people. To Andrea, she seemed to exhale some exotic
charm, some strange fascination, some spell born of the
phantoms of the far off things she had looked upon, the
scenes she still preserved before her mind's eye, the memories
that filled her soul ; as if she still bore about her some traces
of the sunshine she had basked in, the perfumes she had
inhaled, the strange dialects she had heard all the magic of
these countries of the Sun.
That evening, in the great room opening off the hall, she
went over to the piano, and opening it, she said : ' Do you
still play, Francesca ? '
' Oh, no,' replied the Marchesa, ' I have not practised for
years. I feel that listening to others is decidedly preferable.
However, I affect to be a patroness of Art, and during the
winter I gladly preside at the execution of a little good
music. Is that not so, Andrea ? '
' My cousin is too modest, Donna Maria ; she does some-
thing more than merely patronise she is a reviver of good
taste. Only last February, thanks to her, we were made ac-
quainted with a quintett, a quartett, and a trio of Boccherini,
and besides that with a quartett of Cherubini music that
n8 THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
was well-nigh forgotten, but admirable and always new.
Boccherini's adagios and minuets are deliciously fresh ; only
the finales seem to me a trifle antiquated. I am sure you
must know something of his.'
' I remember having heard one of his quintetts four of five
years ago at the Conservatoire in Brussels, and I thought it
magnificent in the very newest style and full of unexpected
episodes. I remember perfectly that in certain passages the
quintett was reduced to a duet by employing the unison,
but the effects produced by the difference in the tone of the
instruments was something marvellous ! I cannot recall any-
thing the least like it in other instrumental compositions.'
She discussed music with all the subtlety of a true
connoisseur, and in describing the sentiments aroused in her
by some particular composition, or the entire work of a
master, she expressed herself most felicitously.
' I have played and heard a great deal of music,' she said,
' and of every symphony, every sonata, every nocturne I have
a separate and distinct picture, an impression of shape and
colour, of a figure, a group, a landscape, so that each of my
favourite compositions has a name corresponding to the
picture ; for instance, the Sonata of the Forty Daughters-in-
law of Priam ; the Nocturne of the Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood, the Gavotte of the Yellow Ladies, the Gigue of the
Mill, the Prelude of the Drops of Water, and so on.'
She laughed softly, a laugh which surprised one with
its ineffable grace on that plaintive mouth.
' You remember, Francesca, the multitude of notes with
which we afflicted the margins of our favourite pieces at
school. One day, after a most serious consultation, we
changed the title of every piece of Schumann's we possessed,
and each title had a long explanatory note. I have the
papers still. Now, when I play the Myrthen or the Album-
blatter, all these mysterious annotations are quite incompre-
hensible to me; my emotions and my point of view have
changed completely, but there is a delicate pleasure in
comparing the sentiments of the present with those of the
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 119
past, the new picture and the old. It is a pleasure very
similar to that of re-reading one's diary, only perhaps rather
more mournful and intense. A diary is generally the descrip-
tion of real events, a chronicle of days happy or otherwise,
the gray or rosy traces left by time in its flight; the notes
written in youth on the margin of a piece of music are, on
the contrary, fragments of the secret poems of a soul that is
just breaking into bloom, the lyric effusions of our ideality as
yet untouched, the story of our dreams. What language?
What a flow of words ! You remember, Francesca ? '
She talked with perfect freedom, even with a touch of
spiritual exaltation, like a person long condemned to inter-
course with inferiors, who has the irresistible desire to open
her mind and heart to a breath of the higher life. Andrea
listened to her and was conscious of a pleasing sense of
gratitude towards her. It seemed to him that in speaking
of these things in his presence, she offered him a kindly
proof of friendship, and permitted him to draw nearer to her.
He thereby caught a glimpse of her inner world, less through
the actual words she uttered than by the modulations of her
voice. And again he recognised the accents of the other.
It was an ambiguous voice, a voice with double chords in
it, so to speak. The more virile tones, deep and slightly
veiled, would soften, brighten, become feminine, as it were,
by a transition so harmonious that the ear of the listener
was at once surprised, delighted, and perplexed by it. The
phenomenon was so singular that it sufficed by itself to
occupy the mind of the listener independently of the sense of
the words, so that after a few minutes the mind yielded to
the mysterious charm and remained suspended between
expectation and desire to hear the sweet cadence, as if
waiting for a melody played upon an instrument. It was the
feminine note in this voice which recalled the other.
' You sing ? ' asked Andrea half shyly.
4 A little,' she replied.
'Then please sing a little,' entreated Donna Francesca.
' Very well, but I can only give you a sort of idea of the
120 THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
music, for, during the last year, I have almost lost my
voice.'
In the adjoining room, Don Manuel was silently playing
cards with the Marchese d'Ateleta. In the drawing-room the
light of the lamps shone softly red through a great Japanese
shade. The sea-breeze, entering through the pillars of the
hall, shook the high Karamanieh curtains and wafted the
perfume of the garden on its wings. Beyond the pillars was
a vista of tall cypresses, massive and black as ebony against
a diaphanous sky throbbing with stars.
'As we are on the subject of old music,' said Donna Maria
seating herself at the piano, ' I will give you an air of Paisiello's
out of Nina Pazza, an exquisite thing.'
She accompanied herself as she sang. In the fervour of the
song, the two tones of her voice blended into one another
like two precious metals combining to make a single one
sonorous, warm, caressing, vibrating. Paisiello's melody
simple, pure and spontaneous, full of delicious languor and
winged sadness, with a delicately light accompaniment
issued from that plaintive mouth and rose with such a flame
of passion that the convalescent was moved to the depths of
his being, and felt the notes drop one by one through his
veins, as if all the blood in his body had stopped in its
course to listen. A cold shiver stirred the roots of his
hair, shadows, thick and rapid, passed before his eyes, he
held his breath with excitement. In the weak state of his
nerves his sensations were so poignant that it was all he
could do to keep back his tears.
' Oh, dearest Maria ! ' exclaimed Donna Francesca, kissing
her fondly on the hair when she stopped.
Andrea could not utter a word ; he remained seated where
he was, with his back to the light and his face in shadow.
'Please go on,' said Francesca.
She sang an Arietta by Antonio Salieri, then she played a
Toccata by Leonardo Leo, a Gavotte by Rameau, a Gigue by
Sebastian Bach. Under her magic fingers the music of the
eighteenth century lived again so melancholy in its dance
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 121
airs, that sound as if they were intended to be danced to in a
languid afternoon of a Saint Martin's summer, in a deserted
park, amid silent fountains and statueless pedestals, on a
carpet of dead roses by pairs of lovers on the point of
ceasing to love one another.
CHAPTER IV
' LET down a rope of your hair to me that I may climb up,'
Andrea called laughingly from the terrace below to Donna
Maria, where she stood between two pillars of the loggia
opening out of her rooms.
It was morning, and she had come out into the sun to
dry her wet hair, which hung round her like a heavy mantle,
and accentuated the soft pallor of her face. The black
border of the vivid orange-coloured awning hung above her
head like a frieze, such as one sees round the antique Greek
vases of the Campagna. Had she had a garland of
narcissus on her brows and at her side a great nine-stringed
lyre with bas-reliefs of Apollo and a greyhound, she might
have been taken for a pupil of the school of Mytilene, or a
Lesbian musician in repose as imagined by a Pre-Raphaelite.
' You send me up a madrigal,' she answered in the same
playful tone, but drawing back a little from view.
'Very well, I will go and write one in your honour on the
marble balustrade of the lowest terrace. Come down and
read it when you are ready.'
Andrea proceeded slowly to descend the steps leading to
the lower level. In that September morning his soul seemed
to dilate with every breath he drew. A certain sanctity
seemed to pervade the air ; the sea shone with a splendour of
its own, as if the sources of magic rays lay in its depths ; the
whole landscape was steeped in sunshine.
He stood still from time to time. The thought that Donna
Maria was perhaps watching him from the loggia dis'urbcd
him curiously, made his heart beat fast and flutter timidly.
1S2 **
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 123
as if he were a boy in love for the first time. It was unspeak-
able bliss merely to breathe the same warm and limpid air
that she did. An immense wave of tenderness flooded his
heart and communicated itself to the trees, the rocks, the
sea, as if to beings who were his friends and confidants. He
was filled with a desire to worship humbly and purely; to
bend his knee and clasp his hands and offer up to some one
this vague mute adoration which he would have been at a
loss to explain. He felt as if the goodness of all created
things was being poured out upon him and mingling with all
he possessed of goodness into one jubilant stream.
'Can it be that I love her? 'he asked himself. But he
dared not look closely into his soul, lest the delicate enchant-
ment should disperse and vanish like a dream at break of
day.
'Do I love her? And what does she think? And if she
comes alone, shall I tell her that I love her?' He took
pleasure in thus asking himself questions which he did not
answer, intercepting the reply of his heart by another question,
prolonging his uncertainty at once so tormenting and so
sweet. 'No, no I shall not tell her that I love her. She is
far above all the others.'
Arrived at the lowest terrace, he turned round and looked
up, and there in the loggia, in the full blaze of the sun, he
could just make out the indistinct outline of a woman's form.
Had she followed him with her eyes and her thoughts down
the long flights of steps? A childish impulse made him
suddenly pronounce her name aloud on the deserted terrace.
1 Maria ! Maria ! ' he repeated, listening to his own voice. No
word, no name had ever seemed to him so sweet, so melodi-
ous, so caressing. How happy he would be if she would only
allow him to call her Maria, like a sister.
This woman so spiritual, so soulful inspired him with
the highest sentiment of devotion and humility. If he had
been asked what he considered the sweetest possible task, he
would have answered in all sincerity 'To obey her.'
Nothing in the world would have mortified him so much as
i2 4 THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
to be accounted by her a commonplace man. By no other
woman had he so ardently desired to be praised, admired,
understood, appreciated in his tastes, his cultivation, his
artistic aspirations, his ideals, his dreams, all the noblest
parts of his spirit and his life. And his highest ambition was
to fill her heart.
She had now been ten days at Schifanoja, and in those ten
days how entirely she had subjugated him ! They had
conversed sometimes for hours seated on the terrace or on
one of the numerous marble benches scattered about the
grounds or in the long rose-bordered avenues, while Delfina
sped like a little gazelle through the winding paths of the
orange groves In her conversation she displayed a charming
flow of language, many gems of delicate yet keen observation,
occasionally affording glimpses of her inner self with a
candour that was full of grace ; and when speaking of her
travels, she would often, by a single picturesque phrase, call
up before Andrea's eyes wide vistas of distant lands and seas.
On his part, he did his utmost to show himself to the best
advantage, to impress upon her the wide range of his culture,
the refinement of his taste, the exquisite keenness of his
susceptibilities, and his heart swelled with pride when she
said in tones of unfeigned sincerity after reading his Story of
the Hermaphrodite
' No music has ever carried me away like this poem, nor
has any statue ever given me such an impression of harmoni-
ous beauty. Certain lines haunt me persistently, and will
continue to do so for long, I am sure they are so intense.'
As he sat now on the marble balustrade, he was thinking
of these words of hers. Donna Maria was no longer in the
loggia, the awning concealed the whole space between the
pillars. Perhaps she would soon be down should he write
the madrigal he had promised her? But even the slight
effort necessary for writing the lines thus in hot haste seemed
intolerable to him here in the wide and opulent garden,
blossoming under the September sunshine in a sort of
magical Spring. Why disturb these rare and delicious
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 125
emotions by a hurried search after rhymes? why reduce this
far reaching sentiment to a brief metrical sigh?
He resolved to break his promise and remained as he was,
idly watching the sails on the distant horizon, like fiery torches
outshining the sun.
But as time went on, he grew restless and nervous, turning
round every minute to see if a feminine form had not appeared
between the columns of the vestibule which gave access to
the steps 'Was this then a love tryst? Did he expect her
to join him here for some secret interview ? Had she any
idea of his agitation?'
His heart gave a great throb it was she !
She was alone. Slowly she descended the steps, and when
she reached the first terrace she stopped beside the fountain.
Andrea followed her intently with his eyes ; her every
movement, every attitude sent a delicious thrill through him,
as if each one of them had some special significance, were a
form of individual expression. Thus she passed down the
succession of steps and terraces, appearing and disappearing,
now completely hidden by the rose-bushes, now only her
head or her rounded bust visible above them. Sometimes
the thickly interlaced boughs hid her for several minutes,
then, where the bushes were thinner, the colour of her dress
would show through them and the pale straw of her hat would
catch the sunlight. The nearer she came the more slowly
she walked, loitering among the verdant shrubs, stopping to
gaze at the cypresses, stooping to gather a handful of fallen
leaves. From the last terrace but one, she waved her hand
to Andrea standing waiting for her at the foot of the steps,
and threw down to him the leaves she had gathered, which
first rose fluttering in the air like a cloud of butterflies and
then floated down now fast, now slow, noiseless as snow-
flakes on the stones.
'Well?' she asked, leaning over the balustrade, 'what have
you got for me ? '
Andrea bent his knee to the step and lifted his clasped hands.
1 Nothing ! ' he was obliged to confess. ' I implore you to
126 THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
forgive me ; but, this morning, you and the sun together
filled the whole world for me with sweetness and light.
Adoremus I '
The confession was perfectly sincere, as was the adoration
also, though both were uttered in a tone of banter. Donna
Maria evidently felt the sincerity, for she coloured slightly as
she said with peculiar earnestness
'No don't please don't kneel.'
He rose, and she offered him her hand, adding, ' I will
forgive you this time because you are an invalid.'
She wore a dress of a curious indefinable dull rusty red,
one of those so-called aesthetic colours one meets with in the
pictures of the Early Masters or of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
It was arranged in a multitude of straight regular folds be-
ginning immediately under the arms, and was confined at the
waist by a wide blue-green ribbon, of the pale tinge of a
faded turquoise, that fell in a great knot at her side. The
sleeves were very full and soft, and were gathered in closely
at the wrist. Another ribbon of the same shade, but much
narrower, encircled her neck and was tied at the left side in
a small how, and a similar ribbon fastened the end of the
prodigious plait which fell from under her straw hat, round
which was twined a wreath of hyacinths like that of Alma
Tadtma's Pandora. A great Persian turquoise, her sole
ornament, shaped like a scarabeus and engraved with talis-
manic characters, fastened her dress at the throat.
' Let us wait for Delfina,' she said, 'and then, what do you
say to our going as far as the gate of the Cybele ? Would
that suit you ? '
She was full of delicate consideration for the convalescent.
Andrea was still very pale and thin, which made his eyes look
extraordinarily large, the somewhat sensual expression of his
mouth forming a singular and not unattractive contrast to the
upper part of his face.
'Yes,' he replied, 'and I am deeply grateful to you.'
Then, after a moment's hesitation 'Do you mind if I am
rather silent this morning ? '
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 127
{ Why do you ask me that ? '
' Because I feel as if I had lost my tongue and could find
nothing to say; and yet silence becomes burdensome and
annoying if it is prolonged. That is why I ask if, during
our walk, you will allow me to be silent and only listen to
you.'
'Why, then, we will be silent together,' she said with a
little smile.
She looked up towards the villa with evident impatience
1 What a long time Delfina is ! '
1 Was Francesca up when you came out ? ' asked Andrea.
'Oh no, she is incredibly lazy ah, there is Delfina, do you
see her?'
The little girl came hurrying down, followed by her gover-
ness. Though not visible on the flight of steps, she appeared
upon the terraces which she traversed at a run, her hair floating
over her shoulders in the breeze from under a broad-brimmed
straw hat wreathed with poppies. On the last step she opened
her arms wide to her mother and covered her face with kisses.
After this she said 'Good morning, Andrea,' and presented
her forehead to his kiss with childlike and adorable grace.
She was a fragile creature, highly strung and vibrating as
an instrument fashioned of sentient material, her flesh so
delicately transparent as to seem incapable of concealing or
even veiling the radiance of the spirit that dwelt within it like
a flame in a precious lamp.
1 Heart's dearest ! ' murmured her mother, gazing at her
with a look in which was concentrated all the tenderness of a
soul wholly occupied by this one absorbing affection. But at
those words, that look, that caress, Andrea felt a sudden stab
of jealousy, something like a rebuff, as if her heart were turn-
ing away from him, eluding him, becoming inaccessible.
The governess asked permission to return to the villa, and
the three turned into a path bordered by orange-trees.
Delfina ran on in front with her hoop, her straight slender
little legs in their long black stockings, moving with rhythmic
grace.
J2 8 THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
'You seem a little out of spirits now,' said Donna Maria to
her companion, 'and only a little while ago, when you came
down, you seemed so bright. Is something troubling you ?
do you not feel so well ? '
She put these questions in an almost sisterly manner
soberly and kindly, inviting his confidence. A timid desire,
a vague temptation assailed the invalid to slip his arm
through hers, and let her lead him in silence through the
flickering shadows and the perfumes, over the flower-strewn
ground, down the pathways measured off at intervals by
ancient moss-grown statues. He seemed, all at once, to
have returned to the first days of his illness, those never-to-be-
forgotten days of happy languor and semi-unconsciousness,
and felt as if he had great need of a friendly support, an affec-
tionate, a familiar arm. The desire grew so intense that the
words which would give it voice rushed to his lips. However
he merely replied
'No, Donna Maria, thank you, I feel quite well. It is
only that the September weather rather affects me.'
She looked at him as if she rather doubted the sincerity of
his reply ; but, to avoid an awkward silence after his evasive
remark, she asked
' Which of the neutral months do you like best April or
September?'
' Oh, September. It is more feminine, more discreet, more
mysterious like at Spring seen in a dream. Then all the
plants slowly lose their vital forces, and, at the same time,
some of their reality. Look at the sea over there has it not
more the appearance of an atmosphere than of a solid mass of
water? And never, to my mind, does the union of sea and
sky seem so mystical, so profound as in September.'
They had very nearly reached the end of the path. Why
should Andrea be suddenly seized with a tremor of nervous
fear on approaching the spot where, a fortnight ago, he had
written the sonnets on his deliverance? Why this struggle
between hope and anxiety lest she should discover them and
read them ? Why did some of the lines keep running in his
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 129
mind to the exclusion of others, as if they expressed his
actual sentiments at that moment, his aspirations, the new
dream he carried in his heart ?
' I lay at thine untroubled feet my fate ! '
It was true ! It was true ! He loved her, he laid his
whole life at her feet was conscious of but one desire
humble and absorbing to be the earth between her foot-
steps.
' How beautiful it is here ! ' exclaimed Donna Maria, as
she entered the demesne of the four-fronted Hermes, into
the paradise of the acanthus. ' But what a strange scent ! '
The whole air was full of the odour of musk, as from the
unseen presence of some musk-breathing insect or animal.
The shadows were deep and mysterious, the rays of light
which pierced the foliage, already touched by the finger of
autumn, seemed like shafts of moonlight shining through
the storied windows of a cathedral. A mixed sentiment,
partly Pagan, partly Christian, seemed to emanate from this
sylvan retreat, as from a mythological picture painted by an
early Christian artist.
'Oh look, look, Delfina!' her mother exclaimed in the
excited tones of one who suddenly comes upon a thing of
beauty.
Delfina had skilfully woven little sprays of orange blossom
into a garland, and now, with the fancifulness of childhood,
she was eager that it should encircle the head of the marble
deity. She could not reach it, but did her best to accomplish
her object by standing on tiptoe and stretching her arm to its
utmost extent ; her slender, elegant and vivacious little figure
offering a striking contrast to the rigid, square and solemn
form of the statue, like a lily-stem against an oak. All her
efforts were, however, fruitless.
Smilingly, her mother ^came to her aid. Taking the wreath
from the child's hand, she placed it on the pensive brows of
the god. As she did so, her eyes fell involuntarily upon the
inscriptions.
'Who has been writing verses here. You?' she asked,
1 3 o
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
turning to Andrea in surprise and pleasure. ' Yes I recog-
nise your hand.'
Forthwith, she knelt upon the grass to read with eager
curiosity. While Donna Maria read the words in a low voice,
Delfina leaned upon her mother's shoulder, one arm about
her neck, cheek pressed to cheek. The two figures thus
bending over the pedestal of the tall flower-wreathed statue,
in the uncertain light, surrounded by the emblematical
acanthus, formed a group so harmonious in line and colouring
that the poet stood a moment lost in pure aesthetic pleasure
and admiration.
But the next moment the old obscure sense of jealousy
was upon him once more. The fragile little creature clinging
to the mother, indissolubly connected with her mother's very
being, seemed to him an enemy, an insurmountable obstacle
rising up against his love, his desires, his hopes. He was not
jealous of the husband, but he was of the daughter. It was
not the body but the soul of this woman that he longed