And he let himself be dragged down by the caress of
this wild beast, with thought lost and body inert
and resigned, like a castaway who descends and descends
the infinite strata of the abyss without ever reaching
bottom.
THE WILES OF CIRCE
After that kiss, the lover believed that all his desires
were about to be immediately realized. The most
difficult part of the road was already passed.
But with Freya one always had to expect something
absurd and inconceivable.
The midday gun aroused them from a rapture that had
lasted but a few seconds as long as years. The
steps of the guard, growing nearer all the time, finally
separated the two and unlocked their arms.
Freya was the first to calm herself. Only a slight
haze flitted across her pupils now, like the vapor
from a recently extinguished fire.
“Good-by.... They are waiting for me.”
And she went out from the Aquarium followed by Ferragut,
still stammering and tremulous. The questions
and petitions with which he pursued her while crossing
the promenade were of no avail.
“So far and no further,” she said at one
of the cross streets of Chiaja. “We shall
see one another.... I formally promise you that....
Now leave me.”
And she disappeared with the firm step of a handsome
huntress, as serene of countenance as though not recalling
the slightest recollection of her primitive, passional
paroxysm.
This time she fulfilled her promise. Ferragut
saw her every day.
They met in the mornings near the hotel, and sometimes
she came down into the dining-room, exchanging smiles
and glances with the sailor, who fortunately was sitting
at a distant table. Then they took strolls and
chatted together, Freya laughing good-naturedly at
the amorous vows of the captain.... And that
was all.
With a woman’s skillfulness in sounding a man’s
depth and penetrating into his secrets,—keeping
fast-locked and unapproachable her own,—she
gradually informed herself of the incidents and adventures
in the life of Ulysses. Vainly he spoke, in a
natural reciprocity, of the island of Java, of the
mysterious dances before Siva, of the journeys through
the lakes of the Andes. Freya had to make an
effort to recall them. “Ah!... Yes!”
And after giving this distracted exclamation for every
answer, she would continue the process of delving
eagerly into the former life of her lover. Ulysses
sometimes began to wonder if that embrace in the Aquarium
could have occurred in his dreams.
One morning the captain managed to bring about the
realization of one of his ambitions. He was jealous
of the unknown friends that were lunching with Freya.
In vain she affirmed that the doctor was the only
companion of the hours that she passed outside of the
hotel. In order to tranquillize himself, the
sailor insisted that the widow should accept his invitations.
They ought to extend their strolls; they ought to
visit the beautiful outskirts of Naples, lunching in
their gay little trattorias or eating-houses.
