Pleasure Page 10

  She came forward8 through Caracci’s frescoed gallery, to where the crowd was thinner, bearing a long white brocade train that followed her like a heavy wave on the floor. So white and simple, in passing she turned her head toward the many greetings, displaying an air of tiredness, smiling with a small visible effort that creased the corners of her mouth, while her eyes seemed wider under her bloodless forehead. Not only her forehead but all the lines of her face had taken on an almost psychic tenuity in its extreme paleness. She was no longer the woman seated at the d’Ateletas’ table, nor the one at the table of the auction sale, nor the one standing for an instant on the sidewalk of Via Sistina. Her beauty now held an expression of sovereign ideality, which shone all the more in the midst of those other women, red in the face from dancing, excited, overactive, slightly agitated. Some men, observing her, became pensive. She elicited even in the most obtuse or fatuous of spirits a sense of commotion, uneasiness, an indefinable aspiration. Those whose heart was free imagined loving her, with a profound thrill; those who had a lover felt an obscure regret, their hearts unsatisfied, dreaming of some unknown delight; whoever harbored within themselves the open wound caused by the jealousy or deceit of some other woman, felt sure that they would be able to heal.

  She came forward this way, receiving reverences on all sides, enveloped in the gaze of men. At the end of the gallery she joined a group of ladies who were talking excitedly, waving their fans, below the painting of Perseus and Phineus turned to stone. The Princess of Ferentino, the Marchioness Massa d’Albe, the Marchioness Daddi-Tosinghi, and Countess Dolcebuono were there.

  —Why are you so late? the latter asked of her.

  —I was very hesitant about coming, because I don’t feel well.

  —Indeed, you are pale.

  —I think I’m getting neuralgia in my face again, like last year.

  —I hope not!

  —Look, Elena, Madame de la Boissière, said Giovanella Daddi, with that strange hoarse voice of hers. —Doesn’t she look like a camel dressed as a cardinal, with a yellow wig?

  —Mademoiselle Vanloo is going crazy over your cousin this evening, said the Marchioness Massa d’Albe to the princess, seeing Sofia Vanloo pass by on the arm of Ludovico Barbarisi. —I heard her begging, earlier, after a polka, next to me: “Ludovic, ne faites plus ça en dansant; je frissonne toute . . .”9

  The ladies began to laugh in unison, waving their fans. The first notes of a Hungarian waltz reached them from the nearby ballrooms. Dancing partners presented themselves. Andrea could finally offer his arm to Elena and draw her away with him.

  —Waiting for you, I thought I would die! If you had not come, Elena, I would have searched for you everywhere. When I saw you enter the room, I could barely restrain a shout. This is the second evening that I’m seeing you, but I seem to have loved you for I don’t know how long. The one, incessant thought of you, is now the life of my life . . .10

  He spoke these words of love in a humble tone, without looking at her, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him; and she listened to them in the same pose, seemingly impassive, almost marblelike. Few people remained in the gallery. Along the walls, among the busts of the Caesars, the opaque crystal lampshades shaped like lilies cast a uniform light, not overly bright. The profusion of green and flowered plants gave the impression of a sumptuous greenhouse. The waves of music undulated through the warm air below the concave and sonorous vaulted ceilings, passing along all those mythological figures like a breeze flowing over an opulent garden.

  —Will you love me? asked the young man. —Tell me that you’ll love me!

  She answered slowly:

  —I came here only for you.

  —Tell me that you’ll love me! the young man repeated, feeling all the blood in his veins flood to his heart in a torrent of joy.

  She answered:

  —Perhaps.

  And she gazed at him with the same gaze that the evening before had seemed to him a divine promise, that indefinable gaze that almost gave one’s flesh the sensation of a hand’s loving touch. Then both fell silent; and they listened to the enveloping dance music, which now and then became as soft as a whisper or rose up like a sudden whirlwind.

  —Would you like to dance? Andrea asked, trembling internally at the thought of holding her in his arms.

  She hesitated briefly. Then she replied:

  —No, I don’t want to.

  Seeing the Duchess of Bugnara, her maternal aunt, and Princess Alberoni entering the room with the French ambassador’s wife, she added:

  —Now, be prudent; leave me.

  She held out her gloved hand to him; and went to meet the three women, alone, with a rhythmic and light step. The long white train gave a sovereign grace to her figure and her step, due to the contrast between the width and weight of the brocade and the narrowness of her waist. Andrea, watching her go, mentally repeated her phrase: “I came only for you.” She was just so beautiful, for him, for him alone! Instantly, from the base of his heart, the residue of bitterness left there by the words of the Duchess Angelieri disappeared. The orchestra now threw itself enthusiastically into a reprise. And he never forgot those notes, nor that sudden anguish, nor the pose of the woman, nor the splendor of the fabric trailing behind her, nor the smallest fold, nor the slightest shadow, nor any detail of that supreme moment.

  CHAPTER IV

  Shortly afterward, Elena had left Palazzo Farnese almost in secret, without taking leave of Andrea or anyone else. She had therefore stayed at the ball for barely half an hour. Her lover searched for her through all the rooms, for a long time and in vain.

  The next morning, he sent a servant to Palazzo Barberini to hear news of her; and heard that she was ill. That evening he went there in person, hoping to be received, but a maid told him that the lady was suffering greatly and could not see anyone. On Saturday, toward five in the afternoon, he returned, still hoping.

  He left Palazzo Zuccari on foot. It was a violet and ashen sunset, somewhat doleful, which little by little was draping itself over Rome like a ponderous velarium.1 Around the fountain of Piazza Barberini the streetlamps were already burning with small faint flames, like candles around a dead body; and the Triton was no longer spouting water, perhaps due to restoration or cleaning. Carts descended the slope drawn by two or three horses harnessed one behind the other, and throngs of workmen returned from the new construction sites. Some, linked arm in arm, were staggering and singing a rude song at the tops of their voices.

  He stopped to let them pass. Two or three of those ruddy and sinister figures remained imprinted on his mind. He noted that one carter had a bandaged hand and the bandages were stained with blood. He also noted another carter kneeling on a cart, with a livid face, hollowed eye sockets, his mouth shrunken like that of a poisoned man. The words of the song mingled with the guttural shouts, the blows of the whips, the noise of the wheels, the jingling of the harness bells, the insults, the curses, and the harsh laughs.

  His sadness worsened. He was in a strange state of mind. The sensitivity of his nerves was so acute that every minimal sensation that came to him from external things felt like a deep wound. While one fixed thought occupied and tormented his entire being, his entire being was exposed to the jolts of life surrounding him. Contrary to every mental derangement and sluggishness of will, his senses remained alert and active; and he had an imprecise consciousness of that activity. The clusters of sensations would suddenly pass through his spirit, similar to great illusions in the dark; and they disturbed and alarmed him. The clouds in the sunset, the shape of the dark Triton in a circle of unlit streetlamps, that barbaric descent of bestial men and enormous packhorses, those shouts, those songs, those curses, exasperated his sadness and aroused a vague fear in his heart, an ill-defined tragic foreboding.

  A closed carriage was exiting the garden. He saw the face of a woman lean toward the glass pane, in the act of g
reeting; but he did not recognize her. The building rose up before him, as vast as a royal palace; the windows of the first floor glinted with purplish reflections; above it, a weak glow still lingered; from the vestibule emerged another closed carriage.

  If only I could see her! he thought, stopping. He slowed his pace, to prolong his uncertainty and hope. She seemed very far away, almost lost, in that huge building.

  The carriage stopped; and a man thrust his head out of the window, calling:

  —Andrea!

  It was the Duke of Grimiti, a relative.

  —Are you going to the Duchess of Scerni’s? he asked, with a subtle smile.

  —Yes—Andrea replied—to get news. You know, she’s ill.

  —I know. I’ve just come from there. She’s feeling better.

  —Is she receiving visitors?

  —Not me. But maybe she’ll be able to receive you.

  And the Duke of Grimiti began to laugh with malice, amid the smoke of his cigarette.

  —I don’t understand, said Andrea in a serious tone.

  —Take heed; people are already saying that you are in favor. I heard it yesterday evening, at the Pallavicinis’; from a lady friend of yours: I swear it.

  Andrea made a gesture of impatience and turned to go.

  —Bonne chance!2 the duke shouted to him.

  Andrea entered beneath the portico. Deep down, his vanity relished the fact that rumors were already flying. He felt more confident now, lighter, almost happy, filled with an intimate complacency. The words of the Duke of Grimiti had suddenly lifted his spirits like a sip of liqueur. His hopes rose as he climbed the stairs. When he reached the door, he paused in order to control his anxiety. He rang the bell.

  The servant recognized him; and immediately said:

  —If the Lord Count would be so good as to wait a moment, I shall go and advise Mademoiselle.

  He assented; and started pacing up and down the vast antechamber, throughout which, it seemed to him, the violent tumult of his blood reverberated. The wrought-iron lanterns cast an uneven light over the leather covering the walls, the sculpted chests, the ancient busts on broccatello marble pedestals. Below the canopy the ducal heraldic device was embroidered in gleaming silks: a golden unicorn on a red field. At the center of a table there was a bronze plate overflowing with visiting cards; and, glancing at it, Andrea saw the Duke of Grimiti’s recent one. “Bonne chance!” The ironic greeting still resounded in his ears.

  Mademoiselle appeared, saying:

  —The duchess is slightly better. I think the Lord Count may go in for a moment. Please come with me.

  She was a woman whose youth had already faded; rather thin, dressed in black, with two gray eyes that glinted strangely amid her fake blond curls. Her step and her gestures were extremely light, almost furtive, like one who has the habit of living around invalids or attending to delicate duties, or carrying out orders in secret.

  —Come, Lord Count.

  She preceded Andrea through the dimly lit rooms, over the thick carpets that muffled every sound; and the young man, even in the midst of the unrelenting tumult of his spirit, felt an instinctive sense of revulsion toward her, without knowing why.

  Having reached a door that was covered by two panels of Medicean tapestry edged with red velvet, she stopped, saying:

  —I shall enter first, to announce you. Please wait here.

  A voice, Elena’s voice, called from within:

  —Cristina!

  Andrea felt his veins tremble with such force at that unexpected sound that he thought: That’s it, now I’m going to faint. He had a kind of indistinct foreshadowing of some supernatural happiness that went beyond his expectations, surpassed his dreams, overcame his strength. She was there, on the other side of that threshold. Every notion of reality was abandoning his spirit. It seemed to him that he had once imagined, picturesquely or poetically, a similar love affair, in that same way, with that same setting, with that same background, with that same mystery; and another, some imaginary character of his, was its hero. Now, by some strange phenomenon of his imagination, that ideal artistic fiction was becoming confused with the real event; and he felt an inexpressible sense of bewilderment.

  Each heraldic panel bore a symbolic figure. Silence and Sleep, two youths, swift and rangy as only the Bolognese painter Primaticcio could have drawn them, guarded the door. And he, he himself, was standing there waiting; and beyond the threshold, perhaps in bed, his divine lover was breathing. He believed he could hear her breath in the beating of his arteries.

  Mademoiselle exited, eventually. Holding up the heavy fabric with her hand, she said in a low voice, with a smile:

  —You may enter.

  And she withdrew. Andrea entered the room.

  At first he had the impression of very warm air, almost suffocating; in the air he smelled the singular odor of chloroform; he discerned something red in the shadow, the red damask of the walls, the curtains of the bed; he heard Elena’s tired voice, which murmured:

  —I thank you, Andrea, for having come. I’m feeling better.

  Slightly hesitant, because he could not see things distinctly in that faint light, he approached the bed.

  She smiled, her head pressed back into the pillows, supine, in the half-light. A band of white wool was wrapped around her forehead and cheeks, passing under her chin like a nun’s wimple; the skin of her face was as pale as that bandage. The outer corners of her eyelids clenched with the painful contraction of her inflamed nerves; at intervals, her lower lid had a small involuntary tremor; and her eyes were damp, infinitely sweet, as if veiled by a tear that could not brim over, almost imploring, between her trembling lashes.

  An immense tenderness invaded the young man’s heart, when he saw her from close up. Elena drew a hand from under the covers and held it out to him, very slowly. He bent over, almost kneeling against the side of the bed; and began to cover that burning hand, that fast-beating pulse, with light rapid kisses.

  —Elena! Elena! My love!

  Elena had closed her eyes as if to enjoy more intimately the stream of pleasure rising up her arm and spreading across her chest and insinuating itself into her most intimate fibers. She turned her hand under his mouth to feel his kisses on her palm, on the back of her hand, between her fingers, all around her wrist, along all her veins, in all her pores.

  —Enough! she murmured, opening her eyes again; and with her hand, which seemed to her somewhat sluggish, she stroked Andrea’s hair.

  In that tender caress there was so much abandon that it was, for his soul, the rose petal placed on the brimming cup.3 His passion overflowed. His lips trembled beneath the confused wave of words that he did not recognize, that he did not utter. He had a violent and divine sensation as of a vitality that was spreading beyond his limbs.

  —How sweet! Isn’t it? Elena said, in a low voice, repeating that gentle act. And a visible shiver ran through her body, through the heavy bedcovers.

  As Andrea was about to take her hand again, she begged . . .

  —No, like that, stay like that! I like it when you do that!

  Pressing against his temple, she compelled him to place his head against the side of the bed, in such a position that he could feel the form of her knee against his cheek. Then she watched him for a while, still continuing to caress his hair; and in a voice faint with pleasure, while something like a white flash passed between her eyelashes, she added, stretching out the words:

  —I like it so much!

  There was an inexpressible voluptuous allurement in the opening of her lips when she pronounced that verb,4 so liquid and sensual in the mouth of a woman.

  —Again! the lover murmured, his senses becoming faint from passion from the stroking of her fingers, the enticement of her voice. —Again! Say it to me! Talk!

  —I like it! Elena repeated, seeing that he
was gazing fixedly at her lips, and perhaps knowing the allure that she evoked with that word.

  Then both were silent. The one felt the presence of the other flow and mingle into his blood, until it became her life, and her blood became his. A profound silence made the room appear larger; the crucifixion by Guido Reni rendered spiritual the shadow cast by the bed hangings; the noise of the city of Rome reached them like the murmur of a distant wave.

  Then, with a sudden movement, Elena sat up on the bed, pressed the young man’s head between her two palms, breathed her wish onto his face, kissed him, fell back again, and offered herself to him.

  Afterward an immense sadness invaded her; she was filled with that obscure sadness which is at the base of all human happiness, just as brackish water is to be found at the mouth of all rivers. Lying there, she kept her arms outside the covers, abandoned along her sides, her hands palm upward, almost dead, shaken every now and then by a light shudder; and she watched Andrea, her eyes wide open, with a constant gaze, immobile, intolerable. One by one, tears began to well up; and slid down her cheeks one by one, silently.

  —Elena, what’s wrong? Tell me: What’s wrong? her lover asked her, taking both her wrists, bending over to suck her tears from her lashes.

  She was clenching her teeth and her lips tightly together to contain her sobs.

  —Nothing. Good-bye. Leave me; please! You will see me tomorrow. Go.

  Her voice and her gesture were so pleading that Andrea obeyed.

  —Good-bye, he said; and kissed her on her mouth, tenderly, tasting the salty drops, bathing in those warm tears. —Good-bye. Love me! Remember!

  It seemed to him, crossing back over the threshold, that he heard her bursting into sobs. He went on, slightly uncertain, hesitant like a man whose vision is unclear. The smell of chloroform persisted, like an intoxicating vapor; but with each step something intimate escaped him, dispersed into the air; and with some instinctive impulse, he would have liked to contain himself, enclose himself, envelop himself, prevent that dispersion. The rooms were deserted and silent before him. Mademoiselle appeared at a door, her footsteps soundless, without any rustling of her clothes, like a ghost.