The Intruder

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

The patient was now lying on her bed in the alcove. It was broad daylight.

I was seated at her bedside. I looked at her silently, sorrowfully. She was not asleep, but extreme weakness prevented all movement, removed all expression of life, made her seem inanimate. I made an instinctive movement to touch her, because I thought she had become cold as ice. But I was restrained by the fear of disturbing her. More than once during my continuous contemplation, beneath the shock of some sudden fear, I made a movement to rise and fetch the doctor. As I meditated I rolled between my fingers a little tuft of cotton which I carefully picked apart, and, from time to time, impelled by an invincible restlessness, I placed it with infinite precautions near Juliana's lips. The waving of the threads showed me the strength of her respiration.

She was stretched on her back, and a low pillow supported her head. In the frame formed by her chestnut hair, which was loosely caught up, the lines of her face seemed more refined than usual; showed more perfectly the waxy tones. Her night-dress was fastened at the neck and tight at her wrists, and her hands lay flat on the cover, so white that they were only distinguished from the linen by the azure of their veins. A supernatural goodness emanated from this poor creature, so pallid and motionless—a goodness that penetrated all my being, that filled my heart. And one would have thought that she was still repeating: "What have you done to me?" Her colorless mouth, with its depressed angles, revealing a mortal lassitude; that arid mouth, twisted by so many convulsions, martyrized by so many cries, seemed constantly repeating: "What have you done to me?"

I examined the emaciation of her body, that scarcely formed a relief on the surface of the bed. Since the event had taken place, since finally the other life had been separated from her life forever, I no longer felt rise in me the least instinctive movement of repulsion, not the least sudden shade of anger, nothing that could affect my tenderness and pity. I no longer felt, on seeing her, anything but an effusion of immense tenderness and pity for the best and most unfortunate of human creatures. All my soul now hung on those poor lips which, from one moment to another, might render up their last sigh. As I looked at her pale face I thought with profound sincerity: "How happy I should be could I transfuse half of my own blood into her veins!"

I heard the light ticking of a clock placed on the night-table; I felt that fugitive time was slipping by, and I thought: "He is alive!" The flight of time caused me singular anxiety, very different from that which I had felt on other occasions—indefinable.

I thought: "He lives, and has a tenacious hold on life. At the time of his birth he was not breathing. When I saw him he still had the signs of asphyxia all over his body. If the care of the midwife had not saved him he would be now nothing but a little, livid cadaver, a harmless, negligible, and perhaps forgettable thing. I should only have Juliana's cure to think of, and I would not leave this room again. I would be the most assiduous and most gentle of nurses. I would succeed in realizing the transfusion of life, in accomplishing the miracle by the power of love. It would be impossible for her not to get well. She would resuscitate gradually, be regenerated with new blood. She would appear a new creature, freed from all impurity. We would both feel purified, worthy of each other, after so long and so painful an expiation. The illness, the convalescence would relegate the sad memories to an indefinite distance. And I would try to efface from her soul even the shadow of remembrance; I would try to procure for her perfect oblivion in love. After this great trial, every other human love would seem frivolous by comparison with ours." I exalted myself in the almost mystic splendor of this dream of the future, whilst, beneath my fixed gaze, Juliana's visage took on a sort of immateriality, an expression of supernatural goodness; as if she were already removed from the world; as if the presence of death had left behind in her being only a pure, spiritual essence. The mute question no longer struck me like a wound, no longer seemed terrifying to me: "What have you done to me?" I replied: "Have you not become, through my instrumentality, the sister of Pain? Has not suffering elevated your soul to a vertiginous height, from which it has been given you to see the world in an extraordinary light? Do you not owe to me the revelation of the supreme truth? What matters our errors, our falls, our sins, if we have succeeded in tearing the veil from our eyes, if we have succeeded in setting at liberty what there is lowest in our miserable substance? We will obtain the highest joy to which the elect of earth can aspire—the consciousness of a re-birth."

I became exalted. The alcove was silent, the darkness full of mystery. Juliana's face acquired for me a superhuman aspect, and there was a solemnity in my contemplation, for I felt in the air the presence of invisible death. All my soul was suspended on those pallid lips, which, from one moment to another, might render their last breath. And those lips were contracted, emitted a groan. The painful contraction changed the lines of the face, persisted for several moments. The wrinkles in the forehead deepened, the skin of the eyelids trembled lightly, a white line appeared between the lashes.

I bent over the invalid. She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them. She did not appear to see me; her eyes showed no sign of recognition. One would have thought she was blind. Had an anemic amaurosis supervened? Had she been suddenly struck by blindness?

I heard some one enter the room. God grant it is the doctor. I left the alcove, and saw the doctor, my mother, and the midwife, who had entered quietly. Cristina followed them.

"Is she quiet?" inquired the doctor in a low voice.