Read Ebook: Confédération Balkanique by Peri Ivojin

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Ebook has 77 lines and 9319 words, and 2 pages

"But," replied Gabrielle, wondering, "if love be the source of all wretchedness, why is it's song so sweet?"

"Because fools have their folly!" cried Margot. "Love-songs are sweet to a lover, as folly is dear to a fool. Worship thy God," she said harshly, "and leave foolishness to the fool!"

"Love--foolishness?" said Gabrielle, puzzled. "You told me that God is love!" She turned the riddle over and over in her mind.

"What ails you?" asked Margot.

"Nothing," said Gabrielle. But a flush stole up her cheeks. "How does a woman know, Mother, that she loves, so that she may say certainly, 'This is love'?"

"But, Mother," protested Gabrielle, "they tell me that love is sweet!"

"Sweet? As wormwood!" said Margot hoarsely. "It is nothing but fever and fret."

"Many I see who have it; but none who fret. Might I not know for myself a little of this pretty play of lovers and beloved?" besought Gabrielle.

Margot looked at Gabrielle and trembled, seeing the shadow upon her, foreseeing the fate of her loveliness, perceiving indiscretion's lips at the rim of the cup of terror. "What man has snared your silly heart?" she asked.

Gabrielle stared at her. "Why should any man snare my heart?" she asked in pitiful wonder. "I have never harmed any man, nor any living thing." She caught her breath. "Oh, Mother, feel my heart beating! It beats as if it would burst. Why does my heart beat so? Am I dying? Do you think that I must die? Yet, Mother, my heart is aching so that I would that I could die! Is not what God made good ... you told me that God was love ... was not mankind made by God ... and is not love the world's delight?"

"It is its direst misery," said Margot bitterly. "God keep you from it. Two parts are pain, two sorrow, and the other two parts are death."

"I don't fear death," said Gabrielle. "Then why should I fear love?"

"Because it is a lie," cried Margot, beside herself. "I conjure you, by God's sorrow, close your ears against it."

"How can I close my ears against it when I hear it in my sleep?"

Margot's delight in her daughter's beauty was turned into bitterness. "Peace!" she cried. "And leave me. All this will pass away." But, deep within, her heart said, "Never!" Innocence will be indiscreet. Sin alone is always clever. And in youth great things are lightly asked and lightly given. "Go!" she cried to Gabrielle.

Gabrielle left the room. Margot buried her face in her hands.

It is hard for woman to stand alone and to resist temptation forever. Soon or late the black moment comes; reason is off guard; prudence abandons her; caution is thrown to the winds: passion betrays. Here is an irremediable disease which baffles the skill of the physicians. Margot recoiled as she faced the future. Time had become a terror. Burning tears flowed down her cheeks. There is no woe so sickening as the monotone of fear, the shuddering, interior sense of impending catastrophe. Nor is it eased by the strange apathy which is granted to the doomed. Margot groaned in an agony, half remorse, half apprehension. Could God set so foul a seal upon so fair a thing?

Again on a day Gabrielle came in from the garden, her eyes dry-burning and famine-bright. "Mother, give me a lover!" she cried. "Nietta Pascault has one!"

"Then alas and alack for Nietta Pascault!" cried Margot.

"But, Mother, he called her his heart's delight; she did not speak, but she kissed him; and he kissed her until he must have bruised her lips; yet she did not seem to care ... rather she seemed to like it. And all he said was 'Love me! Love me!' and all she said was 'Yes,' and 'Yes!' And when he kissed her she grew pale; I thought that she was dead, ... but he held her in his arms, Mother, and kissed her again and again, as though he would kiss her back to life. Will kisses bring one back from the dead? For, Mother, suddenly she opened her eyes as if she lived only for love; and then all he said was 'Love me!' and all she said was 'Yes!'"

Margot's heart fainted.

Day after day Gabrielle knelt in the garden and plead for her heart's desire. Night after night Margot crouched on her floor and prayed, in despair and agony, that it might not be given her. Heaven's custodian mingled their prayers in fatal entanglement; one was answered, and one was not: he is responsible.

Sunset lay on Margot's garden. The paths still shimmered with the day's heat, though the lax grass lifted in the shadows. Nameless perfumes wandered among the drowsily-bending flowers; the odor of warm boxwood rose from the hedge. The hedge stood black against the sky; in its glistening, fragrant deeps small birds moved swiftly to and fro in curious agitation.

Gabrielle, puzzling upon life's unanswered riddle, stood listening to sounds beyond the hedge. Everywhere was the patter of hurrying feet, and the whisper of wordless laughter, mockingly borne on the evening wind. The air was full of the golden vision of light-footed maidens with fluttering garments, flying through Lilac lane, pursued by ardent and breathless lovers, eagerly following where they fled. The sound of laughter floated back along the narrow way, and the little faint echo of flying feet. It was that time of the year when all maids are sweet as freshly gathered flowers, and all men are a little mad. Even the earth, drab clod, was astir with the ecstasy of approaching night.

Beneath the broad-boughed magnolia grew a pomegranate-tree whose branches shrouded the greater tree's bole. The scarlet pomegranate flowers hung over Gabrielle; the green leaves folded her in. Faint color came fitfully over her cheek; her eyes roamed restlessly through the garden, but found no solace there. As she stood thus, brooding on life's inexplicable theme, she was aware of a sudden shadow which fell on the grass beside her, and turned in voiceless terror.

There was a face in the green hedge, smiling, two butterflies hovering over it,--a lad's face, laughing and debonair, with yellow hair curling around it like crisp little golden flames; his cheeks were as ruddy and smooth as a child's; his eyes were blue as the morning, swift and bright; the leaves stirred all around him as if to the beat of wings; there was confidence in his bearing, easy lordship beau de r?fl?chir, mais la soci?t? n'en vit pas. Si la philosophie peut se contenter de la r?flexion, la soci?t? demande autre chose encore: l'action, le travail. Le Turc est philosophe, parce qu'il lui est possible de l'?tre: pendant qu'il r?fl?chit, le giaour travaille pour lui. C'est comme dans l'ancienne Gr?ce: Aristote et Platon pouvaient bien se consacrer ? la philosophie, puisque leurs esclaves labouraient les champs pour eux. Le Turc a toujours ?t? tel et il restera tel. Il a ?t? et il sera l'homme de la rive de la r?flexion.

Par sa nature, le Turc est encore plus inutile pour la civilisation que la race noire, ?galement r?barbative ? la culture. En effet, si l'on ne peut faire d'un n?gre un homme civilis?, du moins peut-on en faire un travailleur. Les n?gres sont, comme on le sait, un ?l?ment dont les Europ?ens tirent de grands profits dans leurs entreprises coloniales. Un n?gre n'a pas honte d'?tre employ? ? des besognes toutes manuelles. Il en est autrement d'un Turc: il est paresseux, except? en ce qui concerne la r?flexion, ou il est infatigable: il peut passer des journ?es enti?res dans la contemplation et la r?flexion, c'est-?-dire dans l'oisivet?; il est paresseux, disons-nous, parce qu'il est fataliste: ? quoi bon se mouvoir et agir, puisque l'homme est impuissant ? d?ranger, tant soit peu, l'ordre naturel des choses, puisque tout se passera comme la fatalit? immuable l'aura ordonn?? Ou bien, il est fataliste parce qu'il est paresseux: pour donner ? sa paresse une explication philosophique, il la rattache au fatalisme. Et quant ? son orgueil, c'est un obstacle ? ce qu'il puisse ?tre employ? utilement, comme on emploie les n?gres: il est d?gradant pour un Mahom?tan de travailler, surtout s'il s'agit de travaux corporels.

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