The Baron in the Trees

by Italo Calvino

  Nothing made the Marchesa happier than these exuberances, and they moved her to repay him with demonstrations of love that were even more violent. The Ombrosians, when they saw her galloping along on a loose rein, her face almost buried in the white mane of the horse, knew that she was rushing to a meeting with the Baron. Even in her way of riding she expressed a love force, but here Cosimo could no longer follow her; and her equestrian passion, much as he admired it, was for him a secret reason for jealousy and rancor, for he saw Viola dominated by a world vaster than his own and realized that he would never be able to have her for himself alone, to shut her in the confines of his kingdom. The Marchesa, on her side, suffered perhaps from her inability to be at once both lover and horsewoman; every now and again she was taken with a vague need for her love and Cosimo's to become a love on horseback, a feeling that running over trees was no longer enough for her, a yearning to race along at full gallop on the crupper of her charger.

  And in fact her horse, with that racing over countryside all slopes and drops, was getting to be fleet as a roebuck, and Viola now began urging it up certain trees—old olives, for example, with bent trunks. Sometimes the horse would reach the first fork in the branches, and she got into the habit of tying it up no longer on the ground, but up in the olive. Dismounting, she would leave it to munch leaves and twigs.

  And so when some old gossip passing through the olive grove and raising curious eyes saw the Baron and the Marchesa up there in each other's arms, and went off and told people, and added: "The white horse was up on a branch too," he was taken for a lunatic and no one believed him. And once again that time the lovers' secret was saved.

  } 23 {

  THIS last story shows that the people of Ombrosa, who before had been teeming with gossip about my brother's love life, now, faced with this passion exploding as it were above their heads, maintained a dignified reserve, as if toward something bigger than themselves. Not that they did not criticize the Marchesa's conduct; but more for its exterior aspects, such as that breakneck galloping of hers ("Where can she be going, at such a pace?") and that continual hoisting of furniture on to treetops. There was already an air among them of considering it all just as one of the nobles' ways, one of their many idiosyncrasies. ("All up trees, nowadays; women, men. What'll they think of next?") In fact, times were coming that were to be more tolerant, but also more hypocritical.

  Now the Baron would only show himself at rare intervals on the ilexes in the square; and when he did, it was a sign that she had left. For Viola was sometimes away months seeing to her properties scattered all over Europe, though these departures of hers always corresponded to rifts in their relationship when the Marchesa had been offended with Cosimo's not understanding what she wanted him to understand about love. Not that Viola left in this state of mind: they always managed to make it up before, though there remained the suspicion in him that she had decided to take this particular journey because she was tired of him, and he could not prevent her going; perhaps she was already breaking away from him, perhaps some incident on the journey or a pause for reflection would decide her not to return. So my brother would live in a state of anxiety. He would try to go back to the life he had been used to before meeting her, to hunt and fish, follow the work in the fields, his studies, the gossip in the square, as if he had never done anything else (there persisted in him the stubborn youthful pride of refusing ever to admit himself under anyone else's influence); and at the same time he would congratulate himself on how much love was giving him, the alacrity, the pride; but on the other hand, he noticed that so many things no longer mattered to him, that without Viola life had no flavor, that his thoughts were always following her. The more he tried, away from the whirlwind of Viola's presence, to reacquire command of passions and pleasures in a wise economy of mind, the more he felt the void left by her or the fever for her return. In fact his love was just what Viola wanted it to be, not as he pretended it was; it was always the woman who triumphed, even from a distance, and Cosimo, in spite of himself, ended by enjoying it.

  Then all at once the Marchesa would return. The season of love in the trees would resume, but so too would the season of jealousy. Where had Viola been? What had she done? Cosimo longed to know, but at the same time he was afraid of how she might answer his questions. She would reply with hints, and each hint would further arouse his suspicions, and he realized that though she was purposely answering in such a way as to torment him, it could all be quite true nevertheless. In these uncertainties, he would hide his jealousy one minute, and then the next there would be a violent outburst. Viola would never reply the same way—her answers were always different, always unpredictable. One moment Cosimo would think she was more attached to him than ever, and the next he felt he would never be able to arouse her again.

  What the Marchesa really did during her travels we at Ombrosa could not know, far as we were from capitals and their gossip. But I happened at that period to make my second journey to Paris in connection with certain contracts in lemons, for many nobles were already taking to commerce, and I was among the first.

  One evening, at one of the most brilliant salons in Paris, I met Donna Viola. Her headdress was so splendid and her gown so sumptuous that if I recognized her at once, in fact gave a start at first seeing her, it was because she was a woman who could never be confused with any other. She greeted me with indifference, but soon found a way of taking me aside and asking me, without waiting for any reply between one question and another: "Have you news of your brother? Will you soon be back at Ombrosa? Here, give him this to remember me by," and taking a silk handkerchief from her bosom she thrust it into my hand. Then she quickly let herself be caught up in the court of admirers who followed her everywhere.

  "Do you know the Marchesa?" I was asked quietly by a Parisian friend.

  "Only slightly," I replied, and it was true; when she stayed at Ombrosa Donna Viola, under the influence of Cosimo's life in the wilds, never bothered to see anything of the local nobility.

  "Rarely has such beauty been allied to such a restless spirit," said my friend. "Gossip has it that in Paris she passes from one lover to another, in such rapid succession that no one can call her his own and consider himself privileged. But every now and again she vanishes for months at a time and they say she retires to a convent, to wallow in penance."

  I could scarcely avoid laughing at finding the Marchesa's life on the trees of Ombrosa being thought of by the Parisians as periods of penance; but at the same time this gossip disturbed me, and made me foresee times of sorrow for my brother.

  To forestall ugly surprises I decided to warn him, and as soon as I returned to Ombrosa went to search him out. He questioned me at length about my journey and the news from France, but I could not tell him anything of politics and literature about which he was not already informed.

  Eventually I drew Donna Viola's handkerchief from my pocket. "At Paris in a salon I met a lady who knows you, and who gave me this for you, with her greetings."

  Quickly he dropped the basket attached to the rope, pulled up the silk handkerchief and brought it to his face as if to inhale its scent. "Ah, you saw her? And how was she? Tell me, how was she?"

  "Very beautiful and very brilliant," I answered slowly. "But they say this scent is inhaled by many nostrils."

  He held the handkerchief against his chest as if fearing it might be torn away from him; then turned to me red in the face. "And have you no sword to thrust those lies down the throat of the person who told you?"

  I had to confess that it had not even crossed my mind.

  He was silent a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "All lies. I alone know she's mine alone," and he ran off on the branches without a word of farewell. I recognized his usual way of refusing to admit anything which would force him out of his own world.

  From then on every time I saw him he was sad and impatient, jumping about here and there, without doing anything. If now and again I heard him whistling in comp
etition with the blackbirds, his note was ever more restless and gloomy.

  The Marchesa arrived. As always, his jealousy pleased her; she incited it a little, turned it a little into a joke. So back came the beautiful days of love, and my brother was happy.

  But now the Marchesa never let pass a chance to accuse Cosimo of having a narrow idea of love.

  "What d'you mean? That I'm jealous?"

  "You're right to be jealous. But you try to make jealousy submit to reason."

  "Of course; so I can do more about it."

  "You reason too much. Why should one ever reason about love?"

  "To love you all the more. Everything done with reasoning grows in power."

  "You live on trees and have the mentality of a notary with gout."

  "The most arduous deeds must be undertaken in the simplest states of mind."

  He went on mouthing maxims, till she fled; then he ran after her, desperate, tearing his hair.

  In those days a British flagship anchored in our port. The Admiral gave a party for the notables of Ombrosa and the officers of other ships that happened to be in port; the Marchesa went; and from that evening Cosimo felt the pangs of jealousy start anew. Two officers of two different ships fell in love with Donna Viola and were seen continually on shore, courting the lady and trying to outdo each other in attentions. One was a flag officer on the British flagship; the other was also a flag officer, but of the Neapolitan fleet. Hiring two sorrels, the two officers would alternate beneath the Marchesa's balconies, and when they met, the Neapolitan would roll at the Englishman an eye so fiery that it should have burned him on the spot, while between the half-shut lids of the Englishman glinted a glance like the point of a sword.

  And Donna Viola? What should she do, the minx, but remain hour by hour at home, leaning over the window sill in her peignoir, as if she were newly widowed and just out of mourning! Cosimo, not having her on the trees with him any more, not hearing her white horse galloping toward him, was going crazy, and ended by settling (even he) before that window sill, to keep an eye on her and the two flag officers.

  He was plotting a way to prepare some dreadful pitfall for his rivals so they would return immediately to their respective ships, when he noticed that Viola showed signs of encouraging both of them. He began hoping that she was only teasing them, and him too. He continued keeping a close watch on her nevertheless, and was ready to intervene the minute she showed any sign of preferring one to the other.

  Along, one morning, comes the Englishman. Viola is at the window. They smile at each other. The Marchesa lets fall a note. The officer catches it in the air, reads it, bows, blushes, and spurs away. A rendezvous! The Englishman was the lucky one! Cosimo swore he wouldn't let him get through that night undisturbed.

  At that moment along comes the Neapolitan. Viola throws him a note too. The officer reads it, puts it to his lips and kisses it. So he thought he was the chosen one, did he? What about the other, then? Against which was Cosimo to act? Donna Viola must surely have fixed an appointment with one of them; on the other she must have just played one of her tricks. Or did she want to make fun of them both?

  As for the place of the meeting, Cosimo settled his suspicions on a pavilion at the end of the park. This had been done up and furnished by the Marchesa a short time before, and Cosimo was gnawed with jealousy at the thought of the times when she had loaded the treetops with sofas and curtains; now she was concentrating on places he could never enter. "I'll watch the pavilion," said Cosimo to himself. "If she's arranged a meeting with one of the two officers, it can only be there." And he hid in the foliage of a horse chestnut.

  Shortly before dusk, the sound of a galloping horse is heard. It is the Neapolitan. Now I'll provoke him! thinks Cosimo, takes his catapult and hits him on the neck with a handful of squirrel's dung. The officer shakes himself, looks around. Cosimo comes out on his branch, and as he appears in the open, sees the English officer dismounting beyond a hedge and tying his horse to a stake. "Then it's him; perhaps the other was just passing here by chance." And down comes a load of dung on the Englishman's nose.

  "Who's there?" says the Englishman, and makes to cross the hedge, but finds himself face to face with his Neapolitan colleague, who has also dismounted and is also saying, "Who's there?"

  "I beg your pardon, sir," says the Englishman, "but I must ask you to leave here at once!"

  "I'm here with full right," exclaims the Neapolitan. "It's I who must ask your Lordship to leave!"

  "No right can be more than mine," replies the Englishman. "I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to stay."

  "'Tis a question of honor," says the other, "and I rely upon that of my House: Salvatore di San Cataldo di Santa Maria Capua Vetere, of the Navy of His Majesty of the Two Sicilies!"

  "Sir Osbert Castlefight, third of the name!" the Englishman introduced himself. "'Tis on my honor that I demand that you vacate the field."

  "Not before I have put you out with this trusty sword!" and he draws it from its sheath.

  "Sir, you wish to fight!" exclaims Sir Osbert, and puts himself on guard.

  They fight.

  "This is where I wanted you, colleague, and for many a day," and the Neapolitan makes a thrust.

  And Sir Osbert, parrying: "I've been following your movements for some time, sir, and was awaiting this!"

  Equals in skill, the two officers threw themselves into assaults and feints. They were at the height of their fury when: "Stop in heaven's name!" exclaimed a voice. On the steps of the pavilion had appeared Donna Viola.

  "Marchesa, this man . . ." said the two officers in one voice, lowering their swords and pointing to each other.

  And Donna Viola: "My dear friends! Sheath your blades, I beg you! Is this the way to alarm a lady? I had chosen this pavilion as the most silent and most secret place in my park, and scarcely have I dozed off than I hear the clash of arms!"

  "But, Milady," said the Englishman, "was I not invited by you?"

  "You were here awaiting me, Signora. . ." said the Neapolitan.

  From Donna Viola's throat came a laugh light as a flutter of wings. "Ah, yes, yes, I had invited you . . . or you. Oh, I get so confused. Well, sirs, what are you waiting for? Do come in, please. . ."

  "Milady, I thought the invitation was for me alone. I am disappointed. May I offer my respects and request leave to withdraw."

  "I too wish to say the same, Signora, and bid farewell."

  The Marchesa laughed. "My good friends. . . My good friends . . . I'm so scatterbrained . . . I thought I had invited Sir Osbert at one time . . . and Don Salvatore at another . . . No, no, excuse me; at the same time, but in different places . . . Oh, no, how can that be? . . . Well, anyway, seeing that you are both here, why can we not sit down and hold civilized converse?" The two lieutenants looked at each other, then looked at her. "Are we to understand, Marchesa, that you are pretending to accept our attentions merely in order to make fun of both of us?"

  "Why so, my good friends? On the contrary, quite on the contrary. . . Your assiduity can scarcely leave me indifferent. . . You are both such dear people . . . And that is my worry . . . If I choose the elegance of Sir Osbert I shall lose you, my passionate Don Salvatore. . . And by choosing the fire of the officer of San Cataldo, I would have to renounce you, sir. Oh, why ever . . . why ever . . ."

  "Why ever what?" asked the two officers in one voice.

  And Donna Viola, lowering her eyes: "Why ever could it not be both at the same time?"

  From the horse chestnut above came a crash of branches. It was Cosimo, who could retain his calm no longer.

  But the two flag officers were too confused to hear this. They both stepped back a pace. "That never, Madame."

  The Marchesa raised her lovely face with its most radiant smile. "Well, then, I shall give myself to the first of you who, to please me in all things, declares himself ready to share me with his rival!"

  "Signora."

  "Milady."

  The two o
fficers bowed coldly to Viola, then turned to face each other, held out their hands and shook.

  "I was sure you were a gentleman, Signor Cataldo," said the Englishman.

  "I never doubted your honor, Sir Osberto," exclaimed the Neapolitan.

  They turned their backs on the Marchesa and marched off toward their horses.

  "My friends . . . Why so offended . . . Silly boys . . ." Viola was saying, but the two officers already had their feet in the stirrups.

  It was the moment for which Cosimo had long been waiting, enjoying in anticipation the revenge he had prepared, when the two would get a most painful surprise. Now, however, seeing their virile attitude in bidding farewell to the immodest Marchesa, Cosimo suddenly felt reconciled with them. Too late! Now it was too late to remove his appalling devices for revenge! A second's thought, and Cosimo had generously decided to warn them. "Stop!" he called from the tree. "Don't mount!"

  The two officers raised startled heads. "What are you doing up there? What d'you mean by this? Come down!"

  Behind them was heard Donna Viola's laugh, one of her bird's wing laughs.

  The two were looking perplexed. So there was a third, who seemed to have been present at the whole scene! The situation was becoming more complicated than ever.

  "Anyway," said they to each other, "we two remain in complete agreement!"

  "On our honor!"

  "Neither of us two will agree to share Milady with anyone else!"

  "Never on our lives!"

  "But if one of us two should decide to accept. . ."

  "In that case, still agreed! We would accept together!"

  "That's a pact! And now, away!"

  At this new dialogue, Cosimo began gnawing his thumb with rage for having tried to prevent his own revenge. "Let it be, then!" he said to himself, and drew back into the leaves. The two officers leaped into their saddles. Now they'll yell, thought Cosimo, and stopped his ears. Double shrieks rang out. The two flag officers had sat on two porcupines hidden under the trappings of their saddles.