“Just as we fled the first time, then,” she murmured, in a mysterious, dreamy ecstasy.
“As the first time, darling.”
And the old times reappeared to them, just as the voices reappeared, just as the words reappeared; time was annulled, and everything was as at first. They asked nothing of their souls, of their hearts, since the looks, the voices, and the gestures were as at first; in the unrestrained tumult of resumed passion their souls and their hearts kept silence, in their profound, singular, and obscure silence.
V
Venice, who has consecrated and exalted in her soft and persuasive arms a thousand powerful loveknots, placed the wonderful peace of her mortal beauty round the grand flame of Maria Guasco and Marco Fiore; the silent caress of her glimmering lights, and the tenderness of her melancholy. The amorous fluid that thousands of lovers gathered wherever they lived, wherever they moved in Venice—that amorous fluid that emanates from her quiet waters, from the balconies of her palaces, from the veiled voices of those who sing in flowering gardens on quiet side canals, that emanates from the gloomy colour of her gondolas, from the whiteness of the marble which the water has left intact or obscured, which emanates from every lineament of the place and from every tint of the sky, enveloped Marco Fiore and Maria Guasco, and multiplied their flame into a precipitous tumult of their lives.
Their love had something mysterious, powerful, and troublous in that ardent renewal, which engulfed them as in a whirlwind. They seemed blind and deaf to every other aspect and every other sound of life which was not their amorous delirium. If no idyllic sweetness, if no sentimental tenderness brightened the passing of the days, the fever which caused them to palpitate, which singularly always gave them fresh fire, had aspects unknown to many, unknown even to themselves. A veil was over their eyes when they turned them away from the adored person; and the vision of Venice, where their days were slipping away, was like a dream around them, was like a scene unknown, appearing and vanishing just as in a dream. Never had Maria Guasco, whose beauty consisted above all in a lively, tender, and proud expression of countenance, never had she carried so clearly and openly those signs of amorous happiness which cause envy and regret to those who have never been in love, or who no longer love. Never, too, had Marco Fiore experienced a greater passion, or a larger sense of subjugation to a creature beloved.
Sometimes, however, passion in its violence seemed odious to him, and he would gaze at Maria with eyes sad and stern but still passionate, and he would speak to her shortly and commandingly, while his strong hands would press her soft hands so roughly as almost to cause her pain.
Then she would become silent, biting her lips to prevent a cry, and bowing her head as if conquered and crushed.
Long indeed were the silences of the lovers, and gladly were their lips dumb, as if words were useless to their understanding and thoughts weighed heavily on their hearts, or as if they felt it was profoundly dangerous to give life to their thoughts with a word. They remained side by side in their room in the Grand Hotel on the Grand Canal, silent and absorbed. Sometimes they stood together on the small marble balcony watching the canal winding among the magnificent palaces towards the Salute, with joined hands and fingers interlaced, and watched for a long time the bizarre reflections of the water changing colour beneath the light of the sky, always silent and oppressed. On the occasions when the gondola carried them in long excursions, left to the choice of the gondolier, to the more solitary canals and islands, Marco became more imperious in his lover’s exactions. If Maria drew aside from him even for a minute, he called her back with a sudden and almost angry gesture; if she had a bunch of flowers in her belt he snatched them one by one, kissed them, and threw them into the water, and he would continually take her handkerchief and gloves and press them to his face and lips.
They spoke seldom and subduedly, just their names, or a monosyllable uttered questioningly and repeated with an acquiescent nod and dropping of the eyes. Their passion, even in its greatest flame, was collected and gloomy, and just as they were not exuberant in words they were not exuberant in smiles. No puerile happiness or youthful gaiety enlivened its intensity. Their passion seemed greater than they could endure, heavy and crushing in its force and vigour, and their souls and heart were too little to contain it; or its secret violence and immeasurable power seemed to surprise and dispirit them every instant, as if they were ignorant of its origin and end. Every now and then Maria, as if she could no longer endure his intense glances, placed her hands over Marco’s eyes, as against the light of the sun which vivifies and yet blinds, and sometimes he returned the gesture, placing his hand on her ruby mouth, to stop her rare words and continuous kisses, as if his fibres were relaxing beneath the ideal and sensual caress which was consuming him. Their memories, too, were wrapped in a veil, or they would have remembered their first journey; their flight in which in a thousand forms of joy their cry of liberty had broken out, in which a thousand smiles carelessly adorned their day, in which the song of the simplest and purest jollity overflowed their mornings, and the laugh which closed their day and sent them deliciously to sleep.