THE WORLD'S BEREAVEMENT
The gondola entered a canal enclosed between two green shores, which
reached the line of vision so precisely that the numerous reeds were
perceptible, the newer ones discernible by their paler tint.
From the fulness of her soul, and the abundance of her nature, La
Foscarina sought everywhere for living things to love; her glance
became child-like once more, and all things were reflected in it as in
the peaceful water, and some seemed to reappear from the distant past,
like apparitions.
When the gondola touched the shore, she was surprised at having arrived.
"Do you wish to land, or do you prefer to go back?" asked Stelio,
coming out of his reverie.
For a moment she hesitated, because her hand lay in his, and to move
would have meant a lessening of sweetness.
"Yes," at last she said, with a smile. "Let us walk on this grass a
little while."
They landed on the Island of San Francesco. A few slender young cypress
shrubs greeted them timidly. Not a human face was to be seen. The
invisible myriad filled the desert with their canticle of praise. The
mists rose in clouds near the sunset hour.
"How many times we have walked together on the grass, have we not,
Stelio?"
"But now comes the steep rock," he replied.
"Let the rock come, no matter how steep and rough it may be," said La
Foscarina.
Stelio was surprised at the unusual gayety in his companion's voice. He
looked at her, and saw a sort of intoxicated joy deep in her beautiful
eyes.
"Why do we feel so joyous and free on this lonely island?"
"And do you know the reason why?"
"To others, this is a melancholy pilgrimage. Most persons, when they
come to this place, leave it with the taste of death on their lips."
"But we are in a state of grace," said La Foscarina.
"The more we hope, the more we live," was the reply.
"And the more we love, the more we hope."
The rhythm of the aerial song continued, drawing from them their ideal
essences.
"How beautiful you are!" said Stelio.
A sudden flush flowed over that impassioned face. She was silent, but
her breath came quick, and she half-closed her eyes.
"A warm current of air is passing," she said in a half whisper. "Did
you not feel on the water an occasional breath of warmer air?"
She drew deep breaths.
"There is an odor like that of new-mown hay. Don't you detect it?"
"That is the odor that comes from the banks of seaweed that are
beginning to be uncovered."
"See how beautiful the country is!"
"That is Le Vignole. Down there is the Lido. And over there is the
Island of Sant' Erasmo."
The sun had now thrown aside its veil and was showering gold upon the
estuary. The damp banks emerging from the fog suggested the opening of
flowers. The shadows of the slender cypresses began to grow longer and
of a deeper blue.
"I am certain," said La Foscarina, "that almond trees are in blossom
somewhere near. Let us go on the dyke."
She shook her head, tossing back her hair with one of those instinctive
movements that seemed to break a bond or to free her of some fetter.
"Wait!"
And quickly withdrawing from her hat two large pins that held it in
place, she uncovered her head. She turned back to the landing and
tossed the sparkling hat into the gondola; then she rejoined her
friend, running her fingers lightly through the waves of her hair,
through which the air passed, while the sun shone on it warmly. She
seemed to feel relieved, as if she breathed more freely.
"Did the wings hurt?" Stelio asked with a laugh.
And he regarded the ripples, roughened not by the comb but by the wind.
"Yes, the least weight annoys me. If I should not appear eccentric,
I should always go without a hat. But when I see the trees I cannot
resist my impulses. My hair remembers that it was born wild and free,
and it wishes to breathe in its natural way--in the desert, at least."
Frank and gay in her manner, she glided over the grass with her
graceful, swaying movement. And Stelio recalled the day when, in the
Gradenigo garden, she had appeared to his eyes like the beautiful tawny
greyhound.
"Oh, here comes a Capuchin!"
The friar-guardian approached them, and greeted them with affability.
He offered to conduct Stelio within the walls of the monastery, but
said that the rules forbade the admission of his companion.
"Shall I go in?" said Stelio, with a look at La Foscarina, who was
smiling.
"Yes, go."
"But you will be all alone."
"Never mind; I will stay here alone."
"I will bring you a bit from the sacred pine."
He followed the friar under the portico with a raftered roof, whence
hung the empty swallows' nests. Before he crossed the threshold, he
turned once more to wave his hand at his friend. Then the door closed
after him.
O BEATA SOLITUDO!
O SOLA BEATITUDO!
Then, as a change in the stops of an organ changes its whole tone, the
woman's thoughts were suddenly transfigured. The horror of absence,
to her the worst of all evils, bore down upon her loving soul. Her
beloved was no longer there; she no longer heard his voice, felt his
breath, touched his firm and gentle hand. She no longer saw him live;
she could no longer realize that the air, the lights and shadows, all
the life of the world, harmonized itself with his life!--Suppose that
door never should open again--that he never should return to me!--No,
that could not be. He would surely cross that threshold again in a few
minutes, and once more she would receive him into her eyes and into her
very soul. But alas! in a few days, would he not thus disappear again,
as he had disappeared now? And first the field, then the mountain,
then other fields and mountains and rivers, then the strait and the
ocean, the infinite space that neither tears nor cries can cross, would
they not come between her and that brow, those eyes, those lips? The
image of the far-off brutal city black with coal and bristling with
arms, filled the peaceful island; the crash of hammers, the grinding
of wheels, the puffing of engines, the immense groaning of iron,
drowned the melody of the springtime. And with each of these simple
things--with the grass, the sands, the brooks, the seaweed, that soft
feather floating downward, perhaps from the breast of a songbird--was
contrasted the vision of streets overflowing with the human torrent,
houses with thousands of deformed eyes, full of fevers that are enemies
to sleep, theaters filled with the restlessness or the stupor of men
who yield one hour to relaxation from the ferocious battle for lucre.
And still, as in a vision, she saw again her own face and her name
on walls contaminated by the leprosy of posters, on boards carried
by stupid bearers, on gigantic bridges of factories, on the doors of
public vehicles, here, there, and everywhere.
"Look! Look at this! A branch of flowering almond! There is an almond
tree in bloom in the monastery garden, in the second cloister, near the
sacred pine! And you could detect the odor!"
Stelio ran toward her, joyous as a child, followed by the Capuchin, who
bore a bouquet of fragrant thyme.
"Look! Take it. See what a wonderful thing it is!"
She took the branch, trembling, and her eyes were bright with tears.
"And you knew it was blooming!" said Stelio.
He perceived the glittering silvery drops in her eyes, which made them
look like the petals of a flower. And at that instant, of all her
adored person, he loved most blindly the delicate lines that went from
the corners of her eyes to her temples, the tiny veins that made her
eyelids look like violets, the sweet curve of her cheek, the tapering
chin, and all that never would bloom again, all the shadows of that
impassioned face.
"Ah, Father," said she, with a bright glance, repressing her sadness,
"will not Christ's Poor Man weep again in heaven for this broken
branch?"
The friar smiled with playful indulgence.
"When this good gentleman saw our tree," he replied, "he gave me no
time to speak, but had the branch in his hand in a moment, and I could
only say Amen. But the almond tree is rich."
He was placid and affable, with a crown of hair still nearly black,
with a refined, olive-skinned face, and great tawny eyes, as clear as a
topaz.
"Here is some savory thyme," he added, offering the herbs to La
Foscarina.
They could hear a choir of youthful voices singing a Response.
"Those are our novices; we have fifteen with us."
He accompanied the visitors to the meadow behind the convent. Standing
on a bank, at the foot of a blasted cypress, the good monk pointed to
the fertile isles, praised their abundance, mentioned their varieties
of fruit, lauded the more delightful according to the seasons, and
directed their attention toward the boats sailing toward the Rialto
with their new harvest.
"Praise to Thee, O Lord, for our Mother Earth!" said the woman with the
flowering branch.
The Franciscan was susceptible to the beauty of that feminine voice,
and was silent.
Lofty cypresses encircled the pious field; four of them showed the
marks of lightning strokes. Their tops were motionless, and were the
only sharp outlines in the level of the meadows, and waters that
blended with the horizon. Not the slightest breeze now stirred the
infinite mirror. A profound enchantment like an ecstasy filled the
lovely place with rapture. The melody of the winged creatures still
continued to float from invisible regions, but it, too, seemed to begin
to flag and soften in this silent sanctuary.
"At this hour, on the hills of Umbria," said he that had despoiled the
flowering almond of the cloister, "every olive-tree has at its base,
like a covering that is shed, a heap of its cut branches; and the tree
seems more beautiful because the heap of branches hides its rugged
roots. Saint Francis passes in the air, and with his finger he heals
the pain of the wounds made by the pruning-knife."
The Capuchin made the sign of the cross, and took his leave.
"Praise be to Jesus Christ!"
The visitors watched him as he moved away under the deep shadows cast
by the cypresses.
"He has found peace," said La Foscarina. "Does it not seem so to you,
Stelio? There is great peace in his face and his voice. Look at his
gait, too."
Alternately a ray of light and a bar of shadow fell across his tonsure
and his tunic.
"He gave me a piece of the sacred pine," said Stelio. "I will send it
to Sofia, who is devoted to the seraphic saint. Here it is. It has no
resinous odor now. Smell it!"
For Sofia's sake she kissed the relic. The lips of the good sister
would touch the spot where she had pressed her own.
"Yes--send it."
Silently they strolled along, their heads bent, in the footsteps of the
man of peace, approaching the landing between the rows of cypress trees.
"Do you not sometimes wish to see her again?" asked La Foscarina, with
a touch of shyness.
"Yes, very much," was Stelio's soft-spoken answer.
"And your mother?"
"Yes, my heart yearns for her--for that mother who looks for me each
day."
"And would you not like to go back there?"
"Yes, I shall return, perhaps."
"When?"
"I do not know yet. But I do wish to see once more my mother and Sofia.
I long to see them very much, Foscarina."
"And why do you not go to them, then? What holds you here?"
He took the hand that hung idly at her side, and they continued to walk
thus. As the oblique rays of the sun lighted the right cheek of each,
they saw their united shadows preceding them on the grass.
"When you were speaking of the hills of Umbria just now," said La
Foscarina, "perhaps you were thinking of the hills of your own part of
the country. That figure of the pruned olive tree was not new to me.
I remember you speaking to me once before of the pruning of trees. In
no other form of his labor can the farmer gain a deeper sense of the
mute life that is in a tree. When he stands before a pear, an apple,
or a peach tree with the pruning-knife and shears that may increase
their fertility and strength, but which could nevertheless as easily
cause their death, the spirit of divination surges within him, from
the wisdom he has acquired from his long communings with the earth and
the sky. The tree is at its most delicate moment, when its senses are
awakened, and the sap is flowing to the buds that swell and swell, and
are just ready to open. And man, with his pitiless knife, must regulate
the mysterious movement of the sap. The tree is there intact, ignorant
of Hesiod and of Virgil, in labor with its flowering and its fruit; and
every branch in the air is as full of life as is the arm of the man
that wields the knife. Which is the branch that must be cut off? Will
the sap heal the cut? You told me about your orchard once--I remember
it. You said that all the cuts should be turned toward the north, so
then the sun should not see them."
She spoke as she had spoken in that far-off evening in November, when
the young man had arrived at her house, breathless from the tempest of
wind, after he had borne the hero in his arms.
He smiled, and let himself be led by that dear hand. He inhaled
the fragrance of that flowery branch in which was a suggestion of
bitterness.
"It is true," he said. "And Laimo would prepare the ointment of Saint
Fiacre in the mortar, and Sofia would bring him the strong linen to
bandage the larger wounds, after they had been cleansed."
In fancy he could see the kneeling peasant, pounding cow-dung, clay,
and barley-husks in a stone mortar, according to an ancient recipe.
"In ten days," he continued, "the whole hill, seen from the seas, will
be like a great pink cloud. Sofia wrote to remind me of it. Has she
ever reappeared to you?"
"She is with us now."
"She is now standing at the window, looking out at the purpling sea;
and our mother, leaning on the window-ledge with her, says to her: 'Who
knows whether Stelio may not be on that sail boat which I see waiting
at the mouth of the river for the wind? He promised me he would return
unexpectedly by sea, in a small boat.'--And then her heart aches."
"Ah, why do you disappoint her?"
"Yes, Fosca, you are right. But I can live far-away from her for months
and months, yet feel that my life is full. Then--an hour comes when
nothing in the world appears to me so sweet as her dear eyes and there
is a part of myself that remains inconsolable. I have heard the sailors
of the Tyrrhenean Sea call the Adriatic the Gulf of Venice. To-night
I remember that my house is on the Gulf, and that seems to bring it
nearer to me."
They had reached the gondola once more, but turned to look back at the
isle of prayer, where grew the tall cypresses with their imploring arms.
"Over yonder is the canal of the Tre Porti that leads to the open sea,"
said the homesick one, fancying that he could see himself standing on
the deck of the little brig, in sight of his tamarisks and myrtles.
They reëmbarked, and floated away, silent for a long time. The aerial
melody still fell softly on the archipelago.
"Now that the plan of your work is finished," said La Foscarina,
beginning again her gentle persuasion, though her heart trembled in her
breast, "you will need peace and quiet for your labor upon it. Have
you not always worked best at your home? In no other place will you be
able to soothe the restless anxiety that possesses you. I know it well."
"That is true," he replied. "When the yearning for glory seizes us,
we believe that the conquest of art must be like the siege of a
fortification, and that trumpets and shouts accompany the courageous
assault; while in reality the only work that is of real value is that
which has been developed in austere silence--work performed with slow,
indomitable perseverance, in hard, pure solitude. Nothing is of any
value save the complete abandonment of soul and body to the Idea which
we desire to establish among men as a permanent and dominating force."
"Ah, you know it, too!"
The woman's eyes were filled with tears again, at the sound of those
inexorable words, in which was expressed the depth of virile passion,
the heroic necessity of mental domination, the firm determination to
surpass himself and to force his destiny without flinching.
"Yes, you know it well!"
And she was thrilled, as one that beholds a noble spectacle; and,
contemplating that embodied force of will, all else appeared vain to
her. The tears she had felt in her eyes when he had brought her the
flowering branch now seemed mean and weakly effeminate in comparison
with those that in this moment welled up and were alone worthy to be
kissed away by her friend.
"Ah, well, then--go back to your sea, to your own countryside, to your
own home. Light your lamp once more with the oil of your own olives."
Stelio's lips were closely compressed, and a deep frown wrinkled his
brow.
"The dear sister will come to your side again to lay a blade of grass
on the difficult page."
He bent his brow, which was clouded with a thought.
"You will rest in talking with Sofia by the window; and perhaps you
will see again the flocks of sheep on their way from the plain to the
mountains."
The sunlight was approaching the gigantic acropolis of the Dolomites.
The phalanx of clouds was disordered as if in battle, pierced by
innumerable darts of light, and steeped in a marvelous blood-like
crimson.
Slowly, after a long silence, Stelio spoke:
"And if she should ask me about the fate of the virgin who reads the
lament of Antigone?"
La Foscarina started.
"And suppose she asks me about the love of the brother who searches
through the tombs?"
The woman felt a dread of this phantom.
"And suppose the page on which she lays the blade of grass were the
page wherein that trembling soul tells of its secret and terrible
battle against the horrible evil?"
In her sudden terror, the woman could find no words. Both relapsed into
silence, looking long at the sharp peaks of the distant mountains,
which glowed as if just emerging from primordial fire. The spectacle
of this eternally desolate grandeur awakened in them a sense of
mysterious fatality and a certain confused terror which they could
neither conquer nor comprehend.
"And you?" said Stelio suddenly, after a long silence.
La Foscarina made no reply.
The bells of San Marco sounded the signal for the Angelus, and their
tremendous clamor swelled in ever-widening waves over the still crimson
lagoon which they were leaving to the memories of shadows and death.
From San Giorgio Maggiore and San Giorgio dei Greci, from San Giorgio
degli Schiavoni and San Giovanni in Bragora, from San Moisé, from the
Salute, the Redentore, and, from one place to another, throughout the
whole domain of the Evangelists, even to the distant towers of the
Madonna dell' Orto, of San Giobbe and Sant' Andrea, the bronze voices
answered, mingling in one great chorus floating over the silent stones
and waters, a veritable dome of sound, invisible, yet the vibrations of
which seemed to communicate with the scintillation of the first stars.
And the reverberation above the heads of the two in the gondola was so
great that they seemed to feel it in the roots of their hair and in the
cool shiver of their flesh.
"Oh, is that you, Daniele?"
Stelio had recognized at the door of his own house, on the Fondamenta
Samedo, the figure of Daniele Glauro.
"Ah, Stelio, I have been waiting for you!" cried Daniele breathlessly,
striving to make himself heard above the pealing of bells. "Richard
Wagner is dead!"