For the rest, we spent more and more time prowling about the country. One reason was the Principe. We had a rather absurd idea that he might like his place to himself, once in a while. Another was that we found the garden more charming to look at than to idle in, especially after dewfall. It was not for nothing that the moss of the avenue kept so fairy green. Dank that garden was, even beyond the shadow of its tall cypresses. The filmed statues showed it, and the weedy paths. But there were pleasant places along the river, we discovered, of sun-warmed or branch-shaded rocks. There were vineyards hanging on the slopes of the valley, there were cool chestnut glens, there were other farms and other villas—though none so noble as ours. At night, too, as spring lengthened into summer, we often strolled up the road toward Austria or down toward Bassano, stopping to chat at the podere on our way back. Graziosa would always light us upstairs, as she had done that first night. Then we always ended by sitting in the loggia by ourselves, not without more chatter. God knows where we found so much to say, but we were never through. Still, we also found time to listen to the river and the nightingales, to watch the fireflies in the garden, the stars above the jagged dark rim of the valley, the distant twinkle of the plain.
It was an unforgettable summer.
V
To us it was unforgettable. Otherwise we must have flitted long before we did to scenes where we needed to walk less softly. Yet just that necessity of walking softly was part of the lure. Like so much else of life, however, it was in great part a thing of atmosphere, of colour, of accent, of states of feeling, of moments so real to us but so impossible to capture in word or line that I oftenest think of Castello Montughi in terms of music. It was another similarity of that episode to a piece of music that while the successive phases of it could hardly be labelled as chapters or acts, the transitions between them were perfectly clear. We had begun with an Andante. We had gone on to an Allegro ma non troppo. The third movement—it had settled down into a Scherzo, of the mellower kind. And the final resolution?
That was a Lamentoso. And the transition, when at last it came, was so unnerving that I was thankful my wife was not with me. She had been having a touch of malaria—due, I am afraid, to the dampness of the place. I was not really uneasy about her, though, beyond asking myself whether it were time for us to make a move. After she dropped to sleep, late in the evening, I went out to stretch my legs and get a breath of air.
Without any definite intention, I found myself walking up the valley. That was the direction I always liked best after sundown. The mountains stood out so solemnly against the stars, and the river made such a sound in the dark. I can hear it now. And I can see how sombre the castle and its merloned tower loomed before me when I went back that night. It put me in mind of the first time I had seen them. As I drew near the gate, too, I heard the dog. But it was no bark that came from him. It was a howl, long drawn and mournful. In a moment, however, I discovered what pulled me up short. For there were lights in the little chapel.
My first thought was of fire—until I had time to note that the light was perfectly steady, and to reflect that there was probably nothing left in the chapel to burn. Whereupon, as I watched the glimmer of the dusty old leaded panes, I grew extremely uncomfortable. In fact the hour, the uncanny noise of the dog, the unaccustomed circumstance of the illuminated chapel, all the other circumstances of the place, combined to give me a sensation I have rarely experienced. There have been times when I would be ashamed to make such a confession. But years have emboldened me to think that fearlessness is an insensibility of the nerves which a man should pray to be delivered from. His affair is to be scared as often and as violently as he pleases, but to keep his head. Which, I presume, was the reason why it seemed to me worthy to investigate. I therefore tiptoed around to the other entrance, where I almost yielded to a temptation to wake up the peasants. Luckily Abracadabra saved me from it by bounding at me out of the dark with a growl. When he recognised me he trotted quietly along beside me. That growl, however, reminded me of another time when I had investigated, and had been sorry for it. I gave Abracadabra a good-night pat and went into the house.
I found my wife still asleep. I could make out her quiet breathing, and the soft curve of her arm across the pillow. As I bent over her I heard Abracadabra again. I went out to the loggia. It was too late for nightingales. There were cicadas, now, in the cypresses. The melancholy shrilling of them, out of the black shadow, affected me almost as much as the dog. He had stopped his noise, though. I could see the ghostly shape of him down on the terrace, waiting. I don’t know—I felt a sudden shame of my retreat. I tiptoed back to my room, picked up my revolver, touched the soft arm on the pillow with my lips, and stole down stairs.
The dog ran to meet me at the terrace door, wagging his tail and sticking his cold nose into my hand. We turned the corner, we passed the low arch leading into the kitchen. The two little windows beside it were dark. So were the loopholes of the tower. But, beyond that redoubtable angle, I found the light still burning in the chapel. I wished the door were open at least a crack. I also wished, in spite of Abracadabra’s company, that I had not undertaken to prove I was not a coward. I stood there looking, listening, seeing nothing but those faintly lighted panes, hearing nothing but the cicadas and the river. I wondered if it were the sound of my own blood, unwilling as I was to go forward or to go back.
Presently, from inside the chapel, I heard a violin. Of that, this time, there could be no doubt. And in the stillness I recognised that sobbing theme from the Sixth Symphony of Chaikovsky, which everybody knows and sentimentalises over or laughs at. But nobody ever heard it as I heard it that night in the shadow of Castello Montughi, while cicadas chanted ethereally in the black cypresses and the Brenta muttered among its rocks. I didn’t laugh. I stood quivering. The theme swept on to its climax, returned, flowered magically, tragically, into developments I had never listened to or dreamed. If I can’t play a violin myself, I have sat in front of all the Russians and Jews and Gypsies who can. But no one of them ever let loose with his bow such pent-up passion and misery. Not one, ever. There was no mere poetry in that violin. There was heartbreak in it. There was damnation in it. There were wild tears, pleading, hunger, hopelessness, remorse. There was in it all of life that is unfulfilled and not to be assuaged and beyond utterance. And all poured out in a tone of gold, with the stroke of a god—or a demon.