L'Innocente (The Victim)
Gabriele D'Annunzio
Language: English
Pages: 153
ISBN: 1539490181
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Tullio Hermil, a wealthy Italian aristocrat, is bored with his wife Giuliana and finds his mistresses more exciting until he learns his wife is having an affair which rekindles his ardour for her.The drama unfolds with tragic consequences as the characters go about their business with seeming elegance and restraint. D'Annunzio captures the decadent aristocatic world of fin-de-siecle Italy perfectly. L'Innocente, filmed in 1976, is one of Luchino Visconti's finest films, finished shortly before he died.
had been alone, during the drive of two or three hours? What attitude could I possibly have adopted towards her? I should have run great risks of spoiling everything, or at least of taking off the first freshness from our emotions. Somehow I had always fancied finding myself suddenly with her in Villalilla, as if by magic, and of addressing my first tender and humble words to her there. The presence of Federico would enable me to escape those preliminary hesitations, the long embarrassing
in your dreams——’ ‘Yes, yes.’ ‘Now and then you used to speak in your sleep. How that delighted me! Ah, that voice! You cannot guess: a voice that you have never heard—only I, I alone. And I am to hear it again. I wonder what it will say? Perhaps my name. How I love the movement of your lips when you pronounce the u in my name! It is like the preparation for a kiss. Do you know that? And I shall whisper words into your ear that may come into your dream. Do you remember how, in those days, I
moment, listening; but my knees were shaking, and the beating of my heart deafened me. I went and threw myself on the sofa, stuffed my handkerchief between my teeth, and buried my face in the cushions. I was suffering some such physical torture as I would have done under a slow and badly-managed amputation. The agonised cries of the poor woman next door reached me through the wall, and at each one I thought—‘This is the last.’ During the intervals I could hear the low murmur of women’s voices: my
‘No.’ ‘She must not be excited in any way—remember that.’ ‘She opened her eyes for a moment, but she did not seem to see anything.’ The doctor went into the alcove, motioning me to stay outside. ‘Come away,’ said my mother; ‘the applications must be renewed now. Come, we will go and look at Mondino. Federico is there.’ She took me by the hand, and I let her lead me away. ‘He has gone to sleep,’ she went on, ‘and is sleeping most placidly. The nurse will be here by the afternoon.’ Although
bib. ‘Ah, no, no; that baby cannot be well!’ exclaimed my mother, shaking her head. ‘But has he coughed at all?’ As if in answer to me, Raimondo began to cough. ‘Do you hear that?’ It was a little dry cough, unaccompanied by any internal sound. It only lasted a moment. ‘We must have patience,’ I thought to myself. But as the sinister forebodings waxed stronger in my mind, my aversion for the intruder diminished, my anger subsided, and I realised that my heart was cramped and miserable, and