“It is not that.... If I closed my eyes, perhaps I should see....”
My heart was trembling like a leaf beneath a sudden breath of wind.
And though Anatolia’s face was composed again into an expression of
deep but calm sadness, and though a feeling of power over evil seemed
diffused through her whole person, vague analogies led me to think of
Antonello’s sudden attacks of distress, of that restlessness of his,
which was an infallible warning, and of the visions of the future which
lit up his pale eyes.
“Do you understand, Anatolia?” I asked, taking one of her hands, for
we stood side by side leaning against the rock. “Do you understand
that you, you alone, are the companion whose name my heart pronounced
that evening when your father kissed my forehead in sign of consent?
You rose and left the room softly like a spirit; and I, I don’t know
why, imagined that your face was bathed in tears.... Tell me if you
are weeping, Anatolia, and if my dream was dear to you!” She did not
answer; but as I held her hand, it seemed to me that her purest heart’s
blood flowed magnetically to the tips of her fingers.
“That evening,” I added, striving to intoxicate her with hope, “as I
went back to Rebursa, I saw a star shining over one of my old towers;
and your presence had filled my heart so full of faith, that what was
mere chance seemed to me like a divine omen! From that time two figures
have shone for me in that radiance.... You know whose the other is.
I can hear the first words you spoke to me there on the steps, words
which evoked the memory of 'immense kindness.’ All that day the figure
your words had called up clung to your side to show me whom she had
elected. She herself, on some future evening, will come with me into
the dwelling which once was full of her smile, and now is deserted....
Look, down there!”
She looked at the distant towers of Rebursa down in the deep hollow
where the hanging clouds were casting great circles of shadow; but
her gaze passed on to Trigento, and during the interval marks of an
inexpressible inward conflict passed over her face. She shook her head,
and drew her hand out of mine.
“Happiness is forbidden me,” she said in a firm but sorrowful voice,
keeping her eyes fixed on the garden of her agony, on the house of
her martyrdom. “I, like Massimilla, am dedicated; and my vow also is
irrevocable. And it is not only the action of my own will, Claudio. I
feel now that the sacrifice is necessary, that I cannot escape from
it. You heard the tone in my answer just now when you asked me to go
up to the top with you. You saw how easy it was for me to climb with
you, with the support of your hand. But now ... I have not been able
to go any further; we did not reach the top. See: here I am, nailed to
a rock. You make me an offer, the value of which you yourself cannot
know as I know it; and here I am, weighed down by grief so heavy that I
am afraid of being unable to bear it, I, who have never been afraid of
suffering!”
I dared not interrupt her nor touch her. A sort of religious awe filled
my soul. Overmastered by even stronger emotion than had overcome me on
that solemn evening, I could feel, without turning round, the throbbing
of something infinitely noble and mysterious at my side, something
resembling the divine mysteries guarded under veils in the Holy of
Holies in temples. Her voice was sounding close to my ear, yet it came
from an infinite distance. Her words were simple, but they came from
the summit of life, that pinnacle which the human soul can only reach
when about to be transfigured into Ideal Beauty.
“Look, down there! Look at the house where from the first day we
received you as a brother, where our father received you as a son,
where you found the memory of your beloved dead kept fresh. Look
how far away it seems! And yet I feel it bound to me by a thousand
invisible ties stronger than any chain. I feel that even here my life
mingles with the faint life suffering down there. Ah, perhaps you
cannot understand! But think, Claudio, of the atrocity of the fate that
hangs over us; think of that poor raving mother, of that broken-down
feeble old man, of that victim always hovering on the border of
madness, of that other, too, who is under the same sentence, and of
the horror of contagion, and the solitude, and the grief.... Ah, you
cannot understand! From the first day I feared to sadden you; I always
tried to put myself between you and our misfortune. Very seldom,
perhaps never, have you breathed the real sadness of our house. We met
you in the open air, among the flowers which we learned, for your sake
only, to love again; and in our neglected garden you have been able to
bring some things to life.... But think of the hidden anguish! You
cannot see; but I can see from here everything that goes on in there,
as much as if the walls were made of glass, and I were touching them
with my forehead. Life seems suspended; the father and son are shut up
in one room and dare not go out, and dare not breathe; they listen to
every sound, one increases the suffering of the other, and both are
helplessly waiting for my return, and listening eagerly, hoping to
catch the sound of my voice and my step. And _she_ is raving, searching
for me in all the passages, all the rooms, calling me aloud, stopping
before a closed door and listening or knocking, and my two poor souls
inside hear her breathing, and start at every knock, and can do nothing
but look in each other’s eyes, my God!”
She pressed her hands to her temples with an instinctive movement, as
if to force back some rebound of sorrow; and her whole body, leaving
the support of the boulder, leant over towards the distant scene of her
martyrdom. And for a few seconds, with the anguish she had communicated
to me clutching at my throat, I bent over in the same attitude, I hung
over the edge of the precipice, with my gaze fixed on the distant home
where those souls were suffering.
“Think,” she continued, in a broken voice now, “think, Claudio, what
would happen to them if I were not there, if I forsook them! Even when
I leave them for a short time, I feel such regret, such remorse as I
cannot describe to you. Every time I cross the threshold to go out, a
gloomy presentiment weighs on my heart; and it seems to me as if on my
return I should find the house full of shrieks and lamentations....”
An uncontrollable shudder was now shaking her whole figure, and her
eyes were dilated as if some cruel vision were filling her with horror.
“Antonello,” she stammered; and for a few seconds she could not utter
another word.
I looked at her with inexpressible anguish; and my soul suffered with
hers in each contraction of her dear lips. And the vision in her eyes
passed into mine; and I saw Antonello’s wasted, white face, and the
rapid quiver of his eyelids, and his painful smile and disordered
movements, and the waves of terror which used suddenly to sweep over
his long thin body, shaking it like a fragile reed.
“Antonello ... tried to kill himself.... Only I know of it.... Nobody
else knows it; not even Oddo. Alas!”
She trembled so much that she could not control herself as she leant
against the rock. “One evening God warned me, God sent me.... His name
be praised for ever!... I went into his room ... and I found him....”
She was choking, and her fingers wandered distractedly to her throat,
as if the noose were strangling her; she was trembling, overcome,
losing all courage at the recollection, she who had been able to
repress her cries of horror at the sight of the half-dead man, she who
had been able to call up the strength of a man in her wrists, to finish
her work without asking for help, to hide the horrible secret in her
own bosom, and then to live on from one fear to another, from one
anxiety to another, with this tragic vision haunting her soul! Thus she
revealed herself to me in her sublime truth, desperately devoted to an
affection which had its roots in the deepest and most sacred instincts
of her being. The voice of blood seemed to cry aloud in all her veins:
the ties of blood bound every fibre together. She was born to wear the
sweet powerful fetters till death. She was ready to burn herself as a
sacrifice that she might nourish the faint flame that flickered on the
household hearth. And therefore with what unspeakable love would she
have loved the child of her womb!
“You speak of forsaking,” I said, making a painful effort to speak, for
any expressions of mine seemed untimely and feeble after the grandeur
and beauty of the sentiment just revealed; “you speak of forsaking,
Anatolia; and you forget that from the very first day I found my
father, my sisters, and my brothers in your house; and you do not know
how full my heart is of filial and fraternal piety, not comparable
to yours, which is superhuman, but still worthy of serving it by
actions....”
She shook her head.
“Ah, Claudio,” she replied, with a sorrowful smile on her dry lips,
“your generosity deceives you. My soul is still dazzled by the flames
of your dream, and troubled by a sort of repressed violence and
dangerous ardour which from time to time flashes from you. You are
stirred by the longing for strife and power; and you are determined by
every means to force life to fulfil her promises to you. You are young
and proud of your lineage, and lord of your own powers, and confident
in your faith. Who shall set a limit to your conquests?”
As if suddenly inspired, she had thrown the whole virtue of her clear,
warm voice into these last words; and I understood by the thrill
they sent through me what a powerful stimulator of energy she would
have been, she who with all her kindness and patience possessed the
fundamental instincts of her imperious race.
“But imagine, Claudio, a conqueror dragging after him a cart full of
sick folk, and seeing their wasted faces and hearing their lamentations
as he prepared himself for battle! Can you imagine such a thing? If
life is cruel, he who is resolved to combat her must of necessity take
into account the strength of the enemy; and every hindrance will sooner
or later arouse his annoyance and his anger....”
She had succeeded in mastering the excess of her emotion; and once more
I beheld her brave firmness as she spoke on without a quiver in her
voice.
“And I, my very self, should I not at last be forgotten? Should I not
be carried away altogether on the stream of new affections, new cares,
by the intoxication of your hopes? The task you would assign to the
companion of your efforts is too great, Claudio.... Your words are
still in my memory.... Alas, it is not possible to feed two flames at
the same time! The new one would in a short time become so voracious
that I should have to sacrifice all the riches of my soul to it; and
the old one so feeble, that if I turned my head away it would go out.”
She was silent, and her head sank again. But with a sudden movement,
as if her former anxiety had returned, she looked up and around her,
and the working of her parched lips betrayed her thirst to me. Then she
turned upon me, and fixing her eyes on mine with a kind of impetuous
force, she asked--
“Is it true that your heart has chosen me? Have you examined your heart
to the depths? Or does some illusion hang over you like a veil?”
I was so much disturbed by her look, and these sudden doubts of hers,
that I felt myself turn pale as if she had accused me of falsehood.
“Anatolia, what do you mean?”
She left the support of the rock, and made a few faltering steps
forward; then she paused as if to listen, anxious and agitated.
“There is some soul suffering here on these paths,” she repeated, in
the same tone as before; for a few moments she stood perplexed, and her
hand went up to her brow with a vague gesture.
Then turning to me, rapidly, anxiously, as if she were being driven on,
and was afraid of not having time to say the words--
“To-morrow I am going away. I must go with Massimilla. I have not the
courage to let her start alone with Oddo. I must go with her to the
very door of her retreat. She is going to pray for us.... I know she
is not going there for consolation, but as to death; and so I must
help her. I shall stay away for several days. For several days one of
us will be alone at Trigento.... She is the eldest; she has almost the
right.... She is worthy.... I don’t know; your heart will tell you
something, perhaps the truth.... I swear to you, Claudio, that I will
pray with all the fervour I have in my soul that on coming back I may
find that everything has fallen out for the good of all.... Who knows?
Perhaps there is some great good in store for you. I believe in your
star, Claudio. But I am under a prohibition.... I can’t explain, I
can’t explain.... There is a shadow over my will.... Just now a strange
fear came over me, and then a sadness, a sadness I had never known
before....”
She stopped, gasping, confused, miserable, as if the feeling of the
infinite desolation spreading round us under the burning heat had swept
over her again.
“And you too, how you are suffering!” she murmured, without looking at
me.