"Here is the key," I said. "What are we waiting for?"
"Ah! Tullio, let us wait a little longer," she begged, in a sort of
fright.
"I am going to open the door."
And I approached the door; I mounted the three steps, which produced on
me the effect that they were those of an altar. At the moment when I
was about to turn the key, with the trembling of a devotee who is
opening a reliquary, I felt Juliana behind me. She had followed me,
furtively, lightly as a shadow. I started.
"Is it you!"
"Yes, it is I," she murmured, caressingly, the exhalation of her breath
warm on my ear.
She put her arms around my neck, so that her delicate wrists crossed
beneath my chin.
That furtive act, the laugh that rippled in her voice and betrayed her
infantile joy at having startled me, that manner of embracing me, all
those agile graces recalled to me the Juliana of the old days, the young
and tender companion of the happy years, the delicious creature with the
long tresses, merry laughter, and girlish ways. An effluvium of the
old-time happiness enveloped me, on the threshold of this house filled
with memories.
"Shall I open?" I asked.
My hand rested on the key, ready to turn it.
"Open," she answered.
She did not loosen her hold on me, and I continued to feel her breath on
my neck.
At the creaking made by the key in the lock, her arms clasped me more
firmly; and she pressed against me, communicating to me her tremor. The
swallows warbled over our heads, and their light twitterings contrasted,
so to speak, with the depth of the silence.
"Go in," she murmured, without loosing her hold on me. "Go in, go in."
That voice, coming from lips so near yet invisible, real and yet
mysterious, breathed all warm in my ear and yet so intimate that it
seemed to speak to the centre of my soul, more feminine, softer than
ever voice was before. I hear it still. I shall hear it forever.
"Go in, go in."
I pushed the door open. We crossed the threshold together, as if
dissolved into one single person, noiselessly.
The vestibule was lighted by a high, round window. A swallow flew over
our heads, warbling. We raised our eyes in surprise. A nest hung among
the grotesques of the ceiling. There was a broken window-pane in the
window. The swallow flew out through the opening, still warbling.
"Now, I am entirely yours, entirely," murmured Juliana, without
detaching her hold on my neck.
But, by a sinuous movement, she fell on my breast, and met my mouth. We
exchanged a long kiss. I said to her, with intoxication:
"Come, let us go up. Shall I carry you?"
In spite of the intoxication, I felt a sufficient strength in my muscles
to carry her at one bound to the top of the stairway.
She answered:
"No. I can go up alone."
But to see her, to hear her, she seemed incapable of it.
I put my arms round her as I had already done in the garden. I raised
her, I urged her up step by step. One would have said that in the house
there was a deep and distant buzzing, like that heard in the folds of
certain sea-shells; one would have said that no other sound penetrated
there from the exterior.
When we were upon the landing, instead of opening the door facing us I
turned to the right in the dark corridor, and I drew her on with my
hand, without speaking. She was panting so that it pained me. Her
agitation was communicated to me.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To _our_ room," I answered.
One could scarcely see. I was guided as if by instinct. I found the
knob, I opened; we entered.
The obscurity was partly illuminated by rays of light that filtered
through the cracks of the shutters, and here a deeper buzzing was heard.
I should have liked to run to the windows to immediately admit more
light; but I could not leave Juliana; it seemed to me impossible to
detach myself from her, to interrupt, were it but for a second, the
contact of our hands, as if through the skin the live ends of our nerves
were magnetically adhered. We advanced together, groping our way
through the dark.
*VIII.*
It was two o'clock in the afternoon. About three hours had passed since
our arrival at the Lilacs.
I had left Juliana alone for a few minutes; I had gone to call Calisto.
The old man had brought the lunch basket; and on receiving for the
second time a rather abrupt dismissal, he had shown, instead of
surprise, a certain malicious good-nature.
Juliana and I now were seated at the table like two lovers, opposite
each other, exchanging smiles. Before us were spread cold meats,
preserved fruits, biscuits, oranges, and a bottle of Chablis. The room,
with its ceiling decorated in rococo, with its light-colored walls, its
pastoral scenes painted over the doors, had a sort of gayety now out of
fashion, the air of a past century. Through the open balcony a very
soft light entered, because long milky streaks were spread over the
heavens. In the rectangle of the pale sky stood out "the old, venerable
cypress, whose trunk arose from the midst of a rose-bush and whose top
sheltered a nest of nightingales." Lower down, through the bent
iron-work of the balustrade, could be seen the exquisite forest of light
violet tone, the vernal glory of the Lilacs. The triple perfume, the
vernal soul of the Lilacs, was disseminated in the calm and slow
harmonious undulations.
"Do you remember?" said Juliana.