be forgotten and that he might 
 hear her say: "It was only to try you." 
 
 If she had spoken thus he would have believed her at 
 once. 
 
 But her silence disappointed him; and he said bitterly: 
 
 "What have you to say to me? It is for you to speak, 
 not for me. I have nothing to explain. I have no falseness 
 to excuse." 
 
 "My friend, don't be cruel; bear me no ill-will for 
 what is past. That is what I came to say. But I want to 
 tell you too, that I bid you farewell with the sadness of a 
 true friend." 
 
 "Is that all? Go and say it to the other; it will interest 
 him more than me." 
 
 "You asked me to come, and I came. Don't make me 
 regret it." 
 
 "I am sorry I have troubled you. Doubtless you could 
 have employed your time better. Don't let me detain you. 
 Go to him, as you are longing to." 
 
 Struck by the thought that these poor miserable words 
 represented but a moment of humanity's eternal suffering, 
 aad haunted by the memory of many similar words in tragic 
 drama, Therese's lips curled with ironical sadness. He 
 thought she was smiling. 
 
 "Don't laugh. Listen. At the hotel, the day before yes- 
 terday, I wanted to kill you. I came so near doing it that 
 
 160
 
 THE RED LILY 161 
 
 now I know what it means. And I shall not do it. You 
 need not fear. Besides, what would be the good? As I 
 wish to keep up appearances for my own sake, I shall call 
 on you in Paris. I shall learn with regret that you cannot 
 see me. I shall see your husband. I shall also see your 
 father. It will be to take my leave before a long absence. 
 Good-bye, Madame." 
 
 Just as he was turning away from her, Therese saw Miss 
 Bell and Prince Albertinelli coming out of the goods station 
 and walking towards her. The Prince looked very hand- 
 some. Vivian was walking by him in all the gladness of 
 maidenly joy. 
 
 "Oh! darling! What a delightful surprise to find you 
 here. The Prince and I have been to the custom-house to 
 claim my bell, which has just arrived." 
 
 "Ah! has your bell come?" 
 
 "It is here, darling, Ghiberti's bell! I have seen it in its 
 wooden packing-case. It would not ring because it was a 
 prisoner. But, in my house at Fiesole, I will lodge it in a 
 campanile. When it breathes Florentine air, it will delight 
 to make its silver voice heard. Visited by doves, it will ring 
 out all our joys and all our sorrows. It will ring for you, 
 for me, for the Prince, for good Madame Marmet, for M. 
 Choulette, for all our friends." 
 
 "Bells never ring out true joys and sorrows, dear. They 
 are mere dutiful officials who know none but official feel- 
 ings." 
 
 "Darling, you are mistaken. Bells know the heart's 
 secrets; they know everything. But I am so glad to meet 
 you. Oh! 1 know why you are at the station. Your maid 
 betrayed you. She told me you were expecting a pink 
 gown, which had not come, and that you were burning with 
 impatience. But don't worry. You are always perfectly 
 beautiful, my love." 
 
 She made Madame Martin get into the trap. 
 
 "Come quickly, darling. M. Jacques Dechartre is dining 
 with us to-night; and I don't want to keep him waiting." 
 
 And, after they had driven in silence along the lanes, 
 smelling sweetly of wild flowers, Vivian said: 
 
 "Do you see down there, darling, the black distaffs of the
 
 162 THE RED LILY 
 
 Fates, the cypress trees in the cemetery? It is my wish one 
 day to lie beneath them." 
 
 But Therese was thinking anxiously: 
 
 "They saw him. Did she recognise him? I don't think 
 so. It was growing dark; and the lights were dazzling. 
 Perhaps she does not know him. I can't remember whether 
 she met him at my house last year." 
 
 What troubled her most was the Prince's ill-concealed 
 rejoicing. 
 
 "Darling, will you lie by my side, in that rural cemetery, 
 beneath a little earth and the vast spaces of the sky? But 
 it is foolish of me to give you an invitation which you can't 
 accept. You will not be permitted to sleep your last sleep 
 at the foot of the Fiesole hills, my love. You will have to 
 rest at Paris, beneath a handsome monument, by the side of 
 Count Martin-Belleme." 
 
 "Why? Do you think, dear, that a wife should remain 
 united to her husband even after death?" 
 
 "Certainly, she should, darling. Marriage is for time and 
 for eternity. Don't you know the story of the husband and 
 wife of Auvergne, who loved one another. They died al- 
 most together, and were buried in two graves, separated by 
 a road. But every night a wild rose threw a spray of 
 flowers between the ITTO graves; in the end the coffins had 
 to be put together." 
 
 When they had passed the Badia, they saw a procession 
 winding up the hill slopes. The evening breeze was blowing 
 out the flickering flames of the candles in their gilded 
 wooden candlesticks. The painted banners were surrounded 
 by girls in the white and blue of their religious society. 
 Then came a little St. John, fair with curly hair, naked 
 except for the lamb's fleece, showing his bare arms and 
 shoulders; and then a St. Mary Magdalen of seven, robed 
 in the gold of her crimped hair. The inhabitants of Fiesole 
 were following in a crowd. Countess Martin recognised 
 Choulette in their midst. He was singing, a candle in one 
 hand, his book in the other, blue spectacles on the end of 
 his nose. The candle cast a yellow light over his flat fea- 
 tures, the bumps on his skull, and his dishevelled hair. His 
 unkempt beard rose and fell to the measure of the hymn.
 
 THE RED LILY 163 
 
 In the lurid lights and shadows he looked old and robust, 
 and, like the hermits, capable of living through a century of 
 penance. 
 
 "How grand he is!" said Therese. "He poses to himself. 
 He is a great artist." 
 
 "Oh! darling, why won't you allow that M. Choulette 
 is really pious? Why? It is so sweet and so beautiful to 
 believe. Poets realise that. If M. Choulette had no faith, 
 he would not be able to write such fine verses." 
 
 "And you, dear, have you faith?" 
 
 "Oh! Yes, I believe in God and in the words of Christ." 
 
 At length the canopy, the banners, and the white veils had 
 all disappeared round a corner of the hill. But Choulette's 
 bare head, illuminated by the candle-light, was still to be 
 seen. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dechartre was waiting alone in the garden. 
 Therese found him, leaning against the balustrade of that 
 terrace, where he had felt the first agony of love. While 
 Miss Bell and the Prince were choosing a place for the new 
 bell's campanile, he took Therese for a moment in among 
 the broom bushes. 
 
 "You promised to be in the garden on my arrival. I 
 have been waiting for an hour, which seemed like eternity. 
 You ought not to have gone out. Your absence surprised 
 and distressed me." 
 
 She replied vaguely that she had been obliged to go to 
 the station, and that Miss Bell had driven her back in the 
 trap. 
 
 He asked her to forgive his anxiety. But everything 
 alarmed him. Even his happiness made him tremble. 
 
 They were already at dinner when Choulette appeared, 
 looking like some ancient satyr, a strange light gleaming in 
 his phosphorescent eyes. Since his return from Assisi, he 
 had lived with the people. He spent his days drinking 
 Chianti wine with doubtful women and working men, ad- 
 monishing them to be glad and innocent, announcing the 
 coming of Jesus Christ and the quickly approaching aboli- 
 tion of taxes and military service. After the procession, he 
 had assembled the crowd in the ruins of the Roman theatre, 
 and in Macaronic language, a jumble of French and Tuscan,
 
 164 THE RED LILY 
 
 preached a sermon, which he was now pleased to 
 repeat: 
 
 "Kings, Senators, and Judges have said: 'We are the life 
 of the people.' Now '.l~y lie. They are the coffin who says: 
 'I am the cradle.' 
 
 "The life of the people is in the fields growing white unto 
 the harvest in the sight of the Lord. It is in the vines 
 hanging from the branches of the young elms, and in the 
 smiles and the tears which the heavens rain down upon the 
 fruits of the trees in the meadows and orchards. 
 
 "The life of the people is not in the laws, made by the 
 powerful and rich for the preservation of power and wealth. 
 
 "The heads of kingdoms, and republics have written in 
 their books that international law is the law of war. And 
 they have glorified violence. They honour conquerors; in 
 the public squares they erect statues to the victor and to 
 his steed. But no one has the right to kill: wherefore the 
 just man will refuse to draw his number for conscription. 
 No man has the right to encourage the madness and the 
 crimes of a prince who has been placed over a kingdom or a 
 republic: wherefore the just man will not pay taxes; and he 
 will not give his money to the publicans. In peace he will 
 enjoy the fruit of his labour; and he will make bread of the 
 corn he has sown, and he will eat of the fruits of the trees 
 he has trimmed." 
 
 "Ah! Monsieur Choulette," said Prince Albertinelli 
 gravely, "you are right to take an interest in the condition 
 of our poor country, ruined by taxation. What profit can 
 one derive from land taxed at the rate of 33 per cent, on 
 its net annual value? Master and servants are alike the 
 prey of the publicans." 
 
 Dechartre and Madame Martin were both struck by the 
 unexpected sincerity of his manner. 
 
 "I love the King," he added. "There is no question of 
 my loyalty. But I grieve for the sufferings of the peasants." 
 
 The truth is that he was pertinaciously pursuing one sin- 
 gle object: that of restoring his country estate of Casentino. 
 His father, one of Victor-Emmanuel's artillery officers, had 
 left three-quarters of it in the hands of money-lenders. His 
 son concealed his purpose beneath affected indolence. But
 
 THE RED LILY 165 
 
 he allowed himself no vices except such as were useful and 
 would tend to accomplish the object of his life. It was with 
 the design of becoming a great Tuscan landed proprietor 
 that he had dealt in pictures, secretly sold the famous ceil-, 
 ings of his palace, paid his addresses to old women, and 
 finally asked for the hand of Miss Bell, whom he knew to 
 be an adept at money-making and housekeeping. He really 
 loved the land and its peasants. And Choulette's fervent 
 words, which he only half understood, appealed to that 
 love. He permitted himself to say what he really thought: 
 
 "In a country where the master and servants are one 
 family, the fate of the one depends on that of the other. 
 Taxation ruins us. What fine fellows our farmers are! In 
 the cultivation of the land they are unequalled." 
 
 Madame Martin confessed that she would not have 
 thought it. It was only in Lombardy that she had seen 
 fields well cultivated and well watered. Tuscany looked to 
 her like a beautiful neglected orchard. 
 
 The Prince replied smiling that perhaps she might alter 
 her opinion if she were to do him the honour of visiting his 
 farms at Casentino, in spite of their having suffered from 
 long and ruinous law-suits. There she would see the true 
 Italian peasant. 
 
 "I pay great attention to my estate. I was coming from it 
 this evening when I had the double pleasure of meeting at 
 the station, Miss Bell, who was claiming her treasure, and 
 you, Madame, who were talking to a friend from Paris." 
 
 He had thought that he might annoy her by speaking of 
 this meeting. Looking round the table he noticed the ex- 
 pression of grieved surprise which Dechartre had been un- 
 able to conceal. He insisted: 
 
 "Pardon a country person who flatters himself on pos- 
 sessing a certain social discrimination, Madame; but I saw 
 that the gentleman talking to you must be a Parisian, be- 
 cause of his English air, and his affectation of English 
 stiffness which only served to display the ease and vivacity 
 of the Frenchman." 
 
 "Oh!" said Therese carelessly, "I had not seen him for 
 a long while. And I was very surprised to meet him at 
 Florence just as he was going away."
 
 166 THE RED LILY 
 
 She looked at Dechartre who pretended not to be lis- 
 tening. 
 
 "But I know the gentleman," said Miss Bell. "It was M. 
 Le Menil. I sat next him at dinner twice, at Madame Mar- 
 tin's, and he talked very well. He told me that he liked 
 football, that he had introduced it into France, and that 
 now it is very fashionable. He also told me about his hunt- 
 ing. He is very fond of animals. I notice that sportsmen 
 are always fond of animals. I assure you, darling, that M. 
 Le Menil can talk delightfully of hares. He knows their 
 habits. He told me it was charming to see them dancing by 
 moonlight in the heather. He assured me that they are very 
 intelligent, and that he had seen an old hare, pursued by 
 dogs, forcing another hare out of its hiding-place, in order 
 to put them off the track. Darling, has M. Le Menil ever 
 talked to you about hares?" 
 
 Therese replied that she did not remember. She thought 
 sportsmen were always bores. 
 
 Miss Bell replied that she did not believe M. Le Menil 
 could bore any one when he described hares dancing by 
 moonlight in the vines and the heather. Like Phanion, she 
 would like to train a little hare. 
 
 "Don't you know Phanion, darling? I am sure M. 
 Dechartre knows her. She was beautiful and beloved of 
 poets. She lived in the Island of Cos, in a house on the side 
 of a hill, covered with lemon and terebinth trees, and on the 
 shore of a blue sea. It is said that she used to gaze at the 
 blue waves. I told Phanion's story to M. Le Menil, and he 
 was very pleased with it. A hunter had given her a leveret, 
 taken from the mother when she was still feeding it. 
 Phanion took it in her lap and gave it spring flowers to eat. 
 It loved Phanion and forgot its mother. It died of eating 
 too many flowers. Phanion mourned over it. She buried 
 it in the garden, beneath the lemon-trees in a grave, which 
 she could see from her bed. And the poet's singing consoled 
 the shade of the leveret." 
 
 Kind Madame Marmet said that M. Le Menil had a dis- 
 cretion and a charm of manner seldom met with in the 
 young men of the present day. She would have liked to see 
 him. She wanted ta ask him to do her a service.
 
 THE RED LILY 167 
 
 "It is on behalf of my nephew," she said. "He is an ar- 
 tillery captain, well thought of and very popular with his 
 superior officers. His colonel has for some time been at- 
 tached to M. Le Menil's uncle, General de La Briche. If 
 M. Le Menil would be so kind as to ask his uncle to write a 
 few lines recommending my nephew to Colonel Faure, I 
 should be very grateful to him. Besides, M. Le Menil 
 knows my nephew. They met last year at Caen, at th 
 fancy dress ball given at the Hotel d'Angleterre, by Captain 
 de Lessay to the officers of the garrison and the ycung men 
 of the neighbourhood." 
 
 Looking down, Madame Marmet added: 
 
 "The women there were of course not in society, but I 
 heard that some were very pretty. Many had been brought 
 from Paris. My nephew, who told me about it, was dressed 
 as a postillion; M. Le Menil as one of the Black Hussars; * 
 he was a great success." 
 
 Miss Bell said she regretted not having known that M. 
 Le Menil was at Florence. She would have liked to invite 
 him to come to Fiesole. 
 
 Dechartre was gloomy and distracted for the rest of the 
 evening. And, when they parted, Therese noticed that he 
 did not press her hand. 
 
 *A cavalry regiment founded by Frederick the Great; the 
 sabres of these hussars were engraved with a skull and two cross 
 bones. W.S.
 
 XXIII 
 
 E next day when they met in the little house in the 
 
 _ Via Alfieri, she found him anxious. At first, by an ex- 
 uberance of gaiety, by the charm of her tenderness and by 
 the proud humility of a mistress who offers her beauty, she 
 tried to dispel his melancholy. But he continued depressed. 
 All night long he had been thinking and pondering and re- 
 flecting on his sorrow and his distress. His mind discerned 
 a relation between the hand posting the letter in front of 
 the bronze San Marco and the commonplace but menacing 
 stranger seen at the railway station. Now Jacques De- 
 chartre had a name for his anguish. An army of dark 
 fancies assailed him as he sat, at Therese's invitation, in the 
 grandmother's chair she had occupied on the day of her 
 first happy coming. She meanwhile leant upon his arm and 
 pressed against it her soft figure and her warm, loving heart. 
 The cause of his sorrow she knew too well to ask. 
 
 Trying to suggest pleasant thoughts she reminded him of 
 the secrets that room enclosed and of their walks through 
 the city. She lavished upon him all the graces of intimacy. 
 
 "You remember that little spoon you gave me under the 
 Lanzi, with the red lily for a handle," she said. "I use it 
 every morning for my tea. When I awake, the delight I feel 
 at the sight of it tells me how much I love you." 
 
 Then, when he answered in sad mysterious words, she 
 said: 
 
 "I am here at your side, and you are not thinking of me. 
 You are occupied with some idea of which I am ignorant. 
 Nevertheless, I exist, and your idea is nothing." 
 
 "An idea is nothing? Do you think so? An idea can 
 r ender us happy or miserable. An idea can kill us or make 
 MS live. Yes, I am thinking ..." 
 
 "Of what are you thinking?" 
 
 "Why do you ask me? You know. I am thinking of 
 what I heard yesterday, of what you have concealed from 
 ine I am thinking of a meeting yesterday, at the station.
 
 THE RED LILY 169 
 
 It was not the result of chance, but had been arranged by a 
 letter posted do you remember? in the letter-box of Or 
 San Michele. Oh! I don't reproach you. I haven't the 
 right. But why did you become mine, if you were not free?" 
 
 She thought it best to lie. 
 
 "If you mean the person I met at the station yesterday I 
 assure you it was a meeting of no consequence." 
 
 He noticed sorrowfully that she dared not name him of 
 whom she spoke. He also avoided pronouncing his name. 
 
 "Therese, did he not come here to see you? Did you not 
 know that he was at Florence? Is he nothing more to you 
 than a man you meet in society and receive in your own 
 home? Was it not on his account that you said to me on 
 the Arno bank: 'I cannot!' Is he nothing to you?" 
 
 She replied resolutely: 
 
 "Sometimes he comes to see me. General Lariviere intro- 
 duced him. I have nothing else to tell you. I assure you 
 that he does not interest me in the slightest, and that I can- 
 not think what you are imagining." 
 
 It gave her a kind of pleasure thus to deny the man who 
 had so violently and so sternly asserted his rights over her. 
 But she hastened to be frank once more. With her beautiful 
 soft serious eyes she looked at her lover and said: 
 
 "Listen: from the day when I became yours my life has 
 belonged to you entirely. If you have a doubt, a single 
 anxiety, question me. The present is yours and yours only, 
 you know. As for my past, if you knew how empty it was 
 you would be happy. I cannot think that any woman, made 
 for love as I am, could have brought you a heart more com- 
 pletely yours. That I swear to you. During the years be- 
 fore I knew you, I did not live. Don't let us talk of them. 
 There is nothing in them of which I need be ashamed. 
 Regret! that is another matter. I regret having known you 
 so late. Why did you not come earlier, my love? Five 
 years ago I would have given myself to you as willingly as 
 to-day. But do not let us question the years that are past. 
 Remember Lohengrin. If you love me, I am your Knight 
 of the Swan. I have asked you nothing. I have wanted to 
 know nothing. I have not reproached you with Made- 
 moiselle Jeanne Tancrede. I saw that you loved me, that
 
 i/o THE RED LILY 
 
 you were in trouble; and that was enough, because I loved 
 you." 
 
 "A woman can't be jealous like a man, nor can she feel 
 what causes us the sharpest agony." 
 
 "I don't know. Why not?" 
 
 "Why? Because in the blood, in the flesh of a woman 
 there is not that ridiculous yet noble desire for possession, 
 that ancient instinct which man claims as his right. Man 
 is a god whose creature must be his alone. From time im- 
 memorial woman has shared her possessions. Our passions 
 have their roots in the past, the obscure past. When we are 
 born we are already old. For a woman jealousy is merely 
 the wounding of her self-love. In man it is an agony with 
 all the acuteness of mental suffering and all the persistence 
 of physical pain. . . . You ask why? Because, in spite 
 of my submissiveness and my respect, in spite of the fear 
 with which you inspire me, you are matter, I am thought, 
 you are the chattel, I am the soul, you are the clay, I am the 
 potter. Oh, you need not complain. What is the rude and 
 humble potter by the side of the rounded amphora be- 
 wreathed with garlands? She is calm and beautiful. He is 
 miserable. He is in torture: he wills and he suffers; for to 
 will is to suffer. Yes I am jealous. I know what my jeal- 
 ousy is. When I analyse it, I find it compounded of heredi- 
 tary prejudice, savage pride, diseased sensibility, a mingling 
 of stupid violence and cruel weakness, foolish and wicked 
 rebellion against the laws of life and the universe. But it is 
 useless for me to contemplate it in all its nakedness: it is 
 and it tortures me. I am the chemist, who studying the 
 properties of the acid he has drunk, knows with what bases 
 it can combine and what salts it can form. But the acid 
 meanwhile is burning him and will burn him to the marrow 
 of his bones." 
 
 "My love, you are absurd." 
 
 "Yes, I am absurd. I know it better than you. To de- 
 sire a woman in the flower of her beauty and her intelli- 
 gence, mistress of herself, who knows and dares and is in 
 that all the more beautiful and desirable, who can choose 
 with insight, free and unfettered; to desire her, to love her 
 for all that she is and to suffer because she possesses neither
 
 THE RED LILY 171 
 
 the childish candour, nor the pale innocence, which would 
 shock one in her, if it were possible to find them; to ask her 
 to be at once herself and not herself, to adore her for what 
 life has made her and yet to regret bitterly that life, which 
 has made her so beautiful, should have even touched her. 
 Oh! it is absurd. I love you, do you understand, I love you 
 with all that you bring me of sensations and habits, with all 
 that your experience has taught you, with all that may even 
 come from him, from them, how can I tell? . . . This is 
 my delight, this is my agony. There must be some pro- 
 found meaning in that popular imbecility which regards love 
 as a crime. Joy when it is intense is a crime. That is why 
 I suffer, my beloved." 
 
 She knelt before him, took his hands, and drew him to 
 her. 
 
 "I cannot bear to see you suffer and I cannot let you. It 
 would be madness. I love you, and I have never loved 
 any but you. You may believe me, I am speaking the 
 truth." 
 
 He kissed her on the forehead. "If you were deceiving 
 me, darling, I should bear you no ill-will for it. On the 
 contrary I should be grateful. What can be more lawful, 
 more human than to deceive sorrow? What would become 
 of us if women did not take pity and lie? Yes, lie, my 
 beloved, lie in all charity. Give me the dream which shall 
 gladden the night of my sorrow. Lie fearlessly; you will 
 but add one more illusion to that of love and beauty." 
 
 He sighed: 
 
 "Oh! for common sense, for common wisdom!" 
 
 She asked him what he meant by common wisdom. He 
 replied that it was a wise but a brutal proverb and that he 
 had better not repeat it. 
 
 "Tell me," she said. 
 
 "You really want me to tell you: 'The mouth that is 
 kissed keeps its freshness.' " 
 
 And he added: 
 
 "It is true that love preserves beauty, and that a woman 
 feeds on caresses as a bee feeds on flowers." 
 
 "I swear to you," she replied, "that I have never loved 
 but you. No caresses have preserved any beauty I may be
 
 172 THE RED LILY 
 
 so fortunate as to have to offer you. I love you. I swear I 
 love only you." 
 
 And she sealed her oath with a kiss on his lips. 
 
 But he remembered the Or San Michele letter and the 
 Stranger at the railway station. 
 
 "If you really loved me you would not love any one else." 
 
 She rose indignant. 
 
 "Then you think that I love another? But what you say 
 is horrible. That's what you think of me. And then you 
 gay that you love me. ... I pity you; you are mad." 
 
 "Yes, I am mad. Say so. Say so again." 
 
 Kneeling at his feet she took his face in her soft hands. 
 She told him he was mad to trouble so much about an in- 
 significant meeting. She made him believe her, or rather 
 she induced him to forget. He saw, he knew, he felt nothing 
 but those slight hands, those burning lips, that eager mouth, 
 that heaving breast and all those charms that were his. 
 His only thought was to lose himself in her. His wrath and 
 bitterness vanished; and there remained the keen desire to 
 forget everything and make her forget everything in a 
 voluptuous unconsciousness. Goaded by anxiety and desire, 
 she showed the passion she aroused ; she realised at once her 
 power and her weakness, inspired by the half unconscious 
 will to give more of herself than ever, she gave love for love 
 with an instinctive ardour she had never experienced before. 
 
 In the warm shaded room, the sun's golden beams were 
 falling on the hems of the curtains, and the basket of straw- 
 berries beside a bottle of Asti wine on the table. By the 
 bedside, there was a smile on the faded lips of the Venetian 
 lady's clearly outlined form. On the screens the Bergamo 
 and Verona masks laughed joyously in silence. A full blown 
 rose in a glass was dropping its leaves one by one. The 
 silence was redolent of love; they sank down weary with 
 passion. 
 
 She fell asleep on her lover's breast. Her pleasure con- 
 tinued in her light slumber. When she opened her eyes, she 
 said, joyfully: 
 
 "I love you." 
 
 With his elbow on the pillow, he was looking at her in 
 dumb anguish.
 
 THE RED LILY 173 
 
 She asked him why he was sad. 
 
 "You were so happy a few minutes ago. Why aren't you 
 now?" 
 
 But he shook his head and did not speak: 
 
 "Do say. I would rather hear you complain than that 
 you should be silent." 
 
 Then he said: 
 
 "You want to know. Then do not be angry. My grief 
 is greater than ever, because now I know what you can 
 give." 
 
 She drew away quickly, her eyes full of sorrow and re- 
 proach. 
 
 "Can you think that I have ever been to another what I 
 am to you! You wound my most tender feeling, my love 
 for you. I cannot forgive you. I love you. I have never 
 loved another. You alone have caused me to suffer. Be 
 happy. You wound me to the quick. . . . Can you be 
 cruel?" 
 
 "Therese, when one loves one is never kind." 
 
 Sitting on the bed, with her legs hanging down, like a 
 bather's, she remained long motionless and lost in thought. 
 A blush spread over her face, which had been pale with 
 passion, and tears filled her eyes. 
 
 "Therese, you are crying." 
 
 "Forgive me, dear. It is the first time I have loved and 
 been really loved. I am afraid."
 
 XXIV 
 
 IN the Villa of Bells there was heard the heavy thud of 
 trunks being brought down the staircase. Pauline loaded 
 with bundles was tripping down the steps. Kind Madame 
 Marmet with calm solicitude was watching the despatch of 
 the luggage; and Miss Bell was dressing in her room. 
 Therese in a grey travelling gown was leaning against the 
 balustrade of the terrace, and taking one last look at the 
 City of the Flower. 
 
 She had decided to go. In every letter her husband 
 clamoured for her return. If, as he urgently entreated, she 
 returned to Paris early in May, they might give two or 
 three political dinners, followed by receptions, before the 
 Grand Prix. His party was being borne into power on a 
 wave of public opinion; and Garain thought that Countess 
 Martin's salon might exercise an excellent influence on the 
 country's future. Such reasons did not appeal strongly to 
 her; but now she felt kindly disposed towards her husband, 
 and wished to please him. Two days before she had heard 
 from her father. M. Montessuy did not discuss his son-in- 
 law's political projects, neither did he give advice to his 
 daughter; but he contrived to let her understand that people 
 were talking about Countess Martin's mysterious visit to 
 Florence, where she was said to be leading a somewhat 
 fantastic, sentimental existence, with poets and artists at 
 the Villa of Bells. She herself felt that she was too closely 
 watched in the little world of Fiesole. In her new life, 
 Madame Marmet worried her, and Prince Albertinelli caused 
 her anxiety. Her rendez-vous in the Via Alfieri were be- 
 coming dangerous and difficult. Professor Arrighi, a friend 
 of the Prince, had met her one evening, walking in a lonely 
 street, on Dechartre's arm. Professor Arrighi, author of a 
 treatise on agriculture, was the most amiable of scholars. 
 He had turned away his handsome heroic face, with its white 
 moustache, and merely remarked to her the next day: 
 
 *'I used to be able to divine the approach of a beautiful 
 174
 
 THE RED LILY 175 
 
 woman from a distance. Now that I have passed the age 
 when ladies like to look at me, the gods are pitiful: they 
 spare me the sight of them. My eyes are very bad, and can- 
 not recognise even the most charming face." She under- 
 stood and accepted the warning. She now longed to hide 
 her happiness in the immensity of Paris. 
 
 Vivian, to whom she had announced her approaching de- 
 parture, had urged her to stay a few days longer. But 
 Therese suspected that her friend was still shocked at the 
 advice she had received one night in the tapestried room, 
 and that she was no longer quite happy in the society of a 
 confidant who disapproved of her choice; she imagined also 
 that the Prince had represented her as a flirt, and, possibly, 
 as immoral. Her departure was fixed for the 5th of May. 
 
 It was a clear bright day in the valley of the Arno. 
 Therese, as she dreamed, saw the blue basin illumined by 
 the morning's rosy light. She leant forward, trying to 
 descry, at the foot of the flower covered slope, the barely 
 discernible spot, where she had known infinite joy. Far 
 below, she saw a little dark spot which was the cemetery- 
 garden and near at hand she knew was the Via Alfieri. 
 There came before her a vision of that dear room she would 
 never again enter. Those hours passed beyond recall had 
 all the sadness of a dream. She felt her eyes grow dim, her 
 knees tremble, and her spirit fail. She seemed to be leaving 
 her life behind in that spot near the dark cypress-trees. 
 She reproached herself with feeling troubled when she ought 
 to be glad and confident. She knew she would see Jacques 
 Dechartre at Paris. They would have liked to arrive at the 
 same time, or rather to travel together. Although they had 
 judged it best for him to stay three or four days longer at 
 Florence, their meeting was not far off, already it was fixed 
 and she was living in the thought of it. Her love was her 
 life, her very flesh and blood. Nevertheless she was leaving 
 a part of herself in the house of goats and nymphs, a part 
 of herself which would never come back to her. In the 
 height of life's vigour she was dying to things infinitely 
 precious and delicate. She remembered that Dechartre had 
 said: "The lover is a fetich worshipper; on the terrace I 
 gathered some dry black privet berries that you had looked
 
 i;6 THE RED LILY 
 
 at." Why had she not thought of bringing away one little 
 stone of the house where she had forgotten the world? 
 
 A cry from Pauline disturbed her revery. Bounding from 
 behind a brown bush, Choulette had suddenly kissed the 
 maid as she was carrying bags and cloaks to the carriage. 
 Now he was running along the path as gay as a satyr, with 
 ears pricked up horn-like on each side of his shining skull. 
 
 "Good-morning," he said to Countess Martin. "So I 
 must bid you farewell, Madame." 
 
 He was remaining in Italy at the behest of a lady; that 
 lady was Rome. He wanted to see the cardinals. One of 
 them, said to be a man of sense, might possibly entertain the 
 idea of Choulette 's socialist and revolutionary church. His 
 object was to plant on the ruins of a cruel and unjust civi- 
 lisation the cross of Calvary, no longer bare and dead, but 
 alive and sheltering the world beneath its living arms. For 
 the accomplishment of his purpose he was founding an order 
 and a newspaper. Madame Martin knew the order. The 
 newspaper, which was to cost a halfpenny, would be couched 
 in rhythmic phrases and plaintive lines. It could and 
 should be sung. Verse, if it were very simple, passionate 
 or gay, was really the only language suitable for the people. 
 Prose was only for persons of subtle intelligence. He had 
 met anarchists among the money-changers of the Rue Saint- 
 Jacques. They passed their evenings reciting and listening 
 to ballads. 
 
 And he added: 
 
 "A newspaper which should be a collection of songs 
 would appeal to the heart of the people. They say I am a 
 genius. I don't know whether they are right. But at least 
 you must admit that I have a practical mind." 
 
 Miss Bell was coming down the steps, putting on her 
 gloves. 
 
 "Oh! darling, the town and the mountains and the sky 
 are determined to make you weep when you bid them good- 
 bye. They clothe themselves in beauty to-day to make you 
 regret leaving them and long to see them again." 
 
 But Choulette, weary of the parched brilliance of the 
 Tuscan landscape, pined for green Umbria and its cloudy 
 sky. He remembered Assisi, standing as if at prayer, in her
 
 THE RED LILY 177 
 
 fertile pasture, in the midst of a mellower humbler country. 
 
 "There," he said, "are woods and rocks, and glades, 
 above which may be seen the sky with white, fleecy clouds 
 I walked in the footsteps of St. Francis, and I put his hymn 
 to the Sun into good old simple French rhymes." 
 
 Madame Martin said she would like to hear it. Miss Bell 
 was listening already, and on her face was a rapt expression, 
 which made her look like one of Mine's angels. 
 
 Choulette warned them that it was artless and unpolished. 
 The lines laid no claim to be beautiful. They were simple 
 and unequal, so as not to be heavy. Then slowly and in a 
 monotonous voice, he recited the hymn. 
 
 Je vous louerai, mon Dieu, d'avoir fait aimable et clair 
 Ce monde ou vous voulez que nous attendions de vivre. 
 Vous 1'avez seme d'or, d'emeraude et d'outremer, 
 Cotnme un peintre qui met des peintures dans un livre. 
 
 Je vous louerai d'avoir cree le seigneur Soleil, 
 Qui luit a tout le monde, et de 1'avoir voulu faire 
 Aussi beau qu'il est bon, tres digne de vous, vermeil, 
 Splendide et rayonnant, en forme exacte de sphere. 
 
 Je vous louerai, mon Dieu, pour notre frere le Vent, 
 Pour notre soeur la Lune et pour nos sceurs les Etoiles, 
 Et d'avoir au ciel bleu mis le nuage mouvant 
 Et tendu les vapeurs du matin comme des toiles. 
 
 Je vous louerai, Seigneur, je vous benirai, mon Dieu, 
 Pour le brin de 1'hysope et le cime de 1'yeuse, 
 Pour mon frere terrible et plein de bonte, le Feu, 
 Et pour 1'Eau, notre soeur humble, chaste et precieuse. 
 
 Pour la Terre qui, forte, a son sein vetu du fleurs, 
 Nourrit la mere avec 1'enfant riant dans les langes, 
 Et rhomme qui vous aime, et le pauvre dont les pleurs 
 Au sortir de ses yeux vous sont portes par les anges. 
 
 Pour notre soeur la Vie et pour notre soeur la Mort, 
 Je vous louerai, Seigneur, d'ores a mon ultime heure, 
 Afin d'etre en mourant le nourrisson qui s'endort 
 Dans la belle vespree et pour une aube meilleure." * 
 
 * Here follow the Italian original and Mrs. Oliphant's transla- 
 tion, from her "Life of St. Francis of Assisi," 1868, the latter 
 by kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan. W.S.
 
 17? THE RED LILY 
 
 "Oh! Monsieur Choulette," said Miss Bell, "this hymn 
 ascends to heaven, like the hermit in the Campo Santo at 
 Pisa, who is climbing the mountain on which goats love to 
 graze. I will tell you how it is: the hermit is going up, 
 leaning on the staff of faith; and his step is unequal, be- 
 cause the stick being on one side, one of his feet moves more 
 quickly than the other. That is why your lines are unequal. 
 Oh! I understand." 
 
 The poet accepted this praise, persuaded that uncon- 
 sciously he had deserved it. 
 
 "You have faith, Monsieur Choulette," said Therese, 
 
 1 
 
 Altissimu, onnipotente, bon signore, 
 Tue so le laude la gloria e 1'onore 
 E onne benedictione, 
 A te solu, altissimu, se konfanno: 
 E nullu homo ene dignu te mentovare. 
 
 2 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, 
 Cum tucte le tue creature 
 Spetialmente messer lu frate sole, 
 Lu quale lu iorno allumeni per nui; 
 E ellu e bellu e radiante cum grande splendore; 
 De te, altissimu, porta significatione. 
 
 3 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, per sora luna e le stelle; 
 In celu 1'ai formate clarite e pretiose e belle. 
 
 4 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, per frate ventu 
 E per acre e nubilo e sereno e onne tempu, 
 Per le quale a le tue creature dai sustentamentu. 
 
 5 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, per sor aqua, 
 La quale e multo utile e humele e pretiosa e casta. 
 
 6 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, 
 
 Per frate focu, per la quale n'allumeni la nocte; 
 E ellu e bellu e iocondu e robustosu e forte.
 
 THE RED LILY 179 
 
 "What good does it do you if it doesn't help you to write 
 good verses?" 
 
 "It helps me to sin, Madame." 
 
 "Oh! We can sin without it." 
 
 Madame Marmet appeared, ready for the journey. With 
 placid pleasure she was looking forward to returning to her 
 little flat in the Rue de la Chaise, her little dog Toby, and 
 her old friend M. Lagrange. After the Etruscans of Fiesole, 
 she would be glad to see her own domestic warrior among 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra, 
 
 La quale ne sustenta e governa 
 
 E produce diversi fructi e colorati flori e herba. 
 
 8 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, 
 Per quilli ke perdonano per lo tuo amore 
 E sostengo infirmitate e tribulatione : 
 Beati quilli ke le sosterrano in pace, 
 Ka da te, altissimu, sirano incoronati. 
 
 Laudatu si, mi signore, per sora nostra morte corporate, 
 
 Da la quale nullu homo vivente po skampare : 
 
 Guai a quilli ke morrano in peccato mortale ; 
 
 Beati quilli ke se trovara ne le tue sanctissime voluntate, 
 
 Ka la morte secunda non li potera far male : 
 
 10 
 
 Laudate e benedicete lu mi signore e rengratiate 
 E servite a lui cum grande humilitate. 
 
 Amen 
 
 THE CANTICLE OF THE SUN, OR THE SONG OF THE 
 CREATURES. 
 
 Highest omnipotent good Lord, 
 
 Glory and honour to Thy name adored, 
 
 And praise and every blessing 
 
 Of everything Thou art the source 
 
 No man is worthy to pronounce Thy name.
 
 i8o THE RED LILY 
 
 the sweet-meat boxes, looking out of the window across the 
 Place du Bon Marche. 
 
 Miss Bell drove her friends to the station in her trap. 
 
 Praised by His creatures all, 
 
 Praised be the Lord my God, 
 
 By Messer Sun, my brother above all, 
 
 Who by his rays lights us and lights the day; 
 
 Radiant is she with his great splendour stored, 
 
 Thy glory. Lord, confessing. 
 
 By Sister Moon and Stars my Lord is praised, 
 Where clear and fair they in the heavens are raised. 
 
 By Brother Wind, my Lord, Thy praise is said, 
 By air and clouds and the blue sky o'erhead, 
 By which Thy creatures all are kept and fed, 
 By one most humble, useful, precious, chaste, 
 By Sister Water, O my Lord, Thou art praised. 
 
 And praised is my Lord 
 
 By Brother Fire, he who lights up the night 
 
 Jocund, robust is he, and strong and bright. 
 
 Praised art Thou, my Lord, by Mother Earth 
 
 Thou who sustainest her and governest, 
 
 And to her flowers, fruit, herbs, dost colour give and birth. 
 
 And praised is my Lord 
 
 By those who, for Thy love, can pardon give, 
 
 And bear the weakness and the wrongs of men, 
 
 Blessed are those who suffer thus in peace, 
 
 By Thee, the Highest, to be crowned in Heaven. 
 
 Praised by our Sister Death, my Lord, art Thou, 
 
 From whom no living man escapes. 
 
 Who die in mortal sin have mortal woe ; 
 
 But blessed they who die doing Thy will, 
 
 The second death can strike at them no blow. ,*! 
 
 Praises and thanks and blessing to my Master be, 
 
 Serve ye Him all with great humility.
 
 XXV 
 
 DECHARTRE had come to the carriage door to bid 
 the travellers good-bye. Parted from him, Therese 
 realised all he was to her: he had given her life a new and 
 delicious zest, so keen, so real, that she seemed to feel the 
 savour of it on her lips. She was living as if under a spell, 
 in the hope of seeing him again ; her happy revery was only 
 occasionally broken, when Madame Marmet remarked dur- 
 ing the journey: "I think we are crossing the frontier," or 
 "Look at the rose-trees in bloom on the seashore." Her 
 inward joy remained with her when, after a night in a Mar- 
 seilles hotel, she saw the grey olive trees in their stony fields, 
 then the mulberry trees and the distant outline of Mount 
 Pilatus, and the Rhone, and Lyons, and then the familiar 
 country, the tops of the clusters of trees, recently dark and 
 violet, now clothed in tender green, the hill slopes carpeted 
 with little lines of cultivated land, and the rows of poplars 
 along the river banks. The journey passed smoothly for her. 
 She was tasting the fulness of past hours and the wonder of 
 deep joy. When the train stopped in the blue light of the 
 station, it was with the smile of an awakened sleeper that 
 she greeted her husband, delighted to see her back. Kissing 
 kind Madame Marmet, she told her she thanked her with 
 all her heart. And truly, she thanked everything, like 
 Choulette's St. Francis. 
 
 In the carriage, driving along the quays in the glow of 
 the setting sun, she listened patiently to her husband's 
 story of his oratorical successes, the plans of his party, 
 his own projects and hopes, and the necessity of giving 
 two or three big political dinners. She closed her eyes 
 to think better. She said to herself: "I shall have a letter 
 to-morrow; and I shall see him again in a week." When 
 the carriage had crossed the bridge, she looked at the water 
 all on fire with the reflection of the sunset, at the smoky 
 arches of the bridge, the rows of plane-trees and the 
 chestnut-trees in flower in the quincunxes of Cours-la-Reine;
 
 182 THE RED LILY 
 
 all these familiar sights wore a new loveliness in her eyes. 
 It seemed as if her love had given a new colour to the 
 universe. And she asked herself if the stones and trees 
 recognised her. She was wondering how it was that her 
 silence, her eyes, her very flesh, and the sky and the earth 
 did not cry out her secret. M. Martin-Belleme, thinking 
 she was tired, advised her to rest. And at night, locked 
 in her room, amid a silence so intense that she could hear 
 her heart beat, she wrote her absent lover a letter full 
 of those words which are like flowers in their perennial 
 freshness: "I love you, I wait for you. I am happy. I 
 feel you near me; you and I are alone in the world. From 
 my window I see a twinkling blue star. I look at it and 
 think that you also may be gazing at it from Florence. I 
 have put the spoon with its red lily handle on my table. 
 Come. I long for you from afar. Come!" And thus 
 she found ever new in her heart those thoughts and sensa- 
 tions which are eternal. 
 
 For a week she lived this inner life, in the sweet memory 
 of days in the Via Alfieri, feeling still the impression of 
 kisses she had received and loving herself because another 
 loved her. She employed the greatest care and the most 
 delicate taste in ordering her new dresses. In this she 
 pleased and aimed at pleasing herself. Madly anxious when 
 there was nothing for her at the post office, trembling and 
 glad when there was handed to her from behind the counter 
 an envelope on which she recognised the round elaborate 
 writing of her lover. Memories, desires, and hopes de- 
 vourc- 4 her; and thus the ardent hours passed quickly by. 
 
 It was only the morning of the day of his arrival that 
 seemed to her hatefully long. She was at the station be- 
 fore the train was due. It was announced to be late, and 
 she felt crushed. An optimist, and like her father, believ- 
 ing that fate must always be on her side, this unforeseen 
 delay seemed to her like treachery. For three-quarters 
 of an hour, the grey light filtering through the dull win- 
 dows of the station seemed to fall on her like so many 
 grains of sand in an hour-glass, measuring out the minutes 
 of her lost happiness. She was despairing, when in the 
 red light of the setting sun she saw the huge engine stop
 
 THE RED LILY 183 
 
 gently at the platform. Jacques, tall and slim, came to- 
 wards her out of the crowd of travellers hurrying to the 
 cabs. He looked at her with that kind of sombre, violent 
 delight which she knew so well. He said: 
 
 "Here you are at last. I was afraid that I should die 
 before seeing you again. You do not know and I did not 
 what torture it is to live a week away from you. I went 
 back to the little house in the Via Alfieri. In the room 
 you know so well, before the old pastel, I wept tears of 
 love and passion." 
 
 She looked up at him full of happiness, and said: 
 
 "And don't you think that I called you, that I wanted 
 you, that even when I was alone, I stretched out my arms 
 to you? I had hidden your letters in the cabinet where 
 I keep my jewels. I used to reread them every night: it 
 was delightful, but it was imprudent. Your letters were 
 too much like you, and yet not enough." 
 
 They crossed the station-yard, among the cabs piled 
 with luggage. She asked him if they were not going to 
 hire a carriage. 
 
 He did not reply, and seemed not to hear. She re- 
 sumed: 
 
 "I have been to see your house, but I dared not go in. 
 I looked through the gate, and at the end of a court-yard, 
 behind a plane-tree, I saw mullioned windows with rose 
 trees climbing round them. And I said to myself: 'It is 
 there.' I felt strangely moved." 
 
 He was no longer listening, or looking at her. They 
 crossed the pavement quickly, and by a narrow flight of 
 steps, went down into a lonely street which flanked the 
 lower side of the station-yard. There, among wooden sheds 
 and stores of coal, was an inn with a restaurant on the 
 ground-floor, and tables outside. Under the painted sign, 
 white curtains were to be seen at the windows. Dechartre 
 stopped at the little door and pushed Therese into the dark 
 passage. 
 
 She asked: 
 
 "Where are you taking me? What time is it? I must 
 be at home at half-past seven. We are mad." 
 
 And in a red-tiled room, furnished with a walnut bed-
 
 184 THE RED LILY 
 
 stead, and a carpet in the pattern of a lion, they tasted 
 one moment's divine oblivion. 
 
 Coming downstairs, she said: "Jacques, my beloved, we 
 we too happy; we are stealing life."
 
 XXVI 
 
 next day she drove in a cab to a street half town, 
 half country, half sad and half gay, where high gar- 
 den walls alternated with newly built houses. She stopped 
 where the pavement passes under the vaulted arch of a 
 mansion in the Regency style, fantastically spanning the 
 street, now covered with dust and oblivion. Here and 
 there among the stone-work, green branches gladden this 
 corner of the town. 
 
 As she rang at the little gate, in the perspective limited 
 by the houses, Therese saw a pulley on a skylight and a 
 big gilded key, the sign of a lock-maker. Her glance eagerly 
 drank in these sights which were new to her and yet 
 already familiar. Pigeons flew over her head, and she 
 heard the clucking of fowls. A countrified servant with 
 a military moustache opened the gate. She found herself 
 in a sanded court, shaded by a plane-tree. On the left, 
 on a level with the street, was the porter's lodge, with 
 canaries in cages at the windows. On this side, was the 
 gable of the next house, covered with a green lattice-work. 
 Leaning against it was the glazed frame of a sculptor's 
 studio, through the glass of which could be seen plaster 
 figures covered with dust. On the right, fixed to the low 
 wall of the court, were precious fragments of friezes and 
 the broken shafts of columns. In front were the six mul- 
 lioned windows of the moderate sized house, half hidden 
 by ivy and climbing roses. 
 
 Enamoured of French fifteenth-century architecture, 
 Philippe Dechartre had skilfully reproduced the charac- 
 teristics of a private dwelling in the reign of Louis XII. 
 Begun in the middle of the Second Empire, this house had 
 never been finished. The builder of so many chateaux had 
 died before completing his own shanty. It was better thus. 
 It had been designed in a style which once had an air 
 of distinction, but now appeared common and old-fashioned, 
 
 185
 
 186 THE RED LILY 
 
 The gardens that had once surrounded it had been gradu- 
 ally built up. And to-day, cramped between the walls 
 of high buildings, Philippe Dechartre's little mansion cor- 
 rected the bad taste of its sham antiquity and its archaeo- 
 logical romanticism by the pathos of its rough-hewn stone 
 crumbling away in expectation of the mason, dead for per- 
 haps twenty years, by the heaviness of its three incomplete 
 dormer windows, by the simplicity of the inexpensive roof 
 provided by the architect's widow, and by all the charm 
 of the unfinished and the involuntary. Thus it harmonised 
 better with that ugliness of the neighbourhood which re- 
 sulted from the rapid increase of the population. 
 
 After all, the house had a certain charm with its tumble- 
 down air and its drapery of green. Suddenly and instinct- 
 ively Therese discovered other harmonies. In that pic- 
 turesque neglect, revealed by the ivy-covered walls, the 
 darkened studio windows, and even by the bending plane 
 tree, strewing with its scaled bark the grass of the court, 
 she read the soul of the master, careless, spendthrift, bear- 
 ing within him the eternal discontent of the passionate. For 
 a moment her joy was clouded as she realised the indif- 
 ference with which her lover treated his surroundings. 
 Although united to a kind of grace and nobility, it be- 
 trayed a detachment according ill with her own nature and 
 the vigilant careful spirit of the Montessuy. She thought 
 at once how, without disturbing the pensive charm of this 
 wild place, she would introduce into it a spirit of order: she 
 would have the path strewn with sand, and in the corner 
 where there was most sun would plant some bright col- 
 oured flowers. Sympathetically she gazed at a statue 
 brought there from some ruined park. It was a Flora, 
 covered with dark green moss and lying on the ground, 
 her two arms by her side. Therese dreamed of raising her 
 and making her the centre-piece for the fountain, the wa- 
 ters of which were now trickling sadly into the bucket 
 acting in lieu of a basin. 
 
 Dechartre had been looking for her for an hour. Now 
 he was glad, but still anxious. Trembling with agitation 
 at his good fortune, he came down the steps to meet her. 
 
 In the refreshing shade of the vestibule, from which
 
 Till!, ^ED .LILY 187 
 
 could be vaguely descried the severe beauty of bronzes 
 and marbles, she paused, overcome by her heart's wild 
 beating. 
 
 He pressed her to him and gave her a long kiss. Through 
 her emotion she heard him recalling the delights of the 
 previous day. She saw the lion of Mount Atlas on the 
 rug, and slowly and passionately she gave Jacques back 
 his kisses. 
 
 Up a winding wooden staircase, he led her into a large 
 room, which had been his father's study, and where he 
 himself drew, modelled, and read. Reading was a kind 
 of opium to him, inspiring him with dreams over the 
 open page. 
 
 Over the cupboards and reaching to the painted beams 
 of the ceiling was Gothic tapestry, delicately tinted, sug- 
 gesting a fairy forest, and a lady wearing a high fifteenth- 
 century head-dress, with a unicorn at her feet on the flower- 
 strewn grass. 
 
 He led her to a divan broad and low, with cushions cov- 
 ered with sumptuous Spanish shawls and Byzantine dal- 
 matics; but she sat down in an arm-chair. 
 
 "You are here! Now the world may come to an end." 
 
 "I used to think of the end of the world and not to 
 fear it," she replied. "M. Lagrange out of politeness had 
 promised me it should come; and I expected it. I was 
 so dull before I knew you!" 
 
 She looked round at the tables loaded with vases and 
 statuettes, at the tapestry, the mass of glittering weapons, 
 the enamels, marbles, paintings, and old books. 
 
 "You have some beautiful things." 
 
 "Most of them belonged to my father, who lived in 
 the golden age of collectors. In 1851 he discovered thesi 
 unicorn stories, the complete series of which is at Cluny, 
 in an inn at Meung-sur-Yevre." 
 
 But curious and disappointed, she said: 
 
 "I don't see anything by you, here; not a statue, a low- 
 relief, or one of those wax figures so admired in England, 
 not one tiny statuette, or even a plaque or a medal." 
 
 "How can you think I could bear to live in the midst *t 
 my own works! ... I know my figures only too well. , . ,
 
 i88 THE RED LILY 
 
 They bore me. A thing loses its charm when you know 
 its secret." 
 
 She looked at him, pretending to be vexed: 
 
 "You never told me that a thing loses its charm when 
 you know its secret." 
 
 He took her in his arms: 
 
 "Ah! all that lives is mysterious. And you, my beloved, 
 are for me an unsolved enigma, the meaning of which is 
 the delight of life and the horror of death. Don't fear to 
 be mine. I shall desire you always; I shall never know 
 you. Does one ever possess what one loves? Are kisses 
 and caresses anything but the strivings of a delicious de- 
 spair? When I hold you in my arms, I still long for you; 
 and I never have you, since I would have you always, since 
 what I want in you is the impossible and the infinite. 
 What you are the Gods only know. Do you think that 
 because I have modelled a few indifferent figures I am a 
 sculptor? I am rather a kind of a poet and philosopher 
 seeking in nature subjects which shall agitate and torment 
 me. Feeling for form does not satisfy me. My fellow 
 sculptors laugh at me because I cannot be as simple as 
 they. They are right. And that brute Choulette is right 
 too when he would have us live without thought or desire. 
 Our friend, the cobbler of Santa Maria Novella, who knows 
 nought of all that would render him unjust or unfortunate, 
 is a master in the art of life. I ought to love you in all 
 simplicity without those metaphysics of passion which ren- 
 der me absurd and unkind. The only good thing is to 
 ignore and forget. Come, come, in the torture of our 
 separation I have had cruel thoughts of you: come, my 
 beloved. You yourself must drown these thoughts of 
 you. It is through you only that I can forget you and 
 myself." 
 
 He took her in his arms, and, raising her veil, kissed her 
 on the lips. 
 
 She pulled the black tulle over her face, rather fright- 
 ened in this strange big room and feeling embarrassed by 
 the presence of unfamiliar objects. 
 
 "Here!" she said; "surely you are not thinking." 
 
 He said that they were alone.
 
 RED LILY 189 
 
 "Alone? But what about the man with the terrible 
 moustache who opened the door to me?" 
 
 He smiled: 
 
 "That is Fusellier, my father's old servant. His wife 
 and he compose my household. Don't be alarmed. They 
 stay quietly in their lodge, sullen but faithful. You will 
 see Madame Fusellier. She is familiar, I warn you." 
 
 "Why, my love, should a butler and porter like M. Fusel- 
 lier wear a Tartar's moustache?" 
 
 "Nature gave it him, darling, and I would not deprive 
 him of it. I am pleased that he should look like a retired 
 sergeant-major turned nurseryman, for at times he in- 
 spires me with the illusion that he is my country 
 neighbour." 
 
 Sitting on one corner of the divan, he drew her on to 
 his knee and gave her kisses which she returned. 
 
 Then she rose quickly, saying: 
 
 "Show me the other rooms. I am curious. I want to 
 see everything." 
 
 He took her to the second floor. Water colours by 
 Philippe Dechartre hung upon the walls of the corridor. 
 Me opened a door and showed her into a room with ebony 
 furniture. 
 
 It was his mother's room. He kept it just as it had 
 been in her lifetime. It looked as if it had been used but 
 yesterday ; and it is only yesterday's past that really touches 
 and saddens us. Although it was nine years since it had 
 been used, the room seemed not yet to have resigned itself 
 to solitude. The wardrobe mirror was watching for the 
 old lady's glance, and on the onyx clock a pensive Sappho 
 looked disappointed as she listened for the sound of the 
 swinging pendulum. 
 
 There were two portraits on the walls. One, by Ricard, 
 was of Philippe Dechartre, very pale, with tumbled hair, 
 his eyes lost in romantic dreams, his mouth full of elo- 
 quence and good nature. The other, painted by a surer 
 hand, was of a lady of uncertain age, thin, with an eager 
 air and almost beautiful. 
 
 "My poor mother's room is like me," said Jacques: "it 
 remembers."
 
 199 THE RED LILY 
 
 "You are like your mother," said Therese. "You have 
 her eyes. Paul Vence told me she adored you." 
 
 "Yes," he replied, smiling, "mother was delightful: in- 
 telligent, with excellent taste, but wonderfully absurd. In 
 her maternal affection almost amounted to madness; she 
 never left me a moment's peace; she tormented herself 
 and me." 
 
 Therese was looking at a bronze by Carpeaux, on a 
 cabinet. 
 
 Said Dechartre: "You recognise the Prince Imperial, by 
 lus ears like wings in the statues of Zephyrus, enlivening 
 a somewhat cold countenance. This bronze was a gift 
 from Napoleon III. My parents used to visit Compiegne. 
 Whilst the court was at Fontainebleau, my father took a 
 plan of the chateau and drew the gallery. In the morning 
 the Emperor would come in his frock-coat, smoking a meer- 
 schaum pipe, and pose near him, like a penguin on a rock. 
 At that time I was a day pupil at the Lycee Bonaparte. I 
 used to listen to these stories at meals; and I have never 
 forgotten them. The Emperor would stay there, quite 
 calm and good-tempered, occasionally breaking the long 
 silence by a few words, stifled beneath his heavy moustache. 
 Then he would grow slightly animated and explain his 
 ideas on machinery. He was an inventor and an engineer. 
 He would take a pencil from his pocket and, to my fa- 
 ther's despair, draw figures on his plans. Two or three 
 sketches a week were regularly spoiled in this manner. . . . 
 He was very fond of my father and promised him employ- 
 ment and honours that never came. The Emperor was 
 kind, but he had no influence, as mother used to say. I 
 was a lad at that time. And ever since those days I have 
 felt a vague sympathy for that man lacking genius, but 
 with a heart kind and good, who amidst all life's vicissi- 
 tudes conducted himself with a simple courage and a good- 
 tempered fatalism. . . . 
 
 "And then, I sympathise with him also, because he was 
 opposed and insulted by those who wanted to take his 
 place and who hadn't even his love for the people. Since 
 then we have seen them in power. Ye Gods! What vil- 
 lains! Senator Loyer, for example, who in tfr smoking-
 
 THE RED LILY 191 
 
 room, at your house, was stuffing cigars into his pocket, 
 and inviting me to do so too. 'To smoke on the way 
 home,' he said. This Loyer is a wicked man, one who is 
 hard on the weak, the humble, and the unfortunate. And 
 Garain, doesn't he disgust you? You remember my first 
 dinner at your house, when we talked of Napoleon. Your 
 hair was beautifully coiled in the nape of your neck in a 
 'mot pierced by a diamond arrow. Paul Vence talked 
 subtly. Garain did not understand. You asked what I 
 thought." 
 
 "It was because I wanted you to shine. I was proud 
 of you already." 
 
 "Oh! I should never have been able to utter a single 
 sentence in the presence of such serious people. Never- 
 theless I should have liked to say that the third Napoleon 
 appealed to me more than the first, and that I thought 
 him more human. But perhaps such a sentiment would 
 have been badly received. Besides, I am not so utterly 
 devoid of talent as to trouble about politics." 
 
 He was walking round the room and looking at the fur- 
 niture with a tender affection. He opened a drawer in 
 the bureau: 
 
 "See, here are my mother's spectacles. How often she 
 looked for them! Now I am going to show you my room. 
 If it is not in order, you must forgive Madame Fusellier, 
 who has orders to respect my untidiness." 
 
 The window curtains were drawn and he let them re- 
 main so. An hour later, she herself drew aside the folds 
 of red satin. The rays of light dazzled her eyes and scat- 
 tered themselves in her tumbled hair. She looked for a 
 glass and found only a tarnished Venetian mirror in an 
 ebony frame. Standing on tip-toe so as to see herself, she 
 asked: 
 
 "Is that dim shadowy spectre really I? Those who 
 have been reflected in this glass can hardly have congratu- 
 lated you on it." 
 
 As she was taking her pins from the table, she saw a 
 little bronze she had not noticed before. It was a piece 
 of old Italian work in the Flemish style: a heavy, nude, 
 short-legged figure of a woman, as if in flight, with arms
 
 192 THE RED LILY 
 
 extended. She thought it a trifle grotesque and vulgar 
 
 "What is she doing?" she asked. 
 
 "She is doing what Madame Mondanite is doing under 
 the porch of the Bale Cathedral." 
 
 But Therese, although she had been to Bale, did not 
 know Madame Mondanite. She looked at the little bronze 
 .again, but failed to understand, and asked: 
 
 "Can it be so improper? I should have thought any- 
 thing done under a church porch might be talked of here." 
 
 Then suddenly a misgiving occurred to her: 
 
 "Good gracious! What would M. and Madame Fusellier 
 Tthink of me?" 
 
 Then discovering on the wall a medallion by Dechartre, 
 representing the interesting but vicious profile of a little 
 street girl, she asked: 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "That is Clara, a little newspaper-seller of the Rue 
 Demours. She used to bring me the Figaro every morn- 
 ing. She had dimples on her cheeks that were nests for 
 kisses. One day I said to her: 'I will draw your portrait.' 
 She came one summer morning wearing earrings and rings 
 bought at the Neuilly fair. Then I never saw her again. 
 I don't know what has become of her. She was too much 
 a creature of instinct ever to become a regular prostitute. 
 Shall I take it away?" 
 
 "No, it looks very well in that corner. I am not jealous 
 of Clara." 
 
 It was time for her to go home; but she couldn't make 
 up her mind to leave him. She put her arms round her 
 lover's neck. 
 
 "Oh! I love you. And to-day you have been gay and 
 light-hearted. Gaiety becomes you well. Yours is so 
 sparkling and graceful. I should like you to be always 
 gay. I want joy almost as much as love, and who will 
 give it me if not you?"
 
 XXVII 
 
 SINCE her return to Paris, now six weeks ago, Therese 
 had been living as if in a slumber; and happy dreams 
 had taken the place of conscious thought. Every day she 
 met Jacques in the little house overshadowed by the plane- 
 tree; and when at last she tore herself away, adorable 
 memories lingered in her heart. Delicious languor and 
 renewed desire linked the hours of love together. They both 
 had the same tastes and were possessed by the same fancies. 
 If one had a whim the other shared it. Together they 
 delighted to explore that border region on the outskirts of 
 the town. There the streets and purple painted taverns 
 are shaded by acacias. Thistles grow on the stony roads 
 along the bottom of the walls, while over fields and woods 
 extends a pale sky streaked with smoke from the factory 
 chimneys. She was glad to feel him near her in a country 
 where she ceased to recognise herself and felt lost with 
 him. 
 
 That day, their whim had been to take the boat she 
 had so often seen passing beneath her windows. She was 
 not afraid of being recognised. There was no great dan- 
 ger; and since she had been in love, she had forgotten 
 to be prudent. Leaving behind the dusty barrenness of 
 the suburbs, they came upon smiling banks; they passed 
 islands with clumps of trees overshadowing rustic cafes 
 and innumerable boats moored beneath the willows. They 
 landed at Lower Meudon. She said she was hot and thirsty. 
 He took her by a side door into a tavern, where there 
 were furnished rooms to let. It was a building surrounded 
 by wooden galleries. In its desertion it appeared larger 
 than usual and seemed to slumber in rustic peace, waiting 
 till Sunday should fill it with women's laughter, oarsmen's 
 cries, the smell of cooking and stench of fried fish. 
 
 They went up the ladder-like creaking stairs into a room 
 on the first floor, where a waitress brought them wine and 
 biscuits. Woollen curtains covered a mahogany bedstead, 
 
 193
 
 194 THE RED LILY 
 
 Over the mantelpiece, fixed across one corner, was inclined 
 an oval mirror in a flowered frame. Through the open 
 window could be seen the Seine, with its green banks, 
 and hills in the distance, looking misty in the heat and 
 the sun already inclining towards the tops of the poplar 
 trees. Swarms of gnats were dancing by the river. The 
 quivering peace of a summer evening alike pervaded sky, 
 earth, and water. 
 
 Long did Therese watch the flowing river. The 
 steamer passed, pounding its screw through the water; and 
 the swell lapping on the shore seemed to make the house 
 on the bank roll like the boat. 
 
 "I love the water," said Therese, turning to her lover. 
 "How happy I am!" 
 
 Their lips met. 
 
 Lost in the enchanted abyss of love, the passing of time 
 was unmarked for them save every ten minutes, after the 
 passing of the boat, by the ripple of the waves breaking 
 beneath the open window. 
 
 Her clothes carelessly thrown on one side strewed the 
 floor. She lifted her head from the pillow and saw her- 
 self in the glass. To Dechartre's loving praise she replied: 
 
 "It is true I am made for love." 
 
 With sensitive immodesty she contemplated her own 
 image in the silver light of the mirror. 
 
 "I love myself because you love me." 
 
 Certainly he loved her; and he could not explain to 
 himself why his love was a fervent pity, a kind of sacred 
 passion. It was not on account of her beauty, so rare 
 and so infinitely precious. Her figure had the true lines, 
 but line follows motion and is always fleeting; it is lost 
 and is found again, the joy and the despair of artists. A 
 beautiful line is the lightning which burns the eye while 
 rejoicing it. One admires but one is also overwhelmed. 
 The impulse of love and desire is a sweet and terrible 
 force, stronger than beauty. There is one woman in a 
 thousand, whom when you have once possessed you can 
 never leave; you desire her always and for ever. The 
 flower of her beauty is the cause of this incurable malady 
 of love. But there is another and inexplicable cause; it
 
 THE RED LILY 195 
 
 is the soul of her body. She was that woman, who can be 
 neither abandoned nor deceivea. 
 
 "Ah! you cannot leave me," she cried joyfully. 
 
 She asked him why since he thought her beautiful he 
 did not model her bust. 
 
 "Why? Because I am but a second-rate sculptor. But 
 I know it and that is not to be second-rate. However, if 
 you insist on regarding me as a great artist I will give you 
 other reasons. To create a living figure you must treat 
 your model as mere matter to be pounded and moulded 
 until it distils the very essence of its beauty. But in you 
 everything is dear to me, your form, your flesh, your whole 
 self. If I were to do your bust I should be servilely at- 
 tentive to trifles, which are everything for me, because 
 they are something of you. I could not help it, and it would 
 prevent my work from arriving at any unity." 
 
 She looked at him a little surprised. 
 
 He resumed: 
 
 "I do not say that it would be so if I were to work 
 from memory. I have attempted a little pencil sketch, that 
 I always carry with me." 
 
 As she insisted on seeing it, he showed it to her. It was 
 on the leaf of an album, a very bold simple sketch. She 
 did not recognise it, thought it hard, with an expression 
 that seemed foreign to her. 
 
 "Ah! is that how you see me, is that the impression 
 I make on you?" 
 
 He closed the album. 
 
 "No, it is merely a reminder, a note, that's all. But 
 I think the note is correct. Probably you don't see your- 
 self quite as I see you. Every human being has a different 
 personality for every one who looks at him." 
 
 With a kind of forced gaiety, he added: 
 
 "From that point of view one may say that the same 
 woman has never been the mistress of two men. That is 
 Paul Vence's idea." 
 
 "I think it true," said Therese. 
 
 "What time is it?" she asked. 
 
 It was seven o'clock. 
 
 She said they must go. Every evening she was later
 
 196 THE RED LILY 
 
 going home. Her husband had noticed it. He had said: 
 "We are always the last to arrive at a dinner-party; there 
 is a fatality about it." But he himself was frequently late, 
 being detained at the Palais-Bourbon. The budget was 
 under discussion; and he was absorbed by the duties of 
 the subcommittee on which he had been appointed reporter. 
 And so reasons of state covered Therese's unpunctuality. 
 
 With a smile she recalled the evening when she had 
 reached Madame Garain's at half-past eight. She was 
 afraid her hostess would be annoyed. But it was the 
 day of a famous question in the Chamber; and her hus- 
 band and Garain did not arrive till nine o'clock, when 
 they both dined without waiting to dress. They had saved 
 the ministry. 
 
 Suddenly she became thoughtful. 
 
 "I shall have no excuse, my love, for remaining in Paris 
 when the Chamber is adjourned. Already Father can't 
 understand the devotion that keeps me here. In a week 
 I must join him at Dinard. What shall I do without 
 you?" 
 
 She clasped her hands and looked at him with a sadness 
 that was infinitely tender. But he said gloomily: 
 
 "It is I, Therese, I who must wonder anxiously what 
 will become of me without you. When you leave me I 
 am besieged by sorrowful imaginings; black thoughts come 
 and sit in a circle around me." 
 
 She asked what those thoughts were. 
 
 He replied: 
 
 "My beloved, I have told you already: you yourself 
 must make me forget you. When you are gone, the memory 
 of you will torture me. I must pay for the happiness you 
 give me."
 
 XXVIII 
 
 IN the bay, terminating in two promontories like horns 
 of gold, with here and there a rose-coloured reef, the 
 blue sea was languidly rolling its silver fringe on to the 
 fine sand of the beach. The day was so bright that the 
 sunlight on Chateaubriand's tomb might make one imagine 
 oneself in Greece. In a room full of flowers, with a balcony 
 looking on the myrtles and tamarisks of the garden and 
 the ocean beyond, with its islands and promontories, sat 
 Therese. She was reading the letters she had fetched that 
 morning from the St. Malo post office. On the boat 
 crowded with passengers she had not liked to open them. 
 Immediately after lunch, she had shut herself in her room. 
 There, with her letters spread out on her lap, she was 
 eagerly reading, and greedily tasting her furtive joy. At 
 two o'clock she had to go for a coach-drive with her fa- 
 ther, her husband, Princess Seniavine, Madame Berthier 
 d'Eyzelles, the deputy's wife, and Madame Raymond, the 
 wife of an Academician. That day she had two letters. 
 The first she read was full of gladness and the delicate 
 savour of love. Jacques had never appeared gayer, simpler, 
 happier, more charming. 
 
 Since he had loved her, he said, his feet had moved so 
 lightly and so swiftly that they hardly touched the ground. 
 He had only one fear, and that was that he was dreaming 
 and should awake to find he did not know her. Yes, 
 he must be dreaming. But what a dream! the little house 
 in the Via Alfieri, the inn at Meudon! Their kisses, and 
 those divine shoulders, that supple form, fresh and fragrant 
 as a stream flowing among flowers. If he were not dream- 
 ing, then he must be intoxicated. Fortunately his reason 
 had left him; and he saw her in her absence: "Yes, I see 
 you near me. I see your heavy lashes shading those eyes 
 more delightful than all the blue in flowers and sky, your 
 lips like a delicious fruit, your cheeks with two adorable 
 dimples when you laugh. I see you beautiful and de- 
 
 297
 
 198 THE RED LILY 
 
 sirable, but fleeting, vanishing. And when I open my arms 
 you have gone. I see you in the distance far away, on 
 the long yellow sand, no bigger than a spray of heather 
 in flower, beneath your sunshade, in your pink gown. You 
 appear as tiny as when I saw you from the top of the 
 Campanile, on the Piazza, del Duomo at Florence. And 
 I say to myself as I said that day: 'One blade of grass 
 would hide her from me completely, and yet she is to me 
 the infinite of joy and sorrow.' " 
 
 All he complained of was the torture of her absence. But 
 with his complaints mingled the glad happiness of love. 
 He threatened to come and surprise her at Dinard. "Don't 
 be afraid. I shall not be recognised. I shall be disguised 
 as a hawker of plaster casts; and I shall not belie 
 myself. Dressed in a grey blouse and coarse cotton 
 trousers, my face and beard covered with white dust, I 
 shall ring at the Villa Montessuy. You, Therese, will rec- 
 ognise me by the statuettes on the plank I bear on my head. 
 They will all be Cupids. There will be Faithful Cupid, 
 Jealous Cupid, Tender Cupid, Ardent Cupid; and the 
 ardent Cupids will be the most numerous. And I shall cry 
 in the rude sonorous tongue of the Pisan or Florentine 
 artisan: Tutti gli Amori per la signora Teresina." 
 
 The last page of this letter was tender and thoughtful. 
 There escaped from it reverent effusions, reminding The- 
 rese of the prayer books she used to read when a child. 
 "I love you, and I love everything in you: the earth on 
 which you walk so lightly and which you render beauti- 
 ful, the light which enables me to see you, and the air 
 you breathe. I love the bending plane-tree in my court- 
 yard because you have seen it. To-night I walked along 
 the avenue where I met you one winter evening. I gath- 
 ered a sprig of box that you had looked at. I see you 
 and you only in this city which does not contain you." 
 
 When he had finished his letter, he wrote, he would go 
 out to lunch. The saucepan had upset in the absence of 
 Madame Fusellier, who on the previous day had gone to 
 her native town, Nevers. He would go to a favourite tav- 
 ern in the Rue Royale. And there, lost in the crowd, he 
 would be alone with her.
 
 THE RED LILY 199 
 
 Soothed by the charm of invisible caresses, Therese closed 
 her eyes and leant back in her arm-chair. Hearing the 
 sound of the coach stopping at the door, she opened the 
 second letter. The altered writing, the uneven lines, the 
 disordered appearance of the pages made her anxious. 
 
 The mysterious beginning betrayed a sudden anguish 
 of mind and dark suspicion. "Therese, Therese, why were 
 you ever mine if you could not give your whole self? Your 
 deception has done me no good, since now I know what I 
 was determined not to know." 
 
 She paused in her reading and her eyes grew dim. "We 
 were so happy just now," she thought. "What has hap- 
 pened? And I was rejoicing in his gladness when it had 
 ceased to exist! It would be better not to write, since 
 letters only express feelings that have passed away, ideas 
 that are no more." 
 
 She read on. Seeing that he was devoured by jealousy, 
 she despaired. 
 
 "If I have not proved to him that I love him with all 
 my strength, with all my soul, how can I ever convince 
 him?" 
 
 And she hastened on to see what had caused this sud- 
 den madness. Jacques told her: 
 
 As he was lunching at a tavern in the Rue Royale, he 
 met an old friend, who was passing through Paris on his 
 way from an inland watering-place to the seaside. They 
 began to talk; and it chanced that this man, who moved 
 much in society, spoke of Countess Martin, whom he knew. 
 Jacques interrupted his narrative to exclaim: 
 
 "Therese, Therese, what use was it for you to lie to 
 me since one day I must know that of which I alone was 
 ignorant? But the mistake was more mine than yours. 
 Your letter posted in the box at Or San Michele, your 
 meeting at the Florence station should have told me, if 
 only I had not so obstinately clung to my illusions, in 
 spite of evidence. I refused to know you were another's 
 when you were giving yourself to me with that bold grace, 
 that charming voluptuousness which will kill me. I will- 
 ingly remained in ignorance. I ceased to ask you for an 
 explanation out of fear lest you should find yourself un-
 
 200 THE RED LILY 
 
 able to lie. I was so prudent that it remained for a fool 
 to open my eyes suddenly and brutally and bring it home 
 to me at a restaurant table. Oh! now that I know, now 
 that I can no longer doubt, it seems to me that doubting 
 was delicious. He uttered the name, that name I had 
 heard already at Fiesole, on the lips of Miss Bell, and he 
 added: 'The story is well known.' 
 
 "So you loved him, you still love him. And when, alone 
 in my room, I am biting the pillow on which your head 
 reclined, perhaps he is with you. Doubtless he is. He 
 always goes to the Dinard races; so I have been told. 
 I see him. I see everything. If you knew the sights that 
 haunt me, you would say: 'He is mad,' and you would 
 pity me. Oh! how I wish I could forget you and every- 
 thing. But I cannot. You know that you alone can make 
 me forget you. I am always seeing you with him. It is 
 torture. That night on the Arno's bank, I thought myself 
 unhappy. But then I did not even know what suffering 
 meant. To-day I know." 
 
 As she finished the letter, Therese thought: "A chance 
 word has thrown him into this state of agitation. One 
 word sufficed to make him mad with despair." She won- 
 dered who the wretch was who had uttered it. She sus- 
 pected two or three young men whom Le Menil had intro- 
 duced to her, warning her to beware of them. And in a 
 passion of wrath, of the cold severe kind, inherited from 
 her father, she said to herself: "I shall know." Meanwhile 
 what must she do? Her lover was ill, despairing, wild with 
 grief; and yet she could not hasten to his side, to embrace 
 him and throw herself into his arms with so complete an 
 abandonment of soul and body as would convince him she 
 was his entirely and compel him to believe in her. She 
 could write. But how much better it would have been 
 to go, and silently nestle near his heart, and then after- 
 wards say: "Now dare to think I am not yours alone." 
 But she could only write. She had hardly begun her letter, 
 when she heard voices and laughter in the garden. Al- 
 ready Princess Seniavine was climbing up the ladder on to 
 the coach. 
 
 Therfee went down and appeared on the steps tranquil
 
 THE RED LILY 201 
 
 and smiling; her broad straw hat trimmed with poppies 
 cast a becoming shadow over her face and her bright grey 
 eyes. 
 
 "Good heavens! how pretty she is!" cried Princess Senia- 
 vine. "And what a pity we see her so seldom! In the 
 morning she crosses the ferry and goes into the narrow 
 streets of Saint-Malo; in the afternoon she shuts herself 
 in her room. She avoids us." 
 
 The coach wound round the wide circle of the beach, 
 past villas and terraced gardens on the side of the hill. 
 And on the left were to be seen, as if emerging from the 
 blue sea, the steeple and ramparts of Saint-Malo. Then 
 the coach passed into a road bordered with gay hedge- 
 rows, along which were walking women from Dinard, with 
 figures upright and broad winged cambric caps. 
 
 "It is unfortunate," said Madame Raymond, who was 
 on the box by Montessuy, "that the old costumes are dying 
 out. Railways are responsible for it." 
 
 "True," said Montessuy, "if it were not for railways, the 
 peasants would still be wearing their old picturesque cos- 
 tumes; but we should not see them." 
 
 "What does that matter?" replied Madame Raymond. 
 "We should imagine them." 
 
 "But," asked Princess Seniavine, "do you ever see any- 
 thing interesting? I never do." 
 
 Madame Raymond, who had acquired a smattering of 
 philosophy from her husband's books, maintained that 
 things were nothing and ideas everything. 
 
 Without looking at Madame Berthier d'Eyzelles sitting 
 on her right on the back seat, Countess Martin murmured: 
 
 "Oh! yes, people only regard their own ideas; they refuse 
 to be guided by anything else. Blindly and deafly they 
 go on. Nothing can stop them." 
 
 "But, my dear," said Count Martin, who was sitting in 
 front of her, by the Princess, "without such guiding ideas, 
 one would simply drift. . . . By-the-by, Montessuy, have 
 you read Loyer's speech at the unveiling of Cadet-Gassi- 
 court's statue? The opening is remarkable. Loyer is not 
 lacking in sound political common sense." 
 
 Having crossed the willow bordered meadows, the coach
 
 202 THE RED LILY 
 
 climbed the hill, and came on to a vast wooded plateau. 
 For some time it followed a park wall. Away in front 
 the road disappeared out of sight in the damp mist. 
 
 "Is this Le Guerric?" asked Princess Seniavine. 
 
 Suddenly, between two stone pillars surmounted by lions, 
 there came before them a closed gate crowned by four 
 ornaments in wrought iron. Through the bars, at the end 
 of a long avenue of limes, could be seen the grey walls 
 of the chateau. 
 
 "Yes," said Montessuy, "it is Le Guerric." 
 
 And, turning to Therese, he said: 
 
 "You know the Marquis of Re. ... At sixty-five he 
 had all the vigour of youth. He set the fashion, was the 
 arbiter of good taste, and always popular. Young men used 
 to copy his frock-coat, his eye-glass, his gestures, his capti- 
 vating insolence and his entertaining fancies. Suddenly he 
 withdrew from society, shut up his house, sold his horses, 
 and vanished. You remember, Therese, his sudden disap- 
 pearance. It was soon after you were married. He used 
 often to call and see you. One day we heard that he had 
 left Paris. In the midst of winter he had come down 
 here to Le Guerric. We all wondered what had caused 
 this sudden retreat. We thought he must have suffered 
 some annoyance. Perhaps he had fled in the humiliation 
 of his first failure, afraid lest he should be seen to grow 
 old. Old age was what he most dreaded. The truth is 
 that for six years he has been living in retirement. Not 
 once has he left his chateau and his park. At Le Guerric 
 he entertains two or three old men, who were the com- 
 panions of his youth. That gate opens for them only. 
 He has never been seen since his disappearance from Paris; 
 he will never be seen again. He is now as persistent in 
 his retirement as he was formerly in his sociability. He 
 could not bear his decline to be observed. He is dead 
 though alive. It seems to me not in the least despicable." 
 
 Theiese remembered the charming old man who had 
 wished to possess her as the glorious conclusion of his life 
 of gallantry; and she turned round to look at Le Guerric, 
 at the greyish tops of its oak-trees, and its four sentry-box 
 turrets.
 
 THE RED LILY 2o v 
 
 On the way home, she said she had a headache, and 
 could not come down to dinner. She shut herself in her 
 room and took the sad letter out of her jewel-case. She 
 re-read the last page: 
 
 "At the thought that you are another's my heart is rent 
 and consumed. And then I cannot bear that other to 
 be he." 
 
 It was an obsession. Three times on the same page he 
 had written: 
 
 "I cannot bear that other to be he." 
 
 She also was possessed by but one idea: she must not 
 lose him. She would have said anything, done anything 
 not to lose him. She sat down, and in an outburst of 
 passion, tender and pathetic, wrote a letter, in which over 
 and over again she repeated like a groan: "I love you, I 
 love you, I have never loved any one but you. You are 
 alone, alone, alone, do you understand? Alone in my heart, 
 alone in me. Don't listen to that wretch. Listen to me. 
 I swear to you I loved no one, no one before you." 
 
 While she was writing, the indistinct, vague sighing 
 of the sea accompanied the heaving of her breast. She 
 wanted to write and believed she was writing the truth; 
 and all she said was sincere with the sincerity of her 
 love. She heard her father's firm heavy step on the stairs. 
 She hid her letter and opened the door. Montessuy coax- 
 ingly asked if she were better. 
 
 "I came to wish you good-night and to ask you some- 
 thing," he said. "I shall probably see Le Menil at the races 
 to-morrow. He always goes, and he is a man of regular 
 habits. If I meet him, dear, do you mind my inviting 
 him to come and spend a few days here? Your husband 
 thinks you would be pleased to see him. He might have 
 the blue room." 
 
 "As you like. But I would rather you kept the blue 
 room for Paul Vence, who very much wants to come. It 
 is possible, too, that Choulette may come without sending us 
 word. It is just like him. We shall see him one morning 
 ringing at our gate like a beggar. My husband is mis- 
 taken when he thinks I like Le Menil. Besides, next week 
 I must go to Paris for a few days."
 
 XXIX 
 
 TWENTY-FOUR hours after writing her letter, ThSrese 
 arrived from Dinard at Dechartre's little house, at 
 Les Ternes.* She had had no difficulty in finding an ex- 
 cuse for going to Paris. She had travelled with her husband, 
 who wished to visit his constituency, undermined by social- 
 ists, in the department of Aisne. In the morning she 
 surprised Jacques in his studio, as he was outlining a big 
 figure of Florence, on the banks of the Arno, weeping 
 over her ancient glory. 
 
 The model was posing, seated on a very high stool. She 
 was a tall dark girl. The glare from the window accentu- 
 ated the clear lines of her hip and thigh, the hardness of 
 her face, her dark neck and yellow skin, the veins on her 
 breast, the muscles of her knees and feet, the toes of 
 which overlapped. Therese looked curiously at her, realis- 
 ing the beauty of her form, in spite of neglect and 
 emaciation. 
 
 Dechartre, with his chisel and his pellet of day in 
 hand, came to meet Therese with a sad affectionate air 
 which touched her. Then, putting the clay and the instru- 
 ment on the edge of the easel and covering the figure with 
 a damp cloth, he said to the model: 
 
 "That is enough for to-day, my girl." 
 
 Then she rose, awkwardly gathered together her clothes, 
 a mere handful of dark woollen stuff and soiled linen, and 
 went behind the screen to dress. 
 
 Meanwhile the sculptor washed his hands, whitened 
 by the clinging clay, in a green earthenware basin. Then 
 he went out of the studio with Therese. 
 
 They passed beneath the plane-tree. The scales from 
 its trunk were strewing the sand of the courtyard. 
 
 * A district of Paris between the Avenue de la Grande Armee 
 and the Boulevard Malesherbes. W.S. 
 
 204
 
 THE RED LILY 205 
 
 She said: 
 
 "You don't think so any longer, do you?" 
 
 He took her to his room. 
 
 Her letter from Dinard had already partly corrected his 
 painful impression. It had come at the very moment when, 
 worn out with suffering, he needed calm and tenderness. A 
 few lines in writing had appeased his anguish.' His was 
 a soul that fed on images, that was less sensitive to things 
 than to symbols of things. But there was still a painful 
 twist in his heart. 
 
 In the room everything seemed on her side: the fur- 
 niture, the curtains, the rugs spoke of love. She murmured 
 sweet words: 
 
 "But how could you believe it? ... Don't you know 
 what you are? ... It was madness! . . . How could a 
 woman who has known you tolerate any one else?" 
 
 "But before?" 
 
 "Before, I was waiting for you." 
 
 "And wasn't he at the Dinard races?" 
 
 She did not think so; and it was perfectly certain 
 that she wasn't there horses and horsey men bored 
 her. 
 
 "Jacques, you are like no one else and need fear no 
 one." .; 
 
 On the contrary he realised his own insignificance; he 
 knew that the individual counts for little in a world where 
 persons are like corn and chaff united or winnowed by one 
 movement of the fan in the hand of a rustic or of a god. 
 But the regular measured motion of the material or of 
 the mystic fan prevents the metaphor from being strictly 
 applied to life. Men seemed to him more like beans in 
 the trough of a coffee-mill. The fact had -been brought home 
 to him two days before as he watched Madame Fusellier 
 grinding her coffee. 
 
 "Why have you no pride?" Therese asked him. 
 
 She said little; but she spoke with her eyes, her arms, 
 and her breath, as her breast rose and fell. 
 
 In the glad surprise of seeing and hearing her, he allowed 
 himself to be persuaded. 
 
 She asked him who had spoken those hateful words.
 
 206 THE RED LILY 
 
 There was no reason why he should not tell her. It was 
 Daniel Salomon. 
 
 She was not surprised. Daniel Salomon, who was said 
 to be incapable of being any woman's lover, at least wished 
 to be intimate with all, and to know their secrets. She 
 guessed why he had spoken thus. 
 
 "Jacques, don't be angry at what I am going to say: 
 you are not very clever at disguising your feelings. He 
 suspected that you loved me; and he wanted to make sure. 
 I am certain that he no longer has any doubts concerning 
 our relations; but I don't mind that. On the contrary if 
 you were a better deceiver, I should be less easy. I should 
 think that you did not love me enough." 
 
 She changed the subject quickly, afraid of making him 
 anxious. 
 
 "I didn't tell you how delighted I was with your figure. 
 Florence on the Arno bank! That is you and I." 
 
 "Yes, into that figure I have put all the ardour of my 
 love. It is sad, and I want it to be beautiful. Do you see, 
 Therese, that beauty is sorrowful. That is why I have 
 suffered since my life became beautiful." 
 
 He felt in the pocket of his flannel coat and took out 
 his cigarette-case. But she urged him to dress. She would 
 take him home to lunch. They would spend the whole 
 day together. It would be delightful. 
 ? She looked at him with childlike joy. Then she grew 
 sad, remembering that at the end of the week she must 
 return to Dinard, and afterwards go to Joinville, and that 
 all that time they would be parted. 
 
 She would ask her father to invite him to Joinville for 
 a few days. But they would not be alone and free there 
 as they were in Paris. 
 
 "It is true," he said, "Paris in its vague immensity is 
 best for us. 
 
 "Even in your absence," he added, "I could not leave 
 Paris. I should hate to live in countries that do not know 
 you. A sky, mountains, trees, springs, statues that could 
 not speak to me of you would have nothing to say to me." 
 
 While he dressed she turned over the pages of a book 
 she had found on the table. It was "The Arabian Nights."
 
 THE RED LILY 207 
 
 It was illustrated by prints of viziers, sultanas, black eu- 
 nuchs, bazaars, and caravans. 
 
 "Do 'The Arabian Nights' amuse you?" she asked. 
 
 "Very much," he replied, putting on his tie. "When 
 I like I can believe in those Arabian princes whose legs 
 were turned into black marble, and the women of the 
 harem who haunt cemeteries at night. These stories sug- 
 gest easy dreams which make me forget life. Yesterday I 
 went to bed very sad, and I read the story of the three 
 one-eyed Calendars." 
 
 "You try to forget," she said rather bitterly. "I would 
 not for the world efface the memory of any trouble which 
 came from you." 
 
 They went down into the street together. She was to 
 take a cab a little farther on, so as to arrive a few min- 
 utes before him. 
 
 "My husband expects you to lunch." 
 
 On the way they talked of trivialities, which in the light 
 of their love, became important and delightful. They 
 planned out their afternoon so as to cram into it as much 
 as possible of the infinitude of deep joy and the delight 
 of cleverly contrived pleasure. She consulted him about 
 her dresses. She could not bring herself to leave him, so 
 happy was she to walk with him down the sunlit streets 
 in the glad cheerfulness of noon. When they reached the 
 avenue of Les Ternes there was a row of provision shops 
 displaying their wares in lavish profusion. Strings of birds 
 at the poulterer's door, boxes of apricots and peaches, 
 baskets of grapes and heaps of pears, at the fruiterer's. 
 Carts full of fruit and flowers blocked up the roadway. 
 In the glass-covered space in front of a restaurant, men 
 and women were having lunch. Among them Therese rec- 
 ognised Choulette, sitting alone at a little table by an 
 oleander in a tub, lighting his pipe. 
 
 Having seen her, he haughtily threw a five-franc piece 
 on to the table, rose and took off his hat. He was very 
 grave; and his long frock-coat gave him an austere and 
 decorous air. 
 
 He said he would have liked to have gone to see Madame 
 Martin at Dinard. But the Marchioness of Rieu had kept
 
 208 THE RED LILY 
 
 him in Vendee. Meanwhile he had published a new edition 
 of the Jardin Clos, to which he had added the Verger of 
 Sainte Claire. He had touched hearts that had been thought 
 hard, and made streams flow from rocks. 
 
 "So," he said, "I have been a kind of Moses." 
 
 He felt in his pocket, and took out of his pocketbook a 
 dirty crumpled letter. 
 
 "This is what Madame Raymond, the Academician's wife, 
 writes. I am publishing her words because they do her 
 credit." 
 
 And, unfolding the thin sheets, he read: 
 
 "I have called my husband's attention to your book; 
 and he cried: 'This is pure mysticism! Here is a walled 
 garden, which I think, among its lilies and white roses, 
 must have a little door leading into the road to the 
 Academy.' " 
 
 Having tasted to the full the savour of these words 
 mingled with the fumes of brandy, Choulette carefully put 
 back the letter into his pocketbook. 
 
 Madame Martin congratulated the poet on being Madame 
 Raymond's candidate. 
 
 "You would be mine, Monsieur Choulette, if I troubled 
 about elections to the Academy. But do you really want 
 to become a member?" 
 
 For a few moments he was solemnly silent. Then he 
 said: 
 
 "Madame, I am on my way to confer with various well- 
 known persons in the political and religious world, who 
 live at Neuilly. The Marchioness of Rieu is urging me 
 to stand in her neighbourhood as candidate for a seat in 
 the Senate, which has fallen vacant through the death of 
 an old man, who, it is said, was a general while he lived 
 this life of illusion. I am going to the Boulevard Bineau 
 to consult priests, women, and children on this matter O 
 Eternal Wisdom! The constituency, whose support I shall 
 solicit, is situated in an undulating, wooded country, with 
 fields bordered by pollarded willows. In the hollow of 
 one of these willows is sometimes found a chouan's skele- 
 ton, still holding his gun, with a rosary between his fleshless 
 fingers. My profession of faith shall be pasted on the
 
 THE RED LILY 209 
 
 oak-trees' bark. This shall be my manifesto: 'Peace for 
 the priests' houses! May the day come when the bishops, 
 with wooden croziers, may be like unto the poorest curate 
 of the poorest parish! It was the bishops who crucified 
 Jesus Christ. Their names were Annas and Caiaphas. And 
 they still bear those names before the Son of God. Now, 
 while they were nailing Him to the Cross, I was the good 
 thief, at His side.' " 
 
 He pointed with his stick towards Neuilly: 
 
 "Dechartre, my friend, is not that the Boulevard Bineau, 
 from which the dust is rising down there on the right?" 
 
 "Good-bye, Monsieur Choulette," said Therese. "Don't 
 forget me when you are a senator." 
 
 "Madame, I remember you in all my prayers, both at 
 matins and vespers. And I say to God: 'Since in Thy 
 wrath, Thou hast given her wealth and beauty, look upon 
 her in mercy, O Lord, and deal with her according to 
 Thy great loving kindness.' " 
 
 And limping stiffly, he went away down the crowded 
 avenue.
 
 XXX 
 
 THfiRfiSE, wrapped in a pink cloth mantle, was com- 
 ing down the steps with Dechartre. He had arrived 
 at Joinville that morning. She had planned that he should 
 join the small circle of intimate friends, before the hunt- 
 ing season began; for she was afraid that Le Menil, of 
 whom she had heard nothing, would then be invited as 
 usual. The soft September air blew through the curls of 
 her hair, and the declining sun made her dark grey eyes 
 glitter with sparks of gold. Behind them the fagade of the 
 chateau displayed busts of Roman emperors on high ped- 
 estals in the spaces between the windows, above the three 
 arcades of the ground floor. The main building was flanked 
 by two high wings raised still higher by extravagant Ionic 
 pillars supporting their great slate roofs. This style was 
 characteristic of the architect Leveau. In 1650 he had 
 planned the chateau of Joinville-sur-Oise for that rich 
 Mareuilles, who was the creature of Mazarin and the for- 
 tunate accomplice of Surintendant * Fouquet. 
 
 Therese and Jacques saw before them the flower-beds ar- 
 ranged in great semicircles designed by Le Notre, the green 
 lawn and the fountain; then the grotto with its five rustic 
 arches, its giants' heads terminating in columns, and its big 
 trees tinted already with autumn colours of purple and 
 gold. 
 
 "All the same," said Dechartre, "these geometrical fig- 
 ures in flowers and foliage have their beauty." 
 
 "Yes," said Therese, "but I am thinking of a plane-tree 
 bending over a grass-grown court-yard. We will plant flow- 
 ers in it, and put up a beautiful fountain, won't we?" 
 
 Leaning against one of the stone lions, with almost hu- 
 man faces, which guarded the filled up moat at the bottom 
 of the steps, she "turned round to the chateau, and, looking 
 
 * The King's chief financial minister. 
 
 210
 
 THE RED LILY 211 
 
 a* one of the dormer windows, in the guise of an open 
 dragon's mouth, above the cornice, she said: 
 
 "That is your room; I went up there yesterday evening. 
 On the same story on the other side, right at the end 
 of the passage, is papa's study. A white deal table, a 
 mahogany desk, a water-bottle on the mantelpiece: his study 
 as it was when he was a young man. Our fortune was 
 made in it." 
 
 Walking down the sanded garden paths they came to 
 the trim box hedge, bordering the park on its southern 
 side. They passed in front of the orangery, the monumental 
 door of which was surmounted by Mareuilles's Lorraine 
 cross, and they entered the lime walk on one side of the 
 green lawn. Under the trees half stripped of their leaves, 
 statues of nymphs seemed to shiver in the damp shade, 
 streaked with pale rays of light. A pigeon, perched on the 
 shoulder of one of these white women, took flight. From 
 time to time a dry leaf, detached by a gust of wind, flut- 
 tered down, and lay like a shell of reddish gold holding 
 a raindrop. Therese pointed to the nymph and said: 
 
 "She watched me when I was a child and longed to die. 
 I was distressed by fear and desire. I was waiting for you. 
 But you were so far away." 
 
 At a point where several paths met the lime-tree walk 
 was interrupted. A lake was there. In its centre was 
 a group of Tritons and sea-nymphs, blowing into shells 
 forming, when the fountain was at work, a diadem of 
 water with flourishes of foam. 
 
 "That is the Joinville crown," she said. 
 
 She showed him a path, beginning at the lake and lead- 
 ing into the country, towards the rising sun. 
 
 "That is my path. How often have I walked down it 
 sorrowfully. I was sad before I knew you." 
 
 They continued in the walk, which, with other limes 
 and other nymphs, went on beyond the lake. They fol- 
 lowed it as far as the grottos. Situated at the end of the 
 park, the grottos were a semicircle of rock-work huts, sur- 
 mounted by balusters, and separated by statues of giants. 
 One of these statues, at one corner of the grotto, towered 
 over it in its huge nakedness and seemed to look down
 
 212 THE RED LILY 
 
 upon it with a stony glance at once fierce and benevolent. 
 
 "When my father bought Joinville," she said, "the grot- 
 tos were a mere mass of ruins overgrown with grass and 
 full of vipers. Thousands of rabbits had burrowed in them. 
 He restored the statues and arches according to Perelle's 
 prints in the National Library. He was his own archi- 
 tect." 
 
 A desire for shade and retirement led them to a pleached 
 walk at the side of the grottos. But a sound of foot- 
 steps coming from the covered walk made them pause a 
 moment. And through the leaves they saw Montessuy with 
 his arm round Princess Seniavine. They were quietly walk- 
 ing towards the chateau. Jacques and Therese, hidden by 
 a great statue, waited till they had passed. Then she said to 
 Dechartre, who was looking at her in silence: 
 
 "This is too much! Now I understand why Princess 
 Seniavine asked papa's advice when she bought her horses 
 last winter." 
 
 Nevertheless Therese could not help admiring her father 
 for having won this beautiful woman, who was considered 
 difficult to please, and was known to be rich in spite of 
 occasional embarrassments resulting from her spendthrift 
 habits. She asked Jacques if he did not think the Princess 
 very beautiful. 
 
 He recognised that she possessed a certain distinction; 
 but her charms were too sensuous for him. She was beau- 
 tiful doubtless, but in her swarthy beauty he detected a 
 smear of the tar-brush, a negroid strain. 
 
 Therese replied that it was possible, but that neverthe- 
 less, in the evening, Princess Seniavine threw every other 
 woman into the shade. 
 
 At the back of the grottos, she took Jacques up moss- 
 grown steps leading to the Sheaf of Oise, formed by a 
 clump of leaden reeds in the middle of a basin of pink 
 marble. There towered the tall trees which shut in the 
 park and marked the beginning of the wood. They passed 
 into the forest. They were silent amidst the faint rustling 
 of the leaves. Beyond the magnificent curtain of elms, 
 stretched thickets of aspen trees and birches, the silver 
 bark of which glittered in the last rays of the setting sun.
 
 THE RED LILY 213 
 
 He held her tightly in his arms and rained kisses on her 
 eyelids. Night came down; the earliest stars were twin- 
 kling among the branches. The croaking of the frogs was 
 heard in the damp grass. They went no farther. 
 
 When in the darkness she turned back with him towards 
 the castle, there remained on her lips a taste of kisses and 
 of mint, and in her eyes the vision of her lover, who, stand- 
 ing by the trunk of a willow seemed like a faun, while 
 she in his arms, with her hands clasped round his neck, 
 swooned with voluptuous delight. As she passed beneath 
 the lime-trees, she smiled at the nymphs who had seen 
 her childhood's tears. In the sky Cygnus was displaying 
 his cross of stars, and the moon was reflecting her deli- 
 cate horn in the basin of the lake. The insects in the 
 grass were singing songs of love. Turning the last corner 
 of the box hedge, Therese and Jacques perceived, black 
 and menacing, the triple mass of the chateau, and through 
 the great bow-windows of the ground-floor they discerned 
 forms moving in the red light. The bell was ringing. 
 
 "I have only just time to dress for dinner," cried 
 Therese. 
 
 And in front of the stone lions she escaped from her 
 lover, vanishing quickly like a vision in a fairy tale. 
 
 In the drawing-room after dinner, M. Berthier d'Eyzelles 
 was reading a newspaper, and Princess Seniavine was play- 
 ing patience at the card-table. Therese, her eyes half- 
 closed over a book, feeling still the pricking at her ankles 
 of the thorns which had scratched her among the brush- 
 wood, was recalling with a shudder how her lover had taken 
 her in the woods, like a faun playing with a nymph. The 
 Princess asked if her book were amusing. 
 
 "I don't know. I was dreaming while I read. Paul 
 Vence was right: 'It is only ourselves that we find in 
 books.' " 
 
 Through the curtains could be heard the staccato tones 
 of the players and the clashing of balls in the billiard- 
 room. 
 
 "I have done it," cried the Princess, throwing away 
 her cards.
 
 214 THE RED LILY 
 
 That day she had put a big sum on a horse at the Chan- 
 tilly races. 
 
 Therese said she had had a letter from Fiesole. Miss 
 Bell announced her approaching marriage with Prince 
 Eusebio Albertinelli della Spina. 
 
 The Princess began to laugh: "There's a man who will 
 do her a great service." 
 
 "What service?" asked Therese. 
 
 "Why, he will make her disgusted with men." 
 
 Montessuy came into the drawing-room, very gay. He 
 had just won. 
 
 He sat down by Berthier d'Eyzelles, and taking an un- 
 folded newspaper from the sofa, read: 
 
 "At the meeting of the Chamber, the Minister of Fi- 
 nance will bring forward his savings-bank bill." 
 
 It was a question of authorising savings-banks to lend 
 money to the communes, which would result in depriv- 
 ing the banks that Montessuy directed of their best 
 customers. 
 
 "Berthier," asked the financier, "are you resolutely de- 
 termined to oppose this bill?" 
 
 Berthier nodded. 
 
 Montessuy, rising, put his hand on the deputy's shoulder. 
 
 "My dear Berthier, I have an idea that the ministry 
 will be defeated at the beginning of the session." 
 
 He went up to his daughter. 
 
 "Le Menil has written me a strange letter." 
 
 Therese went and shut the door leading to the billiard- 
 room. 
 
 She was afraid of draughts, she said. 
 
 "A strange letter," resumed Montessuy. "Le Menil won't 
 hunt at Joinville. He has bought a yacht of eighty tons, the 
 Rosebud. He is yachting in the Mediterranean, and can't 
 live on land. It is a pity. He is about the only man I 
 know who can lead the hunt." 
 
 Just at this moment Dechartre came into the drawing- 
 room with Count Martin. After having beaten Dechartre 
 at billiards, the Count became friendly; and he was ex- 
 plaining the dangers of taxation based on household expenses 
 and the number of servants.
 
 XXXI 
 
 HPHE pale winter sunlight shone through the mist from 
 
 A the Seine on to the dogs of Oudry above the dining- 
 room doors. 
 
 On Madame Martin's right sat Deputy Garain, ex-Keeper 
 of the Seals, ex-President of the Council, on her left the 
 Senator Loyer. On Count Martin-Belleme's right was 
 M. Berthier d'Eyzelles. A small and serious political 
 luncheon-party. According to Montessuy's prophecy, the 
 ministry had been defeated four days ago. Summoned to 
 the Elysee that very morning, Garain had accepted the task 
 of forming a cabinet. During lunch he was drawing up 
 the list of names to be submitted to the President in 
 the evening. 
 
 And, while they were discussing names, Therese was 
 recalling the scenes in her secret life. 
 
 She had returned to Paris with Count Martin in time 
 for the reassembling of the Chamber, and from that mo- 
 ment she had been living an enchanted life. 
 
 Jacques loved her; he loved her with a delightful 
 mingling of passion and tenderness, of knowledge and curi- 
 osity. He was nervous, irritable, anxious. But his moody 
 temperament made her appreciate his gaiety all the more. 
 That artistic gaiety, bursting forth suddenly like a flame, 
 enhanced love without ever offending it. And her lover's 
 witty merriment was a constant wonder to Therese. She 
 had never imagined possible that perfect grace which he 
 displayed alike in his merry moments and in his more 
 intimate moods. In earlier days his passion had been 
 gloomy and monotonous. That alone had attracted her. 
 But since then she had discovered his overflowing versa- 
 tile gaiety, the unique grace of his sentiments, his gift 
 of drinking pleasure's draught to the very dregs. 
 
 "It is all very well to talk .of a homogeneous ministry," 
 cried Garain. "We must come into touch with the tend- 
 encies of the various parties." 
 
 215
 
 216 THE RED LILY 
 
 He was anxious. He felt himself surrounded by all 
 the snares he had laid for others. Even his collaborators 
 he regarded as enemies. 
 
 Count Martin wanted the new ministry to gratify the 
 aspirations of the ultra-modern party. "Your list includes 
 persons who differ widely in origin and opinions," he said. 
 "Now perhaps the most important innovation in the po- 
 litical history of the last few years is that it has become 
 possible, I may say necessary, for the government of the 
 Republic to be unanimous. These are the very views, my 
 dear Garain, which you have yourself expressed with such 
 rare eloquence." 
 
 M. Berthier d'Eyzelles was silent. 
 
 Senator Loyer was crumbling his bread. It was an 
 old habit he had acquired in taverns; and he could 
 think best while cutting corks or rolling crumbs of bread. 
 He raised his pimpled face, fringed with an unkempt 
 beard, and, with sparkling eyes, looking constrainedly at 
 Garain : 
 
 "I said so; but no one would believe me. The annihila- 
 tion of the monarchical right was an irreparable misfor- 
 tune for the leaders of the republican party. They lost a 
 strong opposition, which is a government's best support. 
 All the measures of the Empire were directed against the 
 Orleanists and against us; the government of the i6th 
 of May was hostile to the Republicans. And we were more 
 fortunate still: we directed all our measures against the 
 Right. And what an excellent opposition the Right was 
 ominous, candid, weak, vast, honest, unpopular! We ought 
 to have kept it. But we did not. And then, it must be 
 admitted, everything wears out in time. Nevertheless, some 
 kind of opposition is absolutely necessary. To-day only 
 the Socialists can give us that strength which the Right 
 furnished fifteen years ago, with such unfailing generosity. 
 But they are too weak. They must be strengthened, multi- 
 plied, and made into a political party. At the present 
 moment that is the first duty of the Minister of the 
 Interior." 
 
 Garain, who was not cynical, did not reply. 
 
 "Do you know yet, Garain," asked Count Martin,
 
 THE RED LIL\ 217 
 
 "whether you will be Keeper of the Seals or Minister of 
 the Interior as well as President of the Council?" 
 
 Garain replied that his decision depended on the choice 
 
 made by N , whom it was necessary to include in the 
 
 cabinet, and who was hesitating between the two offices. 
 Garain was ready to sacrifice his personal convenience to 
 the public interest. 
 
 Senator Loyer was pulling a wry face. He wanted the 
 Seals. He had long cherished this desire. He had been 
 a law tutor under the Empire, and, at Cafe tables, had given 
 highly appreciated lessons. He had a feeling for chicanery. 
 Having laid the foundation of his political fortune by arti- 
 cles expressed so as to involve him in prosecution, law- 
 suits, and some weeks in prison, he had henceforth con- 
 sidered the press as a weapon in the hands of the oppo- 
 sition, which should be broken by every good government. 
 Since the 4th of September, 1870, he had dreamed of be- 
 coming Keeper of the Seals; he wanted to show people how 
 an old Bohemian, who had served his time in the Ste. 
 Pelagic Prison in Badinguet's days, a law tutor who once 
 expounded the Code while supping off sauer-kraut and 
 sauce, could rise to the highest legal appointment. 
 
 Dozens of fools had passed him by. He had grown 
 old in the mediocrity of the Senate; dirty, bewitched by 
 a girl he had picked up in a tavern, poor, lazy, disillusioned ; 
 his old Jacobinism and his sincere contempt of the people 
 outlived his ambitions and still attached him to the gov- 
 ernment. Now, having become associated with Garain and 
 his group, he thought justice was about to be done to 
 him. And his patron, who denied it, became an impor- 
 tunate rival. He sneered as he modelled a poodle out of 
 bread-crumbs. 
 
 M. Berthier d'Eyzelles, very calm, very grave, very de- 
 jected, stroked his white whiskers and said: 
 
 "Don't you think you ought to include those in the cab- 
 inet who from the very first have adopted the policy 
 towards which we are inclining to-day?" 
 
 "It was that course that ruined them," replied Garain 
 impatiently. "A politician should never precede public 
 opinion. It is a mistake to see things too quickly. It is
 
 218 THE RED LILY 
 
 not thinkers that we want in politics. Besides, let us be 
 perfectly frank: if you want a ministry of the left centre, 
 say so, and I withdraw. But I warn you that neither 
 the Chamber nor the country will be with you." 
 
 "It is obvious," said Count Martin, "that we must make 
 certain of having a majority." 
 
 "If you accept my nominations, then your majority is 
 assured," said Garain. "Our opponents were supported 
 by the minority swelled by the votes that we have won. 
 Gentlemen, I appeal to your public spirit." 
 
 And the difficult work of assigning the various offices 
 began again. Count Martin was offered Public Works, 
 which he refused on the ground of incompetence; and then 
 Foreign Affairs, which he accepted without making any ob- 
 jection. But M. Berthier d'Eyzelles, to whom Garain 
 offered Commerce and Agriculture, demurred. 
 
 Loyer was sent to the Colonial Office. He seemed chiefly 
 concerned in making his bread-crumb poodle stand up on 
 the tablecloth. Meanwhile, out of the corner of his little 
 eye, from among his wrinkles, he was looking at Countess 
 Martin and admiring her. He was dreaming vaguely of 
 meeting her again some day in private. 
 
 Leaving Garain to fend for himself, he devoted his atten- 
 tion to this pretty woman; he tried to discover her tastes 
 and her habits, asked her if she were fond of the theatre 
 and if sometimes her husband took her to cafes in the 
 evening. And Therese began to find that, in spite of his 
 dirt, with his ignorance of society and his superb cynicism 
 he was more interesting than the others. 
 
 Garain rose. He had still to see N , N , and 
 
 N before presenting his list to the President of the 
 
 Republic. Count Martin offered him his carriage, but 
 Garain had his own. 
 
 "Don't you think," asked Count Martin, "that the Presi- 
 dent may object to certain names?" 
 
 "The President," said Garain, "will take into considera- 
 tion the needs of the hour." 
 
 He had already crossed the threshold when he returned, 
 exclaiming: 
 
 "We have forgotten the War Minister."
 
 THE RED LILY 219 
 
 "You will easily find one among the generals," said Count 
 Martin. 
 
 "Ah," cried Garain, "do you think the choice of a 
 War Minister so easy? It is obvious that you have not 
 as I have belonged to three cabinets and presided over the 
 council. During my ministries and while I was President, 
 our most insuperable difficulties always came from the 
 Minister of War. All generals are the same. You know 
 the one I appointed when I formed a cabinet. We chose 
 him because he was totally ignorant of politics. He was 
 hardly aware that there were two Chambers. We had to 
 explain to him the whole working of the parliamentary 
 machine; to teach him that there was a war committee, 
 a committee of finance, subcommittees, reporters, a debate 
 on the budget. He asked us to write it all down on half 
 a sheet of notepaper. His ignorance of men and things 
 was alarming. ... At the end of a fortnight he was famil- 
 iar with all the tricks of politics, was personally acquainted 
 with all the senators and all the deputies, and was in- 
 triguing with them against us. If it had not been for the 
 support of President Grevy, who always mistrusted soldiers, 
 he would have turned us out. And he was a very ordinary 
 general, just like all the rest. Ah! don't think the office 
 of War Minister can be bestowed hastily or without mature 
 reflection. . . ." 
 
 And Garain shuddered to think of his former colleague 
 on the Boulevard St. Germain.* He went out. 
 
 Therese rose. Senator Loyer offered her his arm with 
 the elegant bow he had learnt at Bullier's forty years ago. 
 She left the politicians in the drawing-room. She was in 
 a hurry to meet Dechartre. 
 
 The Seine, the stone quays and the plane-trees with 
 their golden leaves were shrouded in a yellowish brown 
 fog. Over a cloudy sky the red sun was casting the last 
 glories of the year. Therese, coming out of doors, delighted 
 in the exhilarating sharpness of the air and the dying splen- 
 dour of the day. Since her return to Paris she had been 
 
 * Where the French War Office is situated. W.S.
 
 220 THE RED LILY 
 
 so nappy that every morning she rejoiced in the changing 
 weather. In her benevolent egoism it seemed as if it were 
 for her that the wind blew through the ragged trees, or 
 that the horizon of avenues became grey in the fine rain, 
 or that the sun dragged its cooled orb across the chilly 
 sky; it was all for her, that she might say when she en- 
 tered the little house at Les Ternes: "It is windy, it rains, 
 it is a fine day," thus introducing the world of external 
 things into the intimacy of their love. And every dawn 
 seemed beautiful, because the day was to bring her to her 
 lover's arms. 
 
 On that day as on every day, as she took her way to 
 the little house at Les Ternes, she was thinking of her 
 unexpected happiness, so complete and, she felt, so secure. 
 She walked in the last glorious sunshine, already threat- 
 ened by winter, and she was saying to herself: 
 
 "He loves me, I think he loves me with all his heart. 
 To love is easier and more natural for him than for other 
 men. In their lives there is something above them, a faith, 
 habits, or interests. They believe in God, or in duty, or 
 in themselves. He only believes in me. I am his god, his 
 duty, his life." 
 
 Then she thought: 
 
 "It is true also that he is not dependent on any one, 
 not even on me. His own thoughts are a magnificent world 
 in which he could live easily. But I cannot live without 
 him. What would become of me if I had him no longer?" 
 
 She was reassured when she thought of his passionate ad- 
 miration of her, and the spell she had cast over him. She 
 remembered having said to him one day: "You only love 
 me with a sensual love. I do not complain; perhaps it is 
 the only love that is true." And he had replied: "It is the 
 only love that is great and strong. It has its measure and 
 its weapons. It is full of sense and imagination. It is 
 violent and mysterious. Its object is the body. The rest 
 is but a lie and an illusion." She was almost at rest in 
 her joy. Suspicion, anxiety had vanished like the clouds 
 of a summer storm. Their worst time had been when they 
 were separated from each other. Lovers should never be 
 parted.
 
 THE RED LILY 221 
 
 At the corner of the Avenue Marceau and the Rue Galilee 
 she half divined, rather than recognised, a shadow that 
 of a form forgotten, which had passed close to her. She 
 believed and she wished to believe that she was mistaken. 
 He whom she imagined she had seen was no longer, had 
 never been. It was a phantom beheld in the limbo of a 
 former world, in the darkness of a visionary existence. And 
 she went on, but this uncertain meeting left a coldness, a 
 vague uneasiness, and an ill-defined fear in her heart. 
 
 As she went up the avenue she saw the newspaper sellers 
 coming towards her holding out the evening papers with 
 large headlines, announcing the new ministry. 
 
 She crossed the Place de 1'Etoile, walking hurriedly in 
 the happy impatience of her desire. In her mind's eye she 
 saw Jacques awaiting her at the bottom of the stairs among 
 the nude figures of marble and bronze, taking her in his 
 arms and carrying her, already quivering and faint with 
 kisses, to that shaded room of delight, where the joy of 
 living made her forget life. 
 
 But, in the solitude of the Avenue Mac-Mahon, the shadow 
 seen already at the corner of the Rue Galilee, approached 
 and appeared close to her with a lifelike and painful dis- 
 tinctness. She recognised Robert le Menil, who, having fol- 
 lowed her from the Quai de Billy, now joined her in the 
 quietest safest spot. 
 
 His air, his attitude indicated that transparency of soul 
 which once had pleased Therese. His face, naturally hard, 
 browned by sea and sun, a trifle hollow, very calm, bore 
 traces of deep suffering. 
 
 "I must speak to you." 
 
 She slackened her step. He walked at her side. 
 
 "I have tried to forget you. After what had happened 
 you will agree it was only natural. I did my very best. It 
 would certainly have been better to forget you. But I 
 could not. Then I bought a yacht. For six months I have 
 been at sea. Perhaps you know?" 
 
 She signified that she knew. 
 
 He resumed: 
 
 "The Rosebttd, a pretty boat of eighty tons. I had a 
 crew of six men. I worked with them. It distracted me."
 
 222 THE RED LILY 
 
 He was silent. She was walking slowly, saddened but 
 chiefly annoyed. It was utterly absurd and painful for 
 her to listen to this strange talk. 
 
 He resumed: 
 
 "What I suffered on that yacht I should be ashamed to 
 tell you." 
 
 She felt that he was speaking the truth and turned away. 
 
 "Oh! I forgive you. When I was alone, I reflected 
 much. Days and nights I passed lying on the divan in 
 the deck-house; over and over again I returned to the same 
 thoughts. During those six months I thought more than 
 I have done in my whole life. Don't laugh. There i? 
 nothing like sorrow for opening one's mind. I understood 
 that if I had lost you it was my own fault. I ought to 
 have known how to keep your love. And, lying full length, 
 while the Rosebud skimmed over the sea, I said to myself: 
 'I did not know how to keep her. Oh! if I could begin over 
 again!' By dint of thinking and suffering I came to under- 
 stand; I understood that I had not sympathised enough 
 with your tastes and ideas. You are an intellectual woman. 
 I didn't notice it, because I didn't love you for that. I 
 unconsciously wounded and irritated you." 
 
 She shook her head. He insisted. 
 
 "Yes, yes! I often wounded you. I was not considerate 
 enough of your sensitive temperament. There were misun- 
 derstandings between us. They arose from our being so 
 different. And then I never knew how to distract you. I 
 never gave you the kind of pleasures that an intelligent 
 women like you requires." 
 
 He was so simple and sincere in his regrets and his 
 suffering that her heart went out to him. She said gently: 
 
 "My friend, I have nothing to complain of in you." 
 
 He resumed: 
 
 "All that I have just said is true. I understood it in 
 my boat out at sea. The hours I lived through there I 
 would not desire for my greatest enemy. Many a time I 
 thought of jumping overboard. I did not do it. Was it 
 because of religious principles or considerations for my 
 family or lack of courage? I don't know. Perhaps it was 
 because you far away were attracting me to life. I was
 
 THE RED LILY 223 
 
 being drawn to you, therefore I am here. I have been 
 watching you for two days. I would not come to your 
 house. I should not have been able to see you alone. And 
 then you would have been obliged to receive me. I thought 
 it better to speak in the street. The idea came to me on 
 board my yacht. I said to myself: 'In the street if she 
 listens to me it will be because she wishes to, just as she 
 did four years ago, in the park at Joinville, you know, 
 by the statues, near the Crown.' " 
 
 And he resumed with a deep sigh: 
 
 "Yes, as at Joinville, since we must begin over again. 
 I have been watching you for two days. Yesterday it 
 rained; you drove out. I might have followed and seen 
 where you went. I wanted to; but I didn't. I determined 
 not to do anything that would displease you." 
 
 She gave him her hand. "Thank you. I knew I should 
 never regret having confided in you." 
 
 Alarmed, impatient, nervous, fearing what he would say 
 next, she tried to break off and to leave him. 
 
 "Good-bye! You have life before you. You are happy. 
 Only realise it and cease troubling about what is not 
 worth while." 
 
 But he interrupted her with a look. There had come 
 over his face that intense, resolute expression she knew 
 so well. 
 
 "I told you I had something to say. Listen for one 
 minute." 
 
 She thought of Jacques, who must be expecting her 
 now. 
 
 A few rare passers-by looked at her and went on their 
 way. She stopped beneath the branches of the Judas-tree 
 and waited in pity and fear. 
 
 "See," he said, "I forgive and I forget. Take me back. 
 I promise never to refer to the past." 
 
 She trembled. Her surprise and distress were so evi- 
 dent that he stopped. 
 
 Then after a moment's reflection: 
 
 "I know that what I propose is unusual. But I have 
 thought it over. It is the only possible thing to do. Con- 
 sider it, Therese, and don't give me an answer at once."
 
 224 THE RED LILY 
 
 "It would be wrong to deceive you. I cannot and will 
 not agree to what you propose; and you know why." 
 
 A cab was passing slowly. She hailed it, and it stopped. 
 He kept her a minute longer. 
 
 "I expected you to say that; therefore I say again don't 
 give me an answer at once." 
 
 With her hand on the carriage door, she looked at him 
 out of her grey eyes. 
 
 It was a sad moment for him. He recalled the times 
 when he had seen those eyes half closed. He stifled a 
 sob and murmured in a husky voice: 
 
 "Listen, I cannot live without you; I love you. Now I 
 really love you. Before I did not know." 
 
 And, while she gave the cabman a dressmaker's address, 
 he walked away with a brisk easy gait, which to-day, how- 
 ever, was a little less firm than usual. 
 
 This meeting left her anxious and uneasy. If she must 
 see him again, she would have preferred to find him vio- 
 lent and brutal as at Florence. 
 
 At the corner of the avenue, she called out to the 
 coachman: "Les Ternes, Rue Demours."
 
 XXXII 
 
 IT was Friday at the opera. The curtain had just gone, 
 down on Faust's laboratory. Now the orchestra stall* 
 were in movement, opera-glasses were at work surveying 
 the hall of purple and gold beneath the lights far up in 
 the immensity of the roof. Like precious stones in their 
 caskets, the bejewelled heads of the women and their bare 
 shoulders glittered in the dark boxes. Hanging over the pit 
 was the amphitheatre, in one long garland of diamonds, 
 flowers, beautiful hair, dazzling necks and shoulders, gauze 
 and satin. In the front rows of the stalls were to be 
 seen the Austrian Amoassadress, and the Duchess of Glad- 
 win; in the amphitheatre, Berthe d'Isigny and Jane Tulle, 
 who had been made famous by the suicide of her lover on 
 the previous day; in the boxes, Madame Berard de La 
 Malle, with downcast eyes, her long eyelashes shading her 
 finely moulded face; Princess Seniavine, superb, hiding her 
 yawns behind her fan; Madame de Morlaine, between two 
 young married women whom she was educating in the art 
 of being gracefully clever; Madame Meillan, happy in thft 
 assurance of thirty years of incomparable beauty ; Madame 
 Berthier d'Eyzelles, stiff, with iron-grey hair loaded with 
 diamonds. Her bad complexion accentuated the severe dig^ 
 nity of her bearing. Every one was looking at her. That 
 morning, it had been reported that after Garain's failure, 
 M. Berthier d'Eyzelles had undertaken to form a cabinet. 
 His task was nearly accomplished. The list of ministers 
 was in the newspapers, and included Martin-Belleme at the 
 Treasury. And opera-glasses were turned uselessly to the 
 Countess's box, which was still empty. 
 
 The house resounded with a great murmur of voices. In 
 the third row of the orchestra stalls, General Lariviere, 
 standing in his usual place, was talking to General de La 
 Briche. 
 
 "I shall soon follow your example, old chap, and retire 
 to grow cabbages in Touraine." 
 
 225
 
 226 THE RED LILY 
 
 He was in one of those melancholy moods when anni- 
 hilation seemed the necessary sequence to the rapidly ap- 
 proaching end of life. He had flattered Garain, and Garain, 
 thinking him too clever, had passed him by and appointed 
 a short-sighted faddist, a general of artillery, to be Min- 
 ister of War. Lariviere, however, had the satisfaction of 
 seeing Garain abandoned, betrayed by his friends Berthier 
 d'Eyzelles and Martin-Belleme. The wrinkles round his 
 little eyes were puckered up with laughter. On his crabbed 
 face the crow's-feet seemed to laugh all by themselves. He 
 was laughing only in profile. Weary of a long life of dis- 
 simulation, he now suddenly indulged in the joy of ex- 
 pressing his thoughts: 
 
 "My good La Briche, they are really too stupid with 
 their civil army which is expensive and useless. Small 
 armies are the only ones that are any good. That was 
 Napoleon's opinion, and he knew." 
 
 "It is true, quite true," sighed General de La Briche, 
 moved to tears. 
 
 Montessuy passed them on his way to his seat; Lariviere 
 held out his hand. "I hear that it was you, Montessuy, 
 who defeated Garain. I congratulate you." 
 
 Montessuy protested that he never meddled in politics. 
 He was neither senator, nor deputy, nor even member of 
 the General Council for Oise. And looking at the house 
 through his glass: 
 
 "Look, Lariviere, in that box on the right, there is a very 
 pretty woman with her hair in flat bandeaux coming well 
 over her forehead." 
 
 And he took his place, tranquil in the enjoyment of the 
 reality of power. 
 
 Meanwhile in the foyer, in the passages, and in the house 
 the names of the new ministers were being passed from 
 mouth to mouth with sluggish indifference. President of 
 the Council and Home Secretary, Berthier d'Eyzelles; Min- 
 ister of Justice and Religion, Loyer; Minister of Finance, 
 Martin-Belleme. All the appointments were known except 
 the Ministers of Commerce, War, and the Fleet, not yet 
 nominated. 
 
 The curtain had risen on the tavern of the god Bacchus.
 
 THE RED LILY 227 
 
 The students were singing their second chorus, when 
 Madame Martin appeared in her box, her hair dressed high; 
 her white gown with winglike sleeves; and over her left 
 breast a great lily in rubies sparkling on her white bodice. 
 
 Miss Bell was sitting next her in a Queen Anne gown 
 of green velvet. Engaged to Prince Eusebio Albertinelli 
 della Spina, she had come to Paris to order her trousseau. 
 
 In the noise and movement of the throng: 
 
 "Darling," said Miss Bell, "at Florence you have left 
 a friend who tenderly cherishes the charm of your mem- 
 ory, Professor Arrighi. He gives you what he considers 
 the highest of all praise: he says that you are a musical 
 being. But how should Professor Arrighi forget, when 
 even the broom bushes in the garden remember you? Their 
 bare branches moan over your absence. Oh! they long for 
 you, darling." 
 
 "Tell them," said Therese, "that from Fiesole I brought 
 away a delightful memory which is to be my very life." 
 
 At the back of the box, M. Martin-Belleme in a low 
 voice was giving his views to Joseph Springer and Du- 
 vicquet. He was saying: "The credit of France is the best 
 in the world," and again: "Let us pay off our debt by using 
 our surplus, not by imposing taxes." He was in favour of 
 prudent finance. 
 
 And Miss Bell went on: 
 
 "I will tell the broom-bushes of Fiesole, that you long for 
 them, darling, that you will soon come back to them on 
 the hill. But, I want to ask you: do you often meet M. 
 Dechartre at Paris? I should so much like to see him 
 again. I like him because he has a distinguished soul. Yes, 
 darling, M. Dechartre's soul is full of grace and distinction." 
 
 Therese replied that probably M. Dechartre was in the 
 house and that he would not fail to come and see Miss 
 Bell. 
 
 The curtain went down on the myriad coloured whirl 
 of a waltz. People pressed into the passage: financiers, 
 artists, deputies, in one moment crowded into the little 
 salon adjoining the box. They surrounded M. Martin- 
 Belleme, muttered their congratulations, nodded their com- 
 pliments over each other's heads, and nearly stifled each
 
 228 THE RED LILY 
 
 other in their efforts to shake hands with him. Joseph 
 Schmoll, coughing and whining, blind and deaf, scornfully 
 pushed his way through the crowd and reached Madame 
 Martin. He took her hand, breathed heavily upon it, and 
 covered it with resounding kisses. 
 
 "I hear that your husband has been appointed minister. 
 Is it true?" 
 
 She knew it was rumoured, but did not think anything 
 was decided yet. But her husband was here. Why not 
 ask him? 
 
 Always grasping at literal truth, he said: 
 
 "Ah! your husband is not yet a minister? When he 
 is nominated I will ask you for a moment's conversation. 
 It is a matter of the highest importance." 
 
 Then he was silent, looking through his gold spectacles, 
 with that glance of the blind man and the visionary, which 
 in spite of the brutal precision of his temperament, sur- 
 rounded him with a kind of mysticism. 
 
 "You have been to Italy this year, Madame?" he asked 
 abruptly. And without giving her time to reply: 
 
 "I know, I know. You went to Rome. You looked at 
 that infamous Arch of Titus, that execrable monument bear- 
 ing among the spoils from Judea the Seven Branched Can- 
 dlestick. Ah well! Let me tell you, Madame, that the 
 universe should be ashamed of permitting that ' Arch to 
 remain standing in the city of Rome, where the Popes have 
 only been able to exist by means of the art of the Jews, 
 the silversmiths, and the money-changers. The Jews intro- 
 duced the science of Greece and of the East into Italy. 
 Madame, the Renaissance is the work of Israel. That is 
 absolute but unacknowledged truth." 
 
 And he went out through the crowded ante-room, tread- 
 ing on the hats which collapsed with a dull thud beneath his 
 heavy footsteps. Meanwhile Princess Seniavine, in the 
 front of her box, was looking at her friend through the 
 glass with that curiosity with which now and again the 
 beauty of women inspired her. She signed to Paul Vence, 
 who was near her: 
 
 "Don't you think Madame Martin wonderfully beautiful 
 this year?"
 
 THE RED LILY 229 
 
 In the foyer sparkling with light and gold, General de La 
 Briche asked Lariviere: 
 
 "Have you seen my nephew?" 
 
 "Your nephew? Le Menil?" 
 
 "Yes, Robert. He was in the house just now." 
 
 La Briche thought for a moment. Then: 
 
 "He came to Semanville this summer. I thought him 
 strange, absent-minded. A nice fellow, perfectly frank 
 and intelligent. But he ought to have a career, an object 
 in life." 
 
 It was a moment since the bell announcing the rise of 
 the curtain had stopped ringing. The two old men were 
 passing through the deserted foyer. 
 
 "An object in life," repeated La Briche, tall, thin, and 
 bent, while his comrade, brisk and active, left him behind 
 and reached the theatre door. 
 
 Marguerite was spinning and singing in the wood. When 
 she had finished, Miss Bell said to Madame Martin: 
 
 "Oh! darling, M. Choulette has written me a perfectly 
 beautiful letter. He told me that he was very famous. 
 And I was delighted to hear it. And he added: 'The fame 
 of other poets rests upon spices and myrrh. Mine bleeds 
 and groans beneath a shower of stones and oyster-shells.' 
 Is it really true, my love, that good M. Choulette is being 
 stoned by his fellow countrymen?" 
 
 While Therese was reassuring Miss Bell, Loyer came 
 into the box with an imperious and blustering air. 
 
 He was wet and muddy. 
 
 "I have just come from the Elysee," he said. 
 
 He had the politeness to announce the good news to Ma- 
 dame Martin first. 
 
 "The appointments are ratified. Your husband is Min- 
 ister of Finance. It is a fine office." 
 
 "Did the President of the Republic make no objection 
 when my name was brought before him?" asked M. Martin- 
 Belleme. 
 
 "None. Berthier reminded him of the hereditary up- 
 rightness of the Martins, of your wealth, and especially of 
 your connection with certain personages in the financial 
 world, where support may be useful to the government.
 
 230 THE RED LILY 
 
 And, to employ Garain's happy expression, the President 
 realised the needs of the hour. He confirmed the appoint- 
 ment." 
 
 Count Martin's sallow face wrinkled slightly. He smiled. 
 
 "The official announcement," resumed Loyer, "will ap- 
 pear in L'Officiel to-morrow. I drove in a cab with the gov- 
 ernment clerk who was taking it to the editor's office. It 
 was a necessary precaution. In the days of Grevy, who was 
 by no means a fool, official decrees have been intercepted 
 on their way from the Elysee to the Quai Voltaire." 
 
 And Loyer threw himself into a chair. There, while 
 admiring Madame Martin's shoulders, he continued: 
 
 "It can no longer be said, as in the days of my poor 
 friend Gambetta, that the Republic has no women. You, 
 Madame, will entertain royally in the ministerial halls." 
 
 Marguerite, wearing her necklace and her earrings, was 
 looking in the glass and singing the jewel song. 
 
 "We must draw up our manifesto," said Count Martin. 
 "I have already been thinking of it. With regard to my 
 own department I think I have discovered an excellent pro- 
 gramme: The debt to be paid off from the surplus. No 
 new taxation." 
 
 Loyer shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "My dear Martin, there is no reason for making any 
 radical change in the programme of the last cabinet; the 
 situation remains essentially the same." 
 
 An idea suddenly struck him. 
 
 "The deuce! I had forgotten. We have sent your 
 old friend Lariviere to the War Office, without consulting 
 him. I was commissioned to tell him the news." 
 
 He thought he might find him in a cafe on the boule- 
 vards frequented by officers. But Count Martin said he 
 was in the house. 
 
 "We must get hold of him," said Loyer. 
 
 Bowing to Madame Martin: 
 
 "Will you permit me to carry off your husband, 
 Countess?" 
 
 They had just gone out when Jacques Dechartre and 
 Paul Vence came into the box. 
 
 "I congratulate you, Madame." said Paul Vence.
 
 THE RED LILY 231 
 
 But she turned to Dechartre: 
 
 "I hope you have not come to congratulate me . . . ?" 
 
 Paul Vence asked if they would live in the ministerial 
 residence. 
 
 "Not for anything." 
 
 "But at any rate, Madame," resumed Paul Vence, "you 
 will go to the balls at the Elysee and the Government 
 Offices; and we shall admire the art with which you will 
 preserve your mysterious charm, and continue the subject 
 of our dreams." 
 
 "Ministerial changes seem to inspire you with very frivo- 
 lous reflections, Monsieur Vence," said Madame Martin. 
 
 "Madame," he replied, "I will not say with Renan, my 
 beloved master: 'What does that matter to Sirius?' because 
 you would rightly reply: 'What has big Sirius to do with 
 the little Earth?' But it always surprises me somewhat 
 to see the mature and even the aged led astray by the 
 illusion of power, forgetting that hunger, love, death, all 
 the mean, as well as the sublime necessities of life, exer- 
 cise so imperious a control over the mass of mankind that 
 those who rule over their bodies are left with nothing 
 more than power on paper and empire in words. And 
 what is more wonderful still the people believe that they 
 have other rulers than their poverty, their desire, and their 
 imbecility. He was a wise man who said: 'Let us appoint 
 Irony and Pity to be the witnesses and judges of man- 
 kind.' " 
 
 "But, Monsieur Vence," laughed Madame Martin, "you 
 wrote that yourself I read your books." 
 
 Meanwhile in the theatre and the passages, the .two min- 
 isters were looking in vain for the General. Through the 
 group of box-keepers, they went behind the stage, and past 
 the stage scenery, which was being put up and taken down, 
 through the crowd of young German girls in red petti- 
 coats, sorcerers, demons, ancient courtesans, they came into 
 the foyer of the ballet. The vast room, painted with alle- 
 gorical figures, almost deserted, had that air of gravity aris- 
 ing from State ownership and the endowment of wealth. 
 There were two dancers standing mournfully, with one foot 
 on the bar running along the wall. Here and there men in
 
 232 THE RED LILY 
 
 black coats and women in short full skirts were standing in 
 groups^ in almost perfect silence. 
 
 As they entered, Loyer and Martin-Belleme took off their 
 hats. Across the room they saw Lariviere with a pretty 
 girl, whose pink tunic with a gold belt was slit up the sides 
 over her tights. 
 
 She was holding in her hand a piece of cardboard covered 
 with gilt paper. As they approached, they heard her saying 
 to the General: 
 
 "You are old, but I am sure you go in for it as much as 
 he does." 
 
 And with her bare arm she pointed disdainfully to a 
 young man, with a gardenia in his button-hole, standing near 
 them and grinning. Loyer signed to the General that he 
 wanted to speak to him; and, pushing him against the bar, 
 said: 
 
 "I have pleasure in announcing your appointment as Min- 
 ister of War." 
 
 Lariviere, incredulous, did not reply. This badly dressed 
 man, with long hair, who in his long dusty coat looked like 
 some shouting juggler, inspired him with such mistrust that 
 he suspected a trap, perhaps a practical joke. 
 
 "Monsieur Loyer, Keeper of the Seals," said Count 
 Martin. 
 
 Loyer insisted: 
 
 "General, you cannot refuse. I have answered for your 
 acceptance. If you hesitate you will promote the unde- 
 sirable return of Garain. He is a traitor." 
 
 "My dear colleague, you exaggerate," said Count Martin. 
 "But perhaps Garain lacks frankness. And the General's 
 support is imperative." 
 
 "Our country before everything," replied Lariviere, bub- 
 bling over with excitement. 
 
 "You know, General," resumed Loyer: "existing laws 
 administered with inflexible moderation. Stand to that 
 principle." 
 
 His eyes were fixed on the two ballet girls stretching 
 their short muscular legs over the bar. 
 
 Lariviere was murmuring: 
 
 "The moral of the army excellent. . . . The disinter-
 
 THE RED LILY 233 
 
 estedness of the commanders rising to the most critical situ- 
 ations." 
 
 Loyer tapped him on the shoulder: 
 
 "My dear colleague, large armies are good after all." 
 
 "I agree with you," replied Lariviere, "the present army 
 is sufficient for the highest requirements of national de- 
 fence." 
 
 "The best of big armies," resumed Loyer, "is that they 
 render war impossible. It would be mad to engage in wai 
 with a force so gigantic that it baffles every human attempt 
 to direct it. Don't you agree, General?" 
 
 General Lariviere winked: 
 
 "The present situation demands great prudence," he said. 
 "We have to deal with unusual and menacing circum- 
 stances." 
 
 Then Loyer, looking at his military colleague with a cer- 
 tain mild cynicism and scorn: 
 
 "In the very improbable case of war, don't you think, ray 
 dear colleague, that the real generals would be the station- 
 masters?" 
 
 The three ministers went out, down the stage staircdse. 
 The President of the Council was expecting them at his 
 house. 
 
 The last act was beginning. Only Dechartre and Miss 
 Bell were with Madame Martin in her box. 
 
 Miss Bell was saying: 
 
 "Darling, I am delighted how do you say it in French? 
 je suis exaltee, to think that you wear the red lily of 
 Florence on your heart. And M. Dechartre, who has an 
 artist's soul, must be very pleased to see those dear jewels 
 on your dress. Oh! how I should like to know what jew- 
 eller made it. That lily is as graceful and supple as an iris. 
 Yes, it is exquisite, magnificent and cruel. Have you .ever 
 noticed, my love, that beautiful jewels have always, an air 
 of magnificent cruelty?" 
 
 "My jeweller," said Therese, "is here, and you have 
 named him: M. Dechartre was kind enough to design this 
 ornament." 
 
 The box door opened. Therese half turned and -saw Le 
 Menil in the shadow bowing to her with his stiff grace:
 
 234 THE RED LILY 
 
 "Will you convey my congratulations to your husband, 
 Madame?" 
 
 Rather dryly he complimented her on looking well. To 
 Miss Bell he addressed a few pleasant, conventional remarks. 
 
 Therese was listening anxiously, with her mouth half open 
 in the painful effort to make insignificant replies. 
 
 He asked her if she had had a good time at Joinville. He 
 would like to have been there for the hunting. But he 
 could not arrange it. He had been yachting in the Medi- 
 terranean and later hunting at Semanville. 
 
 "Oh! Monsieur Le Menil," said Miss Bell, "did you 
 wander over the blue sea? And did you meet any sirens?" 
 
 No, he had not seen any sirens; but for three days a 
 dolphin had accompanied the yacht. 
 
 Miss Bell asked whether the dolphin liked music. 
 
 He did not think so. 
 
 "Dolphins," he said, "are simply spermaceti-whales that 
 sailors call ocean geese because of a certain goose-like forma- 
 tion of the head." 
 
 But Miss Bell refused to believe that the monster that 
 bore Arion to Cape Tenarus had the head of a goose. 
 
 "Next year, Monsieur Le Menil, if you find a dolphin 
 swimming round your yacht, I entreat you to play to him on 
 your flute the hymn to the Delphic Apollo. Do you like the 
 sea, Monsieur Le Menil?" 
 
 "I prefer the woods." 
 
 He spoke simply and calmly, quite self-contained. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Le Menil, I know how you love the woods 
 and the thickets where leverets dance in the moonlight." 
 
 Dechartre turned pale; he rose and went out. 
 
 It was the church scene Marguerite on her knees, was 
 wringing her hands, her head bowed beneath the heavy 
 weight of her long fair plaits. And there resounded from 
 the organ and the chorus the chant of the dead : 
 
 His Cross in Heaven on that dread day 
 Obscures the sun's diminished ray, 
 Chaos resumes its ancient sway.* 
 
 * Quand du Seigneur le jour luira, 
 Sa croix au ciel resplendira, 
 Et 1'univers s'ecroulera.
 
 THE RED LILY 235 
 
 "Do you know, darling, that the chant of the dead sung 
 in Catholic churches comes from a Franciscan hermitage? 
 It suggests the wind in winter blowing through the larches 
 on the heights of Alvernia." 
 
 Therese did not hear. Her soul had flown away through 
 the door of the box. 
 
 In the ante-chamber there was a sound of chairs being 
 overturned. Schmoll came back. He had heard that M. 
 Martin-Belleme had been appointed minister. And im- 
 mediately he came to demand his Commander's Cross and 
 a larger flat at the Institute. At present his rooms were 
 dark and small, not nearly large enough for his wife and his 
 five daughters. The only place for his study was a loft. 
 He complained at length and refused to depart until Ma- 
 dame Martin promised to speak for him. 
 
 "Monsieur Le Menil," asked Miss Bell, "shall you go 
 yachting next year?" 
 
 Le Menil thought not. He had no intention of keeping 
 the Rosebud. The sea was depressing. 
 
 And calmly and determinedly he looked at Therese. 
 
 On the stage, in Marguerite's prison, Mephistopheles was 
 singing: "The day has dawned," and the orchestra was 
 imitating the terrible gallop of the horses. Therese mur- 
 mured : 
 
 "I have a headache. It is very close in here." 
 
 Marguerite's clear words, calling to the angels, were 
 wafted on the air. 
 
 "Darling, I must tell you that poor Marguerite will not 
 be saved according to the flesh, and for that very reason she 
 is saved in spirit and in truth. One thing I believe, darling, 
 that we shall all be saved. Yes, I believe in the ultimate 
 purification of sinners." 
 
 Therese rose, tall, and dazzlingly white in contrast to the 
 blood-red flower on her breast. Miss Bell enthralled was 
 listening to the music. Le Menil, in the ante-room, took 
 Madame Martin's cloak. And while he held it unfolded, 
 she passed from the box into the ante-room, and paused 
 before the mirror, near the half open door. On to her bare 
 shoulders, touching them lightly with his fingers, he put the 
 great cloak of red velvet embroidered with gold and lined
 
 2#S THE RED LILY 
 
 with emiiwA, And said in a low voice, very briefly and very 
 distinctly: 
 
 "Therese, 1 love you. Remember what I asked you the 
 day before yesterday. Every day, every day, after three 
 o'clock I shall be in our flat, Rue Spontini." 
 
 At that moment, as she bent her head for him to put on 
 her cloak, she saw Dechartre, with his hand on the door- 
 handle. He looked at her with all the reproach and sorrow 
 the human eye is capable of expressing. Then he turned 
 away down the corridor. It was as if hammers of fire were 
 beating on the walls of her heart, and she remained motion- 
 less on the threshold. 
 
 "You were waiting for me?" said Montessuy, who had 
 come to fetch her. "You are quite forsaken to-day; I will 
 take you and Miss Bell home."
 
 XXXIII 
 
 IN her carriage, in her room, her lover's cruel sorrowful 
 look haunted her. She knew how apt he was to fall into 
 despair, how quick to lose command of his will. In that 
 mood she had seen him hastening along the Arno bank. In 
 his sadness and anguish it had been her happiness then to 
 run to him and say : "Come." And now again, surrounded 
 and observed as she was, she ought to have found something 
 to say to him, and not to have let him go away in silence and 
 suffering. But she had been taken by surprise and over- 
 whelmed. The absurd incident had passed so rapidly! She 
 felt for Le Menil that impulsive anger we feel for things 
 that hurt us, the stone against which we bruise our heads. 
 It was herself whom she reproached bitterly for having al- 
 lowed her lover to go, without one word, without one glance, 
 into which she might have put her whole soul. 
 
 While Pauline was waiting to undress her, she walked up 
 and down impatiently. Then she stopped abruptly. In the 
 dark mirrors, in which the candles were reflected, she saw 
 the corridor at the theatre and her lover hastening down it, 
 without looking back. 
 
 Where was he now? What was he saying to himself 
 alone? It was torture not to be able to go to him immedi- 
 ately. 
 
 For a long while she pressed her hands against her heart; 
 for she felt as if she were choking. 
 
 Pauline uttered a little cry. On her mistress's white 
 bodice she saw drops of blood. Without her noticing it, the 
 stamens of the red lily had scratched her hand. 
 
 She took off the emblem, which she had worn, openly 
 declaring the secret of her heart, and, holding it in her hand, 
 she gazed at it long. Then once again she saw the Florence 
 days, the cell at San Marco where her lover's kiss fell 
 sweetly on her lips, while through the lashes of her cast 
 down eyelids she saw vaguely the angels nd the blue sky 
 painted on the wall, the Lanzi, and the glittering fountain 
 
 237
 
 238 THE RED LILY 
 
 of the ice vendor on the red cotton table-cloth; the little 
 house in the Via Alfieri, its nymphs, its goats, and the room, 
 where the shepherds and the masks on the screens listened 
 to her voice breaking the long silence. 
 
 All this was no shadow of the past, no phantom of former 
 days. It was the present reality of her love. And one 
 stupid word uttered by a stranger had shattered these beau- 
 tiful things. Fortunately it was impossible. Her love, her 
 lover were not dependent on such a trifle. If only she could 
 go to him, as she was, half-undressed, by night, and enter 
 his room. . . . She would find him sitting by the fire, his 
 elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, sad. Then, with 
 her fingers in his hair, she would make him look up and see 
 that she loved him, that she was his, his living treasure of 
 joy and love. 
 
 She had sent her maid away. In bed, with her lamp lit, 
 she was pondering over one thought. 
 
 It was coincidence, an absurd coincidence. He would 
 understand that nothing so stupid could affect their love. 
 What madness! for him to be jealous of another! As if 
 there were for her any other men in the world! 
 
 M. Martin-Belleme opened the door of his room. Seeing 
 a light, he came in. 
 
 "Aren't you asleep, Therese?" 
 
 He had just come from conferring with Berthier d'Ey- 
 zelles and his colleagues. On certain matters he wanted 
 advice from his wife, for he knew she was clever. Above 
 all things he wanted sincerity. 
 
 "It is done," he said. "You, my love, will help me, I am 
 sure, in a position greatly desired, but very difficult and 
 even dangerous. I owe it partly to you, for it is largely 
 your father's powerful influence that has placed me in it." 
 
 He consulted her as to who should be the leader of the 
 cabinet. 
 
 She gave him the best advice she could. She found him 
 sensible, calm, and not more foolish than the others. 
 
 He indulged in reflections: 
 
 "In the Senate I must support the budget as it has been 
 voted by the Chamber. This budget includes innovations of 
 which T did not approve. As a deputy I opposed them.
 
 THE RED LILY 239 
 
 As a minister I shall support them. Then I looked at things 
 from the outside. Seen from within they are quite different. 
 Besides, I am no longer free." 
 
 He sighed. 
 
 "Ah! if people only knew how little one can do when one 
 is in power." 
 
 He gave her his impressions. Berthier was holding back. 
 The others were inscrutable. Loyer alone appeared ex- 
 tremely autocratic. 
 
 She heard him patiently, but without paying attention. 
 That pale face and thin voice were to her a timepiece mark- 
 ing the slow passing of the minutes one by one. 
 
 "Now and then Loyer gives utterance to the most extra- 
 ordinary opinions. At the same time that he declares him- 
 self a firm supporter of the Concordat, he says: 'The 
 bishops are the prejets of religion. I shall protect them be- 
 cause they belong to me. And through them I shall control 
 the spiritual gamekeepers the parish priests.' " 
 
 He reminded her that she would have to 'move in a circle 
 not her own, which would doubtless shock her by its vul- 
 garity. But their position would require them to slight no 
 one. Besides, he counted on her tact and her loyalty. 
 
 She looked at him, rather alarmed. 
 
 "Nothing is urgent at present, my love. We shall see 
 later." 
 
 He was tired and overdone. He wished her good-night 
 and advised her to sleep. She would ruin her health if she 
 read like that all night. He left her. 
 
 She heard the sound of his footsteps, rather heavier than 
 usual, while he was crossing the study heaped up with blue- 
 books and newspapers, on his way to the bedroom, where 
 he would sleep, perhaps. Then the silence of the night op- 
 pressed her. She looked at her watch. It was half-past 
 one. 
 
 She said to herself: "He also is suffering. ... He 
 looked at me with such anger and despair." 
 
 She had lost none of her courage nor her ardour. What 
 made her desperate was to be there, a prisoner, as if in 
 solitary confinement. She would be free when day dawned; 
 then she would go to him, see him, and explain all. It was
 
 240 THE RED LILY 
 
 so simple. In the sad monotony of her thoughts, she lis- 
 tened to the rolling of carts, at long intervals, on the quay. 
 This sound, which marked the flight of the hours, arrested 
 her attention, almost interested her. She made an effort 
 to catch the faint noise in the distance, growing more and 
 more distinct until she could distinguish the rolling of the 
 wheels, the grinding of the axle-trees, the clashing of hoofs, 
 growing feebler and feebler, and dying away into an im- 
 perceptible murmur. 
 
 And, when silence was restored, she returned to her 
 thoughts. 
 
 He would understand that she loved him, that she had 
 never loved any one else. But it was distressing that the 
 night was so long in passing away. She dared not look at 
 her watch, for fear of perceiving the terrible slowness of the 
 hours. 
 
 She rose, went to the window, and drew aside the cur- 
 tains. There was a pale light in the cloudy sky. She 
 thought it must be the beginning of daybreak. She looked 
 at her watch. It was half-past three. 
 
 She went back to the window. The infinite darkness out- 
 side attracted her. She looked. The pavement shone under 
 the gas-lamps. An invisible, silent rain was falling from 
 the dull sky. Suddenly a voice came out of the silence; high 
 and then low, so staccato that it seemed several voices re- 
 plying to each other. It was a drunkard loafing on the 
 pavement and knocking up against the trees. He was en- 
 gaged in a long argument with the creatures of his dreams, 
 magnanimously allowing them to speak, only to overwhelm 
 them afterwards by wild gestures and imperious speech. 
 Therese watched the poor man swaying along the parapet, 
 in his white blouse, like a rag in the night wind, and now 
 and again she heard the words, constantly recurring: "That 
 is what I say to the government." 
 
 Numb with cold, she went back to bed. An agonising 
 thought came into her mind. "He is jealous, madly jealous. 
 It is a physical matter, one of nerves. But his love also is 
 physical and of the nerves. His love and his jealousy are 
 the same thing. Another would understand. It would be 
 enough to appeal to his self-respect." She knew that in
 
 THE RED LILY 241 
 
 him jealousy was physical torture, an open wound, extended 
 by the powers of imagination. She knew how deep-rooted 
 was the evil. She had seen him turn pale in front of the 
 bronze St. Mark, when she posted her letter in the wall 
 of the old Florentine house; and then she was only his in his 
 desire and his dreams. 
 
 Later, after their long kisses, she recalled his half-stifled 
 complaints, his sudden sadness, and the sorrowful mystery 
 of the words he was always repeating: "You alone can help 
 me to forget you." She beheld the letter received at Dinard 
 and his wild despair over a few words heard in a cafe. She 
 felt that the chance blow had fallen on the sensitive spot, on 
 the open wound. But she did not lose heart. She would 
 say everything, confess everything, and all her avowals 
 would proclaim: "I love you. I have never loved another." 
 She had never deceived him. She would tell him nothing 
 that he had not guessed already. She had lied so little, as 
 little as possible, and merely to avoid giving him pain. How 
 could he fail to understand? It would be best that he 
 should know all, since that all amounted to nothing. Over 
 and over again she thought the same thoughts and said to 
 herself the same words. 
 
 Her lamp, was going out. She lit candles. It was half- 
 past six. She realised that she had slept. She ran to the 
 window. The sky was black, and touching the earth seemed 
 to form one chaos of thick darkness. Then she became 
 curious as to what hour the sun would rise. She had no 
 idea. All she knew was that the nights were very long in 
 December. She tried to remember, but could not. She 
 never thought of looking at the open calendar on the table. 
 The heavy footsteps of workmen passing in groups, tke 
 noise of the milk carts and the vegetable waggons sounded 
 like good omens to her ears. She shuddered at these first 
 signs of the town's awakening.
 
 XXXIV 
 
 AT nine o'clock, in the courtyard of the little house, she 
 found M. Fusellier sweeping away the rain-water, with 
 his pipe in his mouth. Madame Fusellier came out of her 
 lodge. They both looked embarrassed. Madame Fusellier 
 was the first to speak: 
 
 "M. Jacques is not at home." 
 
 And, as Therese was silent and did not move, Fusellier 
 came up to her, broom in hand, hiding his pipe behind his 
 back. 
 
 "M. Jacques has not come home yet." 
 
 "I will wait for him," said Therese. 
 
 Madame Fusellier showed her into the drawing-room, 
 where she lit the fire. And because the wood only smoked 
 and refused to burst into a flame, she stayed bending over 
 it, her hands on her hips. 
 
 "It is the rain," she said, "that makes the smoke come 
 down the chimney." 
 
 Madame Martin told her not to trouble to light a fire, 
 she was not cold. 
 
 She saw herself in a mirror. Her face was white, except 
 for her cheeks which were burning. And then only she be- 
 came aware that her feet were as cold as ice. She went up 
 to the fire. Madame Fusellier, seeing that she was anxious, 
 tried to say something comforting: 
 
 "M. Jacques won't be long wouldn't Madame like to 
 warm herself while she is waiting?" 
 
 The rain was pattering on the glazed ceiling and the light 
 was dull. On the walls, the lady with the unicorn, stiff and 
 of deathly hue, seemed no longer beautiful among her cava- 
 liers, in the forest full of birds and flowers. Therese was 
 muttering to herself the words: 
 
 "He has not come home." As she repeated them over and 
 over again, they seemed to lose their meaning. With burn- 
 Ing eyes she looked at the door. 
 
 She remained thus without moving, without thinking, 
 
 242
 
 THE RED LILY 243 
 
 how long she didn't know; perhaps it was half an hour. 
 Then there was a sound of footsteps; the door opened. He 
 entered. She saw that he was wet through, and muddy, and 
 burning with fever. 
 
 She looked at him so sincerely and so frankly that he 
 was astonished. But, almost immediately all his anguish 
 welled up within him. 
 
 "What do you want of me now?" he said. "You have 
 done me all the harm in your power." 
 
 His fatigue made him seem gentle. She was alarmed. 
 
 "Jacques, listen to me . . ." 
 
 He signified that there was nothing more to be said. 
 
 "Jacques, listen. I have not deceived you. Oh! no I 
 have not deceived you. Could it have been possible? 
 Could it . . ." 
 
 He interrupted: 
 
 "Have pity on me. Don't hurt me any more. Leave me, 
 I entreat of you. If you knew what a night I have passed, 
 you would not dare to torture me further." 
 
 He sank on to the divan, where, six months ago, he had 
 kissed her under her veil. 
 
 All night he had walked without thinking of where he 
 was going. He had followed the Seine, until he found its 
 banks fringed with willows and poplars. To still his suffer- 
 ing he had tried to distract his mind. On the Quai de Bercy 
 he had watched the moon fleeting among the clouds. For 
 an hour he had seen her hidden and then reappearing. 
 Then he had set himself with minute accuracy to count the 
 windows of houses. It had begun to rain. He had gone to 
 the Market, and drunk brandy in a tavern. A big woman, 
 who squinted, had said to him: "You don't look happy." 
 He sank down on a leather covered bench. And for a mo- 
 ment he was at rest. 
 
 The visions of that terrible night passed before him. He 
 ?aid: "I thought of that night on the bank of the Arno. 
 You have robbed me of all beauty and all joy." 
 
 He besought her to leave him alone. In his weariness he 
 pitied himself profoundly. He would have liked to sleep, 
 not to die: death always filled him with horror. But to 
 sleep and never wake. Meanwhile he saw her before him,
 
 244 THE RED LILY 
 
 ardently desired, and as desirable as before, with her face 
 worn by suffering and in spite of the fixity of her fevered 
 gaze. And inscrutable now, more mysterious than ever. 
 He looked at her. His hatred revived with his anguish. 
 With an evil glance, he sought signs of caresses that he 
 had not given her. 
 
 She held out her arms to him: 
 
 "Listen, Jacques." 
 
 He showed that it was useless for her to speak. Never- 
 theless he wanted to hear her, and already he was listening 
 eagerly. What she was going to say, he hated and rejected 
 beforehand, but it was the only thing in the world that 
 interested him. She said: 
 
 "You dared to believe that I betrayed you, that I did 
 not live in and for you alone. But don't you understand? 
 Don't you realise that if that man had been my lover he 
 would not have needed to speak to me in the theatre, in 
 that box; he would have had a thousand other opportunities 
 of arranging a rendezvous. Oh! no, my love, I assure you 
 that since I have had the happiness and even to-day in 
 agony and sorrow, I still say happiness of knowing you, 
 I have been yours alone. Could I possibly have been an- 
 other's? It is monstrous to imagine it. But I love you, I 
 love you. It is you alone that I love. I have never loved 
 another." 
 
 He replied slowly, with cruel deliberation: 
 
 " 'Every day I shall be in our flat, Rue Spontini, after 
 three o'clock.' It was no lover, not your lover who spoke 
 those words! No! It was a stranger." 
 
 She rose, and with sad seriousness: 
 
 "Yes, I have been his mistress. You knew it. I denied 
 it, I lied, so as not to give you pain, not to irritate you. I 
 saw how anxious and suspicious you were. But I lied so 
 little and so badly! You knew it. Don't reproach me with 
 it. You knew it, you often spoke of the past, and then one 
 day at a restaurant you heard. . . . And your imagination 
 went beyond the truth. I did not deceive you when I lied. 
 And if you knew how little it counts in my life! And be- 
 sideSj I did not know you. I did not dream that I should 
 ever know you. I was so weary of my life."
 
 THE RED LILY 245 
 
 She threw herself on her knees: 
 
 "I was wrong. I ought to have waited for you. But, if 
 you only knew how all that is as if it had never been, and 
 it was so very little." 
 
 And in a sweet, singing voice, she said over and over 
 again like a refrain: 
 
 "Why did you not come before? Why?" 
 
 She crept to him, tried to take his hands and clasp his 
 knees. He repulsed her: 
 
 "I was stupid. I did not believe, I did not know. I was 
 resolved not to know." 
 
 He rose, and, in an outburst of hatred: 
 
 "I could not bear it, no I could not bear it to be that 
 one." 
 
 She sat down on the divan that he had quitted; and then 
 plaintively, speaking low, she explained the past. She had 
 been cast all alone into a horribly commonplace society. 
 Then it had happened, she had yielded. But immediately 
 she had regretted it. Oh! if he knew how dull and sad her 
 life had been, he would not be jealous, he would pity 
 her. 
 
 She shook her head, and, looking at him through her dis- 
 ordered hair: 
 
 "But I am talking of another woman. I have nothing in 
 common with that woman. I have existed only since I 
 knew you, since I was yours." 
 
 He had begun to pace wildly up and down the room, just 
 as a short time before he had walked on the banks of the 
 Seine. He burst into a bitter laugh: 
 
 "Yes, but while you were loving me, what about the other 
 woman, who was not you?" 
 
 She looked at him indignantly: 
 
 "Can you believe . . . ?" 
 
 "Didn't you see him at Florence, didn't you go with him 
 to the station?" 
 
 She told him that he had sought her in Italy, that she 
 had met him and parted from him, that he had gone away 
 in anger, and that since he had tried to persuade her to 
 come back to him, but that she had not even thought 
 about it.
 
 246 THE RED LILY 
 
 "My love, I see none, I know none but you." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I do not believe you." 
 
 She grew angry. 
 
 "I have told you everything. Accuse me, condemn me, 
 but don't insult my love for you. That I forbid." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "Leave me. You have hurt me too much. I loved you so 
 dearly that any sorrow you might have caused me, I would 
 have accepted and kept and loved; but this is hideous. I 
 hate it. Leave me. My grief is too deep. Good-bye." 
 
 Standing firmly, her little feet planted on the carpet: 
 
 "I came. It is for my happiness, my life, that I am con- 
 tending. I am resolute, you know. I will not go." 
 
 And she repeated all she had said. Emphatic and sin- 
 cere, convinced that she was in the right, she explained how 
 she had broken the already slackened tie that chafed her. 
 She told how from the day when she had yielded to him in 
 the little house in the Via Alfieri, she had been his entirely, 
 without a regret, certainly without a glance or a thought for 
 any one else. But when she spoke of another, she angered 
 him. And he cried: 
 
 "I don't believe you." 
 
 Then she began again to repeat what she had said. 
 
 And suddenly, instinctively she looked at her watch: 
 
 "Good heavens! it is twelve o'clock." 
 
 Many a time she had uttered the same cry of alarm when 
 the hour for parting had surprised them. And Jacques 
 trembled when he heard those familiar words now so sorrow- 
 ful and despairing. For a few minutes longer she implored 
 him with tears and passionate words. Then she was obliged 
 to go ; she had gained nothing. 
 
 At home she found market-women waiting in the hall to 
 present her with a bouquet. She remembered that her hus- 
 band was minister. There were piles of telegrams, cards, 
 letters, congratulations, requests. Madame Marmet wrote 
 asking her to recommend her nephew to General Lariviere. 
 
 She went into the dining-room, and sank exhausted on to 
 a divan. M. Martin-Belleme was finishing his lunch. He 
 was due at once at a cabinet council and at the house of the
 
 THE RED LILY 247 
 
 retiring Minister of Finance, on whom he had to call. The 
 discreet obsequiousness of his staff had already flattered, 
 wearied, and perturbed him. 
 
 "Don't forget, my love," he said, "to call on Madame 
 Berthier d'Eyzelles. You know how sensitive she is." 
 
 She made no reply. While he was dipping his withered 
 fingers in a finger-glass, he looked up, and, seeing her tired 
 look and her disordered dress, he did not dare to say an- 
 other word. 
 
 He found himself face to face with a mystery he was de- 
 termined to ignore, a secret sorrow which one word might 
 disclose. It filled him with anxiety, fear, and a kind of 
 respect. 
 
 He threw down his serviette. 
 
 "Excuse me, my dear." 
 
 And he went out. 
 
 She tried to eat. She could swallow nothing. For every- 
 thing she felt an uncontrollable loathing. 
 
 About two o'clock she went back to the little house at 
 Les Ternes. She found Jacques in his room. He was smok- 
 ing his wooden pipe. A cup of coffee nearly empty was on 
 the table. He looked at her with a hardness that froze the 
 blood in her veins. She did not dare to speak, feeling that 
 all she might say would offend and irritate him, and that 
 her mere appearance discreet and silent rekindled his wrath. 
 He knew that she would come back; he had expected her 
 with the impatience of hatred, with an eagerness as keen as 
 when he waited for her in the house in the Via Alfieri. She 
 saw in a flash that she had been unwise in coming; absent 
 he would have desired her, longed for her, summoned her 
 perhaps. But it was too late; and besides, being prudent 
 had not occurred to her. 
 
 She said to him: 
 
 "You see, I came back; I could not do otherwise. And 
 it was quite natural, since I love you. You know it." 
 
 She had felt that everything she could say would only ir- 
 ritate him. He asked her if she said as much in the Rue 
 Spontini. 
 
 She looked at him profoundly sad. 
 
 "Jacques, you have often said that deep down in your
 
 248 THE RED LILY 
 
 heart was a world of hatred and anger, which might break 
 forth against me. I see you like to make me suffer." 
 
 With loving patience, she retold at length the story of her 
 life, the emptiness and sadness of the past, and how, since 
 he had made her his, she had lived only in him and through 
 him. 
 
 Her words were as sincere as her glance. She was sitting 
 near him. From time to time he felt the now timid touch 
 of her fingers and the warmth of her fevered breath. He 
 listened with a cruel interest. Hard on himself, he wanted 
 to know everything: her latest meeting with Le Menil, and 
 the story of their final rupture. She told him faithfully all 
 that had happened at the Hotel de la Grande Bretagne; 
 but she represented it as having taken place in a walk in 
 the Cascine, for fear lest the thought of their sad interview 
 in a private room should still further anger her lover. Then 
 she explained the meeting at the station. She had not 
 wished to drive to desperation a sad passionate man. Since 
 then she had heard nothing of him till the day when he 
 spoke to her in the Avenue Mac-Mahon. She repeated what 
 he had said under the Judas-tree. Two days later she had 
 seen him in her box at the opera. She had certainly not in- 
 vited him to come. That was the truth. 
 
 It was the truth. But the old poison slowly accumulated 
 was working. The past, the irreparable past had been called 
 into the present by her confession. He saw it and it tor- 
 tured him. 
 
 "I don't believe you," he said. And he added: 
 
 "And if I did believe you, the very thought that you had 
 been the mistress of that man would make it impossible for 
 me ever to see you again. I told you so, I wrote it to you 
 you remember, when you were at Dinard. I could not bear 
 it to be he. And since ..." 
 
 He paused. She said: 
 
 "You know there has been nothing since." 
 
 He resumed with sullen passion: 
 
 "Since, I have seen him." 
 
 Long they remained silent. At length, in a surprised 
 and plaintive tone she said: 
 
 "But, my love, you should have thought that a woman
 
 THE RED LILY 249 
 
 like me, married as I was. . . . Every day women come to 
 their lovers with a more serious past than mine, and are 
 loved nevertheless. Ah! if you only knew how little my 
 past counts for in my life." 
 
 "I know what you can be. One cannot forgive in you 
 what one would overlook in another." 
 
 "But, my love, I am like other women." 
 
 "No, you are not like the others. In you oothing can be 
 overlooked." 
 
 He spoke with compressed mouth and look of hatred. 
 His eyes, those eyes that she had seen so big, so sparkling 
 with the gentle fire of love, now hard and dry, ?unken be- 
 hind their wrinkled lids, made him look quite different. He 
 frightened her. 
 
 She went to the opposite end qf the room. Seated there, 
 with her heart in her throat, her eyes wide open with aston- 
 ishment, like a child, she stayed long, trembling and stifling 
 her sobs. Then she burst out crying. 
 
 "Why did I ever know you?" he sighed. 
 
 Through her tears, she answered: 
 
 "I do not regret having known you. It is killing me, and 
 I do not regret it. I have loved." 
 
 He cruelly persisted in making her suffer. He knew hov 
 badly he was acting and yet could not help himself. 
 
 "It is possible that after all you may have loved me too.' 
 
 With a slight bitterness, she replied: 
 
 "But I loved you only. I loved you too well. That is 
 what you are punishing me for now. . . .Oh! how can 
 you think that I ever was to another what I have been to 
 you!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 She looked at him without strength or courage: 
 
 "Tell me, is it true that you don't believe me?" 
 
 She added very softly: 
 
 "If I were to kill myself, would you believe me?" 
 
 "No, I should not believe you." 
 
 She wiped her face with her handkerchief, then looking 
 up, her eyes sparkling through her tears: 
 
 "Then, it is all over." 
 
 She rose, looked round the room at the thousand things
 
 250 THE RED LILY 
 
 with which she had lived in joyful, voluptuous intimacy, 
 that she had made her own, and that now suddenly were 
 nothing to her; they regarded her as a stranger and an 
 enemy; she looked at the nude woman, who was making 
 that gesture in flight that had not been explained to her; 
 the Florentine medals recalling Fiesole and the enchanted 
 hours in Italy; Dechartre's study of the profile of a street 
 girl with a laugh on her thin worn pretty face. She paused 
 for a moment, she stood in front of it, sympathising with 
 that little newspaper-seller, who had also come there and 
 disappeared, carried into the terrible immensity of life and 
 things. 
 
 She repeated: 
 
 "Then it is over." 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 Their forms were growing indistinct in the twilight. 
 
 She said: 
 
 "What is to become of me?" 
 
 He replied: 
 
 "And what will become of me?" 
 
 They looked pitifully at each other, because each was 
 filled with self pity. , 
 
 Therese continued: 
 
 "And I who used to fear growing old, for your sake and 
 mine, lest our beautiful love might utterly die! It would 
 have been better had it never been born. Yes, it would 
 have been better had I never been born. Was it not an 
 omen when as a child, under the lime-trees at Joinville, 
 near the Crown, in front of the marble nymphs, I longed to 
 die?" 
 
 With arms hanging down and hands clasped, she looked 
 up; through her tears, her eyes sparkled in the gloom. 
 
 "Is there no way of making you feel that what I tell you 
 in true, that never, since I was yours, never. . . . But 
 how could I? The very idea seems to me horrible, absurd! 
 Can you know me so little?" 
 
 He shook his head sadly. 
 
 "I don't know you." 
 
 Once again she looked round questioningly at all the 
 things in the room that had witnessed their love.
 
 THE RED LILY 25^. 
 
 "But then, all that we have been to each other ... it 
 was in vain, it was useless. We have merely met, we have 
 not become one." 
 
 She grew indignant. It was impossible for him not to 
 realise what he was to her. 
 
 And in the passion of her rejected love, she threw herself 
 into his arms and covered him with tears and kisses. 
 
 He forgot everything, took her, aching, broken, but 
 happy, and pressed her in his arms with the mournful rage 
 of desire. Already her head thrown back on the pillow, she 
 was smiling through her tears. Suddenly he tore himself 
 away from her. 
 
 "I no longer see you alone. The other is always with 
 you." 
 
 Silent, indignant, despairing, she looked at him. She rose, 
 arranged her dress and her hair, with a feeling of shame 
 that was new to her. Then, realising that the end had come, 
 she looked around her in astonishment, with eyes that saw 
 nothing, and went out slowly.
 
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