There was a
white house with enormous windows always open and staring at the sea over the
heads of the palm trees. She had been born in a place like that.
The white path
sprouted out of the heart of the house and led downhill to the sea. It was edged
with bristly cactus, long-lingered, writhing, thick and furry, unmoved by the
seabreeze. Over the ageless cactus the bamboo shoots trembled close together,
perpetually wind-shirred.
There was a
lady in the white house who had collected birds from all parts of the world,
birds of changeful plumage, vitreous cries and velvety manners who paced the
thin alleys during the day and were very still at night. Every night the sound
of the sea was covered by that of music.
That night the
sea was almost asleep, and the birds and the breeze were silent. A woman’s
fluted voice slid out into the garden, down the path in a circle, trilling into
space. The white house was full
of people who were gathered near the windows to breathe an air which was
bristling with the current of close-set tropical stars.
The women
sighed in their very tight silk dresses as the a voice of the singer brushed
their breasts. The men were bent a little forward with attentiveness.
The husband of
the singer stood by the enormous open door, one foot on the gravel of the path.
He alone did not look at the singer. Out of the darkness of the garden there
came a peacock who waddled slowly into the long column of light, with his fan
tail open.
He paced up to
the open door thoughtfully. The husband looked at him; the peacock paced up
towards the voice and listened. He never moved from there until the singing died
down. Only when the clapping carne, he closed his fan tail and went back into
the darkness.
The next day
the peacock was dead.
The lady of
the house had the peacock’s feathers brought to her and with a note she had them
delivered to the singer.
The singer
received them with a cry: “Oh, they bring bad luck, I know they do! Yet they are
too beautiful to throw away. And besides,” she said to her husband, “I think it
was quite touching last night how that peacock listened to my singing.”
And she wrote
the lady a note of thanks.
The peacock
feathers were placed in a flower vase, against the orange walls of her room.
Her husband
did not notice them. He was trying not to notice anything about her now. Once
he had loved her for her voice and had walked into a concert hail with the same
still ensorcellment of the peacock. He had gone to the artist room where she was
receiving profuse tribute from a crowd. He had asked her to came out with him
alone to a quiet place where they might talk of music. During his travels he had
unearthed some very old Italian songs which were quite unknown. She laughed and
said: “But there’s a big supper being given for me tonight by a group of
friends. Why don’t you join us?’’
He had gone
away with the same slow pace of the peacock when he had heard the applause. They
met again in a place in Italy when she was singing and he had come up to her
alter the song and told her that he loved her.
Now they had
been married many years and he never listened when she was singing for alter
each time there were many people around her and she loved all they said to her
and believed them. She sang to them, and for them, for the things they said when
they crowded around her and drank to her triumph.
That day, when
the peacock feathers were only in the flower vase a few hours, he sat down and
wrote her a farewell note and walked down into dark gardens and into silence.
She looked at
the feathers and s aid: “They are the cause my misfortune.”
But she went
on with her singing. In Egypt she met a young musician and she sang his
compositions so that he would love her. He was at the beginning of his career.
She did not let him work any longer but demanded all his time for herself, and
he soon ceased composing, and merely followed her wherever her concert tours
took her. She was tired of his adoration and began to sing the songs of other
young composers. Then, at a very big concert, in front of everybody, he killed
himself while she was singing, and ruined her triumph.
It is the
fault of the peacock feathers, she thought.
She would have
thrown them away but for the fact that a poet had said to her: “You can well
afford to defy destiny because you are beautiful and talented.” And so she dared
the peacock feathers to do her harm.
She
wrote her memoirs, as she was sure she would be admired for them. She had known
so many years of brilliant living and had always been surrounded by celebrities.
In her memoirs she tried to make herself
sensitive and
tender-hearted. She wrote mincingly and studied her effects carefully. Yet when
the memoirs were read they revealed calculatedness, and there were many people
who satirized her.
As she had
written them with a pen made out of one of the peacock feathers she thought: It
is the fault of the peacock feathers.
Once, in a
Hindu home, she was offered a long pipe. The smoking of it gave her marvelous
dreams. She saw ships of sapphire sailing on seas of coral, and she at the prow
singing. She felt herself raised on a light cloud of cotton into a sphere where
her voice flowed like liquid light. Circles of strange personages listened to
her with astonishment. Then she descended into dark caves where warmth and
perfumes dissolved her and she was loved by resplendent men whose love had a
thousand-and-one ways of penetrating her. But when she ceased smoking she was
empty of all energy and looked haggard. Her voice altered too and she last her
power over her audience who once listened to her with the same rapt fixity of
the peacock. In spite of that she could not stop smoking, because of the lulling
effect on her, and she said it is the fault of the peacock feathers.
Now her life
was destroyed but she kept the feathers with more care than ever so as to be
able to say to those who observed her ruin: It was the fault of the peacock
feathers.
ANAÏS
NIN
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