and then sat down, hat in hand, one glove off and the other on, but
unbuttoned.
“You never disturb me.” Her tone was the cold, monotonous one of
ill-humour.
“You were thinking?” ventured the dwarf, after a short silence.
“Yes, I was thinking ... but I don’t remember about what.”
“Have you been out to-day? It is a lovely morning.”
“And I’m so cold. I am always cold when the weather is warm, and _vice
versâ_.”
“Strange creature!”
“Eh?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“And about yourself, Galimberti. Have you been to the College to-day to
give your lesson?”
“Yes, I went there, although I felt so sad, and so disinclined to
teach.”
“Very sad--and why?” But the tone was indifferent.
He stroked his forehead with his ungloved hand. She sat with her back
to the window, but the light shone straight on his face, which looked
yellow and faded. Occasionally there appeared to be a squint in his
eyes.
“Yesterday ...” he began, “yesterday, you did not deign to write to me.”
“Yesterday.... What did I do yesterday...? Oh! I remember. Alberto
Sanna came to see me.”
“He ... comes ... often ... to see you ... does he not?”
“He is my cousin,” she replied, coldly.
Another halt in the conversation. He went on, mechanically fingering
the gloves he had not put on. Lucia unwound a cord of the silken fringe
of the low chair in which, with face upturned, she was lying.
“Shall I give you your history lesson to-day?”
“No. History is useless, like everything else.”
“Are you too sad?”
“I’m not even sad--I’m indifferent. I do not care to think.”
“So that--forgive me for mentioning it--I must not hope for a letter
from you to-morrow?”
“I don’t know ... I don’t think I shall be able to write.”
“But those letters were my only consolation,” lamented the dwarf.
“A fleeting consolation.”
“I am unhappy, so unhappy.”
“We’re all unhappy”--sententiously, and without looking at him.
“I fear that they no longer like me at the College,” he went on, as if
talking to himself. “I always find myself confronted by such icy faces.
That Cherubina Friscia hates me. She is a canting hypocrite, who weighs
every word I speak. She makes a note in her handbook when I’m only a
little late. I don’t know how it is, but sometimes I forget the hour.
My memory is getting so weak.”
“So much the better for you. I can never forget.”
“And besides, the Tricolors of this year are lazy and insolent. They
contradict me, refuse to write on the subjects I give them, and
interrupt me with the most impertinent questions. Every now and then
I lose the thread of my discourse, and then they giggle so that I can
never find it again.... I’m done for, Signorina Lucia, I’m done for. I
no longer enjoy teaching. I think ... I think there is intrigue at work
against me at the College, a frightful, terrible, mysterious conspiracy
that will end in my destruction.” He rolled his fierce, scared eyes,
injected with blood and bile, as if he were taking stock of the enemies
against whom he had to defend himself.
“The remedy, my dear Galimberti, is a simple one,” said Lucia with
childlike candour.
“Speak, oh speak, you’re my good angel.... I will obey you in
everything.”
“Shake the dust from off your sandals, and leave. Give them due
warning.”
Galimberti was so much surprised that he hesitated.
“Is not liberty dear to you?” she continued. “Are you not nauseated by
the stifling atmosphere you live in? There is a means of reasserting
your independence.”
“True,” he murmured. He did not dare to confess to her that leaving the
aristocratic College would mean ruin and starvation to him. Thence he
derived the chief part of his income--through _them_ he obtained a few
private lessons at the houses of his old pupils, by means of which he
augmented the mite on which he lived, he in Naples, and his mother and
sister in his native province. Without this, there would only remain
to him an evening class for labouring people, by which he gained sixty
francs a month: not enough to keep three people from dying of hunger.
He was already too much ashamed of appearing to her, ugly, old, and
unfortunate, without owning to being poverty-stricken besides.
“True,” he repeated despairingly.
“Why don’t you write to the Directress? If there be a conspiracy, she
ought to be informed of it.”
“There is a conspiracy.... I feel it in the air about me.... I will
write ... yes ... in a day or two.”
Then there was silence. Lucia stroked the folds of her Turkish wrapper.
She took up her favourite album and in it wrote these lines of Boïto:
L’ebete vita
Vita che c’innamora
Lunga che pare un secolo
Breve che pare un ora.
She replaced the album on the table, and the gold pencil-case in her
pocket.
“Will you believe in one thing, Signora Lucia?”
“Scarcely....”
“Oh! believe in this sacred truth; the only happy part of my life is
the time I pass here.”
“Oh! indeed,” she said, without looking at him.
“I swear it. Before I arrive here, I am overwhelmed with anxiety, I
seem to have so many important things to tell you. When I get to the
door, I forget them all. I am afraid my brain is getting weak. Then
time flies; you speak to me; I hear your voice; I am here with you, in
the room in which you live. I am afraid I stay too long; why don’t you
send me away? When I leave you, the first puff of wind on the threshold
of the street-door takes all my ideas away with it, and empties my
brain, without leaving me the power to hold on to my own thoughts.”
“Here is Signor Sanna, Signorina,” announced the maid Giulietta.
“I am going,” said the perturbed Professor, rising to take his leave.
“As you please.” She shrugged her shoulders.
But he did not go, not knowing how to do so, while Alberto Sanna
entered. The latter, buttoned up to his chin in his overcoat, with a
red silk handkerchief to protect his throat, held a bunch of violets in
his hand. Lucia, rising from her seat, placed both her hands in his,
and dragged him to the window, that she might see how he looked.
“How are you, Alberto; do you feel well to-day?”
“Always the same,” he said; “an unspeakable weakness in my limbs.”
“Did you sleep, last night?”
“Pretty well.”
“Without any fever?”
“I think so; at least I hadn’t those cold shivers or that horrid
suffocation.”
“Let me feel your pulse. It is weak, but regular, _sai_.”
“I ate a light breakfast.”
“Then you ought to feel well.”
“_Che!_ my stomach can’t digest anything.”
“Like mine, Alberto. What lovely violets!”
“I bought them for you. I think you are fond of them?”
“I hope you didn’t buy them of a flower-girl?”
“If I had, then I should not have offered them to you.”
This dialogue took place in the window, while Galimberti sat alone
and forgotten in his armchair. He sat there without raising his eyes,
holding an album of photographs in his awkwardly gloved hands. He took
a long time turning pages which held the portraits of persons in whom
he could not have felt any interest. At last Lucia returned to her
rocking-chair, and Alberto dragged a stool close up to her.
“Alberto, you know the Professor?”
“I think I have the honour....”
“We have met before ...” the two then said in unison; the Professor in
an undertone, the cousin curtly.
They sat staring at each other, bored by each other’s presence,
conscious of being in love with the same woman; Galimberti not less
conscious of the necessity of taking his leave. Only he did not know
how to get up, or what the occasion demanded that he should say and do.
Lucia appeared quite unconscious of what was passing in their minds.
She sniffed at her violets, and sometimes vouchsafed a word or two,
especially to her cousin. However, conversation did not flow easily.
The Professor, when Lucia addressed him, replied in monosyllables,
starting with the air of a person who answers by courtesy, without
understanding what is said to him. Sanna never addressed Galimberti, so
that by degrees the trio once more collapsed into a duet.
“I looked in at your father’s rooms before coming to you. He was going
out. He wanted to persuade me to go with him.”
“He is always going out.... And why didn’t you go with him?”
“It rained this morning; and I feel a shrinking in my very bones from
the damp. It’s so cosy here, I preferred staying with you.”
“Have you no fireplaces at home?”
“_Sai_; those Neapolitan fireplaces that are not meant for fire, a
cardboard sort of affair. Besides, my servant never manages to make
me comfortable. I shiver in my own room, although it is so thickly
carpeted.”
“Do you light fires at home, Galimberti?”
“No, Signorina; indeed, I have no fireplace.”
“How can you study in the cold?”
“I don’t feel the cold when I study.”
“You, Alberto, when you have anything to do, bring it here. I will
embroider, and you can work.”
“I never have any writing to do, Lucia. You know your father manages
all my business. And writing is bad for my chest.”
“You could read.”
“Reading bores me; there’s nothing but rubbish in books.”
“Then we could chat.”
“That we could! You might tell me all your beautiful thoughts, which
excite the unbounded admiration of every one who listens to you. Where
do you get your strange thoughts from, Lucia?”
“From the land of dreams,” she said, with a smile.
“The land of dreams! A land of your own invention, surely! You ought to
write these things, Lucia. You have the making of an authoress.”
“What would be the good of it; I have no vanity, have I, Professor? I
never had any.”
“Never! An excessive modesty, united to rare talent....”
“_Basta_, I was not begging for compliments. I was thinking of how much
I suffered from my usual sleeplessness, last night....”
“I hope you took no chloral?”
“I refrained from it to please you. I bore with insomnia for your sake.”
“Thank you, my angel.”
Galimberti sat listening to them, while they exchanged lover-like
glances, gazing at the red frame which held Caterina’s portrait.
“I ought to go ... I must go ...” he kept thinking. He felt as if he
were nailed to his chair; as if he had no strength to rise from it. He
was miserable, for he had just discovered that there was mud on one
of his boots. It appeared to him that Lucia was always looking at that
boot. It was his martyrdom, yet he dared not withdraw from it.
“And so the thought came to me amid so many others, that you, Alberto,
need a woman about you.”
“What sort of a woman--a housekeeper? They are selfish and odious, I
can’t abide them.”
“Why, no, I mean a wife.”
“Do you think so...? How strange! I should never have thought of it.”
“But the woman whom you need is not like any other. You need an
exceptional woman.”
“True, how true! I want an exceptional wife,” said Alberto, willing to
be persuaded.
“An exceptional woman. Don’t you agree with me, Professor?”
He started in the greatest perturbation. What could she be wanting of
him, now?
Without awaiting his reply, she continued:
“You are, dear Alberto, in a somewhat precarious state of health; or
rather, your age is itself a pitfall, surrounded as you are with all
the temptations of youth. What with balls, theatres, supper-parties....”
“I never go anywhere,” he mumbled; “I am too afraid of making myself
ill.”
“You do well to be prudent. After all, they are but empty pleasures.
But at home, in your cold, lonely house, you do indeed need a sweet
affectionate companion, who would never weary of tending you, who would
never be bored, never grudge you the most tender care. Think of it!
what a flood of light, and love, and sweet friendship, within your own
walls! Think of the whole life of such a woman, consecrated to you!”
“And where is such an angel to be met with, Lucia?” he said, in an
enthusiasm caught from her words, in despair that no such paragon was
within reach.
“Alas! Alberto, we are all straining after an impossible ideal. You,
too, are among the multitude of dreamers.”
“I wish I could but meet my ideal,” he persisted, with the obstinacy of
his weak, capricious nature.
“Seek,” said Lucia, raising her eyes to the ceiling.
“Lucia, do me a favour.”
“Tell me what it is...? I beg your pardon, Galimberti, would you pass
me that peacock fan?”
“Do you feel the heat, Signorina Lucia?”
“It oppresses me; I think I am feverish. Do you know that peacock
feathers are unlucky?”
“I never heard it before.”
“Yes, they are _iettatrici_, just as branches of heather are lucky.
Could you get me some?”
“To-morrow....”
“I was about to say, Lucia,” persisted Alberto, holding on to his idea,
“that there is a favour you could do me. Why not write me the beautiful
thing you have just said down on paper? I listen to you with delight;
you talk admirably. If you would but write these things on a scrap of
paper, I would put it in this fold of my pocket book, and every time
I opened it I should remember that I have to find my ideal--that’s a
wife.”
“You are a dear, silly fellow,” said Lucia, in her good-natured manner.
“I will give you something better than this fleeting idea; all these
things, and more besides, that are quite unknown to you, I will write
you in a letter.”
“When, when?”
“To-day, to-night, or to-morrow morning.”
“No, this evening,”
“Well, this evening; but don’t answer me.”
“I shall answer you.”
“No, Alberto, your chest is too weak; it’s bad for you to stoop.
Positively I won’t allow it.”
And so the Professor was quite excluded from the intimacy of the little
duet; he was evidently in the way.
“What am I doing here, what _am_ I doing here, what am I here for?” he
kept repeating to himself. By this time he had succeeded in awkwardly
concealing his muddy boot; but he was tormented by a cruel suspicion
that his cravat was on one side. He dared not raise his finger to it;
and his mind was torn by two conflicting griefs: the letter Lucia
was going to write to her cousin, and the possible crookedness of
his cravat. The others continued to gaze at each other in silence.
On Alberto’s contemptuous face there appeared to be a note of
interrogation. He was inquiring tacitly of his cousin: “Is this bore
going to stay for ever?” And her eyes made answer: “Patience, he will
go some time; he bores me too.”
The strangest part of it all was that Galimberti had a vague
consciousness of what was passing in their minds, and wanted to go, but
had not the strength to rise. His spine felt as if it were bound to the
back of the chair, and there was an unbearable weight in his head.
“Signorina, here is Signor Andrea Lieti,” said Giulietta.
“This is a miracle.”
“If you reproach me,” said Andrea, laughing, “I won’t even sit down.
Good-morning, Alberto; good-morning, Galimberti!”
The room seemed to be filled with the strong man’s presence, by his
hearty laugh, and his magnificent strength. Beside him, Galimberti,
crooked, undersized and yellow; Sanna, meagre, worn, pale,
consumptive-looking; Lucia, fragile, thin, and languishing, made up a
picture of pitiable humanity. Galimberti shrank in his chair, bowing
his head. Alberto Sanna contemplated Andrea from his feet upwards,
with profound admiration, making himself as small as possible, like a
weak being who craves the protection of a strong one. Lucia, on the
contrary, threw herself back in her rocking-chair, attitudinising like
a serpent in the folds of rich Turkish stuff, just showing the point
of a golden embroidered slipper. The glance that filtered through her
lids seemed to emit a spark at the corner of her eyes. All three were
visibly impressed by this fine physical type; so admirable in the
perfection of its development. The room appeared to have narrowed, and
even its furniture to have dwindled to humbler proportions, since he
entered it; all the minute bric-à-brac and curios with which Lucia had
surrounded herself had become invisible, as if they had been absorbed.
Andrea sat down against the piano, and it seemed to disappear behind
him. He shook his curly head, and a healthy current leavened the morbid
atmosphere of the room; his laugh was almost too hearty for it, it
disturbed the melancholy silence, which until his arrival had only been
broken by undertones.
“I come here as an ambassador, Signora Lucia. Shall I present my
credentials to the reigning powers?”
“Here are your credentials,” she said, pointing to the portrait of
Caterina.
“Yes, there’s Nini. My government told me to go and prosper, and be
received with the honours due to the representative of a reigning
power.”
“Did Caterina say all that?”
“Not all. It’s in honour of your imagination, Signora Lucia, that I
embellish my wife’s few words with flowers of rhetoric.”
“So you reproach me with my imagination,” said the girl, in an
aggrieved tone, casting a circular glance at her friends, as if in
appeal against such injustice.
“By no means; mayn’t one venture a joke? In short, Caterina said to me,
'At three you are to go....’”
“Is it already three?” broke in Galimberti, inopportunely.
“Past three, as your watch will tell you, my dear Professor.”
“Mine has stopped,” he replied mendaciously, not caring to exhibit a
huge silver family relic. “I must take my departure.”
“To your lesson, Galimberti?” inquired Lucia, indifferently.
“Indeed, I find the time for it has slipped by. I had no idea that it
was so late. After all it’s no great loss to my pupils. Will you have
your lesson to-morrow, Signorina?”
“To-morrow! I don’t think I can; I feel too fatigued. Not to-morrow.”
“Wednesday, then?”
“I will let you know,” she replied, bored.
When, with a brick-coloured flush on his yellow cheeks, Galimberti had
left them, all three were conscious of a sense of discomfort.
“Poor devil!” exclaimed Andrea, at last.
“Yes, but he is a bore,” added Alberto.
“What’s to be done? These ladies, in their exquisite good-nature,
forget that he is only a teacher; and he gets bewildered and forgets it
too. He must suffer a good deal when he comes to his senses.”
“Oh! he is an unhappy creature; but when I am sick or sad, the poor
thing becomes an incubus: I don’t know how to shake him off.”
“Is he learned in history?” inquired Alberto, with the childish
curiosity of ignorance.
“So, so; don’t let us talk about him any more. This morning he has
spoilt my day for me. What were you saying when he left, Signor Lieti?”
“What was I saying? I don’t remember....”
“You were saying that your wife had sent you here at three,” suggested
Alberto, as if he were repeating a lesson.
“_Ecco!_ Ah, to be sure.... And after breakfast I went to a
shooting-gallery, then I had a talk with the Member for Caserta about
the local Exhibition in September, and then I came on here, with
weighty communications, Signora Lucia.”
“I’m off,” said Alberto.
“What, because of me? As for what I have to say, you may hear every
word of it.”
“The reason is that now that the sun has come out, I want to take a
turn in the _Villa_ before it sets,” said Alberto, pensively. “It will
do me good, I want to get an appetite for dinner.”
“Go, dear Alberto, go and take your walk. I wish I could come too! The
sun must be glorious outside; salute it for me.”
“Remember your promise.”
“I remember, and will keep it.”
When he was gone, they looked at each other in silence. Andrea Lieti
had an awkward feeling that it would have been right and proper for
him to leave with her cousin. Lucia, on the contrary, settled herself
more comfortably in her rocking-chair; she had hidden her slippered
foot under the Turkish gown, whose heavy folds completely enveloped her
person.
“Will you give me that Bible, on the table, Signor Lieti?”
“Has the hour struck for prayer, Signorina?” he asked in a jesting tone.
“No,” replied Lucia; “for I am always praying. But when something
unusual, something very unusual happens to me, then I open the Bible
haphazard, and I read the first verse that meets my eye. There is
always counsel, guidance, presentiment or a fatality in the words.”
She did as she said. She read a verse several times over, under her
breath, as if to herself and in amazement.... Then she read aloud: “I
love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall find me.”
He listened, surprised. This singular mysticism inspired him with a
sort of anger. He held his tongue, with the good breeding of a man
who would not willingly hurt a young lady’s feelings, but the episode
struck him as a very ridiculous one.
“Did you hear, Signor Lieti?” she added, as if in defiance.
“I heard. It was very fine.... Love is always an interesting topic,
whether in the Old or the New Testament, or elsewhere....”
“Signor Lieti!”
“I beg your pardon, I am talking nonsense. I am a rough fellow,
Signorina Altimare. We who are in rude health are apt to regard these
matters from a different standpoint. You must make allowances.”
“You are indeed the incarnation of health,” she said, sighing. “I
shall never, never forget that waltz you made me dance. I shall never
do it again.”
“_Ma che!_ winter will come round again; there will be other balls, and
we will dance like fun.”
“I have no strength for dancing.”
“If you are ill, it is your own fault. Why do you always keep your
windows closed? The weather is mild and the heat of your room is
suffocating; I’ll open them.”
“No,” she exclaimed, placing her hand upon his arm: at its light
pressure he desisted: she smiled.
“Do you never dream, Signor Lieti?”
“Never. I sleep soundly, for eight hours, with closed fists, like a
child.”
“But with open eyes?”
“Never.”
“Just like Caterina, then?”
“Oh! exactly like her.”
“You are two happy people.” Her accent was bitter.
He felt the pain in it. He looked at her, and was troubled. Perhaps, he
had after all been hard upon the poor girl. What had she done to him?
She was sickly and full of fancies. The more reason for pitying her.
She was an ill-cared-for, unloved creature who was losing her way in
life.
“Why don’t you marry?” he said, suddenly.
“Why?” ... in astonishment.
“Why? ... yes. Girls ought to marry, it cures them of their vagaries.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lucia, and she hid her face in her hands.
“Now I suppose I have said something stupid again? I will give you
Caterina’s message and be gone, before you turn me out.”
“No, Signor Lieti. Who knows but what your _bourgeois_ common sense is
right.”
He understood the hidden meaning of her phrase, and felt hurt by it.
That skinny creature, with her ethereal airs and graces, knew how to
sting, after all! She suddenly appeared to him under a new aspect.
A slight fear of the woman, whose weakness was her only strength,
overcame him. He began to feel ill at ease in the perfumed atmosphere;
the room was so small that he could not stretch out his arms without
coming to fisticuffs with the wall, the air so perfumed that it
compressed his lungs; ill at ease with that long, lithe figure draped
in a piece of Eastern stuff; a woman who had a mouth like a red rose,
and eyes that shone as if they sometimes saw marvellous visions, and at
others looked as if they were dying in an ecstasy of unknown longing.
He felt a weight in his head like the beginning of a headache. He would
like to have let in air by putting his fists through the window-panes,
to have knocked down the walls by a push from his shoulders, to have
taken up the piano and thrown it into the street; anything to shake
off the torpor that was creeping over him. If he could only grasp that
lithe figure in his arms, to hurt her, to hear her bones creak, to
strangle her! The blood rushed to his head and it was getting heavier
every minute. She was looking at him, examining him, while she waved
the peacock-feather fan to and fro. Perhaps she divined it all, for
without saying a word she rose and went to open the window, standing
there a few minutes to watch the passers-by. When she returned, there
was a faint flush on her face.
“Well,” she said, as if she were awaiting the end of a discourse.
“Well; your perfumes have given me a headache. It’s a wonder I did not
faint; a thing that never yet happened to me, and that I should not
like to happen. May I go? May I give you Caterina’s message?”
“I am listening to you. But are you better now?”
“I am quite well. I am not Alberto Sanna.”
“No, you are not Alberto Sanna,” she repeated, softly. “He is ill, I
pity him. How do you feel now?”
“Why, very well indeed. It was a passing ailment, walking will set me
up again. Caterina....”
“Do you love your wife as much as I love her?”
“Eh! what a question!”
“Don’t take any notice of it; it escaped me. I don’t believe in married
love.”
“The worse for you!”
“You are irritated, Signor Lieti?” she said, smiling.
“No! I assure you I am not. Mine was a purely physical discomfort, I am
not troubled by any moral qualms. I don’t believe in their existence.
My wife....”
“Are you a materialist?”
“Signora Lucia, you will make me lose my temper,” he exclaimed, half in
anger, half in jest. “You won’t let me speak.”
“I am listening to you.”
“Caterina wishes you to dine with us next Sunday. Her little cousin
Giuditta is coming from school for the day. You two could drive her
back in the evening.”
“I don’t know ...” she said, hesitatingly; “I don’t know whether I
can....”
“I entreat you to, in Caterina’s name. She sent me here on purpose.
Come, we have a capital cook. You won’t get a bad dinner.”
She shrugged her shoulders, and sat pondering as if she were gazing
into futurity.
“You look like a sibyl, Signora Lucia. _Via_, make up your mind. A
dinner is no very serious matter. I will order a _crême méringue_ to
please you, because it is light and snowy.”
“I will write to Caterina.”
“No, don’t write. Why write so much? She desired me to take no denial.”
“Well, I will come.”
And she placed her hand in his. He bent down chivalrously and imprinted
a light kiss on it. She left her hand there and raised her eyes to his.
By a singular optical illusion, she appeared to have grown taller than
himself.
When he returned home, after a two hours’ walk about Naples, Andrea
Lieti told his wife that Lucia Altimare was a false, rhetorical,
antipathetic creature; that her house was suffocating enough
to give one apoplexy; that she had a court of consumptives and
rachitics--Galimberti, Sanna, and the Lord knows whom besides; that
he would never put his foot into it again. He had done it to please
her, but it had been a great sacrifice; he detested that _poseuse_,
who received men’s visits as if she were a widow; he couldn’t imagine
what men and women found to fall in love with, in that packet of bones
in the shape of a cross. Of all this and more besides, he unburdened
himself. He only stopped when he saw the pain on his wife’s face, who
answered not a word and with difficulty restrained her tears. This
strong antipathy between two persons she loved was her martyrdom.
“At least,” she stammered, “at least, she said she would dine with us
on Sunday?”
“Just fancy, for your sake I had to entreat her as if I were praying
to a saint. She wouldn’t, the stupid thing. At last, she accepted.
But I give you due warning that on Sunday I shall not dine at home. I
shall dine out and not return till midnight. Keep her to yourself, your
_poseuse_.”
This time Caterina did burst into tears.
VI.
During the whole of the dinner in the Lietis’ apartment in Via
Constantinopoli, a certain all-pervading embarrassment was perceptible,
despite the care with which it was disguised. Caterina had not dared,
for several days, to breathe Lucia’s name. But on Saturday, when she
saw that Andrea had quite regained his good temper, she begged him not
to go out on the morrow. He at first shrugged his shoulders, as if he
did not care one way or the other, and then said, simply:
“I will stay at home: it would be too rude to go out.”
Yet Andrea’s manner was cold when he came in from his walk that day,
and Lucia was very nervous, but beautiful, thought Caterina, in her
clinging, cashmere gown, with a large bunch of violets under her
chin. The talk was frigid. Caterina, who had been driving Giuditta
all over the town, was troubled. She feared that Lucia would notice
Andrea’s coldness, and was sorry she had invited her. She talked more
than usual, addressing herself to Lucia, to Andrea, and to Giuditta,
to keep the ball going, making strenuous efforts to put her beloved
ones in good humour. For a moment she hoped that dinner would create a
diversion, and breathed a sigh of relief when the servant announced,
“The Signora is served.”
But even the bright warmth of the room was of no avail. Andrea, at
whose side Lucia was seated, attended absently to her wants. He ate
and drank a good deal, devouring his food in a silence unusual to him.
Lucia hardly ate at all, but drank whole glasses of water just coloured
with wine, a liquid of pale amethyst colour. When Andrea addressed
her, she listened to him with intent eyes, which never lowered their
gaze; his fell before it, and again he applied himself to his dinner.
Caterina, who saw that their aversion was increasing, was terrified.
She tried to draw Giuditta into the general conversation, but the child
was possessed by the taciturn hunger of a school-girl, to whom good
food is a delightful anomaly. Towards the end of dinner, there were
slight signs of a thaw. Andrea began to chatter as fast as he could and
with surprising volubility; talking to the two ladies, to the child,
even to himself. Lucia deigned to smile assent two or three times.
There was a passage of civilities when the _crême méringue_ made its
appearance. Lucia compared it to a flake of immaculate snow; Andrea
pronounced the comparison to be as just as it was poetic. Caterina
turned from pale to pink in the dawn of so good an understanding. She
felt, however, that this was a bad evening for Lucia, one of those
evenings that used to end so disastrously at school, in convulsions or
a deluge of tears. She saw that her dark eyes were dilated, that her
whole face quivered from time to time, and that the violets she wore
rose and fell with the beating of her heart. Once or twice she asked
her, as in their school-days, “What ails thee?”
“Nothing,” replied the other as curtly as she used to reply at school.
“Don’t you see that there is nothing the matter with her?” questioned
Andrea. “Indeed, she looks better than usual. Signora Lucia, you are
another person to-night, you have a colour.”
“I wish it were so.”
“Are you courageous?”
“Why do you ask?”
“To know.”
“Well, then, yes.”
“Then swallow a glass of cognac, at once.”
“No, Andrea, I won’t let her drink it. It would do her harm.”
“What fun! don’t you feel tempted, Signora Lucia?”
“I do ... rather....” after a little hesitation.
“_Brava, brava!_ You too, Caterina, it doesn’t hurt you. And even
Giuditta....”
“No; it would intoxicate the child.”
“_Ma che!_ Just a drop in the bottom of the glass.”
Lucia drank off hers without the slightest sign of perturbation, then
she turned pale. Giuditta, after swallowing hers, blushed crimson,
coughing and sneezing until her eyes filled with tears. Every one
laughed, while Caterina beat her gently on the back.
“I think you are drinking too much to-night, Andrea,” she whispered in
his ear.
“Right you are; I won’t drink any more.”
When they rose from table, Andrea offered his arm to Lucia, a courtesy
he had omitted when they entered the room. Caterina said nothing. When
she had installed them in the yellow drawing-room, one on the sofa
and the other in a comfortable chair, she left them and went into an
adjoining room to prepare the child for her return.
“Have you left off using musk, Signora Lucia?”
“Yes, Signor Lieti.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Allow me to congratulate you.”
“Thank you.”
“Those flowers become you better. Who gave them to you?”
“You are curious, Signor Lieti.”
He smiled at her with approving eyes. To him she appeared like one
transformed, thanks, perhaps, to the soft folds of her white gown. In
his good-natured after-dinner mood, the beatitude of repletion infused
a certain tenderness into his voice.
“My name is Andrea,” he murmured.
“I know that,” was the curt reply.
“Call me Andrea. You call Caterina by her name. Caterina and I are one.”
“Not to me.”
“I see. But as Caterina is so very much your friend, you might admit me
into the bond. Do you forbid me to become your friend?”
“Perhaps there is no such thing as friendship.”
“Yes, there is such a thing. Don’t be so pessimistic. _Senta, cara
Signorina_, let me whisper a word in your ear....”
She bent forward until her cheek almost touched his lips. Then he said:
“There are in this house two people who care for you. Pray believe....”
Lucia fell back against her cushion and half closed her eyes.
“Surely,” thought Andrea, “it’s another woman, with that round white
throat set in its frame of lace.”
“Andrea, Andrea,” cried Caterina, from the bedroom.
He started, and shrugged his shoulders, as if to shake off a weight,
glanced at Lucia, who seemed to be dreaming with closed eyes, and went
away. There was a short whispered discussion between husband and wife
in the adjoining room. It was suddenly interrupted by Andrea, who was
stifling his laughter, pouncing upon his wife and kissing her behind
her ear. Caterina defended herself by pointing to Giuditta, who was
putting on her hat before the glass.
“It all depends on her,” he said, in an undertone, as he re-entered the
drawing-room.
“Signora Lucia, are you asleep?”
“No, I never sleep.”
“Caterina wants you a moment, in there.”
“What does she want?”
“I know, but have been ordered not to tell.”
“I will go to her.”
She went, followed by the serpentine folds of her white train. Andrea
sat down, unconsciously rested his head where she had rested hers, and
inhaled the lingering perfume of her hair. He rose and walked about the
room to rid himself of the mists that seemed to be clouding his brain.
Caterina, in the other room, knew not how to break it to Lucia. The
words refused to come, for the tall white-robed maiden, standing erect,
without a quiver of her eyelid, intimidated her.
“I think ... I think it would bore you to have to come with me to the
College.”
“What for?”
“To take Giuditta back.”
“I won’t go. You go alone. That College depresses me.”
“I would go, if it were not for leaving you alone. But I shall not be
long; just the time to drive Giuditta there, and come back.”
“Go; I like being alone.”
“It’s ... that I should like to....”
“Take Andrea with you, of course.”
“No, no, on the contrary.”
“Leave him with me...? He will be bored.”
“What are you saying?”
“He will bore himself, Caterina.”
“’Tis he who doesn’t want to stay, for fear of boring you. If you don’t
mind....”
“Really, was that all? I will stay alone, or with your husband,
whatever you like. But don’t be away long.”
“Oh! no fear, dear.” And in her delight at having settled the important
question, she raised herself on tiptoe to kiss her.
“Dress and go.”
When Caterina and Giuditta passed through the drawing-room they found
Andrea and Lucia seated, as before, in silence.
“Go, Caterina. I will read a book, and your husband the _Piccolo_. Have
you a Leopardi?”
“No. I am so sorry....”
“Well, I will amuse myself with my own thoughts. Go, dear, go.”
Andrea listened, without saying a word.
“You may go to sleep,” whispered his wife, as she bade him good-bye.
They did not kiss each other in the presence of their visitors. She
went away contented with having provided for everything. They followed
her with their eyes. Then, without a word, Lucia offered the newspaper
to Andrea, who unfolded it. While he pretended to read, he watched
Lucia out of the corner of his eye. She was looking at him with so
bewitching a smile, that again she appeared to him like a woman
transformed--so placid and youthful in her white gown.
“Are you not bored, Signorina?”
“No; I am thinking.”
“Tell me what you are thinking of.”
“What can it matter to you? I am thinking of far-off things.”
“It is morbid to think too much. Sometimes, but not often, it happens
to me, too, to think.”
“Are you thinking now, Signor Andrea?”
Her hand hung slack at her side. In jest he knitted his little finger
for a moment in hers. There was a long silence.
“What were you thinking of just now?” asked Lucia, in her low tender
tones.
“I do not wish to tell you. How white your hand is, and long and
narrow! Look, what an enormous hand mine is!”
“That day at the tournament your hand did wonders.”
“Really...!” He reddened from pleasure.
Again they were silent. She drew her hand away and played with her
violets. He half closed his eyes, but never took them off the pure
pale face, with its delicate colouring, its superb magnetic eyes
with pencilled brows, and the half-opened mouth that was as red as a
pomegranate flower. He sank into a state of vague contemplation, in
which a fascinating feminine figure was the only thing visible on a
cloudy background.
“Say something to me, Signora Lucia?”
“Why?”
“I want to hear you speak; you have an enchanting voice.”
“Caterina said the same thing to me this evening.”
At that name he suddenly sprang to his feet, and took two or three
turns about the room, like an unquiet lion. She pulled a chair in front
of her, placed her feet upon it, and half closed her eyes.
“Are you going to sleep?” asked Andrea, standing still before Lucia.
“No, I am dreaming,” she replied, so gently that Andrea resumed his
seat beside her.
“Tell me what you were thinking of just now?” she pleaded.
“I was thinking of something dreadful, but true.”
“About me?”
“About you, Lucia.”
“Say it.”
“No, it would displease you.”
“Not from you....”
“Permit me not to tell it you....”
“As you please.”
Lucia’s countenance became overclouded; every now and then she drew a
long breath.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing; I am very comfortable. And you, Signor Andrea?”
Was he? He did not answer. Now and again the delicious languor that was
stealing over him cooled the current in his veins. He scarcely ventured
to breathe. Lucia’s white gown appeared to him like a snowy precipice;
a mad desire was on him to cast himself at this woman’s feet, to rest
his head on her knees, and to close his eyes like a child.... Was he?
when every now and then a savage longing came upon him to throw his arm
around that slender waist, and press it so that he might feel it writhe
and vibrate with tigerish flexibility? He strove not to think; that was
all.
“What stuff is this, Signora Lucia?”
“It is wool.”
“A soft wool.”
“Cashmere.”
“It is so becoming to you. Why don’t you always wear it?”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, I do.” He continued, unconsciously, to stroke her arm.
She leant over, quite close to him, and said:
“Have one made like it for Caterina.”
This time Andrea did not rise, but shuddered perceptibly. He passed his
hand through his hair, to push it back.
“I was thinking just now,” he said, “that the man who fell in love with
you would be a most unhappy fellow.”
Lucia sank back in frigid silence, her face hardened with anger.
“Now,” he said in a low tone of deprecation, “you are angry.”
“No,” in a whisper.
“Yes, you are angry; I am a brute.” As he said this, he tried to force
open her clenched hand. But he was afraid of hurting her, and so he
failed. He begged her not to drive her nails into the palm of her hand.
The pain of doing so accentuated the angles at the corners of her lips;
her head was turned away from him, resting against the cushioned back
of the sofa.
“Lucia, Lucia ...” he murmured, “be good to one who is unworthy.” At
last, with a sigh of triumph, he opened the hand which he held: four
red marks disfigured its palm. Andrea looked at it, wishing but not
daring to kiss it; he blew over it childishly.
“_Bobo_, gone!”
She vouchsafed a smile, but no reply. Andrea tried to pacify her,
whispering nonsense to her. He mimicked the tone of a child, begging
its mother’s pardon, promising “never to do so again,” if only it
may not be sent to the dark room, where it is frightened. And the
strong man’s voice assumed so infantile an expression, he imitated the
whine, the grimaces, the feline movements of certain children to such
perfection, that she could not restrain the fit of nervous laughter
which overcame her, and throbbed in her white throat as she fell back
in her cushions.
“Little mother, forgive?” he wound up with.
“_Si, si_,” and, still laughing, she gave him a little pat on the
shoulder.
Again he fought down his desire to kiss her hand.
“Do you know that you are not so thin as usual to-night?”
“Do you think so?” she replied, as if weary with laughter.
“Certainly.”
“I suppose it’s the white dress.”
“Or yourself; you can work miracles, you can assume what appearance you
choose.”
“What am I like to-night?” asked Lucia, languidly.
“You are like a sorceress,” replied Andrea, with an accent of profound
conviction.
Her eyes questioned him, eager to know more.
“A witch ... a sorceress....” he repeated, as if in reply to an inner
voice. The clock struck nine times, but neither of them paid heed to
it. Stillness filled the room, which was lighted by a shaded lamp. No
sound reached it. Nothing. Two people alone, looking at each other. The
long pauses seemed to them full of a sweet significance; they could not
resume their talk without an effort. They spoke in lowered tones and
very slowly. He drew no nearer, neither did she withdraw her hand.
“What perfume do you use in your hair?”
“None.”
“Oh! but it is perfumed. I could smell it just now....”
“But I use no perfume.”
“Just now I smelt it, when I leant my head where yours had been.”
“None; smell!” she said, with unconscionable audacity, as she raised
her head to his, that he might inhale the perfume of her hair.
Then he lost his head, seized Lucia by the waist, and kissed her throat
madly and roughly. She freed herself like a viper, starting to her feet
in a fury, scorching him with the flashing of her eyes. Not a word
passed between them. Stunned and confused, he watched her moving about
the room in search of her cloak, her gloves, her bonnet, and in such a
tremor of rage that she could not find them for a long while. At last
she slipped on her cloak, but her quivering hands could not tie the
strings of her black bonnet. The white dress had disappeared; she was
all in black now, lividly pale, with dark rings under her eyes.
“Where are you going now?”
“I am going away.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“No, rather than let you do that, I will go myself.” He made her a low
bow and disappeared within the bedroom, shutting the door between them.
When Caterina returned, panting with haste, she found Lucia calmly
stretched out on the sofa.
“Have I been too long...? And Andrea?”
“I don’t know. He is in there, I think.”
“What have you been doing with yourself all alone?”
“_Sai_, I have been praying with the lapis-lazuli rosary.”
Caterina entered the bedroom. A black form was lying prone across the
bed with open arms, like one crucified.
“Andrea!” she called, tentatively.
“What is it?” was the curt reply.
“Are you sleeping?”
“I was bored, and I came in here. Let me sleep.”
“Lucia? Who is to take her back?”
“Thou. Leave me alone.”
VII.
One morning, before going out, Andrea kissed his wife, and said: “Have
our boxes packed for to-night; we are going to Rome.”
“For how many days?” she asked, without surprise. She was accustomed to
these sudden orders.
“A fortnight at least: plenty of linen and smart gowns. Leave the
jewels at home.”
They left for Rome without announcing their departure to any one. It
was like a second honeymoon. During their eighteen months of married
life, neither had travelled farther than from Naples to Centurano.
Caterina had all the artlessness and _naïveté_ of a newly fledged
bride; but she at once adapted herself to the change, like the
well-balanced creature that she was. Andrea teased her delightedly,
when he saw her head peeping out of the window at every station. He
told her fabulous stories of every place they passed through; laughing
heartily at her incredulity, offering her things to eat and drink,
inviting her to take a turn up and down; and she parried his attacks
like a child. He walked about the carriage, put his big head out of
the window, bumped it against the roof, conversed with the railway
officials, indulged in discussions with newsvendors, and impressed
his fellow-travellers with his herculean stature. In a word, he was
exuberant with health, noise, and jollity.
Caterina did not ever remember seeing him in such high spirits,
especially since that inauspicious dinner. Oh! there had been a
period of dreadful and furious ill-temper; the house had trembled
from slamming of doors, pushing of chairs, and thumping of fists on
writing-tables; to say nothing of the bursts of vociferation which had
echoed throughout it,--a three days’ storm that she had succeeded in
lulling by dint of silence, placidity, and submission. Then Andrea had
calmed down, except for a certain nervous irritability and occasional
bursts of anger, that became ever fewer and farther between. Still,
he had not quite gone back to the old Andrea--the childlike, noisy,
laughter-loving Andrea, overflowing with mirth and good temper--until
they started on this journey. Caterina said nothing about it; but she
felt as if her very heart were expanding, dilated with the pleasure of
it.
In Rome, Andrea displayed a phenomenal activity. He woke early, with a
smile for the rosy face that watched his awakening, and proceeded to
call out his orders to all the waiters of the Hôtel de Rome; they drank
their coffee in haste and went on a round of sight-seeing. Andrea was
not devoted to antiquities and Caterina did not understand them; but
it was a duty to see them all, if only by way of gaining an appetite
for luncheon. So they continued to inspect everything, conscientiously,
without neglecting a stone or sparing themselves a corner; exclaiming,
with moderate enthusiasm: “Beautiful, beautiful, how beautiful!”
They amused themselves, all the same, because Caterina had never seen
anything before, and because Andrea had a knack of imitating the
guide’s nasal voice, pouring forth, the while, a jumble of rambling,
explanatory description, in which Caterina corrected the erroneous
Roman history. They returned to the hotel in a state of collapse, and
dawdled through their luncheon. Then Andrea went out on important
business. To-day, he had an appointment with the Under-Secretary
of State; to-morrow, with a Cabinet Minister; the other day he had
had matters to settle with the Director-General of the Agricultural
Department. Sometimes he had two appointments on the same day; with the
huge, muscular Member for Santa Maria, with the aristocratic Member
for Capua, or with the hirsute Member for Teano. The conferences with
the journalistic Member for Caserta--influential both as the editor of
a Neapolitan paper of large circulation and as the intimate friend of
the Prime Minister--were of infinite length. Then he would accompany
his wife in her drive to the Villa Borghese or the Pincio, and leave
her there; or to San Pietro, where there was always something to look
at; and two or three times to the Ladies’ Gallery in the House of
Parliament, where Caterina, who understood little or nothing of the
subject under discussion, bored herself immensely, and suffered agonies
of heat and thirst. She waited patiently for him to come and fetch her,
with the resignation of a woman who would have waited for centuries,
had she been bidden to wait. Andrea returned to her, red, hasty and
flurried; blowing and puffing like a young bull, apologising for having
kept her waiting so long, recounting to her all his experiences; the
useless journeys to and fro, the inert functionaries, the diffident
Secretary, the enthusiastic Cabinet Minister, the Members’ zeal for
the honour of their constituencies. To all these details, Caterina
listened with the attentiveness that delights a narrator, without a
sign of weariness. And indeed the local Agricultural Exhibition was of
supreme interest to them both. Andrea was President of the Committee of
Promoters: he was to exhibit wheat, barley, wine, a special breed of
fowls, and a new species of gourd, a modification of the pumpkin. The
schools’ functions, of which Caterina was Lady Patroness, were fixed
for the same epoch. There was to be a flower show for the delectation
of the upper ten. The statue of Vanzitelli was to be unveiled, on the
chief Piazza of Caserta, which means, in short, a universal fillip,
the awakening of the entire province, splendid fêtes, special trains,
&c. &c.: the tenth of September, in the height of the fine weather;
already cool, you know, and still genial. It all hung upon whether or
no permission to hold the fête in the Royal Palace could be obtained,
that historic palace, beloved of the Bourbons. Caterina supported her
husband in demanding the _Reggia_, in insisting on having the _Reggia_:
what was the use of that empty, solemn Royal Palace? It would be
splendid for the Exhibition. They must have the _Reggia_, at whatever
the cost. When they had said and many times repeated these things,
Andrea and Caterina would go here and there and everywhere to dine.
They took a long time about it, and seriously studied the _menu_ for
the day; each of them ordering different dishes and tasting what the
other had ordered; Andrea making friends with the waiter, and both of
them relishing whatever they did with the capacity of young and healthy
people for enjoyment. No one interfered with or otherwise vexed them.
Rome is humane and maternal, ever smiling on those bridal couples who,
under the shadow of her noble walls, under her canopy of heavenly blue,
lead their loves through the maze of her uneven streets.
After a short halt at the Café du Parlement or the Café de Rome, then a
short walk, and home to sleep. Andrea was tired, and had to rise early
next morning. But often in those hours between luncheon and dinner,
Caterina would beg him to leave her at home. She preferred staying
there, in a tiny sitting-room that was next to her bedroom. Andrea
would ask on his return what she had been doing. And she replied: “I
have been helping my maid to arrange my grey dress. She didn’t know
how to do it, so I showed her. I walked a little, as far as Pontecorvo,
to choose presents for Naples....”
Sometimes she lowered her eyes and said, “I have been writing.”
“Who to, Nini?”
“To my aunt; to Giuditta, at school; to Giulietta, the maid at home; to
Matteo, the caretaker at Centurano....”
“And to others?”
“To others besides.”
Without naming her, they instantly understood each other. They had
lately avoided mentioning her. Caterina _felt_ the profound antipathy
of Andrea, but neither ventured to combat or complain of it. She had
been to call on Lucia, alone. The latter had received her most warmly,
smothering her with kisses, asking her loving questions, confusing her
with those she read in her eyes: not a word of Andrea, to Caterina’s
infinite relief. Inwardly, she suffered from the species of hatred
which existed between the two persons she loved best. At last, one day
when Andrea returned to the hotel, he found Caterina more preoccupied
than usual. She heard the news that the Prime Minister would honour the
Agricultural Exhibition with his presence, without excessive transport;
she murmured a gentle but absent “Yes” to her husband’s suggestion that
they should spend three days in Florence, returning thence to Naples.
“_Ohé!_ Nini, what is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t tell stories, little Nini. They are visible on your nose. There
is one crawling, his legs are no longer than a spider’s, but he is
black and ugly! What is it, Nini?”
“Nothing, nothing....” she said, in self-defence.
“Say it, Caterina.”
“I entreat you....”
“Bah, innocent witch, I know what it is.”
“What is it you know...?” blushing.
“I know why you are so preoccupied; it’s the Naples letter that upset
you.”
Her timid eyes entreated his forgiveness for both of them.
“I am not vexed with you,” said he, slowly. “If I don’t like the girl,
I respect your affection for her: she is the friend of your childhood.
You don’t love her better than me, I hope?”
“No,” she said, simply.
“Well, that is all I care for. Don’t plague yourself about anything
else. And ... is the letter interesting?”
“Very.”
“'_Urgente_’ was written outside it. Is it really urgent, or is it only
fancy?”
“Really urgent.”
He took a turn in the room and glanced at the clock.
“Shall we go to dinner? It is rather early, I think.”
“True, it is early.”
“And what does she write you...?” without infusing much interest into
his voice.
“It’s too long to tell.”
“I understand you, Nini; I understand you. You would like to read the
letter to me.”
“No, no....”
“Yes, you are dying to read it to me. You have not the courage to say
so; but I guess it. I’m a bear, I suppose. Do you wish it noised abroad
that I am a tyrant?”
“Andrea!”
“_Su!_ small victim of a barbarous husband: as we have an hour to spare
before dinner, and because the success of our enterprise inclines us to
clemency, you may even read us your letter. Unto us shall be brought
_vermouth_ and cigars, to help us to endure this new torment with
befitting patience. Oh! Lord, consider the sufferings of your unhappy
Andrea...!”
“Andrea, one more word, and I won’t read it.”
“_Ma che!_ you are dying to read it! _Su!_ up, intriguer; up, witch. We
accord you our august attention.”
Caterina drew the hand that held the letter out of her pocket and read
as follows:
“CATERINA MIA!
“This letter, which I am about to write to thee, will not be, like the
others, laden with what my father calls vagaries. This is a serious
letter. Caterina, collect all the sense, all the reason of which you
can dispose; add to it all your experience, call to your help the
whole height and depth of your friendship, and be helpful to me in
counsel and support. Caterina, I have reached the most solemn moment
of my life. A pilgrim and a wanderer, without a guide, I have come
to the crossing of the roads. I must decide. I must reply to the
dark question of the future, the mystic riddle will have its answer;
it calls for a 'Yes,’ or a 'No’. Oh! Caterina, how have I dreaded
this decisive moment! how have I halted and stumbled, as with waning
strength I neared it! Behold, it has caught me up, it is upon me like
an incubus. Listen to me patiently; I will try not to weary you. But
I want to put my position clearly before you. Do you remember when
we spoke of our future, on the College terrace? I told you then,
that I should never marry; that I should seek to fulfil a lowly but
noble mission, one to which I might consecrate my poor strength, the
fervour of my soul, the impulses of a heart enamoured of sacrifice. I
sought, and I had found--what human egoism has debarred me from: my
father, my unloving father, has prevented me from becoming a Sister of
Charity. He would not have them say, 'See, he had but one daughter,
and he made her so unhappy that she has taken the veil!’ If this was
my destiny, may God forgive him for not having permitted me to follow
it. Other missions are either too arduous for my state of health, or
too meagre to satisfy my passionate yearning.... My time was passed in
prayer, almsgiving, in seeking to console the afflicted, but without
any definite occupation or vocation. At last, one day, as it befell
Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, a great light struck my eyes, and
I fell down before the voice of the Lord. He has spoken to me: I have
understood His words, and, lowliest among those lowly ones who dare to
raise their eyes to the Virgin’s throne, I have to say in her words:
'Lord, behold thy servant, thy will be done!’
“Near to me, my own Caterina, was a mission to be accomplished,
a sacrifice to be offered up. Near to me was a suffering being,
condemned by the fatal atavism which has poisoned his blood, to an
agonising death. The doctors do not, among themselves, disguise the
fact that his will not be a long life. Carderelli has said, with
brutal frankness: 'He may live some time, if every precaution is
taken.’ But it is written that he will die the death. He has the germs
of phthisis; he will die of consumption. You guess of whom I speak: my
cousin, Alberto Sanna. He does not know the sad truth about himself,
but we others do: he is condemned.
“Now picture to yourself the kind of life led by poor Alberto. He is
very rich, but quite alone in the world, at the mercy of mercenary
beings, in the hands of servants who neglect him, and have no love
for him. Pleasure is always tempting him, but he may not, he dares
not.... His friends are bad counsellors: for when he listens to them
he loses the fruit of a month’s care. When he falls ill, he is alone,
uncared for, utterly miserable; it is piteous, my sweet Caterina. As
soon as he begins to recover, he leaves his bed, wraps himself up and
comes to me for comfort and consolation. He is saddened because of his
illness, because he has no one to love him, because he will never have
a family of his own, because all happiness is denied to him, because
at the banquet of life he may only appear for a moment, to disappear,
like the patient of _Gilbert_. He needs a soul, a love of his own: one
who will care for him, love him, who, if she cannot make the remaining
years of his life happy ones, is at least content to pour out all her
tenderness in them. He looks around and sees that he is alone in the
crowd, of no interest to any one. Living, none to love him; dead, none
to mourn him. Well, this creature, this soul, this woman, will I be
to him.... Yes, Caterina, I shall marry Alberto Sanna. It will be a
boundless sacrifice of my youth, my whole life, and every dream of
joy and splendour. It will be a silent holocaust that I shall offer
up to God. For the happiness of a suffering fellow-creature, I will
give my whole happiness. I will cast my life away for the life of an
afflicted being, whose smile will be my only reward. I am not in love
with Alberto Sanna. You know that this earthly and carnal sentiment
has never existed in me, nor will it ever exist. I am overwhelmed
with pity, compassion, for an unhappy fellow-creature, and out of
sheer compassion I wed him. He loves me with a blind, passionate,
and childlike affection--and believes that mine for him is love--and
I wish him to believe it. In some cases, deception is true piety. I
will be to him a faithful wife, a compassionate sister, a watchful
mother, an untiring nurse: he shall never read signs of weariness nor
fatigue on my countenance. I will cut myself off from the society that
he may not frequent. I will say good-bye to all worldly avocations;
they shall not disturb our quiet household. I will forget my own
sufferings, in alleviating his. If one of us must needs be unhappy, I
will be that one. Mute, calm, smiling, I will bury deep in my heart
whatever might pain poor Alberto. I will be his smile.... The future
is a melancholy one. I know not how I shall bear it. May God give
me strength where strength will be needed. For the sake of my poor
dear, for my poor afflicted one, I must live. I hope I shall not fall
ill. God would not lay upon me the burden of having to die before
Alberto. God does not recall those who have a mission upon earth until
it is accomplished. This thought so supports me that I feel as if
triple strength had been given to me. On the other hand, Caterina,
it is necessary that I should leave my home. My father cannot bear
me near him. He would willingly have left me at the College, had it
not been for regard to public opinion. I have already told you as
much. He is an egotist, and indifferent to all human suffering. From
morning till night he finds something to complain of in my attire,
the furniture of my poor rooms, my friends, the time they stay with
me, and what he is pleased to call my 'fatal’ attitude. Every day he
wounds me cruelly. He says the most dreadful things to me: that his
friends consider me eccentric; that my behaviour is mad; that I am
the worst coquette of his acquaintance. How have I wept; how have I
writhed; poor victim that I am, eternally held up to martyrdom by the
Philistine! I bend my head without attempting to reply to him. I am an
obstruction in my own house, Caterina. I have had to make a painful
effort in asking Galimberti to discontinue his frequent visits; they
were the subject of vulgar, scandalous gossip among the servants, who
made a laughing-stock of him. Poor, beloved friend, I have been forced
to sacrifice thee to the world; at the very moment when thou hadst
need of the consolation of my friendship, just at the moment when the
College authorities had, with barbarous injustice, turned thee away! I
write to him from time to time, if only not to break off too suddenly.
I fear that he is very miserable. I try, in my letters to him, to
write the sweetest words that sympathy has ever inspired. Now you see
what my father has done for me! The truth is that my presence casts
a gloom over his house, where he would fain have mirth and laughter.
The truth is that he is younger at forty-two than I am at twenty; that
he wishes I were married, so that he may be free of me. The horrible
truth is that he, who has been a widower for fifteen years, is waiting
for the hour of deliverance, the hour of my marriage, to marry again
himself.
“So that all and everything combines to draw me closer to Alberto. In
marrying I please my father, I give happiness to my affianced husband,
and peace to my conscience. I need not say to you, who know me, that
no idea of self-interest influences me. Alberto is much better off
than I am; but what are his riches to me? We shall not receive, we
shall only keep two horses in our stable, for the invalid’s drives; I
shall dress simply in black; mourning for a blighted existence.... We
shall have but few servants, having so few wants.... Neither pomp,
nor luxury, nor fêtes, nor balls; the state of Alberto’s health does
not admit of them. I shall be content if he will give me something
for my poor. I shall have to administer our fortune, for he cannot
do so. I will bend my neck under this hard, dry, ungrateful yoke; I
will drink the last drop in the bitter chalice I have prepared for
myself....
“But tell me, Caterina, is not this beautiful? Tell me, my placid
critic, if my self-imposed task is not a holy one? Is not my mission
sublime? Is not the act I am about to perform all but a divine one? Do
I not set the crown on my life, with this motto, which henceforward
shall be mine: 'All for others, naught for self?’ Am I not giving
to others a fine example of altruism? I will have no praise; I will
accomplish it in all humility, as one unworthy, but chosen. Give me
your opinion, clearly, sincerely, loyally, as you have ever given it
me, in all vital moments of my life. To you I can repeat that none
have been more vital than is this one. Write me on a scrap of paper:
'Right, Lucia;’ or only 'Lucia, wrong.’ And return, Caterina, return,
to one who loves thee as surely no other friend was ever loved.
“LUCIA.”
The pure sonorous voice of the reader began to give way towards the
last, and grew hoarse as if from fatigue. She folded up the transparent
sheets, put them back in their envelope, and waited for her husband to
speak. Andrea had sipped two glasses of _vermouth_, and left half of a
third one; his cigar had gone out once or twice.
“What do you think of it, Nini?” he said at last, as if he were waking
out of a trance.
“I? I don’t know; I have no ideas of my own. I never had any.”
“And what are you going to write her?”
“What you tell me.”
“I would have you observe,” he said, coldly, “that the Altimare did not
tell you to read her letter to me, or to ask for my advice. She does
not mention me.”
“But, you see ...” she began, deprecatingly.
“Yes, I see, and I don’t see. Anyhow, it appears to me to be an
unfortunate marriage.”
“To me, too.”
“You are always of my opinion. That Alberto is such a wretched
creature, he does not deserve a woman like Lucia.”
“True, I will write her ... that she is doing wrong.”
“Yes. Write to her. She won’t listen to you, but you will have warned
her in time. Or rather ... wait until to-morrow to write.”
They said no more about it, but all that evening they were absent and
preoccupied. They hardly spoke to each other. They went to the play,
but did not stay for the last act. Andrea passed a disturbed night;
between sleeping and waking, Caterina could hear him turn from side to
side, drawing long breaths and tossing his coverings about. She called
out sleepily to ask what was the matter with him.
“It’s the coffee! it was too strong,” he muttered.
Next morning, he took her aside out of her maid’s hearing, and made her
the following short discourse:
“Listen, Nini. Don’t let us get entangled in other people’s affairs.
We are not infallible, we mustn’t assume responsibilities that are too
serious for us. Let the Altimare marry whom she will. She may be happy
with Alberto. We have no charge of souls. We might give her bad advice.
After all, no one can tell how a marriage may turn out. Write that it’s
all right.”
She obeyed, for her whole business in life was to believe in the worth
and wisdom of her husband.