The Child of Pleasure Part 46

The funeral cypresses stood up straight and motionless in the air; only their tops, gilded by the sun, trembled lightly. Between the rigid, greenish-black trunks rose the white tombs--square slabs of stone, broken pillars, urns, sarcophagi. From the sombre ma.s.s of the cypresses fell a mysterious shadow, a religious peace, a sort of human kindness, as limpid and beneficent waters gush from the hard rock. The unchanging regularity of the trees and the chastened whiteness of the sepulchral monuments affected the spirit with a sense of solemn and sweet repose.

But between the stiff ranks of the trees, standing in line like the deep pipes of an organ, and interspersed among the tombs, graceful oleanders swayed their tufts of pink blossom; roses dropped their petals at every light touch of the breeze, strewing the ground with their fragrant snow; the eucalyptus shook its pale tresses--now dark, now silvery white; willows wept over the crosses and crowns; and, here and there, the cactus displayed the glory of its white blooms like a swarm of sleeping b.u.t.terflies or an aigrette of wonderful feathers. The silence was unbroken save by the cry, now and then, of some solitary bird.

Andrea pointed to the top of the hill.

'The poet's tomb is up there,' he said, 'near that ruin to the left, just below the last tower.'

She dropped his arm and went on in front of him through the narrow paths bordered with low myrtle hedges. She walked as if fatigued, turning round every few minutes to smile back at her lover. She was dressed in black and wore a black veil that cast over her faint and trembling smile a shadow of mourning. Her oval chin was paler and purer than the roses she carried in her hand.

Once, as she turned, one of the roses shed its petals on the path.

Andrea stooped to pick them up. She looked at him and he fell on his knees before her.

'_Adorata!_' he exclaimed.

A scene rose up before her, vividly as a picture.

'You remember,' she said, 'that morning at Schifanoja when I threw a handful of leaves down to you from the higher terrace? You bent your knee to me while I descended the steps. I do not know how it is, but that time seems to me so near and yet so far away! I feel as if it had happened yesterday, and then again, a century ago. But perhaps, after all it only happened in a dream.'

Pa.s.sing along between the low myrtle hedges, they at last reached the tower near which lies the tomb of the poet and of Trelawny. The jasmin climbing over the old ruin was in flower, but of the violets nothing was left but their thick carpet of leaves. The tops of the cypresses, which here just reached the line of vision, were vividly illumined by the last red gleams of the sun as it sank behind the black cross of the Monte Testaccio. A great purple cloud edged with burning gold sailed across the sky in the direction of the Aventino--

'These are two friends whose lives were undivided.

So let their memory be, now they have glided Under their grave; let not their bones be parted For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.'

Maria repeated the last line. Then, moved by a delicate inspiration--'Please unfasten my veil,' she said to Andrea.

She leaned her head back slightly so that he might untie the knot, and Andrea's fingers touched her hair--that magnificent hair, in the dense shadow of which he had so often tasted all the delights of his perfidious imagination, evoked the image of her rival.

'Thank you,' she said.

She then drew the veil from before her face and looked at Andrea with eyes that were a little dazed. She looked very beautiful. The shadows round her eyes were darker and deeper, but the eyes themselves burned with a more intense light. Her hair clung to her temples in heavy hyacinthine curls tinged with violet. The middle of her forehead, which was left free, gleamed, by contrast, in moonlike purity. Her features had fined down and lost something of their materiality through stress of love and sorrow.

She wound the veil about the stems of the roses, tied the two ends together with much care, and then buried her face in the flowers, inhaling their perfume. Then she laid them on the simple stone that bears the poet's name engraved upon it. There was an indefinable expression in the gesture, which Andrea could not understand.

As they moved away, he suddenly stopped short, and looking back towards the tower, 'How did you manage to get those roses?' he asked.

She smiled, but her eyes were wet.

'They are yours--those of that snowy night--they have bloomed again this evening. Do you not believe it?'

The evening breeze was rising, and behind the hill the sky was overspread with gold, in the midst of which the purple cloud dissolved, as if consumed by fire. Against this field of light, the serried ranks of the cypresses looked more imposing and mysterious than before. The Psyche at the end of the middle avenue seemed to flush with pale tints as of flesh. A crescent moon rose over the pyramid of Cestius, in a deep and gla.s.sy sky, like the waters of a calm and sheltered bay.

They went through the centre avenue to the gates. The gardeners were still watering the plants, and two other men held a velvet and silver pall by the two ends, and were beating it vigorously, while the dust rose high and glittered in the air.

From the Aventine came the sound of bells.

Maria clung to her lover's arm, unable to control her anguish, feeling the ground give way beneath her feet, her life ebb from her at every step. Once inside the carriage, she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, sobbing despairingly on her lover's shoulder.

'I shall die!'

But she did not die. Better a thousand times for her that she had!

CHAPTER IX

Two days after this, Andrea was lunching with Galeazzo Secinaro at a table in the Caffe di Roma. It was a hot morning. The place was almost empty; the waiters nodded drowsily among the buzzing flies.

'And so,' the bearded prince went on, 'knowing that she had a fancy for strange and out-of-the-way situations, I had the courage to----'

He was relating in the crudest terms the extremely audacious means by which he had at last succeeded in overcoming Lady Heathfield's resistance. He exhibited neither reserve nor scruples, omitting no single detail, and praising the acquisition to the connoisseur. He only broke off, from time to time, to put his fork into a piece of juicy red meat, or to empty a gla.s.s of red wine. His whole bearing was expressive of robust health and strength.

Andrea Sperelli lit a cigarette. In spite of all his efforts, he could not bring himself to swallow a mouthful of food, and with the wine Secinaro poured out for him, he seemed to be drinking poison.

There came a moment at last, when the prince, in spite of his obtuseness, had a qualm of doubt, and he looked sharply at Elena's former lover. Except his want of appet.i.te, Andrea gave no outward sign of inward agitation; with the utmost calm he puffed clouds of smoke into the air, and smiled his habitual, half-ironical smile, at his jocund companion.

The prince continued: 'She is coming to see me to-day for the first time.'

'To you--to-day?'

'Yes, at three o'clock.'

The two men looked at their watches.

'Shall we go?' asked Andrea.

'Let us,' a.s.sented Galeazzo rising. 'We can go up the Via de' Condotti together. I want to get some flowers. As you know all about it, tell me--what flowers does she like best?'

Andrea laughed. An abominable answer was on the tip of his tongue, but he restrained himself and replied unmoved--

'Roses, at one time.'

In front of the Barcaccia they parted.

At that hour the Piazza di Spagna had the deserted look of high summer.

Some workmen were repairing a main water-pipe, and a heap of earth dried by the sun threw up clouds of dust in the hot breath of the wind. The stairway of the Trinita gleamed white and deserted.

Slowly, slowly, Andrea went up, standing still every two or three steps, as if he were dragging a terrible weight after him. He went into his rooms and threw himself on his bed, where he remained till a quarter to three. At a quarter to three he got up and went out. He turned into the Via Sistina, on through the Via Quattro Fontane, pa.s.sed the Palazzo Barberini and stopped before a book-stall to wait for three o'clock. The bookseller, a little wrinkled, dried-up old man, like a decrepit tortoise, offered him books, taking down his choicest volumes one by one, and spreading them out under his eyes, speaking all the time in an insufferable nasal monotone. Three o'clock would strike directly; Andrea looked at the t.i.tles of the books, keeping an eye on the gates of the palace, while the voice of the bookseller mingled confusedly with the loud thumping of his heart.

A lady pa.s.sed through the gates, went down the street towards the piazza, got into a cab, and drove away through the Via del Tritone.

Andrea went home. There he threw himself once more on his bed, and waited till Maria should come, keeping himself in a state of such complete immobility, that he seemed not to be suffering any more.

At five Maria came.

'Do you know,' she said, panting, 'I can stay with you the whole evening--till to-morrow. It will be our first and last night of love. I am going on Tuesday.'

She sobbed despairingly, and clung to him, her lips pressed convulsively to his.