The Island of the Day Before (9 page)

What he saw was perhaps enough to justify his shipwreck: not so much for the pleasure that this fickle, attitudinizing nature afforded him, but for the light that this light cast on words he had heard from the Canon of Digne.

Until now, in fact, he had often asked himself if he was not dreaming. What was happening to him did not usually happen to humans; at best it evoked the novels of childhood. Like dream-creatures were the ship and the animals he had encountered on it; of the same substance as dreams were the shadows that for three days had enfolded him. On cold consideration he realized also that even the colors he had admired in the garden and in the aviary appeared dazzling to his amazed eyes alone, that in reality they were heightened only thanks to that patina, like an old lute's, that covered every object on the ship, a light that had already enveloped beams and casks of seasoned wood encrusted with paint, pitch, oils.... Could not, then, the great theater of celestial crews, which he now thought he saw on the horizon, be likewise a dream?

No, Roberto told himself, the pain that this light now causes my eyes informs me that I am not dreaming: I see. My pupils are suffering because of the storm of atoms that like a great warship bombards me from that shore; for vision is nothing but the encounter of the eye with the powder of matter that strikes it. To be sure, as the Canon had said to him, it is not that objects from a distance send you, as Epicurus had it, perfect simulacra that reveal both the exterior form and the concealed nature. You receive only signals, clues, and you arrive at the conjecture we call vision. But the very fact that Roberto, a moment before, had named through various tropes what he believed he saw, creating in the form of words what the still formless something suggested to him, now confirmed for him that he was indeed seeing. Among the many certainties whose lack he complained of, one alone is present, and it is that all things appear to us as they appear to us, and it is impossible for them to appear otherwise.

Whereby, seeing and being sure he was seeing, Roberto had the unique sureness on which senses and reason can rely: the certainty that he was seeing something; and this something was the sole form of being of which he could speak, for it was nothing but the great theater of the visible arranged in the basin of Space. Which conclusion tells us much about that bizarre century.

He was alive, awake, and an island lay over there, or perhaps a continent. What it was he did not know, for colors depend on the object that affects them, on the light that is refracted in them, and on the eye that fixes them, thus even the most distant land appeared real to his excited and afflicted eyes, in their transient marriage to that light, to those winds, and clouds. Perhaps tomorrow, or in a few hours' time, that land would be different.

What he saw was not just the message the sky was sending him but the result of a friendship among sky, earth, and the position (and the hour, the season, the angle) from which he was observing. Surely, if the ship were anchored along another line crossing the rhombus of the winds, the spectacle would have been different. The sun, the dawn, the sea and land would have been another sun, another dawn, a sea and land twins but distorted. That infinity of worlds of which Saint-Savin spoke to him was to be sought beyond the constellations, in the very center of this bubble of space of which he, pure eye, was now the source of infinite parallaxes.

We must grant Roberto one thing: in all his vicissitudes then, he did not press his speculations beyond that point, whether in metaphysics or in the physics of bodies; though, as we will see, he was to do so later, and go farther than he should have; but here we find him already reflecting that if there could be a single world in which appeared different islands (for many Robertos who observed them from many ships positioned at different degrees of the meridian), then in that single world many Robertos and many Ferrantes could appear and mingle. Perhaps on that day at the castle he had moved, without realizing it, a few yards with respect to the highest hill on the Isla de Hierro and had seen the Universe inhabited by another Roberto, a Roberto not sentenced to the conquest of the outwork beyond the walls or saved by another father who did not kill the polite Spaniard.

But Roberto surely recurred to these considerations rather than confess that the distant body, made and unmade in voluptuous metamorphoses, had become for him the anagram of another body, which he would have liked to possess; and as this land smiled languidly at him, he would have liked to join it and commingle with it, blissful pygmy on the bosom of a lovely giantess.

I do not believe, however, that it was modesty that prompted him to retire, but, rather, the fear of excessive light—and perhaps another summons. He had, in fact, heard the hens announcing a new provision of eggs, and he had the thought of treating himself that evening to a pullet roasted on a spit. But he took the time to trim, with the captain's scissors, his moustache, beard, and hair, all still a castaway's. He had decided to enjoy his shipwreck like a holiday in a country villa, which offered him an extended suite of dawns, daybreaks, and (he savored in anticipation) sunsets.

So less than an hour after the hens' cackling, he went below and immediately realized that while they must have laid their eggs (for their cackling could not have been a lie), there was not an egg to be seen. And, further, all the birds had fresh feed, neatly distributed, still untouched.

Curious as it may seem, his first feeling was of jealousy. Someone else was master of his ship and stole from him those cares and those perquisites to which he was entitled. Losing the world to gain an abandoned vessel only to find that someone else inhabited it seemed to him as unbearable as the fear that his Lady, inaccessible goal of his desire, might become prey to the desire of another.

Then a more rational concern ensued. Just as the world of his childhood had been inhabited by an Other who preceded him and followed him, clearly the
Daphne
had holds and quarters he did not yet know, where a hidden guest lived, who followed his steps the moment he had gone, or took them a moment before he did.

He ran to hide, too, in his berth, like the African ostrich that, hiding his head, thinks to erase the world.

To reach the quarterdeck he passed the top of a ladder that descended to the hold: what could be hidden down there, considering that on the lower deck he had found a miniature island? Was that the realm of the Intruder? You see, he was already acting towards the ship as towards an object of love which, once it is discovered and you discover you desire it, makes all who had previously possessed it seem usurpers. And it is at this point that Roberto confesses, writing to the Lady, that when he saw her for the first time, and he saw her because his eyes followed another man's gaze addressed to her, he felt the revulsion of one who espies a caterpillar on a rose.

Such an access of jealousy for a vessel redolent of fish, smoke, and faeces might almost provoke a smile, but by now Roberto was becoming lost in a shifting maze where every junction led him back always to a single image. He suffered doubly, because of the Island he did not have and because of the ship that had him—both unattainable, one through its distance, the other through its enigma—and both stood for a beloved who eluded him, blandishing him with promises that he made to himself alone. I cannot otherwise explain this letter in which Roberto pours out embellished laments only to say, basically, that Someone had deprived him of his morning meal.

My Lady,

How can I expect mercy from one who is destroying me? And yet to whom, if not to you, can I confide my suffering, seeking solace, if not in your
listening, at least in my unlistened-to words? If love is a medicine that heals every pain with a yet greater pain, can I not perhaps conceive of it as a suffering that kills through excess every other suffering, until it becomes a balm for all save itself:' For if ever I saw beauty and wanted it, it was only in the dream of you, and why should I lament that another beauty is for me equally a dream? It would be worse if I made that beauty mine and were sated with it, no longer suffering with the image of you: for scarce balm would I enjoy, and the sickness would increase in the remorse for that infidelity. Better to trust in your image, the more so now that I have glimpsed once again an enemy whose features I do not know and perhaps wish never to know. To ignore this hated phantom, may your beloved phantom sustain me. May love make of me at least an insensitive fragment, a mandragora, a fountain of stone that weeps away every anguish....

But, tormenting himself as he does, Roberto does not become a fountain of stone, and he promptly connects the anguish he is feeling to the other anguish he felt at Casale, this with effects—as we shall see—far more dire.

T
HE STORY IS
as clear as it is dark. While little skirmishes followed one another, as in a game of chess where not a move but the mere expression that accompanies the hint of a move works to make the opponent renounce a winning opportunity, Toiras concluded that a more substantial sortie had to be attempted. Clearly the game was being played between spies and counterspies: at Casale rumor had it that the relief army was near, led by the king himself, while Monsieur de Montmorency was coming from Asti and the marshals de Crequi and La Force from Ivrea. Falsehoods, as Roberto learned from the wrath of Toiras when he received a courier from the north: in this exchange of messages Toiras informed Richelieu that he was now without victuals, and the cardinal replied that Monsieur Agencourt had in due course inspected the storerooms and determined that Casale could hold out excellently throughout the summer. The army would move in August, taking advantage along the way of the harvests just reaped.

Roberto was amazed when Toiras instructed some Corsicans to desert and go over to Spinola, reporting that the army was not expected until September. But then he heard the commander explain to his staff: "If Spinola believes he has time, he will take time to dig his tunnels, and we will have time to dig our own tunnels against his mines. But if he thinks reinforcements are about to arrive, what course is left him? Surely not to confront the French army, because he knows he hasn't sufficient troops; not to wait for it, because then he himself would be besieged; not to return to Milan and prepare a defense of that region, because honor forbids retreat. So the only thing left for him is to conquer Casale at once. But since he cannot do that with a frontal attack, he will have to spend a fortune in purchasing betrayal. And from that moment on, every friend will become for us an enemy. So we will send spies to Spinola, to convince him of the delay of our relief, we will allow him to dig his tunnels for mines where they will not bother us too much, and we will destroy those that are really a threat to us, and we will let him wear himself out in this game. Signor Pozzo, you know the land. Where should we leave him undisturbed and where should we thwart him at all costs?"

Old Pozzo, without looking at the maps (which seemed to him too ornate to be accurate) and pointing with one hand out of the window, explained how in certain areas the terrain was notoriously treacherous, infiltrated by the waters of the river, and there Spinola could dig as long as he pleased and his sappers would choke to death on snails. Whereas in other areas digging tunnels was child's play, and there they should hammer with the artillery and make sorties.

"Very well," said Toiras. "Tomorrow we will force them to move and defend their positions outside the San Carlo bastion, and then we'll surprise them outside the San Giorgio bastion." The game was well prepared, with detailed instructions to all companies. And since Roberto had proved good at writing, Toiras kept him busy from six in the evening till two in the morning, dictating messages, then asked him to sleep, dressed, on a bench outside his room and receive and look over the replies, waking him if there were any contretemps. Which there were, and more than once, between two o'clock and dawn.

The next morning the troops were in readiness on the covered way above the counterscarp and inside the walls. At a signal from Toiras, who was overlooking everything from the citadel, the first contingent, fairly numerous, moved in the deceitful direction: a vanguard of pikemen and musketeers, with a reserve of fifty arquebuses closely following, and after them, shamelessly, an infantry corps of five hundred men and two companies of cavalry. It was a fine parade, and later everyone realized that this was precisely how the Spaniards had taken it.

Roberto saw thirty-five men who, obeying Captain Columbat, scattered and attacked a ditch; the Spanish captain emerged from the barricade and gave them a great salute. Columbat and his men, out of politeness, stopped and responded with equal courtesy. After which, the Spaniards seemed ready to withdraw and the French marked time. Toiras ordered his cannon to fire at the trench from the walls, Columbat took the hint, ordered the attack, the cavalry followed him, assailing the ditch from both flanks, the Spaniards reluctantly resumed their position and were overrun. The French seemed crazed and some, as they fought, shouted the names of friends killed in previous engagements, "This is for Bessiéres, this for the Bricchetto farm!" Their furor was such that when Columbat wanted to reassemble the squad, he failed. Some of the men were still fiercely striking the fallen, others turned towards the city, shaking earrings, belts, scalps, and other trophies on their raised pikes.

There was no immediate counterattack, and Toiras made the mistake of considering that an error of the enemy, whereas it was calculated. Believing that the imperials were bent on sending more troops to contain that assault, Toiras goaded them with more cannonades, but the men merely fired into the city, and one ball damaged the church of Sant'Antonio, quite near staff headquarters.

Toiras was content, and ordered another group to move out from the San Giorgio bastion. Only a few companies, but they were commanded by Monsieur de la Grange, lively as a stripling despite his fifty-five years. Sword extended before him, La Grange ordered a charge against a little abandoned church, alongside which the construction of a tunnel was already far advanced; but suddenly, from behind a gulley, the main body of the enemy army appeared, having waited hours for this rendezvous.