Pleasure (16 page)

The thick, grubby white wool of the massed-together sheep moved forward with a constant surging fluctuation, similar to muddy water flooding a pavement. A few tremulous bleats mingled with the tinkling; other bleats, shriller, shyer, answered them; the herdsmen gave a shout every now and then and stretched out their staffs, riding behind and alongside the flock; the moon lent that passing of the flock, in the midst of the great sleeping city, a certain mystery almost as of something seen in a dream.

Andrea remembered that in a calm February night, emerging from a ball held by the English ambassador in Via Venti Settembre, he and Elena had encountered a flock; and the carriage had had to stop. Elena, leaning toward the windowpane, had watched the sheep passing by very close to the wheels, and had pointed out the smallest lambs, with a childlike gaiety; and he had held his face next to hers, half closing his eyes, listening to the shuffling, the bleats, the tinkling.

Why ever were all those memories of Elena returning to mind now? He continued climbing, slowly. He felt his tiredness become heavier as he climbed; his knees were buckling. Suddenly the thought of death flashed into his mind.
What if I am killed tomorrow? What if I am badly wounded and am left with some impediment for the rest of my life?
His eagerness for living and taking pleasure rose up against that dismal thought. He said to himself:
I must win.
And he saw all the advantages he would derive from this other victory: the prestige of his luck, the fame of his gallantry, the kisses of Donna Ippolita, new loves, new enjoyments, new caprices.

Then, controlling all his agitation, he began to attend to the hygienics of his strength. He slept until he was awakened by the arrival of his two friends; he took his customary shower; he had the oilcloth strip laid down on the floor; and he invited Santa Margherita to perform some “disengagements” with him; and then Barbarisi to a short free-fencing bout, during which he carried out with precision many timed actions.

—Excellent hand position, said the baron, congratulating him.

After the fencing, Sperelli had two cups of tea and some light biscuits. He selected a pair of wide trousers, a pair of comfortable shoes with a very low heel, a lightly starched shirt; he prepared the gauntlet, wetting it slightly on the palm and spreading some powdered Greek pitch on it; he placed with it a leather cord to tie the hilt to his wrist; he examined the blade and the point of the two swords; he did not forget any precaution, any small detail.

When he was ready, he said:

—Let's go. It's best if we get to the ground before the others. The doctor?

—He's waiting there.

Going down the stairs he met the Duke of Grimiti, who was coming also on behalf of the Marchioness of Ateleta.

—I'll follow you to the villa, and then I will take the news immediately to Francesca, said the duke.

They all went down together. The duke got into his carriage, waving. The others climbed into the covered coach. Andrea did not flaunt a good mood, because he deemed witticisms before a serious duel to be in extremely bad taste; but he was very calm. He smoked, listening to Santa Margherita and Barbarisi discuss, with regard to a recent case that had occurred in France, whether it was or was not permissible to use one's left hand against an adversary. Every now and then he leaned toward the window to look out onto the road.

Rome shone in the May morning, embraced by the sun. Along the way, a fountain illuminated with its silvery chuckle a small square that was still in shadow; the door of a building displayed a view through to a courtyard decorated with porticoes and statues; from the baroque lintel of a travertine church dangled the hangings that denoted the month of Mary. From the bridge the Tiber could be seen, shining, receding among the greenish houses toward the island of San Bartolomeo. After an uphill stretch, the city appeared, immense, august, radiant, bristling with bell towers, columns, and obelisks, crowned with cupolas and rotundas, clearly carved like an acropolis in the blue heights.

—
Ave, Roma, Moriturus te salutat
,
¹⁸
said Andrea Sperelli, throwing the remains of his cigarette toward the city.

Then he added:

—In truth, dear friends, to be hit by a sword today would annoy me.

They were at Villa Sciarra, half of it already blemished by the builders of new houses; and they passed along an avenue of tall slender bay trees, espaliered on each side by roses. Santa Margherita, leaning out of the window, saw another carriage stationary on the square in front of the villa; and said:

—They are waiting for us already.

He looked at his watch. There were still ten minutes to go until the scheduled time. He ordered the carriage to stop; and together with the witness and the surgeon headed toward the adversaries. Andrea remained in the avenue, waiting. Mentally, he began to carry out certain offense and defense actions, which he intended to carry out with probable success; but he was distracted by the vague marvels of light and shadow cast by the intricate web of the bay trees. His eyes roamed behind the appearance of the branches moved by the morning wind, while his mind meditated upon injury; and the trees, as kind as in the loving allegories of Francesco Petrarch, sighed above his head, in which the thought of the good hit reigned.

Barbarisi came up to him to call him, saying:

—We are ready. The custodian has opened the villa. We have the ground floor at our disposal; it's very convenient. Come and get undressed.

Andrea followed him. While he undressed, the two doctors opened their pouches in which the small steel instruments glinted. One was still young, pale, bald, with feminine hands, his mouth somewhat severe, with a constant visible friction of his bottom jaw, which was extraordinarily developed. The other was already mature, robust, covered with freckles, with a thick ruddy beard and a bull neck. One appeared to be the physical contradiction of the other; and their diversity attracted Sperelli's inquisitive attention. They were preparing on a table the bandages and the carbolic acid for disinfecting the blades. The odor of the acid spread throughout the room.

When Sperelli was ready, he went out with his witness and the doctors onto the square. Once more, the spectacle of Rome through the palm trees drew his gaze and made his heart pound strongly. Impatience invaded him. He would have liked already to be on guard and to hear the command to attack. It seemed to him that he already had the decisive hit, victory, in his grasp.

—Ready? Santa Margherita asked him, coming to meet him.

—Ready.

The chosen ground was alongside the villa, in the shade, scattered with fine gravel and rollered. Giannetto Rùtolo was already at the other end with Roberto Casteldieri and Carlo de Souza. Each had assumed a grave air, almost solemn. The two adversaries were placed facing each other; and they observed each other. Santa Margherita, who was in charge of the duel, noted Giannetto Rùtolo's heavily starched shirt, too stiff, with his collar too high; and he pointed this out to Casteldieri, who was his second. The latter spoke to his principal; and Sperelli saw his enemy suddenly become inflamed in the face and with a resolute gesture take off his shirt. With cold tranquillity he followed this example; he rolled up his trousers; took the gauntlet, the cord, and the sword from Santa Margherita's hands; he armed himself with much care and then shook the sword to ensure that he had it firmly gripped. In that movement, his biceps emerged very visibly, revealing the extensive exercise of his arm and the strength he had acquired.

When the two held out their swords to take measure, Giannetto Rùtolo's wavered in his convulsed fist. After the warning regarding fair play, the Baron of Santa Margherita commanded in a ringing and virile voice:

—Gentlemen, on guard!

Both assumed the on-guard position at the same time, Rùtolo tapping his foot, Sperelli arching lightly. Rùtolo was of mediocre stature, very slender, full of nervous energy, with an olive-skinned face made haughty by his upturned mustaches and the small pointed beard on his chin, in the style of Charles I in the portraits by Van Dyck. Sperelli was taller, more willowy, more composed, of beautiful posture, steady and calm with a balance of grace and strength, containing in his entire figure the disdain of a great gentleman. Each stared the other in the eye; and each felt inside himself an indefinable shiver at the sight of the other's naked flesh against which his sharp blade was pointed. In the silence, the cool babbling of the fountain could be heard, mingled with the rustle of the wind through the climbing roses where innumerable white and yellow roses quivered.

—Gentlemen, fence! the baron commanded.

Andrea Sperelli expected an impetuous attack by Rùtolo; but the latter did not move. For a minute both continued to study each other, without having any contact of the blades, almost immobile. Sperelli, crouching even farther down on his ankles in low guard, was exposing himself completely, by bringing his sword very much into third position; and he provoked his adversary with insolence in his eyes and by tapping his foot. Rùtolo advanced, feinting a direct thrust, accompanying it with a yell in the manner of certain Sicilian swordsmen; and the fencing began.

Sperelli was not building up any decisive action, limiting himself almost always to parries, forcing his adversary to disclose all his intentions, to exhaust all his means, to carry out all the varieties of his game. He was parrying cleanly and fast, without ceding ground, with an admirable precision, as if he were on the piste in a fencing academy facing an innocuous foil; while Rùtolo was attacking with ardor, accompanying every thrust with a dull cry, similar to that of tree fellers wielding their axe.

—Halt! commanded Santa Margherita, whose vigilant eyes did not miss any movement of the two blades.

And he approached Rùtolo, saying:

—You have been touched, if I am not mistaken.

In fact, he had a scratch on his forearm, but so light that there was no need even for taffeta.
¹⁹
He was panting, however; and his extreme pallor, as somber as a bruise, was a sign of his contained ire. Sperelli, smiling, said in a low voice to Barbarisi:

—I know my man now. I'll give him a carnation below the left breast. Watch out in the second assault.

Since without thinking he had rested the tip of his sword on the ground, the bald doctor, the one with the great jaw, came to him with the sponge soaked in carbolic acid and once again disinfected the sword.

—By God! murmured Andrea to Barbarisi. —He looks like a jinx to me. This blade is going to break.

A blackbird began to whistle in the trees. Among the rosebushes, a few roses were shedding petals and dispersing in the wind. Some clouds in midair were rising up to meet the sun, sparse, similar to the fleece of sheep; and broke up into tufts; and gradually vanished.

—On guard!

Giannetto Rùtolo, conscious of his inferiority vis-à-vis his enemy, resolved to work in close measure, recklessly, and thus to block every action taken by the other. He had for this purpose the short stature and the agile, slender, flexible body that offered very little target for hits.

—Fence!

Andrea Sperelli already knew that Rùtolo would advance in that way, with the usual feints. He stood on guard arched like a crossbow ready to let fly, intent on choosing his time.

—Halt, shouted Santa Margherita.

Rùtolo's chest was bleeding slightly. His adversary's sword had hit him below the right breast, injuring the tissues almost to the rib. The doctors ran to him. But the wounded man said immediately to Casteldieri, with a harsh voice in which a tremor of rage could be heard:

—It's nothing. I want to continue.

He refused to go back into the villa to be medicated. The bald doctor, after having squeezed the small hole, which was bleeding slightly, and after having cleansed it with antiseptic, applied a simple piece of plaster; and said:

—He can continue.

The baron, by invitation of Casteldieri, commanded the third assault without hesitating.

—On guard!

Andrea Sperelli perceived the danger. Before him his enemy, all hunched on his ankles, almost hidden behind the point of his sword, seemed determined to make a supreme effort. His eyes were glinting strangely and his left thigh, under the excessive tension of the muscles, was trembling badly. Andrea, this time, against this attack, was preparing to throw himself across in order to replicate Cassìbile's decisive hit, and the white disc of the plaster on the hostile chest served him as a target. He aimed to place the thrust there once again but to find the intercostal space, not the rib. All around, the silence appeared deeper; all the onlookers were conscious of the murderous will that drove those two men; and anxiety gripped them, and the thought that they would perhaps be taking home a dead or dying man bound them together. The sun, veiled by the little sheep, cast an almost milky light; the trees rustled now and again; the blackbird still whistled, invisible.

—Fence!

Rùtolo launched himself at close measure, with two circles of the sword and a thrust in second. Sperelli parried and riposted, taking a step backward. Rùtolo pursued him, furious, with rapid thrusts, almost all of them low, no longer accompanying them with yells. Sperelli, without becoming disconcerted at that fury, wishing to avoid contact, parried hard and riposted with such fierceness that each of his thrusts could have passed right through his enemy. Rùtolo's thigh, near the groin, was bleeding.

—Halt! thundered Santa Margherita when he noticed it. But at that exact moment Sperelli, executing a parry in low fourth and not meeting the adversary's blade, received a hit full in the chest; and fell in a faint into Barbarisi's arms.

—Thoracic wound, at the fourth right intercostal space, penetrating into the cavity, with superficial lesion of the lung, the bull-necked surgeon announced in the room, once he had completed his examination.