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CHAPTER 36
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TheRule andExercises
ofHolyDying
reaching the edgeof 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 exces-sive, 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
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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, hold-ing 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 mo-tionless, 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
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