The Intruder

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

"Yes, many more."

That is what she had replied, with a sigh that, really, had appeared to me divine.

"Yes, many more!"

She would have liked to shed other tears, she would have liked to suffer another martyrdom as the price of this avowal! And, when she saw at her feet, more passionate than ever, the man so long lost and wept for, when she saw opening before her an unknown paradise, she had felt herself to be impure, she had the physical sensation of her impurity, she had held my head on her breast. Ah! it is truly incomprehensible why her tears have not burned my face, that I have been able to drink them without being poisoned.

I relived our entire day in an instant; I saw again all the changing expressions, even the most furtive, that had appeared on Juliana's face since our arrival at the Lilacs; I understood them all. A great light illuminated me. Oh! when I spoke to her of the morrow, when I spoke to her of the future—what terrors that word to-morrow, coming from my lips, must have had! And to my memory recurred the short dialogue that we had had on the threshold of the balcony, facing the cypress. She had repeated in a very low voice, with a feeble sigh: "Die!" She had spoken of approaching death. She had asked: "What would you do if I died suddenly? If, for instance, I died to-morrow?" Later on, in our room, she had cried, pressing me close: "No, no, Tullio; we must not speak of the future. Think of to-day, of the passing hour!" By such actions, by such words, did she not betray a resolution of death, a tragic design? It was evident that she had resolved to kill herself, that she would kill herself, perhaps this very night even, before the inevitable to-morrow, since there was no other resource for her.

When the fright that the thought of this imminent peril caused me had subsided, I reflected: "What would have the gravest consequences, Juliana's death, or her preservation? Since the ruin is irremediable, and the abyss bottomless, an immediate catastrophe would, perhaps, be better than an indefinite continuation of the frightful drama." And, in imagination, I accompanied the phases of that new maternity, saw the new being procreated, the intruder who bore my name, who would be my heir, who would usurp my mother's caresses and those of my daughters, of my brother. "Assuredly, death only can interrupt the fatal course of these events. But would the suicide remain secret? By what means would Juliana take her life? If it were proved that death were voluntary, what would my mother and brother think? What a blow that would be to my mother! And Maria? And Natalia? And what would I do, myself?"

The truth is that I could not bring myself to conceive of my own existence without Juliana. I loved the poor creature even in her impurity. Excepting that sudden attack of anger which carnal jealousy had provoked in me, I had never yet felt against her any emotion whatever of hate, or of rancor, or of contempt. No thought of vengeance had crossed my soul. On the contrary, I felt a profound compassion for her. I accepted, since the beginning, all the responsibility of her fall. A proud and generous sentiment sustained me, exalted me: "She bent her head beneath my blows, she kept silent, she set me an example of virile courage, of heroic abnegation. Now, it is my turn. I must render her the same. I must save her, at any price." And this nobility of soul, this good impulse, came to me from her.

I drew closer to look at her. She still remained motionless in the same attitude, with her forehead uncovered. I thought: "Is she asleep?" And if, on the contrary, she were pretending to be asleep, to remove every suspicion, to make believe that she is quiet, that she may be left alone? Assuredly, if it is her project not to live until the morrow, she is seeking by every means to favor its execution. She simulates slumber.

"If her sleep were real, she would not be so quiet, so calm, with such superexcited nerves as she has. I must shake her." But I hesitated. "If she were really asleep? Sometimes, after a great output of nerve force, even in the midst of the rudest moral anxieties, one sleeps a leaden slumber, like a syncope. Oh! that she may slumber until to-morrow! And to-morrow, that she may arise recovered, be strong enough to support the explanation that has become inevitable between us!" I looked fixedly at that brow, white as the sheet, and, on bending over a little more, I remarked that it was dotted with perspiration. A bead of perspiration glistened on the eyebrow. And that bead suggested to me the idea of the cold sweat that indicates the action of narcotic poisons. A sudden flash of suspicion came upon me. "Morphine!" Instinctively, my glance turned to the night table, on the other side of the bed, to look for the small bottle marked with the skull and cross-bones, familiar symbols of death.

There, on the table, were a water bottle, a glass, a candlestick, a handkerchief, several glistening pins; that was all. I made a rapid and complete examination of the alcove. Anguish choked my throat. "Juliana has morphine; she always has on hand a certain quantity of it in a liquid state for her injections. I am sure that she has had the idea of poisoning herself. Where has she hidden the little bottle?" Engraved in my mind I had the image of the small glass vial that I had seen in Juliana's hands, ornamented with the sinister label that pharmacists use, in order to indicate a toxic. My excited imagination suggested to me: "And if she has already drunk it? That sweat..." I trembled on my seat, and I felt the agitation of a rapid debate. "But when? How? She has not been left alone. It requires only an instant to empty a bottle. Yet, without doubt, she would have vomited.... And that attack of convulsive vomiting, just now, when she arrived at the house? Premeditating suicide, she had doubtless carried the morphine with her. Was it not possible that she had drunk it before arriving at the Badiola, in the carriage, in the dark? In fact, she had prevented Federico from going for the doctor." I understood but imperfectly the symptoms of morphine poisoning. In my ignorance, that white and moist brow, that perfect immobility, overwhelmed me. I was on the point of arousing her. "But if I am mistaken? She will awake, and what will I have to say to her?" It seemed to me that the first word, that the first look exchanged between us, must produce on me an extraordinary effect, of an unforeseen, unimaginable violence. It seemed to me that I would not have the power to control myself, to dissimulate, and that on looking at me she would divine immediately that I knew all. And then?