"Juliana!"
She showed herself. I shall always retain in the eyes of my soul that
silent, ghostly apparition, yet distinct as a living thing, her tall
figure rendered still taller by the length of the amaranthine cloak,
and, against this dark silhouette, that pale face, so pale! The words
of Jacques to Amanda are indissolubly associated in my mind with that
unchangeable vision:
"_How pale you are to-night, Amanda! Have you opened your veins to tint
your robe?_"
She withdrew, or rather, to describe the sensation I felt, she
evaporated. I advanced rapidly along the path, without full
consciousness of what impelled me. I heard the sound of my own
foot-falls resound in my brain. I was so preoccupied that I was obliged
to stop to find out where I was. What caused this blind agitation in
me? A simple physical cause, perhaps--a particular condition of my
nerves. That is what I believed. Incapable of an effort of thought, of
a methodical examination, of meditation, I submitted to the tyranny of
my nerves, by which the external appearances were reflected, provoking
phenomena of extraordinary intensity, as in hallucinations. But, like
lightning-flashes, certain thoughts lit up all the rest, and increased
the oppressive feeling that several unexpected incidents had already
given rise to in me.
No, Juliana had not appeared to me to-day as I had imagined she would,
as she should have done had she still been the same creature I knew
before, "the Juliana of the old days." She had not assumed toward me
the attitudes that I had expected, in certain circumstances. A strange
element, something obscure, violent, and excessive had modified and
deformed her personality. Must this change be attributed to the sickly
condition of her organism? "I am ill, I am very ill," she had often
repeated, as if in justification. Truly, illness produces profound
changes, and may render a human being unrecognizable. But what was her
malady? Was it the old one, not extirpated by the surgeon's steel,
complicated perhaps, perhaps incurable? "Who knows if you will not see
me die before long?" she had said in a singular tone, that may have been
prophetic. She had spoken of death several times. She therefore knew
that she carried within her a fatal germ? Was she dominated by this
lugubrious thought? It was perhaps such a thought that had fired in her
those sombre, almost hopeless, almost demented ardors, when she was in
my arms? It was perhaps the great sudden light of happiness that had
rendered more visible and more frightful the spectre that pursued her?
"Could it be possible that she might die? Could death strike her even
while in my arms, in the midst of happiness?" I thought with a fright
that froze me, that for several moments rooted me to the spot, as if the
peril were immediate, as if Juliana had predicted truly when she had
said:
"If, for instance, I were to die _to-morrow_?"
The twilight fell, slightly damp. Breaths of humid air ran over the
bushes, causing a rustling like that which the rapid passage of animals
through them would have produced. A few scattered swallows cleft the air
with cries, like the flight of a stone propelled by a sling. At sunset,
the horizon, still luminous, had the immense reverberations of a
sinister forge.
I arrived at the bench, and found the parasol. I did not linger there,
in spite of the recent memories, still keen, still warm, that disturbed
my soul. It was there she had fallen fainting, vanquished; it was there
I had spoken to her the supreme words, that I had made to her the
intoxicating avowal: "_You were in my house, while I sought you afar
off_"; there that I had gathered from her lips the breath that had
ravished my soul to the supreme heights of joy; there that I had drunk
her first tears, that I had heard her sobs, that I had uttered the
obscure question: "_It is too late, perhaps? Is it too late?_"
Only a few hours had passed, and all that was already so far! Only a
few hours had passed, and already the happiness had faded away. Now
with a new, but none the less dreadful signification, the question was
repeated within me: "It is too late, perhaps? Is it too late?" And my
exaltation grew; and that uncertain light, and that silent nightfall,
and those suspicious rustlings in the already shadowy bushes, and all
those deceptive phantasmagorias of the twilight had for my mind a fatal
meaning. "If really it were too late? If really she knew herself to be
doomed? If she already knew that she carried death in her bosom? Tired
of living, tired of suffering, hoping nothing more from me, not daring
to kill herself at once with a fire-arm or with poison, she had perhaps
cultivated, has perhaps nourished her malady, has kept it secret in
order to facilitate its progress, to permit it to take root, to render
it incurable. She has wished to arrive slowly and in secret at her
final liberation. While observing herself she has become familiar with
the science of her malady, and now _she knows, she is sure_, that she
will succumb; she knows, too, that love, that voluptuousness, that my
kisses will precipitate the catastrophe. I return to her for good; an
unhoped for happiness opens out before her; she loves me, she knows that
I love her greatly; in one day the dream has become for us a reality.
And it is then that there rises to her lips the word, "Death!"
Confusedly I saw pass before me the cruel images that had tormented me
during those two hours of waiting, on the morning of the surgical
operation, when I seemed to have before my eyes, as clearly as the
figures on an anatomical atlas, all the frightful ravages produced by
maladies in the organisms of women. And there recurred to me another
recollection still more distant, with an accompaniment of precise
images: the darkened room, the open window, the waving curtains, the
flickering candle-flame before the dim mirror, the sinister appearance
of things, and she, Juliana, upright, leaning against a closet,
convulsed, writhing as if she had swallowed poison.... And the accusing
voice, the same voice, also repeated to me: "_It is for you, for you
that she wanted to die. It is you, you, who have urged her on to
death._"
Seized by a blind fright, by a sort of panic, as if all these images had
been veritable realities, I ran back to the house.
On raising my eyes, the house seemed without signs of life, the window
openings and the balconies were filled with shadows.
"Juliana!" I cried, with supreme anguish, springing to the stairway, as
if I feared I should not arrive soon enough to see her again.
What ailed me? What was this dementia?
I panted as I climbed the stairs in the semi-darkness. I rushed into the
room.
"What is the matter?" asked Juliana, rising.
"Nothing, nothing. I thought you had called me. I have run a little.
How are you feeling now?"
"I am so cold, Tullio, so cold! Feel my hands."
She stretched her hands out to me. They were icy.
"I am frozen all over like that."
"My God! Where did you get this terrible chill? What can I do to warm
you up?"
"Do not worry, Tullio. This is not the first time. It lasts hours and
hours. I can do nothing for it. I must wait until it passes away. But
why is Federico so long? It is almost dark."
She sank back in the arm-chair, as if she had exhausted all her strength
in pronouncing these words.
"I will close the window," I said, turning toward the balcony.
"No, no; leave it open. It is not the air that chills me. On the
contrary, I need all the air I can get. Come here, nearer to me. Take
this stool."
I knelt down. With a feeble gesture she passed her cold hand over my
head and murmured:
"My poor Tullio!"