Then, in the dreamy twilight, on the water as silvery-green as the leaves of the willow, they watched the passing boat overflowing with that emblematic fruit which suggests things rich and hidden: caskets of red leather, surmounted by the crown of a royal donor; some closed, others half-open, revealing their close-packed gems.
In a low tone, the tragic actress repeated the words addressed by Hades to Persephone in the sacred drama, at the moment when the daughter of Demeter tastes the fatal pomegranate:
Quando tu coglierai il colchico in fiore su'l molle
Prato terrestre, presso la madre dal cerulo peplo.
"Ah, Perdita! how well you know how to throw a shadow into your voice!" interrupted the poet, feeling the harmony of the twilight that seemed to throw a mystic vagueness over the syllables of his lines. "How well you know how to become nocturnal, even before the evening is upon us! Do you recall the scene where Persephone is on the point of throwing herself into Erebus, to the wailing of the chorus of the Oceanides? Her face is like yours when a shadow passes over it. Her crowned head leans backward, as she stands rigidly erect in her saffron-colored peplum; and the very spirit of the night seems flowing into her bloodless flesh, deepening under her chin, in the hollows of her eyes and around her nostrils, giving her face the look of a tragic mask. It is your mask, Perdita! While I was composing my Mystery, the remembrance of you aided me in evoking her divine person. That little saffron-velvet ribbon you so often wear around your neck gave me the note for Persephone's peplum. And one evening at your house, when I was about to take leave of you at the threshold of a room where the lamps were not yet lighted—an agitated evening of last autumn, you remember?—you succeeded, with a single movement, in bringing to full light in my being the creature that had lain long there undeveloped; and then, without dreaming that you had brought about that sudden birth, you shut yourself again within the solitary obscurity of your own Erebus. Ah, I was certain that I could hear you sob, yet a torrent of uncontrollable joy ran through my veins. I never have spoken to you of this before, have I? I ought to have consecrated my work to you, as to an ideal Lucina."
She shrank under the eyes of the master of her spirit; she suffered because of that mask which he admired on her face, and because of that strange joy that she was aware was continually up-springing within him, like a perpetually playing fountain. She felt oppressed by her own personality; troubled because of her too-expressive face, the muscles of which possessed a strange power of mimicry; pained to think of that involuntary art which governed the significance of her gestures, and of that expressive shadow which sometimes on the stage, during a moment of anxious silence, she knew how to throw over her face like a veil of grief—that shadow which now threatened to remain among the lines traced by time on the face that was no longer young. She suffered cruelly by the hand she adored—that hand so delicate and noble which, even with a gift or a caress, had power to hurt her.
"Do you not believe, Perdita," Stelio continued after another pause, "in the occult beneficence of signs? I do not mean astral science or horoscopic signs. I mean that, like those that believe themselves under the influence of one planet or another, we can create an ideal correspondence between our own soul and some terrestrial object, in such a way that this object, becoming impregnated, little by little, with the essence of ourselves, and being magnified by our illusion, finally becomes for us the representative sign of our unknown destiny, and takes on an aspect of mystery when it appears to us in certain crises of our life. This is the secret whereby we may restore to our withering hearts something of their pristine freshness. I know by experience the beneficial effect we may derive from intense communion with some earthly object. From time to time it is necessary for our natures to become like a hamadryad, in order to feel within us the circulation of new energy drawn from the source of life. Of course you understand that I am thinking of your words just now, when the boat passed. You expressed the same idea when you said 'Look at your pomegranates!' For you, and for everyone that loves me, the pomegranate never can be anything but mine. For you and for them, the idea of my personality is indissolubly linked to that fruit which I have chosen for an emblem, and which I have charged with significant ideals, more numerous than its seeds. Had I lived in the times when men excavated the Grecian marbles and found under the soil the still damp roots of ancient fables, no painter could have represented me on his canvas without putting in my hand the Punic apple. To sever from my person that symbol would have seemed to the ingenuous artist like the amputation of a living member, for, to his pagan imagination, the fruit would have seemed to grow to my hand as to its natural branch. In short, he would not have conceived me in any different way than he thought of Hyacinthus or Narcissus or Ciparissus, all three of whom would appear to him as youths symbolized by a plant. But, even in our day, a few lively and warm imaginations exist that comprehend all the meaning and enjoy all the savor of my invention.
"You, yourself, Perdita, do you not delight in cultivating in your garden a pomegranate, the beautiful 'Effrenian' tree, that you may every summer watch me blossom and bring forth fruit? In one of your letters, flying to me like a winged messenger, you described to me the graceful ceremony of decorating the tree with garlands the day you received the first copy of Persephone. So, for you, and for those that love me, I have in reality renewed an ancient myth when, in fancy, I have assimilated myself with a form of eternal Nature. And when I am dead (and may Nature grant that I am able to manifest my whole self in my work before I die!), my disciples will honor me under a symbol of that tree; and in the sharp outline of the leaf, in the flame of the flower, and in the hidden treasure of the ripe fruit, they will recognize certain qualities of my art. By that leaf, by that flower and fruit, as if by a posthumous teaching of the master, their minds will be formed to a similar sharpness, flame-like intensity, and treasured richness.
"You will see now, Perdita, what is the real beneficence of symbols. By affinity, I am led to develop myself in accord with the magnificent genius of the plant which it pleases me to fancy as the symbol of my aspirations toward a full, rich life. This arboreous image of myself suffices to assure me that my powers should follow nature in order to attain naturally the end for which they were created. 'Nature has disposed me thus' is the epigraph of Leonardo da Vinci, which I placed on the title-page of my first book; and the pomegranate, as it continually blossoms and bears its fruit, repeats to me that simple phrase over and over again. We obey only the laws written in our own substance, and by reason of this we shall remain intact in the midst of dissolution, in the unity and plenitude that make our joy. No discord exists between my art and my life."
He spoke with perfect freedom, as if the mind of the listening woman were a chalice into which he poured his thoughts till it was full to the brim. An intellectual felicity filled him, blended with a vague consciousness of the mysterious action whereby his mind was preparing itself for the effort it was soon to make. From time to time, as if by a lightning flash, his mental vision beheld, as he bent toward his beloved friend and listened to the beat of the oar in the silence of the great estuary, the crowd, with its thousand faces, gathering in the vast hall; and he felt a rapid throbbing of his heart.
"It is a very singular thing, Perdita," said he, gazing at the pale distance of the waters, "to observe how readily chance aids our imagination in ascribing an element of mystery to the conjunction of certain appearances with the aim we have fancied. I do not understand the reason why the poets of to-day are so indignant at the vulgarity of the present, and complain that they were born either too late or too early. I am convinced that to-day, as always, every man of intelligence has power to create for himself his own beautiful fable of life. We should study the confused whirl of life with the same lively imagination that Leonardo encouraged in his disciples when he advised them to study the stains on the wall, the ashes on the hearth, the clouds, even mud, and similar objects, in order to find there 'wonderful inventions' and 'infinite things.' In the same way, he declared, one can find in the sound of bells every name and every word that can be imagined. That great master knew well that chance—as the sponge of Apelles had already shown—is always the friend of the ingenious artist. For example, I never cease to be astonished at the ease and grace with which chance favors the harmonious development of my inventions. Do you not believe that the dark god Hades forced his bride to eat the seven seeds of the pomegranate in order to furnish me with the subject of a masterpiece?"