… Night. My palace is dead and silent, as if it were one of the ruins of ancient Rome. Beyond the large window lies the garden: it is transparent and white with the rays of the moon and the vaporous pole of the fountain resembles a headless vision in a silver veil. Its splash is scarcely heard through the thick windowpane—as if it were the sleepy mumbling of the night guard.
Yes, this is all beautiful and … how do you put it?—it breathes with love. Of course, it would be good to walk beside Maria over the blue sand of the garden path and to trample upon her shadow. But I am disturbed and my disquiet is wider than love. In my attempts to walk lightly I wander about the room, lean against the wall, recline in silence in the corners, and all the time I seem to hear something. Something far away, a thousand kilometers from here. Or is this all lodged in my memory—that which I strain my ear to catch? And the thousand kilometers—are they the thousand years of my life?
You would be astonished if you saw how I was dressed. My fine American costume had suddenly become unbearably heavy, so I put on my bathing suit. This made me appear thin, tall and wiry. I tried to test my nimbleness by crawling about the floor, suddenly changing the direction, like a noiseless bat. But it is not I who am restless. It is my muscles that are filled with this unrest, and I know not what they want. Then I began to feel cold. I dressed and sat down to write. I drank some wine and drew down the curtains to shut the white garden from my eyes. Then I examined and fixed my Browning. I intend to take it with me tomorrow for a friendly chat with Magnus.
You see, Thomas Magnus has some collaborators. That is what he calls those gentlemen unknown to me who respectfully get out of my way when we meet, but never greet me, as if we were meeting in the street and not in my house. There were two of them when I went to Capri. Now they are six, according to what Toppi tells me, and they live here. Toppi does not like them. Neither do I. They seem to have no faces. I could not see them. I happened to think of that just now when I tried to recall them.
“These are my assistants,” Magnus told me today without trying in the least to conceal his ridicule.
“Well, I must say, Magnus, they have had bad training. They never greet me when we meet.”
“On the contrary, dear Wondergood! They are very well-mannered. They simply cannot bring themselves to greet you without a proper introduction. They are … extremely correct people. However, you will learn all tomorrow. Don’t frown. Be patient, Wondergood! Just one more night!”
“How is Signorina Maria’s health?”
“Tomorrow she will be well.” He placed his hand upon my shoulder and brought his dark, evil, brazen eyes closer to my face: “The passion of love, eh?”
I shook off his hand and shouted:
“Signor Magnus! I. …”
“You?”—he frowned at me and calmly turned his back upon me: “Till tomorrow, Mr. Wondergood!”
That is why I loaded my revolver. In the evening I was handed a letter from Magnus: he begged my pardon, said his conduct was due to unusual excitement and he sincerely sought my friendship and confidence. He also agreed that his collaborators are really ill-mannered folk. I gazed long upon these hasty illegible lines and felt like taking with me, not my revolver, but a cannon.
One more night, but how long it is!
There is danger facing me.
I feel it and my muscles know it, too. Do you think that I am merely afraid? I swear by eternal salvation—no! I know not where my fear has disappeared, but only a short while ago I was afraid of everything: of darkness, death and the most inconsequential pain. And now I fear nothing. I only feel strange … is that how you put it: strange?
Here I am on your earth, man, and I am thinking of another person who is dangerous to me and I myself am—man. And there is the moon and the fountain. And there is Maria, whom I love. And here is a glass and wine. And this is—my and your life. Or did I simply imagine that I was Satan once? I see it is all an invention, the fountain and Maria and my very thoughts on the man—Magnus, but the real my mind can neither unravel nor understand. I assiduously examine my memory and it is silent, like a closed book, and I have no power to open this enchanted volume, concealing the whole past of my being. Straining my eyesight, I gaze into the bright and distant depth from which I came upon this pasteboard earth—but I see nothing in the painful ebb and flow of the boundless fog. There, behind the fog, is my country, but it seems—it seems I have quite forgotten the road.
I have again returned to Wondergood’s bad habit of getting drunk alone and I am slightly drunk now. No matter. It is the last time. I have just seen something after which I wish to see nothing else. I felt like taking a look at the white garden and to imagine how it would feel to walk beside Maria over the path of blue sand. I turned off the light in the room and opened wide the draperies. And the white garden arose before me, like a dream, and—think of it!—over the path of blue sand there walked a man and a woman—and the woman was Maria! They walked quietly, trampling upon their own shadows, and the man embraced her. The little counting machine in my breast beat madly, fell to the floor and broke, when, finally, I recognized the man—it was Magnus, only Magnus, dear Magnus, the father. May he be cursed with his fatherly embraces!
Ah, how my love for Maria surged up again within me! I fell on my knees before the window and stretched out my hands to her. … To be sure, I had already seen something of that kind in the theater, but it’s all the same to me: I stretched out my hands—was I not alone and drunk! Why should I not do what I want to do? Madonna! Then I suddenly drew down the curtain!
Quietly, like a web, like a handful of moonlight, I will take this vision and weave it into night dreams. Quietly! … Quietly! …