"Very well, let us go. Carry me where you will. Support me a little,
Tullio; I feel as if my knees would give way."
"To the house, Juliana?"
"Where you wish."
I supported her by placing my arm around her waist, and I drew her
along. She walked like a somnambulist. At first we were silent; and,
each moment, we both turned together toward one another, to look at each
other. She seemed to me to be really a _new woman_; my attention was
arrested by the details, was preoccupied by them; a slight mark scarcely
visible on the skin, a little dimple on the lower lip, the curvature of
the lashes, a vein at the temple, the shadow that encircled the eyes,
the infinitely delicate lobe of the ear. The brown mark on the neck was
hardly hidden by the edging of lace; at each movement of the head that
Juliana made, one saw it appear or disappear; and that little
particularity irritated my impatience. I was intoxicated, and yet, I
was very lucid. I heard the cries of the swallows, more numerous, the
splashing of the jets of water in the fountain close by. I had the
sensation that life was fleeting, that time was flying. And that sun,
and those flowers, and those perfumes, and those sounds, and all the
joyousness of the springtime, aroused in me for the third time an
inexplicable emotion of anxiety.
"My willow!" cried Juliana, as we arrived at the fountain; and she
ceased leaning on me, walked more rapidly. "Look, look how tall it is!
Do you remember? It was only a branch."
After being pensive for a moment, she added in a different tone and in a
low voice:
"I saw it before--you do not perhaps know? I came here, to the Lilacs,
_the other time_."
She could not restrain a sigh. But immediately, as if to dissipate the
shadow that these words had put between us, as if to remove the
bitterness from her mouth, she bent toward one of the two faucets, drank
a few mouthfuls, then turning towards me made a gesture as if asking a
kiss. Her chin was still wet, and her lips cool. We both felt that what
was to be must be, and we longed for the supreme reconciliation that
every fibre of our beings demanded. When we disengaged ourselves, our
eyes repeated the same intoxicating promise. And how extraordinary was
the sentiment expressed by Juliana's physiognomy. But, then, I did not
understand it! Later on, only during the hours that followed, did it
become intelligible--only later I knew that a vision of death and a
vision of voluptuousness had at the same time intoxicated the poor
creature, and that in abandoning herself to the languors of her flesh
she had made a funeral vow. I see as if I had her before my eyes, I
shall always see that face full of mystery, under the shadow of that
willow which rained on us its great vegetal chevelure. Beneath the sun,
between the long branches of diaphanous foliage, silvery reflections
from the water imparted a hallucinating vibration to the shade. The
echoes combined, in a low and continuous monotone, the sonorous sound of
the jets of water. All these appearances exalted my mind out of the
world about me.
We went toward the house without speaking. My joy was so great at our
reconciliation, our reawakened love, that my soul was transported in a
whirlwind of joy so high, the pulsations of my arteries were so violent,
that I thought: "Is this delirium? I felt nothing of this on my first
marriage night, when I crossed the threshold of the nuptial chamber."
Twice or three times I was seized by a savage transport, as if by a
sudden attack of madness, and it is wonderful that I could contain
myself: so great was my physical desire to take possession again of this
woman. In her also the crisis must have become insupportable; because
she stopped, and sighed: "Oh! my God, my God! This is too much!"
Suffocating, oppressed, she took my hand and placed it over her heart.
"Feel," said she.
I felt less the throbbing of her heart than the elasticity of her
breast, through the cloth. I saw the iris in Juliana's eyes become
hidden under the closing eyelids. For fear that she would faint, I
supported her; then I bore her away, I carried her almost as far as the
cypress, as far as a bench where we both sat down, both exhausted.
The house rose before us, as if in a dream.
Leaning her head on my shoulder, she said:
"Ah! Tullio, how terrible! Do you not think, too, that we could die
from it?"
She added, gravely, in a voice that seemed to come from I know not what
depths of her soul:
"Shall we both die?"
I felt a strange shudder, which convinced me that these words expressed
an extraordinary state of mind, perhaps the same sentiment that had
transformed her face beneath the willow, after the embrace, after the
silent resolution. But this time, again, I could not understand. I
understood only that we were both possessed by a species of delirium and
that we were both breathing the atmosphere of a dream.
The house rose before us as in a vision. On the rustic facade, on every
cornice, on every projection, along the gutters, on the architraves,
beneath the window ledges, beneath the stones of the balconies, between
the brackets, between the eminences, everywhere, the swallows had built
their nests. The clay nests, by thousands, old and new, cemented
together like the cells of a hive, had but few spaces between them. In
these spaces, and on the slats of the Venetian shutters, and on the
iron-work of the balustrades, the excrements made white patches like
thinned chalk. Closed and without inhabitants, this house nevertheless
was full of life--a bustling life, joyous and tender. The faithful
swallows whirled around in their flight, with their cries, their
scintillations, with all their tendernesses, ceaselessly. While, in the
air, flocks pursued one another, strong, swift strokes, as rapid as
arrows, with great alternating clamors, flying away, coming closer in
the twinkling of an eye, brushing close to the trees, then rising up
again in reflecting flashes in the sunlight, indefatigable. In and
about the nests there was an activity of another sort, but not the less
ardent. Some of the swallows remained for several moments fixed before
the orifices; others sustained themselves on their wings while in
flight; others, half-way in, showed on the outside only their little
forked tails, quivering and agile, black and white on the grayish mud;
others, half-way out, showed a small portion of their shining breasts
and fawn-colored throats; others, up to then invisible, flew out with a
piercing cry, and flew off. All this lively and joyous movement around
the closed house, all that animation around the nests of our nest of the
old days, formed a spectacle so delightful, a miracle of gentleness so
exquisite, that for several minutes, as if during a respite from our
fever, we forgot ourselves in its contemplation.