The Devil in Love Read online

  “I do believe,” said she, “that I should love dancing to the point of madness.” Soon she had joined them and forced me to dance. At first she showed signs of hesitation, even a little clumsiness; but soon she seemed to find her feet and to combine grace and strength with lightness and precision. She was beginning to feel warm; she needed her handkerchief, my own, any that might come her way; she paused only to mop her brow.

  I had never been passionate about dancing; and my soul was not sufficiently free for me to give myself over to so vain an amusement. I withdrew and reached one of the ends of the arbour, seeking a place where I could be seated and dream a little.

  A raucous cackle disturbed me, catching my attention almost despite myself. Two voices were raised behind me: “Yes, yes,” one was saying. “He was born under this sign, and is on his way home. Why, Zoradilla, he was born on the third of May at three in the morning…”

  “Oh! Really, Lelagise,” answered the other, “a curse upon the children of Saturn, this one has Jupiter in the ascendant in trine conjunction with Venus. Oh the fine young man! What natural advantages! What hopes he might entertain! What a fortune he should make! But…”

  I knew the hour of my birth, and was now hearing it spelled out with the most singular precision. I turned around and stared hard at the babblers.

  I saw two old gypsies not so much seated as squatting on their heels. A darker than olive complexion, eyes hollow and burning, sunken mouths, sharp, outsize noses which curved down from the tops of their heads to touch their chins; scraps of material, once striped blue and white, wound around half-bald skulls, fell like scarves around their shoulders, partially covering their nakedness; in a word, creatures almost as revolting as they were absurd.

  I approached them: “Were you talking of me, ladies?” I asked them, seeing that they were continuing to stare at me and make signs.

  “So you were listening, senor caballero?”

  “Possibly,” I answered; “and who instructed you so accurately as to the hour of my birth?”

  “There is plenty more we could tell you, oh fortunate young man; but you must begin by crossing our palms.”

  “That need be no obstacle,” I replied, and promptly gave them a doubloon.

  “There you are, Zoradilla,” said the older one, “see how noble he is, how he is made to enjoy all the riches for which he is destined. Come pluck your guitar and follow me,” and she sang the following:

  “Spain it was who gave you birth;

  Parthenope nurtured you.

  Master you could be of earth;

  If you wanted, you could be

  Darling of the Heavens, too.

  The happiness foretold for you

  Is fleeting, and could slip away.

  You hold it at your finger tips:

  If you are wise, you will obey:

  Seize it unhesitatingly.

  What is this object lovable

  Which has submitted to your power?

  Is it…”

  The old women were getting into their stride. I listened eagerly, but now Biondetta came running up, having left the dance, and pulled me by the sleeve, obliging me to move away.

  “Why did you leave me, Alvaro? What are you doing here?”

  “I was listening,” I answered…

  “What?” said she, dragging me with her, “you were listening to those old monsters?”

  “In truth, my dear Biondetta, they are singular creatures; they know more than they are given credit for; they were telling me…”

  “Oh yes,” replied she scornfully, “they were acting their part and telling you your future; and you would believe them? With all your intelligence, you have the simplicity of a child. And those are the creatures who are preventing you from devoting yourself to me?”

  “On the contrary, my dear Biondetta, they were about to speak to me of you.”

  “Speak of me?” she retorted sharply, with something like anxiety, “what do they know of me? What did they say? What nonsense you are talking. You shall dance with me all evening to make me forget this slight.”

  I followed her and rejoined the circle, but without heeding what was going on around me, or what I myself was doing. I was thinking only of breaking away, to take the first opportunity of rejoining my fortune-tellers. At last I sensed a favourable moment, and seized it. In the twinkling of an eye I had flown towards my witches, found them and led them towards a little arbour which stood at the end of the farm’s kitchen garden. There I begged them to tell me, in prose, without riddles and very succinctly, everything of interest they might know about me. My entreaties were powerful, for I had my hands full of gold. They were burning to speak, as I was to hear them. Soon I could no longer doubt but that they were privy to the most secret particularities of my family and, after a fashion, to my liaison with Biondetta, my fears and my hopes; I felt that I was learning a great deal and I imagined that I would learn things still more important; but our Argus was now at my heels.

  Biondetta did not run towards me, she flew. I attempted to speak. “No excuses,” she said, “this backsliding is unpardonable.”

  “Ah, but you will pardon it,” I said; “I am certain, although you have prevented me from acquiring even fuller knowledge, I already know enough..,”

  “To commit some absurdity. Indeed I am furious, but this is no place to quarrel; if we ourselves are in danger of behaving incorrectly towards one another, we do owe due consideration to our hosts. They are about to sit down at table, and I shall be sitting beside you; this time I shall take good care that you do not escape me.”

  The new arrangement had us seated opposite the young couple. Both were animated by the pleasures of the day; Marcos’ eyes were ablaze, and Luisia looked less timid; modesty was taking its revenge and covered her cheeks with a bright blush. The Xeres wine made the rounds of the table and seemed to have somewhat thawed its reserve: even the old people, excited by the memory of pleasures past, provoked the young folk by sallies which were garrulous rather than witty. I could take in the whole picture at a glance but I had a more moving and varied one right next to me.

  Biondetta, apparently torn between passion and spite, her mouth now armed with a haughty disdain, now wreathed in smiles, sulked and pinched me until the blood ran, finally stepping gently upon my foot. In a word, her behaviour bespoke favour, reproach, chastisement and affection in turn: so that, a prey to this train of emotions, I was in an inconceivable disorder.

  The newly-weds had vanished, followed by some of the guests. We too left the table; a woman, who we knew to be the farmer’s aunt, took a candlestick with a yellow wax candle and led us to a small room some twelve feet square: a bed not four feet across, a table and two chairs completed the furnishings. “Monsieur and Madame,” said our guide, “this is the only apartment we can offer you.” She put the candlestick on the table and left us alone.

  Biondetta lowered her eyes. I turned to her: “So you told them we were married?”

  “Yes,” she answered, “I could not tell the truth. I have your word, you have mine. That is the main thing. Your ceremonies are precautions taken against bad faith, and I set little store by them. Besides, I had no say in the matter. However, if you do not want to share the bed which has been offered us, you will mortify me by forcing me to watch you spend the night in discomfort. I need rest, I am utterly worn out.” Pronouncing these words in a most spirited tone, she stretched out on the bed with her nose turned towards the wall. “What!” I cried, “Biondetta, I have displeased you, you are truly angry! How can I make amends? I would lay down my life…”

  “Alvaro,” she answered without bestirring herself, “go and consult your Egyptians as to the means of reestablishing tranquillity in my heart and your own.”

  “What! Could my conversation with those women be the cause of your anger? Ah, surely you will forgive me, Biondetta. If you knew how their opinions tallied with your own, and how they finally convinced me not to return to the castle of Maravillas! Y
es, it is done, to-morrow we leave for Rome, for Venice, for Paris, for all those places where you want me to live with you. There we shall await my family’s consent…”

  At these words Biondetta turned around. Her face was serious, even severe. “Do you remember what I am, Alvaro, what I expected from you, what I advised you to do? What! When, after having prudently used such enlightenment as I am endowed with, I am still unable to bring you to any kind of reason, the rule of my conduct and your own shall be based on the idle utterances of two beings, the most dangerous for us both, if not the most despicable? Of course,” she cried in a transport of grief, “ I have always feared men; for centuries I hesitated to make a choice, but I have made one and it is irrevocable. I am unhappy indeed!” Then she melted into tears, which she tried to conceal from me.

  A prey to the most violent of passions, I fell at her knees. “Oh Biondetta,” I cried, “you cannot see my heart, or you would cease to rend it!”

  “You do not know me, Alvaro, and you will make me suffer cruelly before you do so. I shall strive one last time to unveil my secrets to you, and so truly to gain both your esteem and your confidence, so that I shall no longer be exposed to humiliation or danger; your pythonesses are too closely in agreement with me not to inspire rightful alarm. Who can assure me that Soberano, Bernardillo, your enemies and mine, are not hidden behind these masks? Remember Venice. Let us counter their ruses by stealth. Tomorrow I arrive at Maravillas, whence they are scheming to keep me away; I shall be greeted there by the most demeaning and overwhelming suspicion. But dona Mencia is a just and estimable woman, and your brother has a noble soul: I shall abandon myself to them. I shall be a prodigy of sweetness, obligingness, obedience, patience; I shall face all assays.”

  She paused for a moment. “Unhappy Sylph, must you stoop lower yet?”

  She would have continued, but streaming tears denied her the use of words.

  What was I to do in the face of such passion, such pain, yet such restraint and brave heroic mettle? I sat down beside her and tried to calm her with caresses; at first I was repulsed, but soon I felt resistance slacken, though mine was not the merit: she was breathing with difficulty, her eyes were half-closed, her body moved convulsively, a suspect coldness had spread over her skin, her pulse was scarcely beating and her body would have seemed entirely lifeless had her tears not been flowing with unabated abundance.

  Oh the power of tears, perhaps the most powerful of all love’s weapons! Distrust, vows, resolutions, all were forgotten. Wishing to stem this precious dew, I drew too near to that mouth whose freshness held all the sweet scent of the rose; and even had I wished to take my distance, her arms, whose whiteness, softness and shapeliness I could never describe, were bonds whose hold I could not bear to lose…

  “Oh my Alvaro,” cried Biondetta, “I have triumphed; I am the happiest of beings!”

  I did not have the strength to speak; I felt an extraordinary confusion, indeed I was ashamed, paralysed. She leapt out of the bed and was at my knees, removing my shoes. “What! Dear Biondetta,” I cried, “why, I am unworthy…”

  “Do not be harsh,” she answered, “I served you while you were merely my tyrant, so let me at least serve my lover.”

  I was delivered of my garments; my hair was neatly gathered into a net she had found in her pocket. Her strength, her energy, her skill had surmounted the obstacles I had tried to put in their way. She executed her simple night toilette with the same promptitude, blew out the candle by which the room was lit, and quickly drew the curtains.

  Then, in a voice whose sweetness would have dulled the most delicious of airs: “Have I,” she asked, “made my Alvaro happy, as he has made me? No, no: this joy is mine alone; yet he must have it also. I shall intoxicate him with delights, I shall fill him with knowledge; I shall raise him to the heights of greatness. Do you, dear heart, wish to be the most privileged creature and, together with me, to submit men, the elements and all nature to your power?”

  “Oh my dear Biondetta,” I said, though making some effort to control myself, “you alone suffice: you fulfill all my heart’s desires…”

  “No, no,” she retorted sharply, “Biondetta must not suffice. That is not my name: you gave it to me, and I bore it with pleasure. But you must know who I am … I am the Devil, my dear Alvaro, the Devil….”

  By pronouncing this word in a tone of bewitching sweetness, she hermetically sealed the utterance of the answer I would have liked to have made. As soon as I could break the silence: “My dear Biondetta, or whoever you are,” I said, “desist from pronouncing that fatal word and reminding me of an error long since forsworn.”

  “No, my dear Alvaro, it was not an error; it is what I wanted you to believe, my dear little man. I had to deceive you in order to bring you to reason. Your kind is resistant to the truth: it is only by blinding you that one can make you happy. Ah! You shall be very happy if you so desire! I intend to gratify you wholly. You will already agree that I am not as black as I am painted.”

  This badinage completed my confusion. I refused to be drawn in, and the drunkenness of my senses abetted my intentional abstraction.

  “So, answer me,” she said.

  “What should I say?”

  “Cruel man, put your hand on this heart that adores you; and may your heart be kindled, if this be possible, by even the faintest of the emotions so alive in my own. Let a spark of this precious flame, which has set my veins ablaze, flow through your own; soften, if you can, the sound of that voice made to inspire love, and which you use so often to alarm my timid soul; lastly, say to me, if you can, with feelings as tender as mine for you: my dear Beelzebub, I adore you…”

  At that name, so tenderly pronounced, a mortal fear gripped me; astonishment and stupor overcame my soul and I would have believed it dead had not the muted voice of remorse called to me from the depths of my heart. My senses were in turmoil all the more violent for being inaccessible to reason. I was defenceless in the face of my enemy: he seized his advantage and I was wholly at his mercy.

  He gave me no time to regain my composure, to reflect on the transgression of which he was indeed the author rather than the accomplice.

  “The die is cast,” he told me, without noticeably altering the tone to which he had accustomed me. ‘You sought me out. I followed you, served you, obliged you; in the end I did as you wished. I wanted to possess you and my success required you to give yourself to me freely. I may owe your first compliance to some degree of artifice; but soon afterwards I revealed myself to you: you knew who you were yielding to, and you cannot presume ignorance. Now, Alvaro, our bond is indissoluble; but to cement our association, it is important that we know each other better. And because I know you so well already, to render us equal, I must show myself to you in my true colours.”

  I was not given time to reflect upon this singular harangue: a sharp whistle blast sounded at my side. Instantly the surrounding darkness was dissipated and the cornice above the panelling was entirely covered with huge snails: their horns, which they moved briskly to and fro, had become jets of phosphorescent light, whose brightness was intensified by their movement and their forward thrust. Almost dazzled by this sudden illumination, I cast my eyes to my side: instead of a ravishing presence, what do I see? Oh heavens! It was the frightful camel’s head. In a voice of thunder, it articulated that hollow Che vuoi? which had so terrified me in the grotto, then uttered a burst of human laughter more frightful still and stuck out an enormous tongue.

  I rushed headlong to hide under the bed, eyes tight shut, face downwards. My heart was beating with alarming force; I gasped for breath.

  How long I remained in this unaccountable situation I cannot say, but at last I felt myself being tugged by the arm; my fear increased and, forced to open my eyes, I was dazzled by a bright light.

  It was not coming from the snails. They had vanished from the cornice, but the sunlight was falling straight on to my face. Again I was being pulled by the arm, and again. I reco
gnized Marcos. “Senor caballero,” said he, “at what hour were you thinking of leaving? If you want to reach Maravillas to-day you have no time to lose, it is almost mid-day.”

  I said nothing and he peered at me: “Senor? You slept in your bed fully dressed? You slept for fourteen hours without waking? You must have been in great need of rest. Madame sensed as much, and it was no doubt out of fear of disturbing you that she spent the night with one of my aunts. But she has outdone you in diligence: at her orders, your carriage was repaired this morning, and it is ready for your departure. As for Madame, you will not find her here: we gave her a good mule and she has gone on ahead, wanting to take advantage of the cool of the morning; she should be waiting for you in the first village you reach en route.”

  Marcos went out. Mechanically I rubbed my eyes and ran my hand over my head to find the net which should have held my hair. But my head was bare and my hair in disarray. Am I asleep? I asked myself. Could I be fortunate enough for all this to have been a dream? She blew out the light, I saw her do it … There it is…

  Marcos returned. “If you wish to dine, senor caballero, a meal is ready. Your carriage is harnessed…”

  I climbed down from the bed but could barely stand upright, my knees buckling beneath me. I agreed to take some nourishment but found I could not eat. Then, when I wished to thank the farmer and make good the expense to which I had put him to, he refused.

  “Madame has rewarded us, and more than nobly,” he told me, “you and I, senor caballero, have good wives.” Thereupon, without any reply, I climbed into my chaise and drove off.

  I shall not depict my state of mental confusion: it was such that the idea of the danger in which I must surely find my mother was present only vaguely. Eyes glazed, mouth agape, I was less man than automaton.

  My driver awoke me. “Senor caballero, we are to find Madame in this village.”

  I did not answer him. We drove through a straggling village; at each house he enquired whether a young woman had been seen passing by in such and such a carriage. He was told that she had not stopped. He turned around as though wishing to scan my face for disquiet. If he knew no more than I did, I must have seemed much troubled.