Woman and Puppet 2

Woman and Puppet 2

CHAPTER II

 

 

Her carriage had turned the corner of the street. André went in

pursuit, anxious not to lose a second chance that might be the last. He

arrived as the horses went through the gates of a house in the Plaza

del Triunfo. The great black gates closed upon the rapidly caught

silhouette of a woman.

 

Without doubt it would have been wiser if he had prepared to learn the

name and family, or mode of life of the stranger, before bursting into

all the divine unknown of any such intrigue, in which, knowing nothing,

he could not be master of anything. André nevertheless resolved not

to quit the place without a first effort to find out something. He

deliberately rang the gate bell.

 

A young custodian came, but did not open the gates.

 

“What does Your Grace demand?”

 

“Take my card to the Señora.”

 

“To what Señora?”

 

“To the one who lives here, I presume.”

 

“But her name?”

 

“I say that your mistress awaits me.”

 

The man bowed and made a deprecatory sign with his hands, then retired

without opening the gates or taking the card.

 

Then André rang a second and third time. Anger had made him

discourteous.

 

“A woman so prompt to reply to a declaration of this type,” he thought,

“cannot be surprised that one insists upon trying to see her.” It did

not occur to him that the Carnival and the bacchanal forgives passing

follies, that are not usually permitted in normal social life.

 

What was to be done? He paced to and fro, but there was no sight of her

and no sign. Near the house was a stall-keeper whom André bribed and

questioned. But the man replied--

 

“The Señora purchases of me, but if she knew I talked of her to any one

she would buy of my rivals. I can only tell you her name: she is the

Señora Dona Concepcion Perez, wife of Don Manuel Garcia. Her husband is

in Bolivia.”

 

André heard no more, but returned to his hotel and remained there

undecided. Even upon learning of the absence of the Señora’s husband,

he had not also learnt that all the chances were upon his side. The

reserve of the dealer, who seemed to know more than he would care to

say, rather left one with the idea that there was another and luckier

lover already chosen and enthroned. The attitude of the servant at the

gates increased this awkward afterthought.

 

André had to return to Paris in two weeks’ time. Would those weeks

suffice for planning and effecting an entry into the life of a

beautiful young dame, whose life was without much doubt planned,

rounded, complete?

 

While thus troubled with his incertitudes a letter was handed to him.

It had no address on the envelope. He said, “Are you sure that this

letter is for me?”

 

“It has just been given to me for Don Andrés Stévenol.”

 

The letter was written upon a blue card, and was as follows--

 

“Don Andrés Stévenol is begged to not make so much noise, to not give

his name or demand to know mine. If he is out walking to-morrow about

three on the Empalme route a carriage will be passing. It may stop.”

 

André thought how easy life was, and already had visions of approaching

intimacy. He even sought for and murmured the most tender little forms

of her charming Christian name Concepcion, Concha, Conchita, Chita.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

 

On the morning of the morrow André Stévenol had a radiant awakening.

The light flooded his room, which had four windows. There also came to

him the murmurs of the town. There were the feet of horses passing,

street cries, mules’ bells, and the bells of convents.

 

He could not recall having known a morning as happy as this present

one was; no, not for a long time. He flung out his arms and stretched

them; then held them tightly folded around his breast as though to

give himself the illusion or the anticipation of that eagerly awaited

embrace.

 

“How easy, how simple the affairs of life are, after all!” So he mused,

smiling. “Yesterday, at this hour I was alone, without an object to

fill my mind, almost without a thought. It was merely necessary to

take a walk and, behold! a change of scene, a love-affair in view. What

is the use of taking any notice of refusals, of disdain, or any such

things. We desire and demand, and the women give themselves. Why should

it ever be otherwise?”

 

He rose, and in dressing-gown and slippers rang for his bath to be

prepared. Whilst waiting with his forehead pressed to the window-panes

he stared into the thoroughfare before him, now full of the stir

of day. The houses in sight were painted in light colours that

Seville favours as a rule: colours like the gay tints of women’s

dresses--cream, rose, green, orange, violet, but not the fearful

brown of Cadiz or Madrid, or the crude white of Jérez. There were

orange-trees in sight, bearing fruit; running fountains and laughing

girls, holding their shawls close. From all sides come the sound of

the mules’ bells. André could not then imagine any other place in which

to live but--Seville.

 

He finished dressing, and slowly sipped a little cup of the thick

Spanish chocolate, then, easy in mind, almost aimlessly he went out

into the busy street.

 

By chance he went the shortest way, to the Plaza del Triunfo. Then he

remembered that he was not to haunt the residence of his “mistress,”

as he called her to himself, so he went to Las Delicias. The place was

strewn with paper and the usual signs of the Carnival. It was also

deserted, for Lent had recommenced. Nevertheless, by a way that led

from the city’s outskirts, André saw coming towards him one whom he

recognized.

 

“Good-day, Don Mateo,” he said, holding out his hand. “I had not

thought of seeing you so soon.”

 

“Well, here I am, alone, idle and at a loose end. I stroll about in the

morning and evening, and fill up most of the day reading or playing in

some way. It’s a dull sort of existence.”

 

“But you have nights that console the monotony of the days, if one may

credit the chatter of the city busybody?”

 

“Whoever says so says wrongly. From now to the day of his death Don

Mateo Diaz has no woman about him. But do not let us talk about me. For

how long are you still going to remain here?”

 

Don Mateo was a Spaniard, forty years old, to whom André had been

introduced during his first stay in Spain. He was a man of florid

phrase and declamatory gesture, very rich, and famed for his love

affairs. So André was surprised to hear that he had renounced the

pomps and vanities of the flesh, but did not attempt to weary him with

questions.

 

They walked by the river for a time, and all their talk was of Spain,

its people, its policy, and history.

 

Then, “You will come and break your fast or lunch,” said Don Mateo.

“My place is there, near the route D’Empalme. We shall be there in

a half-hour, and, if you will permit me, I will keep you till the

evening. I have some fine horses I should like to show off before you.”

 

“I agree to take lunch with you,” said André, “but I cannot stay. This

evening I have a rendezvous that I must not fail to keep; that is a

fact.”

 

“A lady ... I ask no questions. But stay as long as you can. When I was

your age I did not want to be bothered with the outer world during my

’days of mystery.’ The only person I loved to speak to on such days was

the woman of the moment.”

 

Don Mateo was silent for a while, then said in a tone of advice--

 

“Ah, guard yourself against the women! I should be the last man to say

fly from them, for I have spent my life upon them until now. And if

I had my life to live again, the hours passed with women are those I

would most desire to revive. But guard yourself; guard yourself!”

 

Then, as though he had found a phrase that fitted exactly to his

thoughts, Don Mateo added more slowly--

 

“There are two kinds of women that one should avoid, at all cost: those

who do not love you, and those who do. Between these two extremes

there are thousands of women of great charm, but we do not know how to

appreciate them.”

 

The lunch would have been very slow indeed if the animation of Don

Mateo had not replaced by a monologue the interchange of thought for

thought that should have taken place. André was mentally preoccupied,

and only appeared to hear the half of what his host said to him. As the

hour of his assignation drew nearer, the throbbing of his heart, as on

the Carnival day, came back to him, but intensified. It was a kind of

persistent appeal within him, and all thoughts save the thought of the

longed-for woman were driven out of him. He would have given much for

the hands of the dial near him to have pointed to the next hour, but

the face of the clock was cold to his emotion, and time would no more flow than the water of a stagnant pond.