On the morrow a keen and pungent wind had rid the lake of all the vapours and clouds, which had robbed the hills and mountains of their lines and colouring. The sky only was covered with a closely fitting veil of clouds. It was a sky quite white, curving from the zenith to the horizon behind the mountains in an immovable whiteness. Beneath this immense inanimate whiteness the ice of the far-away peaks seemed whiter, and the summits blacker and more rocky. Every now and then a gust of wind crossed the quiet streets of Lucerne, and passed over the waters of the lake, causing long, shuddering ripples, while a flight of pigeons wheeled round the arches of the bridge. At the landing-stage the steamer was whistling on its departure for Fluelen.
It was still early when a carriage brought Marco Fiore to Kriens, the last suburb of Lucerne, at the foot of the Sonnenberg funicular. He had the appearance of a man who had slept badly. Only one other person took his place in the carriage, a German or perhaps a Lucernese, who placed himself in a corner and began to smoke a short pipe. The conductor rang his bell and whistled twice in vain; there were no other passengers for Sonnenberg than Marco and the man with the pipe.
The large and rather melancholy hotel at Sonnenberg is a few paces away from the station. Marco directed himself to the porter who was seated in the empty vestibule, as deserted as the garden he had just passed through. Donna Maria Guasco had just gone out, the man said, as she usually did every morning, towards Gutsch, indicating the way with his hand; then he added in a very German French, that it was a fairly long walk. Scarcely listening to him, Marco set off through a broad wooded path. He walked without looking before him with lowered eyes, completely wrapped in his thoughts, without meeting any one, without looking at the landscape, almost without seeing where he was going. Every now and then the wind, which was freshening, caused the trees to rustle with an almost human sound, beating on Marco’s face, and, passing on, it grew weaker without disturbing his thoughts. He had lost count of the time he was on the way. At last at a corner he read on a post, “Gutsch,” indicated by a white arrow on a blue ground. He took the turning for some fifty steps, and then stopped silent and surprised.
He found himself in a strange wood, formed of tall, colossal trees, whose height the eye could not gauge. The trunks of the trees were round, thin, and devoid of branches to a considerable height, like the stems of bronze candlesticks; then the leafy branches mounted up so intricately and thickly, hiding the sky, that an invincible gloom reigned in the wood. The tall, colossal, upright trees, growing so close together, seemed innumerable, and rose in two lines along a very straight path in the middle, which lost itself in the calm, sad gloom, which the rays of the sun seemed unable to penetrate. Never had a wood seemed so strange and lugubrious to Marco’s wondering eyes, never had he breathed an air so still and sepulchral, and never had he noticed a silence so profound and gloomy. On either side of the path the dried leaves were scattered, of every colour from light yellow to dark red, but their colour had merged into one in that darkness of the tomb. A sense of tragic and fatal horror conquered his heart while he advanced under the ominous trees, like dismal funeral candles, in that wood without the song of birds, without the perfume of flowers and the sun’s rays. Terror surrounded him, and he seemed to be walking towards his strange destiny, towards the wooden seat beneath a bronze tree trunk, where Maria was seated and looking at him as he approached with sad but sweet eyes.
“This wood is horrible, Maria!” he exclaimed a little petulantly, as he sat down beside her.
“Yes, it is horrible,” she replied, looking around, “but I come here every day to let myself be taken by its strong, calm horror. I think that dead people must be here, and nobody knows of it.”
“Dead of love, or sorrow, or indifference,” he added, looking around, believing himself a prey to an hallucination.
“Or perhaps they had enough of life.”
“Everything could have happened here,” he continued dreamily, “a bloody duel, a murder ignored by all, a suicide which no one knew of. Doesn’t it cause you horror, sweet Maria?”
“Life is more difficult than death,” she replied, shaking her head.
He took her hand, covered with a white glove, and with a slow, familiar action took off the glove and kissed her fingers and palm two or three times.
“Maria,” he said, “I have thought much during the night. At first I was seized by a mortal disquietude, and I wanted to get up and leave, to look for you in the night. Then little by little I entered into a great peace, because I saw our way.”
“Our way?” she asked in agitation.
“Ours, Maria. It is the only way, and there is no choice but for you and me to follow it.”
“What are you saying, Marco?” she exclaimed, getting up.
With a gracious and tender action he made her sit down again.
“I say that we ought to live together till death,” he declared.
“Without love, Marco? Without love?” the woman cried, and such an utter hopeless bitterness was in the cry.
“Yes, without love,” he continued courageously; “the great light and flame of our passion is extinguished, it is true, but the tender reflections can still weakly illuminate the shadows where we have lived; even the rays of the heat, whose flame no longer exists, can rarefy the cold which is conquering us.”
“You don’t love me, Marco!” she cried.
“I don’t love you with passion, and I ought not to deceive you; neither of us will ever lie to the other. But you have been the chosen woman of my heart, the only intense dream of my life. You have been my perfect, only love. If the tabernacle is closed, if the idol has vanished, the soul has in its memory the recollection of a unique adoration.”
“But I don’t love you!” she cried, convulsed.
“Yes, I know that you don’t love me with passion. But I know that I have a beautiful and unforgettable place in your heart. I have been your only lover.”
He spoke with a desperate sadness in his eyes and face, in every expression and gesture.
“Is it true, that I am dear to you, Maria?”
“It is true, as you say, you are dear to me,” she replied desolately.
Marco drew her to himself and kissed her on the lips chastely. She returned the kiss. But to both the kiss seemed to have the savour of death.
“Let us live together till death,” he resumed sadly.
“Together, Marco, together? To reunite when we no longer have love as the excuse of our betrayal, nor passion as an excuse for the sorrow we are inflicting on others! Why? Why?”
“Because nothing else remains,” he said desolately.
“Is there really nothing else, Marco?” she cried, wringing her hands.
“Really, Maria, nothing else.”
“And that unfortunate at Rome? That unfortunate Emilio? What has he done to be so disgraced? And why must I bring about his misfortune?” she cried, with a sob, hiding her face in her hands.
“Pity him; let us pity him,” said Marco; “he is an unfortunate.”
“He will curse me.”
“He will be right to curse you, but he will also be wrong. All are right and all are wrong confronted with love, Maria.”
“And Vittoria? Vittoria? the unlucky Vittoria? What will become of her? What will she say of me? Marco, think, think, what a horrible business!”
“She will curse us justly,” resumed Marco, with deep sadness; “she will be right, like Emilio, to curse us, but confronted with love she will be wrong.”
“Who will console Vittoria, Marco?”
“I have tried to console her, but she despised my consolations. Like all exigent people who ask too much from life, Vittoria has only gathered delusion and bitterness.”
“You promised her everything.”
“I offered her everything, and she repulsed it. What she demanded was not in my power, will never be in my power, and I shall never see her again.”
“Who will console and comfort Emilio?”
“He is a man; he will forget you.”
“And Vittoria?”
“Religion will be able to do much for her. She will forget me.”
“But Emilio and Vittoria were not expecting this from us and from existence.”
“The fault isn’t mine, and isn’t ours. If we are to blame we did it for one supreme and invincible reason, which is love.”
“My God! my God!” she kept on lamenting, sobbing without tears.
“There is nothing else for us to do, but to live together till death.”
“Nothing else? Nothing else? Suppose we were to try again? Suppose we were to return?”
The voice was as desperate as the proposal.
“Why do you want to try again, Maria?” he asked, with infinite desolation; “do you wish to go to your husband who hates and loves you? Do you wish to give yourself to him who is horrified at what you did? Do you wish instead to stop in your home as a stranger and an enemy? Do you wish to live and give yourself to him, as a courtesan whom he pays and despises? Do you wish to live, if you refuse yourself to him, in an inferno? To-morrow he will hate you, and you will be forced either to fly again ridiculously or become the lover of Gianni Provana, and afterwards of another Gianni Provana, descending to every abyss to make something of your life.”
“No, no!” she cried, at the height of moral nausea.
“How can I try again with Vittoria? Must I return and fall at the feet of my wife, simulating a passion I do not feel? Must I play a comedy, I who despise a lie? Could I ever take my wife in my arms like you? Oh, she knows, perhaps, and understands; at any rate she would soon understand, that I was lying and deceiving her. Do you know that I inspire her with repulsion? Do you know that she neither wants me as a husband, a companion, or a friend? Do you know that she wants me as a lover? Can I be the lover of Vittoria, Maria? I can’t, there, I can’t! If I returned to Rome, if I re-entered Piazzo Fiore, I should only make Vittoria more unhappy. In desperation I should hurl myself into conviviality. You can’t wish the death of your dignity, nor I that of my honour.”
“It is true, it is true!” she exclaimed, falling back in the seat as if about to faint.
“Courage, courage, Maria,” he said sweetly.
A great silence, a great shadow, an ineffable solitude was around them in that funereal wood.
“But couldn’t we go on as we did up to yesterday, each in our own way?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Where, where, Maria?” he asked, with the shadow of a melancholy smile.
“I don’t know ... anywhere ... everywhere,” she said vaguely, “each our own way, as up to yesterday.”
“We met yesterday,” he said sweetly.
“Let us separate to-day and resume our way.”
“We should meet to-morrow.” And his voice was very sweet and sad.
“Do you think so, Marco? Do you think so?”
“It is fate. Maria, it was fate our meeting yesterday; our fate would be meeting to-morrow. A will which we are ignorant of, which is outside us, which acts on us while it is foreign to us, has reunited us yesterday, and would reunite us to-morrow. Let us accept it, Maria.”
“But what is this will, Marco?” she said, seized by a sudden fear.
“Maria,” he said gravely, “you know, you have known, that passion is outside the usual limits of life, you have known and seen that it forces souls and persons beyond all laws and duties, beyond all vows. You have seen and known that it exalts and multiplies life. Well, Maria, I believe that when once the ordinary limits of life have been passed over, it is extremely difficult to turn back. I believe that when duties are forgotten, vows unloosed, laws broken, it is extremely difficult for people to re-enter the social orbit, to resume their proper place, and to repair their conscience. I believe that for a life which has touched the heights of passion, it is impossible to descend to the great, cold, silent depths.”
All that he said was reflected sadly in its truth and irreparableness.
“Then,” she interrupted, “then whoever has sinned, in punishment for his sin must continue to sin.”
“Yes, Maria; sin, but without fascination. Sin is a punishment in itself. I believe, I am sure, that this is punishment.”
A heavy silence fell upon them. The woman’s head was bowed, and she had crossed her hands over her knees. There was not a breath of air in that atmosphere of a cemetery.
“At home they will say: ‘She always loved him, and always lied in denying that she loved him.’ ”
“They will say that,” admitted Marco sadly.
“Your wife will say so, Marco,” Maria continued monotonously, “ ‘Marco never forgot her, and always lied.’ ”
“Certainly she will say that.”
“And it will all be false, Marco, because we shall be again without passion, without love, without rapture.”
“That is so, Maria.”
“Shall we rehearse our comedy together, Marco,” she asked mournfully—“the comedy of love? Couldn’t we live like two companions, like two friends? Say, couldn’t we live so, at least without lying?”
“No, dear, no,” he resumed, with a weak, sorrowful smile, “it isn’t possible. You are a woman; I am a man. We are still young. What you say is impossible.”
“O Marco, without love?” she murmured, turning her head aside in shame.
He was silent, feeling that she was right. But he could not deceive her.
“Even this, dear lady mine, is a punishment.”
“O Marco, Marco!” she cried, leaning her head on his shoulder, and hiding her face in his breast.
He pressed her to himself sweetly, and kissed her on the eyes, which were red without weeping, and upon her pale face and lips.
“At last,” he said, “we shall find some sweetness in this expiation. My arms know you, Maria, and my breast is a haven for you. I know your arms, and I know I can sleep peacefully, if not ecstatically, on your heart.”
“The days will be long and silent,” she murmured, rising, passing her arm under Marco’s, as they went down the straight path together.
“Yes, Maria,” he replied.
“Our souls will do nothing but secretly regret that which is no more.”
“Yes, it is true, Maria.”
“Happy we shall never be again.”
“Never again, Maria.”
“And so we shall go on till death, Marco,” she concluded, with an accent of infinite melancholy.
“Together, Maria.”
“Towards death.”
“Step for step together.”
They were in the deepest part of the gloomy wood, like an immense tomb, amidst the thousand bronze candelabra, which seemed to have been lit for something great that was dead.
* * * * * * * *
Marco entered the room where Maria was waiting for him, reading a book. She lifted her eyes with a slightly melancholy smile.
“...m’aimes?” he asked in a puerile way, in French.
“...t’aime,” she replied colourlessly.
He kissed her, and she returned the kiss.
“...toujours?” she asked. “...toujours,” he replied.
Their words and actions were the same as of a former time, which were born again from the memory of their senses, re-born in an exterior, strange form to them. Their souls were full of inconsolable regret, their hearts of inconsolable grief.
THE END
THE STUYVESANT PRESS, Publishers,
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THE
Tree of Knowledge
A DOCUMENT BY A WOMAN
The woman who dissects her soul in these vibrant pages is, so far as can be judged, entirely frank.
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Cynthia in the Wilderness
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In this story Mr. Wales has taken for his theme another view of the sex problem.
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THE YOKE
A NOVEL BY
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| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| devasted and cold hearts=> devastated and cold hearts {pg 61} |
| whe took a most pernicious fever=> who took a most pernicious fever {pg 155} |
| Carolina della Marsiliano=> Carolina della Marsiliana {pg 294} |