Possibly there seems more to me in this story than there actually is, because I know so well the tenor of the life therein depicted; and the absence of all objective interest, of all care for nature and for art, of all perception of the consolations to be found in both, which render that life so much more barren than it need be.
D'Annunzio has typified such barrenness of thought, such narrowness of horizon, in the family which dwells in the grand old villa of Tregento, and many a time he must, no doubt, with his own mind filled by classic memories, and knowledge of the arts, and touched to impassioned appreciation of all natural beauty, have suffered acutely from the apathy, ignorance, and unconscious self-absorption of such a domestic atmosphere. He has no doubt constantly been met with the incapacity to understand, the wonder of ignorance, the blank dulness of unopened minds, such as he suggests in the following passage:--
'We were near Rebursa. The rocky chain, with its sharp and broken peaks turned to the right following the winding Saurgo, rising tier on tier towards the massive summit of Mount Caran. On the left of the road, the soil was smooth and undulating like the large dunes of a seashore, becoming further off a succession of hills, tawny and humped like camels of the desert.
'"Look, look!" I cried, seeing another silver cloud of blossom. "Can you not see it, Antonello?"
'He did not look at the almond trees with my eyes; he looked, but with a faint smile, wondering probably at the childlike joy awakened in me at the sight of the first flowers. Yet, what fairer spectacle could this rude and stony country offer to us?
'"If my sisters only were here!" cried Oddo, to whom my pleasure communicated itself. "Oh, if they were here!"
'"They need to be brought where flowers bloom," said Antonello, softly.
'"Look, look!" I cried again, giving myself up to my delight with fuller ease, now that I saw some reflection of it at least awakened in these poor shut souls. "I am glad these flowers are mine, Oddo."
'"My sisters must come to them," sighed Antonello, like one who speaks in a dream of sleep.
'It seemed as if his feverish eyes refreshed themselves with that vision of things so pure....