The Child of Pleasure. Gabriele D'Annunzio
the purlieus of a village church, but the walls had that singular luminous glow which the buildings of Rome seem to give out at 'Titian's hour.'
Elena drew up beside him.
'That day—how long ago it seems now!' she said with a little tremor in her voice.
In truth, the memory of it had already dropped away into the gulf of time as if their love had endured for years. Elena's words raised that illusion in Andrea's mind, but, at the same time, a certain uneasiness. She began recalling the details of their visit to Santa Sabina one afternoon in January under a prematurely mild sun. She dwelt insistently upon the most trivial incidents, breaking off from time to time as if following a separate train of thought, distinct from the words she uttered. Andrea fancied he caught a note of regret in her voice. Yet, what had she to regret? Surely their love had many a sweeter day before it still—the Spring had come again to Rome. Doubting and perplexed, he ceased to listen to her. The horses went on down the hill at a walk, side by side, snorting noisily from time to time, and putting their heads together, as if exchanging confidences. Famulus sped on before, or bounded after them, perpetually on the gallop.
'Do you remember,' Elena went on, 'do you remember the Brother who came to open the gates for us when we rang the bell?'
'Yes—yes.'
'And how perfectly aghast he looked when he saw who it was? He was such a little, little red-faced man without any beard. When he went to get the keys of the church, he left us alone in the vestibule—and you kissed me—do you remember?'
'Yes.'
'And all those barrels in the vestibule! And the smell of wine while the Brother was explaining the legends carved on the cypress-wood door. And then about the Madonna of the Rosary—do you remember?—his explanation made you laugh, and I could not help laughing too, and the poor man was so put out, that he would not open his mouth again, not even to thank you at the last—'
There was a little pause. Then she began again.
'And at Sant' Alexio, where you would not let me look at the cupola through the keyhole. How we laughed then too!'
Renewed silence. Along the road towards them came a party of men carrying a coffin, and followed by a hired conveyance full of tearful relatives. They were on their way to the Jewish cemetery. It was a grim and silent funeral. The men with their hooked noses and rapacious eyes were all as like one another as brothers. The two horses separated to let the procession pass, keeping close to the wall on either side, and the lovers looked at each other across the dead, their spirits sinking lower with every moment.
When presently they rejoined one another, Andrea said—'Tell me—what is the matter? What is on your mind?'
She hesitated a moment before replying, keeping her eyes on her horse's neck and stroking it with the end of her riding whip, irresolute and very pale.
'You have something on your mind,' persisted the young man.
'Very well then—yes—and I had better tell you and get it over. I am going away next Wednesday. I do not know for how long—perhaps for a long time—perhaps for ever. I cannot say. We must break with one another. It is entirely my fault. But do not ask me why—do not ask me anything, I entreat you—I could not answer you.'
Andrea looked at her incredulously. The thing seemed to him so utterly impossible that it did not affect him painfully.
'Of course you are only joking, Elena?'
She shook her head; there was a lump in her throat, and she could not speak. She suddenly set her horse into a trot.
Behind them the bells of Santa Sabina and Santa Prisca began to ring through the twilight. They trotted on in silence, awakening the echoes under the arches and among the temples—all the solitary and desolate ruins on their way. They passed San Giorgio in Velabo on their left, which still retained a gleam of rosy light on its campanile; they passed the Roman Forum, the Forum of Nerva already full of blue shadow like that which hovers over the glaciers at night, and stopped at last at the Arco dei Pantani, where their grooms and carriages awaited them.
Hardly was Elena out of the saddle, than she held out her hand to Andrea without meeting his eyes. She seemed in a great hurry to be gone.
'Well?' said Andrea as he helped her into the carriage.
'To-morrow—not this evening—I cannot——'
CHAPTER VII
The Campagna stretched away before them under an ideal light, as a landscape seen in dreams, where the objects seem visible at a great distance by virtue of some inward irradiation which magnifies their outlines.
The closed carriage rolled along smoothly at a brisk trot; the walls of ancient patrician villas, grayish-white and dim, slid past the windows with a continuous and gentle motion. Great iron gateways came in view from time to time, through which you caught a glimpse of an avenue of lofty beech trees, or some verdant cloister inhabited by antique statues, or a long green arcade pierced here and there by a laughing ray of pale sunshine.
Wrapped in her ample furs, her veil drawn down, her hands encased in thick chamois leather gloves, Elena sat and mutely watched the passing landscape. Andrea breathed with delight the subtle perfume of heliotrope exhaled by the costly fur, while he felt Elena's arm warm against his own. They felt themselves far from the haunts of men—alone—although from time to time the black carriage of a priest would flit past them, or a drover on horseback, or a herd of cattle.
Just before they reached the bridge she said—'Let us get out here.'
Here in the open country the light was translucent and cold as the waters of a spring, and when the trees waved in the wind their undulation seemed to communicate itself to all the surrounding objects.
She clung close to his arm, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. 'I am going away this evening,' she said—'this is the last time——'
There was a moment's silence; then in plaintive tones, and with frequent pauses in between, she began to speak of the necessity of her departure, the necessity of their rupture. The wind wrenched the words from her lips, but she continued in spite of it, till Andrea interrupted her by seizing her hand.
'Don't!' he cried—'be quiet.'
They walked on struggling against the fierce gusts of wind.
'Don't go—don't leave me! I want you—want you always.'
He had managed to unfasten her glove and laid hold of her bare wrist with a caressing insistent clasp that was full of tormenting desire.
She threw him one of those glances that intoxicate like wine. They were quite near the bridge now, all rosy under the setting sun. The river looked motionless and steely throughout its sinuous length. Reeds swayed and shivered on the banks, and some stakes, fixed in the clay of the river-bed to fasten nets, shook with the motion of the water.
He then endeavoured to move her by reminiscences. He recalled those first days—the ball at the Farnese palace, a certain hunting party out in the Campagna, their early morning meetings in the Piazza di Spagna in front of the jewellers' windows, or in the quiet and aristocratic Via Sistina when she came out of the Barberini palace followed by the flower girls offering her baskets of roses.
'Do you remember—do you remember?'
'Yes.'
'And that evening—quite at the beginning, when I brought in such a mass of flowers.—You were alone—beside the window—reading. You remember?'
'Yes—yes.'
'I came in. You scarcely turned your head and you spoke quite harshly to me—what was the matter?—I do not know. I laid the flowers upon the tables and waited.