We walked through the avenues of great cypress trees and came to the farther end of the pools whose curbs were decorated with flowering urns. There we looked at the palace and listened to the song of the merles. Beside this all was silence, only the stir of the wind against the soft strings of the trees—the most melodious harp in the world! We climbed to an eminence, stood by an iron fence and gazed down upon the fisheries surrounded by graceful bushes and trees. Then we found the Fontana dell' Ovato, and a seat before it. It was a semicircle of stone perforated by arches over which the water musically poured. Here we rested, listening to the merles, the falling water, the whispering of the wind. Ghosts of dead delight seemed to pass us; unseen presences of passionate gallants and capricious loveliness, hungering hearts wounded by life, by beauty, by desire, spoke to us through the murmuring water, the stir of the wind, the intense silence when all sounds were turned away by the veering of the delicious air.
And Uncle Tom was in Rome at Canape's drinking with his American cronies! Only myself knew my starved heart, but surely he knew the heart of Isabel. What was the attitude of mind in allowing this free association between Isabel and me? Does the heart of age become deadened? Does it understand; does it but partly divine these secrets; does it for any of these reasons cease to be sensitive?
Then suddenly, as Isabel and I sat there in these enchanting surroundings, an uncontrollable emotion seized me, one that had no regard for a future, that sought only to realize wholly and at once an ecstatic present. For what could be between us? I could not marry Isabel; and what could be? Blindly, without a thought of any of these things, I took Isabel's hands and drew her to me frightened and trembling. Instantly I saw what I had done. Our life of frank companionship fell away from us. A new birth was ours; but of what wonder and terror and danger! Isabel exclaimed: "Oh, my friend!" Then she lost her voice and whispered, "My friend!" She became relaxed, leaned back her head, closed her eyes. Tears crept down her cheeks. And I was silent, in a kind of madness of fear, passion, regret, nameless sorrow. What could I say, to what could she listen? There was a long silence. Then Isabel began to speak.
"Help me, my friend," she said. "How can I tell you how to be my friend? Still it must be. I care for you so deeply. Let me speak, but understand me as I try to speak, and help me. You are young and strong. You are so companionable; I never grow tired of you—but you must know that I am not different from you in all impulses, imaginings. But be my friend. Take into your being the beauty we have together; these flowers of friendship attend and keep for our garden—our Villa d'Este. Let it be open to the sky and wind as this is, a place where innocence and kindness may come, where children may play and the old rest. Ah, my friend, you have lived and now be strong for me. Uncle Tom is so fond of you. Think of all you have. You have had a wife, and you have a son. Be noble, be understanding, for really you see I am poor and you are rich. If possible these hands of passion which you have placed on mine must change, and my hands must forget what you have done. Otherwise what is the future to be?"
Isabel began to sob, between her words crying: "Oh, be my friend!" How could I comfort her? The very comfort that her heart craved was that which her sorrow strove to deny me the giving. I drew out my watch; we had long overstayed our time, for we were to lunch at the Sibylla in Tivoli. We walked slowly to the entrance where Serafino waited for us with the carriage. He was smoking a pipe, calm and happy, and in companionable conversation with the driver.
At a table near the Temple of Vesta here on the Castro Vetere, the waterfalls below us, Horace's Villa above us, we dined and became happy again.
When we got back to the pension Uncle Tom was there to greet us and to receive Isabel's kiss upon a mischievously yielded cheek, and to hear her rapturous account of the afternoon.
And I went forth with little Reverdy in the Borghese Gardens; afterwards to continue my studies of the etchings of Piranesi.