The Triumph of Death

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

CHAPTER IX.

On her return from the chapel of the Port, Hippolyte had heard of the accident. Accompanied by Helen, she had wished to rejoin George on the beach. But when near the tragic spot, at the sight of the cloth that made a white spot on the sand, she had felt her strength fail her. Seized by an outburst of sobs, she had retraced her steps, had gone back to the house, had waited for George, weeping.

She felt less compassion for the little body than she felt for herself, haunted by the recollection of the peril she had so lately incurred at the bath. And an instinctive, indomitable repulsion arose in her against that sea.

"I do not want to bathe in the sea any more. I do not want you to bathe there," she enjoined George, almost roughly, in a tone that expressed a firm, unyielding resolution. "I will not have it. Do you hear?"

They passed the rest of that Sunday in an anxious restlessness, returning ceaselessly to the loggia, to look at the white spot, over there, on the beach. George had the image of the corpse constantly before his eyes so strongly outlined that it seemed to him almost tangible. And in his ears was constantly the cadence of the monody chanted by the mother. Was the mother still lamenting in the shade of the rock? Had she stayed there alone with the sea and the dead? He saw again in imagination another unfortunate. He relived the hour of that May morning, long ago, in the house far away, when he had felt all at once the maternal life come in contact with his own life with a sort of adherence, when he had felt the mysterious correspondences of blood, of sorrow, and of destiny suspended over the heads of both. Would he ever see her again with mortal eyes? Would he ever again see that feeble smile, which, without changing a line of the face, seemed to spread a light veil of hope, too fugitive, alas! over the indelible imprints of pain? Would it be permitted him ever to kiss that long and emaciated hand again, whose caress could be compared to no other? And he relived the distant hour of the tears when, at the window, he had received the terrible revelation from the glimmer of a smile: when he had at last heard the dear voice, the only and unforgettable voice, the voice of comfort, of counsel, of forgiveness, of infinite goodness—when he had at last recognized the tender creature of long ago, the adored one. And he relived the hour of the farewell, the farewell tearless, and yet so cruel, when he had lied for shame on reading in his deceived mother's eyes the too sad question: "For whom are you abandoning me?" And all the past sorrows arose again in his memory, with all their dolorous images: that emaciated face, those swollen eyelids, red and burning, Christine's gentle and heart-rending smile, the sickly child whose large head was always resting on a chest barren of all but sighs, the cadaveric mask of the poor idiotic gormand.... And the tired eyes of his mother repeated: "For whom are you abandoning me?"

He felt himself penetrated by a wave of gentle feeling; he languished, dissolved; he felt a vague desire to bend his forehead, to hide his face on a bosom, to be caressed chastely, to savor slowly this secret bitterness, to doze, to perish gradually. It was as if all the effeminations of his soul had blossomed at the same time, and were floating.

A man passed by on the path, bearing on his head a little white-pine coffin.

Later in the afternoon the Authorities arrived at the beach. The little corpse, lifted up away from the stones, had been carried to the heights, disappeared. Piercing shrieks reached the Hermitage. Then all was quiet. The silence, ascending from the calm sea, regained possession of the surrounding parts.

The sea was so calm, the air was so calm, that life seemed suspended. A bluish light spread uniformly over everything.

Hippolyte had reëntered, and had thrown herself on her bed. George remained in the loggia, seated on a chair. Both suffered, and they could not speak of their pain. Time slipped by.