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times of the seaexpeditions, was enough to fill my inner being with a great
content.
Her glance, her darkly brilliant blue glance, had run over the walls of that
room which most likely would be mine to slumber in. Behind me, somewhere
near the door, Therese, the peasant sister, said in a funnily compassionate
tone and in an amazingly landladyofaboardinghouse spirit of false
persuasiveness:
``You will be very comfortable here, Senor. It is so peaceful here in the
street. Sometimes one may think oneself in a village. It's only a hundred and
twentyfive francs for the friends of the King. And I shall take such good
care of you that your very heart will be able to rest.''
The Arrow of Gold
PART THREE
39
II
Dona Rita was curious to know how I got on with her peasant sister and all I
could say in, return for that inquiry was that the peasant sister was in her
own way amiable. At this she clicked her tongue amusingly and repeated a
remark she had made before: ``She likes young men. The younger the better.''
The mere thought of those two women being sisters aroused one's wonder.
Physically they were altogether of different design. It was also the
difference between living tissue of glowing loveliness with a divine breath,
and a hard hollow figure of baked clay.
Indeed Therese did somehow resemble an achievement, wonderful enough in its
way, in unglazed earthenware. The only gleam perhaps that one could find on
her was that of her teeth, which one used to get between her dull lips
unexpectedly, startlingly, and a little inexplicably, because it was never
associated with a smile. She smiled with compressed mouth. It was indeed
difficult to conceive of those two birds coming from the same nest. And yet
. . . Contrary to what generally happens, it was when one saw those two
women together that one lost all belief in the possibility of their
relationship near or far. It extended even to their common humanity. One, as
it were, doubted it. If one of the two was representative, then the other
was either something more or less than human. One wondered whether these
two women belonged to the same scheme of creation. One was secretly amazed
to see them standing together, speaking to each other, having words in
common, understanding each other. And yet! . . . Our psychological sense is
the crudest of all; we don't know, we don't perceive how superficial we are.
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The simplest shades escape us, the secret of changes, of relations. No, upon
the whole, the only feature (and yet with enormous differences) which
Therese had in common with her sister, as I told Dona Rita, was amiability.
``For, you know, you are a most amiable person yourself,'' I went on. ``It's
one of your characteristics, of course much more precious than in other
people. You transmute the commonest traits into gold of your own;
but after all there are no new names. You are amiable. You were most amiable
to me when I first saw you.''
``Really. I was not aware. Not specially. . . .''
``I had never the presumption to think that it was special. Moreover, my
head was in a whirl. I was lost in astonishment first of all at what I had
been listening to all night. Your history, you know, a wonderful tale with
a flavour of wine in it and wreathed in clouds, with that amazing
decapitated, mutilated dummy of a woman lurking in a corner, and with
Blunt's smile gleaming through a fog, the fog in my eyes, from Mills'
pipe, you know. I was feeling quite inanimate as to body and frightfully
stimulated as to mind all the time. I
had never heard anything like that talk about you before. Of course I
wasn't sleepy, but still I am not used to do altogether without sleep like
Blunt . . .''
``Kept awake all night listening to my story!'' She marvelled.
``Yes. You don't think I am complaining, do you? I wouldn't have missed it
for the world. Blunt in a ragged old jacket and a white tie and that
incisive polite voice of his seemed strange and weird. It seemed as though
he were inventing it all rather angrily. I had doubts as to your existence.''
``Mr. Blunt is very much interested in my story.''
``Anybody would be,'' I said. ``I was. I didn't sleep a wink. I was
expecting to see you soonand even then
I had my doubts.''
``As to my existence?''
The Arrow of Gold
II
40
``It wasn't exactly that, though of course I couldn't tell that you weren't
a product of Captain Blunt's sleeplessness. He seemed to dread exceedingly
to be left alone and your story might have been a device to detain us . .
.''
``He hasn't enough imagination for that,'' she said.
``It didn't occur to me. But there was Mills, who apparently believed in
your existence. I could trust Mills.
My doubts were about the propriety. I couldn't see any good reason for being
taken to see you. Strange that it should be my connection with the sea which
brought me here to the Villa.''
``Unexpected perhaps.''
``No. I mean particularly strange and significant.''
``Why?''
``Because my friends are in the habit of telling me (and each other) that
the sea is my only love. They were always chaffing me because they couldn't
see or guess in my life at any woman, open or secret. . .''
``And is that really so?'' she inquired negligently.
``Why, yes. I don't mean to say that I am like an innocent shepherd in one of
those interminable stories of the eighteenth century. But I don't throw the
word love about indiscriminately. It may be all true about the sea;
but some people would say that they love sausages.''
``You are horrible.''
``I am surprised.''
``I mean your choice of words.''
``And you have never uttered a word yet that didn't change into a pearl as
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it dropped from your lips. At least not before me.''
She glanced down deliberately and said, ``This is better. But I don't see
any of them on the floor.''
``It's you who are horrible in the implications of your language. Don't see
any on the floor! Haven't I caught up and treasured them all in my heart? I
am not the animal from which sausages are made.''
She looked at me suavely and then with the sweetest possible smile breathed
out the word: ``No.''
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