The Triumph of Death

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

"Chase it away! Chase it away!"

CHAPTER VI.

At supper, at which Diego had abstained from showing himself, had not Camilla repeated the accusation in a veiled form when she said, "When the eyes do not see the heart does not suffer"? And, in his mother's words,—oh, how quickly his mother had forgotten the tears with which the conversation at the window had ended,—even in his mother's words, had the accusation not cropped up several times?

George thought, not without bitterness: "Everybody here judges me in the same way. In short, nobody forgives me either for my voluntary renunciation of my rights as the eldest, or for the inheritance left me by my uncle Demetrius. I ought to have stayed at home to look after the conduct of my father and my brother, to defend the domestic happiness! According to them, nothing would have happened if I had remained here. Consequently, I am the guilty one, and this is the expiation." The farther he advanced in the direction of the suburban villa to which the enemy had retired and towards which he had been pushed by extreme measures, by merciless cudgel blows, so to speak, the more he felt the weight of a kind of vexatious oppression, the indignation provoked by an unjust compulsion.

He was, in fact, in his own eyes the victim of cruel and implacable persons, who were unwilling to spare him any kind of torture. And the recollection of certain phrases uttered by his mother in the embrasure of the window on the day of the funeral, amid their joint tears, augmented his bitterness, soured his irony: "No, George, no! It is not for you to suffer! I ought to have said nothing. I shouldn't have told you. Don't cry any more. I can't bear to see you cry." And, nevertheless, since that day no kind of torture had been spared him. That little scene had not made any change in his mother's attitude towards him. The following day, and ever since, she had been just as angry and violent; she had insisted on his listening over and over again to old and new accusations, aggravated by a thousand odious particulars; she had morally forced him to count on her face, one by one, the marks of the suffering endured; she had almost said to him: "See how my eyes are scorched by tears; how deep my wrinkles have become; how white my hair has grown at the temples And what would it be could I show you my heart?" What had been the good, therefore, of the grief of the other day? Was it necessary for his mother to see burning tears shed to be moved to pity? Then she did not appreciate the cruelty of the pain she inflicted uselessly on her son? "Oh, how rare on earth are those beings who know how to suffer in silence and accept the sacrifice with a smile!" Still disturbed and exasperated by the recent excesses of which he had been an involuntary witness, already pervaded by the horror of the decisive act which he was preparing to accomplish, he had thus come to despise his mother to the point of complaining that she did not know how to suffer with sufficient perfection.

The farther he advanced on his way (he had not wished to take the carriage, and had started on foot, so as to be free to lengthen at his will the time of the journey, and perhaps, also, to have the possibility, at the last moment, of retracing his steps, or to lose himself on the country roads)—the farther he advanced, he felt grow that indomitable horror; so much so, that finally it surmounted every other sentiment and masked every other thought. The one image of his father occupied his mind, and with the relief of an actual figure. And he began to imagine the scene which would take place soon—he studied the countenance which he would assume, prepared his first sentences, lost himself in improbable hypotheses, explored the most distant memories of his childhood and adolescence, tried to represent the successive attitudes of his soul towards his father during the successive periods of his past life. He thought: "Perhaps I have never loved him." And, in fact, in not one of his clearest recollections did he find a spontaneous movement of confidence, or a warm effusion of tenderness, or an intimate and agreeable emotion. What he did find, in the memories of his early childhood, was a continual fear which oppressed all affection—the fear of corporal punishment, of cross words followed by blows. "I have never loved him." Demetrius had been his real father; he was his sole and only parent.

And he appeared to his mind, a mild, meditative man, with a face full of a virile melancholy, and a single white curl in the centre of his forehead among the black hair, giving him an odd appearance.

As always, the image of the dead man solaced him immediately and banished from his mind the things which had just preoccupied him. His uneasiness became composed, his bitterness disappeared, and his repugnance gave place to a new sensation of tranquil security. What had he to fear? Why did his imagination exaggerate so childishly the suffering which awaited him and which henceforth was inevitable? And once more he had the intimate consciousness that he had radically transported himself from his present life, from the present state of his being, from the contingencies which had most troubled him. Once more, under the influence that his uncle exercised on him from the depth of his tomb, he felt himself enveloped by a sort of isolating atmosphere, and lost the precise notion of what had occurred and what was still going to occur; the real events seemed to be divested of all significance as far as he was concerned, and to have but a momentary importance. It was like the resignation of a man whom fatality obliged to submit to a trial in order to attain the future deliverance of which his soul had already had the prevision and certitude. This interruption of internal care, this singular respite which he had obtained without effort and which did not surprise him, permitted his eyes to be opened finally to the spectacle of the solitary and magnificent landscape. The attention he gave to it was calm and serene. In the aspect of the country he believed he recognized a symbol of his own sentiments and a visible imprint of his thoughts.

It was the afternoon. A clear and liquid sky bathed all the terrestrial objects in its own color, and appeared to subtilize all matter by an infinitely slow penetration. The various forms of vegetation, distinct close by, became effaced in the distance, lost by degrees their contours, appeared to evaporate at the top, tended to become combined into a single form, immense and confused, which a single rhythmic respiration would animate. Little by little, beneath a deluge of azure, the hills became equal in size, and the depths of the valley took on the appearance of a peaceful gulf which reflected the sky. From this united gulf the isolated mass of the mountain soared up, opposing to the liquid space the immovable solidity of its ridges, which the whiteness of the snows illumined with an almost supernatural light.

CHAPTER VII.