“We must bring them here among the flowers.”
It seemed as though the sound of these words had fascinated his ear
from the first, like a musical cadence. His voice kept the same
inflections as he repeated them. And as I heard the words again I felt
strangely disturbed, almost as if he had addressed them to me. Again
the desire to cut some of the branches arose within me. It had died out
at the sight of so much living beauty. And vaguely I pictured to myself
the great gift of spring arriving at the gloomy palace in the twilight.
“Is there no one about?” I asked impatiently. A peasant came running
up. Breathlessly he bent his head, and began to kiss my hand
passionately.
“Cut some of the finest branches,” I ordered him.
He was a magnificent example of his species, a worthy inhabitant of
this rugged flint-strewn land. He seemed to me like a survivor of
Deucalion’s ancient race, sprung from the pebbles. He brandished his
bill-hook, and with clean, rapid strokes began to mutilate the joyous
vegetable creation. Each stroke sent down a shower of loose petals,
which lay like snow on the ground.
“Look,” I said to Antonello, showing him a branch; “did you ever see
anything so delicate and so fresh?”
He raised his weak, effeminate hand and touched a flower with the tips
of his fingers. It was the gesture of the invalid or convalescent, who
touches a living thing with the dim notion that the contact will leave
some small part of its vitality with him, just as butterflies leave
behind the ephemeral dust of their wings. He turned to his brother with
almost tender melancholy in his painful smile.
“Do you see, Oddo? We had forgotten, we did not know ...”
“But don’t you live in a garden?” I asked, marvelling at the amazement
and emotion caused by a simple branch of almond blossom, as though
it were an unheard-of novelty. “Don’t you pass your whole time among
leaves and flowers?”
“Yes, that is true,” answered Antonello; “but somehow I had ceased to
notice them. Besides, these are, or seem to me, _quite different_. I
can’t explain the impression they make on me. You would not understand.”
The ringing sound of the bill-hook went on, and he turned towards the
almond tree, which was trembling under the blows. The man was sitting
up in the tree, with the trunk in the grip of his muscular legs, and
above his head, which was dark as a mulatto’s, hung the fresh silvery
cloud, quivering at the glitter of the hooked steel.
“Tell him to stop,” begged Antonello. “We shall not be able to carry
all those branches.”
“The carriage shall take you to Trigento with your burden.”
And I lingered on, picturing the arrival of the springlike gift at the
gates of the park where the three sisters were waiting. Their faces
came before me indistinctly, yet with some trace of the features
associated with memories of childhood and youth. And the desire to see
them again, to hear their voices, to recall those memories in their
presence, to know their troubles, and to take part in their unknown
life, grew stronger and stronger within me, till it began to take the
acuteness of anxiety.
Following out my own line of thought and feeling (the carriage had
already begun to roll towards Rebursa), I said--
“Long ago the park of Trigento used to be full of jonquils and violets.”
“So it is still,” said Oddo.
“There were great hedges of box.”
“So there are still.”
“I remember so well the year you came back from Monaco. Massimilla was
very ill. I used to come over to Trigento nearly every day with my
mother ...”
We were immersed in spring. The carriage was crammed with almond
blossom; it was piled behind our backs and on our knees. Antonello’s
white face looked more wasted than ever in the midst of that fragrant
whiteness, and the melancholy of his feverish eyes, contrasted with
that living expression of youth eternally renewed, went to my heart.
“What a pity you are not coming to Trigento to-day!” said Oddo, with
deep regret in his voice. “I don’t like leaving you.”
“Yes, indeed,” added Antonello. “We have seen you to-day for the first
time after years and years of silence and oblivion, and now it seems
impossible to do without you.”
They spoke these affectionate words with that simplicity and candour
which belong to solitary men, not accustomed to the affectations of
ordinary life. I felt already that they cared for me and I for them;
that the great gap made by the years was already bridged over; and that
their fate was about to be bound up irrevocably with mine. Why did my
soul incline so specially towards these two prostrate beings? why did
it yearn with such infinite desire over graces and sorrows of which
it had only caught a glimpse? why was it so impatient to pour out its
riches over this poverty? Was it true, then, that the long and hard
discipline I had undergone had not dried up the springs of emotion
and imagination, but had made them deeper and more fervent? On that
February afternoon, warmed by the breath of early spring, a vapour of
poetry rose around me. The babbling flow of the Saurgo at the foot of
rocks fashioned by fire; the dead city in the marshy river; the peak
of Corace, glittering like a helmet on a threatening brow; the brown
fields, strewn with flints full of dormant life; the vines and olives,
contorted with the huge effort of producing such rich fruit from such
meagre limbs; the whole aspect of the country around was symbolical of
the power of thoughts nourished in secret, of the tragic mystery of
destinies fulfilled, of painful energy, tyrannical constraint, proud
passion, of every harsh and rigid virtue peculiar to lonely scenery
or lonely man. And yet the softest of spring airs breathed over the
austere land; silver almond blossom crowned the hills, as foam crowns
the waves; under the slanting rays the slopes here and there wore the
look of soft velvet; the rocky peaks were turned to rosy gold against
a sky fading into delicate green. And so the influence of the season
and the magic of the hour were able to soften the severe genius of the
place, clothe its harshness with tenderness, temper its violence, and
throw a gentle enchantment over that rocky basin, fashioned by fire
at the terrible bidding of an ancient volcano; afterwards continually
invaded and corroded by the greed, or enriched by the liberality, of an
ancient river.
“We shall see each other very often,” I said, after a pause, in reply
to their kind words. “From Rebursa to Trigento is a short distance; and
I know that in you I have found two brothers----”
They both started as a mountain keeper passed us at a gallop,
discharging his carbine in the air to give the signal for the salute of
welcome and joy. Rebursa rose before me with its four towers of stone,
still strong and fair, still bearing intact the impress of its former
pride, casting the shadow of its power over a vigorous race, among whom
obedience and fidelity were transmitted from father to son as a portion
of their inheritance.
But anguish such as I had not felt for long came over my soul as I set
foot on the threshold, strewn with myrtle and laurel, where there was
no beloved voice to bid me welcome and call me by name. The figures of
my dead appeared to me at the foot of the staircase, and fixed their
colourless eyes on me without a movement, without a sign, without a
smile.
A little later I followed the carriage with my eyes for a long, long
way on the road to Trigento, as it bore away the two sad invalids,
nearly buried under flowers. And my soul was there before them at the
park gates, where the three sisters were waiting--Anatolia, Violante,
Massimilla!--and I caught a glimpse of them as they received the fresh
gift of spring in their outstretched arms; and I tried to recognise
their noble faces through the fragrant thicket, and to discern the
brow of her whom my soul would have elected for the desired union. The
gathering twilight heightened this strange and sudden agitation caused
by the desire for love. Blue shadows filled the valley of the Saurgo,
hid the dead city, crept slowly up the steep terraces of rock; and when
stars began to twinkle in the sky, down below festal bonfires were lit;
they flared up, multiplied, formed large wreaths. Lonely and lofty,
far apart from these signs of life below, the pinnacles of rock still
shone, withdrawn almost into the remoteness of a myth, into the sphere
of a supernatural atmosphere. And all of a sudden they blazed like
fireworks with an extraordinary light, which only lasted a few moments;
then they grew paler, turned violet, faded away, and went out. The
lofty peak of Corace was the last to remain aflame; its point clove the
sky sharply, like the cry of hopeless passion; then, with the rapidity
of a lightning flash, it faded away also, and entered the universal
night.
“If the severity of thy discipline should have no other reward than
the divine emotion that has overwhelmed thee since yesterday, thou
mightest still rejoice over the result of thy efforts,” said the
_dæmon_ to me, as we rode slowly towards the walled garden. “Now at
last thou hast reached maturity! Until yesterday thou knewest not
what a degree of maturity and completeness thy soul had attained. The
happy revelation comes to thee from the desire thou hast suddenly
felt to pour out thy riches, to spread them, to spend them without
stint. Thou dost feel thyself inexhaustible, capable of nourishing a
thousand lives. This is indeed the prize of thy diligent efforts; thou
possessest now the ready fertility of deeply cultivated land. Therefore
enjoy thy spring; leave thyself open to all influences; welcome the
unknown and unforeseen, and anything else that fate may bring thee;
abolish all prohibitions. The first part of thy task is completed.
Thou hast given integrity and intensity to thy nature; let it now
be sacred to thee. Respect the slightest motions of thy thought and
sentiment, because thy nature alone produces them. Since this nature is
entirely thy own, thou mayest yield to it and enjoy it without limits.
From henceforth everything is permitted to thee, even that which thou
didst hate and despise in others, because everything becomes ennobled
after passing through the ordeal of fire. Fear not to be merciful,
thou who art strong and able to dominate and chastise. Be not ashamed
of thy perplexity and thy languor, thou who hast made thyself a will
tempered as hard as beaten swords. Repel not the tenderness which
overwhelms thee, the illusion which enfolds thee, the melancholy which
attracts thee, all the new indefinable feelings which now approach thy
astonished soul. They are but the dim shapes of vapour which escape
from the life fermenting in the depths of thy fertile nature. Therefore
welcome them without suspicion, for they are not foreign to thee, nor
will they diminish or corrupt thy nature. Perhaps on the morrow they
will appear to thee as heralds of that new birth which is thy desire.”
Never since then have I passed an hour at once so delicious and so
painful. I know not if the trees laden with blossom had as keen a sense
of their vital power as I had of mine on that clear morning; but they
certainly could not feel my vast bewildering perplexity, innumerable
feelings, and innumerable thoughts. In order to prolong both pain and
delight, I kept my horse at a walk, and lingered on the way, as if that
hour were to close for ever a phase of my intimate life, and on my
arrival at the fated spot a new and unforeseen phase were to open, the
dim presentiment of which was to be found in my increasing uneasiness.
From time to time the breath of spring, with its whispering warmth
around me, seemed to waft me up into an ether of dreams, to efface in
me for a few seconds the consciousness of real personality, and to
breathe into me the virgin ardent soul of one of those hero lovers in
fairy tales who ride to find Sleeping Beauties in the Wood. Was not I
riding towards the maiden princesses imprisoned in a walled garden?
And was not each one of them perhaps in her secret heart expecting the
Bridegroom?
Already they appeared before me as pictured by my desire, and already
my desire met its first perplexity in the triple image. I asked myself:
“Which will be the chosen one?” for within my soul I felt at the same
moment the nuptial joy of the one, and the sepulchral sadness of
the other two; I felt all the germs of future trouble, and already
perceived regret hidden under hope. And again that fear crossed my
spirit which once before had disturbed me in the midst of my voluntary
discipline: the fear of those blind forces of fate against which the
strongest will may struggle in vain; the fear of that sudden whirlwind
which in a second may seize the boldest and most tenacious of men, and
carry him far away from the promised goal.
I drew up my horse. The road at that point was quite deserted; the
groom was following me at a distance. Over the grand, lonely scenery
reigned the deepest silence, only broken at intervals by the whispering
olives; a steady light shone equally over everything; and in the
light and the silence, all things from small leaves to gigantic rocks
appeared with a clearness of outline that was almost crude. I felt more
strongly than ever the ambiguous something which had entered into me.
And I thought: “Was not my soul till yesterday filled with the same
clear daylight which now reveals every line of scenery to my attentive
sight? And does not this new uncertainty cover some great peril? What
if a dangerously large store of poetry has accumulated within me
during my solitude, and now requires unlimited expansion? But if I
give myself up to the rushing torrent, where will it carry me? Perhaps
watchful guard against extraneous life may yet avail; perhaps it may
yet avail to refuse to enter the circle which is suddenly opening
before me, and will enclose me like a magic ring.” And the _dæmon_
repeated with unhesitating voice: “Fear not! Welcome the unknown
and unforeseen and whatever else fate may bring thee; abolish all
prohibitions; go onwards safe and free; have no anxiety save to live.
Thy fate can only be fulfilled in the abundance of life.”
I urged my horse into a trot, vehemently, as if at that point a great
act had been resolved upon. And Trigento appeared on the slope of the
hill with its stone houses clustering against the parent rock. At the
summit appeared the ancient palace with its walled garden stretching
down the opposite slope to the plain. It produced the effect of a great
cloister full of forgotten or dead things.
* * * * *
As I dismounted at the gate I heard the voice of Oddo, who was looking
out for me.
“Welcome, Claudio!”
He ran to meet me with outstretched arms, as much delighted as the
first time.
“I thought you would have come earlier,” he said in a reproachful tone;
“I have been waiting for you here for the last two hours.”
“I lingered on the way,” I answered. “I wanted to renew acquaintance
with every tree and stone.”
With one of those strange sudden movements of his, in which curiosity
and timidity were mingled, he went up to my horse and stroked his neck.
“How beautiful he is!” he murmured, and the animal’s sensitive neck
quivered under the touch of his slender white hand.
“You can ride him whenever you like,” I said to him, “either this one
or another.”
“I hardly think I could sit in the saddle now,” he answered; “I believe
I should be nervous.... But come! Come! You are expected.”
And he led me up a path enclosed within walls of box-wood, feeble with
age, and broken here and there by deep gaps, from which a fresh scent
of invisible violets seemed to issue, strange as the breath of youth
out of a decrepit mouth.
“Yesterday evening,” said Oddo rather uneasily, “yesterday evening we
brought back joy with your almond blossom. You don’t know what we felt,
alone in that carriage, buried under the flowers! Antonello was like a
child. I never saw him like that before.”
At intervals the green walls opened out into archways, and I caught
sight of grassy glades where some long slanting ray of sun pierced the
shadow with a sharp outline.
“I never saw him like that before; I never heard him talk so much
nonsense.”
Stone vases deep and round alternated with statues almost clothed with
lichen, maimed or headless statues whose attitudes seemed eloquent to
me. And a few daffodils were flowering round their pedestals.
“When we arrived here, we could not get out for the branches. The
sisters came to set us free. How happy they were! They went away laden.
We heard them laughing up the stairs. All such things are new to us,
Claudio.”
A whispered splash reached my ear; the vague sound of a hidden
fountain. An indefinable anxiety weighed upon my heart.
“We talked about you the whole evening, and remembered many things of
long ago, and perhaps made some air-castles for the future. Who would
ever have thought of your coming back? But none of us can believe yet
that you will stay.... We feel as if after a few days you would escape
us. It is not easy to bear this life of ours. Massimilla, you see,
prefers a convent.... Did you not know that Massimilla is just going to
leave us?”
As I walked up the path, brushing against the walls of vegetation, a
strong, bitter odour reached my nostrils from the little, fresh box
leaves which shone like beryls among the thick green.
“Ah! here is Violante!” exclaimed Oddo, touching my arm.
At the sudden apparition my heart gave a great bound, and I felt the
colour rise in my face.
She was sitting under a lofty arch of box, with her feet upon the
grass; a strip of meadow seen through the opening lay behind her,
streaked with gold.
She smiled without rising, waiting till we came near; and she seemed
to be offering her whole beauty to my astonished gaze in that calm
attitude, as she sat on the green sward where perhaps her fingers had
gathered the numerous violets ornamenting her girdle. As she stretched
out her hand to me, she looked me full in the face, and said in a voice
which was the perfect musical expression of the form it came from--
“You are welcome. We were expecting you yesterday. Oddo and Antonello
brought us your gift instead, and it was no less acceptable.”
I said: “After many years I am once again entering your grounds, where
I used long ago to accompany my mother, and already I begin to regret
having stayed so long away. On leaving Rome I knew that I should find
an empty house at Rebursa, but I did not know how richly Trigento would
compensate for it. I owe you much gratitude.”
“We shall owe you gratitude,” she interrupted, “if you do not find our
society wearisome. You know that this place is destitute of joy.”
“Even sadness has its benefit for him who understands how to taste it,
has it not?”
“Perhaps.”
“Besides, I assure you, since I passed the gate I have experienced none
but exquisite sensations here. This great garden seems to me delicious.
It is impossible not to feel the poetry of its antiquity! Yesterday
when I saw Oddo and Antonello in raptures over that almond blossom, as
if they had never seen a flowering tree before, I thought everything
here must be withered and dead. Instead of which I find within your
gates a more enchanting display of spring than that which I left
outside. Aren’t you tired with gathering violets in the grass? Your
girdle is full of them.”
She smiled and looked down towards her waist, and with her bare fingers
caressed the violets which adorned it.
“You come from the city,” she said. Her voice was musical but rather
veiled, and the richness of its tone was a little exhausted, as if very
slightly cracked; “you come from the city, and the country is offering
you her firstfruits.”
“I don’t know how it is, but certain things always seem new.”
“We see these things no longer, and love them no longer,” said Oddo,
with some melancholy. “Probably Violante cannot smell the scent of the
flowers she picks.”
“Is that true?” I asked, turning to her. My eyes were struck by the
profile of marble under her abundant hair and the motionless attitude,
which reminded one of immortal statues.
“What were you saying?” she asked, like one returning from far off; she
had not heard her brother’s words.
“Oddo says you cannot smell the scent of the flowers you pick. Is it
true?”
A faint touch of red coloured her cheeks.
“Oh, no!” she answered, with a vivacity quite in contrast with the slow
rhythm to which her life seemed set. “Don’t believe Oddo. He says that
because I am fond of strong scents; but I can smell the faintest also,
even those of the stones.”
“Of the stones?” said Oddo, laughing.
“What do you know about it, Oddo? Be quiet.”
We were walking up the great flight of steps covered with trellises
leading in symmetrical order to the palace; she went up slowly between
us, step by step. The stairs were very wide, and she made a step
forward on each, and then each time paused an instant before putting
her foot on the next, and this movement caused her always to lift
the same foot. Wearied by the frequent repetition of the movement,
she sometimes relaxed her body a little as she stood with bended
knee and slackened the proud will which kept her figure as erect as
a perfect stalk. An unexpected softness then came over her superb
form; a new rhythm revealed what I should call the docile graces, the
pliant qualities of love. So strong was the power emanating from this
beautiful being, that I could not take my eyes off her movements; and I
lingered behind so that my entire gaze should encircle her. She seemed
to drive my spirit back into the marvellous epoch when artists drew
from dormant matter those perfect forms which men regarded as the only
truths worthy of worship on earth. And I thought as I looked at her and
ascended behind her: “It is right she should remain untouched. Only by
a god could she be possessed without shame.” And as her queenly head
passed onwards in the light--her native element--I felt that her beauty
was on the verge of its perfect maturity, of its highest effort, and
I thanked fortune for having permitted me such a sight. “Ah, I shall
worship her, but I shall not dare to love her; I shall not dare to look
into her soul and surprise its secrets. Yet her every movement reveals
that she was made for love; but it was for barren love, not for the
love that creates. Her body will never bear the disfiguring burden; the
flood of milk will never mar the pure outline of her bosom.”
She stopped, impatient at the effort, and a little out of breath, and
said--
“How tiring these stairs are! Let us take a rest here, if you don’t
mind.”
“Here are Antonello and Anatolia coming down,” remarked Oddo, who had
seen the two, through the open bars of the trellises, descending the
first flight of steps. “Let us wait for them.”
Moving towards us came she who had been represented to me as the giver
of strength, the beneficent powerful maiden, the rich and generous
soul. She appeared from the first as a support, for Antonello was
leaning on her arm, and setting his hesitating steps to the measure of
her firm ones.
“Which of us,” asked Violante suddenly, but so lightly as to remove
all indiscretion from the question, “which of us do you remember least
indistinctly?”
“I really don’t know,” I answered vaguely, for my ears were listening
to the rustle of Anatolia’s dress.
“But certainly the figures I remember have hardly anything in common
with the present reality. Since the day I went away we have passed
through that period of life when transformations are most rapid and
most deep.”