The Borgo of Borso's day was, as you might say, a sucker of the city of
the Po, a flowery crop of villas and gardens about the city's root.
There was the discreet house which Captain Mosca had once chosen for his
Olimpia; there also was that which Guarino Guarini maintained for his
(or any) Bellaroba. It is probable that there were many such houses in
the Borgo; it was a very pleasant place, heavy scented with lilac and
hawthorn in the spring, drowsy all the summer through with rustling
leaves and the murmur of innumerable bees. The place was quiet; there
was no traffic, no hint of the city bustle; on the other hand there was
the notoriety which must always attach to any act done where no others
are doing. Time, day-time especially, hangs heavy in the Borgo. One
machinates in the face of many green shutters, which are not necessarily
dead because they are shut.
This reasoning does not attack the sagacity of Count Guarini, for the
only circumstance which could give it force was entirely unknown to him.
He did not know that the Borgo held Bellaroba's friend, Olimpia, or that
it sheltered under the same roof Olimpia, the Captain's enemy. He knew
nothing of Bellaroba's friends and cared nothing for the Captain's
enemies. But, as a matter of history, the proceedings of Mosca upon that
eventful day were of the greatest possible interest to Signorina
Castaneve. Donna Matura, trust her, had not failed to report his first
appearance, stork-like, in the Borgo. No subsequent voyage of his into
those parts (and he made many) was lost upon Olimpia. Captain Mosca,
honest man, made a preposterous accomplice. His rusty cloak, the white
of his observant eye, the craning of his neck, the very angle of his
sword--cocked up for frolic like a wren's tail--spoke the profuse
conspirator. He spent money liberally, seemed to have plenty more, had
his finger to his nose with every other word. He brought a troop of
underlings; a bevy of young women under his orders turned the little
shuttered house out of doors--at every window carpets, curtains,
hangings of all sorts, fluttered as if for a triumphal procession.
Flowers came in stacks: "H'm!" said Olimpia, "there's a woman in this."
A couple of asses brought skins of wine. "That will be wash for the lean
hog himself," she added. From that time forth she never left her
shutter. To make herself the more sure she gave orders to Donna Matura
to close all the shutters alike. Captain Mosca, on one of his returns to
the Borgo, looked up at the blind green eyes of his former haven and,
chuckling, rubbed his hands. This artless outlet to his feelings was
interpreted for what it was worth behind the shutter.
By six of the evening Mosca, seeing Olimpia's house still keep a dead
face, threw off the last remnant of his cares and bade himself be
merry. "My handsome friend is either asleep or on a journey, it
appears," said he to himself. "That, on the whole, is well. I cannot
think she would be pleased at the advent of little Bellaroba riding
pillion to me. Still less would the honour about to be paid the young
lady afford her any gratification. Least of all would her observations
on the subject tend to clear the air. No, no. Everything is for the
best, it seems, and the world still a tolerable place. Now for my little
wood-bird." He paid and dismissed his work-people, then rode off himself
to fetch Bellaroba. And Olimpia, from her shutter, watched him go.
There was no trouble on the child's score. The Countess was away; a
feigned message from her was enough. Had she been at home and in a good
humour, she would have accorded a real one, no doubt; so the deceit was
quite harmless. Bellaroba demurred a little that she could not in person
warn Angioletto, but the Captain begged her to have no fears. Time
pressed; it was evident the Countess's service was urgent. Yet the
Captain swore by all that he held sacred--to be sure no great things,
but Bellaroba could not know that--to deliver her message to the lad
with his own hand. "For," said he, and confirmed it with an oath, "if I
don't see him this very night it will be a pity:" words which were
afterwards thought to have been prophetic by the curious in such
matters. So Bellaroba entrusted him with her scrawl to "My love
Angilotto," and the Captain chewed and swallowed it when she was not
looking. Then he lifted her to his horse and rode with her into the
green-sheltered Borgo, just as it was settling into twilight. And
Olimpia, from her shutter, saw them come.
I spare you the picture of her fury: it was not seemly, for all it was
very white and still. The sight of a handsome girl shuddering in a cold
stare under the grip of an evil spirit can never be pleasant; and where
the experienced Donna Matura shrank from what she saw and heard, it
becomes not me to tread. Donna Matura was of her country, that cheerful,
laughing Midland of the Po, and neither felt the Venetian throb of
pleasure nor conceived the excesses of Venetian pain. Extremes touch on
the Lagoon. Donna Matura saw her gold-haired mistress white and drawn,
saw her witless shaking, saw her tear and rend herself, heard her jerked
words of loathing, blasphemy, and obscene defiance--and fairly fled the
house. "For," as she said, "if words of man or woman could bring the
rafters about our ears, or open a pit to send us lightly whither we all
must go who have heard them, those words which Madam Olimpia spat about
her must surely do it." So much she confessed to afterwards, but no
more; for she stayed nothing more.
Olimpia may have leaned twisting against her wall for about an hour,
mouthing insane babble from her blued lips. It was at least quite dark
when she came to herself, lit the lamp, wiped the cold beads from her
forehead, smoothed and bound her hair. She was not herself, nor looked
to be so; she had a face completely colourless, lips like grey mould,
and burning black eyes. But her hand was steady; she hardly winked; her
breath, which came through her nose, was even, though it whistled rather
sharply. Whatever she was about--and she seemed to be acting a part--she
did with extraordinary care, down to the changing of her crimson dress
for a dark green one. The former had been loose and clinging, made of
velvet; the dark green was of cloth, fitted her close, and, as she
ascertained by a few gestures, gave free play to her arms. She knocked
off her heeled Venetian shoes, whose clatter was familiar to the house,
and bound on flat-soled sandals instead. Over her head she had a black
lace scarf, on her hands leather gauntlets. Lastly, she took from a
press a long, double-edged knife, felt its temper, and stuck it inside
her stocking, under the garter. She made a final hasty sweep of the room
with her unquiet eyes as she went out of it.
The door of the house she knocked upon was opened by a page, who asked
her business.
"Mosca, Captain Mosca, is my business," said she in a whisper.
"The Signor Capitano is occupied, Madonna," replied the boy.
"I know it, I know it," she answered. "But my business is the lady's
business also. I must see them both--and at once. Let me pass."
The page vowed and swore by all the company of Heaven that those were
her actual words. He was put to the torture and cried in the most
heartrending manner; but he held to it, so long as he could hold to
anything, that the visitor had said "her business was the other lady's
business." What a further application of the question might have
brought we cannot tell, since he fainted before it could be tried. "The
boy Gasparo appeared to take no further interest in the elucidation of
the truth," reported the judges, "and we recommend that he be chastised
for contumacy." He was, at any rate, no witness of the scene which
followed Olimpia's entry. There was that about her, a subdued haste, a
deliberation, a kind of intensity got by rote, which fascinated the
youngster and left him staring in the hall.
Olimpia walked across it alone, went straight to a door at the bottom on
the right-hand side, turned the handle, and entered. There was a table
spread with supper; there was Captain Mosca seated at it eating a peach
from his wine-glass; there was Bellaroba, flushed and marred with tears,
leaning against the further wall. She gave a little gasp of fear when
she saw what the doorway framed; after that she followed Olimpia about
the room with the same incurable fascination which the page-boy had
felt. Olimpia shut the door as softly as she had opened it, and as
softly shot the bolt.
Then it seemed that Mosca felt her presence, for he turned, saw, and
jumped up with a cry mingled of fear and rage. It was found out
afterwards that he was unarmed. This will explain his alarm. Disastrous
honesty! his sword was upstairs in the bed.
There followed a most curious scene. The Captain stood up by the table
and dogged Olimpia with his narrow eyes. When she advanced, he backed;
when she stopped, he stopped. In this manner, eyeing each other without
a blink, they made the round of the table. Bellaroba cowered by the
wall; pursued and pursuer brushed against her in turn. She shivered and
moaned a little at every touch; but they were too intent upon their game
to know that she was there. In the second round, Mosca, who was again
close to her, reached out his hand for a knife from the table. Quick as
thought Olimpia was at him, reached across and drove her knife through
his hand into the wood. Mosca howled, but his fear by now was such that
he must be free to run as before, though he maimed himself. He tore his
hand away and left Olimpia holding a fixed blade. She wrenched it out
and made a pounce. The miserable Mosca turned to Bellaroba. He laid what
he had left of hands upon her shoulders; he pulled her from the wall; he
set her before him and hugged her close to his breast. Thus he made her
back a shield against the long knife, and with her he fenced and held
off his enemy for minutes more. Olimpia, horribly busy, scorched the
girl's neck with her breath--but she never made to hurt her.
Then came the end. Olimpia made a lunge at his right side. The Captain
hugged Bellaroba there. At the next moment the long knife was below his
left arm, buried to the hilt, and defender and defence rolled heavily to
the floor. Olimpia walked to the table and helped herself to the
Captain's Val Pulicella.
The watch (whom the page had roused after Mosca's first cry) broke in by
the window, disentangled Bellaroba, bound the hands of both prisoners
behind their backs, and marched them and the boy off to the Castle.
Count Guarini, coming in an hour later, found his murdered lieutenant
for his only guest.