she humbled herself with shame. from that day every action of her silently begged for pardon and oblivion.
a new grace seemed born within her. she became more cheerful, spoke more gently, walked softly about the house dressed in quiet colors, veiling her beautiful eyes with the deep shadow of her lashes, because she dared not look at her friend. the fear of tiring him, of displeasing or boring him, gave her the wings of divination. her ever watchful sensibility listened at the inaccessible door of his dreams.
her spirit, determined to create a new feeling capable of conquering the violence of instinct, revealed in her face with marvelous signs the difficulty of her task. never before had her supreme art found expressions so singular. looking at her one day, stelio spoke to her of the infinite power concentrated in the shadow produced by the helmet on the face of il pensieroso.
"michelangelo," he said, "has, in a small cavity in the marble, concentrated all the effort of human meditation. just as the stream fills a hollowed palm, so the eternal mystery that surrounds us fills the small space made by the titan's chisel in the material from the mountains; and there it has remained, growing denser through all the centuries. i know only the mobile shadow of your face, fosca, that equals that shadow in intensity, and sometimes even surpasses it."
eager for poetry and knowledge, she yearned for the inspirer's presence. she became for him the ideal figure of one that listens and understands. the strange, unique arrangement of her hair suggested fluttering, impatient wings round her pure forehead.
she read aloud to him pages from the sovereign poets. the august form of the book seemed magnified by the attitude she assumed in holding it, by her way of turning the pages, by her religious gravity of attention, and the harmony of the voice that changed the printed symbols into vocal cadences. while reading dante, she was as severe and noble as the sibyls in the dome of the sistine chapel, sustaining the weight of the sacred volumes with all the heroism of their bodies moved by the breath of prophecy.
when the last syllable had been spoken, she saw stelio rise impetuously, feverishly, and roam about the rooms, stirred by the dart of the god, panting in the excitement roused by the confused tumult of his own creative force. sometimes he approached her with glowing eyes transfigured by a sudden beatitude, kindled by an inner flame, as if an immortal truth had just been revealed. with a shudder that drove away from her heart the memory of every caress, she saw him lay his head upon her knees, overwhelmed by the tremendous struggle he carried on within himself, by the shock that accompanied some hidden metamorphosis. she suffered, yet she was happy, though she knew not whether he too suffered or was happy; her heart was filled with pity, fear, and reverence to feel that vigorous form laboring thus in the genesis of the idea. she kept silence; she waited, adoring that head that lay upon her knees, filled with thoughts unrevealed.
but she comprehended his great emotion better when one day, after she had been reading to him, he spoke of the exile of dante.
"imagine, fosca, if you can without bewilderment, the transport and ardor of that great soul, when uniting itself with elementary energies in order to conceive his words! imagine alighieri, his mind already filled with his incomparable vision, on the way to exile, an implacable pilgrim, driven by his passion and his poverty from country to country, from refuge to refuge, across plains, over mountains, beside rivers and seas, in all seasons, suffocated by the sweetness of spring, shivering under the harshness of winter, always alert, attentive, with wide, voracious eyes, anxious with the inner travail whereby his gigantic work was formed. imagine the fulness of that soul in the contrast between common necessities and the flaming apparitions that rose suddenly before him at a turn in the road, on the bank of a stream, from a hollow in the rocks, on the slope of a hill, in the depths of the forest, or in a meadow where the larks were singing. by means of his senses, life multiform and multiplex poured into his spirit, transfiguring into living images the abstract ideas that filled his brain. the sound, the appearance, and the essence of the very elements themselves entered into his occult labor, developing it with voices, lines, color, movement, and with innumerable mysteries. fire, air, earth, and water worked in collaboration at the sacred poem, penetrated the sum of its doctrine, warmed it, a?rated it, watered it, covered it with leaves and flowers. open this christian book, and imagine at the same time the face of a greek god. do you not see, springing from both, shadows and light, the flashes or the wind from the heavens?"
she began to feel that her own life was becoming one with the all-absorbing work, that her own personal self was entering, drop by drop, into the personage of the drama, that her look, her poses, her gestures and voice were going to the composing of the figure of the heroine "living beyond life." she fancied that she was dissolving into her elements in the fire of that other intellect, only to be re-formed by the necessity of a heroism that should dominate fate.
sometimes it seemed to her that she was losing her human sincerity, and that she would always remain in the state of fictitious excitement into which she threw herself while studying a tragic r?le she was to create. thus she experienced a new torment. she tried to shut and contract her soul under his keen glance, as if to prevent his intellect from penetrating her mind and robbing her of her secret life. she grew afraid of the seer.—he will read in my soul the silent words that he will put in the mouth of his creation, and i shall only speak them on the stage, under my mask.—sometimes she felt a sudden need to break the spell, to withdraw from the image that was to be like her, to spoil those lines of beauty, which forced her to a determined sacrifice. was there not also in the tragedy a maiden thirsting for love and eager for joy, a maiden in whom a great mind recognized the living incarnation of his most exquisite dream, the victory that was to crown his life? and was there not also an impassioned woman no longer young, who had one foot already in the dark shadow, and who had but a few steps more to take in order to disappear? more than once she was tempted to contradict her seeming resignation by some violent act. then, like a penitent, she redoubled her fervor to ward off the peril, hardened herself to discipline, sharpened her vigilance, repeating with a sort of intoxication the act of supreme renunciation that had risen from the depths of her sadness at the aspect of the purifying flame.—you must have all; i shall be content with seeing you live, seeing your joy. and do with me as you will!—
then stelio loved her for the unexpected visions she brought him. he trembled and turned pale one day when she entered the room with her soft step, her face fixed in calm sorrow, as if she were emerging from depths of wisdom whence all human agitations seem but a puff of wind on a dusty road.
"ah, at last! i have created you! i have created you!" he cried, thinking he saw his heroine herself standing on a threshold of the distant chamber filled with treasure taken from the tombs of the atrides. "stand still a moment! do not move your eyelids—keep your eyes motionless, as if they were petrified! now you are blind. but you can see things that others do not see, and nothing can be hidden from you. here in this place the man you love has declared his love to another, who trembles at the revelation. they are still here, they have just let go each other's hands, and their love quivers in the air. the room is full of funeral treasure, and on two tables are laid out the riches that covered the bodies of agamemnon and cassandra. there are the coffers filled with necklaces, and there are the urns full of ashes. the balcony looks out upon the plain of argos and on the distant mountains. it is twilight, and all that terrible gold glitters in the creeping shadows. do you understand? and you are there, on the threshold, led by the nurse. you are blind, yet nothing is hidden from you. stop a moment!"
he spoke in the sudden fever of invention. the scene appeared before him, then disappeared, submerged in a flood of poetry.
"what shall you do? what shall you say?"
the actress felt a chill at the roots of her hair. her very soul vibrated. she became blind and prophetic. the cloud of tragedy descended and hung over her head.
"what shall you say? you will call them. you will call both of them by name in that silence where the great royal spoils repose."
the actress felt the coursing of her blood; her voice was to resound through the silence of thousands of years, to revive the ancient suffering of men and heroes.
"you will take their hands; you will feel their two lives stretching toward each other."
the blindness of the immortal statues was in her eyes. she could see herself sculptured in the great silence, and feel the thrill of the mute throng, seized with awe at the sublime power of her attitude.
"and then? and then?"
the inspirer rushed impetuously toward the actress, as if he wished to strike her in order to draw sparks from her.
"you must awake cassandra from her sleep; you must feel her ashes revive in your hands; she must be present in your mental vision. will you? do you understand? your living soul must touch her ancient soul, and blend into one soul and one grief, so that the flight of time seems annihilated. cassandra is in you, and you are in her. have you not loved her, and do you not love priam's daughter also? who that once shall hear it can ever forget, who can ever forget the deep notes of your voice and the convulsion of your lips at the first cry of fatalistic fury: 'o earth! o apollo!' i see you once more, deaf and dumb, on your chariot with the look of a wild beast just captured. but among so many terrible cries, some were infinitely sweet and sad. the old men compared you to the nightingale. what were the words you used when you spoke of your beautiful river? and when the old men questioned you about the love of the god—do you remember your answer?"
the tragic muse palpitated as if the breath of the god again invaded her. she had become ardent, ductile material, subject to all the inspirations of the poet.
"do you remember your answer?"
"o espousals, espousals of paris, fatal to the beloved! o you, paternal waters of the scamandros! once, on your shores, my youth was nourished by you!"
"ah, divine woman, your melody does not make one regret the syllables of ?schylus! i remember. the soul of the multitude, seized by the lamentation 'of discordant sounds,' relaxed and was soothed by that melodious sigh, and each of us received the vision of years long past and our innocent happiness. you can say: 'i was cassandra.' in speaking of her, you will remember a former life. her mask of gold will be in your hands."
he seized both her hands; both were intent on the flashes generated by their blended forces; the same electric spark ran through their nerves.
"you are there, near the spoil of the slave-princess, and you feel the mask. what shall you say?"
in the pause that followed, both seemed to be waiting for a flash. the actress's eyes again became fixed and blind, her face became like marble. the inspirer let go her hands, and they made the gesture of feeling the sepulchral golden mask. in a voice that created the tangible form, she said:
"how large her mouth is!"
"you see her, then?"
"yes, i too can see her. the mouth is large; the terrible effort of prophecy dilated it; she cried aloud, cursed, and lamented without ceasing. can you imagine her mouth in silence?"
still in the same attitude, as if in ecstasy, she said slowly:
"what profundity in her wonderful silence!"
she seemed to be repeating words suggested to her by mysterious genii, and, while the poet listened to her, he fancied that he himself had been about to speak them. a profound tremor shook him, as if he were witnessing a miracle.
"and her eyes?" he demanded, agitated. "of what color were her eyes?"
she made no reply.
the marble lines of her face changed slightly, as if under a wave of suffering. a furrow appeared between her eyes.
"her eyes," continued the revealer, "were as sweet and sad as two violets."
she paused again, panting, as one who suffers in a dream. her lips were dry, her temples moist.
"thus they were before they closed forever!"
sometimes stelio came to his friend's house breathless and excited, as if pursued by an erinni. la foscarina never questioned him, but her personality soothed that restless spirit.
"sometimes i am afraid of the vastness of my conceptions," he said. "i am afraid of being suffocated by them. you believe me to be a little mad, do you not? do you remember that stormy evening when i returned from the lido? how sweet you were that evening! a short time before that, standing on the bridge of the rialto, i found a motive. i had translated the words of the elements into notes. do you know what a motive is? it is a small spring, from which may be born many other springs, a tiny seed that may give birth to a crown of forests; a little spark that may kindle an endless chain of conflagration—a nucleus that produces infinite force. a few days ago i began to develop the motive of that stormy evening, which i shall call the pipes of ?olus. listen to it."
he went to the piano, and struck a few notes with one hand.
"it contains no more than that, but you cannot imagine the generating force of those few notes. a tempest, a whirlwind of music has been born of them, but i have not yet been able to master it. i am almost vanquished, suffocated, constrained to fly."
he laughed a little; but his soul was swaying like the sea.
"the pipes of prince ?olus, opened by the companions of ulysses. do you remember it? the imprisoned winds arise and push back their vessel, and the men tremble with terror."
his spirit could not rest long, and nothing could divert him from his mental work. he kissed his friend's hand, paced to and fro, stopping before the piano that donatella had played when she sang claudio's melody. he wandered to the window, and gazed upon the leafless garden. his aspiration reached out toward the musical creature, toward her that must chant his hymns at the summit of his tragic symphonies.
in a low, clear voice the woman said:
"if donatella were here with us!"
he turned, approached her, and gazed at her fixedly, silently. she smiled her slight, mask-like smile at seeing him so near her, yet so far removed. she felt that he loved no one at that moment—not herself, not donatella, but that he regarded both simply as instruments of his art, forces to employ, bows to bend. he was on fire with poetry, and she, with her poor wounded heart, her secret torture, her mute plea—she was there, intent on nothing but her sacrifice, ready to pass beyond love and life, as the heroine of the future drama. meanwhile, each day must make its mark on her face, discolor her lips, fade her hair; each day, in the service of old age, would hasten the work of destruction in her miserable flesh. and then?
she recognized that it was love, after all, unquenchable passion, that created all the illusions and all the hopes which seemed to aid her in accomplishing "what love alone cannot do."
she realized that the torturing restraint of those days had not succeeded in creating in her even a symptom of the new feeling whereby love was to be made sublime. her secret task, therefore, meant simply continual dissimulation. was it worth while to live for this?
if once the young man's madness and ardor had caused her to suffer, she now suffered far more in seeing that that ardor had grown calm, and that a sort of reserve had taken its place—a reserve that sometimes repelled the gentlest caress. she felt shame at her regret, knowing that he was possessed by his great idea, and was concentrating all his energies upon it. but a dark rancor often mastered her in the evening, after he had departed, and blind suspicions nightly tortured her sleepless soul.
—to go away!—the necessity to do this came suddenly, urgently. she had said to her beloved once, on a memorable day: "there is only one thing i can do—go away, and leave you free with your fate. this thing i can do, which love alone could not do." henceforth, delay was no longer possible; she must break off with all hesitation, and emerge finally from that kind of fatal suspension of movement, in which she had lived so long in agitation.
since that october dawn, their outward life had been unchanged. nevertheless, she felt that it was impossible for her to continue to live in that way any longer. she felt a consciousness of something fully accomplished, as in the tree that has yielded all its fruit, as in the river that has reached the sea.
her courage revived; her soul grew stronger, her energies awoke once more, and the virile qualities of the leader again came to life. in a few days she had arranged her professional route, reassembled her dramatic company, and fixed the date of departure.—you must go and work over there among the barbarians across the ocean. you must wander still from town to town, from hotel to hotel, from theater to theater, and every night you will draw howls from the crowd that pays you. you will gain much money; you will return laden with gold and with wisdom, unless it happens that you are crushed by a wheel some misty day on a crowded street. who knows? from whom have you received the order to depart? from some one within yourself—deep, deep within you—who sees that which you cannot see, like the blind woman in the tragedy. who knows whether over there, on one of those wide, peaceful rivers, your soul will not find its harmony and your lips will not learn that smile they have attempted so many times in vain! perhaps you will discover a few white hairs and that smile in your mirror at the same time!—
and she went on preparing for her journey.
