REACHING THE EDGE of the reef, Roberto swam with his face submerged among those endless loggias, but he was unable to admire the animated rocks serenely because a Medusa had transformed him into inanimate stone. In his dream he had seen the looks Lilia bestowed on the usurper; and if in the dream those looks had enflamed him, now in waking memory they froze him.
Roberto wanted to regain possession of his Lilia; he swam, thrusting his face down as far as possible, as if that embrace with the sea could award him the prize that in his dream he had awarded Ferrante. It did not require a great effort, on the part of his spirit trained to form concepts, to imagine Lilia in every undulant cadence of that submerged park, to see her lips in every flower, where he would lose himself like a greedy bee. In transparent greenery he found again the veil that had covered her face on the first nights, and he stretched out his hand to raise that screen.
In this intoxication of his reason, he regretted that his eyes could not rove as freely as his heart wished, and among the corals he sought his beloved’s bracelet, her snood, the bangle that beguiled the lobe of her ear, the sumptuous necklaces that adorned her swan-like neck.
Lost in his search, he allowed himself at one point to be attracted by a jewel that appeared to him in a crevass; he removed his mask, arched his back, raised his legs vigorously, and forced himself towards the sea bed. The thrust was excessive, he tried to grasp the edge of a shelf; just before closing his fingers around a crusted rock, he seemed to see a fat and sleepy eye open. At that same instant he remembered Dr. Byrd had spoken to him of a Stone Fish that lurks among the coral caverns to surprise any living creature with the venom of its scales.
Too late. His hand had rested on the Thing and an intense pain shot through his arm to his shoulder. With a twist of his trunk he managed miraculously not to end up with his face and chest on top of the Monster, but to arrest his momentum he had to strike it with the mask. In the impact the mask shattered, but he had to let go of it anyway. Pressing his feet against the rock below, he pushed himself up to the surface while in the space of a few seconds he saw the Persona Vitrea sink out of sight.
His right hand and his entire forearm were swollen, his shoulder numb; he was afraid he might faint; he found the rope and with great effort gradually succeeded in pulling it, a little at a time, with one hand. He climbed the ladder, much as he had on the night of his arrival, not knowing how, and, as on that night, he slumped to the deck.
But now the sun was already high. His teeth chattering, Roberto recalled Dr. Byrd telling him that after an encounter with the Stone Fish most humans were doomed; a few did survive, but no one knew an antidote against that suffering. Though his eyes were clouded, he tried to examine the wound—it was no more than a scratch, but it must have been enough to allow the mortal substance to penetrate his veins. He lost consciousness.
When he woke, his fever was raging and he felt an intense thirst. He realized that on this edge of the ship, exposed to the elements, far from food and drink, he would not last long. He crawled below and reached the partition between the stores and the chicken pen. He drank greedily from a keg of water, but he felt his stomach contract. He fainted again, his face in his own vomit.
During a night racked by fierce dreams, he attributed his sufferings to Ferrante, whom he now confused with the Stone Fish. Why did Ferrante want to block his way to the Island and to the Dove? Was this why he had set out in pursuit of Roberto?
He could see himself lying there and looking at another self seated opposite him, beside a stove, dressed in a house robe, trying to decide if the hands he touched and the body he felt were his. He, who saw the other, felt his clothes on fire. Then, while the other was clothed, he was naked—but he no longer knew which of the two was awake and which asleep, and he thought that both were surely figures produced by his mind. No, not he, because he thought, and therefore he was.
The other (but which?) at a certain point stood up, but he had to be the Evil Genius who was transforming Roberto’s world into dream, for already he was no longer himself but Father Caspar. “You’ve come back!” Roberto murmured, holding out his arms. But the priest did not answer or move. He looked at him. It was surely Father Caspar, but as if the sea—giving him up —had cleansed and rejuvenated him. His beard was trimmed, his face plump and roseate like Padre Emanuele’s, his habit unwrinkled and neat. Then, still motionless, like an actor declaiming, and in impeccable language, a skilled orator, he said with a grim smile: “It is useless for you to defend yourself. Now the whole world has a single destination, and it is
Hell.”
He went on in a loud voice, as if speaking from the pulpit of a church: “Yes, Hell, of which you know little, you and all those who along with you are proceeding with light foot and mad spirit! Did you believe that in Hell you would find swords, daggers, wheels, razors, streams of sulphur, potions of molten lead, frozen waters, cauldrons and grates, saws and clubs, awls to gouge out eyes, pincers to pull teeth, combs to rip open flanks, chains to pound the bones, animals that gnaw, hooks that pull, thongs that choke, racks, crosses, goads, and axes? No! Those are merciless torments, true, but such as the human mind can still conceive, as we have also conceived bronze bulls, seats of iron, and sharpened reeds to push under fingernails…. You hoped Hell was a reef made up of Stone Fish. No, the torments of Hell are something different, because they are born not from our finite mind but from the infinite mind of a wrathful and vindictive God, forced to display His fury and show that as His mercy was great in absolution, no less great is His justice in punishment! They must be such torments that in them we can see the gulf between our impotence and His omnipotence!”
“In this world,” that messenger of penance continued, “you are used to seeing that for every ill a remedy is found, that there is no wound without its balm, no venom without its theriac. But you must not think it is the same in Hell. Burns there, it is true, are highly troublesome, but there is no liniment that soothes them; thirst sears, but there is no water to slake it; hunger is rabid, but no food allays it; unendurable is the shame, but no cover can cover it. If there were at least death to put an end to such woe, death, death … But this is the worst, for there you can never hope for a deliverance, even one as grievous as your own extermination!
You will seek death in all its forms, you will seek death and never be fortunate enough to find it. Death! Death, where art thou, you will shout constantly, but what demon would be merciful and offer it to you? And you will understand that down there the suffering never ends!”
The old man paused, extended his arms, his hands turned towards Heaven, as he muttered in a whisper, as if to confide a tremendous secret that should never go beyond that nave. “Suffering that never ends? Does that mean we shall suffer until a little goldfinch, drinking one drop every year, succeeds in draining all the world’s seas? No, longer. In saecula. Shall we suffer until a plant louse, taking one bite every year, has devoured every forest? No, longer.
In saecula. Will we suffer, then, until an ant, taking one step every year, has circled the entire earth? No, longer. In saecula. And if all this Universe were desert and once every century a single grain were taken from it, would we perhaps end our suffering when the Universe was empty? Not even then. In saecula. Assume that a damned soul, after millions of centuries, can shed only two tears, will we then continue suffering until his weeping has sufficed to form a flood greater than that which in ancient times destroyed the human race? Come now, enough of this, we are not children! If you want me to say it, then: In saecula, in saecula must the damned suffer, in saecula, which means centuries without number, without end, without measure.”
Now Father Caspar’s face seemed that of the Carmelite at La Griva. He raised his eyes as if to find in Heaven a sole hope of mercy. “But what of God,” he said with the voice of a penitent worthy of compassion, “yes, what of God? Does He not suffer at the sight of our sufferings? Will He not feel a pang of concern, in the end will He not reveal Himself, so we can be consoled at least by His weeping? Alas, ye innocent! God, unfortunately, will show Himself, but you still cannot
