First chapter

I raised the face offering it to the placid wind. In order the light breeze looked to
me, almost in friendly way, this is the signal that my life was changing , and this
time with success.
I gripped more firmly the right hand on the suitcase, and retook the way with
renewed trust.
My destination was not faraway, to judge by the reassuring indications of the
driver of the coach, and I hoped that they had been sincere, and not simply
optimistic.
Reached to top at the hill I immobilised me, in part to retake breath, in part
because I was not believing my eyes.
Modest residence? So missis McMillian had defined her the telephone, with the
typical whiteness of the people accustomed to living in rural zones.
It is clear that it was joking. She could not speak about the serious one, could not
be so ingenious on the rest of the world.
The house itself ergeva majestic and regal like a palace of the fairies. If the
choice of that position was justified by the wish of camouflaging it between the
thick and luxuriant surrounding vegetation, well... the attempt had poorly failed.
Suddenly I tried a sense of subjection, and reconsidered the enthusiasm with
which I had faced the journey with London to the Scotland, and Edimburgo to
that picturesque, dispersed, quiet village of the Highlands. That work offer had
plunged me on like a boomerang, a manna with the sky in a moment gloomy and
devoid of hopes. I had resigned myself to pass from an office to other more
anonymous and dreary of the precedent, in handyman's, destined garment to be
lived on illusions. Then the random reading of a communication and the call
from which that radical change had spurted from residence, a sharp but strongly
desired removal. Up to a few minutes beforehand it had seemed to me a magic...
What had changed, after all?
I sighed and forced my feet to move again. This time my walking solemnly was
not triumphal like a few minutes beforehand, but more awkward and hesitant.
The true Melisande was returning afloat, stronger with the ballast with which I
had vainly tried to make her drown.

1
I covered the rest of the road with exasperating slowness, and was immensely
glad of being alone, so that nobody could guess the real motive of my hesitancy.
My shyness, protective cloak provided with autonomous life in spite of my
repeated, disastrous attempts to take it out to me, returned prepowerfully to the
footlights, when I was remembering whom I was.
As if I could forget it.
I reached to the gate of iron, high at least three metres, and here I had a news
paralysed hesitation. I bit the lip to me, considering the alternatives that I had at
disposal. Quite little, in truth.
To return back was outside a discussion. I had anticipated them spent for the
journey, and the money that me had remained was little.
Very few ones, telling with truth.
Is it then a thing it was waiting for me in London? Not at all. The absolute gap.
Even my companion of room was having difficulty in reminding of herself my
name or, in the best cases, was crippling it.
The silence around me was absolute, noisy in his total immobility, broken only
by the deaf thuds of my heart.
I put the suitcase on the path, heedlessly possible grass spots. So much, for me,
they were not meaning anything. I was banished in a universe in white and
black, devoid of any colour sign.
And not in metaphorical sense.
I brought a hand to me to the right temple, and exercised a light pressure with
the fingertips. I had been read somewhere that it was used for loosening the
tension, and although I was finding it stupid and fundamentally uselessly, I
carried out, obediently to a ritual in which I had not any faith, but alone respect
of a consolidated habit. It was a pleasantly comforting property of the habits. I
had discovered that it was helping to clear me, and was never coming off from
any of them. Well, not in that moment.
I had turned violently in a direction opposite to that one usual, having to drag
the current, and now I would have done false papers to return back.
I regretted my room to London little like the cabin of a ship, the absent-minded
smile of my coinquilina, the spites of his pot-bellied cat, and even the flaking
walls.
Suddenly, without notice, my hand seized the leather suitcase again, and other
one came off from the gate to which I had clung without
it to notice.

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I do not know what I was about to do – if dietrofront or to sound the bell
– but I ever had way of discovering it, why in that exact instant two
things happened at the same time.
I raised the look attracted from a movement beyond a window of the first
plan and had the vision of a white blind let to fall again to his place. And
then I felt a woman's voice. The heard same one a few days beforehand
to the telephone. The voice of Millicent Mc Millian, dreadfully near.
“Girl Bruno! Is it she, truth?”
I turned of click in direction of the voice, forgetting the movement to the
window of the first plan.
A half woman age, bony, rye and the gentle air, she was keeping on
telling, like a river in flood. I swept away.
“But someone who is she! Who others might she be? Let's not receive
many visits here to Mildnight Rose House, and then we were waiting for
it! Has it done good journey, girl? Has it found with easiness the house?
Is she hungry? Thirst? She will want to rest, I presume... I call sudden
Kyle to carry the luggage in her room... I have chosen a nice, simple but
delightful chamber, to the first plan...”
I tried, with scarce results of replying at least to one of her questions, but
missis Mc Millian did not arrest his continuous flow.
“Obviously it will be to the first plan, like mister Mc Laine... Oddio, he
does not need assistance from his part. It already has Kyle to be done to
him at hospital attendant's... He is in fact a handyman... He is also a
driver... Of the one who is not known, since mister Mc Laine ever goes
out... Ah, I am glad that she is here! I was feeling really the lack of a
female company... This house is not much lugubrious. Inside at least...
Here, to the sun, it seems completely wonderful... Does not know how to
find? Does she like the colour? And' boldnesses, I know it... Nevertheless
mister Mc Laine likes”.
Here, I thought with bitterness. A question to which I was happy of not
must answer.
I followed the woman inside the courtyard, and then in the huge foyer of
the house. It did not stop a moment of chatting, in clinking tone, like the
sound of a bell. I limited myself to nodding here and there, throwing
some ocellated rapids to the environments for which we were passing.
The house was really huge I ascertained surprise. I had expected for a
soberer, Spartan, male furnishing, considered that
owner, my neo-giver of work, was a man who was living singly.
Evidently his tastes were completely minimal fuorché. The furniture was
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sumptuous, sumptuous, ancient. XVIII century I thought, when
nevertheless an antique trade expert one did not be.
I quickened my steps not to lose the housekeeper, rapid as a cheetah.
“The house is the very” I murmured, taking advantage of a pause in his long
monologue.
The shoulder threw a look to me above. “It is , girl Bruno. Nevertheless it is for
closed half. We use only the pianoterra on the first plan. It is excessively big for a
man only, and tiring by the undersigned one it to be responsible. Apart from the
great cleanings, for which an external enterprise of cleanings is recruited, here
here I am alone. And Kyle, naturally, that has well other tasks. And she, now”.
Finally it stopped in front of a door and opened it.
I reached it, the lightly troubled breath. I was already panting, exhausted.
It preceded me inside the room, with a hospitable smile on the lips.
“I hope that she likes, girl Bruno. To the point... is it pronounced Brown or
Brunò?”
“Brown. My father was of Italian origin” I answered, the eyes immersed in the
contemplation of the room.
Missis Mc Millian started again blethering, when several anecdotes were telling
me on his short juvenile permanence in Italy, Florence, and his following
vicissitude like girl student of history of the art to the catching with the rigid local
bureaucracy.
I lent her listening in half, too much moved to feign interest. That chamber,
which she was defining simply, was the triple one of my London hole! My initial
doubts were swept road. I put the suitcase on the comò, and gazed the great bed
to baldachin ancient like the rest of the furniture. A writing desk, a wardrobe, a
bedside table, a carpet on the wooden floor, a half-closed window. I went in that
direction and opened it completely, delighting of the wonderful view that was
surrounding me. In distance it was seen the village only skimmed during the run
in coach, castled on another side of the hill, a border of river that was
disappearing to my right hand, hidden at the thick vegetation, and the below,
garden quite painstaking and rich in plants.
“I adore to be responsible for the garden” the housekeeper went on
imperturbable,
standing beside. “Particularly I love the roses. Since he sees, I have picked a
bunch of them for her”.
I turned, noticing only in that moment the great pot on the comò, overflowing a
thick roses bunch. I covered in a flash the distance that was separating me from
him, and immersed the nose between his fleshy petals. The perfume stunned me

4
to the instant, devoting myself almost to the head, and when a light dizziness was
provoking me.
For the first time, in my life, I felt myself that I'm at home. As if I had been
really in a cosy port.
“Do you like the white roses, girl? Perhaps she was preferring orange, or rose.
Or perhaps yellow...”
I returned on the land dragged to strength at that insidious question, it is also
pronounced in innocent and unaware way at that kind woman's. “I like all. I have
no preferences” I murmured, closing the eyes. “I bet what they like red. All the
women like red. Nevertheless they seemed inadequate to me... I mean... They
should be presented only at an admirer's... Is she engaged, girl Bruno?” "No".
My voice was a little more than one puff, the tired tone, of whom it has never
given a different answer.
“What does it shock. It is obvious that it is not it. If it was it, it would not be
here, in this dispersed place, far from his love. Here I doubt what will meet
someone...”
I reopened the eyes. “I do not look for a fiance”.
His expression cleared. “Then it will not remain disappointed. Here it is
practically impossible to do meetings. They are already accompanied all. They
are engaged literally in bands, or at the latest on the banks of the refuge... It
knows how there are the little rural communities closed to the new one and to the
different one”.
And I it was different. Irremediably different.
“Since I have told her, it will not be a problem for me” I said in resolved tone.
“her hairs are of a wonderful red, girl Bruno. Enviable I would say. It deigns of a
Scot, even if she is not it”.
I passed distrattamente the hand to me between the hairs, smiling faintly drawn. I
did not answer, accustomed how I was to that family of comments.
She started again chattering, and again I diverted my mind, the crowded mind of
the poisonous, slowest memories to be evaporated, the majority restii to be
faded, the fastest to be recalled.
Still not to have to transfix the red-hot darts of the memory I interrupted the
story about another anecdote.
“Which will my work schedule be?”

The woman nodded in approval mark, discovering my dedication to the

work. “The morning novae to the five of evening, girl. Obviously it will
have a pause for the dinner. To such a purpose I inform it that mister Mc
Laine prefers to consume his meals in chamber, in complete solitude. I am
5
afraid that it will not be of a lot of company”. It outlined a displeased
grimace, and his tone was done from apology. “He is a very made bitter
man. It knows... for road of the tragedy... And' as a lion in cage, and I
consider myself... when it roars, comes, wants to let everything go and to go
away... As they have been another three secretaries before her...” His eyes
seemed to examine me, acute like enlargement lenses. “She seems provided
to me with greater common sense and practical sense... I hope that it resists
more time, wish it to myself of heart...”
“In spite of the weak and fragile appearance, I am provided with an infinite
patience, missis Mc Millian. I guarantee to her what I will do from mine
better to be at the height” I promised, with all the optimism that I managed
to gather. The woman gave me a wide smile, conquered at the solemnity of
my declaration. I hoped not to have sold the skin of the bear before having
captured it.
The woman set out for the door, still smilingly. “Mister Mc Laine waits for
him between an hour in his study, girl Bruno. Do not have to be put in
subjection. Hold head to him, it is the only way not to have to hunt to the
first occasion”.
I beat the eyelids, submerged at the initial agitation. “Does he love to put in
difficulty the staff?”
She became serious. “He is a hard, but just man. We say that it does not
appreciate the rabbits, and does of everything to gulp down them. The
problem is that many tigresses change in rabbits in his presence...”
It said hallo to me with a smile and left the room, ignoring the cyclone that
was nesting in my head, generated by his final discorsetto.
I returned to the window. The breeze had disappeared, substituting an
unusual sultry, characteristic heat more than the Continent than of that
territory.
To labour I brought back the mind in stand-by, freeing the harmful thoughts.
It was again a white, uncut, fresh page, free from each worry. With the
fulminant certitude of the one who knows himself, I was knowing that that
peace was relative, ephemeral like a footprint on the sand, ready to be
cancelled by the tide that is withdrawn.
The welcome of missis Mc Millian did not have to draw me in deceit.
She was simple employee, nor more not even less of the undersigned one. It
was pleasant, well to think much, that it was from my side, and that an
accomplice had offered alliance to me with such spontaneity, nevertheless I
did not have to forget that my work giver was an other. My permanence in
that house, so agreeable and so different any place I had known ever, was
depending exclusively on him. Or rather the impression that I would have
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done to him. I. I only. About him I was knowing too much somewhat to
relax. An alone man, condemned to an imprisonment worse of the death,
banished to a life in half, a solitary writer and the bad character... According
to the velate allusions of my guide, it was about a man who was drawing
enjoyment in putting in difficulty the persons, perhaps he was loving to give
vent to his longing revenge on others, without being able to seize itself it
with his alone inimical one: the destiny. Blind, bandaged, uninterested in the
delinquent payments inflicted on the right and it lacks, democratic in a
certain sense.
I drew a profound breath. If my stay in that house was destined to be short,
much was worth not to undo the luggage. I was not liking to waste time.
I wandered for the room, still incredulous. I delayed before the mirror hung
above the comò, and gazed sadly my face. My hairs were red, of course. I
was knowing it only because others were telling it to me, I was not able to
establish the colour it. I was living a life in white and black, imprisoned also
like mister Mc Laine. Not from a chair to small wheels, perhaps,
nevertheless incomplete in my turn. I passed a finger on a brush in silver,
knife on the comò together with other objects toletta, a delicious object, of
value, put to my disposition with a matchless generosity.
The eyes ran to the great watch to wall, and reminded of me, almost
perfidamente, the rendezvous with the house master.
I could not tardare.
Not to our first meeting.
Perhaps I finish him, if I was not able to... How had missis Mc Millian said?
Ah, already. To hold head to him. A word for the princess of the rabbits. My
favourite word, that one more frequently used, was an apology declined
according to the circumstances in me excuse or excuse me. Beforehand or
then I would have asked pardon of existing. I straightened the backs, in a
pride jump. I would have sold darling the skin. I would have earned the
right, the pleasure, of being in that house, in that room,
in that world corner.
On the landing, entering the staircases, the backs bent again, the mind to be
screamed, the heart to gallop. Had my quiet lasted... how much? A minute?
Almost a record.