There was another page turned down, with a very pronounced mark--that on
the death of the Princess Lisa.
"The eyes of the dead woman were closed; but her small face had not
changed, and she seemed constantly saying: 'What have you done to me?'
Prince Andre did not weep; but he felt his heart break as he thought
that he was guilty of wrongs henceforth irreparable and unforgettable.
The old prince came also, and kissed one of the frail waxen hands that
lay crossed over one another. And one would have thought that the poor,
small face was again repeating to him: 'What have you done to me?'"
That gentle yet terrible question pierced me like a dagger. "What have
you done to me?" I kept my eyes fixed on the page, not daring to make a
movement, to look at Juliana, yet agonized by a desire to do so; and I
feared that both she and Federico might hear my heart-beats, that they
might turn toward me to look at me and that they would discover my
agitation. My agitation was so great that it seemed to me that my face
was distorted, that I was incapable of rising, incapable of uttering a
single syllable. I threw a single rapid, stealthy glance at Juliana,
and her profile impressed itself on me so strongly that I seemed to
continue to see her before me on the page, beside the "poor, small face"
of the dead princess. It was a pensive profile, rendered graver by
attention, shaded by long lashes; and the lips, tightly closed, somewhat
depressed at the corners, appeared as if involuntarily confessing a
feeling of fatigue and great sadness. She was listening to my brother.
And my brother's voice resounded confusedly in my ears, seemed to me far
off, although he was quite close. And all these flowers shed by the
elms, that rained, rained ceaselessly, all these dead flowers, almost
unreal, almost bereft of being, induced in me an inexpressible
sensation, as if that psychic vision were transformed in me into strange
internal phenomena, as if I had been present at the continuous passage
of these thousands of impalpable shadows in an inner sky, at the bottom
of my soul. "What have you done to me?" repeated the voice of the dead
and the living, both the one and the other without moving their lips.
"What have you done to me?"
"What are you reading, Tullio?" asked Juliana, turning and taking from
my hands the book, which she closed and replaced on her knees with a
sort of nervous impatience.
And immediately, without pause, as if to remove all significance from
her action, she added:
"Why do we not rejoin Miss Edith and have a little music? Do you hear
her? She is playing, I think, the Funeral March for the Death of a
Hero, which you are so fond of, Federico...."
She listened. We all three listened. We heard several chords in the
silence. She was not mistaken. Rising, she added:
"Well, come. Will you?"
I rose last, so to have her before me. She did not take the trouble to
shake from her dress the elm flowers that had formed a soft carpet on
the ground all around.
She stood still a minute, her head bent, regarding the layer of flowers
which she hollowed out and piled up with the slender tip of her shoe,
while on her, other flowers, and still other flowers, continued to rain,
to rain ceaselessly. I could see nothing of her face. Was she really so
attentive to that trifling action? Or was she not rather absorbed in
perplexity?
*V.*
The following morning, among those who brought Easter offerings to the
Badiola, came Calisto, old Calisto, the keeper at the Lilacs, with an
enormous bouquet of fresh and odorous lilacs. He wanted to offer them
to Juliana with his own hands, recalling to her the happy time of our
stay there, and begging for another visit, a short visit. "Signora had
seemed so gay, so happy over there. Why did she not return? The house
had remained intact; nothing had been changed. The garden was now more
filled. The lilac-trees, a veritable forest, were in full bloom. Did
not their perfume reach as far as the Badiola, toward evening? Really,
the garden and the house expected a visit. Beneath the roof all the old
nests were full of swallows. In deference to Signora's wish, these
nests had been respected as if sacred. But, assuredly, there were too
many now. Every week they were obliged to clean up the balconies and
window-sills with a shovel. And what a warbling, from morning till
night! When will Signora decide to come? Soon?"
"Shall we go there on Tuesday?" I asked Juliana.
After a slight hesitation, sustaining with the greatest difficulty the
heavy care that bowed her head, she answered:
"We'll go on Tuesday, if you wish."
"Very well. Tuesday, then, Calisto," I said to the old man, in such a
happy tone that I was surprised at it myself so sudden and spontaneous
had been the rapture of my soul. "Expect us Tuesday morning. We will
bring our lunch. Make no preparations. Do you understand? Let the
house remain closed. I wish to open the door myself, and to open the
windows myself, one after the other. Do you understand?"
A strange happiness, without a single cloud, agitated me, urged me on to
puerile actions and puerile and almost foolish remarks, that I could
hardly restrain. I should have liked to embrace Calisto, to stroke his
fine, white beard, take him in my arms, speak to him of the Lilacs, of
the past, of the "good old time," in a prolixity of words, under the
grand Easter sun.
"Once more I see before me a simple, sincere man, a faithful heart," I
thought, regarding him. And once more I felt security, as if the
affection of this old man were for me a second talisman against the
blows of fate.
Once more, since the close of the preceding evening, my soul expanded,
stimulated by the abundance of joy that impregnated the atmosphere, that
emanated from every being. That morning, one would have thought that
the Badiola was the shrine of a pilgrimage. Not one peasant failed to
bring his offering and well-wishes. My mother received upon her blessed
hands a thousand kisses of men, women, and children. At the mass that
was celebrated in the chapel a dense crowd was present. It overflowed
the porch and spread over the lawn, full of religious zeal beneath the
azure vault. The silver bells rang merrily in the still air with
joyous, almost melodic harmony. On the tower, the inscription on the
sundial said: _Hora est benefaciendi_. And on this glorious morning, on
which one felt, so to speak, all the gratitude due to long kindness
mounting toward the sweet maternal house, these three words seemed like
a chant.
How then could I retain my perfidious doubt, suspicions, troubled
recollections? What could I have to fear after having seen my mother
press her lips on Juliana's smiling brow, after having seen my brother
press in his noble and loyal hand the delicate and pale hand of her who
was for him a second incarnation of Constance.
*VI.*
The thought of the excursion to the Lilacs occupied me all that day and
again the day following, without interruption. Never, I think, had the
longing for the hour agreed upon for a first rendezvous filled me with
such ardent impatience.
The disturbance of the senses contributed also to enshroud and dull my
conscience. I wanted to reconquer Juliana body and soul. The name of
the Lilacs reawakened in me memories, recollections, not only of a sweet
idyll, but also of ardent passion. Without being aware of it, I had
perhaps sharpened my longing by the inevitable images that suspicion
engenders; it was a latent poison that I bore in me. Up to then, in
fact, it had seemed to me that my dominant emotion was entirely
spiritual, and, in the expectation of the great day, I had taken delight
in imagining the conversation that I would hold with the woman whose
pardon I wished to obtain. Now, on the contrary, what I saw, was less
the pathetic scene that would take place between us than the scene that
must be the immediate consequence. Gradually, by a rapid and
irresistible elimination, a single image excluded all the others,
invaded me, mastered me, became fixed, clear, precise in the smallest
particulars. "It is after lunch. A small glass of Chablis has sufficed
to disturb Juliana, who does not drink wine, so to speak. The afternoon
becomes warmer and warmer; the odor of the roses, of the corn-flag, of
the lilacs, become violent; the swallows pass and repass with a
deafening twittering. We are alone, both invaded by an unbearable
internal tremor. And, suddenly, I say to her: 'Shall we go and look at
our old room?' It is the old nuptial chamber, that intentionally I had
omitted to open during our first walk through the villa. We enter.
There is a low humming noticeable, the same humming that one thinks one
hears in the deep folds of certain shells; but it is only the murmur of
my arteries. She also, no doubt, hears this humming; but it is only the
murmur of her arteries. All around is silent; one would think that the
swallows have ceased warbling. I want to speak, and, at my first word,
that sticks in my throat, she falls into my arms, almost fainting."
This imaginary picture became ceaselessly more and more embellished,
grew complicated, simulated the reality, attained an incredible
actuality. I could not succeed in preventing its absolute empire over
my mind. One would have said that there was reborn in me the old-time
libertine, so keen was my pleasure in contemplating and caressing the
vision. The kind of life I had led for several weeks, in this warm
springtime, produced its effect on my regenerated organism. Simple
physiological phenomena completely modified the state of my conscience,
gave an entirely different turn to my thoughts, made of me another man.
Maria and Natalia had expressed a desire to accompany us on this
excursion. Juliana wanted them to come, but I objected, and I used all
my skill, every persuasion, to accomplish my purpose.
Federico had made this proposition: "I must go to Casal Caldore on
Tuesday. I will accompany you in the carriage as far as the Lilacs,
where you will stop, and I will continue on my way. Then, in the
evening, I will call for you again with the carriage, and we will return
together to the Badiola." Juliana consented, in my presence.
I reflected that Federico's company, at least in going, would not
inconvenience us; on the contrary, it would even spare me a certain
embarrassment. In fact, what could we have spoken about, Juliana and I,
had we been alone during the two or three hours the ride lasted? What
attitude could I have taken toward her? Who knows even if I should not
have spoiled the situation, compromised its success, or, at least,
removed the freshness from our emotion? Was it not my dream to find
myself again suddenly with her at the Lilacs, as if by magic, and there
to speak to her my first word of tenderness and submission? The
presence of Federico furnished the advantage of avoiding uncertain
preliminaries, long and painful silences, sentences spoken in low tones
on account of the coachman's ears; in a word, all the little irritations
and tortures. We would get down at the Lilacs, and then, then only, we
should find ourselves by each other's side at the gate of the lost
paradise.
*VII.*
This is what took place. I cannot find words to describe the sensation
I felt when I heard the sound of the bells and the noise of the carriage
which bore Federico away in the direction of Casal Caldore. I said to
Calisto, as I took the keys from his hands with manifest impatience:
"Now, you may go. I will call you later."
And I myself closed the gate behind the old man, who seemed rather
surprised and dissatisfied at so unceremonious a dismissal.
"At last, we're here!" I cried, directly I was alone with Juliana. And
the entire wave of happiness that had invaded me passed into my voice.
I was happy, happy, unspeakably happy; I was as if fascinated by an
immense hallucination of unexpected, unhoped for happiness, that
transfigured all my being, reawoke and multiplied all that there was
still good and youthful in me, isolated me from the world, instantly
concentrated my life within the circuit of the walls enclosed by that
garden. Words sprang to my lips without connection, inexpressible; my
reason wandered in a blazing flash of thoughts.
How was it that Juliana had not guessed what was passing in me? How was
it she had not understood me? How was it that her heart had not received
the counter-shock of my impetuous joy?
We looked at each other. I can still see the anxious expression of her
face, over which hovered an indefinable smile. She spoke in that
muffled, feeble voice, always hesitating with the singular hesitation
that I had already remarked in other circumstances and that made her
appear to be ceaselessly preoccupied in restraining the words that
mounted to her lips in order to substitute for them other words. She
said:
"Let us take a walk round the garden before opening the house. How long
it is since I have seen it in such flower. The last time we were here
was three years ago, do you remember? It was also in April, during
Easter week."
Without doubt she wished to overcome her agitation, but she could not
succeed; without doubt she wished to repress the effusion of her
tenderness, but she could not. In this place, the first words issued
from her own mouth had begun to evoke memories. After a few steps she
stopped, and we looked at each other. An indefinable change, as if she
were forcing herself to stifle something, passed through her dark eyes.
"Juliana!" I cried, incapable of controlling myself, feeling an afflux
of passionate and tender words spring from the bottom of my heart,
seized by a mad frenzy to kneel before her on the sand, to embrace her
knees, to kiss her dress, her hands, her wrists, furiously, ceaselessly.
With a supplicating gesture, she made a motion for me to be quiet. And
she continued to advance along the path, hastening her steps.
She wore a light-gray dress trimmed with darker shades, a gray felt hat,
and carried a gray-silk parasol embroidered with white trefoils. I
still see her walking between the tufted masses of lilacs that bent
toward her their thousands of bluish-violet bunches.
It was hardly eleven o'clock. The morning was warm, a precocious
warmth; in the azure floated a number of flocculent vapors. The
charming bushes that had given their name to this country-house
blossomed on every side, were masters of the garden, formed a wood,
interspersed here and there by tea-rose bushes and by the tufts of the
corn-flag. Here and there the roses climbed up stalks, insinuated
themselves between the branches, fell back again in chains, in garlands,
festoons, bouquets; at the foot of the stalks, Florentine orris sprang
from between their leaves, like long, greenish swords, flowers of large
and noble design. The three perfumes harmonized in a deep accord that I
_recognized_, because, since the now distant epoch, these had remained
in my memory as clearly as the accord of three musical notes. In the
silence only the warbling of the swallows could be heard. The house
could scarcely be seen between the cones of the cypresses, and the
swallows were as numerous there as bees around a hive.
Very soon Juliana slowed down her pace. I walked at her side, so near
that at times our elbows touched. She glanced attentively around her,
as if she feared something might escape her. Two or three times I
detected on her lips a movement as if she were about to speak: it was
like the first outline of a word that remained unpronounced.