Both the young people passed that day with heavy hearts.
Something dark seemed hanging over their heads ...
but what it was, they could not tell. They wanted
to be together, as though some danger threatened them;
but what to say to one another they did not know.
Fabio made an effort to take up the portrait, and
to read Ariosto, whose poem had appeared not long before
in Ferrara, and was now making a noise all over Italy;
but nothing was of any use.... Late in the evening,
just at supper-time, Muzzio returned.
VII
He seemed composed and cheerful—but he
told them little; he devoted himself rather to questioning
Fabio about their common acquaintances, about the
German war, and the Emperor Charles: he spoke
of his own desire to visit Rome, to see the new Pope.
He again offered Valeria some Shiraz wine, and on
her refusal, observed as though to himself, ’Now
it’s not needed, to be sure.’ Going
back with his wife to their room, Fabio soon fell asleep;
and waking up an hour later, felt a conviction that
no one was sharing his bed; Valeria was not beside
him. He got up quickly and at the same instant
saw his wife in her night attire coming out of the
garden into the room. The moon was shining brightly,
though not long before a light rain had been falling.
With eyes closed, with an expression of mysterious
horror on her immovable face, Valeria approached the
bed, and feeling for it with her hands stretched out
before her, lay down hurriedly and in silence.
Fabio turned to her with a question, but she made
no reply; she seemed to be asleep. He touched
her, and felt on her dress and on her hair drops of
rain, and on the soles of her bare feet, little grains
of sand. Then he leapt up and ran into the garden
through the half-open door. The crude brilliance
of the moon wrapt every object in light. Fabio
looked about him, and perceived on the sand of the
path prints of two pairs of feet—one pair
were bare; and these prints led to a bower of jasmine,
on one side, between the pavilion and the house.
He stood still in perplexity, and suddenly once more
he heard the strains of the song he had listened to
the night before. Fabio shuddered, ran into the
pavilion.... Muzzio was standing in the middle
of the room playing on the violin. Fabio rushed
up to him.
‘You have been in the garden, your clothes are
wet with rain.’
‘No ... I don’t know ... I think
... I have not been out ...’ Muzzio
answered slowly, seeming amazed at Fabio’s entrance
and his excitement.
Fabio seized him by the hand. ’And why
are you playing that melody again? Have you had
a dream again?’
Muzzio glanced at Fabio with the same look of amazement,
and said nothing.
‘Answer me!’
’"The moon stood high like a round
shield ...
Like a snake, the river shines ...,
The friend’s awake, the foe’s
asleep ...
The bird is in the falcon’s clutches....
Help!"’
