Angelo collected his thoughts, and remembered the night of which the master was speaking. Leonidas had always been a far more experienced mountaineer than he himself, as altogether his strength had always exceeded his own. He recalled the warmth of that big body, like that of a big friendly animal in the dark, against his own numb limbs. He remembered, further, that as he woke up the sun had risen, and all mountain slopes had become luminous in its rays. He had sat up, then, and had cried out, “Father, this night you have saved my life.” From his breast came a groan, wordless.
“We will not take leave tonight,” said Leonidas, “but tomorrow morning I shall kiss you.”
The jailer opened the door and held it open, while the towering, straight figure stepped over the threshold. Then the door was once more shut, the key turned in the lock, and Angelo was alone.
Within the first seconds he felt the fact that the door was locked, and that nobody could come in to him, as an incomparable favor. But immediately after, he fell to the floor, like a man struck by, and crushed beneath, a falling rock.
In his ears echoed the voice of the master. And before his eyes stood the figure of the master, illuminated by the radiance of a higher world, of Art’s infinite universe. From this world of light, which his father had once opened to him, he was now cast down into darkness. After the one whom he had betrayed had gone from him, he was completely alone. He dared not think of the stellar heavens, nor of the earth, nor of the sea, nor of the rivers, nor of the marble statues that he had loved. If at this moment Leonidas Allori himself had wanted to save him, it would not have been possible. For to be unfaithful is to be annihilated.
The word “unfaithful” was now flung on him from all angles, like a shower of flints on the man who is being stoned, and he met it on his knees, with hanging arms, like a man stoned. But when at last the shower slackened, and after a silence the words “the golden section” rose and echoed, subdued and significant, he raised his hands and pressed them against his ears.
And unfaithful, he thought after a time, for the sake of a woman. What is a woman? She does not exist until we create her, and she has no life except through us. She is nothing but body, but she is not body, even, if we do not look at her. She claims to be brought to life, and requires our soul as a mirror, in which she can see that she is beautiful. Men must burn, tremble and perish, in order that she may know that she exists and is beautiful. When we weep, she weeps, too, but with happiness—for now she has proof that she is beautiful. Our anguish must be kept alive every hour, or she is no longer alive.
All my creative power, his thoughts went on, if things had gone as she wished, would have been used up in the task of creating her, and of keeping her alive. Never, never again would I have produced a great work of art. And when I grieved over my misfortune, she would not understand, but would declare, “Why, but you have me!” While with him—with him, I was a great artist!
Yet he was not really thinking of Lucrezia, for to him there was in the world no other human being than the father whom he had betrayed.
Did I ever believe, Angelo thought, that I was, or that I might become, a great artist, a creator of glorious statues? I am no artist, and I shall never create a glorious statue. For I know now that my eyes are gone—I am blind!
After a further lapse of time his thoughts slowly turned away from eternity and back to the present.
His master, he thought, would walk up the path and stop near the house, among the vines. He would pick up a pebble from the ground and throw it against the windowpane, and then she would open the window. She would call to the man in the violet cloak, such as she was wont to do at their meetings, “Angelo!” And the great master, the unfailing friend, the immortal man, the man sentenced to death, would understand that his disciple had betrayed him.
During the previous day and night Angelo had walked far and slept but little, and the whole of the last day he had not eaten. He now felt that he was tired unto death. His master’s command: “You are to sleep tonight,” came back to him. Leonidas’ commands, when he had obeyed them, had always led him right. He slowly rose to his feet and fumbled his way to the pallet where his master had lain. He fell asleep almost immediately.
But as he slept, he dreamed.
He saw once more, and more clearly than before, the big figure in the cloak walk up the mountain path, stop and bend down for the pebble and throw it against the pane. But in the dream he followed him farther, and he saw the woman in the man’s arms—Lucrezia! And he awoke.
He sat up on the bed. Nothing sublime or sacred was any longer to be found in the world, but the deadly pain of physical jealousy stopped his breath and ran through him like fire. Gone was the disciple’s reverence for his master, the great artist; in the darkness the son ground his teeth at his father. The past had vanished, there was no future to come, all the young man’s thoughts ran to one single point—the embrace there, a few miles away.
He came to a sort of consciousness, and resolved not to fall asleep again.
But he did fall asleep again, and dreamed the same, but now more vividly and with a multitude of details, which he himself disowned, which his imagination could only have engendered when in his sleep he no longer had control of it.
As after this dream he was once more wide awake, a cold sweat broke out over his limbs. From the pallet he noticed some glowing embers on the fireplace; he now got up, set his naked foot upon them and kept it there. But the embers were almost dead, and went out under his foot.
In the next dream he himself, silent and lurking, followed the wanderer on the mountain path and through the window. He had his knife in his hand, he leaped forward, and plunged it first in the man’s heart, then in hers, as they lay clasped in one another’s arms. But the sight of their blood, mingled, soaking into the sheet, like a red-hot iron, burned out his eyes. Half awake, once more sitting up, he thought, But I do not need to use the knife. I can strangle them with my hands.
Thus passed the night.
When the turnkey of the prison awakened him, it was light. “So you can sleep?” said the turnkey. “So you really trust the old fox? If you ask me, I should say he has played you a fine trick. The clock shows a quarter to six. When it strikes, the warden and the colonel will come in, and take whichever bird they find in the cage. The priest is coming later. But your old lion is never coming. Honestly—would you or I come, if we were in his shoes?”
When Angelo succeeded in understanding the words of the turnkey, his heart filled with indescribable joy. There was nothing more to fear. God had granted him this way out: death. This happy, easy way out. Vaguely, through his aching head one thought ran: And it is for him that I die. But the thought sank away again, for he was not really thinking of Leonidas Allori, or of any person in the world round him. He felt only one thing: that he himself, within the last moment, had been pardoned.
He got up, washed his face in a basin of water brought by his guard, and combed his hair back. He now felt the pain of the burn in his foot and again was filled with gratitude. Now he also remembered the master’s words about God’s faithfulness.
The turnkey looked at him and said, “I took you for a young man yesterday.”
After some time footsteps could be heard up the stone-paved passage, and a faint rattling. Angelo thought, Those are the soldiers with their carbines. The heavy door swung open, and between two gendarmes, who held his arms, entered Allori. In accordance with his words the evening before, he let himself be led forward with closed eyes by the warders. But he felt or perceived where Angelo was standing and took a step toward him. He stood silent before him, unhooked his cloak, lifted it from his own shoulders and laid it around the young man’s. In this movement the two were brought close, body to body, and Angelo said to himself, Perhaps, after all, he will not open his eyes