Malafrena
Page 6
“I don’t know if people can ever really explain,” she said. “Not in words, anyway.” She saw he did not believe her. That was all right. She too had once believed that people could be entirely honest with one another; she did not consider herself better for having lost that faith. If she were to be entirely honest with her son right now she would beg him to stay home, not to go, for if he went he would never come home again; so she repeated, “Will you wear your blue coat? It’ll be cold on the coach in the morning.”
He nodded unhappily.
“I want to put up a lunch for you; Eva saved some roast beef,” she said, and at that, the reality of the roast beef, the coach wheels turning, the dust of the road that led away from home, the silence of the dining room where she and Guide and Laura would sit down tomorrow without him, all this threatened her all over again, and she left him hastily so that she could struggle with it alone.
He went on down to the boat house, having time to reset Falkone’s tiller, a job he had promised himself to do before he left. The long light was intense on the road and the green, hollow lawn above the boat house. Behind the Hunter now clouds banked heavy; there was a greenish cast to the air over the lake. When the steering was mended he set to waxing the seats and rail of the boat, wanting to be busy. It was hot and dim in the boat house, smelling of wax, soaked wood, water-weeds. The raw pine roof trembled with webbed, moving reflections of the sunlit water. Men were coming back from haying; he heard their voices on the road above. One went by after the others singing a song that rose and fell on a few notes in the minor.
Red are the berries on the autumn bough,
Sleep, my love, and sleep thee well,
The grey dove sings in the forest now,
Sleep till thou wilt waken.
He finished his job, went up the grassy slope and through the line of poplars to the road. The men from haying in the north field had all gone by, done in good time, for Guide was seldom caught racing a storm for his hay; no one was on the road but old Bron and David Angele returning from the vineyards, and with them Marta, Astolfe’s wife. The men wore somber, shapeless work-clothes; only on feastdays would there be any color about their dress, and the vivid white of the heavy embroidered shirt. Bron strode along long-legged, unhurried, self-contained, like an old animal, taciturn: his strength was that of old age, economical, a wisdom of movement. David Angele, a young man, looked entirely insignificant beside him. On his left Marta, in garnet-red skirt and embroidered blouse, took two steps to his one. She had been a beauty ten years ago, when she was twenty. The smile that creased her cheeks and showed her bad teeth was still radiant, as she said to her landlord’s son, “And you’re off again, Dom Itaal!”
“Tomorrow, Marta.”
They all knew, of course, that Dom Guiid and Dom Itaal had quarreled. David Angele glanced slyly at Itale; Bron was silent; only Marta knew how to continue the dangerous subject with tact. “And it’s the king’s city you’re going to this time, so David Aangel says?”
“So Dom Guiid told young Kass,” David Angele put in hastily, exculpating himself.
“What a grand place it must be,” Marta went on, evidently without the least desire to see it. “People thick as flies on sugar, they say.”
“But you’re not to call it the king’s city now, Marta,” said the young vintner, again with a sly glance. “You know there’s no king in these days.”
“There’s the foreign duchess lady, you needn’t teach me, lad. But I like the sound of the old name, it’s how my mother always called it, ain’t I right, uncle?”
“Aye,” said old Bron, striding along. Itale asked Marta about her three little daughters, which made her laugh. She laughed about them since, as she explained, they couldn’t yet give her cause to cry. With Bron he discussed the state of the grapes and the new planting of Oriya vines; he had been Bron’s student and disciple in the vineyards all his life. But they were already at the Dowerhouse Road, and Marta said, “You must turn off here, then I wish you a safe journey and Godspeed, Dom Itaal.” Worn and solid, gap-toothed, she gave him her radiant smile. Itale shook hands with David Angele with a warmth that rose from bad conscience at disliking him, and turned last to Bron: “When I come back, Bron—”
“Aye, you will.” Their eyes met. It seemed to Itale, because he so much desired it to be so, that the old man understood all he meant, knew more than he himself knew, and found no need to say it. So they parted, and he went to the house for supper.
They ate early because they must be up early. They did not linger over the meal. When Eva came in from the kitchen to change the blue-ringed plates, her slippers creaking, they looked up at her with relief. But her old face was as gloomy as any of theirs.
Guide went out to the stables after supper, the women sat with their sewing in the front room. Itale stood at the windows that looked over the terrace to the lake. The light was strange: the water nearly black, but above Evalde the long forest ridge unearthly bright against a somber sky. A strong wind blew from the southwest now, breaking the water into netted streaks. Air and lake darkened fast with the night and storm coming on together. Itale turned round and looked at his mother and sister. So they would sit together here, their faces bent to their work, when he was gone; those who kept the house. His mother glanced up at him as she always did from sewing with a grave, peaceable look, then said, “It’s going to be very pretty, I think; see?”—shaking out the goods she was working on, a drift of white stuff. “It’s her first real evening dress.”
“Aye,” he said, staring at it. “I’ll go see the Valtorskars, I think. The count should be in by now.”
“It’s going to storm any minute, isn’t it?”
“I won’t stay. Any messages for them?”
He went up to his room three steps at a time—he had been twelve when he got tall enough to take the stairs three at a time, he recalled for a moment as he went—and looked over his bookcase hastily, and took out a small book bound in whitish leather, well worn; a translation of Dante’s Vita Nova which he had bought in Solariy. He sat down with it at his desk and there in the dusk wrote on the flyleaf a few words, his name, the date; then slipped it in his pocket and went out.
No one was about. The sound of his steps on the path was the only sound. Crickets were silent, birds had left the air. The wind was down and the sky dark except for a green streak over San Givan, the last of daylight. As he brought his boat out and set off westward, skirting the shore, it was so quiet that he heard across the breadth of the lake the remote music of the waterfall at Evalde. Then a mutter of thunder; then the first, huge whisper of rain on the slopes across the lake. The sail went slack. The twilight seemed all at once to give place to black night: the noise grew and grew, he felt rain on his hands, on his face, and then the storm was on him, dark and stiff as all the trees of the forests, a roar of rain, a wall of wind, lightning, thunder echoing redoubled off the water. The boom swept right across as Falkone jibbed like mad and ran in towards shore. It took all his strength to hold the wet sail, on which the wind pushed with demented violence; he could not bring the boat back against the wind, and now she bucked and heeled till the sail touched the water. In a half-lull he got the sail down and got out the oars. His clothes clung to him like silk, his hands were so cold with rain and so stiff from fighting the sail that he could hardly feel their grip on the oars. He rowed into the storm, getting through it if he could not harness it, defeated, immensely happy.
On the marble steps of Valtorsa he took off his hat, poured the water off the brim, got his breath for a minute, and knocked. The Valtorskars’ old servant opened the door and stared in wonder. “Are you drooned, Dom Itaal?” he said at last. “Come in! Come in!”
Count Orlant was shouting from the front room in his unexpectedly strong voice, “Hoy, who’s there? That you, Rodenne? What the devil sent you out in this storm?” He came into the hall. Itale would not come in, saying he was too wet and had to get back home, so Count Orlant wished him good lu
ck and goodbye there beside the coatracks, earnestly shaking his wet hand while Itale clutched the Vita Nova in the other. He had turned to take his leave when Piera appeared. “You’re going, Itale?” she said. Her face was bright and startled. The old servant drew back, and she came to the doorway where Itale stood with the rain and wind behind him.
“I wanted to give you this.” He held out the book. “I wanted to give you something.”
She took the book, did not look at it, but at him. “Did you come in Falkone?”
“Aye, nearly turned her over.” He smiled self-deriding, exulting. The wind blew in past him, making Piera hug her arms to her sides.
“I must say goodbye, Piera.”
“Will you never come back?”
“I’ll come back.”
She put out her hand, he took it; their eyes met; she smiled.
“Goodbye, Itale.”
“Goodbye.”
She did not move to close the door but stood within the doorway looking at the rain and flashing darkness where he had gone, till old Givan bumbled up and shut the door. “Look there, that rain, not stopped yet, crazy to take a boat out in such a storm.”
Piera went down the hall, looked in the living room; her father and Auntie were ensconced there, with yarn-skein and astronomical chart. She slipped upstairs to her own room. Curtains hid the darkness, the candlelight was golden and serene; but she heard the sound of the rain, the sound of Itale’s voice. He had been wet with rain, wet through, his hand strong and cold. Had he actually come? She shivered. The little book in her hand was cold and slightly damp.
She looked down at it and read the title, The New Life. She turned a few pages and saw prose, full of thereasmuches and wherefores, and verse: “Of Love so sweetly speaking that all my will is his…” The book opened of itself to the flyleaf and she held it closer to the candle to read what was written there.
“Here begins the new life.”
Piera Valtorskar from Itale Sorde, August 5th, 1825.
She sat looking at the words, written clear and black, the capital S blurred from hasty blotting or the rain; she smiled at last as she had smiled at him, and bent her head, and kissed his name.
PART TWO
Exiles
I
The mountains lay far behind, lost long since beyond the hills and rivers and plains of the southwest, the clouds and weathers of the journey. The Southwestern Post was climbing into the hills of the Molsen Province, uncultivated, dull gold under a blue-grey August sky. “Five more miles to Fontanasfaray,” said the handsome, swagbellied driver. “The grand duchess comes to Fontanasfaray every August to take the waters.”
“How far is it from the city?” asked the young provincial gentleman on the box.
“Sixteen miles, eight with the brakes on. We won’t see West Gate much before nightfall.”
The horses, heavy, gleaming greys, pulled effortlessly; a slow mile went by. Itale pulled his hat over his eyes against the warm morning sun and dozed. The horses pulled, the high coach creaked and swayed.
“Village of Kolpera,” the coachman pointed out. Kolpera was a humble cluster of huts off the road on a high slope.
“Looks like sheep country,” Itale said.
“I wouldn’t know,” the coachman replied with disdain; I am from the city, I know nothing and care nothing about sheep, said his manner; and Itale, rebuked, stretched out his legs and gazed at the great lonely hills where, sure enough, far away and like a cloud-shadow on the tawny slope, he made out a flock of sheep.
Fontanasfaray was a cool, rich town high up in the hills. The inside passengers took lunch in the Park-Restaurant; Itale, who had refused to borrow money from his uncle or to take more than twenty kruner from the estate cashbox, and that as a loan, bought a roll at a bakery and ate it by himself in the park in the shade of the elms, watching the fancy rigs go by on Gulhelm Street. He finished his roll and was hungry. Through summery leaf-dappled light he saw a low foreign chaise coming, drawn by matched bays. In the chaise was a parasol and in the warm white shadow of the parasol a face was turned towards a long bored face with heavy lips and tired eyes, so familiar that Itale expected her to speak to him, which cousin was she?—The chaise passed, the parasol became a white blot down the dappled street. Itale brushed crumbs off his waistcoat. “Well, so that’s the grand duchess,” he said to himself, and felt unspeakably mournful and insignificant.
The coach set off with new horses and several new passengers. One of these Itale had seen on Gulhelm Street, bowing to the grand duchess’ chaise, a young man elegantly dressed, with a pale, handsome, heavy face. He sat up outside with Itale and made conversation, chattering along so amiably that Itale soon forgot to act sophisticated, and began to enjoy himself. A little cautious, for he was not used to talking with strangers, he listened more than he spoke; this pleased his companion, who was not much in demand as a talker among his own associates. In their mutual appreciation they introduced themselves: Sorde, Paludeskar. As soon as the names were spoken each must perform a little silent guesswork and assessment, Itale wondering which rank of the nobility his new friend might belong to, Paludeskar deciding that although the young provincial was a commoner and had a hat which looked as though he had gone fishing with it, he was quite safely a gentleman. And it was very pleasant to talk to someone who knew so little about everything, and never set him straight. He talked on, and Itale listened, and each was grateful to the other.
The coach came at five o’clock to the summit of the hills, and Itale saw for the first time the broad sweep of the river valley to the distant eastern range, the shining curve of the Molsen through it, and, hazy and glimmering in the low warm light, the city on the river’s bend. They were some miles from its outskirts. The pale hills behind them were silent, a pale sky arched overhead. The city slept in its wide valley in the afternoon sunlight, indistinct, beautiful, unutterably calm. Paludeskar smiled with proprietary pleasure, glancing at Itale’s intent gazing face.
“Is that the Roukh?”
He pointed to a building that bulked large in bluish shadow over the vague surrounding streets, in the southwest quarter of the city.
“Right. There’s the Sinalya, at the edge of that green bit, that must be the park, the Eleynaprade.”
The Sinalya Palace was the residence of the reigning grand-ducal family; the kings of Orsinia had lived in the Roukh Palace.
“That must be the cathedral,” Itale said, and his voice caught, for the spires rising above the golden mass and shadow of the city were its center both in place and in the passage of centuries. “Right,” said Paludeskar, “and south of it there, that’s River Quarter, nobody lives there; north of it the Old Quarter, that’s where everybody lives. Is that my house? Can’t be sure. There’s the opera house, see the dome by the river?” But the coach, descending, entered a pass between high hills, and the view was lost.
It reappeared at intervals, each time nearer and more complex, as the road wound down. Their last sight of the city as a whole was when the valley was vague, the eastern hills had dimmed away, and lights were beginning to glimmer through the grey haze. They changed horses at Kolonnarmana, supped there, and in the warm dusk set off again, rolling easily on a smooth road, the glow of the city under its haze brightening always in the sky before them. Exalted by the darkness and warmth, the wind and movement of the ride, the great presence of the city awaiting them, the two young men talked from their souls.
“The important thing,” Itale said, “is a force inside you, that belongs to you alone. It is yourself, actually, all that makes you a self, a man. Once you’ve found it, that force or will or need, whatever it is, then all you have to do is obey it—stay on the road it takes you.”
“But if you can’t find the road…”
“You can if you want to.”
“How many people really want to?”
“To find their destiny? To be themselves? Surely everyone does?”
“Takes work,” said Paludeskar.
“Well, it does. And it’s true most people don’t even seem to try. They do what comes next, or what’s expected of them, and get lost in a meaningless tangle of—of desires, frivolities, contingencies,” said Itale with an abolishing wave of his hand. “Why don’t they simply do what’s necessary?”
“Easier not to.”
“But how stupid it is. Even if you sit in a chair for ten years still the years go by. So why not get up and walk, make it a journey? I used to envy adults when I was a boy, I thought they were all going somewhere, but now I see most of them not really going anywhere, never getting home, lost in eating and sleeping and talking and visiting and meaningless work—not the poor of course, I mean people free to do as they please—they do nothing, they lose their souls out of sheer carelessness!”
“Civilisation’s wasted on humanity,” said Paludeskar. “If I had it to hand out I’d give it to the bees. Industrious little bastards.”
“I don’t know if it’s wasted on us, but most of us seem to waste it.”
“I used to think I’d like to add my bit. But I don’t know. I suppose I really haven’t anything to add.”
“You do,” Itale said, and Paludeskar replied with equal simplicity, “I know. But it’s getting away from me. I’m not religious, you know, and all that, but I’m going to be twenty-five in November—I’d like to—You know, to think that I was going to do something worth doing—Before the end.”
“That’s it, that’s it,” Itale said.
“Come and stay the night, I want to talk more about this,” Paludeskar said earnestly, and Itale agreed. The coach was among the suburbs of Krasnoy, and in ten minutes more it came to a halt inside the West Gate. Stiff, bemused, disjointed, its passengers descended into the coachyard of Tiypontiy Street under the dark looming inn buildings. Glare and shadow, neighing of horses and clatter of ironshod hoofs on stone, clatter of voices, moths swarming at smoking lamps, smells of leather, horsedung, sweat, hot stone, the streets of stone.