During the whole space of five years that had elapsed since his departure
no one had heard anything of him; all talk about him had died away, as
though he had vanished from the face of the earth. When Fabio met his
friend in one of the streets of Ferrara he almost cried out aloud, first in
alarm and then in delight, and he at once invited him to his villa. There
happened to be in his garden there a spacious pavilion, apart from the
house; he proposed to his friend that he should establish himself in this
pavilion. Muzzio readily agreed and moved thither the same day together
with his servant, a dumb Malay--dumb but not deaf, and indeed, to judge
by the alertness of his expression, a very intelligent man.... His tongue
had been cut out. Muzzio brought with him dozens of boxes, filled with
treasures of all sorts collected by him in the course of his prolonged
travels. Valeria was delighted at Muzzio’s return; and he greeted her with
cheerful friendliness, but composure; it could be seen in every action
that he had kept the promise given to Fabio. During the day he completely
arranged everything in order in his pavilion; aided by his Malay, he
unpacked the curiosities he had brought; rugs, silken stuffs, velvet
and brocaded garments, weapons, goblets, dishes and bowls, decorated
with enamel, things made of gold and silver, and inlaid with pearl and
turquoise, carved boxes of jasper and ivory, cut bottles, spices, incense,
skins of wild beasts, and feathers of unknown birds, and a number of other
things, the very use of which seemed mysterious and incomprehensible. Among
all these precious things there was a rich pearl necklace, bestowed upon
Muzzio by the king of Persia for some great and secret service; he asked
permission of Valeria to put this necklace with his own hand about her
neck; she was struck by its great weight and a sort of strange heat in it
... it seemed to burn to her skin. In the evening after dinner as they sat
on the terrace of the villa in the shade of the oleanders and laurels,
Muzzio began to relate his adventures. He told of the distant lands he had
seen, of cloud-topped mountains and deserts, rivers like seas; he told of
immense buildings and temples, of trees a thousand years old, of birds and
flowers of the colours of the rainbow: he named the cities and the peoples
he had visited ... their very names seemed like a fairy tale. The whole
East was familiar to Muzzio; he had traversed Persia, Arabia, where the
horses are nobler and more beautiful than any other living creatures; he
had penetrated into the very heart of India, where the race of men grow
like stately trees; he had reached the boundaries of China and Thibet,
where the living god, called the Grand Llama, dwells on earth in the guise
of a silent man with narrow eyes. Marvellous were his tales. Both Fabio
and Valeria listened to him as if enchanted. Muzzio’s features had really
changed very little; his face, swarthy from childhood, had grown darker
still, burnt under the rays of a hotter sun, his eyes seemed more deep-set
than before--and that was all; but the expression of his face had become
different: concentrated and dignified, it never showed more life when he
recalled the dangers he had encountered by night in forests that resounded
with the roar of tigers or by day on solitary ways where savage fanatics
lay in wait for travellers, to slay them in honour of their iron goddess
who demands human sacrifices. And Muzzio’s voice had grown deeper and more
even; his hands, his whole body had lost the freedom of gesture peculiar
to the Italian race. With the aid of his servant, the obsequiously alert
Malay, he showed his hosts a few of the feats he had learnt from the
Indian Brahmins. Thus for instance, having first hidden himself behind a
curtain, he suddenly appeared sitting in the air cross-legged, the tips
of his fingers pressed lightly on a bamboo cane placed vertically, which
astounded Fabio not a little and positively alarmed Valeria.... ‘Isn’t he a
sorcerer?’ was her thought. When he proceeded, piping on a little flute, to
call some tame snakes out of a covered basket, where their dark flat heads
with quivering tongues appeared under a parti-coloured cloth, Valeria was
terrified and begged Muzzio to put away these loathsome horrors as soon as
possible. At supper Muzzio regaled his friends with wine of Shiraz from a
round long-necked flagon; it was of extraordinary fragrance and thickness,
of a golden colour with a shade of green in it, and it shone with a strange
brightness as it was poured into the tiny jasper goblets. In taste it was
unlike European wines: it was very sweet and spicy, and, drunk slowly in
small draughts, produced a sensation of pleasant drowsiness in all the
limbs. Muzzio made both Fabio and Valeria drink a goblet of it, and he
drank one himself. Bending over her goblet he murmured something, moving
his fingers as he did so. Valeria noticed this; but as in all Muzzio’s
doings, in his whole behaviour, there was something strange and out of the
common, she only thought; ‘Can he have adopted some new faith in India, or
is that the custom there?’ Then after a short silence she asked him: ‘Had
he persevered with music during his travels?’ Muzzio, in reply, bade the
Malay bring his Indian violin. It was like those of to-day, but instead
of four strings it had only three, the upper part of it was covered with
a bluish snake-skin, and the slender bow of reed was in the form of a
half-moon, and on its extreme end glittered a pointed diamond.
Muzzio played first some mournful airs, national songs as he told them,
strange and even barbarous to an Italian ear; the sound of the metallic
strings was plaintive and feeble. But when Muzzio began the last song, it
suddenly gained force and rang out tunefully and powerfully; the passionate
melody flowed out under the wide sweeps of the bow, flowed out, exquisitely
twisting and coiling like the snake that covered the violin-top; and such
fire, such triumphant bliss glowed and burned in this melody that Fabio and
Valeria felt wrung to the heart and tears came into their eyes; ... while
Muzzio, his head bent, and pressed close to the violin, his cheeks pale,
his eyebrows drawn together into a single straight line, seemed still more
concentrated and solemn; and the diamond at the end of the bow flashed
sparks of light as though it too were kindled by the fire of the divine
song. When Muzzio had finished, and still keeping fast the violin between
his chin and his shoulder, dropped the hand that held the bow, ‘What is
that? What is that you have been playing to us?’ cried Fabio. Valeria
uttered not a word--but her whole being seemed echoing her husband’s
question. Muzzio laid the violin on the table--and slightly tossing back
his hair, he said with a polite smile: ‘That--that melody ... that song
I heard once in the island of Ceylon. That song is known there among the
people as the song of happy, triumphant love.’ ‘Play it again,’ Fabio was
murmuring. ‘No; it can’t be played again,’ answered Muzzio. ‘Besides, it
is now too late. Signora Valeria ought to be at rest; and it’s time for
me too ... I am weary.’ During the whole day Muzzio had treated Valeria
with respectful simplicity, as a friend of former days, but as he went
out he clasped her hand very tightly, squeezing his fingers on her palm,
and looking so intently into her face that though she did not raise her
eyelids, she yet felt the look on her suddenly flaming cheeks. She said
nothing to Muzzio, but jerked away her hand, and when he was gone, she
gazed at the door through which he had passed out. She remembered how
she had been a little afraid of him even in old days ... and now she was
overcome by perplexity. Muzzio went off to his pavilion: the husband and
wife went to their bedroom.