CHAPTER VII
THE PROMISE
Descending the terrace to the garden, the guests had dispersed among the shady paths and under the vine-covered trellises. The night breeze was damp and warm, touching the long lashes on delicate eyelids like lips brushing them in a caress. The invisible stars of the jasmine perfumed the darkness; the rich fragrance of fruit, too, was even stronger than in the island gardens. A vivid power of fertility emanated from this narrow trace of cultivated earth, which appeared like a place of exile, surrounded by a girdle of water, and, like an exiled soul, all the more intense.
"Do you wish me to remain here? Shall I return after the others have gone? Say quickly! It is late!"
"No, no, Stelio, I beg of you! It is late—it is too late! You yourself say it is."
La Fosacarina's voice was full of mortal terror. Her white arms and shoulders trembled in the shadows. She wished at once to refuse and to yield; she wished to die, yet she wished to feel his strong embrace. She trembled more and more; her teeth chattered slightly, for a glacial stream seemed to submerge her, chilling her from head to foot. The strange emotion caused a fancy that her very limbs were ready to break, and she was conscious that the stiffness of her set features had even changed the sound of her voice. And still she longed at once to die and to be loved; still, over her terror, her chill, her body no longer young, hung the terrible sentence the beloved had pronounced, which she herself had repeated: "It is late—it is too late!"
"Your promise, your promise, Perdita! I will not be put off!"
The tide, swelling like a full, fair throat, the estuary, lost in darkness and death, the City, when illumined by the twilight fire, the water flowing in the invisible clepsydra, the bronze bells with their vibrations reaching to the sky, the eager wish, the contracted lips, lowered eyelids, feverish hands, all recurred with the memory of the silent promise. With wild ardor he longed to clasp that being, whose knowledge of all things was immeasurably deep and rich.
"No, I will not be put off!"
His ardor had come to him from far-distant ages, from the most ancient origins, the primitive simplicity of sudden unions, the antique mystery of sacred furies. Like the horde that was possessed by the enchantment of the gods, and descended the mountain side, tearing up trees, rushing on with blind fury, momentarily increasing, its numbers swelled by other madmen, spreading madness in its way, and finally becoming one vast bestial yet human multitude, impelled by a monstrous will, so the crudest of instincts urged him on, confusing all his ideas in a dizzy whirl. And what most attracted him in that wandering and despairing woman, whose knowledge was deep and rich, was the consciousness that she was a being oppressed by the eternal servitude of her nature, destined to succumb to the sudden convulsions of her sex; a being who soothed the fever of stage life in sensuous repose, the fiery actress, who passed from the frenzied plaudits of the multitude to the embrace of a lover; the Dionysian creature who chose to crown her mysterious rites as they were crowned in the ancient orgies.