Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) Part 19

"Thus your ancestors, the Argonauts, must have drunk," she said gayly.

"Thus your grandfather, Ulysses, undoubtedly drank."

And herself filling the captain's gla.s.s with an exaggeratedly careful division of the parts of water and wine, she added gayly:

"We are going to make a libation to the G.o.ds."

These libations were very frequent. Freya's peals of laughter made the Englishmen, interrupted in their conscientious work, turn their glances toward her. The sailor felt himself overcome by a warm feeling of well-being, by a sensation of repose and confidence, as though this woman were unquestionably his already.

Seeing that the two lovers, terminating their luncheon hastily, were arising with blus.h.i.+ng precipitation as though overpowered by some sudden desire, his glance became tender and fraternal.... Adieu, adieu, companions!

The voice of the widow recalled him to reality.

"Ulysses, make love to me.... You haven't yet told me this whole day long that you love me."

In spite of the smiling and mocking tone of this order, he obeyed her, repeating once more his promises and his desires. Wine was giving to his words a thrill of emotion; the musical moaning of the orchestra was exciting his sensibilities and he was so touched with his own eloquence that his eyes slightly filled with tears.

The high voice of the tenor, as though it were an echo of Ferragut's thought, was singing a romance of the fiesta of Piedigrotta, a lamentation of melancholy love, a canticle of death, the final mother of hopeless lovers.

"All a lie!" said Freya, laughing. "These Mediterraneans.... What comedians they are for love!..."

Ulysses was uncertain as to whether she was referring to him or to the singer. She continued talking, placid and disdainful at the same time, because of their surroundings.

"Love,... love! In these countries they can't talk of anything else. It is almost an industry, somewhat scrupulously prepared for the credulous and simple people from the North. They all harp on love: this howling singer, you ... even the oysterman...."

Then she added maliciously:

"I ought to warn you that you have a rival. Be very careful, Ferragut!"

She turned her head in order to look at the oysterman. He was occupied in the contemplation of a fat lady with grisled hair and abundant jewels, a lady escorted by her husband, who was looking with astonishment at the vendor's killing glances without being able to understand them.

The lady-killer was stroking his mustache affectedly, looking from time to time at his cloth suit in order to smooth out the wrinkles and brush off the specks of dust. He was a handsome pirate disguised as a gentleman. Upon noticing Freya's interest, he changed the course of his glances, poised his fine figure and replied to her questioning eyes with the smile of a bad angel, making her understand his discretion and skillfulness in ingratiating himself behind husbands and escorts.

"There he is!" cried Freya with peals of laughter. "I already have a new admirer!..."

The swarthy charmer was restrained by the scandalous publicity with which this lady was receiving his mysterious insinuations. Ferragut spoke of knocking the scamp down on his oyster sh.e.l.ls with a good pair of blows.

"Now don't be ridiculous," she protested. "Poor man! Perhaps he has a wife and many children.... He is the father of a family and wants to take money home."

There was a long silence between the two. Ulysses appeared offended by the lightness and cruelty of his companion.

"Now don't you be cross," she said. "See here, my shark! Smile a bit.

Show me your teeth.... The libations to the G.o.ds are to blame. Are you offended because I wished to compare you with that clown?... What if you are the only man that I appreciate at all!... Ulysses, I am speaking to you seriously,--with all the frankness that wine gives. I ought not to tell you so, but I admit it.... If I should ever love a man, that man would be you."

Ferragut instantly forgot all his irritation in order to listen to her and envelop her in the adoring light of his eyes. Freya averted her glance while speaking, not wis.h.i.+ng to meet his eye, as though she were weighing what she was saying while her glance wandered over the widespread landscape.

Ulysses' origin was what interested her most. She who had traveled over almost the entire world, had trodden the soil of Spain only a few hours, when disembarking in Barcelona from the transatlantic liner which he had commanded. The Spaniards inspired her both with fear and attraction. A n.o.ble gravity reposed in the depths of their ardent hyperbole.

"You are an exaggerated being, a meridional who enlarges everything and lies about everything, believing all his own lies. But I am sure that if you should ever be really in love with me, without fine phrases or pa.s.sionate fictions, your affection would be more sane and deep than that of other men.... My friend, the doctor, says that you are a crude people and that you have only simulated the nervousness, unbalanced behavior, and intrigues that accompany love in other civilized countries even to refinement."

Freya looked at the sailor, making a long pause.

"Therefore you strike," she continued, "therefore you kill when you feel love and jealousy. You are brutes but not mediocre. You do not abandon a woman intentionally; you do not exploit her.... You are a new species of man for me, who has known so many. If I were able to believe in love, I would have you at my side all my life.... All my life long!"

A light, gentle music, like the vibration of fragile and delicate crystal, spread itself over the terrace. Freya followed its rhythm with a light motion of the head. She was accustomed to this cloying music, this _Serenata_ of Toselli,--a pa.s.sionate lament that always touches the soul of the tourist in the halls of the grand hotels. She, who at other times had ridiculed this artificial and refined little music, now felt tears welling up in her eyes.

"Not to be able to love anybody!" she murmured. "To wander alone through the world!... And love is such a beautiful thing!"

She guessed what Ferragut was going to say,--his protest of eternal pa.s.sion, his offer to unite his life to hers forever, and she cut his words short with an energetic gesture.

"No, Ulysses, you do not know me; you do not know who I am.... Go far from me. Some days ago it was a matter of indifference to me. I hate men and do not mind injuring them, but now you inspire me with a certain interest because I believe you are good and frank in spite of your haughty exterior.... Go! Do not seek me. This is the best proof of affection that I can give you."

She said this vehemently, as if she saw Ferragut running toward danger and was crying out in order to ward him from it.

"On the stage," she continued, "there is a role that they call 'The Fatal Woman,' and certain artists are not able to play any other part.

They were born to represent this personage.... I am a 'Fatal Woman,'

but really and truly.... If you could know my life!... It is better that you do not know it; even I wish to ignore it. I am happy only when I forget it.... Ferragut, my friend, bid me farewell, and do not cross my path again."

But Ferragut protested as though she were proposing a cowardly thing to him. Flee? Loving her so much? If she had enemies, she could rely upon him for her defense; if she wanted wealth, he wasn't a millionaire, but....

"Captain," interrupted Freya, "go back to your own people. I was not meant for you. Think of your wife and son; follow your own life. I am not the conquest that is cherished for a few weeks, no more. n.o.body can trust me with impunity. I have suckers just like the animals that we saw the other day; I burn and sting just like those transparent parasols in the Aquarium. Flee, Ferragut!.... Leave me alone....

Alone!"

And the image of the immense barrenness of her lonely future made the tears gush from her eyes.

The music had ceased. A motionless waiter was pretending to look far away, while really listening to their conversation. The two Englishmen had interrupted their painting in order to glare at this _gentleman_ who was making a lady weep. The sailor began to feel the nervous disquietude which a difficult situation creates.

"Ferragut, pay and let us go," she said, divining his state of mind.

While Ulysses was giving money to the waiters and musicians, she dried her eyes and repaired the ravages to her complexion, drawing from her gold-mesh bag a powder puff and little mirror in whose oval she contemplated herself for a long time.

As they pa.s.sed out, the oysterman turned his back, pretending to be very much occupied in the arrangement of the lemons that were adorning his stand. She could not see his face, but she guessed, nevertheless, that he was muttering a bad word,--the most terrible that can be said of a woman.

They went slowly toward the station of the funicular road, through solitary streets and between garden walls one side of which was yellow in the golden sunlight and the other blue in the shade. She it was who sought Ulysses' arm, supporting herself on it with a childish abandon as if fatigue had overcome her after the first few steps.

Ferragut pressed this arm close against his body, feeling at once the stimulus of contact. n.o.body could see them; their footsteps resounded on the pavements with the echo of an abandoned place. The fermented ardor of those libations to the G.o.ds was giving the captain a new audacity.

"My poor little darling!... Dear little crazy-head!..." he murmured, drawing closer to him Freya's head which was resting on one of his shoulders.

He kissed her without her making any resistance. And she in turn kissed him, but with a sad, light, faint-hearted kiss that in no way recalled the hysterical caress of the Aquarium. Her voice, which appeared to be coming from afar off, was repeating what she had counseled him in the _trattoria_.

"Begone, Ulysses! Do not see me any more. I tell you this for your own good.... I bring trouble. I should be sorry to have you curse the moment in which you met me."

The sailor took advantage of all the windings of the streets in order to cut these recommendations short with his kisses. She advanced limply as though towed by him with no will power of her own, as though she were walking in her sleep. A voice was singing with diabolic satisfaction in the captain's brain:

"Now it is ripe!... Now it is ripe!..."

And he continued pulling her along always in a direct line, not knowing whither he was going, but sure of his triumph.

Near the station an old man approached the pair,--a white-haired, respectable gentleman with an old jacket and spectacles. He gave them the card of a hotel which he owned in the neighborhood, boasting of the good qualities of its rooms. "Every modern comfort.... Hot water."