Pleasure (7 page)

—I shall come vulnerable, if you don't mind, cousin; rather, dressed as a victim. It's an outfit I wear as a seduction ploy, which I've been wearing for many evenings; in vain, alas!

—The sacrifice is at hand, cousin!

—The victim is ready!

The following evening he came to Palazzo Roccagiovine some minutes earlier than the customary hour, with a marvelous gardenia in his buttonhole and a vague disquiet at the base of his soul. His
coupé
had stopped in front of the main door, because the porte-cochère was already occupied by another carriage. The liveries, the horses, all the ceremony that accompanied the lady's descent had the stamp of a great noble family. The count glimpsed a tall and slim figure, a hairstyle shot through with many diamonds, a small foot placed on the step. Then, as he, too, was ascending the stairs, he saw the lady from behind.

She was going up before him, slowly, with a supple and measured pace. Her mantle lined with a snowy fur, like swansdown, no longer held up by its clasp, was lying loosely around her upper body, leaving her shoulders bare. Her shoulders emerged, pale as polished ivory, divided by a soft hollow with shoulder blades that, disappearing below the lace of her bodice, had a brief curve, like the sweet slope of wings; and from her shoulders rose her neck, agile and rounded; and from the nape of her neck her hair, gathered into a coil, folded over at the crown of her head to form a knot held in place by jeweled hairpins.

That harmonious ascension of the unknown woman gave such intense delight to Andrea's eyes that he stopped for an instant on the first landing to admire her. Her train rustled heavily on the stairs. Her manservant walked behind her, not in the wake of his lady on the red carpet, but to one side, along the wall, with an irreprehensible composure. The contrast between that magnificent creature and that rigid automaton was highly bizarre. Andrea smiled.

In the antechamber, while the manservant was taking her mantle, the woman cast a rapid glance toward the young man who was entering. He heard being announced:

—Her Excellency the Duchess of Scerni!

Immediately afterward:

—The Lord Count Sperelli-Fieschi of Ugenta!

And it pleased him that his name was uttered alongside the name of that woman.

In the reception room, the Marquis and Marchioness of Ateleta, the Baron and Baroness of Isola, and Don Filippo del Monte were already present. A fire burned in the fireplace; some couches were arranged in the glow of its heat; four
musae
palms stretched their wide red-veined leaves over the low backrests.

The marchioness, coming forward to the two who by now were standing next to each other, said with her lovely, inextinguishable laugh:

—As chance would have it, there's no need to introduce the two of you. Cousin Sperelli, bow to the divine Elena.

Andrea bowed deeply. The duchess gracefully offered him her hand, looking him in the eyes.

—I am very glad to meet you, Count. A friend of yours spoke to me so much about you at Lucerne last summer: Giulio Musèllaro. I was, I confess, a bit curious . . . Musèllaro also lent me your exceedingly rare
Fable of Hermaphrodite
to read, and gave me as a gift your etching of
Sleep,
a proof mark, a treasure. You have in me a cordial admirer. Remember that.

She spoke, pausing now and again. Her voice was so caressing that it gave the impression almost of a carnal embrace; and she had that involuntary loving and voluptuous gaze that agitates all men and immediately provokes desire in them.

A manservant announced:

—Cavalier Sakumi!

And the eighth and final dinner guest appeared.

He was a secretary of the Japanese Legation, small in stature, yellowish, with protruding cheekbones, long and slanting eyes, veined with blood, over which his eyelids constantly blinked. His body was too broad compared with his too-thin legs; and he walked with his feet turned inward, as if a belt were wound tightly around his hips. The tails of his dress coat were too wide; his trousers had many creases; the tie he wore bore very visible signs of an inexpert hand. He looked like a
daimyo
⁶
hauled out of one of those suits of armor made of iron and lacquer that resemble the shells of monstrous crustaceans, then stuffed into the garments of a Western waiter. But even with his awkwardness he had a sharp expression, a kind of ironic refinedness at the corners of his mouth.

Halfway through the reception room, he bowed. His
gibus
⁷
fell out of his hand.

The Baroness of Isola, a small blonde, her forehead covered in curls, graceful and coquettish like a young ape, said in her piercing voice:

—Come here, Sakumi, here, next to me!

The Japanese cavalier went forward, smiling and bowing over and over again.

—Will we see Princess Issé this evening? Donna Francesca of Ateleta asked him. She liked to gather in her salons the most bizarre exemplars of the exotic colonies in Rome, for the sake of picturesque variety.

The Asiatic spoke a barbaric language, barely intelligible, of English, French, and Italian mixed together.

Everyone, all at once, began to talk. It was almost a chorus, in the midst of which now and then there could be heard, like gushes of silver spurts, the fresh peals of laughter of the marchioness.

—I have certainly seen you before; I don't remember where, I don't remember when, but I have certainly seen you, Andrea Sperelli said to the duchess, standing very straight in front of her. —While I was watching you walk up the stairs, in the depths of my memory an indistinct recollection was reawakening, something that took form following the rhythm of your ascent, like an image springing from a musical aria . . . I have not yet managed to see the memory clearly; but, when you turned around, I felt that your profile had an undoubted correspondence to that image. It could not be an augury; it was therefore a strange phenomenon of memory. I have most certainly seen you, before. Who knows! Maybe in a dream, maybe in a work of art, maybe in another world, in a previous existence . . .

Uttering these last phrases, overly sentimental and chimeric, he laughed openly as if to thwart an incredulous or ironic smile from the woman. Elena, instead, remained serious. Was she listening or thinking about something else? Did she accept that kind of talk or was she mocking him with that seriousness? Did she mean to indulge the act of seduction initiated by him with such care, or was she withdrawing into indifference or uncaring silence? Was she, in short, able to be conquered by him or not? Andrea, perplexed, examined this mystery. In those who have the habit of seduction, especially the bold, this perplexity provoked by women who remain silent is well known.

A manservant opened the great door that led into the dining hall.

The marchioness placed her arm in that of Don Filippo del Monte and entered the hall first. The others followed.

—Let's go, said Elena.

It seemed to Andrea that she was leaning on him with some abandon. Was it not an illusion brought about by his desire? Perhaps. He tended toward doubt; but, with every moment that passed, he felt a sweet spell conquer him ever more deeply; and with every moment he grew more anxious to penetrate the woman's soul.

—Cousin, over here, said Donna Francesca, assigning him his place.

At the oval table he was seated between the Baron of Isola and the Duchess of Scerni with Cavalier Sakumi facing him. The latter was seated between the Baroness of Isola and Don Filippo del Monte. The marquis and marchioness were at each head. Porcelain, silver, crystal, and flowers glittered on the table.

Very few women could compete with the Marchioness of Ateleta in the art of giving dinner parties. She put more care into preparing a table than into her clothing. The exquisiteness of her taste was apparent in every object; and she was, truly, the arbiter of convivial elegance. Her fantasy and refined taste could be seen reflected in all the dinner tables of Roman nobility. She had, that winter, introduced the fashion of chains of flowers suspended from one side of the table to another, threaded through the great candelabra; and also the fashion of the slender vase of Murano glass, pale and shifting like an opal, containing one single orchid, placed between the various glasses in front of each diner.

—Diabolical flower, said Donna Elena Muti, taking the glass vase and observing from close up the bloodred and deformed orchid.

Her voice was so rich in tonalities that even the most vulgar words and the most common phrases appeared to take on, uttered by her mouth, an occult meaning, a mysterious accent and a new grace. In the same manner, King Midas turned everything he touched to gold.

—A symbolic flower, in your hand, Andrea murmured, gazing at the lady, who in that pose was wondrous to behold.

She was wearing a fabric of an exceedingly pale sky blue scattered with silver dots that sparkled beneath antique white Burano lace, an indefinable white, tending slightly toward fawn, but so slightly that it could barely be perceived. The flower, almost unnatural, as if made by some evil spell, waved about on its stalk, protruding from the fragile tube that its creator had surely forged with one breath into a liquid jewel.

—But I prefer roses, Elena said, replacing the orchid with a gesture of revulsion that contrasted with her previous act of curiosity.

Then she threw herself into the general conversation. Donna Francesca was talking about the latest reception given at the Austrian Embassy.

—Did you see Madame de Cahen? Elena asked her. —She wore a dress of yellow
tulle
scattered with innumerable hummingbirds with ruby eyes. A magnificent dancing birdcage. And Lady Ouless, did you see her? She had on a dress of white tarlatan fabric, with seaweed strewn all over it and I don't know how many goldfish, and over the seaweed and the goldfish there was another layer of sea-green tarlatan. Did you not see her? She was the most impressive beautiful aquarium . . .

And she laughed after making these little cutting remarks, a cordial laugh that lent a tremor to the underside of her chin and her nostrils.

In the presence of this incomprehensible volubility, Andrea was still perplexed. Those frivolous or cutting comments issued forth from the same lips that had just then, uttering a simple phrase, agitated him to the very depths of his soul; they came from the same mouth that just then had seemed to him like the mouth of Leonardo's
Medusa,
a human flower with a soul made divine by the flame of passion and the anguish of death. What, therefore, was the true essence of that creature? Did she have any perception or consciousness of her constant metamorphosis or was she impenetrable even to herself, remaining on the outside of her own mystique? How much, in her expressions and manifestations, was artificial and how much was spontaneous? The need to know prickled him even amid the delight infused in him by the proximity of the woman he was beginning to love. The wretched habit of analysis continued to incite him still, still preventing him from forgetting; but every effort was punished, like Psyche's curiosity, by the distancing of love, by the eclipsing of every desired object, by the cessation of pleasure. Wasn't it better instead to surrender oneself innocently to the first ineffable sweetness of budding love? He saw Elena in the act of moistening her lips in wine as blond as liquid honey. He sought among the glasses before him the one in which the butler had poured the same wine, and drank with Elena. Both, at the same time, placed their glasses on the table. The commonality of the act made the one turn toward the other. And their look inflamed them both, much more than the sip of wine.

—You are not talking? Elena asked him, affecting lightness in her tone, which altered her voice slightly. —Rumor has it that you are an exquisite conversationalist. Bestir yourself, in that case!

—Oh, cousin, cousin! exclaimed Donna Francesca, with an air of commiseration, while Don Filippo del Monte murmured something in her ear.

Andrea started laughing.

—Cavalier Sakumi, we are the silent ones! Let us bestir ourselves!

The Asian's long eyes glittered with malice, even redder above the dark red flush that the wine was kindling on his cheekbones. Until that moment he had stared at the Duchess of Scerni with the ecstatic expression of a Buddhist priest in the presence of divinity. His wide face, which seemed to have come straight from the classic pages of the great comic illustrator Hokusai, glowed crimson like an August moon amid the chains of flowers.

—Sakumi—added Andrea in a low voice, leaning toward Elena—is in love.

—With whom?

—With you. Have you not noticed?

—No.

—Look at him.

Elena turned. And the loving contemplation of the
daimyo
in disguise prompted in Elena such an open laugh that he was hurt and visibly humiliated.

—Take this, she said to make up for it; and plucking a white camellia from the festoon, she threw it toward the envoy of the Rising Sun. —Find a simile in it, in my honor.

The Asian drew the camellia to his lips with a comic gesture of devotion.

—Ah, ah, Sakumi—said the small Baroness of Isola—you are being unfaithful to me!

He stammered a few words, becoming even more scarlet in the face. Everyone was laughing openly, as if that foreigner had been invited with the sole reason of providing them with a source of entertainment. And Andrea, laughing, turned toward Elena Muti.

Keeping her head lifted high and even tilted back slightly, she was glancing furtively at the young man from beneath her half-closed eyelids, with one of those indescribable female gazes that seem to absorb and almost drink in from the favored man everything in him that is most lovable, most desirable, most delectable, everything that has awoken in her that instinctive sexual exaltation from which passion is born. Her exceedingly long lashes veiled the iris slanted toward the corner of her eye; and the white floated as in a liquid, almost azure light; and an almost imperceptible tremor moved her lower eyelid. It seemed as if the range of her gaze were confined to Andrea's mouth, as if to the sweetest thing.