Inevitable

XXXVII

SEVEN DAYS HAD GONE BY and Duco had arrived. It was after the formal dinner in the gloomy dining-room, where Duco had been introduced by Cornélie to Prince Ercole, and it was a dream-like summer evening, when Cornélie and Duco went outside. The castle was already sound asleep, but Cornélie had asked Gilio to get her a key. And they went outside, to the pergola. The stars were sprinkled across the night sky like a blond light, and the moon crowned the summits of the hills and was briefly quiveringly reflected in the mystical depths of the lake. An odour of sleeping roses wafted from the flower garden on the other side of the pergola, and below, amid the roofscapes of the town, the cathedral in its moonlit square pitted its giant silhouette against the stars. And everywhere was cloaked in sleep, the lake, the town and the windows of the castle; in their sleep the caryatids and hermes — the satyrs and nymphs — bore the leafy canopy of the pergola, as if in an attitude of enchantment of servants of the goddess of Sleep. A cricket chirped, but stopped as soon as Duco and Cornélie approached. They sat down on an antique bench, and she put her arms round him and pressed against him.

“A week!” she whispered. “A whole week since I’ve seen you, Duco, my darling! I can’t do without you for so long. With everything I thought and did, and admired, I thought of you and of how beautiful you would find it here. You’ve been here before, as a tourist. Oh, but this is different. What makes it so nice is staying, not passing through, but staying. That lake, that cathedral, those hills! Those rooms inside. Neglected but so beautiful. The three courtyards are run-down, the fountains are crumbling … But the style of the atrium, the gloominess of the dining-room, the poetry of this pergola … Duco, isn’t this pergola like a classical ode? We’ve sometimes read Horace together, you translated those poems for me so beautifully, you improvised so wonderfully! How handsome you are, you know so much, you have such a beautiful sensibility. I love your eyes, your voice, and all of you, everything that is you … I can’t tell you, Duco. I have gradually surrendered to your every word, to your love of Rome, your love of museums, to the way you see the skies that you wash onto your watercolours. You’re so wonderfully calm, almost like this lake. Oh, don’t laugh, don’t push me away: I haven’t seen you for a week, I need to speak to you like this. Am I exaggerating? I don’t feel ordinary here, there’s something in that air, that sky, that light that makes me speak like this. It’s so beautiful that I can’t believe it’s ordinary life, ordinary reality … Do you remember in Sorrento on the terrace of that hotel, when we looked out over the sea, over the pearly sea, with Naples so white in the distance, I felt the same way then too, but did not dare put it into words: it was in the morning, there were people around us, who though we could not see them could see us and whom I was aware of around us: but now we’re alone, and now I want to say it to you, in your arms, at your breast: I’m so happy! I love you so much! I feel that my soul, everything that is best in me is you! You’re laughing, but you don’t believe me. Do you? Do you believe me?”

“Yes, I believe you, I’m not laughing at you, I’m just laughing. I’m so happy about you and about my art. You’ve taught me to work, you’ve roused me from my dreams! I’m so happy about Banners: I have letters from London, which I can let you read tomorrow. I owe everything to you. It’s scarcely believable that this is ordinary life. Life was so quiet in Rome. I didn’t see anyone, I worked a bit — but not much; and I ate alone in the osteria. The two Italians, you know, were sorry for me, I think. Oh, it was a terrible week. I can no longer do without you. Do you remember our first walks and conversations in Borghese, and on the Palatine? What strangers we still were to each other, not fitting together. But I felt at once, I think, that something beautiful would grow between us …”

She said nothing, and remained against his chest. The cricket chirped again in a kind of long vibrato. But apart from that everything slept …

“Between us …” she repeated as if in a fever, and she surrendered completely.

The whole night slept, and while they breathed their lives in each other’s arms, above their heads the enchanted caryatids — fauns and nymphs — bore in their sleep the leafy canopy of the pergola, between them and the star-strewn sky.