Read Online Pleasure by Gabriele D'Annunzio - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gabriele D'Annunzio
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of discontent, discomfort, solitude, emptiness, nostalgia. This vague malaise came perhaps from the change in climate, in habits, in occupation. The soul converts ill-defined impressions of the organism into psychic phenomena, in the way that dreams convert, according to their nature, events that occur during sleep.
Certainly, he was entering into a new phase. Would he finally find the woman and the work capable of taking charge of his heart, and of becoming his
purpose
? He had inside himself neither the confidence of strength nor the expectation of glory or happiness. Completely permeated and saturated with art as he was, he had not yet produced any work of note. Avid for love and pleasure, he had not yet loved anyone completely nor taken innocent pleasure in anything. Tormented by an Ideal, he did not yet have its image well defined at the forefront of his thoughts. Detesting pain by nature and by education, he was vulnerable and accessible to pain in every part of himself.
In the tumult of his contradictory inclinations he had lost all will and all morality. In abdicating his will, he had ceded power to his instincts; his aesthetic sense had substituted his moral sense. But precisely this aesthetic sense, extremely keen and powerful and constantly active, maintained a certain equilibrium in his spirit; hence one could say that his life was a constant struggle between opposing forces enclosed within the limits of a certain equilibrium. Men of intellect, educated in the cult of Beauty, always preserve even in the basest depravities a type of order. The concept of Beauty is, one could say, the
axis
of their interior being, around which all their passions gravitate.
Atop his sadness, the memory of Costantia Landbrooke still floated vaguely, like a faded scent. Connyâs love had been a very fine love; and she had been a very pleasant woman. She appeared to be a creation of Thomas Lawrence; she possessed all the particular feminine graces that are dear to that painter of furbelows, laces, velvets, shining eyes, semi-open mouths; she was a second incarnation of the little Countess of Shaftesbury. Vivacious, loquacious, extremely fickle, lavish with childish diminutives and pealing laughter, easily prone to sudden tenderness, instant melancholy, rapid ire, she brought to a love affair much movement, much variety, and many whims. Her most lovable quality was freshness, a tenacious, constant freshness, at all hours of the day. When she awoke after a night of pleasure, she was all fragrant and clean as if she had just emerged from the bathtub. Her figure indeed appeared to Andreaâs memory in a particular pose: with her hair partially loose on her neck and gathered partially atop her head with a comb patterned with a Greek design in gold; her irises swimming in white, like a pale violet in milk; her mouth open, dewy, all lit up by her teeth shining in the rosy blood of her gums, in the shadow of the screens, which diffused a glow over the bed that was something between pale blue and silver, similar to the light of a sea cave.
But the melodious chirping of Conny Landbrooke had passed over Andreaâs soul like one of those light musical pieces that leaves its refrain in the mind for some time. More than once she had said to him, in one of her evening depressions, with her eyes misted in tears:
âI know you love me not . . .â
5 In fact, he did not love her; he was not satisfied by her. His feminine ideal was less Nordic. Ideally, he felt attracted to one of those sixteenth-century courtesans who seem to wear some magic veil over their faces, a transparent enchanted mask, almost an obscure nocturnal charm, the divine horror of Night.
Meeting the Duchess of Scerni, Donna Elena Muti, he had thought:
Here
is
my
woman
. His entire being felt an upliftment of joy in the anticipation of possessing her.
The first encounter had been at the house of the Marchioness of Ateleta. The salons of this cousin of
Certainly, he was entering into a new phase. Would he finally find the woman and the work capable of taking charge of his heart, and of becoming his
purpose
? He had inside himself neither the confidence of strength nor the expectation of glory or happiness. Completely permeated and saturated with art as he was, he had not yet produced any work of note. Avid for love and pleasure, he had not yet loved anyone completely nor taken innocent pleasure in anything. Tormented by an Ideal, he did not yet have its image well defined at the forefront of his thoughts. Detesting pain by nature and by education, he was vulnerable and accessible to pain in every part of himself.
In the tumult of his contradictory inclinations he had lost all will and all morality. In abdicating his will, he had ceded power to his instincts; his aesthetic sense had substituted his moral sense. But precisely this aesthetic sense, extremely keen and powerful and constantly active, maintained a certain equilibrium in his spirit; hence one could say that his life was a constant struggle between opposing forces enclosed within the limits of a certain equilibrium. Men of intellect, educated in the cult of Beauty, always preserve even in the basest depravities a type of order. The concept of Beauty is, one could say, the
axis
of their interior being, around which all their passions gravitate.
Atop his sadness, the memory of Costantia Landbrooke still floated vaguely, like a faded scent. Connyâs love had been a very fine love; and she had been a very pleasant woman. She appeared to be a creation of Thomas Lawrence; she possessed all the particular feminine graces that are dear to that painter of furbelows, laces, velvets, shining eyes, semi-open mouths; she was a second incarnation of the little Countess of Shaftesbury. Vivacious, loquacious, extremely fickle, lavish with childish diminutives and pealing laughter, easily prone to sudden tenderness, instant melancholy, rapid ire, she brought to a love affair much movement, much variety, and many whims. Her most lovable quality was freshness, a tenacious, constant freshness, at all hours of the day. When she awoke after a night of pleasure, she was all fragrant and clean as if she had just emerged from the bathtub. Her figure indeed appeared to Andreaâs memory in a particular pose: with her hair partially loose on her neck and gathered partially atop her head with a comb patterned with a Greek design in gold; her irises swimming in white, like a pale violet in milk; her mouth open, dewy, all lit up by her teeth shining in the rosy blood of her gums, in the shadow of the screens, which diffused a glow over the bed that was something between pale blue and silver, similar to the light of a sea cave.
But the melodious chirping of Conny Landbrooke had passed over Andreaâs soul like one of those light musical pieces that leaves its refrain in the mind for some time. More than once she had said to him, in one of her evening depressions, with her eyes misted in tears:
âI know you love me not . . .â
5 In fact, he did not love her; he was not satisfied by her. His feminine ideal was less Nordic. Ideally, he felt attracted to one of those sixteenth-century courtesans who seem to wear some magic veil over their faces, a transparent enchanted mask, almost an obscure nocturnal charm, the divine horror of Night.
Meeting the Duchess of Scerni, Donna Elena Muti, he had thought:
Here
is
my
woman
. His entire being felt an upliftment of joy in the anticipation of possessing her.
The first encounter had been at the house of the Marchioness of Ateleta. The salons of this cousin of
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