D'Annunzio The Intruder

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-3-7364-2025-0
Verlag: anboco
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 498 Seiten

The Intruder is an 1892 novel by the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. It is known as The Victim in the United States. It tells the story of the dandy Tullio Hermil who is habitually unfaithful to his patient and loving wife Giuliana, until the wife eventually does the same and becomes pregnant with another man's child. The book was published in English in 1897, translated by Georgina Harding. The book was first adapted for film in 1912 by Edoardo Bencivenga. It was also the basis for Luchino Visconti's last film, The Innocent, released in 1976. Visconti's version stars Giancarlo Giannini as Tullio and Laura Antonelli as Giuliana.

Autoren/Hrsg.

D'Annunzio, Gabriele

Leseproben

THE ROMANCES OF THE ROSE

THE INTRUDER

BY GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR HORNBLOW

Should I go before the judge and say: "I have committed a crime. He would not be dead if I had not killed him. It is I, Tullio Hermil, who am his assassin. I premeditated that assassination in my house. I committed it with perfect lucidity of conscience, methodically, in all security. And I have gone on living in my house with my secret for a whole year, until to-day. To-day is the anniversary I deliver myself into your hands. Listen to me, judge me."

Can I go before the judge? Can I speak to him like that?

I cannot, and I will not. The justice of men does not reach as far as me. There is no tribunal on earth competent to judge me.

And yet I feel a desire to accuse myself, to confess. I feel a desire to reveal my secret to someone.

TO WHOM?

My first recollection is as follows:

It was in April. For several days, during the festivities of the Pentecost, Juliana and I and our two little daughters, Maria and Natalia, had been in the country, at my mother's house, a roomy old place known as the Badiola. It was the seventh year of our marriage.

Three years had already slipped by since another Pentecost which, passed in that villa, white and isolated as a monastery, and embalmed with tufts of violets, had seemed to me a veritable festival of pardon, peace, and love. At that time Natalia, the second of my little girls, barely emerged from swaddling clothes like a flower from its envelope, was learning to walk; and Juliana was very good and indulgent with me, although there was a shade of melancholy in her smile. I had come back to her, repentant and submissive, after the first serious infidelity. My mother, who knew nothing of what had happened, had tied with her dear hands a sprig of olive at the head of our bed, and filled the little silver holy-water dish hanging on the wall.

But what had not happened in three years! Between Juliana and myself the breach was henceforth definitive and irreparable. I had gone on wronging her repeatedly; I had insulted her in the most outrageous manner without regard for her feelings, without restraint, carried away by an appetite greedy for pleasure, by the vertigo of my passions, by the curiosity of my corrupted mind. I had had as mistresses two of her intimate friends; I had spent several weeks at Florence with Teresa Raffo, shamelessly; I had fought with the false Count Raffo a duel in which my unfortunate adversary covered himself with ridicule owing to certain bizarre circumstances. And nothing of all this had remained unknown to Juliana; and she had suffered, but with much pride, and almost without saying anything.

We had only had on this subject a few very short interviews, at which I did not tell a single falsehood. It seemed to me that my sincerity would attenuate my fault in the eyes of this sweet and noble woman, who I knew had a superior mind.

I knew also that she recognized my intellectual superiority and that she excused in part the disorders of my conduct by the specious theories that, more than once, I had aired in her presence, to the great detriment of the moral doctrines that the majority of men profess to believe in. The conviction that she would not judge me like any ordinary man lightened my conscience of the weight of my errors. "She, too, understands," I thought, "that, since I am different from others, since I have a different conception of life, I have the right to elude the duties that others would impose on me. I have the right to despise the opinions of others, and to lead with absolute sincerity the only life possible to my higher nature."

I had the conviction of being not only a higher nature, but also a rare intelligence; and I believed that the rarity of my sensations and my feelings ennobled, distinguished, all my acts. Proud and curious of this rarity of mine, I was incapable of conceiving the slightest sacrifice, the slightest abnegation of myself; I was incapable of renouncing the expression, the manifestation of one of my desires. But, at the bottom of all my subtilties, there was only a terrible egotism that caused me to neglect my duties, while at the same time I accepted the benefits of my situation.

Insensibly, in fact, from one abuse to another, I had succeeded in reconquering my old-time liberty, even with Juliana's consent, without hypocrisy, without subterfuge, without degrading lies. I made a study of being loyal, no matter at what cost, as others make a study of deception.

At all times, I strove to confirm, between Juliana and myself, the new pact of fraternal affection and pure friendship. She was to be my sister, the best of my friends.

My sister, my only sister, Constance, had died when she was nine years old, leaving in my heart infinite regret. I often thought, with profound melancholy, of that little soul who had not been able to offer me the treasure of her tenderness, a treasure that I dreamed inexhaustible. Among all human affections, among all earthly loves, that of a sister had always seemed to me the highest and the most consoling. I often thought of that lost great consolation, and the irrevocableness of death added a sort of mystery to my pain. Where can one, on earth, find another sister?

Spontaneously, this sentimental aspiration turned towards Juliana.

Too proud to accept a division, she had already renounced all caresses, all abandon. And I, for some time past, no longer felt a shade of sensual disturbance when near her. In vain I felt her breath on my cheek, respired her perfume, looked at the little brown mole on her neck. I remained absolutely cold. It seemed impossible to me that this was the same woman.

I then offered to become a brother to her; and she accepted, without affectation. If she were sad, I myself was still more so in thinking that our love was buried forever and without hope of resurrection, in thinking that our lips doubtless would never, never meet again.

And, in the blindness of my egotism, it seemed to me that at heart she ought to be grateful to me for this sadness, which I felt was already incurable; it seemed to me that she ought to be pleased at it and find a consolation in it, as if with a reflection of our past love.

There had been a time when we both dreamed, not only of love, but of passion until death—usque ad mortem. We had both believed in our dream—and more than once, during our moments of ecstasy, we had uttered the great illusionary words: Always! never! We had ended by believing in the affinity of our flesh, in that affinity so rare, so mysterious, which binds two human creatures together by the frightful bond of insatiable desire. We believed so because the acuteness of our sensations had not diminished even after, by the creation of a new being, the obscure Genius of the Species had attained, by means of our persons, his unique object.

Then the illusion had faded away; the flame had gone out. My soul—I swear it—had sincerely wept over the catastrophe. But how to prevent a necessary phenomenon? How to avoid the inevitable?

It was, therefore, very fortunate that, after the death of our love, caused by the fatal necessity of the phenomenon, and consequently by the fault of neither of us, we were able to go on living in the same house, bound by a new sentiment, which was perhaps not less profound than the old one, and which, assuredly, was higher and more singular. It was very fortunate that a new illusion could replace the old one, and establish between our souls an exchange of pure affections, delicate emotions, and exquisite sadness.

But, in reality, what was to be the end of this species of platonic rhetoric? To induce the victim to smilingly consent to her own immolation.

In reality, our new existence, henceforth fraternal and no longer conjugal, was based entirely on this hypothesis: that the sister should make complete abnegation of herself. I myself resumed my liberty, I could go in quest of those new sensations which my nerves needed, I could feel passion for another woman, devote to my mistress all the time that I liked, live away from home a strange and ardent existence, and then return, find there again the sister who was awaiting me, see everywhere in my rooms visible traces of her care: on my table, a vase full of roses that her hands had arranged; on all sides order, refinement, and the radiant cleanliness of a place in which lives a Grace. Was not that an enviable condition for me? And was not she an extraordinarily precious wife, who would consent to sacrifice her youth to me and who considered herself well recompensed if only I pressed a grateful and almost religious kiss on her proud and gentle brow?

At times my gratitude became so warm that it took the form of an infinity of attentions and affectionate greetings. I possessed the art of being the best of brothers. When I was absent, I wrote Juliana long letters full of melancholy and tenderness, which were often posted at the same time as those addressed to my mistress. And my mistress could not have been jealous of them any more than she could be jealous of my adoration of Constance's memory.

All absorbed as I was by the intensity of my peculiar life, I could not elude the problems which, at times, presented themselves to my mind. That Juliana could continue her sacrifice with such marvellous strength, she must love me with a sovereign love; but if she loved me and could be only my sister, she must, without any possible doubt, bear in her soul the secret of a mortal despair. Was not, therefore, any man a madman who, without remorse, immolated to...