From that first evening, Stelio had preferred to go to the house of his beloved through the gate of the Gradenigo garden, making his way through trees and shrubs that had become wild again. The actress had received permission to open a communication between her own garden and that of the long-abandoned palace by means of an opening in the dividing wall. But soon afterward, the Lady Myrta had come to live in the great silent rooms wherein the last guest had been the son of the Empress Josephine, the Viceroy of Italy. The apartments were ornamented with old, stringless musical instruments, and the garden was peopled by graceful hounds, that lacked any prey. To Stelio, nothing seemed sweeter or more sad than that walk toward the woman that waited for him while counting the hours—so slow, yet so swift in their flight. In the afternoon, the path of San Simeone Piccolo turned a pale golden hue, like a bank of the finest alabaster. The reflected rays of sunlight danced on the iron prows that stood in a row by the pier. A few decaying gondola cabins lay in the shadow of the pavements, with their curtains and cushions stained and spoiled by rain, as if they were catafalques worn out by continual use in funeral ceremonies, grown old on the way to the churchyard. The garden gate opened at the end of the Campiello della Comare, green and mossy like a country cemetery; it spread out between two columns, topped by broken statues, on the limbs of which the dry branches of ivy were outlined like veins.
"Helion! Sirius! Altair! Donovan! Ali-Nour! Nerissa! Piuchebella!"
Seated on a bench near a rose-covered wall, Lady Myrta was calling her dogs. La Foscarina stood near her, in a fawn-colored costume, the material of which resembled that superb textile called rovana, used in ancient times in Venice. The sunlight bathed the women and the roses in the same soft warmth.
"You are dressed like Donovan to-day," said Lady Myrta to the actress, with a smile. "Did you know that Stelio prefers Donovan to all the others?"
A slight blush rose to La Foscarina's cheeks; she looked at the fawn-colored greyhound.
"He is the strongest and the most beautiful," she replied.
"I believe that Stelio would like to have him," added the old lady, with a sweet, indulgent smile.
"What is there that he would not like to have?"
Lady Myrta noted the tinge of melancholy in the tone of the woman in love. She remained silent.
The dogs lay near them, serious and sad, sleepy and dreamy, far from plains, steppes, and deserts, stretched out in the clover, where also grew the gourds, with their greenish-yellow fruit.
"Does your lover grieve you?" the elder woman would have liked to ask of the woman in love, for the silence weighed on her, and she felt her own heart revivified by the fire within that sorrowful soul. But she dared not. She only sighed. Her heart, ever young, still throbbed at the sight of despairing passion and beauty menaced.
"Ah, you are still beautiful, and your lips still attract kisses, and the man that loves you can still be intoxicated with your sweet pallor and your eyes," she thought, as she looked at the pensive actress, toward whom the November roses leaned. "But I am a specter."
She lowered her eyes, gazed upon her own deformed hands lying on her lap, and wondered that those hands were hers, they were so dead and distorted, lamentable monsters that could no longer touch anyone without exciting disgust, that had nothing to caress any more except the dogs. She felt the wrinkles in her face, the false teeth against her gums, the false hair on her head, all the ruin of her poor body, which once was obedient to the graceful will of her delicate spirit; and she wondered at her own persistence in struggling against the outrages of Time, in deceiving herself, in recomposing every morning that ridiculous illusion with essences, oils, unguents, rouge and powder. But, in the perpetual springtime of her dreams, was she not ever youthful? Was it not yesterday, only yesterday, that she had caressed a loved face with her perfect fingers, hunted the fox and the deer in the northern counties, danced with her betrothed in the park to an air of John Dowland's?—There are no mirrors in the house of the Countess Glanegg; there are too many in Lady Myrta's house—was La Foscarina's thought.—One has hidden her decline from herself and from everyone else; the other sees herself growing older day by day. She counts her wrinkles one by one, gathers up her dead hair in her comb, feels her teeth rattling against her pale gums, and tries to repair the damage by artificial devices. Poor tender soul, who wishes still to be smiling and charming! But we must die, disappear, descend into the earth!—She observed the little cluster of violets that Lady Myrta had pinned to her skirt. In all seasons fresh flowers were fastened there, barely visible, hidden among the folds, a sign of her daily illusion of springtime, of the ever-new enchantment she wove about herself by the aid of memory, music, poetry, and all the arts of dreams against old age, infirmity, and solitude.—We should live one supreme, flaming hour, then disappear forever in the earth before all charm has vanished, before all grace is dead!—
She felt the beauty of her own eyes, the careless strength of her hair, blown back by the wind, all the power of rhythm and transport that slumbered in her muscles and her bones. She heard again in fancy the words of her lover, saw him again in his tender transport of love, in the sweetness of languor, the moments of profound oblivion.—Still a little while, still a few days longer I shall please him, and seem beautiful to him, and put fire in his blood. A little while longer!—With her feet in the deep grass, her brow raised to the sunlight, amid the fragrance of fading roses, in the fawn-colored robe that made her seem like the magnificent beast of prey, she glowed with passionate joy of life and hope, a sudden quickening of the blood, as if that future which she had renounced by her resolution to die were flowing back into the present.—Come! come!—Within herself she called to her beloved with a sort of intoxication, sure that he would come, because she already felt that he would, and never had she been deceived by her presentiment.
"Ah, here is Stelio!" said Lady Myrta at that instant, seeing the young man advancing among the laurels.
La Foscarina turned swiftly, with a blush. The greyhounds rose, pricking up their slender ears. The meeting glance of those lovers had something in it like an electric flash. Again, as always, in the presence of that wonderful creature, her lover had the divine sensation of suddenly being enfolded in a cloud of flaming ether, in a vibrant wave that seemed to isolate him from ordinary atmosphere and almost to ravish his senses.
"You were awaited here by all that dwell in this seclusion," said Lady Myrta, with a smile that hid the emotion that stirred the youthful heart in the infirm and aged body at the sight of love and longing. "In coming here, you have responded to a call."
"That is true," said the young man, holding the collar of Donovan, which, remembering his caresses, had run to meet him. "The fact is, I have come a long distance. Guess from where?"
"From the country of Giorgione!"
"No, from the cloister of Santa Apollonia. Do you know that place?"
"Is that one of your inventions to-day?"
"Invention? It is a cloister of stone, a real cloister, with a well and with little columns."
"It may be so, but everything that you have once looked at, Stelio, becomes your invention."
"Ah, Lady Myrta, I should like to offer you that gem of a cloister. I wish I might move it here, into your garden. Imagine a small, secret cloister, opening on a sequence of slender columns, set in pairs like nuns when they walk, fasting, in the sun; very delicate, neither white, gray nor black, but that most mysterious tint ever given to stone by the great master colorist—Time. In the midst of these is a well, and on the curb, which is worn by the rope, hangs a pail without a bottom. The nuns have disappeared, but I believe that the shades of the Dana?des frequent the place."
He stopped speaking suddenly, seeing himself surrounded by the greyhounds, and began to imitate the guttural sounds the kennel-men make to gather the dogs. The animals became excited; their wistful eyes brightened.
"Ali-Nour! Crissa! Nerissa! Clarissa! Altair! Helion! Hardicanute! Veronese! Hierro!"
He knew them all by name, and when he called them they seemed to recognize him for their master. There was the Scottish hound, native of the highlands, with thick, rough coat; the Irish wolf-hound, ruddy and strong, with brown irises showing clearly in their whites; the Tartary hound, spotted with black and yellow, a native of vast Asiatic steppes, where at............