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Wolf Reborn Wolf Reborn 1 1st Edition Sara Snow

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Ralph Steyer

Building web applications with Vue.js

MVVM patterns for conventional and single-page
websites
Ralph Steyer
Bodenheim, Germany

ISBN 978-3-658-37595-9 e-ISBN 978-3-658-37596-6

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37596-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer
Nature 2022

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
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dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

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absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer
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The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189
Wiesbaden, Germany
Preface
Of course, the Internet is still on everyone’s lips. Digitization in general
is one of the most used “buzzwords” – especially by politicians, media
people, and decision makers. But the times of static websites are largely
over. While it was common a few years ago that at least simple websites
of private persons or smaller associations still used pure HTML code
(Hypertext Markup Language), such antiquated websites can be found
less and less nowadays. Usually at least content management systems
(CMS) like WordPress, Joomla!, Typo, or Drupal are used or such
websites are at least spiced up with stylesheets and/or JavaScript.
But if you are not satisfied with these 08/15 solutions of the
common CMS or if they do not (cannot) meet the required
requirements, the only option is the real programming of websites or
even Web applications. On the one hand, this path usually begins with
programming on the Web server side, including downstream database
systems, but on the other hand, modern websites or Web applications
must also be programmed in the client (the browser).
And in the browser, only JavaScript has been available for years as a
universally available technology for programming. Together with HTML
and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript forms the triad of modern
websites and especially of client-side Web programming.
Now JavaScript has been around for a very long time on the Web,
but for most years it was completely underestimated and dismissed as
a primitive beginner’s language. Only in the last few years have we
realized what a treasure JavaScript is for efficient and powerful
programming and that this language is anything but a beginner’s
language – even if you can learn it quickly as a beginner. Quite the
contrary. But you have to be able to use it professionally, because in
contrast to all-round carefree programming worlds from the .NET and
Java environment, which have “softened” programmers over the years
by hardly allowing them to make mistakes, you can’t expect such
protective mechanisms in JavaScript. Efficient and secure programming
with JavaScript requires skills from the programmer instead of
transferring them to IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) and
runtime environments. But this also makes JavaScript much leaner and
more efficient than its now hopelessly overloaded competitors.
Professional, efficient, and secure programming with JavaScript
therefore requires immense programming experience. Already in the
client, but even more so on the server side, where JavaScript has
meanwhile also begun its triumphant march. JavaScript is like a scalpel.
In the hands of an experienced surgeon, you can perform miracles with
it. In the hands of a layman or someone not working carefully, it can do
immense damage. Where JavaScript manages the balancing act of still
being easy to use by beginners for simple tasks. In my JavaScript
trainings, I hear again and again that many participants have already
used JavaScript. Mostly they copied existing scripts and adapted them if
necessary or wrote very simple scripts themselves and built them into
HTML pages. And that usually works, although almost always the
addition of the participants was that they did not really know why it
works.
The many frameworks that have established themselves in the Web
environment in recent years use some fundamentally different
approaches. But most frameworks often try to extend JavaScript by
things that are not possible with the core version. This makes it easier
to work with JavaScript and also provides possibilities that are not or
not easily available with pure JavaScript.
The various frameworks take very different approaches to
ultimately end up with the same result in the code that reaches the
user, namely a conglomerate of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Of course,
always connected with resources such as images, videos, audios, and
the like.
Now, Vue.js is an increasingly popular framework on the Web that
takes a very specific approach. It is a reactive, client-side JavaScript
Web framework that is essentially used to create so-called single-screen
Web applications or single-page Web applications (only one Web page
in the browser that updates parts as needed and does not reload a new
Web page) according to a Model-View-Controller pattern (MVC). Strictly
speaking, a Model-View-Controller pattern (MVVC) is used. But you can
definitely create Web applications and Web pages with it.
Vue.js is both easy to learn and very extensible and customizable. To
be able to learn Vue.js successfully, a good knowledge of HTML and
JavaScript is sufficient, as well as CSS if possible, which I would also like
to assume in the book. The developers of Vue.js call the framework
“progressive.” This essentially means that it can be used as much for
small improvements to individual details of the website as for larger
projects. It also supports the creation of reusable components. Another
advantage of Vue.js is that it does not require a complex installation and
can even be used entirely without installation “from the cloud” (from a
CDN content delivery network) if required.
So, follow me into the fascinating world of Vue.js!
Ralph Steyer
Bodenheim, Deutschland
Spring/Summer 2019
Contents
1 Introduction:​Before the Real Thing Starts
1.​1 What Do We Cover in the Introductory Chapter?​
1.​2 The Aim of the Book
1.​3 What Should You Already Be Able to Do?​
1.​4 What Do You Need to Work with the Book?​
1.​4.​1 The Vue.​js Framework
1.​5 The Features of Vue.​js
1.​5.​1 Directives
1.​5.​2 The Virtual DOM
1.​5.​3 Data Binding and Reactivity
1.​5.​4 Creation of Components
1.​5.​5 An Own Event System
1.​5.​6 Animation and Transition Effects
1.​5.​7 Calculated Properties
1.​5.​8 Templates
1.​5.​9 Watcher
1.​5.​10 Routing
1.​5.​11 Vue CLI
1.​6 Summary
2 First Examples:​Just Test Vue.​js Once
2.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
2.​2 The Basic Framework and a First Example
2.​3 Dynamics for the Example
2.​3.​1 Real Response and v-model
2.​4 Summary
3 Behind the Scenes:​How and Why Does Vue.​js Work?​
3.​1 What Do We Cover in This Chapter?​
3.​2 The Principle of Fault Tolerance and the DOM Concept
3.​2.​1 The DOM Concept From a Particular Point of View
3.​3 Arrays, Objects and JSON
3.​3.​1 Hash Lists
3.​3.​2 The JavaScript Object Notation
3.​3.​3 Callbacks and Function References
3.​4 MVC and MVVC
3.​4.​1 Design Patterns
3.​4.​2 The MVC Pattern
3.​4.​3 MVVC
3.​5 Summary
4 Vue.​js in Depth:​The Vue Instance, Vue Templates, and Data
Binding
4.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
4.2 The Vue Instance
4.2.1 Responding to the Creation of the Vue Object: The Life
Cycle
4.​3 Basic Information About Vue.​js Templates
4.3.1 The Template Attribute
4.​3.​2 Under the Template Hood
4.​3.​3 Different Types of Data Binding in Templates
4.​3.​4 Using JavaScript Expressions for Data Binding
4.​4 More on Directives
4.​4.​1 Arguments
4.​4.​2 Dynamic Arguments
 4.​4.​3 Restrictions for Dynamic Argument Values
4.​4.​4 Modifiers for Attributes
4.​5 Components
4.​5.​1 Watch Out!
4.​5.​2 Global Versus Local Registration
4.​5.​3 Data Transfer
4.​5.​4 The Way Back:​Slots
4.​5.​5 Asynchronous Data Transmission
4.​5.​6 Single File Components
4.​6 Which Side Would You Like to Have?​Routing
4.​6.​1 MVVC/​MVC and Routing
4.​6.​2 The Concrete Implementation in Vue.​js
4.​7 Summary
5 Working with Arrays:​Iterations with the v-for Directive
5.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
5.​2 The v-for Directive
5.​2.​1 Static Display of Values From an Array
5.​2.​2 Access to the Index of the Current Element
5.​3 Access to More Complex Structures
5.​3.​1 Nested v-for Directives
5.​3.​2 Addressing Individual Entries Directly
5.​4 Specific Applications of the v-for Directive
5.​4.​1 The v-for Directive with a Range of Values
5.​4.​2 Access to the Parent Elements
5.​4.​3 Key and Index in One Object
5.​4.​4 The Key Attribute for Binding the Id
 5.​4.​5 Calling Callbacks
5.​5 Observing Changes in Arrays
5.​5.​1 Mutating Methods
5.​5.​2 Sorting Arrays and Working with Methods
5.​5.​3 Generating New Arrays
5.​6 Summary
6 Conditional Rendering:​The v-if Directive – Making Decisions
6.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
6.​2 The v-if, v-else and v-else-if Directives
6.​3 The v-show Directive
6.​4 When v-if and When v-show?​
6.​5 A Special Combination:​The Directive v-for with v-if or v-
show
6.​5.​1 A Wrapper with v-if is Better
6.​6 Summary
7 Events, Methods, Observers and Calculated Properties:​
Calculated Results and Reactions
7.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
7.​2 Basic Considerations on the Distribution of Tasks
7.​3 Methods of a Vue Object and the Methods Property
7.​4 The Event Handling in Vue.​js
7.​4.​1 Background to Event Handling
7.​4.​2 The Concrete Example of v-on
7.​4.​3 Evaluating the Event object
7.​4.​4 Event Modifier
7.​4.​5 Other Modifiers
7.​4.​6 User-Defined Events
 7.5 The Computed Property
7.​6 When Methods and When Calculated Properties?​
7.​7 Watcher (Observer)
7.​7.​1 Observing the Geolocation with a Watcher
7.​7.​2 Ajax with a Watcher
7.​8 Summary
8 Dynamic Layouts with Data Binding:​Making Stylesheets
Dynamic
8.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
8.2 Data Binding and the v-bind Directive for Conditional
Classes
8.​2.​1 Switching CSS Classes
8.​2.​2 The Array Notation for Multiple Properties
8.​2.​3 Logic in the HTML File
8.​3 Data Binding and the v-bind Directive for Inline Styles
8.​4 Abbreviations (Shorthands)
8.​4.​1 The v-bind Abbreviation
8.​4.​2 Abbreviation v-on
8.​5 Summary
9 Forms and Form Data Binding:​Interaction with the User
9.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
9.​2 Basics of Using Forms on the Web
9.​2.​1 The Contained Form Elements
9.​3 Basic Use of Form Binding in Vue.​js
9.​3.​1 Vue Instance First
9.​4 Some Concrete Examples
9.​4.​1 A Simple Form with Different Form Elements
 9.​5 Dynamic Options
9.​6 A Task List as a Practical Example
9.​6.​1 A First Simple Version of a Todo List
9.​6.​2 A Permanent Task List
9.​6.​3 Persistence the Second:​Server-Side
9.​7 More on Value Bindings for Forms
9.​7.​1 The Modifiers
9.​8 Summary
10 Filtering Techniques:​Selected Data Only
10.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
10.​2 Basics of Filters for JavaScript Arrays
10.​2.​1 The Arrow Notation
10.​3 Filters in Vue.​js
10.​3.​1 Local Filters
10.​3.​2 Global Filters by Extending the Vue Instance
10.​3.​3 Dynamic Filtering
10.​3.​4 Chaining Filters
10.​3.​5 Transfer to Parameters
10.​4 Summary
11 Transitions and Animations:​Moving Things
11.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
11.​2 Transitions with Transition
11.​3 The Transition Classes
11.​4 CSS Animations
11.​5 Special Situations
11.​5.​1 Using Transitions and Animations Together
 11.​5.​2 Explicit Transition Times:​The Duration Specification
11.​5.​3 JavaScript Hooks
11.​5.​4 Animation of Data
11.​6 Summary
12 Outlook:​What Else Is There in Vue.​js?​
12.​1 What Do We Cover in the Chapter?​
12.​2 Use Vue.​js in CMS or in Combination with Other
Frameworks
12.​3 Server-Side Rendering
12.​4 Mixins
12.​5 User-Defined Directives
12.​6 Plugins
12.​6.​1 Using a Plugin
12.​6.​2 Writing a Plugin
12.​7 Summary
Appendix
Index
List of Figures
Fig.​1.​1 The official website of Vue.​js

Fig.​1.​2 Information about Vue.​js

Fig.​1.​3 Integrating Vue.​js

Fig.​1.​4 Information and resources about Node.​js

Fig.​1.​5 Installing Vue-CLI with npm

Fig.​1.​6 Vue-CLI was successfully installed with npm

Fig.​2.​1 Vue.​js has output the text

Fig.​2.​2 Vue.​js updates the date string

Fig.​2.​3 Data binding with Vue.​js

Fig.​2.​4 In the background, Vue.​js does its magic

Fig.​2.​5 The examples were spiced up a bit with CSS – here the third
example
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
in the preparations he had Colas di Sciampagne, who seemed expert
at all trades. On a band of fresh plastering he had written with the
point of a reed this old device, suggested by the illusion: Parva
domus, magna quies. And he saw a favorable presage even in the
three blades of bay sown by the wind between the interstices of the
raised edge of the window.
But, when all was ready and this false energy had gone, he
found again in his inmost self the inquietude, the discontent, and
that implacable anguish the true cause of which he did not know; he
felt confusedly that his destiny had once more pushed him into an
oblique and perilous pass. It seemed to him that, from another
house and from other lips, there came to him now a voice of recall
and reproach. In his soul there revived the heartbreaking farewells,
tearless and yet so cruel, in which he had lied from shame on
reading in his deceived mother's tired eyes the question, too sad:
"For whom are you abandoning me?"
Was it not this mute question, the recollection of that blush and
that lie, which inspired him with the inquietude, the discontent, and
the anguish, at the moment that he was about to enter the New
Life? And how could he silence that voice? By what intoxication?
He did not dare reply. In spite of his deep trouble, he wished
still to believe in the promise of her who was going to come; he
hoped to be able still to attribute to his love a high moral
signification. Had he not an ardent desire to live, to give to all the
forces of his nature a rhythmic development, to feel himself
complete and harmonious? Love would finally effect this prodigy; he
would finally find in love the plenitude of his humanity, deformed
and diminished by so many miseries.
 With these hopes and these vague tendencies, he sought to
cheat his remorse; but what dominated him in presence of this
woman's image was always desire. In despite of all his platonic
aspirations, he could not succeed in seeing in love anything else but
the work of the flesh, could not imagine the days to come but as a
succession of already familiar sensual pleasures. In that benign
solitude, in the company of that passionate woman, what life could
he live, if not a life of idleness and voluptuousness?
And all the past sorrows came back to his mind, with all the
painful pictures: his mother's haggard face and swollen red eyes,
scorched by tears; Christine's sweet and heart-broken smile; the
large head of the sickly child, always leaning on a bosom barren of
all but sighs; the cadaveric mask of the poor idiotic gormand.
And his mother's tired eyes asked: "For whom are you
abandoning me?"

CHAPTER IV.

It was the afternoon. George explored the tortuous path which, by a

succession of ups and downs, led towards the Vasto Point on the
edge of the sea. He gazed before and around him with a curiosity
always awake, almost betraying an effort to be attentive, as if he
wished to surprise some obscure thought translated by these simple
semblances, or to render himself master of some unseizable secret.
In a fold of the hill which followed the sea line, the water of a
stream derived from a sort of small aqueduct, made from hollowed
trunks and sustained by dead trees, traversed the dale from one
shore to the other. There were also trenches carried in hollow tiles,
as far as the fertile field where the crops were prospering; and here
and there on the reflecting and murmuring trenches, beautiful violet
flowers bent with airy grace. All these humble things appeared to
have a profound life.
And the excess of water ran and spread on the slope towards
the sandy beach, passing beneath a small bridge. In the shade of
the arch, several women were washing linen, and their gestures
were reflected in the water as in a mobile mirror. On the beach, the
linen spread out in the sun was of dazzling whiteness. A man was
walking along the railroad tracks, his feet naked, carrying his shoes
hanging in his hand. A woman came out of the toll-house and, with
a rapid gesture, threw some débris from out of a basket. Two little
girls, loaded with linen, were running, each trying to outdo the other,
laughing. An old woman was hanging blue-colored skeins from a
pole.
Beyond, on the slope of the earth wall that bordered the path,
small shells made white spots, fragile roots fluttered in the wind. The
traces of the pickaxe that had cut into the fawn-colored earth were
still distinguishable. From the top of a heap of earth hung a tuft of
dead roots, as light as the scales of a serpent.
Farther on was a large farmhouse, with a porcelain flower at the
summit of its tiled roof. An outer stairway led up to a covered
gallery. At the head of the stairway two women were spinning, and,
beneath the sun, their distaffs had the resplendency of gold. One
could hear the clicking of a weaving machine. Through the window
could be seen a weaver, and her rhythmic gesture as she plied the
shuttle. Lying down in a neighboring field was a gray ox, a beast of
enormous size, shaking ears and tail, peacefully and unceasingly, in
order to chase away the flies. Around him, chickens were scratching.
A little farther, a second stream traversed the path—laughing,
rippling, gay, frisking, limpid.
A little farther on still, near another house, there was a silent
garden, full of bushy laurels, closed all round. The stems, slender
and straight, rose up motionless, with their crown of shining foliage.
And one of these laurels, the most robust, was entirely enveloped by
a large, amorous bryonia which triumphed over the austere foliage
by the delicacy of its snowlike flowers, and by the freshness of its
nuptial perfume. Below, the earth seemed to have been newly
turned over. In a corner a black cross shed over the mute enclosure
that sort of resigned sadness which reigns in cemeteries. At the end
of the path could be seen a stairway, half in the sun and half in the
shadow, by which one mounted to a half-open door, which protected
two branches of a blessed olive-tree, suspended at the rustic
architrave. Below, on the last step, an old man was seated, asleep,
his head bare, his chin on his breast, his hands resting on his knees;
and the sun was about to touch his venerable brow. From above,
through the half-open door, as if to favor the senile slumber,
descended the equal sound of a cradle rocking and the equal
cadence of a hummed ballad.
All these humble things seemed to have a profound life.

CHAPTER V.
Hippolyte announced that, according to her promise, she would
arrive at San Vito, Tuesday, May 20th, by train direct, about one
o'clock in the afternoon.
That would be in two days. George wrote to her:
"Come, come! I await you, and never was waiting more
tantalizing. Every minute that passes is irremediably lost to
happiness. Come. Everything is ready. Or rather, no, nothing is
ready, save my desire. It is necessary, my friend, that you provide
yourself with an inextinguishable fund of patience and indulgence;
because, in this savage and impracticable solitude, every commodity
of life is lacking. Oh, how impracticable! Picture to yourself, my
friend, that from the station of San Vito to the Hermitage takes
three-quarters of an hour by road; and to cover this distance, the
only means is to follow on foot the path cut through the granite,
rising perpendicularly from the sea. You must be careful to come
provided with heavy shoes, and gigantic parasols. As to dresses, it is
useless to bring many; a few gay and durable costumes for our
morning walks will suffice. Do not forget your bathing suit....
"This letter is the last I shall write you. You will get it a few
hours before you start. I am writing you in the library, a room in
which there are heaps of books which we are hardly likely to read.
The afternoon is grayish, and the sea stretches out in endless
monotony. The hour is discreet, languorous, propitious for delicate
sensualities. Oh, if you were with me! This evening will be my
second night at the Hermitage, and I shall spend it alone. If you only
saw the bed! It is a rustic bed, a monumental hymeneal altar, large
as a field, deep as the slumber of the just—thalamus thalamorum!
The mattresses contain the wool of an entire flock, the straw-bed
contains the shucks of an entire field of maize. Can these chaste
things have the presentiment of your nudity?
"Good-by, good-by. How slowly the hours go by! Who says time
has wings? I do not know what I would give if I could go to sleep in
this enervating languor, and not awake until Tuesday morning. But
no, I will not sleep. I, too, have killed my sleep. I have the constant
vision of your mouth."

CHAPTER VI.

For several days voluptuous visions had haunted him without a

truce. Desire awoke in his flesh with inconceivable violence. A warm
puff of air, a waft of perfume, the rustle of a skirt, mere trifles,
sufficed to modify his entire being, to make him languorous, to light
up his face with a flame, to accelerate the pulsations of his arteries,
to throw him into an agitation bordering on delirium.
At the profoundest depths of his substance he bore the germs
inherited from his father. He, the creature of thought and sentiment,
had in his flesh the fatal heredity of that brutish being. But in him
instinct had become a passion, and sensuality had assumed almost
morbid forms. He was as grieved over this as if it were a shameful
malady: he had a horror of these fevers which assailed him
unexpectedly, which consumed him miserably; which left him
debased, arid, powerless to think. He suffered from certain passions
as though they degraded him. Certain sudden passages of brutality,
similar to hurricanes over a growing field, devastated his mind, dried
up all his inner sources, made painful furrows which for a long time
he could not succeed in filling up.
At the dawn of the great day, as he awoke after a few hours of
a restless dozing, he thought, with a thrill of all his nerves: "She
arrives to-day! To-day, in the light of to-day, my eyes will see her! I
will hold her in my arms! It almost seems to me as if it will be the
first possession; it seems to me, too, that I could die of it." The
vision conjured up gave him so rude a shock that he felt his body
traversed from tip to toe by a start similar to that caused by an
electric discharge. In him appeared those terrible physical
phenomena against the tyranny of which he was defenceless. All his
conscience fell beneath the absolute empire of desire. Once more
the hereditary lewdness broke out with an invincible fury in this
delicate lover whom it pleased to call his mistress "sister," and who
had a thirst for spiritual communions. He contemplated, in mind, his
mistress's beauty; and every contour, seen through the flame,
assumed in his eyes a radiant splendor, chimerical, almost
superhuman. He contemplated, in mind, his mistress's grace; and
every attitude assumed a voluptuous fascination of inconceivable
intensity. In her, all was light, perfume, and rhythm.
This admirable creature he possessed—he, he alone.... But,
spontaneously, as the smoke rises from a poor fire, a jealous
thought disengaged itself from his desire. To dissipate the agitation
which he felt growing, he sprang from the bed.
At the window, at dawn, the olive-tree branches had an
imperceptible undulation, pale, between gray and white. The sound
of the sparrows discreetly twittering was heard above the dull,
monotonous wash of the sea. In a stable a lamb bleated timidly.
 He went out into the loggia, comforted by the tonic virtue of a
bath, and drank in deeply the morning air charged with savory
odors. His lungs dilated; his thoughts took their flight, agile, each
marked with the image of the waited-for woman; a feeling of
renewed youth made his heart palpitate.
Before him was the maturity of the sun, pure, simple, without a
vestige of clouds, without mystery. Above the silver sea arose a
crimson disk, clearly defined, almost sharp, like a disk of metal fresh
from the forge.
Colas di Sciampagne, who was busy cleaning the court, cried
out to him:
"To-day is a great holiday. The lady is coming. The corn comes
into the ear without waiting for the Ascension."
George smiled at the courteous remark of the old man, and
asked:
"Did you think of the women to gather the furze flowers? The
entire length of the road must be strewn with them."
The old man gave an impatient gesture, as if to signify that he
required no reminder.
"I sent for five!"
And he named them, showing the places where the young girls
lived.
"The Monkey's daughter, the Ogress's daughter, Favetta,
Splendor, and Garbin's daughter."
These names provoked in George a sudden mirth. It seemed to
him that all the spirit of springtime entered into his heart, that a
wave of fragrant poesy inundated it. Did not these virgins step out of
a fairy tale to strew flowers on the road under the feet of the
beautiful Roman?
He abandoned himself to the anxious enjoyment of expectation.
He asked, restlessly:
"Where are they gathering their harvest of furze?"
"Up yonder," replied Colas di Sciampagne, pointing to the
hillock; "up yonder, on the Chesnaie. Their singing will guide you."
In fact, a feminine chant came at intervals from the hill. George
started up the incline, in search of the singers. The small, tortuous
path wound through a copse of young oaks. At a certain place it
branched out into a number of paths, the ends of which could not be
seen; and the narrow groves, hollowed between the thickets,
crossed by innumerable roots close to the ground, formed a sort of
mountainous labyrinth in which the sparrows twittered and the
blackbirds whistled. George, led by both chant and perfume, did not
go astray. He found the field of furze.
It was a plateau on which the furze flourished so plentifully that
it presented to the eye the uniformity of a vast yellow mantle,
sulphur-colored, resplendent. The five lasses were gathering the
flowering branches in order to fill their baskets, and were singing.
They were singing at the top of their voices, in a perfect chord of the
third and fifth. When they came to the refrain, they straightened up
above the bushes to permit the note to more freely emerge from
their unconfined chests; and they held the note a long time, looking
in each other's eyes, holding before them their hands full of flowers.
At the sight of the stranger they stopped, and bent over the
bushes. Ill-suppressed laughter ran along the yellow carpet. George
asked:
 "Which of you is named Favetta?"
A young girl, brown as an olive, rose to reply, astonished,
almost afraid.
"It is I, signor."
"Aren't you the best singer in San Vito?"
"No, signor. That is not true."
"It is true, it is true!" cried all her companions. "Make her sing,
signor."
She denied it, laughing, her face on fire; and while her
companions insisted, she twisted her apron. She was of small
stature, but very well formed, her bosom large and heaving,
developed by singing. She had curly hair, heavy eyebrows, an
aquiline nose, a rather defiant carriage of her head.
After several refusals, she consented. Her companions threw
their arms around her, imprisoned her in their circle. They emerged
from among the flowering tufts up to their waists, amid the buzzing
of the diligent bees.
Favetta commenced, at first timidly; then, note by note, her
voice became more assured. She had a limpid voice, fluid, crystalline
as a spring of water. She sang a distich, and her companions took up
the refrain in chorus. They prolonged the final notes in unison, their
mouths close together so as to make but one vocal wave; and this
wave undulated in the light with the slowness of liturgic cadences.
Favetta sang:

All the fountains are dry,

My love is dying of thirst,
Tromme lari, lira....
 Love, forever!

Love, I am thirsty, oh! so thirsty,

Where is the water you bring me?
Tromme lari, lira....
Love, forever!

I bring you a bowl of potter's clay.

Suspended from a chain of gold,
Tromme lari, lira....
Love, forever!

And her companions repeated:

Love, forever!

This salutation of May to love, gushing from these bosoms, which

perhaps did not know it yet, which perhaps would never know its
veritable sorrows, resounded in George's ears like a good augury.
The girls, the flowers, the woods, the sea, all these free and
unconscious things which breathed around him the voluptuousness
of life—all that caressed the surface of his soul, soothed, lulled him
in the habitual sentiment that he had concerning his own being,
gave him an increasing, harmonious, and rhythmic sensation of a
new faculty which had developed little by little in the intimacy of his
substance, and that would be revealed to him in a very vague
manner, as in a sort of confused vision of a divine secret. It was a
fugitive enchantment, a state of consciousness so exceptional and so
incomprehensible that he could not retain even its phantom.
The singers pointed to the already overflowing baskets—a heap
of flowers humid with dew. Favetta asked:
"Will that do?"
"No, no, that won't be enough. Keep on gathering them. The
entire road from the Trabocco to the house must be strewn. The
stairway, the loggia, must be covered."
"But what shall we do for Ascension Day? Won't you leave a
single flower for Jesus?"

CHAPTER VII.

She had arrived. She had trod on the flowers, like the Madonna who
is going to perform a miracle; she had trod on a carpet of flowers.
She had at last arrived! She had at last crossed the threshold!
And now, tired, happy, she presented to her lover's lips a face
all bathed in tears, without speaking, with a gesture of inexpressible
abandon. Tired, happy, she wept and smiled beneath the
innumerable kisses of the adored one. What mattered the
recollections of the days from which he had been absent? What
mattered the miseries, the chagrins, the anxieties, the heart-
breaking struggles against the inexorable brutalities of life? What
mattered all the discouragements and all the despairs, in comparison
with this supreme joy? She lived, she respired between her lover's
arms; she felt herself infinitely loved. All else disappeared, returned
to oblivion, seemed to have never existed.
"Oh, Hippolyte, Hippolyte! Oh, my soul! how much, how much I
have longed for you! And here you are! And now, you will stay with
me a long, long time, will you not? Before leaving me, you will kill
me."
And he kissed her on the mouth, on the cheeks, on the neck, on
the eyes, insatiable, profoundly thrilled every time he met a tear.
Those tears, that smile, that expression of felicity on the tired-
looking face, the thought that this woman had not hesitated for a
second in consenting; the thought that she had come to him from a
great distance, and that, after a fatiguing journey, she wept beneath
his kisses, powerless to say a word because her heart was too full—
all these passionate and delightful things refined his sensations,
freed his desire from impurity, gave him an emotion of almost chaste
love, exalted his soul.
Removing the long pin that fastened the hat and veil, he said:
"How tired you must be, my poor Hippolyte! You are very pale!"
Her veil was raised on her brow; she still had on her travelling
cloak and her gloves. He removed the veil and hat, with a gesture
that was customary with him. The beautiful brown head appeared,
unencumbered, with that simple coiffure which made of the hair a
sort of adherent helmet, without altering the delicate and elegant
outline of the occiput, without hiding any of the nape of the neck.
She wore a gorget of white lace, and a narrow black velvet
ribbon which was defined with exquisite violence against the
whiteness of the skin. Under the cloak could be seen a gray cloth
dress—the dress of the memorable Albano days. She spread around
her a faint odor of violets, the familiar perfume.
George's lips became more ardent, and, as she used to say,
more voracious. He checked himself; he removed her cloak; he
helped her to remove her gloves; he took her bare hands and
pressed them against his temples, in a mad desire to be caressed.
And Hippolyte, holding him thus by the temples, drew him towards
her, enveloped him in a long caress, passed over his entire face a
mouth which, languishing and warm, crept along in a multiple kiss.
George recognized the divine, the incomparable mouth, the mouth
which, he had thought so often, felt as if it rested on the surface of
his soul, for a voluptuousness which would surpass carnal sensibility
and would communicate itself to an ultra-sensible element of the
inner being.
"You will kill me," he murmured, vibrating like a bundle of
stretched cords, feeling at the back of his neck a lancinating cold
which, from vertebra to vertebra, was propagated through all the
marrow.
And, at the bottom of himself, he noticed a vague movement of
that instinctive terror which he had already observed under other
circumstances.
Hippolyte disengaged herself.
"Now, I'll leave you," she said. "Where is—my room? Oh,
George, how comfortable we shall be here."
She glanced around her, smiling. She made a few steps towards
the threshold, stooped to gather a handful of furze, breathed in the
perfume with visible sensual pleasure. She once more felt agitated,
and as if intoxicated by this sovereign homage, by this fragrant glory
which George had scattered along her path. Was she not dreaming?
Was it she herself—was it really Hippolyte Sanzio who, in this
unknown place, in this magic landscape, found herself surrounded
and glorified by all this poesy?
Suddenly, with new tears in her eyes, she threw her arms
around George's neck, and said:
"How grateful I am to you."
This poesy intoxicated her heart. She felt herself lifted above
her humble existence by the ideal apotheosis which enveloped her
lover; she felt that she lived another life, a superior life which at
times gave to her soul that kind of choking sensation which a strong
wind provokes in a breast accustomed to breathe an impoverished
air.
"How proud I am to belong to you! You are my pride. One
single minute passed near you suffices to make me feel another
woman, absolutely other. You suddenly communicate to me another
blood and another mind. I am no longer Hippolyte, the Hippolyte of
yesterday. Give me a new name."
He named her:
"Soul!"
They fell into each other's arms in a furious embrace, as if to
pluck and unroot the kisses which blossomed on their lips. Then
Hippolyte disengaged herself, and repeated:
"Now, I'll leave you. Where's my room? Let me see it."
George passed an arm around her waist and led her into the
bedroom. She gave a cry of admiration when she perceived the
thalamus thalamorum, draped with a large yellow damask
counterpane.
 "But we shall get lost in it!"
And she laughed as she walked all round the monument.
"The most difficult thing will be to get into it."
"First, you'll place your foot upon my knee, in accordance with
the old-time custom of the peasants in these parts."
"What a lot of saints!" she exclaimed, looking at the long line of
pious images on the wall, at the head of the bed.
"They must be covered."
"Yes, you are right."
Both had difficulty in finding words; both their voices were
changed in tone; both of them trembled, agitated by irresistible
desire, feeling almost faint at the thought of the approaching
ecstasies.
They heard someone knock at the door of the staircase. George
went into the loggia. It was Helen, Candia's daughter; she came to
say that luncheon was ready.
"What do you wish to do?" said George, turning toward
Hippolyte, irresolute, almost convulsed.
"Really, George, I have not the least appetite. I will eat this
evening, if you'll let me."
In an agonized voice, George said:
"Come into your room. Everything is ready for your bath.
Come!"
He led her into a room which he had covered all over with large
rustic mats.
"You see, your trunks and your boxes are already here. Now, I'll
leave you—alone. Be quick. Remember, I'm waiting. Every minute's
delay will be one torture more. Remember——"
 He left her alone. A few moments later he heard the splashing
of the water which ran from the enormous sponge and fell back
again into the bath-tub. He knew the icy coldness of this spring
water well, and he imagined the little starts of Hippolyte's body, that
long and flexible body, beneath the refreshing shower.
Then there remained nothing in his mind than thoughts of fire.
Everything about him disappeared. And, when the splashing
stopped, he was seized by a trembling so strong that his teeth
began to chatter, as if shivering from a mortal fever. With the terrible
eyes of desire, he saw the woman disengage herself from her
dressing-gown, already dried, pure, delicate as an alabaster with
golden tones.

CHAPTER VIII.

More fatigued now, almost fainting, Hippolyte sank gradually into

slumber. By degrees the smile on her mouth became unconscious,
disappeared. Her lips met for a second; then, with infinite slowness,
they opened, and from between appeared a jasminelike whiteness.
Again the lips met for a second; and again, slowly, very slowly, they
parted, and from between reappeared the whiteness, moistened.
Raised on one elbow, George looked at her. She appeared so
beautiful, so beautiful, beautiful in the same way as he had seen her
the first time, in the mysterious oratory, in front of the philosopher
Alexander Memmi's orchestra, amidst the evaporated perfume of the
incense and the violets. She was pale, very pale, just as on that day.
 She was pale, but it was that singular pallor which George had
never found in any other woman—an almost mortal pallor, a
profound and dead pallor which, when in the shade, became almost
livid. A long shadow was cast on the upper part of her cheeks by the
eyelashes; a masculine shadow, barely perceptible, veiled the upper
lip. The mouth, large if anything, had a sinuous curve, very soft and
yet sad, which, in the absolute silence, took on a very intense
expression.
George thought: "How spiritual her beauty becomes in illness
and in languor! Tired as she is now, she pleases me more. I
recognize the unknown woman who passed before me that February
evening—the woman who had not a single drop of blood left in her
body. I believe that when she is dead she will attain the supreme
perfection of her beauty.... Dead? And if she were to die? She would
then become an object for thought, a pure ideality. I should love her
after life without jealous inquietude, with a soothed and always even
sorrow."
He recalled that in other circumstances he had already imagined
Hippolyte's beauty in the peacefulness of death. "Oh, that day of the
roses! Great sheafs of white roses languished in the vases in June,
at the beginning of their love. She was dozing on the divan,
motionless, almost breathless. And he had contemplated her for a
long time; then a sudden phantasy had taken him to cover her with
roses, softly, softly, so as not to awaken her; and he had arranged a
few roses in her hair. But thus flowered and garlanded, she had
appeared to him like a body without a soul, a corpse. This spectacle
had filled him with terror; he had shaken her to arouse her; but she
remained inert, paralyzed by one of those syncopes to which she
was subject at that time. Oh, what terror, what anguish, until she
recovered her senses! And also what enthusiasm for the sovereign
beauty of that face, which was so extraordinarily ennobled by that
reflection of death!" This episode recurred to his memory; but while
he lingered over these strange thoughts, he felt a sudden impulse of
pity and of remorse. He bent over to kiss the forehead of the
sleeper, who remained unconscious of his kiss. It was with the
greatest difficulty that he restrained himself from embracing her
more ardently, so that she might be cognizant of his caress, and
respond to it. And then he felt all the vanity of a caress which would
not be to the loved object a rapid communication of joy; he felt all
the vanity of a love which would not be a continual and immediate
correspondence of acute sensations; he felt the impossibility of
becoming intoxicated unless an equally intense intoxication should
correspond with his own.
"Am I certain," he thought, "am I positively certain that always,
when I have enjoyed her, she has enjoyed me? How often has she
been present, a lucid witness, during my moments of delirium? How
often has my ardor appeared senseless to her?" A heavy wave of
anxieties invaded him while he contemplated the sleeping woman.
"The true and profound sensual communion is also a chimera. The
senses of my mistress are as obscure as her soul. Never shall I
succeed in surprising in her fibres a secret disgust, an appetite
unsatisfied, an irritation unappeased. Never shall I succeed in
knowing the different sensations which are given to her by a similar
caress repeated at different moments. In the course of a single day,
an organism as unhealthy as hers passes through a great number of
physical states, each in discord with the other, and sometimes in
complete opposition. Such an instability misleads the most
penetrating clairvoyance. The same caress which, at dawn, draws
from her moans of pleasure, may, an hour later, seem to her
importunate. Consequently, it is possible that her nerves become
hostile towards me, in spite of her will. A kiss which I prolong too
far, and which gives me the vertigo of supreme enjoyment, may in
her flesh arouse impatience. In the matter of sensuality, however,
simulation and dissimulation are common to all women, to those
who love and to those who do not. What do I say? The woman who
loves, the passionate woman, is more inclined to physical simulation
and dissimulation; because she fears to grieve her lover if she shows
she is little disposed to surrender herself entirely. Moreover, the
passionate woman often delights in exaggerating the semblance of
pleasure; because she knows well that that will flatter the man's
virile pride and increase his ecstasy. I confess that a proud joy swells
my heart when I see Hippolyte delirious with sensual delight. I feel
she is happy at thus showing herself so vanquished and prostrated
by my power; and she also knows that my vain ambition as a young
lover is precisely to succeed in making her plead for mercy, in
drawing from her a convulsive cry, in seeing her fall back exhausted
on the pillow. Which, then, in these demonstrations, is the share of
the physical sincerity and that of the passionate exaggeration? Is not
her ardor an artificial attitude, assumed to please me? Does she not
often sacrifice herself to my desire without desiring me? Has she
not, at times, to repress a commencement of repugnance?"
Attentive and almost anxious, he leaned over the impenetrable
creature. But, little by little, the contemplation of her beauty seemed
to appease him. And he began to consider his new state. So, from
this day on, a new life commenced for him.
For a minute, he concentrated mind and ear, in order to lose
nothing of the great peace surrounding him. Only the slow,
monotonous wash of the calm sea was to be heard in the propitious
silence. Against the window-panes the branches of the olive-tree
swayed imperceptibly, silvered by the sun, balancing light shadows
on the whiteness of the curtains. At intervals a few human voices
were heard, and almost unintelligible.
After this perception of the environing peace, he leaned once
more over the adored one. A manifest harmony existed between the
respiration of the woman and the respiration of the sea; and the
concordance of the two rhythms gave an added charm to the
sleeper.
She reposed on her right side, in a graceful attitude. Her form
was supple and long, rather too long perhaps, but of serpentine
elegance. The narrowness of the thigh made it resemble that of an
adolescent. The sterile abdomen had preserved its primitive virginal
purity. The bosom was small and firm, as if sculptured in very
delicate alabaster, and the points of her extraordinarily erect breasts
were of a rose-violet hue. The posterior part of her body, from the
nape of the neck down to the middle, made one think once more of
an Ephebe: it was one of those fragments of the ideal human type
which Nature sometimes throws among the multitude of mediocre
imprints by which the race perpetuates itself. But the most precious
singularity of this body was, in George's eyes, the coloration. The
skin had an indescribable color, very rare, very different from the
ordinary color of brunettes. The comparison of an alabaster gilded
by an inner flame but scarcely conveyed the idea of this divine
fineness. It seemed that a diffusion of gold and impalpable amber
enriched the tissues, variegating them with a variety of harmonious
pallors, like music, darker in the depressions of the loins and where
the loins join the sides, lighter on the breast and on the groins,
where the epidermis makes its most exquisite suavity.
George thought of Othello's words: "I had rather be a toad, and
live upon the vapour of a dungeon, than keep a corner in the thing I
love for others' uses."
In her slumber, Hippolyte made a movement, with a vague air
of suffering, which disappeared immediately. She threw back her
head on the pillow, exposing her extended breast, on which was
defined the light network of the veins. Her lower jaws were rather
powerful, the chin rather long in profile, the nostrils broad. In the
abstract, the defects of her head were accentuated; but they did not
displease George, because it would have been impossible for him to
imagine that they could be corrected without removing from the
physiognomy an element of living expression. The expression, that
immaterial thing which irradiates all matter, that changing and
immeasurable force which invades the corporeal face and
transfigures it, that significative external which superposes a
symbolic beauty of an order far more elevated and complex on the
precise reality of the lines—that was Hippolyte Sanzio's great charm,
because it offered to the passionate thinker a continual motive of
emotions and dreams.
"Such a woman," he thought, "has belonged to others before
being mine. She has shared the couch of another man; she has slept
with another man in the same bed, on the same pillow. In all women
there exists a sort of extraordinarily active physical memory, the
memory of sensations. Does she remember the sensations which
she received from that man? Can she have forgotten him who was
the first, and who violated her? What were her feelings beneath her
husband's caress?" At these questions, which he repeated to himself
for the thousandth time, a well-known anguish oppressed his heart.
"Oh! why can we not put to death the creature we love, and
resuscitate her afterwards with a virgin body, with a new soul?"
He recalled certain words which Hippolyte had said in an hour of
supreme intoxication: "You are embracing a virgin; I have never
known any voluptuousness in love."
Hippolyte was married the spring preceding that of their love. A
few weeks after the wedding, she had begun to suffer from a slow
and cruel malady which had confined her to bed, and kept her for a
long time between life and death. But, happily, this malady had
spared her all new contact with the odious man who had seized her
like an inert prey. When she emerged from her long convalescence,
she gave herself up to passion as in a dream: suddenly, blindly,
passionately, she abandoned herself to the young stranger whose
soft and curious voice had addressed to her words she had never
heard before. And she had not lied when saying to him: "You are
embracing a virgin; I have never known any voluptuousness."
Since then, what a profound change in this woman! Something
new, indefinable yet real, had entered into her voice, into her
gestures, into her eyes, into her slightest tones, into her slightest
movements, into the slightest external signs. George had been
present at the most intoxicating spectacle of which an intellectual
lover can dream. He had seen the loved woman become
metamorphosed after his own image, borrow his thoughts, his
judgments, his tastes, his disdains, his predilections, his
melancholies, all that which gives a special imprint and character to
the mind. In speaking, Hippolyte used the forms of speech he
preferred, pronounced certain words with the inflexion peculiar to
him. In writing, she imitated even his hand. Never had the influence
of one being on another been so rapid and so strong. Hippolyte had
merited the device which George had given her: Gravis dum suavis.
But this grave and suave creature, she in whom he had succeeded in
inculcating, with so much art, the disdain for a commonplace
existence, among what humiliating contacts had she spent the
distant hours?
George thought again of his anguish of long ago, when he saw
her go away, return beneath the conjugal roof, into the house of a
man of whom he knew nothing, into a world of which he knew
nothing, into the platitudes and the pettiness of the middle-class life
in which she was born, and in which she had grown like a rare plant
in a common flower-pot. Had she, at that time, never hidden
anything from him? Had she never lied to him? Had she always been
able to withdraw from her husband's importunities on the pretext
that her cure was not yet complete? Always?
George remembered the horrible pang he felt one day when she
came late, panting, her cheeks more colored and warmer than usual,
with a persistent odor of tobacco in her hair, that bad odor which
impregnates him who remains a long time in a room where there are
many smokers. "Pardon me, if I am late," she had said to him; "but I
had several of my husband's friends to dinner, and they kept me
until now." And these words had suggested to him the vision of a
vulgar-looking dining-table around which the boors exhibited their
brutality.
George recalled a thousand similar little details, and an infinity
of other cruel sufferings, and also recent sufferings, caused by
Hippolyte's new condition—her stay at her mother's, in a house not
less unknown and not less free from suspicion. "At last, here she is
now with me! Every day, every minute, continually, I shall see her, I
shall enjoy her; I will see that her thoughts are occupied continually
with me, my thoughts, my dreams, my sorrows. I will consecrate to
her every instant, uninterruptedly; I will invent a thousand new ways
of pleasing her, of agitating her, of making her sad, of exalting her; I
will so penetrate her with my being that she will end by believing me
to be an essential element of her own life."
He bent over her softly; he kissed her softly on the shoulder
near the arm, on that little rounded eminence of exquisite form and
color, whose skin had the softness of velvet fine enough as to seem
almost impalpable. He respired the perfume of this woman, so subtle
and sweet, that cutaneous perfume which, during the instant of
pleasure, became as intoxicating as that of tuberoses and gave a
terrible lash to desire. Watching thus closely the sleep of this
delicate and complicated creature, whom slumber enveloped in a
mystery, that strange creature who from every pore seemed to
irradiate towards him some occult fascination of unbelievable
intensity, he remarked once more in his inner self a vague
movement of instinctive terror.
Again Hippolyte changed her position, without awakening, but
with a faint moan. She turned on her back. A light perspiration
imparted a dampness to her temples; through her half-closed mouth
the breathing respired came more rapidly, rather irregularly; at
moments, her eyebrows contracted. She was dreaming. Of what was
she dreaming?
George, seized by an inquietude which soon increased to an
insane anxiety, set himself to detect upon her face the slightest
indications, in the hope of surprising there some revealing sign.
Revealing what? He was incapable of reflecting, incapable of
repressing the furious tumults of fears, doubts, and suspicions.
In her slumber Hippolyte started; her entire body was convulsed
as if racked by nightmare; she turned over on her side towards
George; she groaned, and cried:
"No, no!"
Then she drew two or three breaths, almost like sobs, and
started again.
A prey to insane fear, George watched her fixedly, his ear
strained—fearing to hear other words, another's name, the name of
a man! He waited, in horrible uncertainty, as if under the menace of
a thunderbolt which could destroy him in a second.
Hippolyte awoke; she saw him confusedly, without thinking, still
sleeping; she nestled close up to him, with an almost unconscious
movement.
"Of what were you dreaming?" he asked her, in a changed voice
which seemed to reverberate his heart-beats.
"I do not know," she answered, languid, still drowsy, leaning her
cheek on her lover's breast. "I don't remember."
She fell asleep again.
Under the soft pressure of her cheek, George remained
motionless, with a dull rancor at the bottom of his soul. He felt
himself a stranger to her, isolated from her, uselessly curious. All his
bitter recollections came back to him in a tumult. He lived over
again, in a single instant, his miseries of two years. He could oppose
nothing to the immense doubts which crushed his soul and made the
head of his loved one seem as heavy as a rock.
Suddenly Hippolyte started a second time, moaned, twisted,
cried again. And she opened her eyes, frightened, groaning.
"Oh! my God!"
"What ails you? Of what were you dreaming?"
"I do not know."
Her face was contracted convulsively.
She added:
"You must have been leaning on me. I thought you were
pushing me, hurting me."
She suffered visibly.
"Oh! my God! My pains have come back."
Since her illness, she sometimes had short attacks, spasms that
quickly passed, but whose passage forced from her a groan or cry.
She turned towards George, looked fixedly into his eyes, and
found there the traces of the tempest. And in a coaxing, reproachful
tone she repeated:
"You did so hurt me!"
All at once George seized her in his arms, clasped her
passionately to his breast, and smothered her under his kisses.

CHAPTER IX.
As the air was of an almost summer-like warmth, George proposed:
"Shall we dine outside?"
Hippolyte consented. They went down.
On the stairway they held each other's hand; and went down
step by step slowly, stopping to look at the crushed flowers, turning
round towards each other simultaneously, as if they saw each other
for the first time. Each saw in the other eyes larger, more profound,
as if more distant, and circled by an almost supernatural shadow.
They smiled at each other without speaking, both dominated by the
charm of that indefinable sensation which seemed to disperse into
the uncertainty of space the substance of their being, transformed
into a fluid like a vapor. They walked towards the parapet; they
stopped to look around, to listen to the sea.
What they saw was unusual, extraordinarily great, yet illumined
by an inner light and as if by an irradiation of their hearts. What they
heard was unusual, extraordinarily high, yet contemplated as if a
secret revealed to them alone.
A second, as quickly passed! They were recalled to themselves,
not by a gust of the wind nor by the noise of a wave, nor by a
bellowing, nor by a bark, nor by a human voice, but by the very
anxiety which arose from their too intense joy. A second, as quickly
passed, irrevocable! And both recommenced to feel that life was
slipping by, that time was flying; that everything was becoming once
more foreign to their being, that their souls were becoming anxious
again and their love imperfect. This second of supreme oblivion, this
unique second, was gone forever.
Hippolyte, moved by the solemnity of the solitude, oppressed by
a vague fright in the presence of those vast waters, beneath that