Pleasure Read online

  The place was almost completely unchanged. From every object that Elena had looked at or touched, flocks of memories arose, and the images of that distant time came tumultuously to life. After almost two years, Elena was about to cross that threshold again. Within half an hour, certainly, she would come, she would sit in that armchair, lifting her veil from her face, panting slightly, as she had once done; and she would talk. All those objects would once again hear her voice, maybe even her laugh, after an absence of two years.

  The day of the great parting was precisely March 25, 1885, outside Porta Pia, in a carriage. The date had remained indelible in Andrea’s memory. Now, waiting, he could evoke all the events of that day with infallible lucidity. The vision of the Nomentano landscape unfolded itself now before him in an ideal light, like one of those dreamscapes in which things seem to be visible from afar by virtue of a radiance that emanates from their shapes.

  The closed carriage rolled along with a steady sound, the horses moving at a trot: the walls of the ancient patrician villas passed before the windows, glowing white, almost oscillating with a constant and gentle movement. Now and then a great iron gate would appear, through which one could see a driveway flanked with high box hedges or a clump of greenery inhabited by Latinate statues or a long portico covered in foliage, through which the rays of sun glinted palely here and there.

  Elena was silent, wrapped in her full otter-skin mantle, with a veil over her face and her hands enclosed in suede. He inhaled with delight the subtle odor of heliotrope that arose from her costly fur coat, feeling against his arm the shape of hers. Both believed themselves to be far from others, alone; but suddenly the black carriage of a prelate would pass by; or a herdsman on horseback, or a throng of purplish clerics, or a herd of cattle.

  Half a kilometer from the bridge she said:

  —Let us get out.

  In the countryside the cold and clear air seemed like springwater; and as the trees were undulating in the wind it appeared, as with an optical illusion, that the undulation transmitted itself to all things.

  She said, embracing him and stumbling on the harsh terrain:

  —I am leaving this evening. This is the last time . . .

  Then she remained quiet; then she spoke again, haltingly, about the necessity for her departure, about the need for the breakup, with a tone full of sadness. The furious wind tore the words from her lips. She carried on talking. He interrupted her, taking her hand and seeking with his fingers the flesh of her wrist through her buttons:

  —No more! No more!

  They walked on, struggling against the insistent gusts of wind. And he, near the woman, in that profound and grave solitude, suddenly felt enter into his soul, like the proud sentiment of a freer life, an excess of strength.

  —Don’t leave! Don’t leave! I still want you, always!

  He bared her wrist and pushed his fingers into her sleeve, tormenting her skin with an agitated movement that harbored the desire for greater possession.

  She turned upon him one of those looks that inebriated him like glasses of wine. The bridge was nearby, red-hued, in the light of the sun. The river seemed immobile and metallic along its entire sinuous length. The rushes curved over on the banks, and the waters bumped up gently against several poles stuck into the clay, perhaps to hold fishing lines.

  Then he began to goad her with memories. He spoke to her of their early days, of the ball at Palazzo Farnese, of the hunt in the countryside of Divine Love, of their morning trysts in Piazza di Spagna along the shopwindows of the goldsmiths or along Via Sistina, peaceful and elegant, when she came out of Palazzo Barberini followed by peasant women offering her roses from their baskets.

  —Do you remember? Do you remember?

  —Yes.

  —And that evening, with the flowers, in the beginning; when I came with all those flowers . . . You were alone, near the window: you were reading. Do you remember?

  —Yes, yes.

  —I came in. You barely turned around; you greeted me with harshness. What was wrong with you? I don’t know. I placed the bouquet on the little table and I waited. You started talking about futile things, unwillingly and without pleasure. I thought, disheartened: Already she doesn’t love me anymore! But the scent was strong: the whole room was already full of it. I can still see you, when you grabbed the bouquet with both hands and buried your whole face in it, inhaling. Your face, when you lifted it again, was bloodless, and your eyes seemed strange as if from a kind of intoxication . . .

  —Carry on, carry on! said Elena, with a faint voice, leaning over the parapet, spellbound by the fascination of the rushing waters.

  —Then, on the couch: Do you remember? I covered your chest, your arms, your face with the flowers, oppressing you. You kept on coming up through them, offering me your mouth, your throat, your closed eyelids. Between your skin and my lips I felt the cold and damp petals. If I kissed your neck, you shivered throughout your body, and held out your hands to keep me away. Oh, then . . . You had your head pressed back in the cushions, your chest hidden by roses, your arms bare to the elbows; and nothing was more loving or sweeter than the slight tremor of your pale hands on my temples . . . Do you remember?

  —Yes. Carry on!

  He continued, his tenderness growing. Drunk on his own words, he almost lost consciousness of what he was saying. Elena, with her back to the light, was leaning toward her lover. Both could feel through their clothes the indecisive contact of their bodies. Beneath them, the waters of the river moved, slow and cold to the eye; the great slender rushes, like thatches of hair, curved themselves into it at every gust and floated with ample movements.

  Then they spoke no more; but, looking at each other, they heard a constant sound that persisted indefinitely, taking with it a part of their being, as if something sonorous was escaping from the intimate recesses of their brains and expanding to fill all the surrounding countryside.

  Elena, straightening up, said:

  —Let’s go. I’m thirsty. Where can one ask for some water?

  They headed then toward the Romanesque inn on the other side of the bridge. Some carters were unfastening their packhorses, swearing loudly. The light of the setting sun struck the human and equine group with intense force.

  The entry of the two aroused no sign of wonder among the people in the inn. Three or four feverish men, taciturn and yellowish, stood around a square brazier. A ruddy-skinned cowherd slumbered in a corner, still gripping his extinguished pipe between his teeth. Two scrawny and squinting youths played cards, glaring at each other during the intervals with an expression of brutal fervor. And the innkeeper, a plump woman, held a baby in her arms, rocking it ponderously.

  While Elena drank the water in the glass, the woman showed her the baby, lamenting.

  —Look, my lady! Look, my lady!

  All the limbs of the poor creature were miserably thin; its purplish lips were covered in whitish spots; the inside of its mouth was covered with what seemed to be milky clots. It seemed almost as if life were already fleeing from that small body, leaving some matter upon which mold now grew.

  —Feel, my lady, how cold his hands are. He can’t drink anymore; he can’t swallow; he can’t sleep anymore . . .

  The woman sobbed. The feverish men looked on with eyes full of immense exhaustion. At the sound of her sobs the two youths made a gesture of impatience.

  —Come, come! Andrea said to Elena, taking her arm after having left a coin on the table. And he drew her outside.

  Together they returned toward the bridge. The Aniene River flowed on, lit now by the fiery sunset. A scintillating line passed through the arch; and in the distance the waters took on a brown but glossier color, as if slicks of oil or tar were floating on its surface. The rugged countryside, like an immense ruin, was tinted all with violet. Near the Eternal City the sky grew increasingly red.

  —Poo
r creature! murmured Elena with a profound tone of compassion, hugging herself tightly to Andrea’s arm.

  The wind grew enraged. A flock of crows flew past high up in the enflamed air, cawing.

  Then, suddenly, a kind of sentimental exaltation filled the souls of the couple, in the presence of solitude. It was as if something tragic and heroic entered their passion. The highest point of their sentiment blazed under the influence of the tumultuous sunset. Elena stopped.

  —I can’t go on anymore, she said, panting.

  The carriage was still far off, immobile, where they had left it.

  —Just a little farther, Elena! A little farther! Do you want me to carry you?

  Andrea, taken by an unstoppable lyrical impetus, abandoned himself to words.

  “Why did she want to leave? Why did she want to break the enchantment? Weren’t their destinies bound together, by now, forever? He needed her in order to live, her eyes, her voice, her thoughts . . . He was completely penetrated by that love; all his blood was adulterated as if by poison, with no remedy. Why did she want to flee? He would wind himself around her, he would first suffocate her against his chest. No, it could not be. Never! Never!”

  Elena listened, her head bent, struggling against the wind, without answering. After a while, she lifted her arm to make a sign to the coachman to approach. The horses pawed the ground.

  —Stop at Porta Pia, the lady cried, mounting the carriage together with her lover.

  And with a sudden movement she offered herself to his desire. He kissed her mouth, her forehead, her hair, her eyes, her throat, avidly, rapidly, without breathing any longer.

  —Elena! Elena!

  A fiery scarlet glow entered the carriage, reflected by the brick-colored houses. The trotting sound of many horses came closer.

  Elena, leaning on the shoulder of her lover with immensely sweet submission, said:

  —Farewell, love! Farewell! Farewell!

  As she straightened up, to the left and to the right ten or twelve scarlet-clothed horsemen passed at a rapid trot, returning from foxhunting. One of them, the Duke of Beffi, passing very close by, arched up to see inside the carriage window.

  Andrea did not speak anymore. He now felt his entire being becoming faint, falling into an infinite depression. The puerile weakness of his nature, the initial upliftment having ebbed away, now brought him to the need for tears. He would have liked to bow down before her, humble himself, arouse the woman’s pity with his tears. He had a confused, dull sensation of dizziness; and a sharp chill assaulted the nape of his neck and penetrated the roots of his hair.

  —Farewell, Elena repeated.

  The carriage was stopping under the archway of Porta Pia so that he could alight.

  In this way, hence, while waiting, Andrea saw that far-off day once more in his mind’s eye; he once more saw all the gestures, heard all the words. What had he done as soon as Elena’s carriage had disappeared in the direction of the Four Fountains? Nothing extraordinary, in truth. Even then, as always, as soon as the immediate object from which his spirit drew that type of fatuous exaltation distanced itself, he had almost immediately regained his tranquillity, his everyday consciousness, his equilibrium. He had mounted a public carriage to return home; there he had put on a black suit, as usual, not omitting any elegant detail; and he had gone to lunch at his cousin’s, as on every other Wednesday, at Palazzo Roccagiovine. Everything in his external existence exerted upon him a great power of oblivion, kept him occupied, aroused him to the swift enjoyment of worldly pleasures.

  That evening, in fact, contemplation had come to him quite late, namely, when returning to his home he saw shining on a table the small tortoiseshell comb forgotten there by Elena two days before. Then, in compensation, he had suffered all night and with many tricks of the mind he had intensified his pain.

  But the moment was nearing. The clock of Trinità de’ Monti sounded three forty-five. He thought, with profound trepidation: In a few minutes Elena will be here. What shall I do when receiving her? What words shall I say to her?

  The anxiety in him was real, and love for that woman had truly reawoken in him; but the verbal and plastic expression of feelings in him was, as always, so artificial and so far from simplicity and sincerity that he resorted, by habit, to rehearsing even the most profound emotions of the soul.

  He tried to imagine the scene; he composed some sentences; he looked around to choose the most propitious place for their talk. Then he even got up to see in a mirror if his face was pale; if it was appropriate to the circumstance. And his gaze in the mirror lingered at his temples, at his hairline, where Elena used to place a delicate kiss then. He opened his mouth to admire the perfect shine of his teeth and the freshness of his gums, remembering that once, Elena had liked in him, above all, his mouth. His vanity, which was that of a spoiled and effeminate youth, never neglected any effect of grace or form in a love affair. He knew, in the practice of love, how to draw from his beauty the greatest possible enjoyment. This felicitous aptitude of body and this keen search for pleasure indeed won him the hearts of women. He had in him aspects of Don Juan and of a cherub: he knew how to be both the man of a Herculean night and the shy, ingenuous, almost virginal lover. The basis of his power lay in this: that in the art of love, he had no repugnance for any pretense, for any falseness, for any lie. A great part of his strength lay in his hypocrisy.

  What shall I do when I receive her? What words shall I say to her? He became confused as the minutes fled past. He did not yet know in what kind of mood Elena would come to him.

  He had encountered her the previous morning along Via de’ Condotti, while she was looking at shopwindows. He had returned to Rome a few days earlier, after a long, obscure absence. The sudden encounter had provoked in both an intense emotion; but as they were out in public they were forced to be courteously reserved, ceremonial, almost cold. He had said to her, with a serious, slightly sad air, looking her in the eyes: —I have so many things to tell you, Elena. Will you come to me, tomorrow? Nothing has changed in the buen retiro.2 She had answered simply: —Fine, I will come. You can expect me at about four. I also have something to tell you. Now leave me.

  She had accepted the invitation immediately, with no hesitation whatsoever, without placing any conditions, without seeming to give any importance to the matter. Such readiness had at first aroused in Andrea a vague worry. Would she come as a friend or as a lover? Would she come to renew their love or to shatter every hope? In those two years, whatever had passed through her soul? Andrea did not know; but he still felt the sensation caused by her gaze, in the street, when he had bowed to greet her. It was still the same gaze as always, so sweet, so profound, so flattering, from beneath her infinitely long eyelashes.

  There were still two or three minutes to go until the appointed hour. The anxiety of the waiting man grew to such a pitch that he thought he would suffocate. He went to the window again and looked toward the steps of the Trinità. Once, Elena used to climb those stairs to their assignations. Placing her foot on the last step, she would hesitate for a moment; then she would rapidly cross that section of the square in front of the Casteldelfino house. One would hear her slightly undulating footsteps resonate on the paving, if the square was silent.

  The clock struck four. The sound of carriages could be heard from Piazza di Spagna and from the Pincian Hill.3 Many people were walking beneath the trees in front of Villa Medici. Two women sat on the stone bench before the church, watching over some small children who were running around the obelisk. The obelisk was entirely crimson, struck by the setting sun, and it cast a long, oblique, slightly turquoise shadow. The air was growing icy cold, the more sunset approached. The city below was tinged with gold against a pale sky on which the Monte Mario cypresses were already traced in black.

  Andrea gave a start of surprise. He saw a shadow appear at the top of the small flight of stairs that runs alo
ngside the Casteldelfino house and descends to Piazzetta Mignanelli. It was not Elena, but a woman who turned into Via Gregoriana, walking slowly.

  What if she doesn’t come? he mused doubtfully, drawing back from the window. And drawing back from the cold air, he felt that the tepid warmth of the room was softer, the aroma of the juniper and the roses more intense, the shadow of the drapes and the door curtains more mysterious. It seemed that in that moment the room was completely ready to welcome the desired woman. He thought about the sensation that Elena would feel upon entering. Certainly she would be won over by that sweetness, so full of memories; she would immediately lose every notion of reality, of time; she would believe herself to be back in one of their habitual trysts, never to have interrupted that sensual affair, still to be the Elena she had once been. If the theater of love was unchanged, why should love have changed? Certainly she would feel the profound seduction of the things that had once been beloved.

  Now a new torture commenced in the waiting man. The senses, heightened by the habit of contemplative fantasy and of poetic dreaming, invest objects with a sensitive and changeable soul, like the human soul; and they perceive in everything, in shapes, in colors, in sounds, in perfumes, a transparent symbol, the emblem of a sentiment or a thought; and in every phenomenon, in every combination of phenomena, they believe they can conjecture a psychic state, a moral significance. Sometimes the vision is so clear that it produces a sense of anguish in those spirits: they feel they are suffocating from the fullness of life revealed to them, and they are alarmed by their own phantasms.