Pleasure by Gabriele D'Annunzio Read Free Book Online Page B

days, the anguish of his sorrow, the assiduous implacable devouring internal suffering. His sadness grew, breaking every dam. He was overcome by it. Sadness was at the base of everything, for him. The passage of time was an unbearable torment. He did not miss so much the happy days as much as he mourned the days that now passed uselessly, deprived of happiness. The former at least had left a memory for him: the latter left him a profound grief, almost remorse . . . His life was consuming itself, drawing into itself the inextinguishable flame of one desire alone, the incurable disgust for every other pleasure. Sometimes he was assailed by impulses of almost enraged lust, by a desperate fury for gratification; and it was like the violent rebellion of a heart not sated, like the flaring up of hope that cannot resign itself to die. Sometimes it also seemed to him that he had been reduced to nothing; and he shivered in the face of the great empty abyss of his being: and of the great flame of his youth nothing remained to him but a fistful of ashes. Sometimes, too, as in one of those dreams that vanish at dawn, his entire past, his entire present dissolved; they detached themselves from his consciousness and fell, like a fragile slough, an empty garment. He remembered nothing more, like a man who has emerged from a long illness, like a dazed convalescent. Finally, he was in oblivion; he felt his soul enter gently into death . . . But, suddenly, from that kind of oblivious tranquillity a new pain burst forth, and the fallen idol surged up again, even taller, like an indestructible shoot.
She, she
was the idol who seduced all the willpower of his heart, broke all the strength of his intellect, kept closed all the most secret avenues of his soul to any other love, to any other pain, to any other dream, forever, forever . . .”
    Andrea was lying; but his eloquence was so warm, his voice so penetrating, the touch of his hand so loving, that Elena was invaded by an infinite sweetness.
    â€”Hush! she said. I must not listen to you; I am no longer yours; I can never be yours again. Hush! Hush!
    â€”No, listen to me.
    â€”I don’t want to. Good-bye. I must go. Good-bye, Andrea. It’s already late, let me go.
    She slipped her hand out of the young man’s grasp; and overcoming all her inner weakness, made as if to stand up.
    â€”Why did you come, then? he asked her, his voice slightly hoarse, stopping her from getting up.
    Although the violence of his gesture was but very slight, she frowned, and hesitated before answering.
    â€”I came—she answered with a certain measured slowness, looking her lover in the eyes—I came because you asked me to. For the love we once had, for the way that love was interrupted, for the long, obscure silence of distance, I could not have refused that invitation without harshness. And then, I wanted to tell you what I have told you: that I am no longer yours, that I can never be yours again. I wanted to tell you this, in fairness, to spare you and me any painful deceit, any danger, any bitterness, in the future. Do you understand?
    Andrea lowered his head almost onto her knees, in silence. She touched his hair, with a once-familiar gesture.
    â€”And also—she continued, in a voice that gave him a shiver throughout every fiber—and also . . . I wanted to tell you that I love you, that I love you no less than I once did, that you are still the soul of my soul, and that I want to be your dearest sister, your sweetest friend. Do you understand?
    Andrea did not move. Taking his temples between her hands, she lifted his forehead; she forced him to look her in the eyes.
    â€”Have you understood? she repeated, her voice even more tender and soft.
    Her eyes, in the shadow of her long lashes, seemed to be suffused with some pure and delicate oil. Her mouth, slightly open, had a light tremor in the upper lip.
    â€”No; you did not love me, you