Delphi Collected Works of Ouida, page 300
She loved herself; just as much now that she had the world at her feet, as when she had been a little child, eating the white currants and green almonds in her nest of hay.
Love, though the highest selfish ecstasy, must yet have self‐forgetfulness.
She had none.
She could enjoy. But she could not suffer.
“How much shall I tell him?” she thought, lying with half‐closed eyes watching the lights flicker over the ivory and silver of her mirror.
Why should she tell him anything? Why should she see him? She did not want him. To her he would never be anything but Signa; the little, silly, dreaming fellow that had run about for her, and given up his fruit for her, and fallen into fault uncomplainingly for her sake. She had made him her stepping‐stone to fortune; then had done with him: why not?
And yet now she had seen him, she did not choose to let him go.
He condemned her; he sorrowed over her; he rebuked her; — he! — who had been her little slave, running where she would, and doing her will in the summer dust of the Lastra.
With noon she was ready for him.
She was alone in the little lake palace.
It belonged to the painter Istriel.
When she wanted rest and seclusion she went to it, knowing how to keep her beauty fresh and render her favour more precious.
He was content that men should think his old ties with her not wholly broken.
He was now in the steppes of the North. He had visited her passing by. She always smiled on him. She was a little afraid of him.
Besides, she never turned any man against her; she only would have her own way always — that was all. She wore her lovers as she did her jewels: some had their turn often, some seldom, some for ever waited for a day that never came — but all were hers; she could shut them in the hollow of her rosy hand, as in the gardens of Giovoli she had held the butterflies.
She was never swept away on any strong tide; not even of caprice.
She kept her brain clear always.
She was not clever; but she had far sight.
She got all the best the world could give her, and was as calm amidst it all as a dormouse in its nest of wool. No one could quote a folly against her.
She walked wisely.
With noon they told her Signa had come there. She let him wait. She always let them wait. Waiting heightened the imagination and spurred expectancy. Besides she was never in any haste herself.
He had been shown into a little cabinet, which had statues in it and one great window looking on the lake.
He was standing when she entered.
He was very pale; he had been all daybreak on the shore, rendering what help he could against the storm which now had passed away entirely, and had gone southward.
They looked at one another a moment in silence; these two who had run together over the stony road, and ventured their little fortunes into the noisy press of Prato Fair.
Their fates had divided there, and yet the link of union never could be quite broken.
They looked at one another, remembering that hot, toilsome day when they had eaten their figs under the trees of the dead Medici; and when, in the tumult and the merriment of Fra Lippo’s town, she had laughed at his tears, and pulled him by his curls and whispered, “I am hungry — play — get me some cakes so. Do you hear me? Play!” And he had played.
She looked at him and thought, “He is not changed one whit; he is the same; only a boy still.”
He looked at her and thought, “Can she be Gemma? It is some goddess, dreamt of in the night.”
They had run hand in hand across the plain to Prato. But there were worlds, centuries, all the heights of heaven, all the depths of hell, between them now.
She put her hands out to him.
“Signa — dear Signa — sit by me.”
He took her hands and let them go.
“No. Tell me first.”
She sighed a little.
“You used to love me, Signa.”
“I loved a little child called Gemma — yes!”
“And I am Gemma.”
He was silent.
He would not sit by her. He was confused and blinded. Her loveliness lost nothing by the morning light.
But he felt to recognise her less than he had done in the dim shifting shadows of the night. She had no more in common with the little, sturdy, ragged, mischievous baby he had kissed in her bed of hay, than the butterfly seems to have to do with the chrysalis. He felt still that he must be in a dream; when he had fallen asleep over his score, in his half‐starving student days, such dreams had come to him.
“If you are Gemma, indeed,” he said with effort; “have you nothing to say of your own home; of your father, who died thinking of you; of your brothers, of Palma? Is that all forgotten? Do you never think?”
She would not let him see the anger in her.
“I was so young,” she murmured. “Children do not think.”
“No? Palma thinks. She said, ‘Gemma is dead. Else she never would be silent all these years.’ She prays for you”
“Is she in want of anything?”
“She wants everything. She works like a mule. But she would never take anything. Palma would be ashamed.”
Gemma put out her under lip with the sullen contemptuous gesture of her infancy. But she answered him gently.
“Palma was always good. Yes — I remember that. Poor Palma!”
“Gemma. — if you be Gemma — need Palma, for all your glory, be ashamed of you? Tell me: you said that you would tell me now?”
“Sit by me, and I will.”
“No! not till I know whose roof I find you under, and why you are — like this.”
“What is it to you?”
“Nothing. Only, if you are a base woman I want to see your face no more. I loved you when we were two little children. It would hurt me like a sister’s shame.”
He spoke simply and directly the thing he felt; he was calmer than he had been in the sultry, moonlit night; he was cooled as the air was; he felt oppressed and pained, but it was with sorrow for the little child that had run with him in the dust and heat, not for the woman that faced him with her shining eyes.
Over Gemma’s face rose a quick flush of anger and amaze; all her world envied her.
She had no sense of shame. Shame, like remorse, only visits women that are left alone.
Gemma played with all the glories of life, as a child with a ball of flowers.
She repressed the rage and wonder that she felt. She could assume what shape she would.
“If I were base,” she muttered, “might I not need more tenderness? You are two narrow, Signa; and too harsh.”
“I? Harsh?”
“I think so. You only love your music. You see nothing outside that.”
He was silent.
Was he harsh? He did not mean to be so. He had said what he had felt. If she were no longer innocent, he wished to go away and see her face no more. He had meant no bitterness.
“You do not understand,” he said, at last. “I blame no living thing; I am not wise enough. Only there are straight, simple things one feels about women like an instinct — just as when one keeps one’s honour clean — do you not know? You see — I have always thought about you; and reproached myself; and dreamed so much of finding you and taking you back to your own people; and when Bruno said, seeing the picture of a wanton dancer, ‘That is what your Gemma is now, if she be living,’ I almost hated him; it seemed to hurt me so; because, though you were wilful and liked your own way too well, yet I was sure you were too true and brave for that — and would have thought of Palma. Dear, if your life is honest — take my hand. If you be any man’s wife, and come by all this luxury‐and riches justly — dear, I will beg for your forgiveness on my knees. But else — what can I think?”
She was silent; a certain darkness fell upon her life. She was like the Syrian king; all the fairness and richness of her Palestine grew nought to her, because she was shut out from one little, narrow, lonely vineyard.
“What shall I say to him,” she thought. “What shall I say, to keep him?”
She wanted to keep him, and yet her heart was hard and sullen with rage against him. He had lifted the golden apples in her basket of silver, and had scorned them; she was astonished and dully angered.
But she was never swept away on any impulse, not even on that of anger, which was the strongest with her.
She looked up at last, and saw his eyes watch her with a piteous tender eagerness, and he held out his hands to her.
“I cannot take your hands,” she said; “no, not in fairness. And yet I am not to blame; not in the way you think. Signa, I owe you nothing. I need tell you nothing. Yet, because we were children together, as you say, I will tell you all the truth.”
And then she built him up a tale of lies — such as would touch him most. Poor Signa! whose face had paled if she had trapped a bird, whose heart had sorrowed for each kid that went to slaughter in the old times, when the Lastra and its green vine‐ways had been the only world to both of them.
To Bruno and his people he was changed utterly. They looked up at him from the twilight of their ignorance and obscurity. To her he was changed in nothing. She looked down on him from the broad noon day on the heights of her prosperity.
For five full years, she had studied the full world of men; to her he was only a boy, a peasant, a dreamer, a fool — inspired, perhaps; but only the greater fool for that.
Outside there was the shining beauty of lake, and wood, and mountain; within, the softly‐ shaded room, filled with paintings, statues, flowers. Gemma in her white robes of morning, dead white, such as made the fairness of her look like a rose set amongst lilies, turned a little from him, half lying amongst her cushions, and told him the story of her life from that day of the fair in Prato.
“Dear Signa, I was a little wilful selfish thing. I wanted to see a bigger brighter life than any we had upon our hills. The man persuaded me. He promised me all sorts of golden toys, and never‐ending feast‐days. Yes. He took me with him in that fishing smack. We were hidden in Genoa little while, then we went northward. We were treated like beaten dogs, once in his power. There were many other children. He sent us out in rain, and wind, and snow. To him it did not matter what we suffered. We sold images, or tumbled in the streets, or hawked flowers, or went with an organ. We wandered from town to town; all over the world sometimes, I think; we crossed seas often, and mountains; where I do not know; I was a little stupid thing. I was made black and blue with thrashing. Dear — I was punished for my selfish fault; punished beyond all telling. Night after night I cried myself asleep, longing for you, and Palma, and green Giovoli. In a few years the man sold me to a set of player people, low comedians, who went about with a travelling theatre, and dressed me up in spangles, and whipped me to make me dance. Nay, dear! how pale you look. Oh, it is all over — long ago. I had no talent. You know I never had talent as you had. Nature has made me so good to look at; it does not matter for the rest. I did not act well; I was just looked at, and of course I could jump and dance — you will remember that. You recollect old Maro from the Marches teaching us the salterello, and you and I dancing it every minute that we could? And at the fair, how pleased they were, and you, with the great tears running down your cheeks all the while you danced it. Ah, yes, yes, yes! Signa — it seems like yesterday.”
She paused a little while; and turned her head away still further; his heart ached for her; he longed to take her bands, and kiss her lips, and say, “We will forget that any time has passed;” but a dark wall seemed to him between them. He could not think of her, of this lovely woman in her wealth, as Gemma; little ragged rosy Gemma, pouting and laughing in his face in the Giovoli garden, because Tista had swung her so high, so high.
And even if she were indeed Gemma, as she said, and as her remembrance proved, what could he say to her — until he knew?
The sense around him of her golden shame stifled him, and kept him mute. He felt as Palma would have felt. It was not this woman that he cared for; it was his little playmate lost on the sands of the Mediterranean sea.
“I was sold to these players,” she said; “sold just as a monkey might be, or a goat that knew some tricks. They sold me in their turn to others. I was made into little Loves, and had wings, and looked pretty; or else danced in pretty costumes; we went here, and there, and everywhere; they treated me well, and I liked it. I knew no better. I had sweetmeats, and fruit, and fine words. It was all good enough, and merry enough, I thought. You know of old, if all went well, I did not want to look further; and indeed, what did I know? or what could I have done? A child all alone, and a thousand miles, they said, away from home! Amongst them I learned to read, and learned some few other things. I do not know much, except the world. That is so big a book, you know; one does not want another. Signa, try and understand. Do not be harsh; I was not great of heart, and near to heaven, as you were when you were a child; nor plodding, and honest, and loving the saints, like Palma. I loved — myself. And wanted to enjoy. God made me such a weak and selfish thing. You know he makes bees and butterflies. Dear, I was in so bad an air; it reeked with shamelessness; if you had anything to sell, your body or your soul, you sold it, and spent the money; why not? they said. When I was sixteen they betrayed me; we were in Vienna, then; there was a woman that I trusted. Oh, it is a common thing; quite common. When I knew the thing that they had made me, I grew blind and reckless; I was turned to stone, only stone that shut a devil in it, as the marble shuts a toad sometimes, they say. He who had bought me, bought me stupefied, like any moth you kill with sulphur smoke; was rich and a great man in his way. He covered his new toy with diamonds and gold. I grew the fashion. You have fame. That is another thing. Fame is a comet burning itself with its own fire as it travels. Fashion is the wax‐light in a ball‐room. I like the ball‐room best. You see space, and all the worlds set round about what men will call the throne of God, no doubt. But I—”
She laughed a little: she had forgotten for the moment that she did not mean to let him see the truth of her — not then; whatever afterwards might come.
He listened; his breath came brokenly; his lips were dry. He raised his head, and gazed at her, almost blankly.
“You can jest!”
The words recalled to her the thing she wished to seem to him.
“Yes. I jest; if you call that jesting. I saw a man once watch his house burn, the fire took his children, and made him a beggar; he laughed. So I laugh. Oh, my dear! they have not left me any heart — to laugh or cry. I would say, I pray they have not; if I were you or Palma. But then I never had much. I loved myself, you will remember that. Such love is punished. So your priests say. Well, you see now how it was with me: sixteen years old; a chattel purchased; a decked slave; a ruined thing made glorious with gilding. I am not meek, I am not good. Signa, you knew me when we were both babies. You knew I had no mercy nor gentleness to others, even then. I saw myself base, by no fault of my own. I saw myself marked out with a brand, proscribed, outcast, whilst I was myself as innocent as any yearling lamb we ever played with on the hill at home. Well I did not drown myself. I was too full of life. I looked at my own face in the mirror, and I loved it. I could not give it to the water‐rats to gnaw. You love your music. I love my loveliness. Why is one love, one vanity, worse than the other? Can you tell me? Nature put the rhythm into your brain. It put the beauty in my body. Well, why should the love of one be holiness in you, the other sin in me? But sin or not, I have it. If disease made me hideous, or accident, then I would kill myself with smoke or opiates, or some easy gentle means of death. Not otherwise. No; I did not kill myself when I knew the thing I was. Your women of romance do; but, for me, I shrink from being hurt; I hate the thought of lying underground and leaving all the rest to laughter in the sunshine. To cease to be — it is horrible! Oh, not for you who think that death will set your spirit free and carry it straight to some great world where all your dreams made true are waiting you; aye, but for us? We have only our bodies, and we dread the worms. No; I did not kill myself. I took my vengeance, I made myself the loveliest thing the world has seen for ages. They all say so. Then I melted their hearts and broke them. I slew them with a hair of the dog that had torn me. Dear, do not judge me harshly. I took solace in the strength I had; such strength as women like me have; we share it with the snake and with the panther. Your God made snakes and panthers.”
She paused; the boy was quiet; his chest rose and fell with painful breathing; his lips were cold and white; he was saying always to himself:
“Who was the man — at first?”
For he felt as if for Palma, and for poor dead merry Toto, and for his own honour’s sake, the avenging of her ought to be his own work and no other’s; had he not let her go with him that day, a little thoughtless child, over the hill and plain to Prato?
He pitied her from the bottom of his heart.
He believed the tale she told.
And he was sick with the giddiness of one who falls through mountain air from some great height. He lost his footing. He lost his hold upon the dreams and hopes of life. He was cast down from the pure simple certainty which never asked: “And is there faith in heaven and is there love?” because he was so very sure of both.
And now he was sure of nothing.
“God makes snakes and panthers.”
Yes; and God had let Gemma be made vile, with no fault in her, no sin or seeking of her own; — so he thought.
He grew dizzy. He, who had said to Palma, for her sister’s sake:
“Dear, pray always. Prayers are heard,”
“Oh, my dear! oh, my poor lost love!” he murmured, and bowed his young head upon her knees; his frame shook with pain and the shock of the first burning rage that had ever touched him.
He was bewildered. Horror possessed him. The simple, innocent affection he had kept for her shuddered and grieved for her, as a brother’s would have done. He had kept Gemma in his fancy and his hope so pure, and safe, and strong. The darkness of this irreversible fate spread over her, and made her terrible to him. Signa had all the childlike belief in heaven that a child has in its father; this struck his belief at the roots. God was good, and yet let such things be! God was great, and yet would be for ever powerless to make this horror as though it had never been! There were things then that even God could not do? Signa stared helpless at this wreck of all his faiths.
