Pleasure Page 19

  —All right—she acquiesced—but just a few notes, because really, for more than a year now, I have lost all my strength.

  In the adjacent room, Don Manuel was playing cards with the Marquis of Ateleta, without a sound, without a word. In the room, the light was diffused through a great Japanese lampshade, tempered and red. The sea air drifted in between the columns of the vestibule, moving from time to time the tall Karamanieh curtains, carrying the scent of the gardens below. In the spaces between the columns appeared the peaks of the cypresses, black, solid, like ebony, above a diaphanous sky all palpitating with stars.

  Donna Maria placed herself at the piano, saying:

  —Seeing as we’re evoking old times, I will sing a few notes of a melody by Paisiello from Nina pazza, something divine.

  She sang, accompanying herself. In the ardor of the song the two timbres of her voice fused like two precious metals, forming one sole sonorous, warm, flexible, vibrating metal. Paisiello’s melody, simple, pure, spontaneous, full of sorrowful sweetness and winged sadness, over a very clear accompaniment, pouring from the beautiful afflicted mouth lifted itself with such a flame of passion that the convalescent, agitated to his very depths, felt the notes pass through his veins one by one, as if within his body his blood had stopped to listen. An insidious chill gripped the roots of his hair; rapid and thick shadows fell over his eyes; anxiety pressed upon his breathing. And the intensity of the sensations in his heightened nerves was such that he had to make an effort to contain an outburst of tears.

  —Oh, my Maria, exclaimed Donna Francesca, tenderly kissing the singer on her hair, once she fell silent.

  Andrea did not speak; he remained seated in his armchair with his shoulders against the light, his face in the shadows.

  —More! added Donna Francesca.

  She sang in addition an arietta by Antonio Salieri. Then she played a toccata by Leonardo Leo, a gavotte by Rameau, and a gigue by Sebastian Bach. Beneath her fingers the music of the eighteenth century came wondrously to life, so melancholy in the dance melodies, which seem composed to be danced on a languid afternoon in an Indian summer, in an abandoned park, between silent fountains, among pedestals without statues, above a carpet of dead roses, by pairs of lovers who are soon to love no more.

  CHAPTER III

  —Throw down your braid, so that I may come up! shouted Andrea, laughing, from the first landing of the stairs to Donna Maria, who was on the balcony adjoining her rooms, between two columns.

  It was morning. She was standing in the sun to dry her damp hair, which cloaked her entirely like beautiful deep violet velvet, amid which appeared the opaque pallor of her face. The linen curtain, half lifted, of a bright orange color, held suspended above her head the lovely black frieze of its edge, in the style of the friezes that circle the ancient Greek vases of Campania; and if she had had a crown of narcissi around her temples and near her, one of those large nine-stringed lyres, which bear an effigy of Apollo and a greyhound in encaustic painting, she would certainly have resembled a student of the school of Mytilene, a Lesbos lyre player at rest, but as a Pre-Raphaelite could have imagined her.

  —Throw me a madrigal, she replied, in jest, drawing back slightly.

  —I’m going to write it on the marble of a baluster on the last terrace, in your honor. Come and read it when you’re ready, later.

  Andrea continued, slowly descending the stairs that led to the last terrace. On that September morning, his soul swelled together with his breathing. The day had a kind of sanctity; the sea seemed to shine with its own light, as if in its depths there lived magical sources of light rays; all things were penetrated by the sun.

  Andrea descended, stopping every now and then. The thought that Donna Maria had remained on the balcony to watch him caused him a vague uneasiness, brought to his breast a strong throbbing, almost intimidated him, as if he were a youth experiencing his first love. He felt an ineffable beatitude breathing in that warm and limpid atmosphere where she, too, breathed, where her body, too, was immersed. An immense wave of tenderness gushed from his heart, spreading over the trees, the rocks, the sea, as over friendly and knowing beings. He was driven as if by a need for submissive, humble, pure adoration; as if by a need to bend his knees and join his hands and offer up that vague and mute affection, which he did not recognize. He believed that he could feel the goodness of things coming to him and mixing with his own goodness, and overflowing. Do I love her, then? he wondered; and did not dare to look inside himself and reflect, because he feared that that delicate enchantment would disperse and disappear like a dream at dawn.

  Do I love her? And what does she think? And, if she comes alone, will I tell her that I love her? He took pleasure in interrogating himself and not answering and interrupting the answer of his heart with a new question and prolonging that fluctuation, which was tormenting and delicious at the same time. No, no, I will not tell her that I love her. She is above the others.

  He turned; and saw still, up high on the balcony, her indistinct figure in the sun. Perhaps she had followed him, with her eyes and her thoughts, assiduously, right down to the bottom. Out of childish curiosity he pronounced her name in a clear voice on the solitary terrace; he repeated it two or three times, listening to himself. —Maria! Maria! No word ever, no name had seemed sweeter, more melodious, more caressing to him. And he thought that he would be happy if she permitted him to call her simply Maria, like a sister.

  That creature, so spiritual and elect, inspired a supreme sense of devotion and submission in him. If anyone had asked him what the sweetest thing would be for him, he would have answered sincerely: To obey her. Nothing would cause him as much pain as having her believe him to be a common man. By no other woman, as much as by her, would he like to be admired, praised, understood for his works of intelligence, taste, research, his artistic aspirations, his ideals, his dreams, the noblest part of his spirit and his life. And his most ardent ambition was to fill her heart.

  She had already been staying at Schifanoja for ten days; and in those ten days, how entirely she had conquered him! Their conversations, on the terraces or on the chairs scattered in the shade or along the avenues flanked by roses, lasted sometimes for hours and hours, while Delfina ran like a little gazelle among the winding paths of the citrus grove. In conversing, she had an admirable fluidity; she was profuse with delicate and penetrating observations; she opened up, sometimes, with a candor that was full of grace; regarding her travels, sometimes with a single picturesque phrase she roused in Andrea broad visions of distant lands and seas. And he expended assiduous care in showing her his worth, the extent of his learning, the refinement of his breeding, the exquisiteness of his sensibility; an enormous pride lifted his entire being when she said to him with a sincere tone after reading his Fable of Hermaphrodite: “No music has intoxicated me as this poem did, and no statue has given me a more harmonious impression of beauty. Certain verses pursue me without respite and they will continue to pursue me for a very long time, perhaps; they are so intense.”

  Now, sitting on the balusters, he thought about those words again. Donna Maria was no longer on the balcony; indeed, the curtain covered the entire space between the columns. She would perhaps come down shortly. Should he write the madrigal for her, as promised? The small torment of having to compose verse under pressure seemed unbearable to him, in that majestic and joyful garden where the September sun caused a kind of supernatural spring to be revealed. Why disperse that rare emotion in a hurried game of rhymes? Why reduce that vast sentiment into a short metrical sigh? He resolved to break his word; and he remained seated, watching the sails on the farthest line of the water, which glinted like fires overpowering the sun.

  But anxiety gripped him the more the minutes passed; and he turned every minute to see whether at the top of the stairs, between the columns of the vestibule, a feminine form appeared. —Was that perhaps a lovers’ rendezvous? Was that woman comin
g, perhaps, to a secret meeting in that place? Could she imagine his anxiety?

  Here she is! his heart said. And she was.

  She was alone. She descended slowly. On the first terrace, she paused near one of the fountains. Andrea watched her, suspended, feeling trepidation at every movement, every step, every pose of hers, as if her movement, her step, her pose had a meaning, or were a language.

  She began to walk along that succession of stairs and terraces, interposed with trees and shrubs. Her figure appeared and disappeared; now completely whole, now from the belt up, now emerging with her head above a rosebush. At times the web of branches hid her for a goodly stretch: one could see only in the sparsest patches her dark dress passing by, or the light straw of her hat glimmering. The closer she came, the more slowly she walked, hesitating near the hedges, stopping to look at the cypresses, bending down to gather a fistful of fallen leaves. From the second-to-last terrace she waved to Andrea, who was standing and waiting on the last step; and she threw the gathered leaves to him, scattering them like a cloud of butterflies, trembling, some drifting in the air, landing lightly on the stone with the softness of snow.

  —Well? she asked, halfway down the staircase.

  Andrea knelt on the step, lifting his palms.

  —Nothing! he confessed. —I ask forgiveness; but you and the sun, this morning, fill the skies with too much sweetness. Adoremus.1

  The confession was sincere, as was the adoration, even though both were made with the semblance of jest; and certainly Donna Maria understood that sincerity, because she blushed a little, saying with particular concern:

  —Get up, get up.

  He stood up. She held her hand out to him, adding:

  —I forgive you, because you are convalescing.

  She was wearing a dress in a strange rust color, the color of saffron, murky, indefinable; one of those so-called aesthetic colors that one finds in the pictures of divine Autumn, in those of the Primitives, and in those of Dante Gabriele Rossetti. The skirt was composed of many pleats, straight and regular, which commenced below her arms. A wide sea-green ribbon, as pallid as a wan turquoise, formed her belt and fell with a single large loop down her side. The wide, soft sleeves, with close pleats at the shoulder, became tighter around her wrists. Another sea-green ribbon, a narrow one, circled her neck, knotted on the left with a small loop. An identical ribbon bound the end of the prodigious braid that fell from beneath a straw hat crowned with a corona of hyacinths similar to those of Alma-Tadema’s Pandora. A large Persian turquoise, her only jewelry, in the shape of a scarab, incised with letters like a talisman, fastened her collar beneath her chin.

  —Let’s wait for Delfina, she said. —Then we shall go up to the Cybele gate. Do you wish to?

  She was very kind and considerate toward the convalescent. Andrea was still very pale and very thin, and his eyes had become extraordinarily large in that thinness; and the sensual expression of his mouth, a little swollen, made a strange and alluring contrast with the upper part of his face.

  —Yes, he answered. —Rather, I am grateful to you.

  Then, after a slight hesitation:

  —Would you permit me a few moments of silence, this morning?

  —Why do you ask me this?

  —It seems to me that I do not have a voice, and do not know how to say anything. But silences, at certain times, can be heavy, and irritate and even disturb one if they go on for too long. Therefore I’m asking if you will permit me to be silent during the walk, and to listen to you.

  —Then, we shall be silent together, she said, with a slight smile.

  And she looked upward toward the villa, with visible impatience.

  —Delfina is so late!

  —Was Francesca already up, when you came down? Andrea asked.

  —Oh, no! She is incredibly lazy . . . Here is Delfina. Can you see her?

  The little girl descended rapidly, followed by her governess. Invisible on the stairs, she reappeared on all the terraces that she ran across. Her loose hair undulated over her shoulders, in the breeze created as she ran, beneath a wide straw hat crowned with poppies. When she reached the last step, she opened her arms to her mother and kissed her many times on the cheeks. Then she said:

  —Good morning, Andrea.

  And she offered her forehead to him, with an infantile gesture of adorable grace.

  She was a fragile creature, and as vibrant as an instrument formed from sensitive material. Her limbs were so delicate that they seemed almost as if they could not hide nor veil the splendor of the living spirit within, like a flame in a precious lamp, of an intense and sweet life.

  —My love! whispered her mother, looking at her with an indescribable gaze, from which emanated all the tenderness of her soul occupied by that sole affection.

  And Andrea felt from that word, from that gaze, from that expression, from that caress, a sort of jealousy, a sort of discouragement, as if he felt her soul distance itself, escape him forever, become inaccessible.

  The governess asked permission to go back up; and they headed along the avenue of the orange trees. Delfina ran ahead, pushing her hoop; and her straight legs, encased in their black stockings, fairly long, of that slender length of ephebic design, moved with rhythmic agility.

  —You seem quite sad to me now—said the Sienese woman to the young man—whereas before, while coming down, you were happy. Is some thought bothering you? Or are you not feeling well?

  She asked these things with an almost sisterly manner, grave and sweet, persuading him to confide in her. A shy desire, almost a vague temptation, overcame the convalescent, to place his arm under that of the woman and allow himself to be guided by her in silence, through that shade, through that scent, over that ground scattered with orange blossom, on that path marked out by the ancient Termini2 covered with moss. It seemed to him almost to have returned to the first days after his illness, to those unforgettable days of languor, of happiness, of unconsciousness; and to need friendly support, an affectionate guide, a familiar arm. That desire grew so strongly in him that the words rose spontaneously to his mouth to express them. But instead, he replied:

  —No, Donna Maria; I feel all right. Thank you. It is September that is putting me in somewhat of a daze . . .

  She looked at him as if she doubted the truth of that answer. Then, to avoid silence after the evasive phrase, she asked:

  —Do you prefer, of the neutral months, April or September?

  —September. It’s more feminine, more discreet, more mysterious. It’s like spring seen in a dream. All the trees, slowly losing their strength, also lose some part of their reality. Look at the sea, down there. Doesn’t it resemble an atmosphere rather than a mass of water? Never, as in September, are the alliances of sky and sea as mystical and profound. And the earth? I don’t know why, but looking at a landscape during this time of year, I always think of a beautiful woman who has given birth and is resting in a white bed, smiling a startled, pale, inextinguishable smile. Is it a correct impression? There is something of the amazement and beatitude of the woman who has just given birth, in a September countryside.

  They had almost reached the end of the path. Certain herms adhered to certain tree trunks, forming with them almost one single trunk, arboreal and lapidary; and the abundant fruit, some already all golden, others stained with gold and green, others all green, hung over the heads of the Termini, which appeared to guard intact and intangible trees, to be their genius loci.3—Why was Andrea assailed by sudden uneasiness and anxiety approaching the place where, two weeks before, he had written the sonnets of liberation? Why did he struggle between fear and hope that she would discover and read them? Why did some of those verses return to his memory detached from the others, as if representing his present feeling, his present aspiration, the new dream that he held in his heart?

  —O you who make all the winds so fragrant


  and under whose rule all harbors are embraced

  At your feet my destiny is placed:

  My Lady, please will you grant me your consent!

  It was true! It was true! He loved her; he was placing at her feet his entire soul; he had one single desire, humble and immense:—to be earth beneath her footprints.

  —How beautiful it is here! exclaimed Donna Maria, entering the dominion of the four-sided herm, in the acanthus paradise. —What a strange odor!

  Indeed, an odor of musk pervaded the air, as if due to the invisible presence of a musk-secreting insect or reptile. The shade was mysterious, and the lines of light that filtered through the foliage already touched by autumn’s damage were like lunar rays passing through the stained glass panes of a cathedral. A mixed sentiment, pagan and Christian, emanated from the place, as from a mythological painting by a pious quattrocento4 artist.

  —Look, look, Delfina! she added, with the excitement of one who sees an object of beauty, in her voice.

  Delfina had ingeniously braided a garland from flowering orange twigs; and, with sudden childish imagination, now wanted to place it on the head of the stone divinity. But as she could not reach the top, she was exerting herself to accomplish this task by rising up on tiptoes, lifting her arm, stretching as far as she could; and her slender, elegant, and lively form contrasted with the rigid, square, and solemn form of the statue, like a lily stalk at the base of an oak tree. Every effort was in vain.

  Then, smiling, her mother came to her aid. She took the garland from her hands and placed it on the four pensive foreheads. Involuntarily, her gaze fell on the inscriptions.

  —Who wrote here? You? she asked Andrea, surprised and pleased. —Yes, it is your handwriting.

  And immediately, she knelt on the grass to read; curiously, almost avidly. Imitating her, Delfina leaned over behind her mother, circling her neck with her arms and pushing her face against her cheek, almost covering it. Her mother murmured the rhymes. And those two feminine figures, crouching at the base of the tall, garlanded stone, in the uncertain light, among the symbolic acanthi, formed such a harmonious composition of lines and colors that the poet remained for a few moments under the sole dominion of aesthetic pleasure and pure admiration.