Part 6

Never since then have I passed an hour at once so delicious and so painful. I know not if the trees laden with blossom had as keen a sense of their vital power as I had of mine on that clear morning; but they certainly could not feel my vast bewildering perplexity, innumerable feelings, and innumerable thoughts. In order to prolong both pain and delight, I kept my horse at a walk, and lingered on the way, as if that hour were to close for ever a phase of my intimate life, and on my arrival at the fated spot a new and unforeseen phase were to open, the dim presentiment of which was to be found in my increasing uneasiness. From time to time the breath of spring, with its whispering warmth around me, seemed to waft me up into an ether of dreams, to efface in me for a few seconds the consciousness of real personality, and to breathe into me the virgin ardent soul of one of those hero lovers in fairy tales who ride to find Sleeping Beauties in the Wood. Was not I riding towards the maiden princesses imprisoned in a walled garden? And was not each one of them perhaps in her secret heart expecting the Bridegroom?

Already they appeared before me as pictured by my desire, and already my desire met its first perplexity in the triple image. I asked myself: “Which will be the chosen one?” for within my soul I felt at the same moment the nuptial joy of the one, and the sepulchral sadness of the other two; I felt all the germs of future trouble, and already perceived regret hidden under hope. And again that fear crossed my spirit which once before had disturbed me in the midst of my voluntary discipline: the fear of those blind forces of fate against which the strongest will may struggle in vain; the fear of that sudden whirlwind which in a second may seize the boldest and most tenacious of men, and carry him far away from the promised goal.

I drew up my horse. The road at that point was quite deserted; the groom was following me at a distance. Over the grand, lonely scenery reigned the deepest silence, only broken at intervals by the whispering olives; a steady light shone equally over everything; and in the light and the silence, all things from small leaves to gigantic rocks appeared with a clearness of outline that was almost crude. I felt more strongly than ever the ambiguous something which had entered into me. And I thought: “Was not my soul till yesterday filled with the same clear daylight which now reveals every line of scenery to my attentive sight? And does not this new uncertainty cover some great peril? What if a dangerously large store of poetry has accumulated within me during my solitude, and now requires unlimited expansion? But if I give myself up to the rushing torrent, where will it carry me? Perhaps watchful guard against extraneous life may yet avail; perhaps it may yet avail to refuse to enter the circle which is suddenly opening before me, and will enclose me like a magic ring.” And the _dæmon_ repeated with unhesitating voice: “Fear not! Welcome the unknown and unforeseen and whatever else fate may bring thee; abolish all prohibitions; go onwards safe and free; have no anxiety save to live. Thy fate can only be fulfilled in the abundance of life.”

I urged my horse into a trot, vehemently, as if at that point a great act had been resolved upon. And Trigento appeared on the slope of the hill with its stone houses clustering against the parent rock. At the summit appeared the ancient palace with its walled garden stretching down the opposite slope to the plain. It produced the effect of a great cloister full of forgotten or dead things.

* * * * *

As I dismounted at the gate I heard the voice of Oddo, who was looking out for me.

“Welcome, Claudio!”

He ran to meet me with outstretched arms, as much delighted as the first time.

“I thought you would have come earlier,” he said in a reproachful tone; “I have been waiting for you here for the last two hours.”

“I lingered on the way,” I answered. “I wanted to renew acquaintance with every tree and stone.”

With one of those strange sudden movements of his, in which curiosity and timidity were mingled, he went up to my horse and stroked his neck.

“How beautiful he is!” he murmured, and the animal’s sensitive neck quivered under the touch of his slender white hand.

“You can ride him whenever you like,” I said to him, “either this one or another.”

“I hardly think I could sit in the saddle now,” he answered; “I believe I should be nervous.... But come! Come! You are expected.”

And he led me up a path enclosed within walls of box-wood, feeble with age, and broken here and there by deep gaps, from which a fresh scent of invisible violets seemed to issue, strange as the breath of youth out of a decrepit mouth.

“Yesterday evening,” said Oddo rather uneasily, “yesterday evening we brought back joy with your almond blossom. You don’t know what we felt, alone in that carriage, buried under the flowers! Antonello was like a child. I never saw him like that before.”

At intervals the green walls opened out into archways, and I caught sight of grassy glades where some long slanting ray of sun pierced the shadow with a sharp outline.

“I never saw him like that before; I never heard him talk so much nonsense.”

Stone vases deep and round alternated with statues almost clothed with lichen, maimed or headless statues whose attitudes seemed eloquent to me. And a few daffodils were flowering round their pedestals.

“When we arrived here, we could not get out for the branches. The sisters came to set us free. How happy they were! They went away laden. We heard them laughing up the stairs. All such things are new to us, Claudio.”

A whispered splash reached my ear; the vague sound of a hidden fountain. An indefinable anxiety weighed upon my heart.

“We talked about you the whole evening, and remembered many things of long ago, and perhaps made some air-castles for the future. Who would ever have thought of your coming back? But none of us can believe yet that you will stay.... We feel as if after a few days you would escape us. It is not easy to bear this life of ours. Massimilla, you see, prefers a convent.... Did you not know that Massimilla is just going to leave us?”

As I walked up the path, brushing against the walls of vegetation, a strong, bitter odour reached my nostrils from the little, fresh box leaves which shone like beryls among the thick green.

“Ah! here is Violante!” exclaimed Oddo, touching my arm.

At the sudden apparition my heart gave a great bound, and I felt the colour rise in my face.

She was sitting under a lofty arch of box, with her feet upon the grass; a strip of meadow seen through the opening lay behind her, streaked with gold.

She smiled without rising, waiting till we came near; and she seemed to be offering her whole beauty to my astonished gaze in that calm attitude, as she sat on the green sward where perhaps her fingers had gathered the numerous violets ornamenting her girdle. As she stretched out her hand to me, she looked me full in the face, and said in a voice which was the perfect musical expression of the form it came from--

“You are welcome. We were expecting you yesterday. Oddo and Antonello brought us your gift instead, and it was no less acceptable.”

I said: “After many years I am once again entering your grounds, where I used long ago to accompany my mother, and already I begin to regret having stayed so long away. On leaving Rome I knew that I should find an empty house at Rebursa, but I did not know how richly Trigento would compensate for it. I owe you much gratitude.”

“We shall owe you gratitude,” she interrupted, “if you do not find our society wearisome. You know that this place is destitute of joy.”

“Even sadness has its benefit for him who understands how to taste it, has it not?”

“Perhaps.”

“Besides, I assure you, since I passed the gate I have experienced none but exquisite sensations here. This great garden seems to me delicious. It is impossible not to feel the poetry of its antiquity! Yesterday when I saw Oddo and Antonello in raptures over that almond blossom, as if they had never seen a flowering tree before, I thought everything here must be withered and dead. Instead of which I find within your gates a more enchanting display of spring than that which I left outside. Aren’t you tired with gathering violets in the grass? Your girdle is full of them.”

She smiled and looked down towards her waist, and with her bare fingers caressed the violets which adorned it.

“You come from the city,” she said. Her voice was musical but rather veiled, and the richness of its tone was a little exhausted, as if very slightly cracked; “you come from the city, and the country is offering you her firstfruits.”

“I don’t know how it is, but certain things always seem new.”

“We see these things no longer, and love them no longer,” said Oddo, with some melancholy. “Probably Violante cannot smell the scent of the flowers she picks.”

“Is that true?” I asked, turning to her. My eyes were struck by the profile of marble under her abundant hair and the motionless attitude, which reminded one of immortal statues.

“What were you saying?” she asked, like one returning from far off; she had not heard her brother’s words.

“Oddo says you cannot smell the scent of the flowers you pick. Is it true?”

A faint touch of red coloured her cheeks.

“Oh, no!” she answered, with a vivacity quite in contrast with the slow rhythm to which her life seemed set. “Don’t believe Oddo. He says that because I am fond of strong scents; but I can smell the faintest also, even those of the stones.”

“Of the stones?” said Oddo, laughing.

“What do you know about it, Oddo? Be quiet.”

We were walking up the great flight of steps covered with trellises leading in symmetrical order to the palace; she went up slowly between us, step by step. The stairs were very wide, and she made a step forward on each, and then each time paused an instant before putting her foot on the next, and this movement caused her always to lift the same foot. Wearied by the frequent repetition of the movement, she sometimes relaxed her body a little as she stood with bended knee and slackened the proud will which kept her figure as erect as a perfect stalk. An unexpected softness then came over her superb form; a new rhythm revealed what I should call the docile graces, the pliant qualities of love. So strong was the power emanating from this beautiful being, that I could not take my eyes off her movements; and I lingered behind so that my entire gaze should encircle her. She seemed to drive my spirit back into the marvellous epoch when artists drew from dormant matter those perfect forms which men regarded as the only truths worthy of worship on earth. And I thought as I looked at her and ascended behind her: “It is right she should remain untouched. Only by a god could she be possessed without shame.” And as her queenly head passed onwards in the light--her native element--I felt that her beauty was on the verge of its perfect maturity, of its highest effort, and I thanked fortune for having permitted me such a sight. “Ah, I shall worship her, but I shall not dare to love her; I shall not dare to look into her soul and surprise its secrets. Yet her every movement reveals that she was made for love; but it was for barren love, not for the love that creates. Her body will never bear the disfiguring burden; the flood of milk will never mar the pure outline of her bosom.”

She stopped, impatient at the effort, and a little out of breath, and said--

“How tiring these stairs are! Let us take a rest here, if you don’t mind.”

“Here are Antonello and Anatolia coming down,” remarked Oddo, who had seen the two, through the open bars of the trellises, descending the first flight of steps. “Let us wait for them.”

Moving towards us came she who had been represented to me as the giver of strength, the beneficent powerful maiden, the rich and generous soul. She appeared from the first as a support, for Antonello was leaning on her arm, and setting his hesitating steps to the measure of her firm ones.

“Which of us,” asked Violante suddenly, but so lightly as to remove all indiscretion from the question, “which of us do you remember least indistinctly?”

“I really don’t know,” I answered vaguely, for my ears were listening to the rustle of Anatolia’s dress.

“But certainly the figures I remember have hardly anything in common with the present reality. Since the day I went away we have passed through that period of life when transformations are most rapid and most deep.”

The two others had come up. Anatolia also put out her hand, saying--

“You are welcome.”

Her actions had a kind of manly frankness, and the contact of her hand gave me an impression of generous strength and genuine kindness; it seemed to inspire me suddenly with brotherly confidence.

It was a hand unadorned with rings, not too white nor too slim, but robust in its pure shape, ready to clasp and to give support, flexible and firm at the same time. There was an impress of pride on its surface, varied as it was by the low relief of the joints and the intricacy of the veins, and there were lines of softness in the hollow warmth of the palm, where a radiant fire of feeling seemed to glow.

“You are welcome,” said the warm, cordial voice. “You have brought us spring and sunshine from Rome----”

“Oh no!” I interrupted. “I found them both here. In Rome I left nothing but mist and other gloomy things. I have just been saying how much I regret having stayed away from here so long.”

“You must make amends to us for your forgetfulness,” said Antonello with his painful smile.

“What do you think of Trigento?” asked Anatolia. “It is hardly changed at all, is it? You used to come here with your mother. You remember, don’t you? We have never forgotten her, nor ever shall. Among the things which have remained unchanged here, you will find the memory of that saintly soul and her wonderful kindness.”

A grave silence followed these words of recollection. For a few moments the sense of death which fell upon my filial heart threw an aspect of unreality on all the persons and things present. For a few moments everything seemed to become as far away and empty as the sky whose fading colour I could see through the bare vine branches of the trellis as if through a ragged net. But as the brief illusion vanished, I felt myself nearer to her who had produced it, and I could not waste time again in idle words. I wanted to penetrate into the heart of their sadness.

“And Donna Aldoina?” I asked in a low voice, turning to Anatolia, and speaking now to her alone.

Was she not probably the real guardian of the gloomy dwelling? By calling up the memory of death had she not herself raised the image of the lunatic?

“She is still just the same,” she replied, also in a low voice. “It is better you should not see her, to-day at least. It would be too painful for you. And imagine what it is for us! It is a daily torture, a torture that has lasted for years without pause, to the wearing of our souls....” Her eyes cast a momentary furtive look towards Antonello, and I read in them the secret terror that she felt for the poor invalid who was trembling on the precipice.

“We have never had the courage to separate her from us, to send her away,” she added, “for she is not violent; in fact, she is quite gentle. Sometimes she seems cured; we almost believe that a miracle has come to pass; she calls us by our names, remembers some little thing that happened long ago, and smiles calmly. Although we know that it is all an illusion, every time we tremble with hope, every time we choke with anxiety. You understand....”

Her voice lost its tone in her sorrow, like a loose musical string.

“It is impossible to confine her to her rooms, to keep her shut up; it is impossible. And we have not the heart to avoid her when she appears, when she comes to meet us, when she speaks to us. So she is continually at our side; she is mingled with our existence....”

“Some days,” interrupted Antonello suddenly, with a kind of impetuosity, as if driven on by uncontrollable excitement, “some days the whole house is full of her. We breathe her madness. One or other of us stays by her for hours and hours while she talks on; sits opposite her with hands imprisoned in those trembling hands of hers. Do you understand?”

A new and still more oppressive silence fell upon us all. And every one of us was suffering, as he acknowledged in his soul the reality of the sorrow which the slender blue shadows of the trellis, mingled with the gentle gold of the sun, seemed to wrap in a veil of dreams. Through the silence the sound of a light footfall was heard coming up the lower flight of steps. At regular intervals came a faint bubbling sound as if a fountain was overflowing its basin. A mysterious quiver seemed to shake the lonely garden below. And I understood how a gloomy and feeble mind might construct an unreal life out of these phantoms, and nourish it till overcome by it.

Thus the torture to which destiny had condemned these last survivors of a fallen race was suddenly revealed to me in all its horrors; and the vision called up by the words of one who was certainly to become a victim appeared to me magnified by a tragic light. In imagination I could see the mad old princess sitting in the shadow of her distant apartment, and one of her children leaning over her, with hands imprisoned in hers. The attitude of this mournful enchantress seemed to me fatal and inexorable. I felt as if she were unconsciously drawing all the children of her blood one after the other into the circle of her madness, and as if not one of them would be able to escape that blind and cruel force. Like an ancestral Erinnys, she was presiding over the dissolution of her race.

Then through the bare branches of the trellis I gazed up at the silent palace, which till that day had harboured in its grim depths such desperate anguish, and hidden so many useless tears--tears falling from pure and eager eyes, worthy of reflecting the most glorious sights of the world, and of pouring joy into the soul of poets and rulers.

“Eyes of Beauty!” I thought, gazing again at the motionless Violante. “What earthly misery can veil the splendour of the truth that shines forth from you? What afflicted soul can fail to acknowledge the consoling power that flows from you?” The pain I had been feeling ceased suddenly, as if balm had been applied; the troublous images faded away like a mournful vapour.

She was seated motionless on a stone plinth which had once supported an urn. Her elbow rested on her knee, her chin in her hand; in this simple attitude her whole figure expressed that succession of mute harmonies which is the secret of supreme art. She seemed to be present with us, and yet apart. Upon her low forehead was visible the reflection of the ideal crown that she wore upon her thoughts; and her hair, gathered up in a great knot on her neck, seemed to have obeyed the same rhythm which regulates the repose of the sea.

“Massimilla,” said Oddo, introducing the third sister.

I turned, and found she was already close to us. She was ascending the last steps with her light tread. Her face and her whole person bore traces of the dream in which she had been plunged, of the intimate poetry of the hour just past, spent with a faithful book in the solitude of the nook known to her alone.

“Where have you been?” asked Oddo before she reached us.

She smiled shyly, and a faint colour tinged her thin cheeks.

“Down there,” she answered, “reading.”

Her voice sounded liquid and silvery as it came through the delicate lips. There was a blade of grass as a marker in the pages of her book.

As I bowed she gave me her hand, still with the same shy smile. And something of the tender compassion I used to feel long ago for the little invalid my mother visited awoke again in my soul; for her hand was so slight and soft, that it reminded me of those slender flowers called day lilies, which bloom for one day only in the hot sand.

She did not speak, and neither could I find words delicate enough to be appropriate to her timid grace.

“Shall we go up?” said Anatolia, turning to me, her clear voice at once breaking through the kind of spell which the unutterable melancholy of our thoughts had cast over us as we sat in the warmth under the trellis.

“Our father wants so much to see you again,” and we all began to ascend the steps towards the palace.