Malafrena

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  “You are unjust to yourself.”

  “Am I?” she said again, but without anger, thoughtfully. “I wonder. You may be right.” She looked up at him, with so direct a gaze that he could not turn from it. “You have the power to hurt me. How strange that is.”

  “I have no wish to hurt you. Don’t you understand—”

  “No.”

  “I have no power to—You know what I am,” he said desperately, “and how I live, and where I live—”

  “What of it?”

  He could not answer.

  “I am not asking you for manners, I am not asking you for mercy, I am asking you for the truth. To speak to me. Just once, to speak to me!”

  “What can I say?”

  The fountain, blown aside by the wind, rustled and pattered.

  “What good would it do if I said it?” he asked in anguish.

  “None,” Luisa whispered. “None.” She rocked herself a little, holding her arms about her sides, drawn into herself.

  “All we can do is hurt each other, it’s no good—”

  She rose suddenly, reaching out to him. His first response was startled and awkward, as her movement had been awkward. Then he held her to more strongly, their inept embrace became searching, her tension melted into yielding, fused towards him till they clung together, pressed together in an insatiable kiss.

  From it she broke at last, twisting away blindly, he reaching blindly after her. With control, a reaction of momentary shock and sickness came into and he sank down on the bench and sat bowed forward, his head down. She stood hereby; her body trembled slightly from time to time; she watched him.

  When he looked up he did not meet her eyes, but spoke to her arms; in an angry, pleading whisper. “Don’t you see?”

  “Do you see now? At last?”

  When he understood her, his expression began to change from dazed to dazzled. He stood up, and putting out his hands towards her in an uncertain gesture, said, incredulous and gentle, “Luisa—”

  “Ah,” she said, “there!” She took his hands and held them, standing facing him, separate, smiling, her face raised. “I will be just,” she whispered with that exulting smile. “I will be merciful.”

  He could say nothing coherent, but stammered praise and desire.

  She took his arm and walked with him up and down the path, and across the lawn to the garden wall, and back to the fountain. Most of his consciousness was centered upon the warmth of her arm and her side and the warm faint fragrance of her hair. He agreed without hesitation when she said, “Now we can choose…What I can’t bear, what I can’t bear is falseness, dishonesty, the stupid rules made for stupid people, the rules of lying…What I want is the truth, and only the truth.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “We are not children, and not fools, and not slaves. We can choose what we do. That is what I want, that’s all I want, the freedom to choose! Do you understand, Itale?”

  “Yes,” he said, because she was so eager and intense, because she wanted freedom, happiness, as he did, because the pressure of her arm on his made his head swim with happiness.

  “If you judged me now,” she continued in her intense whisper, “I would despise you. But you won’t. All you do, all your friends and their ideas, they’re trivial, but you’re above them, above all that. There’s no freedom but what one makes oneself, for oneself.”

  He agreed.

  “And that’s why we must choose, Itale, this week—I go back to Krasnoy Wednesday; you’ll come a week later—that’s enough time. We must each choose, both choose, what we wish to do, no one and nothing forbidding us or compelling us. I will use my life and my love as I see fit to use it. We will set each other free, Itale.”

  The tremor in her voice might be exaltation or terror. He drew her to him and kissed her mouth. But as her lips softened against his, she began to draw away. He let her go. She whispered, “Only a week!” Before he realised she was going she had gone, a glimmer between moonlight and darkness on the path. “Luisa,” he said, “wait—” The house door opened and shut quietly. He stood there by the fountain, bereft and confused. Why had she gone? Had he misunderstood again? Were they not lovers, or to be lovers? He had understood her as she spoke, as she spoke of freedom, but now he did not know what she had said. A light glimmered faint behind curtains in a room upstairs: her candle; her bedroom. He sat down on the stone bench once more, shivering with cold and the aftershocks of frustrated desire, groping after the immense happiness he had felt only a minute before. “A week,” he repeated, finding the words a talisman. “Only a week.”

  III

  On Saturday afternoon Itale cut short a meeting with the author of what he thought of as the Indubitably Pamphlet, alleging another obligation. “I have to see someone out in the country,” he said abruptly. The author of the pamphlet, in awe of conspiracies, asked no questions. Itale left the house and walked straight down the street; he had no objective at all. Town houses gave place to villas set back behind low walls, villas gave place to farmhouses and open fields, and the pavingblocks of the street to the red dirt of a country road. Overhead stretched a wide, changeable April sky, reflected underfoot in long puddles left from the morning’s rain. Weeds bloomed coarse and timid by the fences; grain and grass were bright green on the plough-lands. The road, very long and straight, the Roman road that had crossed the Western Province to the garrison at Aquae Nervi, was empty; the fields were empty, except for a lone ploughman who silently answered Itale’s silent salutation from the road. It was a gentle land, monotonous, noble in its coherent and unbroken vastness from horizon to horizon. Itale walked straight on, vaguely contented by the fresh wind and the rough road under his feet, noticing more clearly from time to time a wild iris, a cloud shadow fading across a field, a lark playing in the high air, a rain-washed stone.

  In four days he would go back to Krasnoy. His mind revolved perpetually about the end of that trip: what would he do, what should he do? He was sick of thinking about it and never ceased to think about it. How had he let himself be involved in an unsuitable, an impossible affair like this? a marriageable heiress, a spectacular woman, who could not possibly manage to have a lover without her brother and probably half a dozen of her suitors finding out about it—and if they did not she might very well tell them; for she was nervous, capricious, insanely wilful; spoilt. A spoilt girl. A proud, sensitive, frightened girl, a woman risking herself, offering him everything and asking nothing in return—nothing but that his courage equal hers…It was freedom she wanted; liberty. What did all his work for liberty amount to? Two rooms on Mallenastrada, an irregularly published journal of very uneven quality, a succession of jobs taken to keep the rent paid, a circle of feckless and unstable acquaintances all professing devotion to the cause but quarreling about it continually—and was this to be his life? Was this what he had left Malafrena for?

  For a liberal the means justify the end. To attain freedom one must live free. It was freedom she wanted, freedom she offered—and he was already so lost among contingencies, petty considerations, and conventional moralities that he could consider rejecting that offer! Was he a man or not? Not yet, maybe; he had been a boy, until now. He had come at last into his majority. He was and would be a man.

  But which man? a hand-to-mouth radical journalist, or a baroness’ lover?

  Why could he not be both? Was he supposed to live celibate for the cause of liberty, was it a religion and he its holy hypocrite?—He strode through the bright fields of afternoon in a rage, sometimes waving his right arm as he argued fiercely with himself; and all the while he knew in the center of his heart that he might or might not go to Luisa Paludeskar when he returned to Krasnoy, but that it was not reason that would, or could, make the choice. Reasons abounded, but within him something single, whole, indifferent, waited for a sign.

  The road led up and over one of the long, low rises of land that made up the immense level of the plain. So gradual was the ascent that slope
and summit were all one. Itale stopped and looked back. Aisnar lay five or six miles away, made entire by distance, tile roofs red in the declining light, the calm towers of the cathedral rising above blue shadow. Near where he stood was the ruin of a hut, a few stones and rain-rotted planks. He sat down there on what had been a doorstep or a hearthstone, between the city and the sun. The blowing of the country wind had finally blown his thoughts away. For a long time he sat hearing only the wind in the new grass. He sought stillness of heart, the void, the gap, the silence that had been his kingdom in the sunlit afternoons of the years at Malafrena. That was liberty, but it was gone. He had lost it. He turned to look southward; the same long plains ran varied and changeless as the sea to a soft haze on the horizon.

  “What would you do if you had seven hundred years to live?”

  There they were, Laura in a glimmering white dress, Piera, and himself, on the terrace in late midsummer dusk, the Hunter standing dark across the blurred and shining lake. He said he would travel to China and America, Laura wanted volcanoes, and Piera, what was it she had wanted to do? But what the devil, Piera was in Aisnar. She was not there in a remembered dusk above the lake any more than he was. She was here, under one of those red-tiled roofs, in some convent school; the Belleynin he had met at the marchioness’ house was her cousin.

  Itale stood up, stretched, and started back to town. He could not stay in the same town with Piera Valtorskar for two weeks and leave without a sign to her; things weren’t that bad with him yet.

  At about five he was at the Belleynins’ front door. “The countess is not here today, sir,” said the old servant, polite, but mistrustful of the dusty stranger. Itale asked where he might find her. “The countess lives in the Ursuline school, sir. On the Old Side, facing the Ring Fountain.” The countess, the countess. Young Piera, with freckles on her neck. Itale marched off across Fontarmana Street to the Ring Fountain. There was a big, tightlipped building with barred windows. A porter opened to his knock and said there were no visiting hours on Easter eve; come next Saturday. Itale pleaded the fact that he must leave on Wednesday, and his right hand put a small silver piece in the porter’s without his left hand knowing a thing about it. He was shown into an icy parlor containing four straightbacked chairs and one nun. He pleaded with the nun. An older nun was called and he pleaded with her, eloquently tactful; he was, as he had been since he got to his feet in the ruined hut on the hill, determined. The second nun went away, the first retired to a chair in the hall just outside the open door, and Piera came in.

  “Oh Itale,” she said, and they put their arms round each other and kissed each other on the mouth. “Oh my dear Itale!” she said, tears in her eyes, laughing, in the first, great flash of joy that ran through them both; and then they dropped their arms, and did not know what to do with them.

  “My God, how did I even know you?” he said, still dazzled by the flash, and she laughed again. “Don’t swear here! I’ve grown two inches, nearly.”

  “It’s like coming home to see you, Piera.”

  “I know—to see you too—and you still talk Maalafren!—Come and sit down, we don’t have to stand.” Her last words were conventionally gracious. Chill grew where the bright warmth had been. Itale sat down on one of the rigid chairs. “I can’t sit down,” he said, standing up again at once, and Piera giggled: the last flare. It went out.

  “It’s very strange to see you here,” he said, looking about the room, his hands behind his back.

  “I know.”

  Four walls, four chairs, two doors. He had to look back at her.

  “How long have you been in Aisnar?”

  “Ten days. I should have come before—I’ve been seeing a lot of people, time gets away. Sorry I caused all this regulation-breaking.”

  “Anything rather than not seeing you at all.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  “Yes, it’s very nice.”

  “When will you go home?”

  “I’ll leave here in June, and stay with the Belleynins for a while,” she said. Her voice was hesitant; she stood hesitant, yet calm, in her sleek grey dress and white apron. “Will you not tell anyone, I mean write them, please, Itale? because there hasn’t been time yet for papa’s letter to come, my letter went on the last post—I wanted to tell you, I won’t be going home exactly either, I’m going to live in Aisnar. I’m engaged to be married. This coming winter. Or perhaps after Easter next year.”

  “I see, I’m very glad for you,” he said, with a prolonged stammer. “Who is—?”

  “Givan Koste. He’s a lawyer. Do you know the Belleynins? They’ve been so kind to me, I’m so fond of them—He is a friend of theirs. It’s all going to be as quiet as can be, since he’s a widower with a little boy.” He did not remember her voice being so thin, or so sweetly modulated, a young-lady voice. “I’m very fond of him, of Battiste,” she said. That was very nice, everything was nice, everyone was kind and fond, why was she telling him all this? Let her get on with it and marry her damned widower, what was it to him?

  “I suppose that’s the end of it,” he said.

  “Of what, Itale?”

  He waved his arm. “Knowing each other. The part of life when we knew each other.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” she said in that thin voice. “If you come to Aisnar I hope you’d come see me. And we might be at Malafrena again, summers—”

  “But we’ve left Malafrena,” he said. “It’s taken me a while to learn that. Life’s not a room, it’s a road; what you leave you leave, and it’s lost. You can’t turn back. That’s how it is; we most likely won’t meet again.”

  “Perhaps not,” she said.

  There was a considerable pause.

  “Are you happy in Krasnoy?” she asked.

  “Happy? No, not particularly, I suppose. I’m doing what I went to do there.”

  “I see your journal sometimes.”

  “They let you read seditious papers here?” He looked about with a hard grin at the walls and doors.

  “Not here. Your articles are very interesting.”

  “Why the situation of linen-weavers in Krasnoy slums should be interesting to you I don’t know, but thanks.” He had heard the valor in her tone, he heard the hypocrisy in his own; he could endure no more. “I must go now, Piera,” he said flatly. She turned towards him. “Goodbye,” he said, and she took his hand and said, “Goodbye, Itale.”

  That was that. Outside by the double-tiered, silver-stranded Ring Fountain he looked at his watch; it said two-thirty, as usual, but the cathedral bell had just struck, it must be six. He was late for an appointment he had made with two likely contributors to Novesma Verba. He set off hastily to the cafe where they were to meet. “Life’s a road,” he heard his voice saying fatuously, fraudulently, “Life’s not a room, it’s a road”—yes, sure enough, a road going nowhere, on and on, meaningless. No turning back, no stopping, no end, no goal; best to go alone, allowing no claims. Let the dead bury their dead!

  The two men he met at the cafe were young, one an ex-seminarian, the other an unsuccessful candidate for representative to the National Assembly, which was to be convened this September in Krasnoy. Itale’s unmoved familiarity with their hopes and questions left them impressed and admiring. He saw that, and grew still more dry and hard in his replies, but they would not be discouraged. He left them as soon as he could and went to the hotel to which he had moved when the Paludeskars left; he had a chop sent up to his room, and went through the last few days’ notes and papers. His fortnight in Aisnar was proving profitable. There was money here for the support of both journals, there were contributors of talent, and the prosperous middle class of the city followed the liberal tradition established in the last century. It was all very encouraging. Drearily, he got his work in order, ate the dinner he had allowed to get cold, sat down again to work. One had to go alone; no use looking for anything one had left behind. Take what happiness might come, get the work done, and no complaining. It was
the only way. Alone; to be free one had to be alone.

  He was getting a headache, and to shake it off he went out around eleven to walk. As he went down Fontarmana Street, all black-dappled with shadows of branches cast by lighted windows, alive with the night wind and a quiet coming and going of people, someone hailed him from a cafe table: the Italian exile, Sangiusto.

  “Have a coffee with me, Sorde!”

  Itale stopped by the table, but did not sit down. “I was thinking of looking in the cathedral.”

  “Ha, it’s Easter. I’ll come, you don’t mind? My bill, please, five coffees.” They went on together. “Monday I leave to go to England,” said Sangiusto. “Now I don’t want to go. I speak the language better, but I like your country. I like Krasnoy, I like this Aisnar, I don’t know why I go to England!” He laughed, showing his strong white teeth. “Only at times it’s good to get out from the Empire, neh? But I shall come back, I think.”

  “I hope they’ll let you in, after we’ve published your articles from England.”

  “Oh, here I’m even more insignificant than in my country. And your police are not so good as those in the Piedmont. But I shall not stop in Vienna to obtain permission…”

  “What if we use a false name on your articles?”

  “Why not? I have been ‘Carlo Franceschi’ in Turin already. You look tired, Sorde.”

  “I am.”

  “And I’m full of coffee, like a ship that’s sinking. Every night I drink coffee, what else to do…” He laughed again. “What a life!—Look at the poor devils, they want to be home in their Bohemia or where they come from.” They had passed a pair of militia-men, imposing in the Imperial uniform. “Like all of us. Easter night! We would go to mass in the boat across the lake.”

  “What lake?”

  “Lago d’Orta,” Sangiusto said, lingering on the name with conscious love, saying it with pleasure, tenderness.

  They approached the doors of the cathedral, which stood open showing a glimpse of dusk and gold within. A little procession was crossing the cathedral square coming from Old Side, nuns and girls, heavily shawled. Itale recognised the grey uniform Piera had worn. She was among the tall girls at the end of the line, no doubt, head bent submissively as she walked. She would not see him nor could he tell which of the slender, shawled figures she might be.