Latest / Sinister House / Last of the Valerii - Henry James

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Last of the Valerii - Henry James · Sinister House

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  Speaker 1: Section one of the Last of the Valerie. This is
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  Speaker 1: the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Nicholas Clifford. The Last of the Valerie by
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  Speaker 1: Henry James, Section one. I had had occasion to declare
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  Speaker 1: more than once that if my god daughter married a foreigner,
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  Speaker 1: I should refuse to give her away. And yet, when
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  Speaker 1: the young Conte Valerio was presented to me in Rome
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  Speaker 1: as her accepted and plighted lover, I found myself looking
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  Speaker 1: at the happy fellow, after a momentary stare of amazement,
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  Speaker 1: with a certain paternal benevolence, thinking indeed that from the
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  Speaker 1: pictorial point of view, she with her yellow locks and
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  Speaker 1: he with his dusky ones, they were a strikingly well
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  Speaker 1: assorted pair. She brought him up to me, half proudly,
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  Speaker 1: half timidly, pushing him before her and begging me with
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  Speaker 1: one of her dove like glances, to be very polite.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know that I usually missed that effect, but
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  Speaker 1: she was so deeply impressed with his grandeur that she
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  Speaker 1: thought it impossible to do him honor. Enough. The Conte
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  Speaker 1: Valerio's grandeur was doubtless nothing for a young American girl,
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  Speaker 1: who had the air and almost the habits of a
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  Speaker 1: princess to sound her trumpet about. But she was desperately
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  Speaker 1: in love with him, and not only her heart, but
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  Speaker 1: her imagination was touched. He was extremely handsome, and with
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  Speaker 1: a beauty which was less a matter of mere fortunate
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  Speaker 1: surface than usually happens in the handsome Roman race. There
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  Speaker 1: was a latent tenderness in his admirable mask, and his
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  Speaker 1: grave slow smile, if it suggested no great nimbleness of wit,
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  Speaker 1: spoke of a manly constancy, which promised well for Martha's happiness.
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  Speaker 1: He had little of the light, inexpensive urbanity of his countrymen,
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  Speaker 1: and there was a kind of a stupid sincerity in
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  Speaker 1: his gaze. It seemed to suspend response until he was
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  Speaker 1: sure he understood you. He was certainly a little dense,
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  Speaker 1: and I fancied that to a political or esthetic question
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  Speaker 1: the reply would be particularly slow. He is good and
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  Speaker 1: strong and brave. The young girl, however, assured me, and
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  Speaker 1: I easily believed her strong. The Conte Valerio certainly was.
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  Speaker 1: He had a head and a throat like some of
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  Speaker 1: the bust in the Vatican. To my eye, which has
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  Speaker 1: looked at things now so long with the painter's purpose,
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  Speaker 1: it was a real annoyance to see such a throat
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  Speaker 1: rising out of the white cravat of the period. It
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  Speaker 1: sustained a head as massively round as that of the
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  Speaker 1: familiar bust of the Emperor Caracalla, and covered with the
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  Speaker 1: same dense sculptural crop of curls. The young man's hair
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  Speaker 1: grew superbly. It was such hair as the old Romans
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  Speaker 1: must have had when they walked bare headed and bronzed
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  Speaker 1: about the world. It made a perfect arch over his low,
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  Speaker 1: clear forehead, and prolonged itself on cheek and chin, in
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  Speaker 1: a close, crisp beard, strong with its own strength, and
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  Speaker 1: unstiffened by the razor. Neither his nose nor his mouth
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  Speaker 1: was delicate, but they were powerful, shapely masculine. His complexion
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  Speaker 1: was of a deep, glowing brown which no emotion would alter,
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  Speaker 1: and his large, lucid eyes seemed to stare at you
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  Speaker 1: like a pair of polished agates. He was of middle stature,
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  Speaker 1: and his chest was of so generous a girth that
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  Speaker 1: you half expected to hear his linen crack with its
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  Speaker 1: even respirations. And yet with this simple human smile he
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  Speaker 1: looked neither like a young bullock nor a gladiator. His
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  Speaker 1: powerful voice was the least bit harsh, and his large,
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  Speaker 1: ceremonious reply to my compliment had the massive sonority with
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  Speaker 1: which civil speeches must have been uttered in the age
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  Speaker 1: of Augustus. I had always considered my god daughter a
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  Speaker 1: very American little person in all honorable meanings of the word.
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  Speaker 1: And I doubted if this sturdy, young lack And would
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  Speaker 1: understand the transatlantic element in her nature. But evidently he
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  Speaker 1: would make her a loyal and ardent lover. She seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me, in her tinted prettiness, so tender, so appealing,
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  Speaker 1: so bewitching, that it was impossible to believe that he
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  Speaker 1: had not more thoughts for all this than for the
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  Speaker 1: equally pretty fortune, which had yet bothered me to believe
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  Speaker 1: that he must, like a good Italian, have taken the
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  Speaker 1: exact measure of his own. Worldly goods consisted of the
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  Speaker 1: paternal estate, a villa within the walls of Rome, which
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  Speaker 1: his scanty funds had suffered to fall into her somber disrepair.
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  Speaker 1: It's the villa she's in love with quite as much
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  Speaker 1: as the count, said her mother. She dreams of converting
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  Speaker 1: the count, that's all very well, But she dreams of
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  Speaker 1: refurnishing the villa. The upholsterers were turned into it, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: before the wedding, and there was a great scrubbing and
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  Speaker 1: sweeping of saloons, and raking and weeding of alleys and avenues.
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  Speaker 1: Martha made frequent visits of inspection while these ceremonies were
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  Speaker 1: taking place. But one day, on her return, she came
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  Speaker 1: into my little studio with an air of amusing horror.
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  Speaker 1: She had found them scraping the sarcophagus in the great
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  Speaker 1: alex Walk, divesting it of its mossy coat, disencrusting it
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  Speaker 1: of the sacred green mold of the ages. This was
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  Speaker 1: their idea of making the villa comfortable. She had made
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  Speaker 1: them transport it to the dampest place they could find
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  Speaker 1: for next. After that slow coming, slow going smile of
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  Speaker 1: her lover, it was the rusty complexion of his patrimonial
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  Speaker 1: marbles that she most prized. The young Count's conversion proceeded
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  Speaker 1: less rapidly, and indeed I believed that his betrothed brought
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  Speaker 1: little zeal to the affair. She loved him so devoutly
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  Speaker 1: that she believed no change of faith could better him,
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  Speaker 1: and she would have been willing for his sake to
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  Speaker 1: say her prayers to the sacred Bombino at the feast
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  Speaker 1: of the Epiphany. But he had the good taste to
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  Speaker 1: demand no such sacrifice. And I was struck with the
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  Speaker 1: happy significance of a scene of which I was an
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  Speaker 1: accidental observer. It was at Saint Peter's one Friday afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: during the vesper service, which takes place in the chapel
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  Speaker 1: of the choir. I met my god daughter wandering serenely
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  Speaker 1: on her lover's arm, her mother being established on her
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  Speaker 1: camp stool near the entrance of the place. The crowd
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  Speaker 1: was collected thereabouts, and the body of the church was empty.
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  Speaker 1: Now and then the high voices of the singers escaped
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  Speaker 1: into the outer vastness and melted slowly away in the
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  Speaker 1: incense thickened air. Something in the young girl's step and
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  Speaker 1: the clasp of her arm in her lovers told me
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  Speaker 1: that her contentment was perfect. As she threw back her
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  Speaker 1: head and gazed into the magnificent immensity of vault and dome,
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  Speaker 1: I felt that she was in that enviable mood in
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  Speaker 1: which all consciousness revolves on a single setter, and that
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  Speaker 1: her sense of the splendors around her was one with
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  Speaker 1: the ecstasy of her trust. They stopped before that somber
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  Speaker 1: group of polyglot confessionals, which proclaimed so portentously the sinfulness
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  Speaker 1: of the world, and Martha seemed to make some almost
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  Speaker 1: passionate protestation. A few minutes later, I overtook them. Don't
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  Speaker 1: you agree with me, dear friend, said the count, who
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  Speaker 1: always addressed me with the most affectionate deference, That before
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  Speaker 1: I marry so pure and sweet a creature as this,
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  Speaker 1: I ought to go into one of those places and
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  Speaker 1: confess every sin I ever was guilty of, every evil thought,
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  Speaker 1: an impulse, and desire of my grossly evil nature. Martha
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  Speaker 1: looked at him, half in deprecation, half in homage, with
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  Speaker 1: an eye which seemed at once to insist that her
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  Speaker 1: lover could have no vices, and to plead that if
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  Speaker 1: he had, there would be something magnificent in them. Listen
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  Speaker 1: to him, she said, smiling. The list would be long,
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  Speaker 1: and if you waited to finish it, you would be
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  Speaker 1: late for the wedding. But if you confess your sin
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  Speaker 1: for me. It's only fair I should confess mine for you.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I have been saying to Marco, she added,
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  Speaker 1: turning to me with that half filial confidence she had
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  Speaker 1: always shown me, and with a rosy glow in her cheeks,
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  Speaker 1: that I want to do something more for him than
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  Speaker 1: girls commonly do for their intended to take some great step,
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  Speaker 1: to run some risk, to break some law. Even I
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  Speaker 1: am quite willing to change my religion if he bids me.
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  Speaker 1: There are moments when I am terribly tired of simply
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  Speaker 1: staring at Catholicism. It will be a relief to come
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  Speaker 1: into a church, to kneel that, after all, is what
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  Speaker 1: they are meant for. Therefore, malcomio, if it cast a
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  Speaker 1: shade across your heart to think that I am a heretic,
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  Speaker 1: I will go and kneel down to that good old
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  Speaker 1: priest who has just entered the confessional yonder and say
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  Speaker 1: to him, my father, I repent, I abjure, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: baptize me in the only faith. If it is a
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  Speaker 1: compliment of the count, I said, it seems to me
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  Speaker 1: he ought to anticipate it by giving up for you
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  Speaker 1: something equally important. She had spoken lightly and with a smile,
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  Speaker 1: and yet with an undertone of girlish ardor. The young
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  Speaker 1: man looked at her with a solemn, puzzled face and
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  Speaker 1: shook his head. Keep your religion, he said, every one
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  Speaker 1: his own. If you should attempt to embrace mine, I
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  Speaker 1: am afraid you would close your arms about a shadow.
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  Speaker 1: I am not a good Catholic, a good Christian. I
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  Speaker 1: don't understand all these chants and ceremonies and splendors. When
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  Speaker 1: I was a child, I never could learn my catechism.
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  Speaker 1: My poor old confessor long ago gave me up. He
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  Speaker 1: told me I was a good boy, but a pagan.
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  Speaker 1: You must not be more devout than your husband. I
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  Speaker 1: don't understand your religion any better, but I beg you
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  Speaker 1: not to change it for mine. If it has helped
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  Speaker 1: to make you what you are, it must be good.
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  Speaker 1: And taking the young girl's hand, he was about to
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  Speaker 1: raise it affectionately to his lips, but suddenly remembering that
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  Speaker 1: they were in a place unaccordant with profane passions, he
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  Speaker 1: lowered it with a comical smile. Let us go, he murmured,
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  Speaker 1: passing his hand over his forehead. This heavy atmosphere of
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  Speaker 1: Saint Peter's always stupefies me. They were married in the
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  Speaker 1: month of May, and we separated for the summer, the
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  Speaker 1: contess's mamma going to illuminate the domestic circle beyond the
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  Speaker 1: sea with her reflected dignity. When I returned to Rome
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  Speaker 1: in the autumn, I found the young couple established at
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  Speaker 1: the Villa Valerio, which was now partly reclaimed from its
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  Speaker 1: antique decay. I begged that the hand of improvement might
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  Speaker 1: be lightly laid on it, for as an unscrupulous old
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  Speaker 1: painter of ruins and relics, with an eye to subjects,
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  Speaker 1: I preferred that crumbling thing should be allowed to crumble
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  Speaker 1: at their ease. My god daughter was quite of my
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  Speaker 1: way of thinking. She had a high appreciation of antiquity,
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  Speaker 1: advising with me often as to projected changes. She was
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  Speaker 1: sometimes more conservative even than I, and I more that
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  Speaker 1: once smiled at her archaeological zeal, declaring that I believed
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  Speaker 1: she had married the Count because he was like a
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  Speaker 1: statue of the decadence. I had a constant invitation to
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  Speaker 1: spend my days at the villa, and my easel was
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  Speaker 1: always planted in one of the garden walks. I grew
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  Speaker 1: to have a painter's passion for the place, and to
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  Speaker 1: be intimate with every tangled shrub and twisted tree, every
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  Speaker 1: moss coated vase and moldy sarcophagus and sad disfeatured bust
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  Speaker 1: of those grim old romans who could so ill afford
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  Speaker 1: to become more meager visaged. The place was of small extent,
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  Speaker 1: But though there were many other villas more pretentious and splendid,
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  Speaker 1: none seemed to me more exquisitely romantic, more haunted by
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  Speaker 1: the ghosts of the past. There were memories in the
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  Speaker 1: fragrance of the untended flowers, in the hum of the insects.
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  Speaker 1: It contained, among other idle, untrimmed departments, an old ilex
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  Speaker 1: walk in which I used religiously to spend half an
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  Speaker 1: hour every day, half an hour being I confess, just
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  Speaker 1: as long as I could stay without beginning to sneeze.
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  Speaker 1: The trees arched and intertwisted over the dusky vista in
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  Speaker 1: the most perfect symmetry, and as it was exposed uninterruptedly
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  Speaker 1: to the west, the low evening sun used to transfuse
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  Speaker 1: it with a sort of golden mist and play through
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  Speaker 1: it over leaves and knaughty boughs and mossy marbles with
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  Speaker 1: a thousand crimson fingers. It was filled with disinterred fragments
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  Speaker 1: of sculpture, nameless statues and noseless heads, and rough huwn sarcophagi,
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  Speaker 1: which made it deliciously solemn. The statues used to stand
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  Speaker 1: in the perpetual twilight, like conscious things brooding on their
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  Speaker 1: long observations. I used to linger near them, half expecting
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  Speaker 1: they would speak and tell me their stony secrets, whisper hoarsely,
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  Speaker 1: the whereabouts of their moldering fellows, still unrecovered from the soil.
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  Speaker 1: My god daughter was idyllically happy and absolutely in love.
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  Speaker 1: I was obliged to confess that even rigid rules have
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  Speaker 1: their exceptions, and that now and then an Italian count
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  Speaker 1: is as genuine as possible. Marco was a perfect original,
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  Speaker 1: not a copy, and seemed quite content to be appreciated.
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  Speaker 1: Their life was a childlike interchange of caresses, as candid
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  Speaker 1: and natural as those of a shepherd and shepherdess in
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  Speaker 1: a Bucolic poem. To stroll in the ale's walk and
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  Speaker 1: feel her husband's arm around her waist and his shoulder
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  Speaker 1: against her cheek, to roll cigarettes for him while he
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  Speaker 1: puffed them in the great marble paved rotunda in the
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  Speaker 1: center of the house, to fill his glass from an old,
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  Speaker 1: rusty red amphora. These graceful occupations satisfied the young countess.
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  Speaker 1: She rode with them, sometimes in the grassy shadow of
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  Speaker 1: aqueducts and tombs, and sometimes suffered him to show his
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  Speaker 1: beautiful wife at Roman dinners and balls. She played dominoes
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  Speaker 1: with him after dinner, and carried out, in a desultory way,
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  Speaker 1: a scheme of reading him the daily papers. This observance
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  Speaker 1: was subject to fluctuations caused by the count's invincible tendency
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  Speaker 1: to go to sleep a failing. His wife never attempted
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  Speaker 1: to disguise or palliate. She would sit and brush the
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  Speaker 1: flies from him while he lay statuesquely snoring, and if
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  Speaker 1: I ventured near him, would place her finger on her
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  Speaker 1: lips and whisper that she thought her husband was as
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  Speaker 1: handsome as sleep as awake. I confess I often felt
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  Speaker 1: tempted to reply that he was at least quite as entertaining.
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  Speaker 1: For the young man's happiness had not multiplied the topics
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  Speaker 1: on which he readily conversed. He had plenty of good sense,
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  Speaker 1: and his opinion on any practical matter was usually worth having.
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  Speaker 1: He would often come and sit near me while I
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  Speaker 1: worked at my easel and offer a friendly criticism on
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  Speaker 1: what I was doing. His taste was a little crude,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but his eye was excellent, and his measurement of the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: correspondence between some feature of my sketch and the object
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I was trying to reproduce as trustworthy as that of
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a mathematical instrument. But he seemed to me to have
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  Speaker 1: either a strange reserve or a still stranger's simplicity, to
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  Speaker 1: be fundamentally unfurnished with anything remotely resembling an idea. He
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  Speaker 1: had no beliefs, nor hopes, nor fears, nothing but senses, appetites,
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  Speaker 1: serenely luxurious tastes. As I watched him strolling about while
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  Speaker 1: he looked at his finger nails, I often wondered whether
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  Speaker 1: he had anything they could probably be termed a soul,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and whether good health and good nature were not to
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  Speaker 1: some total of his advantages. It's lucky he's good natured,
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  Speaker 1: I used to say to myself, for if he were not,
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  Speaker 1: there was nothing in his conscience to keep him in order.
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  Speaker 1: If he had irritable nerves instead, of quiet ones. He
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  Speaker 1: would strangle us as the infant hercules strangle the poor
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  Speaker 1: little snakes. He's the natural. Happily, his nature is gentle.
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  Speaker 1: I can mix my colors at my ease. I wondered
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  Speaker 1: what he thought about and what passed through his mind
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  Speaker 1: in the sunny idleness that seemed to shut him in
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  Speaker 1: from the modern, workaday world, of which, in spite of
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  Speaker 1: my passion for bedaubing old paddels with ineffective portraiture of
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: moldy statues against screens of box, I still flattened myself.
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  Speaker 1: I was a member. I went so far as to
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  Speaker 1: believe that he sometimes withdrew from the world altogether. He
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: had moods in which his consciousness seemed so remote and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: his mind so irresponsive and inarticulate, that nothing but some
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  Speaker 1: fresh endearment or some sudden violence could have power to
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  Speaker 1: arouse him. Even his tenderness for his wife had a
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  Speaker 1: quality which made me uneasy whether or no he had
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a soul himself. He seemed not to suspect that she
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: had won. I took a god fatherly interest in the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: development of her immortal part. I fondly believed her to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: be a creature susceptible of a moral life. But what
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  Speaker 1: was becoming of her moral life in this interminable, heathenish honeymoon.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Some fine day she would find herself tired of the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Count's posieu and make an appeal to his mind. She had,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to my knowledge, plans of study of charity, of worthily
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: playing her part as a contessa Valerio, a position as
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to which the family records furnished the most inspiring examples.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But if the Count found the newspaper soporific, I doubted
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  Speaker 1: whether he would turn Dantes pages very fast for his wife,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: or smile with much zest at the anecdotes of Asari.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: How could he advise her, instruct her, sustain her, And
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: if she should become a mother, how could he share
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  Speaker 1: her responsibilities? He doubtless would transmit his little son and
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  Speaker 1: heir a stout pair of arms and legs, and a
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  Speaker 1: magnificent crop of curls, and sometimes remove his cigarette to
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  Speaker 1: kiss the dimpled spot. But I found it hard to
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  Speaker 1: picture him lending his voice to teach the lusty urch
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  Speaker 1: in his alphabet, or his prayers, or the rudiments of
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  Speaker 1: infant virtue. One accomplishment. Indeed, the Count possessed which would
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: make him an agreeable playfellow. He carried in his pocket
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  Speaker 1: a collection of precious fragments of antique pavement, bits of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: porphyry and malachite, and lapis and basolt, disinterred on his
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: own soil, and brilliantly polished by use. With these, you
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: might see him occupied by the half hour playing the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: simple game of catch and toss, ranging them in a circle,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: tossing them in rotation, catching them on the back of
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  Speaker 1: his hand. His skill was remarkable. He would send a
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  Speaker 1: stone five feet into the air and pitch and catch
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and transpose the rest before he received it again. I
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: watched with affectionate jealousy for the signs of a dawning
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: sense on Martha's part that she was the least bit
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: oddly mated. Once or twice as the weeks went by,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: I fancied I read them, and that she looked at
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  Speaker 1: me with eyes which seemed to remember certain old talks
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  Speaker 1: of mine, in which I had declared, with such verity
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  Speaker 1: as you please, that a Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: might be a very good fellow, but that he never
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: really respected the woman he pretended to love. For the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: most part, however, my alarm, suspicions, prejudices spent themselves easily
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: in the charmed atmosphere of our romantic, our classical home.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: We were out of the modern world and had no
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: business with modern scruples. The place was so bright, so still,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: so sacred to the silent, imperturbable past, that drowsy contentment
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: seemed a natural law. And sometimes, when as I sat
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: down at my work, I saw my companions passing arm
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: in arm across the end of one of the long
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: drawn vistas, and turning back to my palate, found my
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: colors dimmer. For the radiant vision, I could easily have
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: believed that I with some old Monkish chronicler or copyist,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: engaged in illuminating a medieval legend. It was a help
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to ungrudging feelings that the count, yielding to his wife's urgency,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: had undertaken a series of systematic excavations to excavate is
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: an expensive luxury, and neither Marco nor his latter forefathers
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: had possessed the means for a disinterested pursuit of archaeology.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But his young wife had persuaded herself that the much
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: trodden soil of the villa was as full of buried
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: treasures as a bride cake of plums, and that it
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: would be a pretty compliment to the ancient house which
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: had accepted her as mistress, to devote a portion of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: her dowry to bringing its moldy honors to the light.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I think she was not without a fancy that this
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: liberal process would help to disinfect her Yankee dollars of
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the impertinent odor of trade. She took learned advice on
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the subject, and was soon ready to swear to you
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: proceeding from irrefutable premises, is that a colossal gilt bronze
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Minerva mentioned by Strabo was placidly awaiting resurrection. At appoint
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: twenty rods from the northwest angle of the house, she
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: had a couple of asthmatical antiquaries to lunch, whom, having
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: plied with unwonted potations, she walked off their legs in
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the grounds, and though they agreed on nothing else in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the world, they individually assured her that researches properly conducted
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: would probably yield an unequaled harvest of discoveries. The count
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: had been not only indifferent, but even unfriendly to the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: scheme and had more than once arrested his wife's complacent
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: delusions to it by an unaccustomed disurbity of tone. Let
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: them lie, the poor disinherited gods, the Minerva, the Apollo,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the series he were so sure of finding, he said,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: And don't break their rest. What you want of them,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: We can't worship them. Would you put them on pedestals
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: to stare and mock at them? If you can't believe
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: in them, don't disturb them. Peace be with them. I
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: remember being a good deal impressed by a confession drawn
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: from him by his wife's playfully declaring, in answer to
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: some remonstrances in this strain that he was really and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: truly superstitious. Yes, by back, as I am superstitious, he cried,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: too much so perhaps, But I'm an old Italian, and
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you must take me as you find me. There have
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: been things seen and done here which leaves strange influences behind.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: They don't touch you, doubtless, who come of another race.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: But me they touch often in the whisper of the leaves,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and the odor of the moldy soil, and the blank
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: eyes of the old statues. I can't bear to look
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the statues in the face. I seem to see other
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: strange eyes in the empty sockets, and I hardly know
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: what they say to me. I call the poor old
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: statues ghosts in conscience. We have enough on the place already,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: lurking and peering in every shady nook. Don't dig up
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: any more, or I won't answer for my wits. This
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: account of Marco's sensibilities was too fantastic not to seem,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: to his wife almost a joke, And though I imagined
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: there was more in it, he made a joke so
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: seldom that I should have been sorry to convert the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: poor girl's smile into a suspicion. With her smile, she
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: carried her point, and in a few days arrived a
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: kind of an archaeological expert or commissioner, with a dozen
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: workmen who bristled with pickaxes and spades. For myself, I
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: was secretly vexed at these energetic measures, for though fond
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of disinterred statues, I disliked to see the soil disturbed,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and deplored the profane sounds which are henceforth to jar
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: upon the sleepy stillness of the gardens. I especially objected
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to the personage who conducted the operations a little ugly
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: dwarfish man, who seemed altogether a subterranean genius, an earthy
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: gnome of the underworld, and went prying about the grounds
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: with a malicious smile which suggested more delight in the
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: money this way, Signor Conte was going to bury than
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: in the expected marbles and bronzes. When the first sod
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: had been turned, the Count's mood seemed to change very much,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and his curiosity got the better of his scruples. He
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: sniffed delightedly the odor of the humid earth, and stood
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: watching the workmen as they struck constantly deeper, with a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: kindling wonder in his eyes. Whenever a pickaxe rang against
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: a stone, he would utter a sharp cry, and be
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: deterred from jumping into the trench only by some assurance
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: on the part of the little expert that it was
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: a false alarm. The near prospect of discovery seemed to
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: act upon his nerves, and I met him more than once,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: strolling restlessly among his seed and alleys, as if at
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: last he too had learned how to reflect. He took
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: me by the arm and made me walk with him,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: having much to say about the chance of a find.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I rather wondered at his sudden eagerness, and asked myself
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: whether he had an eye to the past, or to
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the future, to the in intrinsic interest of possible minerves
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and apollos, or to their market value. Whenever the Count
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: came down to the place, and as he very often did,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: began to beerate his little army of spadesmen for dawdling.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: The diminutive person who superintended the operations would glance at
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: me with a sarcastic twinkle, which seemed to hint that
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: excavations were sometimes a snare. We were kept a good
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: while in suspense, for several false beginnings were made, the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: earth probed in the wrong places. The Count was discouraged,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the resumption of his naps testified to it. But the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: master digger, who had his own ideas, shrewdly continued his labors.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: And as I sat at my easel, I heard the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: spades making their gay sound as they touched the dislodged stones.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Now and then I would pause with an uncontrollable acceleration
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: of my heart beats. It may be I would say
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: that some marble masterpieces stirring there beneath its lightning weight
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: of earth. There are as good fish in the sea
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: as ever were caught. What if I should be summoned
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to welcome another antinous back to fame, A venus, a
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: fawn and Augustus. One morning it seemed to me that
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I had been hearing for half an hour a livelier
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: movement of voices than usual. But as I was preoccupied
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: with a puzzling bit of work, I made no inquiries.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Suddenly a shadow fell across my canvas, and I turned round.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: The little excavator stood beside me with a glittering eye
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: cap in hand, his forehead bathed and perspiration. Resting in
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the hollow of his arm was an earth stained fragment
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of marble. In answer to my question and glance, he
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: held it up to me, and I saw it was
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a woman's shapely hand. Come, he simply said, and led
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the way to the excavation. The workman was so closely
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: gathered round the open trench that I saw nothing till
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: he made them divide, then full in the sun and
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: flashing it back, almost in spite of her dusky incrustations.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I beheld, propped up with stones against a heap of earth,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a majestic marble image. She seemed to me almost colossal,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: though I afterwards perceived that she was only of the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: proportions of a woman exceptionally tall. My pulses began to throb,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: for I felt that she was something great, and it
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: was a high privilege to be among the first to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: know heher. Her finished beauty gave her an almost human look,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: and her absent eyes seemed to wonder bacadus. She was
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: amply draped, so that I saw she was not a venus.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: She's a juno, said the expert decisively, and she seemed
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: indeed an embodiment of celestial supremacy and repose. Her beautiful head,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: bound with a single band, could have bent only to
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: give the nod of command. Her eyes looked straight before her,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: her mouth was implacably grave. One hand outstretched appeared to
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: have held a kind of imperial wand the arm from
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: which the other had been broken hung at her side
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: with the most queenly majesty. The workmanship was of the
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: greatest delicacy, and though perhaps there was more in her
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: than usual of a certain personal expression, she was wrought
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: as a whole in the large and simple manner of
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the Great Greek period. She was a masterpiece of skill
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and a marvel at preservation. Does the Count know, I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: soon asked, for I had a guilty sense that our
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: eyes were taking something from her. The Signor Conte is
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: at his siesta, said the Patrone, with his skeptical grin.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: We don't like to disturb him. Here he comes, cried
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: one of the workmen, and we promptly made way for him.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: His siesta had evidently been suddenly broken, for his face
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: was flushed and his hair disordered. Ah, my dream, my
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: dream was right, then, he cried, and stood staring at
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the image. What was your dream? I asked, as his
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: face seemed to betray more or dismay than delight, that
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: they had found a wonderful juno, and that she rose
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: and came and laid her marble hand on mine. Is
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that it? Said the count excitedly. An awestruck santissima verrgine
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: burst from one of the listening workmen. Yes, Signor Comte,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: this is the hand, said the superintendent, holding up his
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: perfect fragment. I have had it safe here this half hour,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: so it can't have touched you. But you are apparently
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: right as to her being a juno, I said, admire
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: her at your leisure, and I turned away, for if
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the Count were superstitious, I didn't wish to embarrass by
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: my observation. I repaired to the house to carry the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: news to my god daughter, whom I found slumbering dreamlessly.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: It appeared over a great archaeological octavo. They have touched bottom.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I said, they have found something Fiddian or prax Italian
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: at the very least. She dropped her octavo and rang
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: for a paras. I described the statue, but not graphically,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I presume, for Martha gave a little sarcastic grimace, a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: long fluted peplum. She said, how very odd. I don't
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: believe she's beautiful. She's beautiful enough to make you jealous. Filotchamiah,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I replied. We found the Count standing before the resurgent
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: goddess in fixed contemplation with folded arms. He seemed to
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: have recovered from the impression of his dream, but I
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: thought his face betrayed a still deeper emotion. He was
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: pale and gave no response as his wife affectionately clasped
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: his arm. I am not sure, however, that his wife's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: attitude was not a livelier tribute to the perfection of
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the image. She had been laughing at my rhapsody as
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: we walked from the house, and I had bethought myself
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of an assertion that I had somewhere seen that women
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: lacked the perception of the purest beauty. Martha, however, seemed
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: slowly to measure our Juno's infinite stateliness. She gazed along
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: long time, silently, leaning against her husband, and then stepped
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: half timidly down upon the stones which formed a rough
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: base for the figure. She laid her two rosy, ungloved
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: hands upon the stony fingers of the goddess, and remained
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: for some moments, pressing them in her warm grasp, and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: fixing her living eyes upon the sightless brow. When she
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: turned round, her eyes were bright with a tear which
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: deep admiration sometimes calls forth, and which in this case
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: her husband was too much absorbed to notice. He had
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: apparently given orders that the workmen should be treated to
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: a cask of wine in honor of their discovery. It
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was now brought and opened on the spot, and the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: little expert, having drawn the first glass, stepped forward, hat
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: in hand and obsequiously presented it to the Countess. She
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: only moistened her lips with it and passed it to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: her husband. He raised it mechanically to his own. Then
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: suddenly he stopped, held it a moment aloft, and poured
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it out slowly and solemnly at the feet of the Juno.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Why it's a libation, I cried. He made no answer
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: and walked slowly away. There was no more work done
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: that day. The laborers lay on the grass, gazing with
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the native Roman relish of a fine piece of sculpture,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: but wasting no wine and pagan ceremonies. In the evening,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the count paid the Juno another visit and gave orders
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that on the morrow she should be transferred to the Casino.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: The casino was a deserted garden house built in not
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: ungraceful imitation of an ionic temple in which Marco's ancestors
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: must often have assembled to drink cool syrups from Venetian
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: glasses and listen to madrigals and other conchetti. It contained
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: several dusty fragments of antique sculptures, and it was spacious
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: enough to enclose that richer collection, of which I began
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: fondly to regard the juno as but the nucleus here.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: With short delay, his fine creature was placed serenely upright,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: a reversed funereal sippis, forming a sufficiently solid pedestal. The
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: small superintendent, who seemed a thorough adept in all the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: offices of restoration, rubbed her and scraped her with mysterious art,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: removed her earthy stains, and gave her back the luster
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: of her beauty. Her firm, fine surface seemed to glow
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: with a kind of renascent, purity and bloom. And but
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: for her broken hand, you might have fancied she had
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: just received the last stroke of the chisel. Her presence
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: remained no secret. Within two or three days, half a
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: dozen inquisitive conocenti posted out to obtain sight of her.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I happened to be present when the first of these gentlemen,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a German in blue spectacles with a portfolio under his arm,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: presented himself at the villa. The count, hearing his voice
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: at the door, came forward and eyed him coldly from
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: head to foot. Your new juno, signor conte, began. The
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: German is, in my opinion, much more likely to be
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a certain persepone. I have neither a juno nor a
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: persepone to discuss with you, said the Count curtly. You
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: are misinformed. You have dug up no statue, cried the German.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: What a scandalous hoax, none worthy of your learned attention.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I am sorry you should have the trouble of carrying
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: your little note book so far. The Count had suddenly
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: become witty. But you have something, surely the rumor is
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: running through Rome. The ruler be damned, cried the Count savagely,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I have nothing. Do you understand? Be so good as
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: to say so to your friends. The answer was explicit,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: and the poor archeologist departed, tossing his flaxen mane. But
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I pitied him and ventured to remonstrate with the Count.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: She might as well be still in the earth if
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: no one is to see her, I said, I am
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: to see her. That's enough, he answered, with the same
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: unnatural harshness. Then, in a moment, as he caught me
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: eyeing him, askance in troubled surprise. I hated his great portfolio.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: He was going to make some hideous drawing of her.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Ah that touches me, I said, I too have been
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: planning to make a little sketch. He was silent for
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: some moments, after which he turned and grasped my arm
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: with less irritation, but with extraordinary gravity. Go in there
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: towards twilight, he said, and sit for an hour and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: look at her. I think you will give up your sketch.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: If you don't, my good old friend, you are welcome.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I followed his advice, and as a friend, I gave
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: up my sketch. But an artist is an artist, and
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I secretly longed to attempt one. Orders strictly in accordance
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: with the Count's reply to our German friend, were given
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to the servants, who, with an easy Italian conscience and
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a gracious Italian persuasiveness, assured all subsequent inquirers that they
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: had been lamentably misinformed. I have no doubt, indeed, that
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: in default of larger opportunity, they made condolence remunerative. Further
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: operations were for the present suspended, as implying an affront
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to the incomparable Juno. The workmen departed, but the little
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: adept still haunted the premisses and sounded the soil for
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: his own entertainment. One day he came to me with
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: his usual ambiguous grimace. The beautiful hand of the juno,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: He murmured, what has become of it? I have not
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: seen it since you called me to look at her.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I remembered that when I went away, it was lying
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: on the grass near the excavation, where I placed it myself.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: After that it disappeared party impossibly, do you suspect one
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: of your workmen such a fragment, as that would bring
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: more scooty than most of them ever looked at? Some
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: perhaps are greater thieves than the others. But if I
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: were to call up the greatest rascal of the law
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and accuse him, the Count would interfere. He must value
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: that beauty had. Nevertheless, my friend the Resurrectionist looked about
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: him and winked. He values it so much that he
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: himself purloined it. That's my belief, and I think that
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the less we say about it, the better purloined it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: My dear sir, After all, it's his own property, not
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: so much as that comes to. So beautiful a creature
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is more or less the property of everyone. We have
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: all a right to look at her, But the Count
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: treats her as if she were a sacro sanct image
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: of the Madonna. He keeps under lock and key, and
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: pays her solitary visits. What does he do, after all,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: when a beautiful woman is in stone, all one can
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: do is to look at her. And what does he
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: do with that precious hand? He keeps it in a
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: silver box. He has made a relic of it. And
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: this cynical personage began to chuckle grotesquely as he walked away.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: And of section one of the Last of the Valieri.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Section two of the Last of the Valeri. This is
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: To volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The Last of
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the Valerie by Henry James, Section two. He left me
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: musing uncomfortably and wondering what the deuce he meant. The
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Count certainly chose to make a mystery of the juno,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: but this seemed a natural incident of the first rapture
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: of possession. I was willing to wait for permission to
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: approach her, and in the meantime I was glad to
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: find that there was a limit to his constitutional apathy.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: But as the days elapsed, I began to be conscious
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that his enjoyment was not communicative, but strangely cold and
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: shy and somber. That he should admire a marble goddess
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: was no reason for his despising mankind. Yet he really
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: seemed to be making invidious compare garisons between us. From
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: this ridiculous prescription, his charming wife was not accepted. At
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: moments when I tried to persuade myself that he was
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: neither worse nor better company than usual, the expression of
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: her face contradicted this superficial view. She said nothing, but
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: she wore a look of really touching perplexity. She sat
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: at times with her eyes fixed on him with a
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: kind of imploring curiosity, as if for the present she
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: were too much surprised to be angry what passed between
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: them and private. I had, of course, no warrant to
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: inquire nothing I suspected, and that was the misery. It
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: was part of the misery, too, that he was impenetrable
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: to these mute glances and looked over her head with
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: an air of superb abstraction. Occasionally he seemed to notice
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: that I too didn't know what to make of his condition,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: And then for a moment his dull eye would sparkle,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: half as it appeared, with a kind of sinister irony,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: and half with an impulse strangely stifled as soon as
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: he felt it to justify himself. But from his wife
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: he kept his face inexorably averted, and when she approached
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: him with some melancholy attempted fondness, he received it with
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: an ill concealed shudder. The situation struck me as tremendously queer,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: and I grew to hate the Count and everything that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: belonged to him. I was a thousand times right, I cried,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: an Italian count may be mighty fine, but he won't
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: wear give us some wholesome young fellow of our own blood,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: who will play us none of these dusky old world tricks. Artist,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: as I have aspired to be, I will never again
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: recommend a husband with traditions. I lost my pleasure in
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: the villa, In the violet shadows and amber lights, the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: mossy marbles, and the long trailing profile of the Alban hills,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: my painting stood still. Everything looked ugly. I sat and
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: fumbled with my pallette and seemed to be mixing mud
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: with my colors. My head was stuffed with dismal thoughts,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: an intolerable weight settled itself on my heart. The poor
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Count became to my imagination a dark efflorescence of the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: evil germs which history had implanted in his line. No
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: wonder he was foredoomed to be cruel, was not cruelly
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a tradition in his race, and crime and example, the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: unholy passions of his forefathers revived incurably in his untaught nature,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: and clamored dumbly for an issue. What a heavy heritage
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it seemed to me as I reckoned it up in
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: my melancholy musings. The Count's interminable ancestry, back to the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: profligate revival of arts and vices, back to the bloody
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: medley of medieval wars, back through the long, fitfully glaring
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: dusk of the early ages, to its ponderous origin of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the solid Roman state, Back through all the darkness of history.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: It stretched itself, losing every claim on my sympathies as
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: it went. Such a record was in itself a curse,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and my dear girl had expected it to sit as
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: lightly and gratefully on her consciousness as her feathers on
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: her hat. I have little idea how long this painful
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: situation lasted. It seemed the longer from my god daughter's
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: persistent reticence and my inability to offer her a word
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: of consolation. A sensitive woman disappointed in marriage exhausts her
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: own ingenuity before she takes counsel of others. The Count's preoccupations,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: whatever they were, made him increasingly restless. He came and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: went at random with nervous abruptness. He took long rides alone,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and as I inferred, rarely went through the form of
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: excusing himself to his wife. And still as time went on,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: he came no nearer explaining his mystery. With the lapse
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: of the months, however, I confess that my anxiety began
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: to be tempered with compassion. If I had expected to
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: see him propitiate his inexorable ancestry by the commission of
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: a misdeed, now that his honest nature appeared to refuse
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: them this satisfaction, I felt a sort of grudge and gratitude.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: A man couldn't be so infernally blue with out being,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: however little he might confess it in want of sympathy.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: He had always treated me with that antique deference to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: a grizzled beard for which elderly men reserved the cream
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: of their general tenderness for waning fashions, and I thought
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: it possible he would suffer me at last to lay
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a healing hand upon his trouble. One evening, when I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: had taken leave of my god daughter and given her,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: in a silent kiss, my rather ineffectual blessing, I came
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: out and found the Count sitting in the garden in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the mild starlight and staring at a moldy hermes planted
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: in a clump of oleander. I sat down by him
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and informed him, in definite terms that his conduct required
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: an explanation. He half turned his head, and his dark
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: pupil gleamed an instant I understand, he said, you think
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: me crazy, and he tapped his forehead. No, not crazy,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: but unhappy. And if unhappiness runs its course too freely,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: of course, it's a great strain on the mind. He
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: was silent awhile. And then I'm not unhappy, he cried abruptly.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I am tremendously happy. You wouldn't believe the satisfaction I'd
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: take in sitting here and staring at that old weather
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: worn Hermes. Formerly I used to be afraid of him.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: His frown used to remind me of a bushy browed
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: old priest who taught me Latin and looked at me
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: terribly over the book when I stumbled at my Virgil.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: But now it seems to me the friendliest, jolliest thing
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in the world, and suggests the most delightful images. He
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: stood pouting his great lips in some old Roman's garden
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand years ago. He saw the sandaled feet treading
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the alleys, and the rose crowned heads bending over the wine.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: He knew the old feasts and the old worship, the
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: old believers in the old gods. As I sit here,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: he speaks to me in his own dumb way and
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: describes it all. No, No, my friend, I am the
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: happiest of men. I had denied that I thought he
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: was crazy, but I suddenly began to suspect it, for
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I found nothing reassuring in this singular rhapsody. The Hermes,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: for a wonder had kept his nose, And when I
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: reflected that my dear Countess was being neglected for this
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: senseless pagan block, I secretly promised myself to come the
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: next day. With a hammer and deal him such a
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: lusty blow as would make him too ridiculous for a
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: sentimental tete a tete. Meanwhile, however, the Count's infatuation was
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: no laughing matter, and I expressed my sincerest conviction when
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I said, after a pause, that I should recommend him
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: to see either a priest or a physician. He burst
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: into uproarious laughter. A priest. What should I do with
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: a priest? Or he with me? I never loved them,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and I feel less like beginning than ever. A priest,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: my dear friend, he repeated, laying his hand on my arm.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Don't set a priest at me, if you value his sanity,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: My confession would frighten the poor man out of his wits.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: As for a doctor, I never was better in my life.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And unless he added, abruptly, rising and eyeing me, askance
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: you want to poison me in Christian charity, I advise
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: you to leave me alone. Decidedly, the count was unsound,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and I had no heart for some days to go
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: back to the villa. How should I treat him? What
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: stand should I take? What course did Martha's happiness and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: dignity demand? I wanted about Rome turning over these questions,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and one afternoon found myself in the pantheon. A light
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: spring shower had begun to fall, and I hurried for
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: refuge into the big Rotunda, which its Christian altars have
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: but half converted into a church. No Roman monument retains
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a deeper imprint of ancient life, or as more of
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the form of the antique faiths, whose temples were nobler
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: than their gods. The huge, dusky dome seems to the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: spiritual ear to hold a vague reverberation of pagan worship,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: as a shell picked up on the beach holds the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: rumor of the sea. Three or four persons were scattered
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: before the various altars, and others stood near the center
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: beneath the aperture in the dome. As I drew near,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I perceived this was the count. He was planted with
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: his hands behind him, looking up first at the heavy
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: rain clouds as they crossed the great Bull's eye, and
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: then down at the besprinkled circle on the pavement. In
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: those days, the pavement was rugged and cracked and magnificently old,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: and this ample space and a free communion with the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: weather had become as moldy and mossy and verdant as
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a strip of garden soil. A tender herbage had sprung
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: up in the crevices of the slabs, and the little
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: microscopic shoots were twinkling in the rain. This great weather
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: current through the uncapped vault deadens effectively the customary odors
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: of incense and tallow, and transports one to a faith
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: that was on terms of reciprocity with nature. It seemed
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: to have performed this office for the Count. His face
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: wore an indefinable expression of ecstasy, and he was so
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: rapt in contemplation that it was some time before he
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: noticed me. The sun was struggling through the clouds without
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: and yet a thin rain continued to fall and came
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: drifting down into our gloomy enclosure in a sort of
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: illuminated drizzle. The Count watched it with the fascinated stare
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: of a child watching a fountain, and then turned away,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: pressing his hand to his brow, and walked over to
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: one of the rather perfunctory altars. Here he again stood staring,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: but in a moment wheeled about and returned to his
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: former place. Just then he recognized me and perceived I
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: suppose the curious gaze I must have fixed on him.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: He waved me a greeting with his head, and at
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: last came towards me. He was in a state of
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: nervous exultation, doing his best to appear natural. This is
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the best place in Rome, he murmured, It's worth fifty
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Saint Peter's. But you know I never came here till
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the other day. I left it to the Forestieri. They
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: go about with their red books and their opera glasses
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: and read about this and that, and think they know it. Ah,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: you must feel it, feel the beauty and fitness of
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: that great open skylight. Now only the wind and the rain,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the sun and the cold come down. But of old,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: of old. And he touched my arm and gave me
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: a strange smile. The pagan gods and goddesses used to
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: descend through it and take their places at their altars.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: What a procession where the eyes of faith could see it.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Those of the things they have given us. Instead, and
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: he gave a pitiful shrug. I should like to pull
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: down their pictures, overturn their candlesticks, and poison their holy water,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: my dear count, I said gently, you should tolerate people's
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: honest beliefs, would you renew the inquisition? And in the
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: interests of Jupiter and Mercury? People wouldn't tolerate my belief
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: if they guessed it, he cried. There's been a great
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: deal of talk about the pagan persecutions, but the Christians
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: persecuted as well, and the old gods were worshiped in
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: caves and woods as well as than you, and none
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: the worse for that. It was in caves and woods
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and streams, in earth and air and water they dwelt,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: And there and here too, in spite of all your
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Christian lustrations, a son of old Italy may find them still.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: He had said more than he meant, and his mask
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: had fallen. I looked at him hard and felt her
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: sudden outgush of the compassion we always feel for a creature.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Irresponsibly excited, I seemed to touch the source of his trouble,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: and my relief was great, for my discovery made me
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: feel like bursting into laughter, but I contented myself with
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: smiling indignantly. He looked back at me suspiciously, as if
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: to judge how far he had betrayed himself, and in
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: his glance, I read somehow that he had a conscience
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: we could take hold of. In my gratitude, I was
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: ready to thank any gods he pleased. Take care, Take care,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I said, you were saying things which if the sacristan
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: there were to hear and report, And I passed my
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: hand through his arm and led him away. I was
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: startled and shocked, but I was also amused and comforted.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: The count had suddenly become for me a delightfully curious phenomenon,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: and I passed the rest of the day in meditating
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: on the strange ineffaceability of race characteristics. A sturdy young
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Latin I had called poor Marco, and he was sturdier
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: indeed than I had dreamed him. Discretion was now out
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: of place, And on the morrow I spoke to my
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: god daughter, she had lately been hoping. I think that
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: I would help her to unburden her heart, for she
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: immediately gave way to tears and confessed that she was miserable.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I have racked my brain to discover what I had said,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: or done or thought to displease him, And yet he
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: goes about like a man too deeply injured to complain.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: He has never uttered a harsh word or given me
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: a reproachful look. He has simply renounced me. I have
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: dropped out of his life. She spoke with such a
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: pathetic little quiver in her voice that I was on
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the point of telling her that I had guessed the riddle,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and that was half the battle. But I was afraid
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: of her incredulity. My solution was so fantastic, so apparently
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: far fetched, so absurd, that I resolved to wait for
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: convincing evidence to obtain it. I continued to watch the
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Count covertly and cautiously, but with a vigilance which disinterested
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: curiosity now made intensely keen. I returned to my painting
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: and neglected no pretext for hovering about the gardens and
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood of the casino. The Count, I think, suspected
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: my design, so released my suspicions, and would have been
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: glad to remember just what he had suffered himself to
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: say to me in the pantheon. But it deepened my
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: interest in his extraordinary situation that, in so far as
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I could read his deeply brooding face, he seemed half
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: contemptuously to have forgiven me. He gave me a glance
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: occasionally as he passed me, in which a kind of
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: dumb desire for help appeared to struggle with a conviction
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: that such a one as I would never understand him.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: I was willing enough to help him, but the case
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: was exceedingly delicate, and I wished to master the symptoms. Meanwhile,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: I worked and waited and wondered, Ah, I wondered, you
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: may be sure, with an interminable wonder, and turned it
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: over as I would. I couldn't get used to my idea.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it offered itself to me with a perverse fascination,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: which deprived me of all wish to interfere. The count
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: took the form of a precious psychological study, and refined
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: feeling seemed to dictate a tender respect for his delusion.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I envied him the force of his imagination, and I
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: used sometimes to close my eyes with a vague desire
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: that when I opened them, I might find Apollo under
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: the opposite tree, lazily kissing his flute, or see Diana
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: hurrying with long steps down the alex walk. But for
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: the most part, my host seemed to me simply an
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: unhappy young man with a morbid metal twist which ought
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: to be smoothed away as speedily as possible. If the
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: remedy was to match the disease, however, it would have
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: to be an extraordinary dose. One evening, having bidden my
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: goddaughter a good night, I started on my usual walk
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: to my lodgings in the Corso. Five minutes after leaving
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: the villa gate, I discovered that I had left my
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: eye glass, an object in constant use, behind me. I
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: immediately remembered that, while painting, I had broken the string
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: which fastened it round my neck, and had hooked it
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: provisionally upon the twig of a flowering almond, which happened
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: to be near me. Shortly afterwards, I had gathered up
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: my things and retired, unmindful of the glass, and now,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: as I needed it to read the evening paper at
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the Cafagraeco, there was no alternative but to retrace my
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: steps and detach it from its twig. I easily found
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: it and lingered awhile to note the curious night aspect
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of the spot I had been studying. By daylight. The
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: night was magnificent and full, charged with the breath of
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: the early Roman spring. The moon was rising fast and
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: flinging her silver checkers into the heavy masses of shadow.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Watching her at work, I strolled farther and suddenly came
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: in sight of the casino. Just then, the moon, which
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: for a moment had been concealed, touched with a white
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: ray a small marble figure which adorned the pediment of
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: this rather factitious little structure. The way it leaped into
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: prominence suggested that a rare spectacle was at hand, and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: that the same influence must be vastly becoming to the
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: imprisoned Juno. The door of the casino was, as usual locked,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: but the moonlight flooded the high placed window so generously
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: that my curiosity became obstinate and inventive. I dragged a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: garden seat round from the portico, placed it on end,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: and succeeded in climbing to the top of it and
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: bringing myself abreast of one of the windows. The casement
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: yielded to my pressure, turned on its hinges, and showed
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: me what I had been looking for, a transfiguration. The
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: beautiful image stood bathed in the cold radiance, shining with
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: a purity that made her convincingly divine. If by day
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: her rich paleness suggested faded gold, she now had a
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: complexion like silver, slightly dimmed. The effect was almost terrible.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Beauty so expressive could hardly be inanimate. This was my
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: foremost observation. I leave you to fancy whether my next
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: was less interesting. At some distance from the foot of
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: the statue, just out of the light, I perceived a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: figure lying flat on the pavement, prostrate, apparently with devotion.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I can hardly tell you how it completed the impressiveness
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: of the scene. It marked the shining images of Goddess, indeed,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: and seemed to throw a sort of conscious pride into
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: her stony mask. Of course, in this recumbent worshiper, I immediately
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: recognized the count, and while I lingered there, as if
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to help me to read the full meaning of his attitude,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: the moonlight traveled forward and covered his breast and face.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Then I saw that his eyes were closed, and that
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: he was either asleep or swooning. Watching him attentively, I
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: perceived his even respirations and judged there was no reason
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: for alarm. The moonlight blanched his face, which seemed already
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: pale with weariness. He had come into the presence of
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the juno in obedience to that fabulous pack of which
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: the symptoms had given us so much to wonder at.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: And exhausted either by compliance or resistance, he had sunk
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: down at her feet in a stupid sleep. The lunar
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: influence soon roused him, however, he muttered something and raised himself,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: vaguely staring. Then recognizing his situation, he rose and stood
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: for some time, gazing fixedly at the brilliant image. With
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: an expression which I suspected was not that of wholly
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: unprotesting devotion. He uttered a string of broken words at
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: which I was unable to catch the meaning, and then,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: after another pause and a long and melancholy moan, he
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: turned slowly to the door, as rapidly as noiselessly as possible.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I descended from my post of vigilance and passed behind
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: the casino, and in a moment I heard the sound
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: of the closing lock and the departing footsteps. The next day,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: meeting at the garden the functionary who had conducted the excavation,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I shook my finger at him with an intention of
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: portentous gravity, but he only grinned, like the malicious earth
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: gnome to which I had always compared him, and twisted
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: his mustache, as if my menace were a capital joke.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: If you dig any more holes here, I said, you
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: shall be thrust into the deepest of them and have
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: the earth packed down on top of you. We have
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: made enough discoveries, and we want no more statues. Your
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: juno has almost ruined us, he burst out, laughing. I
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: expected as much I had my notion. What was your
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: notion that the signor Conte would begin and say his
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: prayers to her good heavens? Is the case so common?
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: Why did you expect it? On the contrary, the case
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: is rare. But I have fumbled so long in the
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: monstrous heritage of antiquity that I have learned a multitude
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: of secrets, learned that ancient relics may work modern miracles.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: There is a Paguean element in all of us. I
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: don't speak for you, ilustrisi mi Porristieri. And the old
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: gods have still their worshipers, the old spirit still throbs
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: here and there, and the signor Conte has his share
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of it. He's a good fellow, but between ourselves he's
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: an impossible Christian. And this singular personage resumed his impertinent hilarity.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: If your provisions were so distinct, you ought to have
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: given me a hint of them, I said, I should
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: have sent your spadesmen walking. Ah, but the Juno is
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: so beautiful, her beauty be blasted. Can you tell me
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: what has become of the comtesses to rival the Juno?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: She is turning to marble herself, He shrugged his shoulders. Ah,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: but the Juno is worth fifty thousand, scoodie, I would
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: give a hundred thousand to have her annihilated. Perhaps, after all,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: I shall want you to dig another hole at your service,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: he answered with a flourish while I turned my back
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: on him. A couple of days later, I dined as
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: I often did with my host and hostess, and let
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: the count face to face for the first time since
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: his prostration in the casino. He bore the traces of it,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and was uncommonly taciturn and absent. It appeared to me
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: that the path of the antique faith was not strewn
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: with flowers, and that the Juno was becoming daily a
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: hard of mistress to serve. Dinner was scarcely over before
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: he rose from table and took up his hat. As
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: he did so, passing near his wife, he flted a moment,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: stopped and gave her for the first time, I imagine
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: that vaguely imploring look which I myself had often caught.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: She moved her lips in inarticulate sympathy and put out
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: her hands. He drew her towards him, kissed her with
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: an almost brutal violence, and strode away. The occasion was propitious,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: and further delay unnecessary. What I have to tell you
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: is very strange, I said to the Countess, very improbable,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: very incredible. But perhaps you will not find it so
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: bad as you feared. There is a woman in the case.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Your enemy is the juno the count. How shall I
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: say it? The count takes her, Oh, sirieu. She was silent,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: but after a moment she touched my arm with her hand,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and I knew she meant that I had spoken her
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: own belief. You admired his antique simplicity. You see how
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: var it goes. He has reverted to the faith of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: his father's dormant for so many centuries that imperious image
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: has silently evoked it. He believes in the pedigrees you
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: used to dogs year your school mythology with trying to
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: get by heart in a word, dear child, Marco is
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: an anthropomorphist. Do you know what that means? I suppose
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: you will be terribly shocked, she answered. If I say
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: that he is welcome to any faith, if he will
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: only share it with me, I will believe in Jupiter
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: if he'll bid me. My sorrow is not for that.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Let my husband be himself. My sorrow is for the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: gulf of silence and indifference that has opened itself between us.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: His Juno is the reality. I am the fiction. I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: have lately become reconciled to this gulf of silence, and
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: to your losing for a while your importance. After the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: fable the moral, the poor fellow has but half succumbed.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: The other half protests, the modern man is shut out
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: in the darkness with his irreproachable wife. How can he
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: have failed to feel, vaguely and grossly if it must
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: have been but in every throb of his heart that
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: you are a more perfect experiment of nature, a riper
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: fruit of time than those primitive persons, for whom Juno
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: is a terror and Venus a model. He pays you
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the compliment of believing you an unconvertible modern he has
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: crossed the acron, but he has left you behind as
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: a pledge to the present. We will bring him back
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: to redeem it. The old ancestral ghosts to be propitiated.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: When a pretty creature like you has sacrificed the best
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: elements of her life, he has proved himself one of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: the Valeeri. We shall see to it that he is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the last, and yet that his passing away shall leave
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the Conte Marco in excellent health. I spoke with confidence,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: and partly felt it, for it seemed to me that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: if the Count was to be touched, it must be
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: by the sense that his strange spiritual excursion had not
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: made his wife detest him. We talked long and to
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: a hopeful end, for before I went away, my god
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: daughter expressed the desire to go out and look at
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the Juno. I was afraid of her almost from the first,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: she said, and have hardly seen her since she was
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: set up in the casino. Perhaps I can learn a
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: lesson from her, Perhaps I can guess how she charms him.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: For a moment I hesitated from the fear that we
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: might intrude upon the Count's devotions. Then, as something in
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: the poor girl's face suggested that she two had thought
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: of this and felt a sudden impulse to pluck victory
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: from the heart of danger. I bravely offered her my arm.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: The night was cloudy, and on this occasion, apparently the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: triumphant goddess was to depend upon her own luster. But
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: as we approached the casino, I saw that the door
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: was ajar and that there was lamp light within. The
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: lamp was suspended in front of the image, and it
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: showed us that the place was empty, but evidently the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: count had lately been there before. The statue stood a
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: roughly extemporized altar composed of a shapeless fragment of antique marble,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: engraved with an illegible Greek inscription. We seemed really to
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: stand in a pagan temple, and as we gazed at
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: the serene divinity, I think we each of us felt,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: for a moment the breath of superstition. It ought to
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: have been quickened, I suppose, but it was rudely arrested
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: by our observing a curious glitter on the face of
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: the low altar. A second showed us it was blood.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: My companion looked at me in pale horror and turned
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: away with a cry. A swarm of hideous conjectures pressed
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: into my mind, and for a moment I was sickened.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: But at last I remembered that there was blood and blood,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: and that in the best time, the ancient Romans offered
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: no human victims. Be sure, it's very innocent, I said,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: a lamb, a kid, or a sucking calf. But it
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: was enough for her nerves and her conscience that it
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: was a crimson trickle, and she returned to the house
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: in immense agitation. The rest of the night was not
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: pasted in a way to restore her to calmness. The
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: Count had not come in, and she sat up for him.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: From hour to hour. I remained with her, smoking my
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: cigar as composedly as I might, but internally I wondered
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: what an Horror's name had become of him. Gradually, as
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the hours wore away, I arrived at a vague interpretation
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: of these strange practices, an interpretation none the less valid
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: and less welcome for being comparatively cheerful. The blood drops
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: on the altar, I mused, with the last installment of
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: his debt and the end of his delusion, they had
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: been a happy necessity, for he was, after all, too
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: generous a creature not to hate himself for having shed them,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: not to abhor so cruelly insistent and idle. He had
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: wandered away to recover himself in solitude, and he would
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: come back to us with a repentant heart and an
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: inquiring mind. I should certainly have believed all this more easily, However,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: if I could have heard his footstep in the hall.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Toward dawn, skepticism threatened to creep in with the gray light,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: and I restlessly betook myself to the portico. Here. In
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: a few moments I saw him cross the grass, heavy footed,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: splashed with mud, and evidently excessively tired. He must have
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: been walking all night, and his face de noted that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: his spirit had been as restless as his body. He
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: passed near me, and before he entered the house, he stopped,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: looked at me a moment, and then held out his hand.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: I grasped it warmly, and it seemed to me to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: throb with all that he was unable to utter. Will
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: you see your wife, I asked. He passed his hand
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: over his eyes and shook his head. Not now, not yet.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Some time he answered, I was disappointed, but I convinced
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: her I think that he had cast out the devil.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: She felt, poor girl a pardonable desire to celebrate the event.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: I returned to my lodging, spent the day in Rome,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: and came back to the villa towards dusk. I was
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: told that the Countess was in the grounds. I looked
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: for her cautiously at first, for I thought it just
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: possible I might intrude upon the natural consequences of a reconciliation.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: But failing to meet her, I turned toward the casino
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: and found myself face to face with the mocking little commissioner.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Does your excellency happen to have twenty yards of stout
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: rope about him? He asked gravely, Do you want to
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: hang yourself for the trouble you have stood sponsored to?
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I answered, it's a hanging matter. I promise you. The
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Countess has given orders. You will find her in the casino.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Sweet voiced as she is, she knows how to make
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: her orders understood. At the door of the casino stood
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: half a dozen of the laborers on the place, looking
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: vaguely solemn, like outstanding dependents at a superior funeral. The
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Countess was within in a position which was an answer
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: to the surveyor's riddle. She stood with her eyes fixed
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: on the juno, who had been removed from her pedestal,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: and lay stretched in her magnificent length upon a rude litter.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: Do you understand? She said, She's beautiful, she's noble, she's precious,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: but she must go back, and with a passionate gesture
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: she seemed to represent an open grave. I was hugely delighted,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: but I thought it to squeak the stroke my chin
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: and look scrupulous. She is worth fifty thousand scoody. She
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: shook her head sadly. If we were to sell it
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: to the Pope and give the money to the poor,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't profit us. She must go back, she must
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: go back. We must smother her beauty in the dreadful earth.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: It makes me feel almost as if she were alive.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: But it came to me last night with overwhelming force,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: when my husband came in and refused to see me,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: that he will not be himself so long as she
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: is above ground. To cut the knot, we must bury her.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: If I had only thought of it before, not before,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: I said, shaking my head in turn, Heaven reward our sacrifice. Now,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: the little expert, when he reappeared, seemed hardly like an
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: agent of the celestial influences. But he was deft and active,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: which was more to the point. Every now and then
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: he uttered some half articulate lament by way of protest
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: against the Countess's cruelty. But I saw him privately scanning
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: the recumbent image with an eye which seemed to foresee
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: a malicious glee in standing on a certain unmarked spot
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: on the turf and grinning till people stared. He had
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: brought back an abundance of rope, and having summoned his assistants,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: who vigorously lifted the litter, he led the way to
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the original excavation, which had been left unclosed owing to
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: the project of further researches. By the time we reached
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the edge of the grave, the evening had fallen, and
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the beauty of our marble victim was shrouded in a
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: dusky veil. No one spoke, if not exactly for shame,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: at least for regret. Whatever our plea, our performance looked
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: at least monstrously profane. The ropes were adjusted and the
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Juno was slowly lowered into her earthy bed. The countess
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: to a handful of earth and dropped it solemnly on
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: her breast. May it lie lightly but forever, she said.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Ah Men, cried the little surveyor with a strange sneering inflection,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: and he gave us a bow as he departed, which
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: betrayed an agreeable consciousness of knowing where fifty thousand scootie
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: were buried. His underlings had another cask of wine, the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: result of which for them was the suspension of all
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: consciousness and a subsequent irreparable confusion of memory as to
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: where they had plied their spades. The countess had not
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: yet seen her husband, who had again apparently betaken himself
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: to communion with the great God Pan. I was, of course,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: unwilling to leave her to encounter alone the results of
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: her momentous deed. She wandered into the drawing room and
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: pretended to occupy herself with a bit of embroidery, but
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: in reality she was bravely composing herself for an explanation.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: I took up a book, but had held my attention
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: as feebly as the evening wore away. I heard a
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: movement on the threshold, and saw the Count lifting the
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: tapestried curtain which masked the door, and looking silently at
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: his wife. His eyes were brilliant, but not angry. He
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: had missed the jewno and drawn a long breath. The
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Countess kept her eyes fixed on her work and drew
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: her silken threads like an image of domestic tranquility. The
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: image seemed to fascinate him. He came in slowly, almost
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: on tiptoe, walked to the chimney piece, and stood there
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: a while, giving her askance an immense deal of attention.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: What had passed, what was passing in his mind? I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: leave to your own apprehension. My god daughter's hand trembled
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: as it rose and fell, and the color came into
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: her cheek. At last, she raised her eyes and sustained
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: the gaze in which all his returning faith seemed concentrated.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: He hesitated for a moment, as if her very forgiveness
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: kept the gulf open between them, and then he strode forward,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: fell on his two knees, and buried his head in
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: her lap. I departed as the count had come in
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: on tiptoe. He never became. If you will a thoroughly
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: modern man. But one day years after, when a visitor
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: to whom he was showing his cabinet became inquisitive as
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: to a marble hand suspended in one of its inner recesses,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: he looked grave and turned the lock on it. It
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: is the hand of a beautiful creature, he said, whom
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I once greatly admired. Ah a Roman asked the gentleman
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: with a sperk. A Greek said, the count with a frown.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: End of Section two and of the Last of the
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: Valerie by Henry James