“That is good news!”
And I said nothing else, for my emotion at the contact with that
throbbing life was so fierce that it prevented any pitiful feigning.
It was clear that she expected words of love and joy from me; that I
should take her hand and ask: “Will you renounce your vows for ever and
be mine entirely?” That was what she expected. And feeling her anguish
so close to me, feeling her longing to surrender herself and be happy
fanning my face almost like a flame, a shudder ran through me, such as
a man would feel if he were suddenly shown a great wound where the
most hidden intricacies of the living flesh were laid bare. There was
something of that horror in my suffering. Up to that time I had played
with the gentle soul, treating it like soft locks of hair through which
it was sweet to run one’s fingers with the knowledge that next day it
would be cut off. And now this soul was clinging to mine with its whole
anguish.
“I could make thee a creature of joy!” It was like a promise, it was
almost passion. Both promise and passion too had rung in my last words;
and indeed at that very hour my attentive ear had been able at times,
as I bent over that sweet soul, to discern some trace of the hidden
vein whence the beautiful sudden laughter had sprung one day. Ah, why
was I doomed to deceive such sorrowful hope, and to renounce crowning
my powers with that silent adoration?
We were alone, and it was a strange solitude in which I could almost
feel the emptiness of the airy space that the two other figures would
have occupied had they been beside us. And the restlessness which their
absence produced in my spirit was as painful as the stress of waiting.
“Where were Anatolia and Violante, what were they doing just then?
Were they also in the garden?” I saw them appearing at the turn of
every path, and imagined the expression of their first look as they met
us. And I thought of the strangeness of the behaviour of both during
the past few days, and sought to discover its true meaning. Anatolia
rose before me with her kind, heroic, martyr’s smile, resigned to
pour out her heart’s strength to the last drop that she might soothe
incurable ills; she rose before me with those pure eyes of hers, which
at times flashed invitingly like the waters of legendary lakes when
a sudden glitter reveals the existence of hidden treasures. Wrapped
in her apathy and disdain, Violante rose before me in an enigmatic
attitude which might almost be hostile, and inspired me with a kind
of discomfort such as gloomy presentiments are wont to produce; for
behind her in my imagination was her fatal rock, and the mystery of her
distant apartments clouded with deadly perfumes.
I should like to have asked her who was at my side: “Is there any
change in your beloved sisters’ voices when they speak to you or
to each other? Is there anything that hurts you sometimes in their
voices and their looks? And at times when you are sitting side by
side breathing the same air, does a heavy silence fall upon you, like
the silence before a storm? And then do you feel all your tenderness
dry up, and a bitterness like venom rise within you? And, tell me, do
your sisters weep apart? Or does it sometimes happen that you all weep
together?”
Thus would I fain have questioned the silent maiden, and with her have
suffered the pain of loving.
I looked at her. She was suffering and rejoicing. “You always carry a
book,” I said, for the sake of breaking the charm, “like a sibyl.”
She showed me the volume.
“It is the book I had that first day,” she said, with the indefinable
tone in her voice which betrays the moisture of tears.
“And the blade of grass?”
“Is burnt up.”
“Put in a red rose instead.”
But there was such humble grace in her emotion, she let her inward
ardour appear so ingenuously, that I could not leave her, nor resist
the sweetness of seeing her melt little by little.
“Let us sit down,” I said. “Let us read a few pages together. Do you
like this place?”
It was a little mound in the meadow, starred with anemones, and
peaceful; some pointed yew-trees near gave it something of the look
of a cemetery. In the centre, a caryatid, bent double so that her
breast touched her knees, supported the marble slab of a sundial. And
there, like seats at a table, were two benches for a couple of lovers
who might wish as they looked on the shadow of the dial to experience
the melancholy delight of perishing slowly and harmoniously together.
Carved in the marble under the figures of the hours, this legend was
still traceable--