Читать книгу The Intruder - Gabriele D'Annunzio - Страница 6

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I carried this branch to Juliana, and many others besides. I never returned to the Badiola without a load of flowered gifts.

One morning, as I was carrying a bunch of hawthorns, I met my mother in the vestibule; I was somewhat out of breath, heated, disturbed by a slight intoxication.

"Where is Juliana?" I asked.

"Upstairs, in her room," she answered, laughing.

I ran up the staircase, crossed the corridor, entered the room, crying:

"Juliana, Juliana, where are you?"

Maria and Natalia ran to meet me, giving me a boisterous welcome, delighted at the sight of the flowers, dancing about as if possessed.

"Come in! Come in!" they cried. "Mamma is here, in the bedroom. Come in!"

On crossing the threshold my heart beat faster. Juliana was there, smiling and embarrassed. I threw the bunch at her feet.

"Look!"

"Oh! how beautiful!" she exclaimed, bending over the fragrant treasure.

She was dressed in one of her favorite gowns, hanging in ample and graceful folds, and of a green hue resembling the green of an aloes-leaf. Her hair, not yet dressed, covered the nape of her neck, hiding her ears beneath its thick masses. The emanations from the hawthorns, that odor of thyme mixed with bitter almonds, enveloped, inundated the room, penetrating everything.

"Take care not to prick yourself," I said to her. "See my hands."

I showed her the still bleeding lacerations, as if to enhance the value of my offering. "Oh! if now she would take my hands!" I thought. And in my mind passed confusedly the recollection of a day, far distant, when she had kissed my hands, lacerated by the thorns, when she had wanted to suck the drops of blood that appeared one after the other. "If now she would take my hands, and if, by this single action, she would accord me full pardon, and yield herself up to me entirely!"

At that time I was in constant expectation of some such movement. I could not, of course, have said what gave me such confidence; but I was sure that Juliana would give herself to me again in this manner sooner or later, by some simple and silent action by which she would "accord me full pardon and yield herself up to me entirely."

She smiled. A shade of suffering passed over her pale face and in her sunken eyes.

"Don't you feel a little better since you are here?" I asked, approaching her.

"Yes, I'm better," she answered.

Then, after a pause:

"And you?"

"Oh, I! I am cured. Don't you see?"

"Yes, it is true."

At that time, when she spoke to me, her words had a curious hesitation that seemed to me full of grace, but which now it is impossible for me to define. One would have said that she was continually preoccupied in restraining the word that rose to her lips, to pronounce another word. Moreover, her voice was, so to speak, more feminine; it had lost its former firmness, and some of its sonorousness; it was veiled, like an instrument played in secret.

But, since it had only tender accents for me now, what obstacle prevented us from being all in all to each other again? What obstacle maintained the separation between us?

During that period, which in the history of my soul will ever remain mysterious, my natural perspicacity seemed to have deserted me. All my terrible analytical faculties, even those that had made me suffer so much, seemed exhausted; the power of these restless faculties appeared to be annihilated. Innumerable sensations, innumerable feelings relative to that epoch, are now incomprehensible, inexplicable, because I have no indication to aid me in retracing their origin, in determining their character. There was a break in the continuity, or lack of solder between that period of my psychic existence and the other periods.

Formerly, I had narrated a fabulous tale in which a young prince, after the adventures of a long pilgrimage, finally succeeds in rejoining the lady whom he had pursued with his ardent love. The young man trembled with hope, and the lady smiled on him, close by. But a veil seemed to render this smiling lady intangible, a veil of unknown substance, so subtle that it was confounded with the air; and, nevertheless, this veil was a barrier that prohibited the young man from clasping the woman he loved to his heart.

This fable helps me a little to form an idea of the singular state in which I found myself at that time vis-à-vis Juliana. I felt that between her and me an unknown something constantly maintained an abyss. But, at the same time, I was confident that, sooner or later, the "simple and silent gesture" would annihilate the obstacle and bring back my happiness.

Meanwhile, how Juliana's room pleased me! It was furnished with light-colored hangings, with faded pink flowers and it had a deep alcove. What a perfume the hawthorns shed!

"This odor is penetrating," she said, very pale. "It gives one a headache. Don't you feel it?"

She went and opened a window.

Then she added:

"Maria, call Miss Edith."

The governess came in.

"Edith, please take these flowers to the music-room; put them into vases. Take care not to prick yourself."

Maria and Natalia wanted to carry a part of the bunch. We remained alone. She went once more to the window, and leaned against it, her back turned toward the light.

"Have you anything to do? Do you wish me to go?" I asked.

"No, no; stay, be seated. Tell me about your walk this morning. How far did you go?"

She spoke with some precipitation. As the window support was at about the height of her waist, she had placed her elbows on it, and her bust was inclined backward, framed by the rectangle of the window. Her face, turned directly toward me, was entirely shaded, particularly about the orbits of the eyes; but her hair, on the summit of which fell the light, formed a slight aureole; the light also touched the tops of her shoulders. One of her feet—the one that supported the weight of her body—was raised, drawing up the dress, partly disclosing the ash-colored stocking and the patent-leather slipper. In that attitude, in that light, her entire person possessed extraordinarily seductive power. A section of bluish and voluptuous landscape, pinked out between the two window-posts, formed a distant background behind her head.

And then, instantaneously, as if by a crushing revelation, I saw once more in her the desirable woman; and all my blood fired up at the memory of, and the desire of, her caresses.

I spoke to her, my eyes fixed on her. And the more I gazed on her, the more disturbed I became. She also, no doubt, must have read my look, since her uneasiness became visible. I thought, with poignant internal anxiety: "If I only dared? If I went closer to her? If I took her in my arms?" The apparent assurance that I sought to put in my frivolous remarks rapidly abandoned me. My disturbance grew. My embarrassment became insupportable. From the adjoining rooms came the sound of the voices of Maria, Natalia, and Edith, indistinctly.

I arose, approached the window, and stood beside Juliana. I was on the point of bending toward her to speak at last the words that I had so many times repeated to myself in imaginary conversations. But the fear of a probable interruption stopped me. I thought that perhaps the moment was badly chosen, that perhaps I should not have the time to say all to her, to open all my heart to her, to relate my intimate life during the last few weeks, the mysterious convalescence of my soul, the awakening of my most tender fibres, the arousing of my most delicate dreams, the depth of my new sensation, the tenacity of my hope. I thought that I should not have the time to recount in detail the recent episodes, to make those little, innocent confessions to her, so delicious to the ear of the woman who loves, fresh with sincerity, more persuasive than any eloquence. In fact, I must succeed in convincing her of a great truth, perhaps incredible to her after so many disillusions; succeed in convincing her that now my return was no longer deceptive, but sincere, definite, necessitated by a vital desire of my entire being. Of course, she was still distrustful; of course, her distrust was the cause of her reserve. Between us the shadow of an atrocious recollection ever interposed itself. It was for me to banish this shadow, to draw my soul and hers so closely together that nothing more could interpose between them. But, for that, a favorable occasion was required in some secret and silent place, inhabited only by memories. That place was the Lilacs.

We remained in the embrasure of the window, by each other's side, both silent. From the adjoining rooms came the sound of the voices of Maria, Natalia, and Edith, indistinctly. The perfume of the hawthorn was dissipated. The curtains that hung from the arch of the alcove permitted a view of the bed in its depth, and my eyes wandered ceaselessly toward it, searching the shadows, almost concupiscent.

Juliana had lowered her head, perhaps because she also felt the delicious and agonizing weight of the silence. The light breeze toyed with a loose curl on her temple. The restless agitation of that dark curl, in which were light scattered threads of gold, on that temple white as a wafer, made me languorous. And, as I gazed at her, I saw again on her neck the little brown mole which, in former days, had so often curiously attracted me.

Then, incapable of containing myself, with a mixture of apprehension and hardihood, I raised my hand to arrange the curl; and my fingers trembled on her hair, and they brushed against the ear, the neck, but lightly, very lightly, with the most furtive of caresses.

"What are you doing?" said Juliana, shaken by a start, turning on me a bewildered look, trembling perhaps more than I.

She left the window. Then, feeling that I was following her, she made several steps as if to flee, dismayed.

"Ah! Juliana, why, why?" I cried, stopping short.

Then immediately I added:

"It is true. I am still unworthy. Pardon!"

At that moment the two bells of the chapel began to chime. And Maria and Natalia rushed into the room, ran up to their mother with cries of joy, and hung around her neck, one after the other, covering her face with kisses; then, leaving their mother, they came to me, and I raised them in my arms, one after the other.

The two bells chimed furiously; the whole of the Badiola seemed to be invaded by the thrill of the bronze. It was Holy Saturday, the hour of the Resurrection.