第90章

Coming out of the bright light of the studio I didn't make out Therese very distinctly.She, however, having groped in dark cupboards, must have had her pupils sufficiently dilated to have seen that I had my hat on my head.This has its importance because after what I had said to her upstairs it must have convinced her that I was going out on some midnight business.I passed her without a word and heard behind me the door of the studio close with an unexpected crash.It strikes me now that under the circumstances I might have without shame gone back to listen at the keyhole.But truth to say the association of events was not so clear in my mind as it may be to the reader of this story.Neither were the exact connections of persons present to my mind.And, besides, one doesn't listen at a keyhole but in pursuance of some plan; unless one is afflicted by a vulgar and fatuous curiosity.

But that vice is not in my character.As to plan, I had none.Imoved along the passage between the dead wall and the black-and-white marble elevation of the staircase with hushed footsteps, as though there had been a mortally sick person somewhere in the house.And the only person that could have answered to that description was Senor Ortega.I moved on, stealthy, absorbed, undecided; asking myself earnestly: "What on earth am I going to do with him?" That exclusive preoccupation of my mind was as dangerous to Senor Ortega as typhoid fever would have been.It strikes me that this comparison is very exact.People recover from typhoid fever, but generally the chance is considered poor.This was precisely his case.His chance was poor; though I had no more animosity towards him than a virulent disease has against the victim it lays low.He really would have nothing to reproach me with; he had run up against me, unwittingly, as a man enters an infected place, and now he was very ill, very ill indeed.No, Ihad no plans against him.I had only the feeling that he was in mortal danger.

I believe that men of the most daring character (and I make no claim to it) often do shrink from the logical processes of thought.

It is only the devil, they say, that loves logic.But I was not a devil.I was not even a victim of the devil.It was only that Ihad given up the direction of my intelligence before the problem;or rather that the problem had dispossessed my intelligence and reigned in its stead side by side with a superstitious awe.Adreadful order seemed to lurk in the darkest shadows of life.The madness of that Carlist with the soul of a Jacobin, the vile fears of Baron H., that excellent organizer of supplies, the contact of their two ferocious stupidities, and last, by a remote disaster at sea, my love brought into direct contact with the situation: all that was enough to make one shudder - not at the chance, but at the design.

For it was my love that was called upon to act here, and nothing else.And love which elevates us above all safeguards, above restraining principles, above all littlenesses of self-possession, yet keeps its feet always firmly on earth, remains marvellously practical in its suggestions.

I discovered that however much I had imagined I had given up Rita, that whatever agonies I had gone through, my hope of her had never been lost.Plucked out, stamped down, torn to shreds, it had remained with me secret, intact, invincible.Before the danger of the situation it sprang, full of life, up in arms - the undying child of immortal love.What incited me was independent of honour and compassion; it was the prompting of a love supreme, practical, remorseless in its aim; it was the practical thought that no woman need be counted as lost for ever, unless she be dead!

This excluded for the moment all considerations of ways and means and risks and difficulties.Its tremendous intensity robbed it of all direction and left me adrift in the big black-and-white hall as on a silent sea.It was not, properly speaking, irresolution.It was merely hesitation as to the next immediate step, and that step even of no great importance: hesitation merely as to the best way I could spend the rest of the night.I didn't think further forward for many reasons, more or less optimistic, but mainly because I have no homicidal vein in my composition.The disposition to gloat over homicide was in that miserable creature in the studio, the potential Jacobin; in that confounded buyer of agricultural produce, the punctual employe of Hernandez Brothers, the jealous wretch with an obscene tongue and an imagination of the same kind to drive him mad.I thought of him without pity but also without contempt.I reflected that there were no means of sending a warning to Dona Rita in Tolosa; for of course no postal communication existed with the Headquarters.And moreover what would a warning be worth in this particular case, supposing it would reach her, that she would believe it, and that she would know what to do? How could I communicate to another that certitude which was in my mind, the more absolute because without proofs that one could produce?

The last expression of Rose's distress rang again in my ears: