The Will to Live (Les Roquevillard) by Henry Bordeaux

EDITH sat up on the edge of the bed and propped her chin in her hand while she watched Maurice finish his dressing. He had set the lamp on the floor, with a shade that threw the light downward, so that it should not bother her.

"Why do you get up so early? " she asked him in a sleepy voice, her eyes half opened.

"I can't sleep any more. It's almost morning."

He blew out the lamp. A meagre light began presently to filter through the blinds.

"It's night, Maurice."

"Don't you see a little daylight?"

"That isn't day. There's a moon."

"Rest a little while yet, Edith. You've time enough."

"Yes. I'm so tired, so deliciously tired."

She let herself fall back on the pillow, and closed her eyelids. Even in sleep there was still an air of passion about her. He came up to the bed and bent over her in the fitful light that came in through the window, looking long at her face.

"This little flame of love that lighted up my life," he thought, "is put out for me now. I shall no longer see it burning, I can't see the blood flowing through her cheeks, nor the gleam of her teeth through her parted lips, hardly the curve of her mouth, the line of her nose, the dark mass of her hair with all its perfume. And her body is lost to me -- -- "

He was growing tender over her, dangerously so. The temptation came to him to stay. He bent over and brushed her forehead, of which he could feel the sweet warmth with his lips. She smiled vaguely, keeping her eyes closed. He left her there and went out.

In the corridor of the hotel he met only a waiter, who yawned as he polished the floors, and paid no attention to Maurice's appearance. A hand-bag was all the baggage he carried, an overcoat and a cane.

The shortest road to the railway station at Orta leads across the Sacred Mountain. The moonlight, which was growing pale before the threats of day, penetrated in fear and mystery through the half-leafless woods. Between the tall trunks of the pines and larches its beams fell upon the dead leaves that strewed the ground, and rested on the facades of the little chapels. When Maurice reached a point opposite the fifteenth chapel he raised his head and stopped. The slender columns stood out quite white, one or another of them throwing its reflection in a black shadow against the wall.

He mounted the steps and turned to take in the familiar landscape with a last glance. The well-curbs and the clear outlines of some of the sanctuaries rose round him like apparitions. He could see opposite him the dark mountains, and portions of the lake on either side the hill. Even at this distance he could no longer see the Belvedere Hotel, which was hidden by the hillside, though it was just this that he was looking for. These stones he trod on, these trees and chapels, all these vague outlines which the sun would presently restore in their full values, he would bear away with him in his memory. So long as he should have the power to remember them he should see them all in his mind's eye, not for their own particular grace, but subordinated as scenes and accessories for one principal figure. Even at a distance, this chief figure, this unique flower of his youth, still exerted its fascination over him. Instead of fleeing from it, fleeing without a backward look, he stood motionless in this place that Edith had so loved, where she had longed to be with her roses in her hands, the evening of their anniversary, that last day of their happiness.

In their room there she was sleeping still, deliciously tired. In an hour, in two hours, perhaps sooner, when she rose to come and join him, she would find his cruel letter on the dressing-table, telling her in tender words that the moment for their separation had come. She would not understand it quite at once. The papers enclosed in the envelope would tell her more. They were the hotel bill, paid and receipted, some banknotes, and a receipt for the money deposited in her name with the International Bank of Milan, the sum completed by Margaret Roquevillard's cheque which Maurice had endorsed to her. By these she would see what it was that had come between them and broken her sway. The family which she had vanquished was recapturing her lover. She would give a great cry of sorrow then. However far away he might be from her, he should hear her cry resounding in his ears.

In the woods the moonlight was losing itself in the light of morning. The hour was passing. He leant against one of the columns, and could not make up his mind to go.

"Where did I get the courage," he asked himself, "to break her heart and mine? She is there, quite near me yet. If I go back again she'll never know. Her waking will be sweet and easy. But no, I shall never see her again. There are ties that love cannot obliterate. Happiness, I can understand it now, is not one's right. I wound her, yet I love her. The wrong she did me was involuntary. I don't remember anything but having felt life near her, of having lived it near her each minute to the full; and yet I can't stay near her now any more.