Pleasure Read Online Free PDF Page A

rushing waters.
    â€”Then, on the couch: Do you remember? I covered your chest, your arms, your face with the flowers, oppressing you. You kept on coming up through them, offering me your mouth, your throat, your closed eyelids. Between your skin and my lips I felt the cold and damp petals. If I kissed your neck, you shivered throughout your body, and held out your hands to keep me away. Oh, then . . . You had your head pressed back in the cushions, your chest hidden by roses, your arms bare to the elbows; and nothing was more loving or sweeter than the slight tremor of your pale hands on my temples . . . Do you remember?
    â€”Yes. Carry on!
    He continued, his tenderness growing. Drunk on his own words, he almost lost consciousness of what he was saying. Elena, with her back to the light, was leaning toward her lover. Both could feel through their clothes the indecisive contact of their bodies. Beneath them, the waters of the river moved, slow and cold to the eye; the great slender rushes, like thatches of hair, curved themselves into it at every gust and floated with ample movements.
    Then they spoke no more; but, looking at each other, they heard a constant sound that persisted indefinitely, taking with it a part of their being, as if something sonorous was escaping from the intimate recesses of their brains and expanding to fill all the surrounding countryside.
    Elena, straightening up, said:
    â€”Let’s go. I’m thirsty. Where can one ask for some water?
    They headed then toward the Romanesque inn on the other side of the bridge. Some carters were unfastening their packhorses, swearing loudly. The light of the setting sun struck the human and equine group with intense force.
    The entry of the two aroused no sign of wonder among the people in the inn. Three or four feverish men, taciturn and yellowish, stood around a square brazier. A ruddy-skinned cowherd slumbered in a corner, still gripping his extinguished pipe between his teeth. Two scrawny and squinting youths played cards, glaring at each other during the intervals with an expression of brutal fervor. And the innkeeper, a plump woman, held a baby in her arms, rocking it ponderously.
    While Elena drank the water in the glass, the woman showed her the baby, lamenting.
    â€”Look, my lady! Look, my lady!
    All the limbs of the poor creature were miserably thin; its purplish lips were covered in whitish spots; the inside of its mouth was covered with what seemed to be milky clots. It seemed almost as if life were already fleeing from that small body, leaving some matter upon which mold now grew.
    â€”Feel, my lady, how cold his hands are. He can’t drink anymore; he can’t swallow; he can’t sleep anymore . . .
    The woman sobbed. The feverish men looked on with eyes full of immense exhaustion. At the sound of her sobs the two youths made a gesture of impatience.
    â€”Come, come! Andrea said to Elena, taking her arm after having left a coin on the table. And he drew her outside.
    Together they returned toward the bridge. The Aniene River flowed on, lit now by the fiery sunset. A scintillating line passed through the arch; and in the distance the waters took on a brown but glossier color, as if slicks of oil or tar were floating on its surface. The rugged countryside, like an immense ruin, was tinted all with violet. Near the Eternal City the sky grew increasingly red.
    â€”Poor creature! murmured Elena with a profound tone of compassion, hugging herself tightly to Andrea’s arm.
    The wind grew enraged. A flock of crows flew past high up in the enflamed air, cawing.
    Then, suddenly, a kind of sentimental exaltation filled the souls of the couple, in the presence of solitude. It was as if something tragic and heroic entered their passion. The highest point of their sentiment blazed under the influence of the tumultuous sunset. Elena stopped.
    â€”I can’t go on anymore, she said, panting.
    The carriage was