Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/101

Rh thickets, the sensuous and heady silence that teased the cry of the crickets and dulled the oblique, velvety flight of the bats, terrified by the unwonted presence of the masters of this deserted country place.

The voice of Gina, clear and pearled, reached him at the other end of the garden. She sang the waltz from Romeo et Juliette divinely; the interpretation was superior to the song. She gave it the sincerity that it lacked, she treated it with the cavalier spirit of a virtuouso. She parodied its sophistication by exaggerating the rhythm to such an extent that one could have danced to it. Laurent felt that Gina was showing herself to be too much the woman of that waltz, the woman of the void, of the vortex, of intoxication, of rarity, of velleity. Without having read Shakespeare, Laurent detested this tinkling music, thought its trilling out of place: this song, too gay, too laughing, became worse than an air of bravura, an air of bravado.

The listeners, Béjard and the Saint-Fardiers, applauded and called for more. Laurent tried to approach the beautiful singer to say farewell to her. The first morning train was to take him away. He had so many things to say to his cousin. He wanted to thank her for her kindness of the past week; to ask her to remember him from time to time. He could only stammer the simplest of goodbyes. She negligently gave him her finger tips, not turning toward him, continuing to skirmish with Béjard. Laurent was beginning to despair of attracting her attention and of obtaining a word with her, a word sweet to keep in memory, when she threw him with a coolness and a self-possession truly cruel a: "Goodnight, Laurent; be good and study hard!"

Monsieur Dobouziez could not have said it better.