“Fiesole, there’s just one thing I want to say to you, after which I’ll never mention it.”
“I know what it is. I’ve thought it all out.”
“Are you sure you have? Of course no one may ever know. But if by some chance they should find out, are you sure that you think it’s worth while?”
“Reckoning the cost again!” she laughed, helping herself to another fig.
“I’ll pay gladly. It’s you I’m considering,” I said seriously.
She rested her hand on mine. It was cool, and long, and delicate. I was startled at the thrill it gave me. “Dante,” she whispered, “have you ever wanted anything so badly that your whole body ached to get it? When you were very thirsty, say, and you heard a stream, singing ‘Find me. Find me’ out of sight in the hills among the heather? Then you climbed up and up, and the sun beat down, and your throat was dry, and the stream sang louder, and at last you found it. I’m like that. I don’t mind what the bank is like. I lie down full-length and let the water sing against my mouth. I’ve been thirsty for something, Dante, all my life. Yes, I’ve counted the price. If you don’t mind having me, Dannie, I’ll stay with you for the present.”
She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder ever so slightly. I bent towards her. When you’ve wounded a woman, there’s only one way of making recompense. She saw my intent. She drew back laughing, dragging my hand with her. The quick red blood mounted to her forehead. The gold in her green eyes sparkled with gladness. “Not now,” she cried. Then recovering herself, “But you’re a dear to want me like that.”
That morning we visited the Corpus Domini where Lucrezia Borgia lies buried. We were admitted to a little chapel where all was lonely and silent. Presently a door opened and two nuns dressed in black entered. Their faces were covered from sight by long black veils. All that was human we were permitted to see of them was their eyes, which looked out from two black holes like stars in a dreary night. They had been beautiful perhaps, but because Christ was crucified they had crucified themselves. And these women, who had never tasted life, whose flesh had never throbbed with the sweet torture which was their right, whose bodies were the unremembered sepulchres of little children whose lips had never pressed the breast—these women were the guardians of her who had been the Magdalene of the Renaissance, whose feet had climbed the Calvary of passion, but not the Calvary of sacrifice. Sunlight, amber-colored as Lucrezia’s hair, slipped across the slab which marked her grave. Down there in the unbroken dusk, did her tresses mock decay?
From a hidden cloister the chanting of children’s voices broke the quiet. Its very suddenness took me by the throat. It was the future calling out of the sad and moldering content of stupidly misspent lives. Fiesole edged her hand into mine. I smiled into her eyes; then I looked at the nuns again. Who would remember them when three centuries had gone by? Lucrezia, if she had been wanton, had at least given joy; so the world forgave her now that she was buried. We tiptoed out into the tawny street, where water tinkled down the gutters. We had found a new sanction for desire.
It was towards evening that we sighted Venice, floating between sea and sky in a tepid light. Where we parted from the mainland, thin trees ran down to the water’s edge, shivering and gleaming, like naked boys. As the train thundered across the trestled bridge which spans the lagoon, Fiesole and I crowded against the window, tingling with excitement. The salt wind smote upon our faces and loosened a strand of her red-brown hair. Laughing, I fastened it into place. She snatched up my hand and kissed the fingers separately. We were children, so thrilled with happiness that we could speak only by signs and exclamations. A gondola drifted by, rowed by a poppe in a scarlet sash. Though we both saw it, we cried to one another that it was a gondola, and waved. Then the gold sun fell splashing through the clouds; Venice was stained to orange, and the lagoon to the purple of wine.