"Fiddlesticks," said McGore. "The impression of antiquity can be evoked as easily as the impression of color by pressing one"s upper eyelid. On occasion I allow myself the luxury of imagining today"s world, our machines, our fashions, as they will appear to our descendants four or five hundred years hence. I a.s.sure you that I feel as ancient as a Renaissance monk."
"Have some more wine, my dear Simpson," offered the Colonel.
Bashful, quiet Simpson, who was seated between McGore and his wife, had put his large fork to work prematurely, during the second course when he should have used the small one, so that he had only the small fork and a large knife for the meat course, and now, as he manipulated them, one of his hands had a kind of limp. When the main course was brought around the second time, he helped himself out of nervousness, then noticed he was the only one eating and everyone was waiting impatiently for him to finish. He got so fl.u.s.tered that he pushed away his still-full plate, nearly knocked over his gla.s.s, and began slowly reddening. He had already come ablaze several times during dinner, not because he actually had something to be ashamed about, but because he thought how he might blush for no reason, and then the pink blood colored his cheeks, his forehead, even his neck, and it was no more possible to halt that blind, agonizing, hot flush than to confine the emerging sun behind its cloud. At the first such onset he deliberately dropped his napkin, but, when he raised his head, he was a fearful sight: at any moment his starched collar would catch fire too. Another time he tried to suppress the onslaught of the hot, silent wave by addressing a question to Maureen-whether or not she liked playing lawn tennis-but Maureen, alas, did not hear him, asked him what he had said, whereupon, as he repeated his foolish phrase, Simpson instantly blushed to the point of tears and Maureen, out of charity, turned away and started on some other topic.
The fact that he was sitting next to her, sensing the warmth of her cheek and of her shoulder, from which, as in the painting, the gray fur was slipping, and that she seemed about to pull it up, but stopped at Simpson"s question, extending and twining her slender, elongated fingers, filled him with such languor that there was a moist sparkle in his eyes from the crystal blaze of the winegla.s.ses, and he kept imagining that the circular table was an illuminated island, slowly revolving, floating somewhere, gently carrying off those seated around it. Through the open French windows one could see, in the distance, the skittle shapes of the terrace bal.u.s.trade, and the breath of the blue night air was stifling. Maureen"s nostrils inhaled this air; her soft, totally dark eyes remained unsmiling as they glided from face to face, even when a smile would faintly raise a corner of her tender, unpainted lips. Her face remained within a somewhat swarthy shadow, and only her forehead was bathed by the levigate light. She said fatuous, funny things. Everyone laughed, and the wine gave the Colonel a nice flush. McGore, who was peeling an apple, encircled it with his palm like a monkey, his small face with its halo of gray hair wrinkled from the effort, and the silver knife tightly clutched in his dark, hairy fist detached endless spirals of red and yellow peel. Frank"s face was not visible to Simpson, since between them stood a bouquet of flaming, fleshy dahlias in a sparkling vase.
After supper, which ended with port and coffee, the Colonel, Maureen, and Frank sat down to play bridge, with a dummy since the other two did not play.
The old restorer went out, bandy-legged, onto the darkened balcony and Simpson followed, feeling Maureen"s warmth recede behind him.
McGore eased himself with a grunt into a wicker chair near the bal.u.s.trade and offered Simpson a cigar. Simpson perched sideways on the railing and lit up awkwardly, narrowing his eyes and inflating his cheeks.
"I guess you liked that old rake del Piombo"s Venetian la.s.s," said McGore, releasing a rosy puff of smoke into the dark.
"Very much," replied Simpson, and added, "Of course, I don"t know anything about pictures-"
"All the same, you liked it," nodded McGore. "Splendid. That"s the first step toward understanding. I, for one, have dedicated my whole life to this."
"She looks absolutely real," Simpson said pensively. "It"s enough to make one believe mysterious tales about portraits coming to life. I read somewhere that some king descended from a canvas, and, as soon as-"
McGore dissolved in a subdued, brittle laugh. "That"s nonsense, of course. But another phenomenon does occur-the inverse, so to speak."
Simpson glanced at him. In the dark of the night his starched shirtfront bulged like a whitish hump, and the flame of his cigar, like a ruby pinecone, illumined his small, wrinkled face from below. He had had a lot of wine and was, apparently, in the mood to talk.
"Here is what happens," McGore continued unhurriedly. "Instead of inviting a painted figure to step out of its frame, imagine someone managing to step into the picture himself. Makes you laugh, doesn"t it? And yet I"ve done it many a time. I have had the good fortune of visiting all the art museums of Europe, from The Hague to Petersburg and from London to Madrid. When I found a painting I particularly liked, I would stand directly in front of it and concentrate all my willpower on one thought: to enter it. It was an eerie sensation, of course. I felt like the apostle about to step off his bark onto the water"s surface. But what bliss ensued! Let us say I was facing a Flemish canvas, with the Holy Family in the foreground, against a smooth, limpid, landscape. You know, with a road zigzagging like a white snake, and green hills. Then, finally, I would take the plunge. I broke free from real life and entered the painting. A miraculous sensation! The coolness, the placid air permeated with wax and incense. I became a living part of the painting and everything around me came alive. The pilgrims" silhouettes on the road began to move. The Virgin Mary was saying something in a rapid Flemish patter. The wind rippled through the conventional flowers. The clouds were gliding.... But the delight did not last long. I would get the feeling that I was softly congealing, cohering with the canvas, merging into a film of oil color. Then I would shut my eyes tight, yank with all my strength, and leap out. There was a gentle plop, as when you pull your foot out of the mud. I would open my eyes, and find myself lying on the floor beneath a splendid but lifeless painting."
Simpson listened with attention and embarra.s.sment. When McGore paused, he gave a barely perceptible start and looked around. Everything was as before. Below, the garden breathed the darkness, one could see the dimly lit dining room through the gla.s.s door, and, in the distance, through another open doorway, a bright corner of the parlor with three figures playing cards. What strange things McGore was saying!...
"You understand, don"t you," he continued, shaking off some scaly ash, "that in another instant the painting would have sucked me in forever. I would have vanished into its depths and lived on in its landscape, or else, grown weak with terror, and lacking the strength either to return to the real world or to penetrate the new dimension, I would have jelled into a figure painted on the canvas, like the anachronism Frank was talking about. Yet, despite the danger, I have yielded to temptation time after time.... Oh, my friend, I"ve fallen in love with Madonnas! I remember my first infatuation-a Madonna with an azure corona, by the delicate Raffaello.... Beyond her, at a distance, two men stood by a column, calmly chatting. I eavesdropped on their conversation-they were discussing the worth of some dagger.... But the most enchanting Madonna of all comes from the brush of Bernardo Luini. All his creations contain the quiet and the delicacy of the lake on whose sh.o.r.e he was born, Lago Maggiore. The most delicate of masters. His name even yielded a new adjective, luinesco. His best Madonna has long, caressingly lowered eyes, and her apparel has light-blue, rose-red, misty-orange tints. A gaseous, rippling haze encircles her brow, and that of her reddish-haired infant. He raises a pale apple toward her, she looks at it lowering her gentle, elongated eyes ... Luinesque eyes ... G.o.d, how I kissed them...."
McGore fell silent and a dreamy smile tinged his thin lips, lighted by the cigar"s flame. Simpson held his breath and, as before, felt he was slowly gliding off into the night.
"Complications did occur," McGore went on after clearing his throat. "I got an ache in my kidneys after a goblet of strong cider that a plump Rubens bacchante once served me, and I caught such a chill on the foggy, yellow skating rink of one of the Dutchmen that I went on coughing and bringing up phlegm for a whole month. That"s the kind of thing that can happen, Mr. Simpson."
McGore"s chair creaked as he rose and straightened his waistcoat. "Got carried away," he remarked dryly. "Time for bed. G.o.d knows how long they"ll go on slapping their cards about. I"m off-good night."
He crossed the dining room and the parlor, nodding to the players as he went, and disappeared in the shadows beyond. Simpson was left alone on his bal.u.s.trade. His ears rang with McGore"s high-pitched voice. The magnificent starry night reached to the very balcony, and the enormous velvety shapes of the black trees were motionless. Through the French window, beyond a band of darkness, he could see the pink-hued parlor lamp, the table, the players" faces rouged by the light. He saw the Colonel rise. Frank followed suit. From afar, as if over the telephone, came the Colonel"s voice. "I"m an old man, I turn in early. Good night, Mrs. McGore."
And Maureen"s laughing voice: "I"ll go in a minute too. Or else my husband will be cross with me...."
Simpson heard the door close in the distance behind the Colonel. Then an extraordinary thing happened. From his vantage point in the darkness he saw Maureen and Frank, now alone far off in that lacuna of mellow light, slip into each other"s arms, he saw Maureen fling back her head and bend it back farther and farther beneath Frank"s violent and prolonged kiss. Then, catching up her fallen fur and giving Frank"s hair a ruffle, she disappeared into the distance with a m.u.f.fled slam of the door. Frank smoothed his hair with a smile, thrust his hands in his pockets, and, whistling softly, crossed the dining room on his way to the balcony. Simpson was so flabbergasted that he froze still, his fingers clutching the railing, and gazed with horror as the starched shirtfront and the dark shoulder approached through the glistening gla.s.s. When he came out onto the balcony and saw his friend"s silhouette in the dark, Frank gave a slight shudder and bit his lip.
Simpson awkwardly crawled off the railing. His legs were trembling. He made a heroic effort: "Marvelous night. McGore and I have been chatting out here."
Frank said calmly, "He lies a lot, that McGore. On the other hand, when he gets going he"s worth a listen."
"Yes, it"s very curious...." lamely concurred Simpson.
"The Big Dipper," said Frank and yawned with his mouth closed. Then, in an even voice, he added, "Of course I know that you are a perfect gentleman, Simpson."
4.
Next morning a warm drizzle came pattering, shimmering, stretching in thin threads across the dark background of the forest"s depths. Only three people came down for breakfast-first the Colonel and listless, wan Simpson; then Frank, fresh, bathed, shaved to a high gloss, with an innocent smile on his overly thin lips.
The Colonel was markedly out of spirits. The night before, during the bridge game, he had noticed something. Bending down hastily to retrieve a dropped card, he had seen Frank"s knee pressed against Maureen"s. This must be stopped immediately. For some time already the Colonel had had an inkling that something was not right. No wonder Frank had rushed off to Rome, where the McGores always went in the spring. His son was free to do as he liked, but to stand for something like this here, at home, in the ancestral castle-no, the most stringent measures must be taken immediately.
The Colonel"s displeasure had a disastrous effect on Simpson. He had the impression that his presence was a burden to his host, and was at a loss for a subject of conversation. Only Frank was placidly jovial as always, and, his teeth asparkle, munched with gusto on hot toast spread with orange marmalade.
When they had finished their coffee, the Colonel lit his pipe and rose.
"Didn"t you want to take a look at the new car, Frank? Let"s walk over to the garage. Nothing to do in this rain anyway."
Then, sensing that poor Simpson had remained mentally suspended in midair, the Colonel added, "I"ve got a few good books here, my dear Simpson. Help yourself if you wish."
Simpson came to with a start and pulled some bulky red volume down from the shelf. It turned out to be the Veterinary Herald for 1895.
"I need to have a little talk with you," began the Colonel when he and Frank had tugged on their crackling raincoats and walked out into a mist of rain.
Frank gave his father a rapid glance.
"How shall I put it," he pondered, puffing on his pipe. "Listen, Frank," he said, taking the plunge-and the wet gravel crunched more succulently under his soles-"it has come to my attention, it doesn"t matter how, or, to put it more simply, I have noticed ... Dammit, Frank, what I mean is, what kind of relations do you have with McGore"s wife?"
Frank replied quietly and coolly, "I"d rather not discuss that with you, Father," meanwhile thinking angrily to himself: what a scoundrel-he did rat on me!
"Obviously I cannot demand-" began the Colonel, and stopped short. At tennis, after the first bad shot, he still managed to control himself.
"Might be a good idea to fix this footbridge," remarked Frank, hitting a rotten timber with his heel.
"To h.e.l.l with the bridge!" said the Colonel. This was his second miss, and the veins swelled on his forehead in an irate vee.
The chauffeur, who had been banging around with some buckets by the garage gates, yanked off his checkered cap upon seeing his master. He was a short, stocky man with a cropped yellow mustache.
"Morning, sir," he said amiably and pushed open one of the gates with his shoulder. In the petrol-and-leather-scented penumbra glimmered an enormous, black, brand-new Rolls-Royce.
"And now let us take a walk in the park," said the Colonel in a toneless voice when Frank had had his fill of examining cylinders and levers.
The first thing that happened in the park was that a large, cold drop of water fell from a branch, inside the Colonel"s collar. And actually it was this drop that made the cup overflow. After a masticating movement of his lips, as though rehearsing the words, he abruptly thundered: "I warn you, Frank, in my house I shall not stand for any adventures of the French-novel genre. Furthermore, McGore is my friend-can you understand that or not?"
Frank picked up the racquet Simpson had forgotten on the bench the previous day. The damp had turned it into a figure eight. Rotten racquet, Frank thought with revulsion. His father"s words were pounding ponderously past: "I shall not stand for it," he was saying. "If you cannot behave properly, then leave. I am displeased with you, Frank, I am terribly displeased with you. There is something about you that I don"t understand. At university you do poorly at your studies. In Italy G.o.d knows what you were up to. They tell me you paint. I suppose I"m not worthy of being shown your daubings. Yes, daubings. I can imagine.... A genius indeed! For you doubtless consider yourself a genius, or, even better, a futurist. And now we have these love affairs to boot.... In short, unless-"
Here the Colonel noticed that Frank was whistling softly and nonchalantly through his teeth. The Colonel stopped and goggled his eyes.
Frank flung the twisted racquet into the bushes like a boomerang, smiled, and said, "This is all poppyc.o.c.k, Father. I read in a book on the Afghanistan war about what you did there and what you were decorated for. It was absolutely foolish, featherbrained, suicidal, but it was an exploit. That is what counts. While your disquisitions are poppyc.o.c.k. Good day."
And the Colonel remained standing alone in the middle of the lane, frozen in wonderment and wrath.
5.
The distinctive feature of everything extant is its monotony. We partake of food at predetermined hours because the planets, like trains that are never late, depart and arrive at predetermined times. The average person cannot imagine life without such a strictly established timetable. But a playful and sacrilegious mind will find much to amuse it imagining how people would exist if the day lasted ten hours today, eighty-five tomorrow, and after tomorrow a few minutes. One can say a priori that, in England, such uncertainty with regard to the exact duration of the coming day would lead first of all to an extraordinary proliferation of betting and sundry other gambling arrangements. One could lose his entire fortune because a day lasted a few more hours than he had supposed on the eve. The planets would become like racehorses, and what excitement would be aroused by some sorrel Mars as it tackled the final celestial hurdle! Astronomers would a.s.sume bookmakers" functions, the G.o.d Apollo would be depicted in a flaming jockey cap, and the world would merrily go mad.
Unfortunately, however, that is not the way things are. Exact.i.tude is always grim, and our calendars, where the world"s existence is calculated in advance, are like the schedule of some inexorable examination. Of course there is something soothing and insouciant about this regimen devised by a cosmic Frederick Taylor. Yet how splendidly, how radiantly the world"s monotony is interrupted now and then by the book of a genius, a comet, a crime, or even simply by a single sleepless night. Our laws, though-our pulse, our digestion are firmly linked to the harmonious motion of the stars, and any attempt to disturb this regularity is punished, at worst by beheading, at best by a headache. Then again, the world was unquestionably created with good intentions and it is no one"s fault if it sometimes grows boring, if the music of the spheres reminds some of us of the endless repet.i.tions of a hurdy-gurdy.
Simpson was particularly conscious of this monotony. He found it somehow terrifying that today, too, breakfast would be followed by lunch, tea by supper, with inviolable regularity. He wanted to scream at the thought that things would continue like that all his life, he wanted to struggle like someone who has awakened in his coffin. The drizzle was still shimmering outside the window, and having to stay indoors made his ears ring as they do when you have a fever. McGore spent the whole day in the workshop that had been set up for him in one of the castle"s towers. He was busy restoring the varnish of a small, dark picture painted on wood. The workshop smelled of glue, turpentine, and garlic, which is used for removing greasy spots from paintings. On a small carpenter"s bench near the press sparkled retorts containing hydrochloric acid and alcohol; scattered about lay sc.r.a.ps of flannel, nostriled sponges, a.s.sorted sc.r.a.pers. McGore was wearing an old dressing gown, gla.s.ses, a shirt with no starched collar, and a stud nearly the size of a doorbell b.u.t.ton protruding right under his Adam"s apple; his neck was thin, gray, and covered with senile excrescences, and a black skullcap covered his bald spot. With a delicate rotary rubbing of his fingers already familiar to the reader, he was sprinkling a pinch of ground tar, carefully rubbing it into the painting so that the old, yellowed varnish, abraded by the powdery particles, itself turned into dry dust.
The castle"s other denizens sat in the parlor. The Colonel had angrily unfolded a giant newspaper and, as he gradually cooled down, was reading aloud an emphatically conservative article. Then Maureen and Frank got involved in a game of Ping-Pong. The little celluloid ball, with its crackly, melancholy ring, flew back and forth across the green net intersecting the long table, and of course Frank played masterfully, moving only his wrist as he nimbly flicked the thin wooden paddle left and right.
Simpson traversed all the rooms, biting his lips and adjusting his pince-nez. Eventually he reached the gallery. Pale as death, carefully closing behind him the heavy, silent door, he tiptoed up to Fra Bastiano del Piombo"s Veneziana. She greeted him with her familiar opaque gaze, and her long fingers paused on their way to her fur wrap, to the slipping crimson folds. Caressed by a whiff of honeyed darkness, he glanced into the depths of the window that interrupted the black background. Sand-tinted clouds stretched across the greenish blue; toward them rose dark, fractured cliffs amid which wound a pale-hued trail, while lower down there were indistinct wooden huts, and, in one of them, Simpson thought he saw a point of light flicker for an instant. As he peered through this ethereal window, he sensed that the Venetian lady was smiling, but his swift glance failed to catch that smile; only the shaded right corner of her gently joined lips was slightly raised. At that moment something within him deliciously gave way, and he yielded totally to the picture"s warm enchantment. One must bear in mind that he was a man of morbidly rapturous temperament, that he had no idea of life"s realities, and that, for him, impressionability took the place of intellect. A cold tremor, like a quick dry hand, brushed his back, and he realized immediately what he must do. However, when he looked around and saw the sheen of parquet, the table, and the blind white gloss of the paintings where the drizzly light pouring through the window fell on them, he had a feeling of shame and fear. And, in spite of another momentary surge of the previous enchantment, he already knew that he could hardly carry out what, a minute ago, he could have done unthinkingly.
Fixing his eyes on the Veneziana"s face, he backed away from her and suddenly flung his arms apart. His coccyx banged painfully on something. He looked around and saw the black table behind him. Trying to think about nothing, he climbed onto it, stood up fully erect facing the Venetian lady, and once again, with an upward sweep of his arms, prepared to fly to her.
"Astonishing way to admire a painting. Invented it yourself, did you?"
It was Frank. He was standing, legs apart, in the doorway and gazing at Simpson with icy derision.
With a wild glint of pince-nez lenses in his direction, Simpson staggered awkwardly, like an alarmed lunatic. Then he hunched over, flushed hotly, and clambered clumsily to the floor.
Frank"s face wrinkled with acute revulsion as he silently left the room. Simpson lunged after him.
"Please, I beg you, don"t tell anyone...." Without turning or stopping, Frank gave a squeamish shrug.
6.
Toward evening the rain unexpectedly ceased. Someone, remembering, had turned off the taps. A humid orange sunset came aquiver amid the boughs, broadened, was reflected in all the puddles simultaneously. Dour little McGore was dislodged from his tower by force. He smelled of turpentine, and had burned his hand with a hot iron. He reluctantly pulled on his black coat, turned up the collar, and went out with the others for a stroll. Only Simpson stayed home, on the pretext that he absolutely must answer a letter brought by the evening post. Actually no answer was required, since it was from the university milkman and demanded immediate payment of a bill for two shillings and ninepence.
For a long time Simpson sat in the advancing twilight, leaning back aimlessly in the leather armchair. Then, with a shudder, he realized he was falling asleep, and started thinking how he could get away from the castle as quickly as possible. The simplest way would be to say his father was ill: like many bashful people, Simpson was capable of lying without batting an eyelash. Yet it was difficult for him to leave. Something dark and delicious held him back. How attractive the dark rocks looked in the fenestral chasm.... What a joy it would be to embrace her shoulder, take from her left hand the basket with its yellow fruit, to walk off peacefully with her along that pale path into the penumbra of the Venetian evening....
Once again he caught himself falling asleep. He got up and washed his hands. From downstairs sounded the spherical, dignified dinner gong.
Thus from constellation to constellation, from meal to meal, proceeds the world, and so does this tale. But its monotony will now be broken by an incredible miracle, an unheard-of adventure. Of course neither McGore, who had again painstakingly freed of glossy red ribbons the faceted nudity of an apple, nor the Colonel, once more agreeably flushed after four gla.s.ses of port (not to mention two of white Burgundy) had any way of knowing what woes the morrow would bring. Dinner was followed by the invariable game of bridge, during which the Colonel noticed with pleasure that Frank and Maureen did not even glance at each other. McGore went off to work; Simpson seated himself in a corner and opened a portfolio of prints, glancing only a couple of times from his corner at the players, having marveled in pa.s.sing that Frank was so cold toward him, while Maureen seemed to have faded somehow, to have yielded her place to another.... How insignificant these thoughts were compared to the sublime antic.i.p.ation, the enormous excitement that he now tried to outwit by examining indistinct lithographs.
When they were parting company, and Maureen nodded to him with a good-night smile, he absently, unabashedly, smiled back.
7.
That night, sometime after one o"clock, the old watchman, who had once worked as groom for the Colonel"s father, was, as usual, taking a short walk along the park lanes. He knew perfectly well that his duty was purely perfunctory, since the location was exceptionally peaceful. He invariably turned in at eight, the alarm would go off with a clatter at one, and the watchman (a giant of an old fellow with venerable gray side-whiskers, which, incidentally, the gardener"s children liked to tug) would awaken, light up his pipe, and clamber out into the night. Having once made the rounds of the dark, tranquil park, he would return to his small room, immediately undress, and, clad only in an imperishable undershirt that went very well with his whiskers, go back to bed and sleep through till morning.
That night, however, the old watchman noticed something that was not to his liking. He noticed from the park that one window of the castle was feebly illuminated. He knew with absolute precision that it was a window of the hall where the precious paintings were hung. Since he was an exceptionally cowardly old chap, he decided to pretend to himself that he had not noticed that strange light. But his conscientiousness got the upper hand, and he calmly determined that, while it was his duty to ascertain that there were no thieves in the park, he had no obligation to chase thieves within the house. And having thus determined, the old man went back to his quarters with a clear conscience-he lived in a little brick house by the garage-and straightaway fell into a dead man"s sleep, which would have been impervious even to the roar of the new black car, had someone started it up in jest, deliberately opening the m.u.f.fler cutout.
Thus the pleasant, innocuous old fellow, like some guardian angel, momentarily traverses this narrative and rapidly vanishes into the misty domains whence he was evoked by a whim of the pen.
8.
But something really did happen in the castle.
Simpson awoke exactly at midnight. He had just fallen asleep and, as sometimes happens, the very act of falling asleep was what woke him. Propping himself on one arm, he looked into the darkness. His heart was thumping rapidly because he sensed that Maureen had entered his room. Just now, in his momentary dream, he had been talking to her, helping her climb the waxen path between black cliffs with their occasional glossy, oil-paint fissures. Now and then a dulcet breeze made the narrow white headdress quiver gently, like a sheet of thin paper, on her dark hair.
With a stifled exclamation Simpson felt for the switch. The light came in a spurt. There was no one in the room. He felt an acute sting of disappointment and lapsed into thought, shaking his head like a drunk. Then, moving drowsily, he rose from the bed and started to dress, listlessly smacking his lips. He was guided by a vague sensation that he must dress severely and smartly. So it was with a kind of somnolent meticulousness that he b.u.t.toned his low waistcoat on his belly, tied the black bow of his tie, and for a long time pinched with two fingers at a nonexistent little worm on the satin lapel of his jacket. Vaguely recollecting that the simplest way into the gallery was from outdoors, he slipped out like a silent breeze through the French window into the dark, humid garden. Looking as if they had been doused with mercury, black bushes glistened in the starlight. Somewhere an owl was hooting. With a light, quick step Simpson walked across the lawn, amid gray bushes, rounding the ma.s.sive house. For a moment he was sobered by the night"s freshness and the intensely shining stars. He stopped, bent over, and then collapsed like an empty suit of clothes onto the gra.s.s in the narrow interstice between flower bed and castle wall. A wave of drowsiness came over him, and he tried to shake it off with a jerk of his shoulder. He had to hurry. She was waiting. He thought he heard her insistent whisper....
He was unaware of how he had got up, gone indoors, and switched on the lights, bathing Luciani"s canvas in a warm sheen. The Venetian girl stood half-facing him, alive and three-dimensional. Her dark eyes gazed into his without the sparkle, the rosy fabric of her blouse set off with an unhabitual warmth the dark-hued beauty of her neck and the delicate creases under her ear. A gently mocking smile was frozen at the right corner of her expectantly joined lips. Her long fingers, spread in twos, stretched toward her shoulder, from which the fur and velvet were about to fall.
And Simpson, with a profound sigh, moved toward her and effortlessly entered the painting. A marvelous freshness immediately made his head spin. There was a scent of myrtle and of wax, with a very faint whiff of lemon. He was standing in a bare black room of some kind, by a window that opened on evening, and at his very side stood a real, Venetian, Maureen-tall, gorgeous, all aglow from within. He realized that the miracle had happened, and slowly moved toward her. With a sidewise smile la Veneziana gently adjusted her fur and, lowering her hand into her basket, handed him a small lemon. Without taking his eyes off her now playfully mobile eyes, he accepted the yellow fruit from her hand, and, as soon as he felt its firm, roughish coolness and the dry warmth of her long fingers, an incredible bliss came to a boil within him and began deliciously burbling. Then, with a start, he looked behind him toward the window. There, along a pale path amid some rocks, walked blue silhouettes with hoods and small lanterns. Simpson looked about the room in which he was standing, but without any awareness of a floor beneath his feet. In the distance, instead of a fourth wall, a far, familiar hall glimmered like water, with the black island of a table at its center. It was then that a sudden terror made him compress the cold little lemon. The enchantment had dissolved. He tried looking to his left at the girl but was unable to turn his neck. He was mired like a fly in honey-he gave a jerk and got stuck, feeling his blood and flesh and clothing turning into paint, growing into the varnish, drying on the canvas. He had become part of the painting, depicted in a ridiculous pose next to the Veneziana, and, directly in front of him, even more distinct than before, stretched the hall, filled with live, terrestrial air that, henceforth, he would not breathe.
9.