The Desire of Life

CHAPTER I

"How light it is still!" said Don Vittorio Lante, after a long silence.

"Evening falls much later among the high mountains," suggested Lucio Sabini.

The great vault of the sky was ascending, as they were ascending, from the level of the Val Bregaglia; it passed over their heads and kept rising, as their eyes contemplated it quietly, amongst the steep mountain peaks, now quite green with trees and bushes, now bare and rugged; rising so immensely towards the horizon, as if they should not perceive its descending curve. It was the sky of an uncertain summer day that during the afternoon had been softly blue, veiled by transparent clouds, but now had become a very light grey, of great purity and clearness.

"It is eight o'clock," exclaimed Don Vittorio Lante, pursuing his quiet thoughts.

"Eight o'clock," affirmed Lucio Sabini slowly.

The bells of their horses tinkled faintly in their tranquil ascent; the torrent on their right, at times violent and covered with the foam whitening on its rocks, at times clear and narrow like a brook amidst green meadows, rumbled noisily and softly as it descended from the white and cold summits whither they were ascending, on its way to the warm and monotonous plains whence they had come.


"We shall not arrive before half-past eleven," said Vittorio Lante, in a low voice.

"Not before," affirmed Lucio Sabini, in the same tone. Both were smoking cigarettes: fine smoke shadows, not clouds, scarcely floated round their faces, as their carriage continued to ascend, to the calm and regular paces of the horses, along the accustomed road, the long road that climbs, amidst a continual renewing of small and large valleys, of narrow gorges, and vast stretches, between the two mountain sides on right and left. At Chiavenna they found that the diligence had left, owing to a change in the time-table from the previous year, and for five hours a hired carriage had been conveying them towards the austere Grissons, whose outposts were not yet distinguishable.

"What does it matter?" said Vittorio Lante, still continuing his thought aloud. "It is better to arrive late at St. Moritz than lose a night at Chiavenna."

"Or at Vicosoprano," concluded Lucio Sabini, throwing away the end of his cigarette.

Both gentlemen settled themselves better in their places, and drew the large English travelling-rug over their limbs, with the quiet gestures of those who are used to long journeys. Just an hour ago they had halted at Vicosoprano to rest their horses, since they could not obtain a change: they arrived at six and left at seven. After giving a glance at the new, white, and melancholy Hôtel Helvetia, where, in a small meadow in front of the hotel, and around its peristyle, male and female figures moved about aimlessly, dressed indifferently, with the insignificant and bored faces of those who are used to sojourning at solitary pensions on seven francs a day, and while the annoying bell of the round table of the "Helvetia" was dinning in their ears, they descended at the old rustic inn, "The Crown." Round the arch of the low and broad Swiss doorway ran a motto


 in Gothic characters, and the small central balcony had four or five little bright geranium plants and purple gentians: a resounding and black wooden staircase led to the first floor. The innkeeper's blond and florid daughter, with heightened colour, had served them rapidly and silently with a simple and characteristic dinner: to wit, a thick and steaming vegetable soup, trout in butter, roast fowl, and lastly, English sponge cake, with acid and fresh gooseberry jam. At the door, as they were getting into their carriage to set out again, a very blond Swiss maiden offered them little bunches of cyclamen, which they still wore, although they were already slightly faded.

"Are you going to stop long up there, Vittorio?" asked Lucio Sabini, in a discreet tone.

"Three or four weeks, no longer; and you, Lucio?"

"I don't know; the same I think; I don't know exactly." And a slight smile, mingled with doubt, annoyance, and bitterness, appeared and disappeared about his lips. Even the face of his travelling companion became thoughtful.

Don Vittorio Lante was fair with thick and shining chestnut hair, chestnut eyes, now soft and now proud, but always expressive, and fair, curled moustaches. His features were fine and he seemed much younger than his thirty years; the complexion was delicate but vivacious. On the other hand, Lucio Sabini at thirty-five was distinctly dark, with black eyes, calm and thoughtful, pale complexion, very black hair and moustaches, while he was tall and thin of figure. Vittorio Lante was of medium height, but well made and agile. Both were wrapped in thought, and they no longer smoked. Some time passed; suddenly something far on high gleamed whitely amidst the increasing shadows.

"It is the glacier," said Lucio Sabini; "the Forno Glacier." And as if that whiteness, already expanding


 in the night at the edge of the Val Bregaglia, had sent them an icy blast, they wrapped the rug closer round them, and hid their gloved hands under its covering.

"Do you expect to amuse yourself in the Engadine, Lucio?" asked Vittorio.

"Of course, I am sure to amuse myself very much, as I do every year."

"Leading a fashionable life?"

"No, making love."

"Have you come to the Engadine to love and to be loved, Lucio?"

"Oh, no," exclaimed the other, with a gentle movement of impatience and an ironical little smile. "I never said that: I said that I go to St. Moritz, as I do every year, to make love."

"That is to say—to flirt."

"Exactly: you say the English word, I the Italian."

Suddenly the whiteness that crowned Monte Forno seemed as if it had been extended to the sky, rendering it more vast; it was a great white cloud, soft and clear, since it preceded the moon. All the country changed its aspect. Before them stood out the great, green wall of trees, with almost the appearance of a peak, which separates the Engadine from the Val Bregaglia. Beneath the appearing and disappearing lunar brightness, behind the white cloud, a sinuous spiral disclosed itself amidst the wood like a soft ribbon that came and went, but ever climbed—the road which leads to the hill of the Maloja. Meanwhile, the carriage, reducing its pace, entered the first bend of the winding way; the clouds continued to increase, and there was a continuous alternating of light and shade, according as they conquered the moon or were conquered by her.

"You like flirting, Lucio?"


"Very much," replied the other, with an intense smile; "and this is an ideal country for love-making, Vittorio."

"I know it is. And do you sometimes grow fond of each other?"

"Sometimes I grow fond of them."

"And, perhaps, sometimes you fall in love?"

"One is always a little in love with the person to whom one makes love," said Lucio Sabini, in a low voice.

"But do you fall in love?" insisted Vittorio.

"Yes, I fall in love, too," Lucio confessed.

"And then? What do you do to cure yourself?" asked Vittorio Lante, with affectionate curiosity; "because you do cure yourself, don't you?"

"I keep on curing myself," replied the other sadly, regarding the clouds that were heaping above, as they became less white, obscuring and hiding all the light of the moon. "I cure myself of myself. And if I do not there is somebody who sees to curing me."

Suddenly it seemed as if a boundless sadness was emanating from what Lucio Sabini was saying and thinking, from what he was not saying and thinking. His head was slightly bowed, and his lowered lashes hid his glance.

"Then you are allowed to come to St. Moritz?" Vittorio asked in a low voice, as if he were afraid of being indiscreet.

"I am allowed to come," Lucio replied rather bitterly. "We can't travel together in summer; some family convenances must be obeyed, certain canons have to be observed—there are so many things, Vittorio! Well, I have two months of liberty, two beautiful months you understand, two long months; sixty times twenty-four hours in which I am free, in which I delude myself and believe I am free—I am free!"


At first his words came sadly, then with increasing violence, while the last words sounded like a cry of revolt from a heart oppressed by its slavery.

"Still, she loves you," said Vittorio sweetly, in a subdued tone.

"Yes, she loves me," admitted Lucio quietly.

"For some time, I think."

"For an eternity, for ten years."

Lucio Sabini in the gloaming looked fixedly at his companion; then without bitterness, without joy, he added in an expressionless voice:

"I love her."

Very slowly, to the soft and gentle tinkling of the horses' bells, the carriage traversed the tortuous road, through the wood and past some majestic walls, and, like a vision, the small castle of Renesse appeared on high, now to the right and now to the left. The air continued to grow colder. The coachman on the box seemed to be asleep or dreaming, as he drove his horses, with bent shoulders and bowed head; even the two horses seemed to be asleep or dreaming of the ascent to the Maloja, as they tinkled their bells. And in a dream firmament the clouds galloped bizarrely, as they were scattered by the wind, which up above must be blowing strongly.

"There is nothing more delightful or pleasing than to make love to these foreigners," resumed Lucio, in a light tone, but with a slight shade of emotion; "there are some adorable little women, and girls especially. Some of them are very fashionable and complex, others are simple and frank; but some are very inquisitive and quite distrustful of all Italians."

"How's that?" asked Vittorio Lante, not without anxiety.

"We Italians have a very bad reputation," Lucio replied calmly, as he lit a cigarette. "They obstinately


 believe us to be liars and inconstant in love affairs. Actors is the defensive word of these foreign women. But all the same they allow themselves to be attracted equally by our charm—because the men of their races do not trouble themselves to be charming—and by our ardour, assumed or real—because they never see their men ardent—and also by a certain invincible poetry that surrounds our country and ourselves."

"So an Italian can please and conquer mightily up there?"

"Very much so," replied Lucio serenely.

"And conquer seriously?" again added Vittorio.

"Seriously, no," answered Lucio. "We must not deceive ourselves; our attractions are for the most part of brief duration. When August is over at St. Moritz, to pass the first long week of September together at Lucerne, afterwards a few days in Paris—that suffices!"

"They forget?"

"They forget; our fascination comes from our presence. At a distance the lover dwindles: their English and Austrians, their Americans and Russians take them back—and all is over. A post card or two with a poetical motto; then nothing more."

"But if they don't forget?"

"That is seldom," murmured Lucio thoughtfully; "but it does happen. A Viennese, fair, slim, and most sympathetic ... two years ago ... she still remembers me."

"She hoped? She hopes?"

"She hoped; she hopes," replied Lucio thoughtfully.

"She didn't know...?"

"She knew nothing: the dear creatures never know anything: I try to make them know nothing."

"They think you free?"

"Most free."


"You deceive them?"

"I do not deceive them; I am silent"—and he smiled slowly.

"And what if one of them, more passionate, were to fall in love with you, and you seriously with her, Lucio?"

"That would be very serious indeed," murmured Lucio sadly.

"In fact, you are bound for ever, Lucio?" asked Vittorio, with melancholy.

"Yes; for ever," he affirmed, with that inexpressive voice of his, as if declaring an irrefutable fact.

A great gust of icy wind caught them, causing them to shudder and tremble with the cold. The great wall was passed, still a few minutes more and they would find themselves at the hill of the Maloja. The sky was quite white with little white clouds on one side, because the moon was passing behind them, while about the Margna—the great mountain with twin peaks nearly always covered with snow—the clouds had become black and threatening with rain and storm.

"Vittorio, Vittorio," exclaimed Lucio Sabini, in an altered voice; "adultery is a land of madness, of slavery and death. Don't give your youth and life to it as I have given mine, even to my last day. Beatrice and I have been intoxicated with happiness, but we are two unfortunates. I was twenty-five then, Vittorio, and she was three years older; but we never thought that we should throw away our every good, that is the one, the great, the only good—liberty! We are lost, Beatrice and I, in every way, both in our social life and in our consciences, not through remorse for our sin—no, for that was dear to us—but because of the ashes and poison it contains."

"Haven't you tried to free yourselves?" asked Vittorio timidly.


"I tried, but I was unsuccessful. Beatrice is older than I am," said Lucio gloomily, "and the idea of being left horrifies her."

"But she loves you, doesn't she? How can she see you unhappy?"

"Because she loved me, even she tried, the poor dear, to free me," Lucio Sabini resumed, with a voice almost oppressed with tears; "last year she wanted me to marry Bertha Meyer, the beautiful Viennese—an exquisite creature—but then she never succeeded. Poor, dear Beatrice! She suffered a thousand deaths. We suffered together. I love her tenderly, you understand; and, above all, I cannot see her suffer."

A sad and heavy silence fell upon the twain. Their teeth almost chattered from the severe cold which had surprised them, at that advanced hour of the evening on the high plain of the Maloja.

"Still," continued Lucio Sabini, "every now and then I feel my body, senses, and spirit weakened in this terrible slavery. Then, during these horrible crises, here and there I meet with other women, another woman—Bertha Meyer, who was so exquisite, or someone else—young, beautiful, free, with heart intact and fresh soul. In her come from afar, from countries which I know not, from a race that is foreign to me, I feel mysteriously the secret of my peace and repose, of the life that remains for me to live. Ah! what deep, what pungent nostalgia wounds me, Vittorio, through this fresh soul which has come to me from afar with all the gifts of existence in her white hands. I must let the white hands open, which I sadly repel, and allow the precious treasures they contain to fall—and all is lost."

"You make the renunciation?" asked Vittorio sadly.

"I make the renunciation," replied Lucio simply.

The immense and gloomy amphitheatre of the Maloja disclosed itself, stretched and prolonged itself in almost


 incalculable distances before their eyes, through the singular light that came from the immense sky, traversed by thick clouds, now white, now grey, now black, through the whiteness that came from the snows gathered amidst the twin peaks of the colossal Margna, and through the snows of Monte Lunghino. The mountains hemmed in the amphitheatre in an embrace bristling with peaks, bare, sharp, and black, without the shade of trees or vegetation; and on the rocks were tracks, yellowish and whitish tracks, not of paths but of rocky veins. All was rock from foot to summit; rocks with angry, desperate, tragic profiles. Here and there on the level, browner shadows in the obscurity of the night, appeared three or four uninhabited châlets, without sound and without light; but below, where the amphitheatre seemed to continue interminably, flickering lights in a row indicated a house, or rather a large edifice, where living beings were.

The deep and most extraordinary silence of the high land was uninterrupted by human sound or voice, only the violent gusts of wind produced a giant sigh and a dull rumbling. Suddenly the moon freed herself from the clouds and a spreading brightness was diffused on all the scene, rendering it less tragic, but not less sad. Even the wind and bare mountains, wrapped in cold and silvery light, preserved their disdainful and hopeless aspect, the aspect of rocks that have seen the ages without ever a blade of grass or a flower. Yet whiter seemed the snows of the Margna and the Lunghino; and below, behind the glimmering light of the moon, scintillated like a great metal shield the lake of Sils. Now and then the night wind screeched in fury.

"Shall we close the carriage?" Vittorio Lante asked. "Are you cold?"

"I am cold; but unless you insist on it, I prefer not to close it. In a closed carriage time becomes eternal."


"Eternal; that's true! This is a long night."

"And the country is so desolate!" said Lucio Sabini. "But it doesn't matter; you will have delightful evenings where you are going."

"And you will as well," murmured Vittorio Lante, with a smile.

"Are you going to flirt too?"

"If there is nothing better to do," replied the other ambiguously.

"Better to do?"

"Yes."

Now they had passed the Maloja Kursaal, that hotel of four hundred rooms, so isolated amidst the black and bare mountains, on a desert spot before a deserted and motionless lake. Some of the windows of the caravanserai were illuminated, but no sound reached from them. They skirted the lake, where all the high shadows and the brightness of the sky were curiously reflected, as their tints changed from moment to moment.

"Do you want to get married, then?" asked Lucio Sabini, scrutinising his friend's face, but with a kindly glance.

"I don't want to; I must," replied Vittorio Lante, halting nervously at the second verb.

"You must?"

"Ay," affirmed the other, shaking his shoulders and head, with the double gesture of one who is resigned to his destiny.

"And why rid yourself of that most precious benefit—liberty?" murmured Lucio Sabini, seriously but benevolently.

"Because, dear Lucio," he replied, with a motion of familiarity and confidence, "I can do nothing with my liberty. What use would it be to me?"

The other listened very intently, chewing his cigarette.

"Ah, what a weight—a great past, a great name!"


 exclaimed Vittorio, as if he were speaking to himself, looking at the quiet, brown waters of the lake of Sils. "I am a Lante, but of the branch of La Scala; for three generations now the Lante della Scala have been ever declining as to fortune, power, and relationship, while the cousins, the Lante della Rovere, have not only kept, but have increased their fortunes, always allying themselves for the better with the most powerful, noblest, and richest families of Europe. My father was already poor when he had me, and I am thirty and very poor. I am not ashamed to tell you about it, who have known me for such a time and wish me well, and certainly sympathise with me."

A frank and almost ingenuous sorrow emanated from every word of the young man, and nothing base escaped from such a distressing acknowledgment as his own poverty.

"You would like to make a grand marriage?" asked Lucio Sabini, quite without irony.

"My mother, who loves and adores me and suffers from our decadence, wishes it. She desires, dreams of, and invokes millions and millions for her Vittorio, for the house of Lante della Scala, to restore the great palace at Terni, so as not to sell the park where they want to found a factory."

"St. Moritz is not lacking in youths who are on the look-out for a large dowry," said Lucio, thoughtfully and doubtfully.

"I know that," exclaimed Vittorio mournfully. "I know quite well that St. Moritz is a meeting-place of big and little dowry-hunters, from him who seeks two hundred thousand francs to him who seeks ten million. And I know that people recognise them and that very often they are adventurers. Nothing makes me shudder more, Lucio, than to be mistaken for them. I am not an adventurer. I am an unfortunate gentleman, whose lot it is to bear a great name without the means to sustain


 it and who has not been taught how to work. I am a loving son, upon whom an adorable mother has imposed the duty of setting forth to try a conjugal adventure up there or somewhere, in homage to the lustre and claims of the Lante della Scala."

"If you dislike it so much, why attempt it? Why don't you convince your mother how much there is that is deplorable, and perhaps humiliating, in these adventures?"

"Because I would have to convince myself first," confessed Vittorio Lante sadly. "I, too, suffer from poverty; I, too, endure our slow agony; I, too, envy and almost hate my proud cousins—the others; I, too, keenly desire luxury and power. How is it to be helped? We have inherited souls, we have inherited nerves and feelings! Every now and then, through a feeling of personal dignity, I rebel against this dowry-hunting which I have been doing for two or three years; but directly afterwards obscurity and want inspire me with genuine horror. What a greedy man I must seem to you, Lucio! Still, I am a chivalrous man: I am a gentleman."

"I know others like you honourable and gentle and good, like you constrained by their destiny," observed Lucio Sabini, with tender sympathy.

Silently grateful, Vittorio Lante pressed his hand. As they proceeded the scene changed, and the views became more attractive. The big clouds had grown denser above their shoulders, towards the hill of the Maloja, which they had left some time, and the Val Bregaglia.

Denser they grew and gloomier, laden with the whirlwind of approaching night. The moon on high hung over the gentle bends of the lake of Sils.

Along the lake, full of deep nocturnal greens, which a band of light cut in the middle, ran banks quite green with large and small pines, and even on the travellers'


 left, along the high mountain wall they were skirting, little meadows appeared and disappeared. Amidst the rocks, trees and shrubs reared themselves, and often the carriage-wheels beat down flowers from fragrant hedges.

"Ah, if I had another name and another soul," said Vittorio Lante, after a brief silence.

"What would you do?"

"I would be content with what I have. My mother and I between us have fifteen hundred lire a month: this will be left us after we have sold everything and paid our creditors. Fifteen hundred lire! With another name and another soul one could, to all appearance, live comfortably on this sum; and I could marry Livia Lante della Scala."

"A relation?"

"A cousin—so graceful, so sweet, and such a dear."

"Poor?"

"Even poorer than I am: not a penny—a great name, a great past, and not a pennyworth of dowry!"

"Does she love you?"

"She loves me quietly, in silence, without any hope. Ah, what a dear creature!"

He sighed deeply as he gazed below at the white, modest houses of Sils Maria amidst tall trees.

"Do you love her, Vittorio?"

"I am very fond of Livia, nothing more."

"Would you be happy with her?"

"Yes, if I were another man."

For a long stretch of road they said nothing more. By one of those very rapid changes, that in the high mountains astonish by their violence or their intense sweetness, the night sky had become as clear as crystal: the air had become so limpid that great distances could be clearly distinguished by the moon's rays. A rustling, cold, refreshing breeze came from afar, ruffling the waters of the lake;


 but behind them, very far-away, there was a mass of black clouds which they did not turn round to look at. On that summer night the noble, solitary mountains pencilled themselves in great precise lines, whose virgin snows threw a whiteness upon the lakes and the large woods and spinneys which skirted their waters, forming beneath the light of the moon many peninsulas and little promontories, and upon the immense meadows, where amidst the soft green grass coursed brooks and little torrents with gentle singing; also upon the villages seized by slumber, with little barred windows upon whose sills tiny rose plants, geraniums, and gentians slept in floral slumber.

On high, amidst the dark green of the last spinney, the bright turrets of the Villa Storey pointed to the accomplishment of their journey. The two gentlemen, who had almost reached the end of their long drive, tired and bruised of limb, exalted by their deep, mutual striving, and by having confessed, almost unconsciously, how great was the pitiable and fatal essence of their lot, and exalted by a singular increase of their life, by the solemnity of the solitary night, the immense, austere, yet persuasive silence that surrounded them, by that pacifying light, and by the presence of a beauty—the simplicity and purity of which they perceived, almost without thinking about it—desired, yes, desired a new heart, a new soul, and another destiny. They desired that nothing of what had happened to them should happen again, that all the past should vanish, that everything should change—persons, sentiments, deeds. For an instant strongly did they desire this—for an instant!

The rocky banks of the Inn were in front of them, and their carriage bumped up and down on the small wooden bridge that spans the noisy little river at the entrance of St. Moritz Bad. Around them were little white houses;


 on the banks amidst the trees the church spires dominating the heights, and the imposing hotels upon which fluttered to the cold mountain breeze the red flag with white cross. Up above on a small hill was the village of St. Moritz Dorf, all white beneath the moon.

Every pure, fine, pious desire vanished in a trice. They remembered them no more and became the men of old, of always. Their nerves and senses were anxiously stretched out to pleasure, to luxury, to caprice; and they were bitten by a pungent curiosity for new joys, new loves, new fantasies—to last an hour, a day, a month, then afterwards suddenly to be forgotten.