Read Ebook: The Child of Pleasure by D Annunzio Gabriele Boyd Ernest Augustus Commentator Harding Georgina Translator Symons Arthur Translator

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Ebook has 1682 lines and 89006 words, and 34 pages

Presently Rutolo and Sperelli were left alone in the contest. The bidding rose higher than the actual value of the article, which forced a smile from the auctioneer. At last, vanquished by his adversary's determination, Giannetto Rutolo was silent.

'Going--going--!'

Donna Ippolita's lover, a little pale, cried one last sum. Sperelli named a higher--there was a moment's silence. The auctioneer looked from one to the other, then he raised his hammer and slowly, still looking at the two--'Going--going--gone!'

The Death's-head fell to the Conte d'Ugenta. A murmur ran round the room. A sudden flood of light burst through the windows, lit up the gleaming gold backgrounds of the triptychs, and played over the sorrowfully patient brow of the Siennese Madonna and the glittering steel scales on the Princess di Ferentino's little grey hat.

'When is the goblet coming on?' asked the princess impatiently.

Her friends consulted the catalogue. There was no hope of the goblet for that day. The unusual amount of competition made the sale go slowly. There was still a long list of smaller articles--cameos, medallions, coins. Several antiquaries and Prince Stroganow disputed each piece hotly. The rest felt considerably disappointed. The Duchess of Scerni rose to go.

'Good-bye, Sperelli,' she said. 'I shall see you again this evening--perhaps.'

'Why perhaps?'

'I do not feel well.'

'What is the matter?'

She turned away without replying, and took leave of the others. Many of them followed her example and left with her. The young men were making fun of the 'spectacle manqu?.' The Marchesa d'Ateleta laughed, but the princess was evidently thoroughly out of temper. The footmen waiting in the hall called for the carriages as if at the door of a theatre or concert hall.

'Are you not coming on to Laura Miano's?' Francesca asked the duchess.

'No, I am going home.'

She waited on the pavement for her brougham to come up. The rain was passing over; patches of blue were beginning to appear between the great banks of white cloud; a shaft of sunshine made the wet flags glitter. Flooded by this pale rose splendour, her magnificent furs falling in straight symmetrical folds to her feet, Elena was very beautiful. As Andrea caught a glimpse of the inside of her brougham, all cosily lined with white satin like a little boudoir, with its shining silver foot-warmer for the comfort of her small feet, his dream of the preceding evening came back to him--'Oh, to be there with her alone, and feel the warm perfume of her breath mingling with the violets--behind the mist-dimmed windows through which one hardly sees the muddy streets, the gray houses, the dull crowd!'

But she only bowed slightly to him at the door, without even a smile, and the next moment the carriage had flashed away in the direction of the Palazzo Barberini, leaving the young man with a dim sense of depression and heartache.

'I recommend this clock to your consideration.' Andrea could not help smiling a little at Elena's words uttered in so peculiar a tone after so cold a silence. He was assured that she intended him to put the construction upon her words which he had afterwards done, but then why retire into impenetrable reserve again--why take no further notice of him--what ailed her? Andrea lost himself in a maze of conjecture. Nevertheless, the warm atmosphere of the room, the luxurious chair, the shaded lamp, the fitful gleams of firelight, the aroma of the tea--all these soothing influences combined to mitigate his pain. He went on dreamingly, aimlessly, as if wandering through a fantastic labyrinth. With him reverie sometimes had the effect of opium--it intoxicated him.

'May I take the liberty of reminding the Signor Conte that he is expected at the Casa Doria at seven o'clock,' observed his valet in a subdued and discreet murmur, one of his offices being to jog his master's memory. 'Everything is ready.'

At the Casa Doria, speaking of one thing and another, the Duchess Angelieri remarked--'It seems that Laura Miano and Elena Muti have quarrelled.'

'About Giorgio perhaps?' returned another lady laughing.

'So they say. The story began this summer at Lucerne--'

'But Laura was not at Lucerne,'

'Exactly--but her husband was--'

'I believe it is a pure invention,' broke in the Florentine countess Donna Bianca Dolcebuono--'Giorgio is in Paris now.'

Andrea heard it all in spite of the chattering of the little Contessa Starnina, who sat at his right hand, and never gave him a moment's peace. Bianca Dolcebuono's words did little to ease the smart of his wound. At least, he would have liked to know the whole story. But the Duchess Angelieri did not resume the thread of her discourse, and other conversations crossed and recrossed the table under the great gorgeous roses from the Villa Pamfili.

Who was this Giorgio? A former lover? Elena had spent part of the summer at Lucerne,--she had just come from Paris. After the sale she had refused to go to Laura Miano's. A fierce desire assailed him to see her, to speak to her again. The invitation at the Palazzo Farnese was for ten o'clock--half past ten found him there waiting anxiously.

He waited long. The rooms filled rapidly; the dancing began. In the Carracci gallery the divinities of fashionable Rome vied in beauty with the Ariadnes, the Galateas, the Auroras, the Dianas of the frescos; couples whirled past; heads glittering with jewels drooped or raised themselves, bosoms panted, the breath came fast through parted crimson lips.

'Yes--later on,' Andrea responded hastily--'later on.'

Heedless of introductions or greetings, his torment increased with every moment of this fruitless expectation, and he roamed aimlessly from room to room. That 'perhaps' made him sadly afraid that Elena would not come. And supposing she really did not? When was he likely to see her again? Donna Bianca Dolcebuono passed, and, almost without knowing why, he attached himself to her side, saying a thousand agreeable things to her, feeling some slight comfort in her society. He had the greatest desire to speak to her about Elena, to question her, to reassure himself; but the orchestra struck up a languorous mazurka and the Florentine countess was carried off by her partner.

Thereupon, Andrea joined a group of young men near one of the doors--Ludovico Barbarisi, the Duke di Beffi, Filippo del Gallo and Gino Bomminaco. They were watching the couples, and exchanging observations not over refined in quality. One of them turned to Andrea as he came up.

'Why, what has become of you this evening? Your cousin was looking for you a moment ago. There she is dancing with my brother now.'

'Look!' exclaimed Filippo del Gallo--'the Albonico has come back, she is dancing with Giannetto.'

'The Duchess of Scerni came back last week,' said Ludovico; 'what a lovely creature!'

'Is she here?'

'I have not seen her yet,'

Andrea's heart stopped beating for a moment, fearing that something would be said against her by one or other of these malicious tongues. But the passing of the Princess Iss? on the arm of the Danish Minister diverted their attention. Nevertheless, his desire for further knowledge was so intense, that it almost drove him to lead back the conversation to the name of his lady-love. But he was not quite bold enough. The mazurka was over; the group broke up. 'She is not coming! She is not coming!' His secret anxiety rose to such a pitch that he half thought of leaving the place altogether; the contact of this laughing, careless throng was intolerable.

As he turned away, he saw the Duchess of Scerni entering the gallery on the arm of the French ambassador. For one instant their eyes met, but that one glance seemed to draw them to each other, to penetrate to the very depths of their souls. Both knew that each had only been looking for the other, and at that moment there seemed to fall a silence upon both hearts, even in the midst of the babel of voices, and all their surroundings to vanish and be swept away by the force of their own absorbing thought.

She advanced along the frescoed gallery where the crowd was thinnest, her long white train rippling like a wave over the floor behind her. All white and simple, she passed slowly along, turning from side to side in answer to the numerous greetings, with an air of manifest fatigue and a somewhat strained smile which drew down the corners of her mouth, while her eyes looked larger than ever under the low white brow, her extreme pallor imparting to her whole face a look so ethereal and delicate as to be almost ghostly. This was not the same woman who had sat beside him at the Ateleta's table, nor the one of the Sale Rooms, nor the one standing waiting for a moment on the pavement of the Via Sistina. Her beauty at this moment was of ideal nobility, and shone with additional splendour among all these women heated with the dance, over-excited and restless in their manner. The men looked at her and grew thoughtful; no mind was so obtuse or empty that she did not exercise a disturbing influence upon it, inspire some vague and indefinable hope. He whose heart was free imagined with a thrill what such a woman's love would be; he who loved already conceived a vague regret, and dreamed of raptures hitherto unknown; he who bore a wound dealt by some woman's jealousy or faithlessness suddenly felt that he might easily recover.

Thus she advanced amid the homage of the men, enveloped by their gaze. Arrived at the end of the gallery, she joined a group of ladies who were talking and fanning themselves excitedly under the fresco of Perseus turning Phineus to stone. They were the Princess di Ferentino, Hortensa Massa d'Alba, the Marchesa Daddi-Tosinghi and Bianca Dolcebuono.

'Why so late?' asked the latter.

'I hesitated very much whether to come at all--I don't feel well.'

'Yes, you look very pale.'

'I believe I am going to have neuralgia badly again, like last year.'

'Heaven forefend!'

'Elena, do look at Madame de la Boissi?re,' exclaimed Giovanella Daddi in her queer husky voice; 'doesn't she look like a camel with a yellow wig!'

The ladies laughed in chorus, fluttering their fans. The first notes of a Hungarian waltz floated in from the next room. The gentlemen came to claim their partners. At last Andrea was able to offer Elena his arm and carry her off.

'I thought I should have died waiting for you! If you had not come I should have gone to find you--anywhere. When I saw you come in I could scarcely repress a cry. This is only the second evening I have met you, and yet I feel as if I had loved you for years. The thought of you and you alone is now the life of my life.'

He uttered his burning words of love in a low voice, looking straight before him, and she listened in a similar attitude, apparently quite impassive, almost stony. Only a sprinkling of people remained in the gallery. Between the busts of the Caesars along the walls, lamps with milky globes shaped like lilies shed an even, tempered light. The profusion of palms and flowering plants gave the whole place the look of a sumptuous conservatory. The music floated through the warm-scented air under the vaulted roof and over all this mythology like a breeze though an enchanted garden.

'Can you love me?' he asked: 'tell me if you think you can ever love me.'

'I came only for you,' she returned slowly.

'Tell me that you will love me,' he repeated, while every drop of blood seemed to rush in a tumult of joy to his heart.

'Shall we dance?' he asked with a secret tremor of delight at the prospect of encircling her with his arm.

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