For Alfred Vallette
The rolling waves broke upon the beach, majestically and irresistibly; seagulls danced on the wayward currents of the air.
Along the line of debris thrown up by the high tide, walking slowly, inhaling the salty odour emanating from the wrack, on the lookout for some tiny piece of wreckage left behind by the tide, something dredged up by a trick of chance from the abyssal depths. …
(While he wandered thus, Aubert dreamed of a gentle and soothing hand, of contemplative eyes looking into his …)
… and in the remoter depths of his inchoate vision are stranger and more intimate sexual images: melancholy sirens with breasts rounded like melons, and long, flowing hair like the seaweed which hangs from the rocks, gracefully rippling in the water … their teeth are as hard and white as pearls grown in oyster-shells, and their vivid blue eyes are the colour of anemones. …
“Ah! if only your damp tresses were wound about my knees, if I could feel the nip of your pearly teeth upon my tender flesh, if the icy coldness of your anemone eyes might transfix my heart …!”
(While he wandered thus, Aubert dreamed of a gentle and soothing hand, of contemplative eyes looking into his …)
The blackness of the stranded wrack was unexpectedly interrupted by the whiteness of a hooded cloak, spread out. …
From whose shoulders had it fallen?
Blonde tresses displayed themselves in luminous waves.
The seagulls were no longer playing, the waves broke on the shore in silence; the sandy beach extended as far as the eye could see, like a tedious desert.
Asleep, almost asleep in the shade of the dunes: a dress flapping in the wind; grains of windblown sand trickling over the silky fabric of an umbrella.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she said. “And soft, as soft as the feathers of a migratory swan, so soft, so soft. …”
She spoke with a perceptible accent, in a silky voice, her hand resting on the slender shoulder of a little boy, who was thin and pale, and whose features had the delicate texture of porcelain.
“Isn’t it, Ted?”
“Yes, sister Sarah, yes it is!” The manner of Ted’s pronunciation betrayed the fact that he was English.
Sarah was English through and through, in her soul and in her blood: the soul which could be glimpsed behind the mistiness of her pale eyes; the blood whose colour showed through her translucent skin; and in the blonde hair which spread like flames among the creases of her white cloak.
It seemed that a fragment of his vision had put on flesh.
“Surely I’m dreaming!” Aubert said. “Are you an illusion? Have I embarked upon a marvellous adventure?”
Sarah was startled by his candour in speaking to her thus. She was not used to the frank expression of such sentiments. But her astonishment was pleasant: it was as if some invisible force took hold of her, pressing her down where she rested on her back. It was so utterly unexpected. She looked up, with a blank expression in her anemone eyes and a curious coolness of her bosom. All of a sudden there flared up inside her a fierce desire to be kissed by those lips: oh yes! oh yes!
She blushed.
Her dress was flapping in the wind.
“I believe,” she replied haughtily, “that I am not an illusion – and I am certainly not an adventure.”
“Your eyes,” said Aubert, “are full of the most delicious mischief.”
“My eyes? Never mind my eyes! They are as sombre as that far-off northern isle where I was born. They remind me of its skies, its soil, and the sea around its shores! They are sad eyes, lit only by reflected moonlight, and perhaps a fugitive ray of the wan northern sun … and my soul is undoubtedly the same: my soul and my eyes are twins, sharing the same dark, unfeeling nature. I fear that behind the veil of their translucency there is only emptiness – my eyes are empty, and so is my soul!”
Aubert’s vision semed to flicker like a flame caught by a breath of night air.
“What can you possibly know, and what can you possibly say, about what lies behind the veil? It is Adventure – in spite of what you say, it is Adventure! Nor is it some passing fancy – some colourful dream which might be tasted briefly, like a brief immersion in a purple sea, before returning to sleep. The path of fate has brought me here, and here I am, between the blue plain and the sad forest of faded greenery. It would not matter now if one of us were to stay while the other went on; all that would matter is that every pace which separated us would measure out another beat of our hearts.
“You are busy thinking of future encounters, I suppose; you are asking yourself what tomorrow might bring, and all the tomorrows thereafter. The prospect of many pleasures extends itself before you – the nearest are doubtless the vaguest – but I am here now, and the present, alas, has no existence for an unquiet soul – such a soul as yours. If you could only look into my soul your eyelids would close upon that dull vision which presently afflicts you. …
“I have interrupted your tedium with the pleasure of surprise; you might, perhaps, consent to be distracted for just a little longer. …”
Aubert’s vision collapsed then, as if vanquished by the cold night air.
Sarah’s dress flapped in the wind, while she replied: “No, no … I am not bored. I have a definite purpose before me: to live. As for what you call ’future encounters’ – by that, I suppose you mean lovers, and all the corollary pleasures of love – I shall plunge into such encounters as casually as I might plunge into the sea over there, whenever it pleases me. …
“As for the one who will swim side by side with me, through the hazardous reefs – that is already decided, whether I wish it or not … and I cannot be an Adventure. …”
She looked up at Aubert, uncertainly. His response was simple and direct: “I must bid you goodbye, then, as it is already too late – since the illusion has fled, to become one more woman among the many.”
“I will be here again tomorrow,” said Sarah.
She whistled. Ted responded obediently to her summons.
“Look at him,” she said, “gathering seashells – such an innocent amusement, and yet so ardent. Poor Ted! Poor scholar! Poor poet! Poor innocent! He is everything … and yet he is nothing at all. …”
With the utmost compassion she studied the little man who might have been made of porcelain; his hair fell about his shoulders like withered flowers in a Chinese vase.
The sandy beach, like an infinite desert, extended its tedium and loneliness as far as the eye could see.
As Sarah had suggested – and certainly intended – Aubert returned the next day to the same spot. The seagulls were dancing lightly on the gentle air-currents.
Sarah’s dress flapped in the wind.
A white butterfly alighted on her hand; she took it by the wings and slowly tore it in two. Aubert stared at her in horror – but having committed her little murder she passed her hand sensuously through her flaming tresses, entirely tranquil. Then, as if performing a ritual, she opened her arms wide as if to receive the applause of a crowd of imaginary admirers – and brought them back again to rest upon her bosom. She smiled, very sweetly.
With consummate audacity and awesome self-confidence, trembling as though with suppressed anger, she said: “Why don’t you make love to me?”
Aubert shivered in his turn, as though he were some small and tremulous creature mesmerised by a snake. The delicate predator with anemone eyes drew him towards her; he was quite helpless.
They came together, and he could feel the caress of her alluring tresses against his skin, and the warmth of her perfume … Their lips met, open-mouthed, and he felt Sarah’s teeth as they nipped his flesh … felt the bite of her pearl-like teeth …
The pathway of his desire brought Aubert to the gilded gate of ecstasy …
Sarah, perfectly in control of herself, addressed him in a regal manner, and he heard her haughty words as though in a dream: “Aubert, I give myself to you. Never forget that you also belong to me. I must go; it is over, for now. I must go, but you have my word that I will return.”
The sandy beach, like an infinite desert, extended its tedium and loneliness as far as the eye could see.
Asleep, almost asleep in the shade of the dunes: there is no dress flapping in the wind. Amid the blackness of the stranded wrack a dream lay dead: a dream as white as the death of a seagull.
The seagulls play, and then play no more. The steamships come into dock, smoke curling upwards from their funnels, the quays are bustling with activity. The seagulls play, and then play no more … the melancholy seagulls of the Zuider Zee.
Down there, in the deserted sands, no dress is flapping in the wind.
Swans flock about a galley as if it were their mothership, wings fluttering like the dead leaves whirled about the desolate headlands. The swans ride slowly on the winds, like stately sailing-ships … the melancholy swans of Bruges.
Down there, in the emptiness which extends to the horizon, no dress is flapping in the wind.
The sparrows chatter in the trees denuded of their leaves. Beneath the turbulent sky, lanterns flicker, more hesitant than hearts in the fog of forgetfulness, the lanterns of melancholy boats on the Seine.
Oh, how cold and lonely it is down there, where no dress is flapping in the wind!
Asleep, almost asleep in the shade of the dunes.
Amid the blackness of the stranded wrack, a dream plays: a dream as white as the awakening of a seagull – but there is no dress flapping in the wind.
Ted amused himself, as before, collecting pebbles and seashells. Sarah was smiling, and her blonde hair spread out like flames upon the creases of her white cloak.
“You see,” she said. “I have kept my word. And you too have kept faith.”
“Yes,” Aubert replied. “But what happened between us is all in the past now.”
“That does not mean that it is dead. I still love you. That which is in the past was written in the sand and in my flesh, in my hands and in my eyes, on that day when you played hide-and-seek with me: that day when your false vision excited my curiosity. …”
The waves thrown up by the sea came almost to the place where they walked, abandoning flotsam at their feet.
“That’s enough!” said Aubert. “Ted wrote to me, as you instructed him, to tell me that you are married. What is your name now?”
“My name is Widow.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He has not touched me,” she replied, loftily. “He is a very mature young man – oh, so lifeless, so lacklustre! – who merely sought to complete his stable with a particularly handsome horse. He has not laid a finger on me … that makes you smile, does it? You may sniff at it, but it is true. If it were otherwise, I might need to ask forgiveness.”
“But you do not ask for forgiveness?”
“You have no pity to spare for me.”
“Pity is pointless,” Sarah told him, “more pointless even than life itself … what happens, happens, and that is all, until one reaches the final judgment – without ever understanding.”
“Without ever understanding?” Aubert echoed.
“Be quiet and listen. I want to tell you the whole truth.”
“No. I don’t want to hear it.”
“You must,” Sarah insisted. “I had already consented to endure this marriage when I met you. I had not protested previously, but afterwards, I did – but I had to go through with it, because I was under an obligation to my family. Can you understand that? It is you I love, you I want … and so I have followed the dictates of my desire. …”
The waves thrown up by the sea came almost to the place where they walked, abandoning flotsam at their feet.
They looked at one another helplessly, their eyes heavy with disquiet. Aubert, in a cruelly ironic voice, demanded: “How is it that you are not still in his grasp?”
She sighed. “I have drowned him in sarcasm.”
“Is he poisoned?”
“The dosage was adequate.”
“Let us be clear about this,” Aubert said. “You have killed him?”
“Yes, for you,” she replied. “But do you still want me?”
He did not reply, but he walked on with her along the line of the incoming waves …
… Walking slowly, inhaling the salty odour emanating from the wrack, on the lookout for some tiny piece of wreckage which might at any moment be cast up by the tide: something dredged up by a trick of chance from the abyssal depths …
Sarah followed him, poking at pieces of dead seaweed with the tip of her furled umbrella.
They went a long way in silence. The retreating sea became calmer – and Sarah’s dress was flapping in the wind.
Aubert suddenly stopped and turned to face her. She was following close behind, and the great white hood of her cloak, trimmed with swansdown, sat upon her shivering shoulders like the hood of a carriage … it was as if she herself were a migratory swan, her down, so soft, so soft! …
He snatched the cloak violently from her shoulders, and threw it into the sea, saying: “Let the sea carry it away! Oh – it is too late! If only it had carried you away, that first time!”
Sarah, alarmed, crossed her arms in front of her – but Aubert took her hands in his and she read in his eyes that he had forgiven her for what she had done …
After all, as he had said to her, the moment had to be seized, had it not?
She did feel pity for him, then; she was cold, and she became sharply aware of the coldness in her soul. Aubert was overcome by a tremulous wave of emotion, and did not try to shrug it off.
The sea reached out to the place where they stood, casting its ebbing waves at their feet.
Sarah stood silently before him, sick at heart. She felt bile rising up from her stomach, bringing a bitter taste into her mouth, where her teeth were chattering like a chaplet of pearls in the playful hands of a little child. Her hardened tongue was paralysed, as if numbed by poison.
Side by side, they followed the ebb of the tide. Aubert fixed his eyes upon a particular piece of flotsam which the sea turned over and over, folding and unfolding with the rise and fall of every rolling wave.
They went on and on, with Sarah’s dress napping in the wind.
They continued to follow the outgoing tide, until the first shoals of rocks emerged, like eternal shipwrecks, from the grey-green swell; the white cloak had disappeared, ensnared by the black tresses of the dead seaweed.
“It’s gone,” said Aubert. “Let’s go back.”
But he made no move; they both stood still, facing the roiling sea, while the waves broke against the rocks, as though they were lost in a dream. Aubert stood with his hands clasped behind his neck, as if his arms were a yoke. Sarah’s spirits revived. She was sure of him now: sure of his acceptance, sure of the love of which his tightly-compressed lips – more than a little ashamed – silently spoke. Those beloved lips were hers after all. …
Her dress was rustling in the wind.
“I have a life to live!” she cried.
“Never forget,” said Aubert, “that your life belongs to me.”
“And your heart to me, my darling.”
A wave unlike the others broke at their feet.
“The sea refuses it,” cried Sarah. “The sea refuses it, but as for me – I want it!”
Triumphantly, with her flaming mane billowing in the wind, she threw herself upon the wreck which fate had cast at her feet. She wrung the water out of it and held it aloft, saying: “Behold the shroud of a survivor!”
Her dress was flapping in the wind.