Under the Jaguar Sun by Italo Calvino Read Free Book Online Page B

when all your powers became concentrated on conquering the throne. But all you remember now of the yearning that devoured you is your persistence against the enemies to overcome, which did not allow you to desire or imagine anything else. Even then it was a thought of death that accompanied you, day and night, as it does now, while you peer at the city in the darkness and silence of the curfew you have imposed to defend yourself against the revolt that is hatching; and you follow the tramp of the patrols on their rounds through the empty streets. And when in the darkness a woman’s voice is released in singing, invisible at the sill of an unlighted window, then all of a sudden thoughts of life come back to you: your desires find an object. What is it? Not that song, which you must have heard all too many times, not that woman, whom you have never seen: you are attracted by that voice as a voice, as it offers itself in song.
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    T HAT voice comes certainly from a person, unique, inimitable like every person; a voice, however, is not a person, it is something suspended in the air, detached from the solidity of things. The voice, too, is unique and inimitable, but perhaps in a different way from a person: they might not resemble each other, voice and person. Or else, they could resemble each other in a secret way, not perceptible at first: the voice could be the equivalent of the hidden and most genuine part of the person. Is it a bodiless you that listens to that bodiless voice? In that case, whether you actually hear it or merely remember it or imagine it makes no difference.
    And yet, you want it to be truly your ear that perceives that voice, so what attracts you is not only a memory or a fancy but the throbbing of a throat of flesh. A voice means this: there is a living person, throat, chest, feelings, who sends into the air this voice, different from all other voices. A voice involves the throat, saliva, infancy, the patina of experienced life, the mind’s intentions, the pleasure of giving a personal form to sound waves. What attracts you is the pleasure this voice puts into existing: into existing as voice; but this pleasure leads you to imagine how this person might be different from every other person, as the voice is different.
    Are you trying to imagine the woman who sings? But no matter what image you try to attribute to her in your imagination, the image-voice will always be richer. You surely do not wish to lose any of the possibilities it contains; and so it is best for you to stick to the voice, resist the temptation to run outside the palace and explore the city street by street until you find the woman who is singing.
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    B UT it is impossible to restrain you. There is a part of yourself that is running toward the unknown voice. Infected by its pleasure in making itself heard, you would like your listening to be heard by her, you would like to be voice, too, heard by her as you hear her.
    Too bad you cannot sing. If you had known how to sing, perhaps your life would have been different, happier; or sad with a different sadness, a harmonious melancholy. Perhaps you would not have felt the need to become king. Now you would not find yourself here, on this creaking throne, peering at shadows.
    Buried deep within yourself perhaps your true voice exists, the song that cannot break free of your clenched throat, from your lips parched and taut. Or else your voice wanders, scattered, through the city, timbres and tones disseminated in the buzzing. The man you are or have been or could be, the you that no one knows, would be revealed in that voice.
    Try, concentrate, summon your secret strength. Now! No, that will not do. Try again, do not be disheartened. Ah, there! Now: miracle! You cannot believe your ears! Whose is this voice with the warm, baritone timbre that rises, finds its pitch, harmonizes with the silvery flashes of her voice? Who is singing this duet with her as if they were two complementary