The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

Lubimoff again nodded assent. "Really, it didn't seem reasonable!"

"There are moments," she said, "when I feel an unexplainable joy, a mysterious intuition, that I'm going to receive good news, – the feeling I have on the days when I go to the Casino sure of winning, – and do win. I wrote to the King of Spain, who is interested in ascertaining the fate of prisoners, and who often succeeds in getting them sent back to their homes. I have had a great number of friends write to him. If he could only give me back my George! At least I expect to learn good news; to find out where he is, and convince myself that he is alive. I would be satisfied if they interned him in Switzerland, the way they do with the seriously wounded, and I would go and live with him. How happy I would be if he were in Lausanne or Vevey, beside the lake, like my husband!"

There was a sad, kindly smile on her face as she thought of the Duke.

"Oh, I haven't forgotten him, I assure you. Everything that's left over from George's boxes, I send to him by way of Geneva. 'For Lieutenant-Colonel de Delille.' Oh, it reaches him, without any difficulty! Poor fellow! His answers are almost love letters. I send him sausages and canned things, in memory of the twenty louis bouquets he used to send me when he was courting me. What are we coming to, Michael! Who could ever have imagined that everything and everybody would be so topsy-turvy!"

Already she was talking more calmly, as though the memory of her son was no longer in the foreground of her thoughts.

"Everything seems to tell me I'm going to get good news. Misfortune can't last so very much longer. Doesn't it seem that way to you? It's like bad luck in play: it finally goes away. The main thing is to save your strength in order to resist it. I ought to feel satisfied. I was so excited I could hardly sleep last night. I went above the thirty; you know: the thirty thousand francs that used to be the limit of my luck. Last night I won eighty thousand. Your friend Lewis was furious. He says it takes a woman to do a thing like that: to win, playing haphazard, defying all the rules."

From the look on the Prince's face she guessed his surprise at her merriment following so closely on her recent tears.

"I can't stay by myself. I have such memories! Perhaps you heard me singing, as you came up-stairs. It's an English song my son used to sing. In the morning I used to go and listen at his door like a sweetheart who, while waiting for him to appear, is glad to hear the voice of the man she loves. Whenever I'm alone I sing it over mechanically; I try to imagine it is George singing, and my eyes fill with tears, but with tears of tenderness that are very sweet. While I was making the bed it seemed as though I heard him, going back and forth in his bedroom, with me waiting and listening in the hall. My voice was his voice. That was why I fairly trembled when you came in. For a moment I supposed you were he. How wonderful it will be when I see him!.. I'm sure I shall see him. Misfortune can't last forever. Don't you think I'll see him?"

Her closed eyes seemed to smile on a far-off vision of hope. And Michael, who had remained silent for a long time, spoke to give her encouragement. Poor woman! Yes; she would see her son. At his age a man can stand any hardship. He would return; they would both be happy once more, talking over their present troubles, as though it had all been a bad dream.

"Besides, I will help you. We must get busy and take steps to have your son returned to you. I shall write to the King of Spain. I knew him. He had lunch on my yacht once when I was in San Sebastian. I have friends in Paris, men in politics, and diplomats; I shall write to all of them. And if worse comes to worst, and there's no other way out of it, I shall try through the medium of some neutral government to get a letter through to Wilhelm II. Perhaps he may pay some attention to me. He must remember me, and his visit to my boat."

Now it was her turn to look at him fixedly through a mist of tears, smiling, at the same time, to express her gratitude.

"How kind you are!" she exclaimed after a long silence. "The day when I was in Villa Sirena for the first time I was convinced that I had made a great mistake. How little we knew each other! We needed adversity to see each other as we really are. First you offered to relieve my poverty, and now you are going to try to get me back my son!"

She let herself be carried away by an impulse of affection. Michael saw her bend her head, and suddenly felt the contact of her lips on his hand. He heard two loud kisses and a voice whispering: "Thanks … thanks." The Prince rose to his feet. He could not tolerate such expression of humility. But at the same time she too stood up; their eyes were on a level. As though desiring to complete the recent caress, she took his head impulsively in her hands, and kissed him on the brow.

A sudden wave of human fragrance, like that which had enveloped him when the sheet had been thrown on his face, once more stirred the depths of his being. He realized that the caress meant nothing: that it was merely a kiss of gratitude, a sudden outburst of feeling on the part of a mother expressing her emotion with unusual impetuousness. In spite of this, he felt himself dominated by passion, cruel and at the same time voluptuous, causing him to reach out his arms to master and embrace what he held within reach… But his hands touched empty space.

Repenting her act, she had stepped back, retreating a few steps. She was standing in the doorway, ready to continue her flight, mechanically straightening her hair, and drying her tears, as a deep blush spread over her features.

"I didn't know what I was doing!" she murmured. "Forgive me. I was so grateful to learn that you wanted to help me!"

At the same time she pointed to the balcony. Below, in the garden, the voice of the gardener could be heard telling his dog to stop that barking all the time at the foot of the stairs, as though a thief were inside the villa.

"Let us go," she commanded gravely. "The servants will soon be coming back from mass. I shouldn't like to have them find us here in my bedroom. They might think…"

Calming down, Lubimoff noted the unconscious modesty, and the evident uneasiness with which she said this. He suddenly recalled the woman of the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, and her daring theories. Was it really the same person?

As they went downstairs she turned her head to talk to him, as though she had read his thoughts.

"You must be amused at me. What a change from the Alicia of former times! I'm not so bad as I seem, that much is certain, isn't it? Tell me you don't think I'm so bad; tell me you think I'm only mad; mad, and always unlucky."

She opened the rooms downstairs to show how orderly they looked, but the chill of the deserted drawing room, the covers on the furniture, and the musty odor, like that of a damp cellar, prompted them to go out into the garden and, like two people prolonging their farewell, continue their conversation at the foot of the stairway.

The elderly maid of the Duchess, and the gardener's wife who looked after the cooking, passed them repeatedly on various pretexts. They bowed to the gentleman, with a look of adoration and a pleasant smile. They seemed to be saying to themselves: "That nice fellow is Prince Lubimoff, the one that's so much talked about." They had often heard his name in Villa Rosa, and they both venerated him as a providential being who could restore the vanished days of abundance with a mere wave of the hand.

Michael thought it best not to prolong his visit.

"Come and see me," she said in a low voice, as she accompanied him out to the gate. "Now you know everything. You're the only one who does. It will seem very sweet to me to talk with you, and have you console and help me."

The Prince spent the next few hours, pensive and silent. So many new things had come up all at once! First there had been the revelation of a son, whose existence he never could have imagined; next, the untamable creature of love changed into a mother; her tears, her silent suffering, which she was bearing, like a convict's chain, in expiation of her mad past. And the crowning surprise of all had been what he had felt within himself, the resurrection of his former being, his new surrender to the domination of the flesh, and the double lashing his nervous system had received in breathing the perfume of the soft linen and feeling the imprint of her lips on his brow.

This latter he wished to forget, and to succeed in doing so he concentrated all his attention on the revelations she had made, and on her maternal sorrows. Poor Alicia! Finding her impoverished and tearful, with no other help than that which he might give, he began to feel a lasting affection for her. It was the affection of the strong for the weak; a paternal love which did not take into account the similarity in their ages, nor the difference of sex; a tenderness made up for the most part of a certain sweet pity. He was moved by the memory of the humble kiss with which she had caressed his hands. It was the kiss, almost of a beggar. Unhappy woman! This was enough to make him feel obliged never to abandon her.

Alicia's pride, her desire to dominate, had formerly irritated him. Accustomed to protecting women generously without ever submitting to their will, considering them in the light of something agreeable and inferior, he could not compromise with her haughty character. They were both people too strong and domineering to be able to tolerate each other. But now everything was changed.

He remembered her as he had seen her in the bedroom, sorrowful, weeping, with pearls hanging from the corners of her eyes, which were tragically beautiful, as in the images of the Virgin, where Mary is holding the body of the crucified Christ on her knees. Mater Dolorosa!

But there seemed to be another person within the Prince protesting with cold, clear-sightedness against this image. No, she was not the Mother of Sorrows. A mother never abandons her son. She renounces all of the vanities of this world for him. She gives up her present and her future, as though she had no other life than that of her son, part of her own flesh. At all hours she gives him the milk of her breast. Moment by moment she follows his development, fighting with illness, laughing at danger. To love him she does not have to wait for him to grow to the full splendor of adolescence. Whereas she…!

She was the Venus Dolorosa. Even in the moments of deepest despair she maintained her beauty, and her grief seemed a new means of seduction. She was a mother; but she continued to be a woman, that terrible, destructive woman whom the Prince had always hated. Look out, Michael!

But with a smile of superiority he replied inwardly to this reflection.

"Perhaps I am going to fall in love with her," he said to himself. "I am fond of her as I never thought I could be, but only as a friend, a companion worthy of pity, one whom I ought to protect."

At lunch time Spadoni did not turn up at Villa Sirena. Atilio had seen him at the Casino with some English friends from Nice. They were probably lunching together at the Hôtel de Paris to work out some new system or other. The last thing they had tried was for the four of them to play at different tables, but with the same system of combinations, a device that the pianist boasted would prove infallible.

After they had had their coffee, all the guests of the luxurious villa seemed possessed by the same restlessness, which would not let them sit still.

Castro was the first one to leave, announcing that he was going to the Casino. He had a feeling that it was going to be a "great evening." He had had his eyes on a croupier who started work at half-past three. He knew this man's style of starting the ball. Every croupier has his own mannerisms. Some do it with a long sweep, and others with a short jerky motion of the arm. This particular one made it fall most frequently in seventeen, and that was Castro's number.

Novoa was the next to go, but he was less frank about it. He stammered blushingly as he said good-by to the Prince. Perhaps he would spend the afternoon with some friends from Monaco. Perhaps he would take a short trip on the Nice road as far as Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu. His was the embarrassment of a man who does not know how to lie.

The Prince was left alone. He looked at the sea for a while. Then he changed windows, and gazed at the gardens. He pressed a button to call Don Marcos. He did not know what he was going to say to him but he felt he must see him in order not to remain alone. One of the old women servants appeared, and announced that the Colonel had gone to Monte Carlo.

"He, too," the Prince said to himself.

In order to escape the tediousness of spending a Sunday afternoon alone, he took his hat and overcoat. Some power beyond his comprehension was impelling him toward the neighboring city. Turning away from the villa, he walked through the gardens.

The edifice, thus deserted, appeared larger, and its frowning and angry silence seemed to be asking him why anybody had ever been such a fool as to waste so much money and material on a box like that.

Along the nearby road, street cars and carriages were gliding, filled with city people who were coming out for a glimpse of the smiling sea, or of a group of pines, or to find a height that might afford a panoramic view.

And he, the owner of the famous gardens of Villa Sirena, was deserting all this beauty to go to a city from which others were trying to escape.

Lubimoff recalled the splendid scheme of life he had worked out a few months before: a community of lay brethren shut off from the world in a spot like paradise: music, astronomy, pleasant conversations, wholesome work. And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to follow their example. Even Toledo, the faithful admirer of that estate which he had considered the best work of his life, seemed to be suffering from the same feverish desire to get away.

Near the gate he turned to contemplate his beautiful domain as if to beg its pardon. There was a silence like that surrounding an enchanted palace. The gardens seemed asleep like dream woods.

He thought he saw at the end of a long avenue a flutter of two large birds. It was Estola and Pistola, in afternoon coats too long for them, running toward the end of the promontory. It was as though Villa Sirena had been constructed for them. They could play with the active joy of youth in these gardens, to the envy of those who lingered at the gate out of curiosity. As they ran along they were free to trample on rare plants brought from the other side of the globe; free to jump from rock to rock in search of the little fishes left by the waves in miniature lakes in the hollows of the rock, until their coat tails were wet and their shoes full of holes – to the despair of the Colonel, who made the servants pass in review before him every day.

Michael preferred not to ask himself where he was going. He surely had some end in view when he started his walk, but he felt it a nuisance to think about it. Suddenly he saw two currents of people coming from opposite directions, meeting and mingling, as they both mounted a short winding stairway which was divided by two hand-rails, and was covered by three red carpets.

He was in front of the Casino. On one side, were arriving the people who had just come by train, on the other, those who had been gathered in by all the street cars from the towns on the Riviera between Nice and Monte Carlo.

That evening a celebrated Italian tenor was singing, and many of the people, forgetting their game for the moment, were gathering in the theater.

Lubimoff found himself immediately attended by two solemn gentlemen in frock coats with black ties and their heads bare. They were two inspectors from the Casino.