Читать книгу The Book of Love - Paolo Mantegazza - Страница 8

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On my neighbor's roof the first rays of the sun have stirred up an infernal racket. Among the tiles, tawny and corroded by the black wartwort, there are some soft cushions of moss, and on the eaves, with edges frayed by rust and twisted by the alternating of sun and ice, grows some grass that, more frugal than an anchoret and happier than a king, lives on light and dew. On those tiles and on those eaves all the sparrows in the neighborhood have their rendezvous; and, sprightly, petulant, noisy, they pursue each other, intermingle with their wings, and clash, peck, play with their little feathered bodies. They speak a common and inharmonious language, but they seem to narrate the dreams of the night, and to have many and important things to tell each other. One shrieks, another warbles, a third is chirping; not one is still. Happy because they have slept well, having already forgotten yesterday, and unmindful of today, they are basking their feathers in the first rays of the sun, and, beaks hidden under their wings, waging war upon some importunate acarus. There are some small and some big. The gray, the coppery, and the black with slight variations of hues indicate, perhaps, to the naturalist age and sex, perhaps even varieties of species; but in this moment they are all kindred chattering and enjoying themselves together. No difference of caste seems to humiliate one and elate another; no infirmity produces pain in some of them and compassion in others; here is neither etiquette of rank nor hypocrisy of compliments. Have they, those dear and happy young sparrows, carried into effect the republic of Plato?

But, lo! in that crowd of thoughtless, happy creatures I behold a sparrow of a deeper black, a darker chestnut hue, and more high-chested than the others. Frequently he stands upright on his small legs, stretches his neck, his body, his head, like a child about to have his height measured, and, without moving from his place, he looks to the right and to the left with an air of indefinable, vain complacency. And, lo! among his neighbors he sees a female sparrow, of a plain gray color, with an elongated body, delicate and pretty. She seems to have been made for the ivory hand of a lady to hold, thrusting out her loving head from that nest of intelligent folds that is the hand of a woman. The impudent sparrow sees her and, without approaching, utters a cry of conquest which in force and petulance already seems to be a cry of victory. It appears to me that in the sparrow's dictionary that sound must be a word with great significance and important consequences, because the pretty little female with a short flight leaves the noisy crowd of her companions and draws near to the edge of the roof. But the bold lover impatiently flies after her and repeatedly renews his insistent, petulant cry; he is already very close to her, but the little female flies to the roof of the house on the opposite side of the street. She has hardly reached it when the male overtakes her, and at short distance they both face and defy each other; and, twittering in different voices, they hurl at each other a world of words which seem to me insolence and tenderness at the same time. The one whines, the other shrills; the one implores, the other commands, and frequently the prating is so closely intermingled that it seems like the sound of one instrument. But the bickering appears to have fatigued them, and the pretty little female withdraws, running to an eave, while the male looks up at the sun and awaits new strength. And strength seems to be restored to him very soon, for the warbling and shrieking begin anew. Nor is the insolent lover satisfied with his voice, but runs by leaps and flights to peck his companion; and a hasty retreat, a confused crying, a continual clashing succeed each other at brief intervals through the mossy labyrinths of that roof. Already many battles have been fought between the two lovers; the anxiety to escape and to defend herself from wanton desires seems so sincere in that winged little female that I almost begin to believe that she does not want to be loved that morning. But, if this be really so, why does she not open her wings and fly away into the infinite sky? And if she does not love that too obstinate persecutor, why does she call him when he, piqued, flies to the top of the roof, almost simulating indifference or vexation? But desire cannot stand that war any longer, and the male is now decided to seize the sweet prize of victory, and as if sliding down on those tiles, with short leaps that seem steps he pursues his companion, who withdraws to a corner of the roof where it projects over the street. Behind her she has not an inch of space left: she must either fly away and lose, perhaps, her lover, already tired of so many refusals, or capitulate. Fractions of an inch seem to have become infinite space, measured as they are by male and female with steps and leaps; and the female raises her voice louder and louder at intervals, but does not succeed in drowning the more robust and courageous voice of the lover who is now so close to her as to touch her with his beak and shake her with his wings. The two little warm bodies come into contact, clash, commingle. There, on the extreme brink of the eave, with her little body suspended over the abyss, the female concedes the crowning voluptuousness to her companion, and a sweet inspiration and a rebuff which seems like a flash of lightning attend an ardent, intimate, fulmineous love, a love caught over the abyss of space.

The two lovers fall in a swoon; they rise slowly and stare at each other, amazed and languid; then, with a shiver, they adjust their feathers, disarranged by the embrace; with a second shiver they absorb slowly, slowly the last quaver of the vanishing voluptuousness, and away they fly to hide in some hospitable tree their happy lassitude and to restore their strength for new battles and new loves.

These two pictures, which I have rapidly sketched from nature, are only poor specimens from an immense collection, rich in the warmest tints and in the most singular designs. In no function does life multiply its forces as in love, and the queerest phenomena are interlaced around the union of the sexes, which, unique in essence, assumes the most varied forms. The philosopher, the poet, the artist, should study with interest the thousand ways in which living beings exchange the germinative gemmulæ, and they would find subjects for profound meditation and a strong incentive to inspiration. Only in the eyes of the hypocrite or of the idiot many loves of living beings may seem brutal battles or lascivious embraces. Nowhere does Nature manifest herself more powerful, more inexhaustible, more admirable than where she teaches the living how to perpetuate life. It is well to conceal, as far as possible, from the eyes of our children, especially from little girls, the too obscene intercourses of those domestic animals which most resemble us. However, the most rigorous morals in the world and the most puritanical modesty would be unable to hide the kisses of doves, the amorous duets of canaries, the sublime embraces of butterflies. More than one maiden had in these pictures of nature her first lesson of love; and many years before the lips of a lover taught her the life in two, doves, canaries, butterflies had caused her heart to throb, disclosing to her a corner in the realm of infinite and glowing mysteries.