Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [96]
sat down, curling her feet under her. Then she looked up once more to watch the rockets. The river was black now under the night sky and glassy, a black mirror in which every lamp raised a pole of light and the conflagration in the sky above dropped an occasional piece of gold. The line of people on the other bank was clearly reflected in it. Anna's image was quite still beneath her. I wondered if in the river, which at that point on the left bank came fully up to the wall of the roadway, my own reflection was as vividly shown. I agitated my hands, hoping that either I or my image might attract Anna's attention. Then I took out a box of matches and lit one or two close to my face. But in such a galaxy of lights my little light could not attract much notice. Anna continued to look up. While I flapped and waved and flung the upper part of my body about like a ridiculous puppet, she sat as still as a spellbound princess, her head thrown back and one hand clasping her knee; while a stream of stars fell from the sky almost into her lap. A moment later something dropped with a sharp clatter on to the parapet beside my hand. Automatically I picked it up. It was the stick of one of the rockets. As I lifted it, in the light of the next star burst, I read the name which was written upon it: BELFOUNDER. I held it for a moment in a kind of astonishment. Then taking a careful aim I threw it into the water so that it fell directly into Anna's reflection, and at the same time I waved and called. The image was scattered and the glass disturbed for a long way between the two bridges. Anna lowered her head; and while I leaned towards her until I nearly toppled head first into the river, she fixed her eyes upon the rocket stick which was now moving very very slowly in the direction of the sea, offering thereby a sensible proof that moving water can render an impeccable reflection. Then someone behind me said, 'c'est fini!'; and I felt the pressure beginning to lessen at my back. Poised, I watched to see what Anna would do. The people on the other bank were beginning to go up the steps at both the bridges. Anna got up slowly and shook out her skirt. She bent down and rubbed one of her feet. Then she began to make her way back towards the Petit Pont. I struggled along in the same direction. I could see her mounting the steps. Then I lost sight of her. I crossed the bridge against a stream of people. Voices and laughter were blowing like a gale. Under the bright lights faces pressed for a moment against me, were each one wrenched to a smile, and then whisked away. I got to the other side and began to move towards the Pont Saint-Michel. I saw a golden coronet of hair some way ahead, and followed it; and as I crossed the Boulevard du Palais I could see that it was indeed Anna who was ahead of me in the crowd. I felt less anxious now. I could have caught her if I had struggled very hard, but I let the crowd carry us both along, and waited until it should clear a little. In this way we went the length of the island. Anna crossed the Pont Neuf to the right bank, and so we came to the pavements beside the Louvre which were very much less packed; and when we had got past a crowd which was gathered at the Pont des Arts she was only about sixty yards ahead of me and showing as clear as day in the brightness of the floodlight facade. I could see that she was limping a little, perhaps her shoes were hurting her; but she was walking nevertheless with strength and determination, and it then occurred to me for the first time that she was not walking aimlessly. I could now have caught her easily. But something made me pause. It would do no harm to see where she was going. So I continued to walk behind her until at the Pont Royal she turned inland. What was Anna seeing, what filled her golden head at that moment, I wondered. What image of sadness or of promise blotted out for her the scene into the centre of which she kept moving with a dreamer's pace? Was she thinking perhaps about me? Was Paris as full of me for her as it was full of her for me? It was partly