The Triumph of Death

by Gabriele D'Annunzio

But, when all was ready and this false energy had gone, he found again in his inmost self the inquietude, the discontent, and that implacable anguish the true cause of which he did not know; he felt confusedly that his destiny had once more pushed him into an oblique and perilous pass. It seemed to him that, from another house and from other lips, there came to him now a voice of recall and reproach. In his soul there revived the heartbreaking farewells, tearless and yet so cruel, in which he had lied from shame on reading in his deceived mother's tired eyes the question, too sad: "For whom are you abandoning me?"

Was it not this mute question, the recollection of that blush and that lie, which inspired him with the inquietude, the discontent, and the anguish, at the moment that he was about to enter the New Life? And how could he silence that voice? By what intoxication?

He did not dare reply. In spite of his deep trouble, he wished still to believe in the promise of her who was going to come; he hoped to be able still to attribute to his love a high moral signification. Had he not an ardent desire to live, to give to all the forces of his nature a rhythmic development, to feel himself complete and harmonious? Love would finally effect this prodigy; he would finally find in love the plenitude of his humanity, deformed and diminished by so many miseries.

With these hopes and these vague tendencies, he sought to cheat his remorse; but what dominated him in presence of this woman's image was always desire. In despite of all his platonic aspirations, he could not succeed in seeing in love anything else but the work of the flesh, could not imagine the days to come but as a succession of already familiar sensual pleasures. In that benign solitude, in the company of that passionate woman, what life could he live, if not a life of idleness and voluptuousness?

And all the past sorrows came back to his mind, with all the painful pictures: his mother's haggard face and swollen red eyes, scorched by tears; Christine's sweet and heart-broken smile; the large head of the sickly child, always leaning on a bosom barren of all but sighs; the cadaveric mask of the poor idiotic gormand.

And his mother's tired eyes asked: "For whom are you abandoning me?"

CHAPTER IV.

It was the afternoon. George explored the tortuous path which, by a succession of ups and downs, led towards the Vasto Point on the edge of the sea. He gazed before and around him with a curiosity always awake, almost betraying an effort to be attentive, as if he wished to surprise some obscure thought translated by these simple semblances, or to render himself master of some unseizable secret.

In a fold of the hill which followed the sea line, the water of a stream derived from a sort of small aqueduct, made from hollowed trunks and sustained by dead trees, traversed the dale from one shore to the other. There were also trenches carried in hollow tiles, as far as the fertile field where the crops were prospering; and here and there on the reflecting and murmuring trenches, beautiful violet flowers bent with airy grace. All these humble things appeared to have a profound life.

And the excess of water ran and spread on the slope towards the sandy beach, passing beneath a small bridge. In the shade of the arch, several women were washing linen, and their gestures were reflected in the water as in a mobile mirror. On the beach, the linen spread out in the sun was of dazzling whiteness. A man was walking along the railroad tracks, his feet naked, carrying his shoes hanging in his hand. A woman came out of the toll-house and, with a rapid gesture, threw some débris from out of a basket. Two little girls, loaded with linen, were running, each trying to outdo the other, laughing. An old woman was hanging blue-colored skeins from a pole.