A flowerlike smell always came from her, protecting her from any evil thoughts concerning her.
I felt sure that the love of the kitchen and the pantry was unknown to Queen Margot. She knew something different, a higher joy, a different kind of love.
But one day, late in the afternoon, on going into her drawing-room, I heard from the bedroom the ringing laugh of the lady of my heart. A masculine voice said:
“Wait a minute!
Good Lord!
I can’t believe — ” I ought to have gone away. I knew that, but I could not.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“You?
Come in!”
The bedroom was heavy with the odor of flowers. It was darkened, for the curtains were drawn.
Queen Margot lay in bed, with the bedclothes drawn up to her chin, and beside her, against the wall, sat, clad only in his shirt, with his chest bared, the officer violinist. On his breast was a scar which lay like a red streak from the right shoulder to the nipple and was so vivid that even in the half-light I could see it distinctly.
The hair of the officer was ruffled comically, and for the first time I saw a smile on his sad, furrowed countenance. He was smiling strangely.
His large, feminine eyes looked at the “queen” as if it were the first time he had gazed upon her beauty.
“This is my friend,” said Queen Margot. I did not know whether she were referring to me or to him.
“What are you looking so frightened about?” I heard her voice as if from a distance.
“Come here.”
When I went to her she placed her hands on my bare neck and said:
“You will grow up and you will be happy.
Go along!”
I put the book on the shelf, took another, and went away as best I could.
Something seemed to grate in my heart.
Of course I did not think for a moment that my queen loved as other women nor did the officer give me reason to think so.
I saw his face before me, with that smile. He was smiling for joy, like a child who has been pleasantly surprised, and his sad face was wonderfully transfigured.
He had to love her. Could any one not love her?
And she also had cause to bestow her love upon him generously. He played so wonderfully, and could quote poetry so touchingly.
But the very fact that I had to find these consolations showed me clearly that all was not well with my attitude toward what I had seen or even toward Queen Margot herself.
I felt that I had lost something, and I lived for several days in a state of deep dejection.
One day I was turbulently and recklessly insolent, and when I went to my lady for a book, she said to me sternly:
“You seem to be a desperate character from what I have heard.
I did not know that.”
I could not endure this, and I began to explain how nauseating I found the life I had to lead, and how hard it was for me to hear people speaking ill of her.
Standing in front of me, with her hand on my shoulder, she listened at first attentively and seriously; but soon she was laughing and pushing me away from her gently.
“That will do; I know all about it. Do you understand?
I know.”
Then she took both my hands and said to me very tenderly:
“The less attention you pay to all that, the better for you.
You wash your hands very badly.”
She need not have said this. If she had had to clean the brasses, and wash the floor and the dirty cloths, her hands would not have been any better than mine, I think.
“When a person knows how to live, he is slandered; they are jealous of him. And if he doesn’t know how to live, they despise him,” she said thoughtfully, drawing me to her, and looking into my eyes with a smile.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Very much?”
“Yes.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know.”
“Thank you! You are a good boy.
I like people to love me.”
She smiled, looked as if she were going to say something more, but remained silent, still keeping me in her arms.
“Come oftener to see me; come whenever you can.”
I took advantage of this, and she did me a lot of good.