The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-05

his path. he has had no desire for the
companionship OF love. and his reward
for purity has been this fearful perver-
sion. He says:
II ate the fruit upon which was the
mark OF her teeth and / drank the water
from the hollow of her hand Alone. al
imagine one who unconscously drinks O.
poison. a philter. something impure. which
poisons his blood and eontaminates his
at peace. Imagine such an incredible mis-
fortune. Take ordinary hour of your
existence, an hour similar to many others;
1t Is wintry day, lucid and clear as q
diamond; everything is light everything
is visible from far and near. You return
from your work; your mind relaxes; you
discover nothing strange in yourself nor in
things; your breath is calm, your soul is
at peace, your life passes as ii did yester-
day. in its continuity from the past toward
the future. You return to your home
day before; you open a door. you enter
room and you see her
her, your innocent companion, asleep be-
fore the fire, tinged with the rosy flame,
her small. naked feet exposed to the heat.
You look at her and smile. And while
you smile a sudden and involuntary
clean thought, against which your whole
being rebels with trembling. In vain! In
vain! The thought persists. grows in
strength, becomes monstrous. dominates
u. H. u
permeates your blood and invades all your
senses. You are its prey. its miserable.
trembling prey; your whole SOUL, your
pure soul. is infected, and everything in
you d stained with contamination.
All, Is il credible?"
Further. Alessandro is in love with Leon
ardos sister, and the blind Anna, with
her gift of divination. has learned 1t. She
gives the information to Leonardo, doubling
his load. She does not know Of Leonardos
unnatural desire for his sister. The torture
20 he xtr,d1 an. he arrrf IN
finely constructed, glowing, flowing prose-
poetry. The fountain Is the place OF ulti-
nation. Each of the companions loves
1t and feels its mystic charm. Anna and
Blanca talk of 1t one evening. after they
have sat listening to the FLASHING Of the
water, and Anna says:
your voice, now. is fresh spring.
really hear the water run over your body.
as over the statue of a fountain. Do you
not think, Blanca Maria, that the statues
at the fountains must be happy? Through
their immovable and lasting beauty circu-
lates an animated life that continually re-
news itself. They enjoy at one and the
same time inertia and fiuidity. In solitary
gardens they look sometimes If they
were in exile, but they are not, because
their liquid souls never cease TO communi
cate with the distant mountains, whence
blocks of shapeless marble. They listen
astounded to the words which arise from
their lips out of the depths of the earth,
but they are not deaf TO the conversations
vi
as in calm retreat, In the musical shade.
where the marble immortaliZes classic re-
pose. Do they not seem happy TO you?
/ should like well to be one of them, be-
cause 1 have blindness in common with
them"
To the fountain at night Leonardo takes
his sister Blanca, and when she stoops to
drink he forces her under the water and
holds her there until she Is dead. Alessan-
dro and then Anna come upon the man
and the body there and Anna cries, IT see
/ Sect
The luxuriance of D'Annunzio's mind is
marvellous. His spirit swims in the mysti-
cism of the long view back to the ancient
civilizations and in the infinitesimal and
innumerable ways Of morbid emotionalism
He seizes upon the Affections that the hu-
man animal Is heir TO and molds them into
terrible, fascinating images. His power of
imagery is wonderful. These wretched COM
panions of Mycenae are in advanced
state of eroticism, but DAnnunzio makes
them appear normal persons, the victims OF
natural force lurking in the soil of old
Mycenae and fastening as a fever on So
journers there. malign influence destroy
ing the human race Eros. unconquered
II, strife (Sophocles) that is the theme OF
the play. II goes without saying that
Eleanora Duse is Anna herself. The ac-
tress and the dramatist are OF one inten-
ton.
There is no Withholding sympathy from
phenomena of this nature, FOR sensualfty
In one or another OF Its forms, Is the i'm
pulse I'm every action; feared and despised
mobiles. In the work OF D'Annunzio II de-
stroys and pantingly broods over the wreck.
In all of the finely poetic. freely analytic
generously posed work or this author there
Is no sign that he has In him the saving
salt Of bitter enmity for hypocrisy. deceit.