The Romantic Messiah

“You are in my studio, Sarah,” said he. “You have been sick, very sick indeed, but, thanks to God, you have recovered. Soon you will be up on your feet, strong and healthy again. Don you remember coming here?”

Sarah smilled at him.

“Yes. Thank you,” she murmured, and covering her face with her hands she wept quietly.

Tezkeiro leaned over her, and seizing one of her hands, he kissed it.

“Darling, you must not cry. All will go well. I will call the woman who attended you while you were sick. She will make you more comfortable. But please do not cry.”

The girl reconvered her strength slowly. A great weakness and deep apathy followed the crisis which had saved her life. She thought of nothing, felf nothing. She greeted Tezkeiro with a smile of mournful recognition and as the doctor had ordered absolute quietness, the artist remained near her for only short periods at a time.

The first renewal of her strength rose in the form of a jojful recognition of her own existence. Never had she experienced so acutely the simple and direct sweetness of living. She felt the happiness of breathing, the intoxication of her cool body, the delight arising from the touch of her soft, heavy hair against her shoulders and breast. She was filled with the ruddy gaiety of the sun, and became unable to draw her eyes away from Tezkeiro’s paintings of flowers and fruit, of precious cloths and naked bodies.

For the first time in her life she considered her youth and her beauty as possessions belonging to her, distinet from her dreams and her career. A great mirror hanging opposite her bed refiected her face which she had only known imperfectly. She studied it happily. She admired her naked arms, the sharp and delicate line of her shoulders and neck, the soft lustre of her dark fiesh, and the golden, almost imperceptible down which covered her body.

A new vitality strengthening her body did not, however, awake her moral energy. Sarab abandoned herself wholly to a swest and happy languor. She wished to Groam of nothing, to remember nothing. The morrow meant as littie to her as yesterday. The autumn sun and the pure light which flooded the studio throgh the vast windown were sufficiet to color the dragging hours in which she yielded to a thoughtless and dreamless rest, to her youthfulness of which she had at last become conscious.

Tezkeiro, who now lingered forlong hours beside her, tried to distract her mind by stories. Sarah heard him vaguely. The musical and gentle sound of his voice interested her much more than his words, for in his voice she recognized that youth and voluptuousness she so much longed for.

In the curve of his high forehead, in his silken curls, in the brightness of his chestnut-brown eyes, in the arrogant profile of his face, Sarah found the same joy whch the sun and colors gave her. Tezkeiro came to her as a radiace which caressed her delicious languor. It seemed as if she lay in a golden cradle while above her throbbed the lappy rhythm of the universe. An immense feeling of self-love submerged her entire being, like a cool freshe of spring.

She often remembered that terrible night; the rain, the porch, the sound of the barpsichord, and Tezkeiro’s cape. Without him she would have collapsed in the street #e and the night-patrol would have arrested her. She owed her safety, her very life to him.

During one of these moments of recollection Sarah suddenly grasped Tezkeiro’s hand and raised it to her lips. Though this kiss was apparently the gesture of a child, it waas at the same time ardent, feminine, sharp, and Tezkelro was deeply stirred by it. Giddiness overcame him. He realized how well-founded has been his misgivings that at the fist contant with her flesh his resolutions would melt like shadows. He understood that he must master himself at once. He slowly freed his hand, laid the girl’s head back on the pillow, and barely touching it with his lips, he kissed her hair.

“Do not disquiet yourself,” he murmured in a voice of infinite gentleness. “Do not disquiet yourself, sweetheart.”

He had used the familiar term of endearment for the first time, but neither of them experienced any embarrassment at its use. They were so close to each other! Of what consequence to them was that thing people of thin and cold blood called “Reason?” Reason had been invented by merchants and money changers. In the johous carnival of life he had met Sarah. It was his fate. And now he was warning the girl against excitement. He! Confronted by the happy excitement of blood, by the gay tempest of life, by the marvellous wine of youth, he, the artist Tezkeiro, talked the non-sense of a Protestant preacher.

Emotion stifled him. He felt the need of space, of movement, and he dashed forth into the street. He walked rapidyy, striding along with no other purpose than to flee the studio where Sarah lay, Sarah, the living palette, the harmony of color and perfume, Sarah who had kissed his hand.

Drunk with passion he strode onward, farther and farther from the studion, as he believed when suddenly he recognized his own doorway. Astonished, as if it were #dream he fiung the atreet door upen and hastened up the stairs.

He silently opened the door. The obilique rays of the sum were talling on Sarah???s couch. With arms extended above her head, and with closed eyes, she radiated ail the happiness of returned healht. A smile lingered on her full, r#stlips. And this smile, passing from her mouth, hoeverd over her fir#and slender neck, over her #kedbreasts.

Sarah???s bosom rose and fell regularly and it seemed to Tezkeiro that he could see all the breathing cells of her body drish the sun and secrete its secret parfume.

He gently approached the girl After standing a few moments fascinated, he suddenly dropped to his knees beside the low divan on which she lay, and pressed his head against her legs.

Recognizing Tezkeiro, who distractedly murmured her name, Sarah vehement caress, these stammered words, fell upon her. A ware of joys unknown engulfed her, spread throught her body. submerged her body in troubled twilight. Convulsively she stretched forth her hands toward his curls and gransped them. He raised his head and saw her burning face, her flaming eyes, her half-open mouth. She clasped her naked arms passionately around his nect. To Be Continued Tomorrow