Last Tales. Isak Dinesen

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СКАЧАТЬ he received from princes and cardinals, of the pupils who flocked to his school and of his children. When he stopped, Pino’s gaze met his, and for some time they sat thus in silence. It seemed strange to Angelo to be sitting again with Pizzuti.

      “Yes, you see, Pino,” he at length said slowly. “All this—art, a lovely wife, beautiful children, renown, friends, wealth—all this will constitute a man’s happiness, my happy life. But you know that there be rivers which at one place in their course disappear into the ground and run beneath it for a couple of miles. Woods and rose gardens grow in this ground, but beneath them runs the river. In that same way a river is running beneath my happiness, and only to you can I speak of it. That river is the secret which Lucrezia bears and keeps from me. For I do not know what happened on the night when I was hostage for Leonidas Allori in prison.

      “She has never spoken of it. Many times I have waited for a word from her lips which would solve the riddle. On our wedding night I waited for it—and the river ran deep below our bridal bed. One day when we walked together along the seashore, and there was an offshore wind, and she gazed at me, I waited for it. But she has never spoken, her full sweet lips have always been sealed over the secret. While I was still young, I felt that I might have to kill her if she continued to keep silent.

      “But I have reflected,” he went on, “that I have no claims on her. For the entire being of a woman is a secret, which should be kept. And one more deep secret to her becomes part of it, one charm more, a hidden treasure. It is said that the tree under which a murderer buries his victim will die, but the apple tree under which a girl buries her murdered child does blossom more richly and does give more perfect fruit than others—the tree transforms the hidden crime into white and rosy, and into delicious flavor. I must not expect her to part with this secret either.”

      He gazed out over the valley.

      “And I have further thought,” he said, “that in the moment when at last I should be asking Lucrezia, ‘Tell me, for I suffer, what happened that night that Leonidas Allori came to you, in the house of the vintager, in the mountains? Did the master learn, then, that you and I had betrayed him?’ she would turn her face toward me, her clear eyes dark with sorrow, and answer me: ‘So you have known that your master went to the vintager’s house in the mountains, and you have never told me that you knew! For seven years, day and night, you have hidden your knowledge from me, and even my kisses have not been able to make you speak!’ Maybe, after that, she would leave me forever. Or again, maybe she would still stay with me for the sake of the children, and because my great fame gives her pleasure. But she would never again be my happy, smiling wife.

      “And I have come to understand that she would be in the right. For in the mind and nature of a man a secret is an ugly thing, like a hidden physical defect. And thus,” he finished, “the river runs beneath my life.”

      Pino remained silent for a while, glanced at his friend and then gazed at the mountains. “And how goes it?” he asked. “Can you sleep now?”

      “Sleep?” Angelo repeated, as before, as if from its sound he was repeating a word from another language, “Aye, do you remember when I could not sleep? Yes, thanks, now I can sleep.”

      Again there was a silence.

      “No,” Pino said suddenly, “you are mistaken, and things are not as you imagine. I happen to know. A person who—because of you—did have this matter at heart, might—for your sake—ask Lucrezia, ‘What happened the night your lover pledged his life for your husband? Did the great artist then get to know that you two, whom he had held dearest of all, and whose hearts and fates he had directed as by strings on his fingers, had betrayed him? Did the blow then break his great heart? Or did he stand up to it, even if staggering, trusting to the law of the golden section?’ She would then look up at the inquirer, her eyes so clear that he would be ashamed to doubt even for a moment the truth of her words, and answer him, ‘I am very sorry that I cannot tell you. But I do not remember. I have forgotten.’”

      “Do you mean to tell me,” Angelo asked in a low voice, “that you have asked her?”

      “I have seen your wife for the first time today,” answered Pino. “But you forget that I have once written marionette plays. I had then a lovely puppet, the jeune première of my theater, with rosy cheeks and white bosom, and with eyes of clear dark glass, who resembled Lucrezia.”

      When after a pause the old man again looked at Angelo, he noticed that he was smiling a little. “What are you thinking of, Angelo?” he asked.

      “I was thinking of those small instruments that we call words, and by which we have to manage in this life of ours. I was thinking of how, by interchanging two everyday words in an everyday sentence, we alter our world. For when you had spoken, I first thought, ‘Is that possible?’—then secondly, after a moment, ‘That is possible.’”

      They now for some time talked of other things, and to give Giuseppino pleasure, Angelo made him tell of his marionette theater. But from time to time the smile left the face of the old theater director, and he sank back into melancholy.

      “But listen now, Pino,” said his friend. “Today your heaven is seven years nearer to you than when we last met. There you will see again both your puppets and your milady. For I take it that you are still Demas, the thief on the cross who had Paradise promised him?”

      “Well, Angelo,” said Pizzuti, scratching his head with his two fingers, “there you bring up something to which I have been giving a good deal of thought. I certainly still do believe that I am that great sinner to whom hope was given. But how, now, did things really go with this thief on the cross?

      “‘This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,’ the Saviour said to him. But when on the evening of Good Friday Demas presented himself at the gate of Paradise, Christ was not there, and as you know, forty days passed before He came home in all His splendor. Very likely the young King of Heaven, in those days of great events, gave not much thought to an invitation. But I myself—better than most people—will know with what confusion and anxiety the poorly dressed guest did approach the gate.

      “And I have pondered,” Pino went on, “who will really have been present behind the gate at which Demas was staring, with the authority to let a thief into Paradise? The Rock of the Church, the great Fisherman Peter, at this dark hour crouched at the back of the high priest’s house, farther away from Paradise than ever before or after. Saint Mary Magdalene, whom Demas knew from Jerusalem, was sobbing into her long hair and had not yet made up her mind to go to the grave. Those friendly saints with whom we are now familiar—Francis, Anthony and sweet Catherine—came upon the heavenly stage only many centuries later. The gentle Blessed Virgin, had she by that time been Queen of Heaven, would have understood all that was going on in Demas’ heart, and so would have come to the gate herself, with her crown on and her retinue of angels—but even her strong heart could not hold or bear any more on that Friday night. Yet after a long time, I have imagined, the little children whom King Herod had had put to death in Bethlehem came running along to throng around the newcomer. No doubt they laughed at the sorry figure collapsed in a small heap over his sundered bones, perhaps they did even point their little fingers at him, as children will do at a ragged cripple. But in the end two of them ran in to fetch Saint Anne, Christ’s blessed grandmother. And as this worthy woman now appeared at the gate and spoke to him, Demas suddenly realized how everything is explained and made clear to the blessed in heaven, for even after the happenings of Good Friday, she was mild and bright as a lighted candle.

      “I have now imagined the following conversation to take place between the two of them.

      “‘Come in,’ the lady says, ‘come in, my good man, you are expected. But my grandson has been delayed, СКАЧАТЬ