From his Centrist bench, where he was pretending to write letters, but
where he was in reality mechanically tracing her name twenty, thirty
times on a sheet of paper, he distinctly saw Donna Angelica Vargas alone
in the diplomatic gallery, leaning on its velvet edge. He had felt her
presence suddenly, with a nervous shock; he had ventured to turn two or
three times to bow to her. She had responded with a grave smile, but had
immediately looked away. He knew no desire but to go up there and sit
beside her, only he thought perhaps it would be improper to be seen by
so many of his colleagues, to make an exhibition of himself. Later the
desire became so strong that he rose from his seat, crossed the hall,
and went out into the corridor, where he wandered about abstractedly,
giving monosyllabic replies to all who spoke to him about the University
Reform Law. Upon returning, he still lacked the courage to go up, and
was ashamed of his own cowardice. When he was near the Ministerial
Bench, Don Silvio Vargas called to him:
'Sangiorgio, listen----'
And he told him something about the Communal and Provincial Law, which
was then being discussed for the third time.
Don Silvio's friendship for Sangiorgio had grown rapidly in a short
period. Whenever he was in doubt as to some political or administrative
question, he took him to his house, consulted him, or had long
conversations with him at his office. This time he had another idea to
submit to him. Sangiorgio gave him his opinion, and then added:
'Is Madame Vargas up there?'
'Oh yes,' said Vargas quite indifferently, without turning his head. 'Do
you think these clauses will be debated on?'
'Yes, especially the fourth; the Extreme Left attaches great importance
to it.'
'Shall you speak, Sangiorgio?'
'I hardly know----'
'You ought to speak. Listen: come to dinner at my house to-morrow; I
want to explain some of my views to you.'
'I shall be there,' replied the other after a moment's hesitation.
Hereupon he moved off, but the Minister whispered to him to come back.
'As you are going to sacrifice yourself to me, go up and keep my wife
company for a little. She is bored to death, and I have not even time to
nod to her.'
'She is bored, you say?'
'She loathes politics. Woman is selfish, my dear Sangiorgio,' answered
Don Silvio philosophically, squeezing his glass in under his eyebrow.
Sangiorgio gathered up his papers with ill-dissembled haste, thrust them
into his locker, traversed the hall and corridors, and went up the
stairs, curbing himself lest he should run. But Donna Angelica did not
turn round upon hearing the door of the gallery open.
'Are you very tired?' he gently asked over her shoulder.
'Not more so than usual,' she responded, turning slightly and putting
out her hand to him, without manifesting the least surprise.
He sat down behind her. She spoke to him without looking at him, which
she would also have done had he been beside her, for she was looking
down into the hall.
'But you seem to come here often,' he urged.
'Yes, often. Even our dislikes become habits; and besides--Silvio is a
Minister, and many people think I am an influential woman. At home there
is a constant stream of them who want something.'
'One can close one's door.'
'Yes, if one happens to be an ordinary woman, but not if one is the wife
of a politician, of a Minister. Don Silvio is always afraid I shall make
him lose his popularity.' Her voice was choked with bitterness.
'No doubt you often must endure vulgar acquaintances?' he asked in a
sympathetic tone that made her change colour.
'Yes, I am indulgent enough. It is natural to me to be indulgent. But
vulgarity is offensive and painful to me.'
'You must keep your heart up.'
'My heart? The heart does not enter into the question at all! It is the
moral being that suffers, and the nerves. So I prefer to come here; it
is the lesser of two evils.'
'Do you hate politics so much?' he ventured.
'I do not hate them, and I cannot like them.'
'Nevertheless, it is a great and noble idea,' he hazarded again.
'So they say--but I do not believe it. I understand other ideas as
being noble, good, great, generous, fruitful--not this one. I am too
ignorant,' she added humbly.
'No, no,' he hastened to assure her. 'You are perhaps right!'
'I am unable to like this idea. To us women certain ideas, abstract
ideas especially, convey nothing. We require something real, represented
by something concrete--religion by the Church, the figure of the Holy
Virgin, Christ; our country by lovely scenery, the sea, the mountains,
the friends we love. But politics--a mere idea--what is there to stand
for politics?'
'The politicians,' he murmured, after holding back a little.
'Oh yes!' she exclaimed with cold disdain.
'Do you hate them, too?'
'I pity them.'
He felt no impulse to retort, but an expression of pain came over his
face.
'Well, look at them all; look at them, Honourable! Look at the haggard,
worn faces, yellow with bile, green with envy! Look at the fat, flaccid
faces, pale and unhealthy! How worn out before their time are some of
those men, and what nervousness in the gestures of others! They all seem
afflicted with the same disease--a fatal malady which eats them up or
swells them out. I imagine that gamblers in the gambling dens must be
like them.'
'At least, politics are a great passion,' he timidly suggested.
'Great? Perhaps. So people say, but I do not believe it. When politics
possess the soul, they fetter it with contemptible pride, paltry
ambitions. Down there are three hundred people, who have minds, and who
are educated, who have physical and moral courage, who have honest
consciences and manly characters. Very well; those three hundred clever,
brave men, those three hundred wills, those consciences, those
intelligences--what do they all want, without exception, at any cost?'
'To be Minister.'
'Minister--at any cost whatever. And in that unrelenting pursuit, pray
ask yourself, does not the mind ever go miserably to waste? Does not
that mind, capable of creating wonders of beauty and utility, if it were
applied to the arts and sciences, often accomplish nothing?'
'It is true,' he admitted.
'To invent a machine which will benefit mankind, morally or physically,
is that not better than overthrowing a Ministry? Is it not better to
carve a statue, paint a picture, or write a book?'
'It is true,' he averred.
'As for bravery, do you think its true impetuosity can be preserved, and
its true dashing valour, here, where everything is summed up in a
speech, where all worthy initiative is frittered away in twenty-five
public sittings and fourteen discussions in committee? All words, all
words!'
'But we fought when we were wanted.'
'Ah!' she said, suddenly become thoughtful, 'those were times! We women,
you see, understand the heroism of the battlefield and of conspiracies,
but Parliamentary heroism escapes us!'
For a moment they maintained silence. Donna Angelica's cheeks were
aflame, and her hot words, surging into Sangiorgio's soul, made their
imprint there as if on soft wax.
'And then there is conscience,' she resumed, purposing to speak out her
mind fully. 'Heavens! how can it remain clean among so many personal
schemes, so many unavoidable bargains, so much equivocation? How can it
be changeless and inflexible when the surest virtue leading to success
is actually elasticity?'
'True, true,' he repeated.
'Some are mad over politics, I know very well,' she continued, looking
down into the hall, her fingers playing on the velvet edge of the
gallery. 'We all know that, we politicians wives. In the hearts of these
men it is a passion which dries up all the others. If we live in the
provinces, our husband leaves us for nine months in the year, without a
thought of his wife's youth, beauty, or solitude. If we come to Rome, it
is worse. The house becomes a small Parliament, where conspiracies are
hatched if we are not in power, where methods of defence are planned if
we belong to the Cabinet. No more friends. Confederates, clients,
parasites, rivals, self-seekers--none but such. Their affection is not
asked for, but their vote is. Who says "Yes" is a friend; who says "No"
is a traitor. The privacy of the home disappears. It is invaded by a
stream of strange people who sully it, who turn it into a vestibule, a
courtyard, a street, a public square. Confidence vanishes. Our husband
is worried and disturbed; we seek to know the reason, and he believes we
cannot understand, for politicians despise the advice of women. At table
the husband reads newspapers or answers telegrams. At balls he finds it
difficult to escort us, yet he is obliged to go, so as to represent the
Government, in order to meet influential deputies, to make his bow to
the wives of the party leaders, to shake hands with the insignificant
creatures who would not live if the great political passion did not. It
is either a case of melancholy solitude in the country, like a poor
abandoned thing, or else of being mobbed in town, without a breath of
poetry, without a smile of the ideal. A great passion, to be sure, but
so mad and absorbing and confining that it creates fears and disgust!'
Another long silence. Don Silvio Vargas was speaking in the hall, with
his strident voice, his hands in his pockets, his thin, spare body
swaying slightly, looking at an interlocutor through his shining
eyeglass, as if he were making game of him, with the mocking irony that
irritated his opponents.
'A great passion, a great passion,' murmured Donna Angelica. 'Women
understand only one.'
'Which is?'
'Love.'
'That is true,' answered Sangiorgio.
* * * * *
'We dine alone to-day,' said Don Silvio, sitting down at table. 'Donna
Angelica is in her room, dressing for the ball at the Quirinal.'
The secretary sat down with them at the small family dinner-table; the
fourth seat--that of the lady of the house--remained empty. In the
middle of the table stood a slender-necked vase, containing red lilies,
and Sangiorgio's eyes continually wandered from the vacant chair to the
great red flowers. The two deputies--the Minister and the important
politician--eagerly discussed politics, eating all the while, Don Silvio
slashing his meat nervously while he waxed warm over the Communal and
Provincial Law, Sangiorgio listening, answering, stating objections,
forgetting to dine. But his thoughts were in a little room panelled with
light wood, and cosily heated by a crackling grate fire--for thus he
conceived of Donna Angelica's retreat.
The secretary only bestowed any real thought on dining, and devoted his
whole gastronomical energies to it. But he maintained a serious face;
every now and then he seconded a remark from the Minister with a nod,
with an air of restrained admiration; at Sangiorgio's sayings he would
often knit his brows, as if a difficulty mentioned were apparent to him
also.
Thus the dinner went by, while two footmen brought in now a telegram,
now letters, now a newspaper, or a new dish. Don Silvio at once tore
open the despatches, opened and read the letters, cut the cover of the
newspapers, and ran his eye down the columns; he would not taste the
food, but looked at it with the abstracted gaze of a wandering mind.
Beside him were an inkstand, a pen, telegraph-blanks, notepaper, and he
would write answers then and there, after pushing his plate away from
him. The newspapers he handed to his secretary, having first marked
certain places with a red pencil; the secretary read the marked passages
with the placidity of an old diplomat. In the meantime Sangiorgio was
vainly listening for some feminine sound, vainly keeping on the alert
for the least incident: not a maid came through, not a bell rang;
nothing feminine happened; not a flower was wanted, not a candlestick
was brought; there was no bustle of servants; nothing occurred--nothing
whatever.
In the privacy of her apartment Donna Angelica was in the throes of the
romantic and feverish excitement of a woman dressing for a ball; and the
great mystery of beauty adorning itself--amid lustre-imparting, perfumed
liquids, loose hair, scattered flowers, billowy gauze, sparkling jewels,
smooth silks, soft furs--modern woman's great mystery of Isis, was being
accomplished as in a tabernacle.
An evermore consuming desire to know or hear something assailed
Sangiorgio in the dining-room during all the political discussion and
writing; a desire caused by the vacant place at the table where the
chair stood; a desire springing from the red lilies--the fiery St. Louis
lilies--which seemed to combine purity and the heat of passion. If only
she would come out for a moment, to greet her husband, to greet her
guest! If she would but show herself, radiant in her youth and beauty!
Each time a door opened, as the evening wore on, Sangiorgio started,
shutting his eyes, seeming to see her appear in the splendour of her
loveliness and her dress. But other telegrams, messages, and letters
arrived; in one instance Don Silvio drew a cipher-book from his pocket
to translate a political despatch. Where could Donna Angelica be? In
what floods of perfume had she vanished?
The time went by, and there was no sign of anything in the house
reminiscent of ballroom gaiety; the house kept its busy atmosphere; the
slamming of doors continued, the loud or low discussions, the coming and
going of written and printed papers. It was like a public square, a
stock exchange, a political institution, a camping-ground for all
manner of intrigue, deceit, and turmoil. Perhaps in the sanctuary
within, which harboured Donna Angelica's youth and beauty, there were
signs of the female excitement that precedes a ball, and to which is
always due a ravishing confusion of scattered linen, silk stockings
hanging out of open drawers, unstoppered vials, corsets straggling over
the floor. But of such feminine disarray, of such intoxicating disorder,
so fascinating to a husband or a lover, no indication passed outside her
apartment. Through the three or four doors separating him from the woman
he loved Francesco Sangiorgio felt this new charm, which was quite
earthly, and which captivated him in a new way, addressing itself to his
instincts of sex. He felt the contrast between the weariness, the
emptiness of Don Silvio's tumultuous life, and the poetical delicacy of
that feminine toilet, and all the perturbation of heart and senses
instilled by everything that comes into contact with a woman's body.
At last, at ten o'clock, doors were opened and shut, and subdued voices
heard; and Sangiorgio, choked by his one wish, shut his eyes to avoid
the blinding spectacle of Donna Angelica's beauty. But no one appeared;
a dull rumble of wheels was audible in the courtyard, and then in the
Piazza dell' Apollinare.
'Donna Angelica has gone to the Quirinal,' said Don Silvio calmly,
opening the _Riforma_, which had just been brought in. 'Shall you not be
going, too, Sangiorgio?'
'Later on,' feebly answered Sangiorgio, who had turned deadly pale.
* * * * *
In the white electric light illuminating the grand staircase of the
Quirinal the women were slowly making their way upward, touching the
carpet only with the toes of their satin slippers. And with sweeping
trains, with rich, soft, warm, white cloaks over their nude shoulders,
with heads begemmed, befeathered, or beflowered, in their ascent they
cast stray glances at the two great green shrubs, at the Muses among the
broad, red-veined leaves, at the palms that stood darkly against the
white stucco of the walls. The women went up slowly, so as not to become
ruffled, and in order that the even pallor or the florid pink of their
cheeks might not be disturbed. After all their nervous excitement, the
calm self-possession of women determined to look handsome asserted
itself. It was enough to see how composedly, in the great, chilly,
tapestried place transformed into a cloak-room, they untied their bows,
and undid their hoods or their cloaks, allowing them to slip gently from
their shoulders, maintaining their likeness to beautiful, self-moving
statues. It was enough to see the phlegmatic way in which they smoothed
out the flexible Swedish gloves over their arms, while husband, brother,
or father was impatiently waiting to escort an unconcerned charmer, who
was quietly readjusting a shoulder-sleeve that had become displaced.
The journey, too, through the other two rooms and a corridor with
statues, was easy and silent; but when the ladies reached the warmer
atmosphere spread around by the stoves, and began feeling gratified at
their nearness to the scene of pleasure, their lips parted in elaborate
ballroom smiles, of the sort which are diffused over the whole face,
over the whole person. Near the door of the ballroom, the Chamberlain,
offering them a programme, a bunch of flowers, and his arm to take them
in, was privileged with the first smile, father, husband, or brother
being abandoned without a bow, without a word.
There was a vast glitter of jewellery. Upon three rows of red benches
sat 300 women, jewels in their hair, on their ears, their bare necks,
bosoms, and arms. From some headdresses more unpretentious than the rest
shone forth a thin, piercing ray, but when some of the stately shoulders
moved, or an arm, or feathered fan, there was a whole torrent of sparks,
a brilliant flash of lightning. The women were crowded together, and one
female costume counteracted and neutralized another, to be in its turn
counteracted and neutralized; neither materials nor colours might be
distinguished; only a glimpse could be obtained of a bodice or a bit of
shoulder-sleeve sometimes concealed by a flower, a bow, or an ornament.
And what eclipsed everything, soft billows of gauze, sheen of satin,
intricacy of lace, heavy, dark hair, light, fair locks, the almost
living skin of the gloves, the pink on necks, shoulders, arms, was the
jewellery; more luminous, more vivid in colour, more iridescent than
all, were the triumphant jewels.
And under that triple splendour of scintillation, what was most
conspicuous, most admirable, and all-dominating, was the infinitely
varied loveliness of the unclad arms and shoulders. Here was a cold,
anæmic white resembling glacial marble, which froze the glance that
looked upon it; here was a pearly skin, polished and transparent, whose
colour no shadow could ever change; then came a firm white, under which
flowed the rich blood as red cloth appears under a thin white fabric;
elsewhere, a smooth, even surface, indicative of a moderate temperament
and a moderate temperature, which nothing could affect; elsewhere again,
an opaque white, here and there marbled with slabs of pink; elsewhere
still, a complexion neither dark nor fair, but cloudy, as though the
blood rolled over a bed of black earth; yet again elsewhere, a bright,
handsome, striking complexion, like a heavy, thick magnolia-leaf, like
the well-nourished flesh of ripe fruit.
All the moulded loveliness emerged from the bodices as though softly
escaping from bondage; it flowered from the shoulder-sleeves and the
billowing gauze as out of a calyx; in its luxuriance and spontaneousness
it was like the richest out-blossoming of anything in the vegetable
kingdom. Repeated in all tints three-hundred-fold, it assumed a
character of general, complete loveliness, like that of a great forest;
the individual disappeared, personality was absorbed.
Nothing--it might be supposed--could have more enraptured the eye,
nothing so effectively set the imagination rioting, with regard to
individual charms; but, instead, there was sounded the grand note of the
whole of woman's beauty, which the senses cannot grasp, but the spirit
grasps, a united chorus blending all voices, white, pink and red, into a
single voice.
In vain did the dense black and white rows of men, under the band,
behind the benches, in the doorways, strive to recognise a certain face
or person, _the_ person, _the_ woman. They, the men, were able to see
nothing but a great blaze of jewellery, which killed everything else;
they merely saw the sex as a single woman with naked arms and shoulders,
although they were in the presence of three hundred low-necked women
together.
But a sudden silence ensued: the three hundred women were struck stark,
with unblinking eyes glued to the door at the back. The band intoned the
beginning of a flourish, clear, loud, and martial, which was of singular
effect in that silence, that essentially feminine display. The three
hundred ladies rose as one, with a rustle of dresses; and then they
stood waiting, one close against the other, all smiles, with shoulders
so high that they seemed escaping from the sleeves, arms hanging
listlessly down, faces beautifully and unalterably serene. Behind them,
under the band, and in the doorways, the black and white masses of men
swayed silently to and fro. The moment of anticipation seemed
interminable. Then in the door at the back appeared something effulgent,
a multiplied and concentrated effulgence, like the vision of a comet;
and as the exalted, irradiant apparition made a bow of supremest grace,
the glittering hedge of jewels, the close array of gems, the starry
pageant, bowed low. To the eternally feminine in one was reverence paid
by the eternally feminine in number. The men looked on in agitation.
Standing on the tips of his toes, Francesco Sangiorgio was attempting to
discover the sweetest of women. He was with a group of deputies. The
Honourable Galvagna, a Colonel from the Irredentist part of the country,
and the Honourable Sangarzia, were patiently waiting to reach the
ladies. The Honourable San Demetrio was about to dispense gallantry in
the diplomatic circle; but Sangiorgio was seeking out Angelica.
All those women, standing in a row, with nosegay in hand, smiling as
they watched the royal quadrille, confused Sangiorgio; he could
distinguish none of their features, recognised not one of them. Never
had he seen so many women in a body, so closely ranged together, in all
the splendours of beauty and dress, in all the potency of their sex.
Every now and then he shut his dazzled eyes; reopening them, he again
attempted to seek out the most beautiful of them all, her who, to him,
was the only woman.
Of a sudden, while Her Majesty was gracefully dancing round the
gray-headed, urbane German Ambassador, her long, regal, flame-coloured
train flashing like the tail of a comet, and the royal diadem astrally
akindle, Sangiorgio caught sight of Donna Angelica Vargas on the arm of
a bronzed old gentleman with dyed moustache and bristles on his head
that were a shade of black tending to red. Donna Angelica was figuring
in the royal quadrille, opposite the very fair, very pale Hamlet-faced
lady who was the Swedish Envoy's wife.
Donna Angelica crossed the floor with the harmonious, almost musical
glide that rendered her step one of her most potent charms; her white,
brocaded train undulated gently behind her, as though it were aflow, and
in it glittered streaks of silver worked into the brocade.
Now and then, as the stately slow promenade, which constituted the royal
quadrille, might permit, he saw Donna Angelica's nimble, youthful
figure, and the white brocade bodice, modestly cut and topped with a
hazy fluff of white gauze; on her white throat a necklace of pearls lay
against a pearly skin, and a diamond cross hung luminous upon her
breast.
Donna Angelica, her chestnut-brown hair closely coiled round her head,
was crowned with stars--brilliant stars of diamonds, studding the
darkness of her locks, four in front, four at the back, set irregularly
and without design, as stars actually appear in the obscurity of night
on the dark, deep blue of the firmament of heaven.
And the penetrating eye of her lover clearly distinguished on the gauze
about the throat a tiny spray of lilies of the valley, without leaves, a
scarce visible little spray of lilies of the valley, put there for the
poetry and perfume of a flower's sake, put there for discovery by the
eye of him who knew how to love.
And amid such wealth of beauty, here mild and simple, there provokingly
alluring, amid such an exuberance of beauty and seductions, Donna
Angelica was beauty undefiled and pensive; beauty was in her melancholy,
frank expression, in the peace of a soul that had won its battle. She
was the picture of purity. Her dress was a rich, dull white of plain and
unpretentious pattern. Between the seams ran silver threads here and
there, like gentle thoughts, varying the sameness of such simplicity.
The noble folds of her train had a classical aspect, such as the drapery
of a chaste, antique statue. Her bodice was of exactly the right cut, in
nothing diminishing the attractions of the woman, and being entirely to
the credit of the modesty of the lady. About the shoulders the dress was
heavy enough to conceal the enticing, almost sensual place where a
woman's shoulder becomes her arm. She wore the lightest of
cream-coloured gloves of the finest kind, which, covering her elbow and
three inches besides, lay moulded to her arm without a wrinkle. She
wore no bracelets, but had on plain diamond earrings. The whole
impression was one of chastity. There was none of the vacant stupidity
of a cross-grained girl, but all the innocence of thought and emotion of
a pure woman. To Francesco Sangiorgio it seemed as if he were in the
presence of purity personified. Her eyes shed a soft light, her eyelids
moved slowly, dispassionately, without a shadow under them of
sleeplessness or illness; she looked placidly at the persons and objects
surrounding her; her temples were as clear as a child's, and the skin as
transparent as the skin round an egg; seen in profile her face showed a
delicate pink at the nostril; her sinuous red mouth was shut lightly,
like the bud of a flower. And the whole expression of her peaceful
countenance was that of a person cherishing neither hopes nor desires.
An aureole of something more than human, of something entirely
spiritual, seemed to transfigure her loveliness.
At the sight of her, Francesco Sangiorgio felt the excruciating desire
yield which had possessed him in the dining-room, where he had been on
the rack of expectation concerning Angelica, who had left the house
without showing herself. Little by little his nerves were quieted, his
prickling senses went into a state of languid contemplation. That
chastity and purity descended upon Sangiorgio like a refreshing breath,
cooling the ardour of passion; affecting him like the beneficence of an
innocent caress from the lips of a child, the hand of a sister, or a
friend's embrace; invading him like a placid river, gently and silently
overflowing its banks. His delirious pulse had abated; the veins in his
temples throbbed less violently than before; his wrongful desires of
lust had melted away. And while Donna Angelica was standing at rest in
the quadrille, he felt her eyes upon him in an open, frank gaze, the
which was a clear, steady light dimmed with tenderness. In truth, she
was to him in that hour, and for ever, the divine Beatrice.
Sitting in the large, royal armchair, the Queen bent over a little while
talking with Donna Clara Tasca, who was beside her on a stool, which was
her place as the wife of a Knight of the Annunciation. The ardent
Sicilian, with bright, clever eyes, slightly grizzled hair, and mobile
features, betraying a thoroughly restless mind, was answering the Queen
with great rapidity, bending forward also, and showing respectful
attention. The other ladies--of the aristocracy, of diplomacy, and of
the political world--collected in groups, were conversing with one
another and pretending to be interested, but kept every motion of the
Queen assiduously in eye. And as yet they would not dance, refusing
offers to do so, wrapt and engrossed as they were in the recollection of
the words spoken to them by the Queen. Every woman in the place,
whatever her wealth, rank, or beauty, whatever her charms of mind or
body, coveted nothing beyond that moment's colloquy with the Queen, in
the presence of two thousand people; they all forgot every other hope,
wish, interest, or sentiment in the feminine ambition for that minute of
conversation in public. The girls only, to whom this honour would not
fall, who had come to exhibit their young fascinations, to be gay, to
dance, to drown an innocent, romantic, amorous fancy--the girls,
instead, were already dancing a waltz round a large circle in the room,
amid a fluttering of white, pink, and blue muslin, and shyly kept at a
distance from the royal chair. The men walked about, stood in groups,
danced, chatted--no one paid any heed to them. After the royal
quadrille, Francesco Sangiorgio had squeezed through the serried files
of spectators, and had arrived within twenty feet of her when she was
talking with the deputy, Count di Carimate, the Lombard nobleman, with a
black beard and vague, Socialistic principles. But she, Donna Angelica,
was somewhat absent-minded; her eyes were cast down, and occasionally
they turned in the direction of the royal personage.
And whenever that star revolved to right or left, whenever she gave the
signal for rising, a prolonged thrill ran through the groups of women;
they all turned their heads in the direction indicated, many continuing
to chatter or to listen; but they stammered when they spoke, for their
thoughts were elsewhere. The Queen had gone over to her
Ladies-in-Waiting, and sat down in their midst, while they surrounded
her standing. They comprised two Americans married to Roman Princes, one
of them remarkably fair, and more English than American, the other
slender, affable, and well dressed; Donna Vittoria Colonna, with black,
diamond eyes; Donna Lavinia di Sora, with pearl-coloured face and
pensive, leonine eyes; Countess Genzano, whose charms were artificial
and whose hair was yellow; Princess Seraphita, of classically ideal
features, robed in plain white, with a bunch of violets at her bosom;
Princess Lalla, whose regular, cameo-lined face was still youthful, and
whose shoulders were white and arched; and finally the Marchioness of
Paola, the head Lady-in-Waiting, a happy mother with hair yet fair and
wavy, whose sprightly daughters, both brunettes, were dancing in the
ballroom.
The women of the corps diplomatique were patiently smoothing their
gloves on their arms, opening and closing their large, soft, feather
fans, each for the hundredth time eagerly scanning her programme, as if
she had never seen it before.
By degrees Sangiorgio had reached Donna Angelica's side, where, after
arriving, he whispered 'Good-evening.'
'Good-evening,' she murmured, with that depth of expression quite
individual to herself. And she turned to him, asking him whether her
husband had come, talking with half-closed lips, while he cast such
enamored and admiring glances at her that a slight blush tinged her
cheeks. The Queen was speaking in French to the French Ambassadress, a
spare, ascetic woman with a long face; yonder the King was conversing
with Donna Luigia Catalani, attired in bronze, a strange blue feather in
her blonde locks; the vivacious, witty Sicilian was smiling maliciously.
A new quadrille was beginning.
'You are not dancing,' observed Sangiorgio.
'No, I am not; the Government does not dance this time,' she replied
calmly. 'Later on, if you like, we will take a turn.'
'Later on?'
'Yes, later on.'
He did not understand at first. He had been too unobservant, his
thoughts all centred on her he loved; he had been unwitting of the scene
of feverish female ambition all round him. Yet he saw that something of
supreme importance was happening in this essentially feminine festive
affair; he saw that these women were completely given over to some idea
which made them forget even their wish to look beautiful. The ballroom
was now alive with dancers, and the rest of the men were moving towards
the sitting, smoking, and refreshment rooms.
On the right side of the ballroom the throng of expectant women was
still increasing; they were crowded together closer than ever, and,
while they still hoped their turn was coming, had no inclination to
dance, since their hearts and minds were over in that corner of the
room.
The Queen, sitting in the recess of a balcony, with only her train and
the lock of her necklace showing, was conversing with Donna Lidia, the
Prime Minister's wife, a hearty, amiable little woman, who only left her
quiet family home on the occasion of official routs.
'That is Donna Lidia--the Queen is talking to Donna Lidia!' the women
and those of the girls who were well informed were whispering to each
other. The interview had thus far lasted five minutes; the eyes of all
the waiting ladies were, by an irresistible, magnetic force, drawn upon
Donna Lidia and her Queen, whose movements were subject to general
speculation: would she go to the right or the left when she got up to
leave the alcove? In the ballroom the couples who had taken part in the
quadrille were now promenading; engagements were being made for the
polka; the young men were writing with pencils on the girls' programmes;
the ladies who were strangers, or elderly, middle-aged, or old, sat on
the last row of the red velvet benches with the formal air of people
voluntarily bored, and were laden with jewels and splendid laces, and
wore feathers in their hair. The women who had been honoured by a few
words from royalty went about flushed and smiling and satisfied, with a
happy light in their eyes, repeating to one another the gracious remarks
that had been made to them; and they cared nothing for anything else,
paid no heed to others who were still waiting with ill-concealed
impatience. The King was talking to the large, handsome wife of Italy's
prime patriot, a worthy lady, with dark skin and honest eyes, dressed
all in blue.
'I had hoped to see you before, this evening,' said Sangiorgio, like a
very schoolboy.
'Ah, indeed,' she vaguely replied.
At that she turned her back upon him. A path had suddenly opened through
the crowd, and between two rows of people the Queen was advancing,
majestically and gracefully beautiful, in a tremulous, starry radiance.
She was coming towards Donna Angelica, and Sangiorgio stepped back,
abashed, recognising in that female couple--the simple, serene woman and
the royal, smiling woman--the whole potency of the sex.
Later on Francesco Sangiorgio and Donna Angelica were walking through
the rooms together at a leisurely pace, wending their way through the
maze of trains which formed little lanes on the floor, occasionally
coming to a standstill when the flood of femininity barred their
passage. In the great ballroom, the girls, the secretaries' wives, the
ladies in love with balls, the women of the middle class, and all those
who had no official position, gave themselves up entirely to the
pleasures of dancing; the orchestra was playing lively tunes by Métra
and Fahrbach; the animation of the affair was at its height. Others were
meanwhile promenading, sitting on lounges in the parlours, holding
receptions, and circulating everywhere. The British Ambassadress, with
her beautiful and poetic daughter by her side, who resembled a
Botticelli Madonna, was holding court in the blue-room to a circle of
young diplomats. For two minutes these ladies spoke English with Donna
Angelica; Sangiorgio listened without understanding, but what he heard
sounded like delicious music to him.
The Countess di Malgra, the sympathetic blonde of interesting pallor and
bewitching eyes, was dispensing social paradoxes to three or four young
Centrist deputies following in her train; Signorina Maria Gaston, a girl
of gentle loveliness, the daughter of the Minister of Marine, a
mundanely agreeable little angel, was not dancing, but was chatting at a
window with three or four old Admirals; Signora Giulia Greuze, the
Belgian with a sparkling wit and a beautiful young body, like a rose
bursting from its bud, was laughing under a hanging basket of ivy,
showing her frank teeth.
Donna Angelica, on Sangiorgio's arm, went on, stopping a moment here and
there, exchanging bows and smiles with the deputies' wives she met. The
little Marchioness di Santa Marta, fair and fluffy, like a young bird,
faithful to her taste for dark-red dresses, showing the prettiest little
feet in the Italian political world; the Baroness Romito, a gorgeous,
sedate Juno; the Countess di Trecastagne, a pale Frenchwoman, married to
a Sicilian; the Baroness di Sparanise, the clever lady whose eyes were
black as Egyptian night; the mild and affable Marchioness di Costanza,
with her caressing voice and gentle footsteps; the two fair-haired
daughters of the Minister of Grace and Justice, one blonde and slender,
the other blonde and pensive--all these were walking about, without
returning to the ballroom, occasionally gathering in groups, laughing
together, telling little stories of the evening, looking one another all
over with kind though searching smiles, correctly appraising one
another's magnificence and beauty.
Donna Clara Tasca had stayed half an hour, had chatted with some
Ministers, politicians, and deputies, and had left abruptly, following
Don Mario, whose political fortune she would certainly have made if he
had been less nebulous, fantastic, and virtuous in his politics.
Donna Angelica, on Sangiorgio's arm, spoke little, but he asked for
nothing more, happy at feeling that modestly-gloved arm on his
coat-sleeve, happy at being able to count the pearls in her necklace,
happy in the sensation of his foot being grazed by the hem of her
brocaded dress. She cast about for her husband, though very
dispassionately, without urgency, and without making inquiries of
anyone, exchanging but a few occasional phrases with her escort. At
length Don Silvio, arm-in-arm with a deputy of the Opposition, appeared
in a doorway, came up to her, and, scarcely looking at her, scarcely
noticing in whose company she was, asked her curtly in an undertone:
'Her Majesty?'
'Most amiable,' she answered, casting her eyes down.
'More so than usual?'
'I do not know--I think----'
'Well, do you think, or are you sure?' he interrupted severely.
'I am sure--quite sure,' she hastened to say.
He turned his back upon her; she was pale and agitated.
'Would you like to sit down, perhaps?' asked Sangiorgio reverently.
'No, no,' she said; 'let us walk--let us walk.'
They went into a refreshment-room full of people nibbling or nipping at
sweetmeats, ices, coffee, or tea, where the floor was strewn with little
bags of sweets. Here, too, women abounded. Princess Valmy was sipping
tea and arguing with a little man who was a renowned translator of
Plato, a Parliamentary athlete, a Southerner of deep intellect, rather
strident voice, and incisive, oft cutting, language. The Countess di
Roccamorice was eating sugared chestnuts as she chatted with the Grand
Master of the Order of St. Maurice, with his white beard and discreet
Lombard smile. The Princess di Rocco, the handsomest woman in Rome, was
reclining in an easy-chair, with the Honourable Melillo, the Honourable
Marchetti, and the Honourable Sangarzia in attendance; she was consuming
an ice, benevolent and placid as a goddess. The Baroness Noir, tiny and
frail, in a dress of Japanese blue, with gorgeous jewels--large
turquoises set in diamonds--was slapping her fingers with her fan,
nervously listening to an argument between the Italian Minister at
Brussels and the Italian Minister at Bucharest.
'I want nothing--I want nothing,' she murmured to Sangiorgio, who was
conducting her towards the well-laden table.
She was trying to overcome her agitation by degrees. She spoke for a
moment with Signora Gasperini, the Secretary-General's wife, thus trying
to recover her calm; but she was no more than half successful. Deep down
in her soul she was still perturbed.
'Would you like to leave?' Sangiorgio asked her.
'Oh yes!' she exclaimed impulsively.
They resumed their search for Don Silvio, traversed the red room, the
blue room, the ballroom, and the corridor with the statues, where the
cold made her naked shoulders shiver, and then passed through three or
four empty apartments, arriving in the banqueting chamber, where folks
were merrily chattering and glasses were clinking. They turned back, and
finally, in the Don Quixote tapestry room, found Don Silvio in spirited
debate with the British Ambassador. Donna Angelica was about to accost
him, when, by a wink, her husband forbade her to do so, giving her to
understand that she was to move on. Blushing, she inclined her head, and
took Sangiorgio quickly away.
'Do you not dance?' she laughingly asked him. 'You are too serious! What
is it you are so deep in thought about? Politics, I hope!'
'Oh no!'
'Well, on no account think of politics, I beg you!' she said, leaning
more emphatically on his arm. 'You are not in love, are you, by any
chance?'
'Yes,' he briefly replied.
She stopped, put out of countenance, regretting she had said too much.
And then she immediately turned to other subjects--the ball, the
tapestries, Don Quixote, the heat of the rooms, and all manner of
things, speaking in a voice that was somewhat veiled.
By two o'clock in the morning the ball was at its height; in the
ballroom some forty couples were waltzing, and in all the apartments,
among hangings, flower-pots, embroidered curtains, white stucco, and
gilt decorations, there was an abounding, a teeming, an overflowing of
women, a glitter of starred headdresses, a heaving of lustrous female
bosoms.
Just then Vargas' secretary came up to her with his officious demeanour.
'His Excellency is obliged to go to his office at once because of an
important telegram. He will not be able to take you home.'
And deferentially he stood waiting, but as if conscious of being
dispensable, to be asked to take her home.
'Very well,' she replied, dismissing him with a glance.
Sangiorgio silently accompanied her to the waiting-room, where, under
the white electric light, and in the presence of the stolid, almost
automatic footmen, he assisted her in putting on her heavy,
ermine-lined, white brocade cloak. Without explanations, without a word
passing between them, she took his arm again, and calmly descended the
staircase, the Vargas groom having preceded them to call the carriage.
Arrived at the open door of the brougham, with a gentle, rapid motion
she gathered up her train, and stepped into the carriage; she did not
bow to Francesco, did not offer him her hand, and he stepped into the
carriage after her--quite naturally.
Not a word was spoken; but her white train covered Francesco
Sangiorgio's feet and legs and the bottom of the small carriage with its
rich folds; in that small space, a faint odour of lilies of the valley
was noticeable.
She had nothing over her hair, neither shawl nor hood nor lace wrapper;
her bare head emerged freely from the white of the ermine, and in her
dark locks sparkled the diamond stars. From the ample sleeves of the
cloak her hands fell on her knees, one hand still in its light glove of
Swedish kid; the other was gloveless, with a scintillant diamond ring on
the third finger. In the semi-darkness of the carriage, which was making
for old Rome from the Quirinal hill at a slow trot, Francesco Sangiorgio
dwelt now on that sweet face, whose continued pallor rendered it more
fascinating than ever, and now on that little hand, lying as listlessly
in her lap as if she were overcome with mortal fatigue. In the
long-awaited rapture of that moment, in the strange seclusion of the
dark little blue nest, conveying the sweetest of her sex homeward, her
lover was seized with not a single desire, with no care for the time
which was speeding and bringing separation nearer. That supreme
spiritual pleasure he was drinking in, that great happiness was quite
without alloy.
Motionless and mute he sat, with his eyes enchained, as it were by a
spell, seeing nothing but that white face, and that small, soft white
hand, which seemed asleep; he neither stirred nor spoke, a Buddhist of
love, since there was naught to hinder the loftiest feelings.
Never had he known his life to unfold and run its course so smoothly,
like a broad, smiling river, flowing down to the sea through a beautiful
green plain in the sunlight, barely rippling under the willows. Never
had he felt himself thus enthralled by pure bliss, in which soul and
senses were alike assuaged, to the delight of heart and emotion. He
quaffed deeply and exhaustively that cup of joy in the quiescence and
passivity of complete happiness.
Donna Angelica from time to time gave him a lingering look. Nestling in
her corner, but neither curled nor huddled up, with that beauty of shape
and pose peculiar to her, her attitude was one of rest; it was not too
loose and not too stiff. She was not asleep--oh no; her large, dark eyes
were wide open, and every now and then fell quietly on him who loved
her. But all the lines of her face had seemingly become softened and
rounded in that state of repose.
Like children, like some women whose features relax and grow young again
in sleep, whose faces then seem innocent and artless once more, so, in
that unruffled moment, she looked like a little girl, like an ingenuous
young creature still growing up. She no longer appeared as a woman
bedizened in ballroom finery; her cloak might have been a schoolgirl's
frock, plain and unpretentious, shapeless and chaste, a maiden's mantle;
and the gleam of the diamonds in her dark hair and on her little hand
was like a ray of light, not the fulgurant opulence of jewellery. She
was a young girl once more, in the pure, spiritual essence of beauty and
grace, in a state of repose that was also a new birth. No flame lit up
those lovely eyes, so full of peace, chiselled like a statue's. She,
too, was very tranquil; her small hand was as wax against the white of
her gown; her face was outlined like a luminous oval against the dark
background of the carriage, and what she thought or felt was
unrevealed. Beneath that external composure, beneath the repose of those
lines, perhaps thought was astir, perhaps a heart was beating strongly,
perhaps a great inner, intellectual and emotional life was going through
all the stages of activity. Yet, perhaps, this calm and peace had
reached her very spirit; perhaps within her she likened the depths of a
fathomless, steely lake, which no tempest could ever disturb. Nothing
was certain, however. She was, as always, enwrapped in the great mystery
of her own serenity.
Between them both, between the happy mortal who was suffering himself to
be engulfed in the whelming flood of spiritual bliss that stole over
him, and the young, chaste, placid, and serene being, sat a third--Love.