PART III.

I.

As the trains arrived from Rome and Naples, a sea of human beings

poured out of the dirty, wretched, little Caserta station, flooding the

wide, dusty road that is bordered by two fields, where the garrison

horses graze. The scorching sun shone down on black evening coats,

framing expensive white shirt-fronts, as well as on dittos of light

summer cloth, and blue-and-white striped linen costumes, by which the

gilded youth of Naples--with metropolitan irreverence for matters

provincial--implied their intention of ignoring the Hall of the

Inauguration. It shone, too, on overcoats that represented tentative

provincial elegance. Under the domes of their large white sunshades

came ladies of every degree, in every shade of light, fresh, aërial

dresses. They came from Naples, from Santa Maria, from Capua, from

Maddaloni; chattering together, and gesticulating with their fans, and

sniffing at their huge posies: the provincials quieter than the others,

whom they watched and strove to imitate. The sun shone with all its

might on that bright September day, and the ladies stepped out bravely,

in their polished leather shoes with bright buckles.

In front of them towered the Palace, the poetic dream to which

Vanvitelli has given architectural reality. It maintained its imposing

air of majesty, due to purity of line, exquisite sobriety of ornament,

and the severe harmony of its pale, unfaded colouring, with which time

had dealt so gently. The windows of the first story were wide open, and

so were the three huge doorways which traversed the whole body of the

edifice. And all along the road waved the standard of the province, the

Campania Felice, with the Horn of Plenty pouring out the riches of the

Earth: and the national banners waved in unison.

Onward went the crowd, as if agriculture were the end and aim of its

existence. This September function was in truth a rural feast, a

pretext for journeys by road or rail, and for enjoying the coolness of

the vast regal saloons.... Besides, the Prime Minister was coming to

prove the love of a northern statesman for a southern province. To many

he was unknown, and they were glad of a chance of seeing him in the

pride and pomp of his ministerial uniform. The more sentimental among

them, those who knew him to be eloquent, came to hear him speak. The

ladies were there for the mysterious, unfathomable reason for which

they go everywhere, especially where they are most likely to be bored.

At the middle entrance, the chief porter, in the royal livery, with a

plume waving in his carabineer’s hat, and a gold-headed wand in his

hand, impassively faced the crowd. People passing out of the dazzling

light and dry heat into the grey twilight and moist freshness of the

Hall, felt a sense of relief on entering it. The majesty of the Palazzo

Reale lent composure to their countenances and subdued their voices;

constraining admiration for its solidity of construction, the elegance

of its arched ceiling, the strength of the quadruple pillars, and the

eurythmy of the four triangular courts that grew out of its centre.

“It resembles a construction of the Romans,” remarked the Mayor of

Arpino--a fat personage with his badge of office slung across his

portly figure, and gold spectacles, behind which he perpetually

blinked--to the Mayor of Aversa, a lawyer of fox-like cunning and

squat, sturdy appearance.

There was a murmur of argument and protestation at the foot of the

grand staircase; the ushers were politely inflexible. Unless you wore

evening dress, you might not enter the Hall of Inauguration. Many

of the uninitiated appeared in their overcoats. A tall, fair, burly

exhibitor, brick-red in the face, with a diamond flashing on his

little finger, had come in a cutaway jacket.

“I exhibit a bull, two cows, two sheep, and twelve fowls: I shall pass

in,” he repeated; “besides, I’ve got my wife with me, I must escort

her.”

“No one can enter here without evening dress,” replied the ushers.

“I don’t mind being alone, Mimi,” murmured his wife, a buxom

provincial, dressed in mourning, with an enormous train, a hat and

feathers, and superb brilliants in her ears.

“Well, go up then, Rosalia. I’ll go and have a look at the fowls.

You’ll find me in the park after the speechifying in evening dress is

over.”

And thus did the overcoats disappear in the courtyards or the park,

while men in evening attire and ladies slowly ascended the broad, low,

milk-white marble steps of the majestic stair. The ladies heaved sighs

of content, they revelled in the gradual ascent to regal magnificence

and the charmed silence stirred by a luxurious silken rustle.

Triumphant gentlemen in their black coats crowded upon them, hiding

behind their opera-hats the self-satisfied ecstasy of their smile. The

old Palace, which had witnessed the splendour of Carlo III., the folly

of Maria Carolina, the military fêtes of Murat, the popular ones of

Ferdinand I., was awakening for an hour to the luxury of modern dress,

the perfume of youth and beauty, the cold lustre of precious stones

and all the lavish pomp of a court. That feast of the people, of the

peasants--that feast of the soil, of its fruits, and cereals, and

animals, that should have been so humbly prosaic and commonplace--was

like a refined and courtly function, the birth of an hereditary prince

or an official New Year’s reception.

“What victory for democracy, to have enthroned itself within the

tyrant’s halls, there to celebrate a rural feast,” quoth the

tun-bellied, squint-eyed lawyer Galante, from Cassino--he was bald, and

the only Socialist the province boasted--to the monarchical chancellor,

who was duly scandalised.

The inauguration was to take place in the vast Farnese Hall with its

four windows on the façade; between the windows was the ministerial

platform, covered with green velvet adorned with gold cord, and

furnished with a bell, an inkstand, three glasses, a water-bottle, and

a sugar-basin, all pregnant with meaning. Around them were grouped five

red velvet armchairs. A step lower, between the ministerial platform

and the body of the Hall, was the presidential platform, furnished

with a grey carpet and five antique leather chairs. To the right, to

the left, and in front, rows of chairs for those who had received

invitations, three rows of armchairs for the ladies, and rush-bottomed

ones for the men.

When Lucia Altimare-Sanna and Caterina Lieti appeared at the entrance,

escorted by a single squire, Alberto Sanna, of the worn and gruesome

countenance, Andrea Lieti hastily stepped down from the presidential

eminence, darted through the crowd, and offered his arm to Lucia.

“Follow me with Caterina, Alberto; I’ll find you a good place.”

A murmur followed Andrea and Lucia as they passed through the crowd.

Lucia in her long white satin robe, that clung to her and gleamed like

steel in the sun, where it was not swathed with antique lace, was truly

lovely and captivating. On the loose plaits of dark hair which waved on

her forehead was draped a priceless veil of finest Venetian point, in

lieu of a bonnet; it wound round her neck and was fastened under one

ear by three white roses, fresh and dewy, with shell-pink hearts. No

jewels. The same tint flushed her cheek, which was fuller than of yore;

the red lips, now no longer parched, were fuller too. She smiled on her

tall, strong knight, who bent his handsome person protectingly towards

her.

“Who is she?” “The wife of Lieti?” “No, a relation of his wife’s.”

“She is beautiful!” “Too thin, but pleasing!” “Too much dressed!”

“_Che!_ it’s an official function.” “She is beautiful!” “Beautiful!”

“Beautiful!”

The couple that followed in their wake passed unheeded through the

murmur, which, however, was not lost on either of them. Caterina was

simply dressed in lilac. She wore a feather of the same pale colour

on her tiny bonnet, and in her ears enormous diamond solitaires, “to

please Andrea.” But she was small, modest, and obscured by her friend’s

lustre, as if she had tried to hide herself behind it, and her escort

was undersized and undistinguished by either badge or decoration. He

and she heard the “_Bella, bella, bella!_” that hovered in whispers on

people’s lips.

“They admire Lucia,” whispered Alberto, in the pride of his heart.

“Of course, she is, and always has been, very beautiful,” said

Caterina, in placid and persistent admiration of her friend.

“Oh! not as she used to be. She was not nearly so attractive before her

marriage. Now she is another woman. Happiness....”

“Lucia is an angel,” declared Alberto, gravely. “I am not worthy of

her.”

By this time they reached their places in the front row, opposite the

platform.

There were two armchairs for the ladies, who took their seats, while

the men remained standing; Andrea by the side of Lucia, Alberto by

Caterina. Lucia’s train fell at her feet in a fluffy heap of silk

and lace, just allowing a glimpse of a tiny foot shod in white,

silver-worked leather; she fanned herself, for it was very hot. From

time to time Andrea bent down to speak to her, and she raised her eyes

as if to answer him in low tones, while a smile raised the corners

of her lips and showed her teeth. Alberto, who was at a loss for a

seat, was soon bored and wearied; he had a presentiment of a lengthy

ceremony. Caterina, who had been elected a member of the jury for

needlework, in the Didactic section, was somewhat preoccupied. The

office appeared to her to be an onerous and important one; what would

they expect of her, and what if she proved inadequate?

“Who is that immensely tall man, rather bald, with the long black

whiskers, who has just entered? How tall he is? Who is he, Signor

Andrea?”

“He is the Member for Santa Maria.”

“_Dio mio!_ he is taller than you. I did not think that was possible.

Will he speak?”

“I think not.”

“How sorry I am that you are not going to speak, Lieti. If I were your

wife, I should have insisted on your speaking.”

Caterina started. “I did not think of it,” she murmured, her mind

running absently on the meeting of the ladies of the jury.

“Alberto _mio_, are you too warm? How do you feel? Will you have my

fan?”

“I don’t feel the heat; I wish I could sit down. Thanks, dear.”

“Lieti, will you find a chair for Alberto; he gets so soon tired. I

could not stay here, if he had to stand.”

Andrea sought, until he at last succeeded in finding a seat for Alberto

in the next row, between two old ladies who sat behind Caterina.

Alberto, with visible satisfaction, tucked himself between their skirts.

“Are you comfortable now?”

“Very, dearest.”

“Will you have a lozenge?”

“No, by-and-by. Don’t think of me: look about you, chatter, amuse

yourself, Lucia.”

“My poor Alberto,” said Lucia--speaking so that only Andrea could hear

her--“is a continual source of torment to me. I would give my blood to

enrich his.”

“You are good,” said Andrea.

Meanwhile the people were arriving in crowds, and filling every

nook and corner, even to the recesses in the window, and the steps

of the platform. In one corner sat a group of young men chatting

without lowering their voices; one of them was scribbling notes in

a pocket-book, another making telegraphic signs to the secretary of

the committee, another yawning. Among them was a young woman, simply

dressed in mourning; her face, under her black-brimmed hat, was pale

and sickly.

“Those are the journalists,” said Andrea to Lucia. “There are the

correspondents of the _Liberta_, the _Popolo Romano_, the _Fanfulla_,

for Rome; of the _Pungolo_ and the _Piccolo_, for Naples.”

“And is she a journalist?”

“I think so, but I don’t know her name.”

“I envy her, if she is intelligent; she at least has an aim.”

“Bah! you would rather be a woman.”

“Glory is worth having.”

“But love is better,” he continued, in a serious tone.

“... Love?”

Caterina did not hear. She was thinking of home, where she fancied

she had left the jewel-safe open. With these fashionable gowns it was

impossible to put your keys in your pocket. Despite her confidence in

her servants at Centurano, she could not help feeling a little anxious.

“Do you remember, Lucia, if I locked the jewel-safe?”

“No, dear, I do not remember. It will be quite safe, even if you have

not locked it.”

“Do you, Signor Sanna?”

“Yes; you locked it, and put the key under the clock.”

“Thanks, thank you; you take a load off my mind.”

“Signora Lucia, Caterina, I must go and speak to the Prime Minister.”

“Are you going to leave us?”

“I shall be here opposite to you. Caterina, don’t yawn, child, remember

that you are the wife of the vice-president of a committee.”

She smiled absently, and nodded to him.

A treble hedge of ladies, and then a multitude of black coats, on

which the light dresses stood out like splashes of colour: a vivid,

undulating crowd, disported itself under the gildings of the regal

ceiling.

“Oh! it’s lovely, Caterina,” said Lucia, flushed with excitement.

At that moment there came from the staircase a suppressed sound of

applause. A flutter stirred the whole assembly as it turned to face

the Prime Minister, who entered, leaning on the arm of his friend, the

Member for Caserta. He was lame on the one leg that had been wounded in

battle; he stooped slightly. His massive head was covered with thick

iron-grey locks, well planted on a square brow: the head of a faithful

watch-dog, with bold, honest eyes, wide nostrils and a firm jaw. The

grey moustache covered a mouth of almost infantile sweetness, to which

the _impériale_ lent a certain meditative seriousness. He bowed, taking

evident pleasure in the prolonged applause, one of the few pleasures

of official life; then ascended the platform, and after once more

responding to the ovation, seated himself in its centre.

“He is a brave man: he has fought in every battle; he comes of a family

of heroes,” explained Lucia to Caterina.

Then came the chorus of coughing, throat-scraping, and clearing of

voices which precedes all speeches. Next to the Premier was seated

the Member for Sora, a white-haired veteran whose chin was fringed

with a white beard, a financier of somewhat furtive expression of

countenance. On the left sat the Member for Capua, cool, composed, and

distinguished-looking as ever. Two empty places. The Member for Caserta

mingled with the crowd. The Prime Minister raised his voice to speak,

amid breathless silence.

To tell the truth, the collar of his uniform came up too high at the

back of his neck and gave him an appearance of awkwardness. He leant

forward while he spoke, gazing fixedly at one point in the Hall, losing

himself and his words from sheer absence of mind, and occasionally

indulging in long pauses that passed for oratorical effects, but were

probably due to the same cause. He pointed one hand on the table,

while the right described a vague circular gesture, as if he were

setting a clock.

“He is unwinding the thread of his eloquence,” quoth Lucia, with much

emotion.

He expressed himself poetically, here and there falling into the

rhetorical, ready-made phrases which strike so pleasantly on the ear

of an attentive crowd. “Yes, he was indeed happy to put aside for a

moment the cares of State and the burden of politics, to be present at

this festival of labour--of labour that, despite its humility, is so

ennobling to the horny hand of the peasant....”

No effect. The Hall was filled with well-dressed landowners, who did

not appreciate this sentimentalism.

“Besides,” he continued, “this festival assumes an historic character.

The Romans, ladies and gentlemen, our great ancestors, who were gifted

with the very poetry of diction, named this province the _Campania

Felice_....”

Here the assembly, moved by the music of his words, broke into thunders

of applause. The journalists scribbled in their note-books, supporting

them with an air of infinite importance either on their knees or

against the wall.

“We have named it _Terra di Lavoro_, a yet more poetic name, indicating

as it does the daily call of man on his mother earth, on that

earth--that earth--that Alma Demeter to whom of yore the labourers’

hymns were raised. We also salute her, the beneficent mother,

inexhaustible fount of social well-being, blessed bosom that nourishes

us without stint or weariness.”

Here, being tired, he sipped. A thrill of satisfaction ran through the

assembly, well pleased with its statesman. He began again, shrugging

his shoulders imperceptibly as if resigned to their burden, and

resumed. The moral atmosphere was cold, it needed warming. Then rang

out the sonorous words and broad phrases of little meaning that floated

like a vision before the mind’s eye of the somewhat bewildered company.

He spoke confusedly of enterprise, the new machinery we owe to

England, the _contadino_, the vast future of agriculture; on Bentham,

on universal suffrage, primary instruction, the Horn of Plenty, and

decentralisation. He slipped for a moment on “Regionalism,” but caught

himself up; then lost his way and became absorbed in thought, with one

hand suspended in mid-air, arrested midway while describing a circle.

Slowly he came to himself again, referring to _la patria_ and the fight

for independence. The Hall rang with applause.

“This magnificent Exhibition, which unites to the sheaf of corn of

the poor _contadino_, the domestic animal trained by the aged dame,

the flower cultivated by the fine lady, the school exercise written

by the labourer’s child, is a happy manifestation of every energy, of

every--yes, of every force....”

And transported and intoxicated by his own words, his hand described so

rapid a circle that the face of the invisible clock appeared to be in

imminent danger; he had knocked down the bell and an empty glass. He

referred to the Government, to efface the impression produced by this

disaster.

“The Government, ladies and gentlemen--and especially the Minister for

Agriculture, whom a slight indisposition has debarred from being here

to-day--says to you by my lips that this festival, a living proof of

fecund prosperity and of useful activity, is a national festival. The

affluence of every single _commune_ is the affluence of the State; this

is the ideal the Government has in view. It will do its utmost within

the limits of the means at its disposal, and the power it wields,

to help this brave and laborious country where Garibaldi has fought

and....”

“_Viva_ Garibaldi!” cried the company.

“And where landed proprietors work together with their tenants for the

good of the community. The Government is imbued with good intentions

that in the course of time will become facts. But what appears to me to

be the feature the most touching in its beauty is the holding of this

domestic feast in the Palace of the banished Bourbons--is this triumph

of the people, where the people have so suffered....”

“_Beneeee!_”

“Only under a constitutional country like ours, only under the

beneficent rule of the House of Savoy, a race of knightly soldiers,

could this miracle be accomplished. I call upon you to join with me in

the cry, _Viva il Re! Viva la Regina!_”

He fell back tired, his eye dull under its flaccid lid, while his

under-lip hung slack. Mechanically he wiped his brow, while the crowd

continued to applaud; the Deputies closed up around him, and there

was some congratulatory hand-shaking. He thanked them with studied

courtesy, bestowing Ministerial hand-shakes and endeavouring to ensure

his jeopardised majority.

In the bustle which ensued Andrea hastened to join the ladies.

“You liked it, didn’t you? Splendid voice!”

“He said some stupendous things that the stupid people did not

understand,” pronounced Lucia, disdainfully.

And she opened her fan, so that she succeeded in attracting the notice

of the group of journalists; perhaps they would mention her in their

reports.

“Are you bored, Caterina?” queried Andrea.

“No, it’s like the Chamber of Deputies,” she replied, with placid

resignation.

“Are you hungry?” asked Andrea of Alberto, whose yawns were savagely

distending the pallid lips of his wide mouth.

“Hungry indeed! I wish I were!”

Then all resumed their seats, for the Member for Capua had advanced to

the front of the platform, so that his entire person was visible; he

waited for silence, to read his paper. The Prime Minister had seated

himself opposite to him, in that attitude of mock attention whose

assumption is so notable a faculty in a statesman.

The clear light eyes of the tall, distinguished-looking Deputy looked

at the crowd. He wore the riband of the order of SS. Maurizzio

and Lazzero round his neck, and many foreign decorations at his

button-hole. With his powerful torso, erect carriage, and a countenance

so impassive that it neither expressed sound nor hearing, he was

a perfect type of the ex-soldier. There was no denying that his

appearance was more correct than that of the Prime Minister, his

features more refined, and his gestures more artistic. There was

something British in the grave composure and sobriety of his diction.

He read slowly, giving out every word with a high-bred voice that

was almost acid in its sharpness. And, strange to say, his speech,

which had been written beforehand, was a flat contradiction of the

Prime Minister’s rhetorical improvisation. He made short work of

the poetry of the Horn of Plenty and the Sweat of the Brow. He said

that the Exhibition was a step in the right direction, but it was

not everything; that the economic and financial movement had not yet

begun to work among the labouring classes; that its impetus must

necessarily be deadened as long as the present harsh fiscal system

continued to prevail; that certain experiments in English cultivation

and model-farming had been unsuccessful. He said that it was of no

avail to demand of the land more than it could yield: that only

meant exhaustion. He added that the agricultural question was a far

more serious one than it appeared to be, but that the splendour of

southern skies and a mild climate softened the hardships of meridional

provinces. This was the only concession to poetry made by this

poet--for he was, above all, a poet. But the unbiassed conscience of a

wealthy and experienced landowner spoke higher in him than sentiment.

The Minister listened, nodding his approval, as if all these ideas

had been his own, instead of a frank and decided contradiction to

everything he had said. The Member added, after a telling pause, and

with a smile--his first--that he did not wish to preach pessimism on

a day of rejoicing, and that this insight into genuine agricultural

life was in itself of some moment. The province tendered its thanks to

His Majesty’s Government, in the person of its Premier, for promises

on which it built hopes of sure fulfilment, for he who made them was

a hero, a patriot, and a brave soldier. Ever sensitive to praise, the

Prime Minister flushed like a boy with the pleasure of it; then the

Member calmly and quietly brought his speech to a close, without having

sipped a drop of water or shown any signs of fatigue. The applause

was prolonged, steady, and enthusiastic. The speech had been cold and

lacking in sonorous rumble; but the audience had felt the truth of it.

The Prime Minister all but embraced his beloved Deputy, who in the last

division had voted against him. He accepted the demonstration quietly.

The spectators could decipher no meaning on his high-bred sphinx-like

face. In profile he was more soldier-like than ever, and the only

trace of nervousness about him was a slight involuntary movement of

one shoulder. The public rose to salute the departing Prime Minister;

leaning on the Prefect’s arm, he passed through the applause of the

front rows, dragging the leg that had been wounded at Palermo, one of

the personal glories that helped him to govern. Behind him came the

Mayors and other functionaries, and all the journalists, in a bustle of

importance. On the stairs there was a second, weak, scant attempt at

applause.

“The Member for Capua was fine, but cold, Caterina,” said Lucia, who

was standing to see the people pass.

“Do you think so?” said Caterina, who held no opinion on the subject,

with indifference.

“Oh! cold,” added Alberto, who always adopted the opinion of his wife.

“Shall we go?”

“I,” said Caterina, timidly, “have to go to the Didactic Exhibition;

their first meeting is for to-day.”

“Then Alberto and I will take a turn in the Exhibition, until you and

your husband have shaken off these onerous duties.”

“_Sai_, Lucia, I am tired, and I shan’t take a turn in the Exhibition.”

“Then we will go to the park.”

“Worse than ever, because of the sun,” he persisted, beginning to

sulk. Lucia smiled as if in resignation. Caterina was embarrassed, for

until the meeting was over and the Prime Minister took his departure,

she and her husband were not at liberty.

“Well, Alberto _mio_, what will you do?”

“Drink an iced lemonade and go home. I shall sleep until dinner-time.”

“_Bene_, I will go home with you;” she suppressed a sigh.

“Oh! my poor heart, what a continual sacrifice,” whispered Caterina, as

she embraced her friend.

* * * * *

A little later, Alberto passed alone through the Didactic section, and

calling Caterina aside, said to her:

“When you have finished, Signora Lieti, you will find Lucia in the

park, quite alone, near the lake; she is there thinking, dear soul. She

pined for air, so I took her there and left her. I’m not a selfish man,

and I’m going away to sleep. Can you go soon?”

“As soon as I can.”

Alberto went off on those weak legs of his, of which the trousers

were always baggy, turning up the collar of his coat because he was

perspiring. He came upon Andrea in the Hemp section, in the midst of a

group of exhibitors who were accompanying the Prime Minister.

“When you’ve done here, go into the park, where you’ll find your

Signora with mine, awaiting you in the little shrubbery by the lake.

But make haste. I’m going home to sleep. Is there a bar here?”

“Yes, on the ground-floor.”

“I want a glass of Marsala. Shall you be home in time for dinner?”

“To be sure; pleasant dreams to you.”

He watched him depart with pity for an existence so poor in health and

strength, useless alike to himself and others. But this Minister was

insatiable. As if he knew anything about madder, or dried beans, or

yellow gourds! Now it’s the turn of the cocoons! Andrea was beginning

to weary: while the Prime Minister was engaged in conversation with the

Prefect and the Member for Nola with that cadaverous face and ambiguous

blond hair, he wouldn’t be likely to speak to him. Andrea would have

liked to leave; he was getting bored with the official circle and

the stupid march of inspection throughout the building. Besides, he

suffered from the heat, and how cool it must be out there in the

park! Yet he lingered, a victim of his ambition, in the hope that the

Minister would speak to him at last.

“In the Grain section, I shall bolt, unless he sends for me before we

get there,” said he to himself. They passed not only the grain, but the

fodder. Andrea felt his anger rising as they passed through the Hall

of the Oils, upon which the sun cast yellow rays. “I shall leave him

at the Wines,” he thought; he was incensed and quite red in the face.

But in the Wine section, in front of a pyramid of bottles, the Minister

called out:

“Signor Lieti!”

“Your Excellency!”

“You are a brave worker in the common cause: here is some of your wine.

Fine Italian wines should be cultivated, if only out of patriotism. We

drink too much Bordeaux and Champagne; France intoxicates us.”

“Your Excellency....”

“The congratulations of the Government are due to you, as an

influential citizen, who utilises his activity in this public service

... to which I add my personal compliments.”

Andrea bowed low, in mingled pride and shyness. He had had his share:

the Minister was now flattering the Member for Cassino also on his

wines. Besides, they had been all over the Exhibition; now they were

about to inspect the cattle and poultry in the park.

“Now he has spoken to me he won’t say anything to me about my fowls; I

shall take to my heels.” Contented, with the blood once more running

freely through his veins, fanning himself with his _gibus_, his gloves

stuck in his waistcoat, he slipped away by a back staircase which

shortened the distance.

“He will say nothing to me ... nothing to me ... nothing to me ...

nothing about the fowls,” he hummed, as he crossed the courtyard.

Once in the park, he walked rapidly, but was disappointed in not

meeting with any one at the lake of the Castelluccia.

“Where can they have got to?” he murmured, with flagging spirits. He

went the round of the wide, oval shrubbery that fringes the little

lake. In one corner, in a thin streak of light under the dome of her

white, red-lined sunshade, sat Lucia, on a rustic bench. She was alone,

and sat with her face turned away from him. Andrea thought he would

turn back; yet Caterina could not be far off. So he approached rather

shyly, intimidated by the white figure, crowned with blonde rays, their

radiance playing on her cheeks and on the rustic background. Lucia did

not hear his steps, despite the rustle in the dry leaves. She uttered a

cry when he appeared before her.

“Oh! how easily you are frightened!” he said, with an assumed ease of

manner.

She held out a trembling hand to him. Andrea, feeling rather awkward,

remained standing before her.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“No; I’m not tired.”

“Has it been a long affair?”

“Have you been long waiting?”

“I think so; at least, it seemed long to me;” she smiled a melancholy

smile. “How beautiful it is here, Lieti!”

“Oh! beautiful. What a fool I must look in evening clothes in the midst

of this green country!”

“No; for this country is artificial, it savours of powder and patches.

The branches of these trees look as if they had been trimmed with

scissors. Oh! who will give me Nature--real great, omnipotent Nature?”

“When your voice falls in longing, it is enchanting,” said Andrea, with

admiration in his eyes.

“Do not you long for real country?”

“Eh! it is not always poetic. Sometimes it is barren, at others it

smells too much of lime. But I know where to find your ideal; the dark

wood, the narrow paths, the lake hidden in the thicket....”

“_Dio!_ ... You know where all that is, Andrea!” And she crossed her

hands on her bosom, her voice trembling from desire.

“Here, in the English Garden.”

“Far, far, far?”

“No; near, three-quarters of an hour’s walk.”

They looked fixedly at each other as if they were debating something.

She cast a glance around her, and then bowed her head and sighed in

resignation. Andrea felt inclined to sigh too, there was a weight upon

his chest. With a gesture familiar to him, he threw down his hat and

passed his hand through his curly hair. She stretched out a little foot

whose jewelled buckle shone in the sun.

“You are too beautiful to-day. It is quite insufferable,” said Andrea,

with a forced laugh.

“To please Alberto.... I am not fond of dressing extravagantly; I

cannot see the pleasure of it. I am, as you know, inaccessible to

vanity.”

“I know ... but I think Alberto is a fool.”

“Don’t say so, Signor Andrea; poor Alberto, he is but unhappy.”

“You don’t understand me. Why does he make you dress like that? Every

one looks at you. Isn’t he jealous?”

“No; I think not.”

“If I were your husband I should be madly jealous,” he cried.

For the space of a second, Lucia was startled and shrank back. Then

she broke into her habitual smile, a smile of voluptuous and seductive

melancholy.

“I am always frightening you,” said Andrea, troubled, in a lamentable

voice.

“No; I know it’s only your way.”

“It’s my temperament; sometimes the blood goes to my head, and mad

ideas get into it. Listen, let me say all. If I were your husband, I

should be madly jealous, jealous to insanity. I feel that I should beat

you, strangle you....”

Lucia closed her eyes, inebriated.

“And listen, listen,” he gasped; “I want to tell you what I have never

dared to say to you until now ... to ask your pardon for that evening

... when I behaved like a brute.... Have you forgiven me?” Thrilling

with the mere thought of the scene he had evoked, his entreaty was as

passionate as the emotion caused by memory.

“Yes,” she replied, a barely audible “yes,” that came after some

hesitation.

“You do really forgive me?”

“I forgive you. Do not let us talk about it.”

“One word more. Did you say anything to....”

“To whom?”

“... to Alberto?”

“No, nothing.”

“Thank you.”

He drew himself up as if he were both relieved and satisfied: there

was a secret between them about which they could talk without being

understood by any one else--about which neither could think without

knowing that the other shared the thought. Lucia started imperceptibly,

and then turned and asked him:

“And you?”

“What?”

“Have you spoken of it?”

“To whom?”

“To Caterina, to your Nini?”

“No, no...!” in evident agitation.

“You might have told her,” she replied slowly, “you who love her so

much.”

“It would have pained her ... and....”

“Pained her for whom? For your sake, perhaps.”

“For yours. She loves you.”

“True. Caterina is an excellent creature, Signor Andrea: her good

qualities are remarkable, although they make no show. Love her ever,

for she deserves it; love her with all your might. Before my marriage,

I used to fear that my Caterina, my sweet friend, was unhappy. She

loves you above all; make her happy....”

Caterina was coming towards them, smiling, and a little out of breath.

“Have I kept you waiting very long? Have you been here long, Andrea?”

“No; not very long.”

“Did the Prime Minister speak to you?”

“Yes; he was very complimentary.”

“About the wheat?”

“No, about the wine made on the new system.”

“And the fowls?”

“Nothing, I didn’t go there. And what have you done, Nini?”

“Talkee, talkee, nothing settled. The worst of it is that I shall have

to go there every morning.”

“For how many days?”

“I don’t know; eight or ten, perhaps.”

“A bore, Nini; but you are kind and patient.”

“That is what we were saying,” observed Lucia; “that you are an angel

and worthy of adoration.”

“An angel and worthy of adoration,” repeated Andrea, mechanically.

II.

The Princess Caracciolo, the great benefactress of the poor, the

aged, and the children, presided. She reigned in the Hall of Maria

Carolina, where the ladies of the jury were assembled, with the mingled

air of regal hauteur and amiable piety peculiar to her. An ascetic

pallor had left her cheeks colourless and her lips faded; while her

person retained the seductive grace of the woman who had loved, and

loved to be beautiful. She had left her own poor and her children,

for the sake of these other children. The thirty ladies had, with one

voice, elected her as their president. There was only one man, the

secretary, among them--a professor, a pedagogue, saturated with the

principles of Froebel and of Pick; a bald, ambiguous-looking, and

perfectly innocuous being. The ladies of the jury sat in a circle,

on brocaded couches, where the most opposite types were brought into

juxtaposition. Three German teachers had come from Naples: one, tall,

thin and brick-coloured, with her hair in a green net; another, older,

stout, florid, and dressed in black; the third was a deal plank, with

a waxen head stuck on the end of it; all three had gold spectacles

and guide-books. They were talking, with animation, to each other, in

their own language, the deal plank ejaculating rapid _ja’s_ by fits and

starts. Then there were the Directresses of the Institutes of Caserta,

Santa Maria, and Maddaloni; all frills and cheap trinkets, black silk

dresses, starched collars and light gloves. A couple of professors’

wives, of the genus that teaches, brings children into the world, and

does the cooking. They had pale, emaciated faces, were flat where

they should have been round, and protuberant where they should have

been flat. Then eight or ten wealthy ladies from the neighbourhood,

provincial aristocracy or plutocracy, wives of landed proprietors or

communal councillors; with bored, inexpressive faces, and toilets

that had come from Naples, some being worn awkwardly and others with

supreme elegance. Among the notabilities were the Contessa Brambilla,

a fresh-looking young woman, with perfectly white hair and very bright

eyes; the illustrious poetess Nina, small, fragile and vivacious as a

grain of pepper; the wife of the Member for Santa Maria, a calm austere

woman, with full pensive eyes. All these ladies inspected each other

with a curiosity they endeavoured to dissemble, while they discussed

the relative merits of hand-made stockings, hand-stitched shirts, and

darns in felt. Some of them carried special communications to and fro

from the presidential platform.

Caterina was the most silent of them all; she was reading, or

pretending to read, in her little note-book. It was a present of the

day before from her husband; on its morocco binding was the name

_Nini_. Andrea had become more tenderly affectionate of late, and in

this tenderness she sunned herself with devout collectedness and the

absence of demonstration that characterised her. When they were alone,

Andrea would take her on his knee or carry her round their room in

his arms, murmuring “Nini, Nini,” ever “Nini,” while he kissed her.

And it sometimes happened that on these occasions his voice trembled

from emotion; he no longer laughed his noisy laugh that used to make

the house ring with its mirth. Perhaps it was because of the guests

who had been with them for the last fortnight. Caterina had long known

that Andrea’s character had all the delicacy of a woman’s. In the

presence of those two sickly beings, Alberto, a martyr to his cough,

and Lucia, a prey to latent or pronounced _nevrose_, Andrea restrained

the exuberance of his perfect health. When he went out he abstained,

from delicacy, from kissing Caterina in their presence; for Alberto

never kissed Lucia in public. Perhaps that was why Andrea made such

enthusiastic love to her when they were alone, to make up for all the

time they passed in a friendly _partie carrée._

Caterina was not less bored than the other eight or ten ladies of her

set. She could not appreciate the needlework exhibits: stockings in

coarse, yellowish thread, knitted with rusty needles; shirts covered

with the fly-marks accumulated during the six months they had been in

hand, sewn with big, inexpert stitches, ill-cut and folded in coarse

material; interminable productions in every kind of crochet, darns

done with hair, miracles of patience, that made her sick. The exhibits

had been sent in in heaps, badly arranged and catalogued, from rural

schools, in which the teachers laboured, almost in vain, to teach

the use of the needle to poor fingers hardened by the use of the

spade--rural schools that can neither provide needles, thread, irons,

nor material wherewith to work. Caterina with her instinctive love of

pure, fine, sweet-smelling linen, felt a sort of physical disgust in

inspecting these objects of dubious whiteness. Besides, what did she

know about it? These humble accomplishments had not been taught her.

She felt her own ignorance, and offered up inward thanks that it had

saved her from the vice-presidency of a district.

Meanwhile the meeting continued in academic form, in discussion

that was at once official and colloquial. The vice-presidents read

lengthy accounts of their own districts, and insisted on prizes being

distributed to everybody: the poetess suggested buying materials for

those pupils who were too poor to do so for themselves: the professor

read letters of sympathy and adhesion from pedagoguish clubs and

committees; but Caterina heard not a word of it all. There was the

cook, who did just as he chose lately. Since Lucia and Alberto had come

to pass the villa season with her, Caterina was more particular than

ever as to her table. Those two were so delicate; they needed strong

_bouillon_ and light dishes; quite a different diet from Andrea’s,

which was also hers. She and Andrea ate underdone meat and refreshing

salads; and the fish question was a serious one at Caserta, an inland

town, where the fish had to be sent from Naples and Gaeta, and was not

always fresh. One day, in fact one evening, Caterina had sent Peppino,

a labourer, to Naples, for soles; her two guests often partook of this

delicate, innocuous fish. And now, what with official entertainments,

banquets, and hotels filled to overflowing, the market was cleared out

in a moment.

Mouzu Giovanni, with whom she held a consultation every morning, shook

his head doubtfully on the slightest provocation, saying sceptically:

“If we can get any! If there is any in the market! If it isn’t all

gone.”

This was the difficult question which Caterina was debating, while the

Princess Caracciolo requested the ladies to proceed to the election

of a vice-president, who in one report would combine those of six

divisions. Caterina was in continual fear of not having sufficiently

mastered the study of Lucia’s tastes, poor nervous creature that she

was, whose digestion was completely destroyed. She had arranged a

pretty, fresh, airy room for her--hung with Pompadour cretonne, a room

full of pretty nicknacks, to please her. But she believed that in

secret Lucia hankered after her _prie-dieu_, which she had taken away

from her father’s house to her own in Via Bisignano. One afternoon,

when Alberto and Andrea had gone out riding, Caterina had entered the

room and found Lucia on her knees before a chair, just as she used to

kneel at school. If she could but arrange with Alberto to send Peppino

to Naples to fetch the _prie-dieu_, what a pleasant surprise for Lucia!

It could surely be managed without much difficulty, and it would give

her so much pleasure! Ah, she must remember to write to Naples for

good tea--Souchong; for Lucia said that from September on she could

only drink tea in the evening: coffee was too exciting for her nerves.

The question was whether she should write to Caflish or to Van Bol for

Souchong; Andrea would know; he was always well posted in such matters.

“Signora Lieti, will you come and vote?” broke in the Princess

Caracciolo, gently.

Caterina, scarcely realising what she was doing, wrote the first name

that occurred to her on her script, which she then rolled up and

dropped in the crystal bowl. Looking at her little gold watch, she

returned to her place. It was getting late; they had been there, losing

their time, for nearly three hours.

Elsewhere, at home for instance, she could have employed it usefully.

The washerwoman had brought home an enormous pile of washing, and

Caterina never allowed it to be ironed until she had carefully examined

it and ascertained where a button or a tape was missing. The linen was

new, but she suspected the washerwoman of using potash, because of

certain tiny holes she had discovered therein. She had taxed her with

it, and the woman had replied that she was incapable of such deception,

and that all she used was pure wood-ash and soap.

At last there was a stir in the meeting. The result of the voting was

uncertain; it was even remarkable for divergence of opinion. Each lady

appeared either to have given her vote to herself or to the person who

happened to be sitting next her. The Princess read out each scrip with

the same indulgent smile. She was a woman of unerring tact, who saw

and noted all that befell in her presence. She requested the ladies to

do their voting over again, and to make up their minds to one name, so

that some result might be attained. They then formed into groups; the

Colonel’s wife went from one juror to the other, talking to each in an

undertone.

“Signora Lieti, would you like to vote for the Member’s wife? We ought

to get an unanimous vote.”

“I will vote for any one you please. Will the meeting last much longer?”

“Don’t talk about it; it’s torture. To-day I am supposed to be at home

to the superior officers, and my husband is there waiting for me, and I

shall find him furious. Shall we decide on that name?”

“I am quite of your opinion.”

* * * * *

Andrea, Alberto, and Lucia were walking up and down the agricultural

show. They had driven over to Caserta after luncheon, leaving Caterina

in the Hall of the Didactic Jury, and promising to call for her soon.

That day Alberto had declared that he felt perfectly well and strong,

and he intended to see everything. Lucia, on the contrary, happened

to be in a bad humour; still she had vouchsafed a smile of melancholy

joy when the news was broken to her. Andrea was happy in his summer

garments--a great relief to him after the evening attire which had

sat so heavily on him the day before. He felt at his ease, free and

content, and frequently addressed himself to Alberto. Lucia, walking

between them, listened in silence. They stopped before everything of

interest--she longer than her companions--so that she did not always

keep up with them.

“Are you in low spirits to-day?” queried Andrea at last.

“No, no,” she replied, shaking her head.

“Do you feel ill?”

“Not worse than usual.”

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing ... is too little.”

“It is nothing that spoils my life for me.”

“Don’t ask her questions,” said Alberto to Andrea, as they went on in

front; “it’s one of her bad days.”

“What do you do when she is in one of her bad days?”

“Nothing. If she doesn’t care to speak, I ask her no questions; if she

speaks, I don’t contradict her. It’s the least I can do for her. Do you

realise the sacrifice she has made in marrying me?”

“What an idea!”

“No, no; I am right. She is an angel, Andrea, an angel! and a woman at

the same time. If I could but tell you.... No lemons or oranges here,

are there, Andrea?”

“No, Alberto. You must know that the soil is unfavourable to them.

Besides, we are too far inland; they thrive well along the coast. Have

you many at Sorrento?”

“Oh, a good many; and, _sai_, they yield six per cent. free of

income-tax, while other produce only yields two and a half.”

Lucia broke in with her faint, dragging intonation:

“Alberto, why don’t we build a villa at Sorrento?”

“Eh! It wouldn’t be a bad plan. I have thought of it sometimes myself;

but building runs away with time and money....”

“Not a palace; no big useless edifice. What would be the good of it?

But a microscopic villa, a nest for us two, with three or four rooms

flooded with sun; a conservatory, and an underground kitchen that would

not destroy the poetry of the house; no dining-room, but a porch hung

with jasmin and passion-flowers; an aviary, where singing-birds would

pipe and birds of Paradise hop from branch to branch--and go together,

we two alone, into that fragrant land, washed by that divine sea, and

stay there together, apart from the world: thou restored to health, I

dedicating myself to thee....”

She said all this to Alberto, looking the while at Andrea, who was

rather embarrassed by such a demonstration of conjugal affection. He

pretended to be immersed in the study of onions, but not one of the

slow, chiselled, seductive words escaped him.

“You are right; it would be delightful, Lucia. We will think about it

when we get back to Naples. Oh! we really must build this nest. But

where do you find these strange notions that would never occur to me?

Who suggests them to you?”

“The heart, Alberto. Shall we sit down?”

“By no means; I am not a bit tired. I am flourishing--almost inclined

for a ride. You are tired, perhaps?”

“I am never tired,” was the grave, deliberate answer. “Sometimes,

Signor Andrea, I ask myself what the people would do without bread.”

“Eh!” he exclaimed.

“If the wheat were to fail...! Who can have invented bread?”

They turned to her in amazement; Alberto attempted a joke.

“You should be able to tell us, Lucia. They must have taught you that

at school, where you learnt so many things.”

“No; there is nothing that I know. I am always thinking, but I know

nothing.”

She was looking singularly youthful, in her simple cotton frock,

striped white and blue, confined at the waist by a leather band, from

which hung a small bag; with a straw hat with a blue veil which the sun

mottled with luminous spots; her chin was half buried in folds of the

gauze that was tied under it.

They had halted before a large panel, a marvel of patience, whose

frame consisted of dried beans strung together. Along it ran a design

executed in split peas in relief; the ground of the tablet itself was

in fine wheat, threaded grain by grain. On it, in letters formed of

lentils, might be read: “A MARGHERITA DI SAVOIA: REGINA D’ITALIA.”

“Whose work is it?” asked Lucia.

“Two young ladies, daughters of a landowner at San Leucio.”

“How old are they?”

“I think ... about twenty eight or thirty.”

“Are they beautiful?”

“Oh, no; but so good.”

“That I am sure of. Do you know that in that tablet I can decipher

a romance? Poor creatures! passing their lonely winter evenings

imprisoned within their own walls, and finding their recreation in this

lowly, provincial, inartistic work. And perhaps, labouring over it,

they sighed for unrequited love ... an affection which their avaricious

parents refused to sanction. Oh! they foresaw their own existence--an

old maid’s dull life. Poor picture! I should like to buy it.”

“It’s not for sale. Perhaps it will be sent to the Queen.”

By degrees her melancholy was infecting her companions by the contact

of her fascinating sadness. Andrea shrugged his shoulders in an effort

to regain his good humour, but he had not the power to recall it--the

spring was gone. Alberto, tugging at his scanty moustache, tried to

shake off the impression of fatigue that had stolen upon him.

“Is there much more to be seen?” he inquired of Andrea.

“I,” observed Lucia, “have no will of my own. Take me where you please.

Do you know that I belong to the ladies’ jury for flowers? Yesterday I

received the appointment.”

“These juries are an epidemic,” exclaimed Alberto. “They take our wives

away from us. The Signora Caterina has become invisible; now they want

to sequestrate mine. I refuse my consent.”

“Have your own way; I will do whatever you choose,” said Lucia, with a

smile. “Still the flower jury is a pretty idea.... To feel the delight

of colour, perfume, exquisite form: to examine the most delicate,

mysterious, extraordinary of flowers, and among them to seek the

beautiful, the perfect one, the flower of flowers.”

“After all, there would be no harm in your accepting ... Lucia,”

suggested Alberto.

“Very well, then; I will accept for your sake--to please you, Signor

Andrea, what do you think about it?”

“I am not a competent judge,” said Andrea, drily.

Lucia, as if from fatigue, then slipped her arm through his, and leant

on it. He started, smiled, and then quickened his step, as if he would

run away with her.... They were about to enter the hemp-room: there it

was, in the rough, in bundles, then combed, spun and made up in skeins;

a complete exhibition of it in every stage.

“Look, look at this mass of hemp; it is like the tresses of a

Scandinavian maiden looking down from her balcony on the Baltic,

awaiting her unknown lover. And this, paler still, so finely spun;

might it not be the hair of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark? Oh, how full of

meaning are all these things for me!”

“She sees things that people like us never see,” said Alberto, as if

to himself. “Tell me, Signor Andrea, is it true that the lives of the

hemp-spinners are as wretched as those of the unfortunate peasants who

work in the rice plantations?”

“Not quite so bad, but nearly, Signora Lucia. Hemp-netting is done at

midsummer, in the dog-days; a kind of heat that causes the exhalation

of miasma. The water in which the hemp lies becomes putrid and poisons

the atmosphere.”

“But do you know that what you’re telling me is odious? Do you

know that our artificial life, that feeds on rural life, is an

anthropophagous one? Do you know that the daily homicide.... Oh! let us

go away, away from this place. This exhibition represents to me a place

of human butchery.”

“There is a little exaggeration in this view of it,” he replied, not

daring to contradict her flatly. “For the disease is decreasing, and

fatal cases are growing less frequent. Landowners supply quinine gratis

to the women who fall ill. Besides, if we think seriously on all

things mundane, we shall perceive that human life needs these obscure

sacrifices. Progress....”

“You are as odious as you are wicked. I cannot bear you; go away.”

She dropped his arm, as if in horror. Alberto sniggered at Andrea’s

sudden discomfiture.

“Oh! poor Andrea, didn’t you know that Lucia was a humanitarian?”

“I did not know it,” he replied, gravely.

“Oh! my heart is full of love for the disinherited of life; for the

poor, down-trodden ones; for the pariahs of this cruel world. I love

them deeply, warmly; my heart burns with love for them.”

Andrea felt pained. He felt the weakness of Lucia’s argument, but

dared not prove it to her: he felt the predominance she usurped in

conversation and over those who approached her, and shrank from it as

from a danger. When she had leant on his arm he had throbbed, in every

vein, with a full and exquisite pleasure. When she had dropped it, he

had experienced a strange loneliness, he had felt himself shrink into

something poorer and weaker, and was almost tempted to feel his arm, so

that he might revive the sensation of the hand that had been withdrawn.

Now Alberto was laughing at him, and that irritated him beyond

measure.... That little Alberto, a being as stupid as he appeared

innocuous, was capable of biting, when the spirit moved him. He could

be poisonous, when he chose, the consumptive insect! Why shouldn’t he

crush his head against the wall? Andrea took off his light grey hat

and fanned his face to disperse the mist of blind rage that clouded his

brain. All three pursued their walk in silence, as if isolated by their

own thoughts. The embarrassing silence prolonged itself. Alberto had an

idea.

“Make peace with Andrea, Lucia.”

“No; he is a bad-hearted egotist.”

“_Via_, make it up. Don’t you see he is sorry?”

“Are you sorry for what you said just now, Signor Andrea?”

“_Mah!_ ...”

“Repent at once, and we will be friends again, and you shall once more

be my knight of the Exhibition. You do repent? Here is my pledge of

peace.”

She separated a spray of lilies of the valley from the bunch at her

waist and gave it to him. He placed it in his button-hole, and, taking

her hand in his, tucked it under his arm....

“And you, Alberto, who are the mediator between us, will you have some

lilies?”

“What should I do with them? I have no button-hole to this overcoat.

You shall give me another pledge--a kiss ... when we get home.”

Andrea squeezed the arm that rested on his, so hard that it was all she

could do to suppress a cry.

“Yes, yes,” she stammered, trembling.

“What is the average value of the Wine Show?” inquired Alberto, who

possessed vineyards in Puglia which produced the noted Lagarese. This

he said with the air of a connoisseur....

“Not much,” replied Andrea, with forced composure. “For the

vine-growers have not all sent exhibits. You see, there are the special

viticultural expositions. But there’s some good in that too.”

“Is this your wine, that the Prime Minister praised you for?”

“Yes; and there is some more over there.”

“Does this wine intoxicate, Signor Andrea?” inquired Lucia.

“That’s according; I have some of greater strength.”

“Intoxicating?”

“Yes.”

“Wine is an excellent and beneficent gift. It gives intoxication and

forgetfulness,” she said, slowly.

“Forgetfulness,” murmured Alberto; “and the Signora Caterina, whom we

are forgetting.”

The other two exchanged a rapid glance. They had indeed forgotten

Caterina, who had been waiting for them for an hour in the Maria

Carolina saloon, whence the other ladies had departed.

* * * * *

At table, between the roast and the salad, Lucia mentioned that she had

been, and was, still in low spirits on account of poor Galimberti. The

impending misfortune took her appetite away.

“What misfortune?” asked Caterina.

“His sister writes me that he begins to show signs of mental

alienation.”

“Oh! poor, poor man!”

“Most unhappy being, victim of blind fate, of cruel destiny. The case

is not hopeless, but he has never been quite _all there_. In addition

to this, they are poor, and do not like to confess their poverty.”

“Have you sent money?”

“They would be offended. I wrote to them.”

A shiver ran through the circle. When they separated for the night,

Andrea was pensive.

“What is the matter with you?” said Caterina, who was plaiting her hair.

“I am thinking of that unfortunate Galimberti. Let us send him

something, anonymously.”

“Yes, let us send!”

“All the more ... all the more because his misfortune might befall any

of us,” he added, so low that she did not hear him. A sudden terror had

blanched his face.

III.

“This morning I feel so well, that I shall go for a ride.”

“It would be imprudent, Alberto,” said his wife, from her sofa.

“No, no; it will do me good. I shall ride Tetillo, a quiet horse that

Andrea is having saddled for me. A two hours’ ride on the Naples

road....”

“It is too sunny, dear Alberto.”

“The sun will warm my blood. I am recovering my health, Lucia _mia_. I

am getting quite fat. What are your plans?”

“I don’t care for anything. Perhaps I shan’t go out. I am bored.”

“Bad day,” murmured Alberto, as, clanking the silver spurs on his

polished boots, he took his departure.

Later on Caterina knocked at her door.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to the Exhibition?”

“No; it bores me.”

“You will be more bored, all alone here. Alberto won’t come home till

late; Andrea and I are sure to be late. Come!”

“I won’t go; the Exhibition bores me. I can never be with you for a

moment there.”

“We can’t help that. I feel it too, but it’s not my fault.”

“And to-day, if I went, I should have to pace up and down those huge

rooms alone.”

“Andrea might stay with you,” urged Caterina, timidly, ever conscious

of their latent antipathy.

“We should quarrel.”

“Still?” said the other, pained and surprised.

“That’s how it is; we cannot agree.”

Caterina was silent; after a pause, she said:

“But surely, to-day is the flower day?”

“To-day? I think not.... True, it is to-day.”

“Then you cannot avoid going.”

“I can pretend to be ill.”

“It’s a bad pretext.”

“Well, I see I must sacrifice myself, and come.” There was irritation

in her voice and manner as she hurriedly proceeded to dress. Caterina

felt as humiliated, while she was waiting for her, as if she were to

blame for the annoyance. During the drive from Centurano to Caserta,

Lucia was silent, with a harsh expression on her face, keeping her eyes

closed and her parasol down as if she neither wished to see nor hear.

Caterina congratulated herself on having sent Andrea on before, while

Lucia’s insufferable fit of ill temper lasted. They arrived at the

Palace at half-past twelve. They separated, without exchanging many

words, appointing to meet each other at four. Caterina mounted the

stairs leading to the Didactic Exhibition, and Lucia passed through

the garden to the flower-show. There were crowds of fashionably

attired ladies and gentlemen in those regions. Lucia moved slowly

along the gravelled path to the right, under the chestnut-trees, and

those whom she met turned to gaze at her. She wore a dress of darkest

green brocade, short, close-fitting, and well draped; it showed her

little black shoes and open-work, green silk stockings. On her head

was an aërial bonnet of palest pink tulle--a cloud, a breath, without

feathers or flowers, like a pink froth. Now Caterina had left her, she

was smiling at her own thoughts. The smile became more accentuated

when, on turning the palisades of the Floral Exhibition to enter the

conservatory containing the exotics, she met Andrea.

“My dear Lieti, where are you going to?”

“Nowhere,” he replied, with embarrassment; “I was looking for a friend

from Maddaloni.”

“And have you found him?” with an ironical smile.

“No; he hasn’t come. I shall wait for him. And you?”

“Oh! you know all about me. I have come to the flower jury.”

“But it doesn’t meet till two.”

“Really? Oh! what a feather-head! and what shall I do till two? I may

not go to the 'Didactics,’ and the 'Agrarians’ bore me.”

“Stay with me,” he entreated.

“Alone?”

“Here....”

“Without doing anything? Every one will notice it.”

“Who do you think is going to gape and watch?”

“Every one, my friend.”

“They will look at you,” he said, bitterly; although the words “my

friend” delighted him.

“And if they do, we must provide against it; this is a scurrilous

province. It hides its own _bourgeois_ vices and slanders the innocent.”

“Listen,” murmured Andrea, taking her arm in his. “Why don’t you come

with me to the English Garden?”

“No....”

“It is so beautiful. The great trees cast their shadows over it, the

paths rise, fall, and lose themselves among the roses; under the

water-lilies lies the still crystal water; under the reeds, the water

murmurs as it flows; there is no one there, and it is so cool....”

“Do not speak to me like that,” she whispered, faintly.

“Come, Lucia, come. That is the frame for your beauty. You are like a

rose to-day; come, and take your place among the roses.”

“Do not talk to me like that, for pity’s sake, or you will kill me....”

Her teeth chattered as if from ague.

He felt that she was losing consciousness, that she was going to faint.

People were passing to and fro; he was seized with a fear of ridicule.

“Fear nothing; I will not say another word. Come to yourself, I beseech

you. If you care for me at all, come to yourself. Shall we go to the

cattle-show? It is crowded. You will be safe there. Will you come?”

“Lead me where you please,” she replied faintly, while her bosom heaved

and her nostrils quivered in the struggle for breath.

They did not exchange a word on the way. They met several persons, who,

seeing Andrea with a lady, bowed profoundly to him. Two young men made

whispered remarks to each other.

“They take me for your wife.”

“Do not say that to me, I entreat you.”

“You are not brave, Signor Lieti; you are afraid to hear the truth.”

“You have called me your friend....”

“Do you wish to make me repent it?”

“Oh! don’t torment me. Dialectics are your strong point; your thoughts

are deep, weird, and often too cruel for me to fathom. I am at your

mercy. You invest me, you capture me, and then you torture me. Remember

that I am a child, an ignorant child--a child all muscle and no

imagination. Spare me.”

He raised his hand to his collar as if he were choking; while he spoke,

the tears had gathered in his eyes and voice.

“Forgive me; I will spare you,” she said, sweetly humbling herself in

her triumph.

They passed under a great avenue of chestnut-trees where the sun

cast little circles of golden light upon the ground. The heat was

increasing. Some of the passers-by were fanning their flushed faces

with their straw hats; ladies unfurled their fans as they moved

languidly along, overcome by the weight of the atmosphere. They spoke

but little to each other, looking down like two persons who were a

prey to _ennui_. They turned and came to the first section. A walk led

all round an immense rectangular meadow, which was enclosed by a stout

palisade of medium height, divided into compartments for each animal.

There was a little rack with a ring and a cord for each head of cattle;

the animals stood stolid and motionless, facing the spectators. The

cows had good stupid heads, benevolent eyes, and their ribs showed

through their thin flanks.

“Poor beasts,” she whispered. “How ugly they are!”

“Ugly, but useful. They are hardy animals, and all the better for being

thin; the milk is all the better for it. They are not so liable to

disease, and they yield five hundred per cent, of their value.”

“You are fond of animals?”

“Very; they are strong, useful, and docile. We humans do not always

combine the same qualities.”

“But we have intellect.”

“You mean, egoism.”

“Well; love is a species of egoism,” affirmed Lucia, crossly.

They progressed slowly. From behind the palisade the oxen gazed at them

with serene eyes that were almost indicative of thought. Some of them

bending their necks, under the sun that struck their hides, browsed

bunches of grass. Now and again the dull impatient thud of their hoofs

struck the scanty down-trodden grass of the meadow. The flies settled

on the hard rough hides with their many seams. Sometimes an ox would

strike his neck with his tongue and his flank with his tail, to rid

himself of them; but the flies returned insolently to the attack,

buzzing in the stifling atmosphere. Lucia opened a large Japanese fan,

all gold-dust on a black ground, and fanned herself rapidly.

“Do you feel the heat?”

“Very much. And how suffocating it is here!”

“Shall we sit down?”

“No; I am beginning to feel interested in the cattle. Besides, I feel

the sun broiling my shoulders. I would rather walk.”

“Here are the buffaloes,” explained Andrea. “You cannot have seen any

before. They are of a nobler breed than these cows. Look at them;

don’t you see how wild they look? They are shaking those heads with

the twisted horns. They are of a powerful, sanguine temperament; their

blood is black and smoking. Have you ever drunk blood?”

“No,” she replied, in amazement, yet sucking her lips with a kind of

longing. “What is it like?”

“A potent drink that puts strength into your veins. A drink for

soldiers, sportsmen, and brave men trained to corporal exercises. A cup

of blood expands one’s life.”

By degrees, while he spoke, Lucia’s enthusiasm grew for the plenitude

of strength expressed in Andrea’s whole personality for the vigour of

his powerful frame and the plastic animalism that found in him its

supreme and perfect development. A buffalo, in sudden rage, proceeded

to bump its head against the wall. Lucia gazed in growing astonishment

at the magnitude of these stalls built in the open air, and at the

motley show of sturdy brutes.

“Are these buffaloes savage?” she inquired, timidly.

“Very: the blood goes to their heads, as it might to the brain of a

strong man. They are subject to fits of sanguine madness. They loathe

red, it sends incendiary fumes to their brain.”

Lucia raised her perfumed handkerchief to her lips and stopped her

nose with it. “This smell of cattle is not unhealthy,” said Andrea,

naïvely. “Indeed, it is good for the health. Doctors prescribe it for

consumptive people. Your perfumes are far more injurious, they deprave

the senses and shatter the nerves.”

“Depravity is human.”

“That is why I prefer the beasts, whose instincts are always healthy.

We have come to the end of this section. Here the finest of them all.”

It was a bull, a black bull with a white mark on its forehead, between

its superb horns; a sturdy, majestic creature, contemptuous of its

rack, to whom had been given a long cord and a wide enclosure: he

tramped up and down his habitation without taking any notice of the

onlookers, who expressed their timid admiration by whispered eulogies.

“Oh! how beautiful, how splendid!” cried Lucia.

“He is magnificent. He belongs to Piccirilli, of Casapulla we shall

give him the prize. He is the pure exceptional type, the perfection of

the breed. A masterpiece, Lucia ... What is the matter?”

“I feel rather faint, take me down there to the water. The sun is

burning my arms, and my brain is on fire.”

They went as far as the little fountain, under a tree, where there was

a wooden cup. He dipped a handkerchief in water and applied it to her

forehead.

“Thank you, I am better; I felt as though I were dying. Let us return,

or rather let us continue walking here, we are too isolated.”

They passed by the horse-boxes, a row of little wooden houses that were

closed that day. They could hear the frequent neighings that came from

under the semi-obscurity, under the wooden roofs that were grilled by

the midday sun, and the restless impatient pawing of many hoofs.

“Those are the stallions, accustomed to free gallops across their

native plains. They cannot bear inaction. Some of them can hear the

mares neighing in the adjoining boxes. And they answer them by neighing

and beating their tails against the walls.”

She turned pale again while he spoke.

“Is it the sun again?” he inquired.

“The heat, the heat....”

Dark flushes dyed her cheeks, leaving them paler than before, with

a feverish pallor. She tried to moisten her lips with the wet

handkerchief; they were as dry as if the wind had cut them. The arm

that rested on Andrea’s weighed heavily.

“Shall we enter that large building, Signor Andrea? At least we shall

be out of the sun there. Do you know what I feel? Myriads of pricks

under my skin, as close together and as sharp as needle-points. I think

the cool shade will stop it.”

They entered a sort of large ground-floor barn with a slanting roof,

where every species of domestic animal disported itself in cages or

little hutches. The grave white rabbits, with their pink noses and

comic, pendant ears, were rolled up like bundles of cotton-wool at the

back of their hutches. You could not see them without stooping, and

then they edged still farther back in terror at not being able to run

away. The fowls had a long compartment to themselves, a large wired

pen, divided into many smaller ones. Big, fat, and motionless, their

round eyes, watchful, disappeared now and then under the yellowish,

flabby membrane that covered them. They butted their heads against the

wire and pecked languidly at bran and barley prepared in little troughs

for them, pecking at each other under the wing and cackling loudly,

as if that cry were the yawn of a much bored fowl. The turkeys wore a

more serious aspect; they never stirred, maintaining their dignified

composure.

“Look, Lucia; I always think that turkey-hens pipe for their chicks out

in the world.”

“I have never seen one before. Are there no doves here?”

“No, only animals for agricultural purposes. Doves are luxuries. Are

you fond of them?”

“Yes. I had one, but it died when I was a little girl.”

“I am sorry there are none here.”

A cock awakening from his torpor, and perceiving a ray of sunlight

that had filtered through one of the windows, began to crow

lustily--cock-a-doodle-doo; then another answered in deeper tones, and

a third broke in immediately. And the hens began to perform in high

soprano, the turkey-hens in contralto, while the turkeys and their

kin gobbled in deep bass. Crescendo, staccato, swelled the discordant

symphony; and patient visitors stopped their ears, while nervous ones

ran away. Lucia’s grasp tightened on Andrea’s arm; she leant her head

against his shoulder to deaden the sound, stunned, coughing, laughing

hysterically, struggling in vain for speech, while he smiled his

good-tempered, phlegmatic smile at the animal chorus. Then by degrees

came a decrescendo; some of the performers suddenly stopped, others

waxed fainter; a few solitary ones held on, and, as if run down,

stopped all at once. Lucia was still convulsed with laughter.

“Have you never heard this before?”

A fat merino, of the height of a donkey, with abundant, dirty wool,

disported himself in solitary state in his pen. Farther on, a greyish

pig, with bright pink splotches that looked as if he had scratched them

that colour, stood forgotten and unclassed, away from his fellows, like

an exceptional and monstrous being that eschews all social intercourse.

“Come away, come away,” said Lucia, whose nerves had been shaken,

dragging her companion away; “I won’t look at anything else.” She was

seized with cramps and violent stitches, alternating with a stinging

sensation which almost paralysed her. All the fire which the sun had

transfused into her veins seemed to have concentrated itself at the

nape and set her nerves in combustion. Andrea, who knew nothing of

atmospheric effects, who could bask in the sun and walk through two

rows of animals without discomfort, was unconscious of these painful

sensations; he was as sane as Nature herself. They passed out into

the garden, past the horse-boxes, where a ray of sun was beginning to

broaden. Lucia hastened along with bowed head; now the pain was in the

top of her skull, the fluffy bonnet weighed like a leaden helmet; she

could scarcely resist a longing to loosen her plaits and throw it off.

“I am burning, burning!” she kept saying to Andrea.

“What’s to be done about the jury?”

“I’ll go there. Oh! this sun will kill me.”

“What can I do for you; dip the handkerchief in water again?”

“Yes, yes; or rather let us hasten on.”

They crossed the enclosure, where the bull was now resting on his

haunches, apparently infuriated by the sun, pawing the ground with one

of his forefeet. Then came the whole show once more, with the buzzing

flies, the glorious sun, and the animals’ sleepy heads bowed under

it. Lucia stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth and nostrils until

she could hardly breathe. When she reached the cool anteroom next to

the conservatory, her face was flushed, her lips blanched, and the

brightness gone from her eyes.

“I thought I should have died,” she said, after a while, to Andrea,

who stood waiting in dismay and remorse. “Go away now, the ladies are

coming.”

* * * * *

The Duchess of San Celso had come to attend the flower jury from

her villa. The veteran _mondaine_ was, if that were possible, more

painted than usual; her flabby charms draped in a youthful gown, and

her dyed hair crowned by a small white bonnet; she passed to and fro

with bent back, crooked neck, and a liberal display of feet that were

presentable. Three or four ladies of the Neapolitan aristocracy

had arrived: the Cantelmo, tall, fair and opulent of form; Fanny

Aldemoresco, small, dark and zingaresque, with hooked nose, olive

skin, and dazzling eyes, attired in deep crimson; the Della Mara,

with her fair cadaverous face, dull, leaden eyes, and pale hair;

there was besides a Capuan Countess, with a head like a viper; the

fat, insignificant wife of the Prefect, addicted to low curtseys and

ceremonious salutations; a general’s widow; and Lucia Altimare-Sanna.

These ladies had taken several turns round where the beds were planted,

and were inspecting them through the tortoiseshell lorgnettes poised

on their noses, with upturned chin and severe judicial eye, turning

to discuss them with the young men who followed in their train, and

chatting vivaciously with each other. A little expanse of many-hued

verbena was admired; Fanny Aldemoresco pronounced it “mignon.”

The Altimare-Sanna, with whom she was acquainted, and to whom she

addressed herself, replied that she hated verbena. She much preferred

those musk-roses that grew so close and sweet-smelling, those large

flesh-coloured ones with the curled petals. The Duchess of San Celso

was of the same opinion; indeed, she took a rose and placed it in the

V-shaped opening of her dress, against her skinny throat. That little

animated group of ladies, with waving fans and parasols and floating

laces, the bright-coloured group whence came the sound of silvery

laughter and little cries like the bickerings of tomtits, was beginning

to attract a court around it.

There was the oldest, perhaps the first, lover of the Duchess; he also

had dyed hair, rouged cheeks, waxed moustachios of dubious flaxen hue,

and flabby hanging cheeks; and her young lover, handsome but very pale,

with insolent black eyes, a sensual mouth, and the elegance of a poor

young man enriched by her Grace’s bounty. There was Mimi d’Allemagna,

who had come for the Cantelmo, and Cicillo Filomarina, her unavowed

adorer, who had also come for her sake, and many others, either to keep

appointments or for the fête or for fun. The Prefect, in evening dress,

was always by the Duchess’s side. These people came and went, to and

fro, forming into little groups, yet always keeping together; exhaling

an odour of _veloutine_ and a _mondain_ murmur, from under the great

horse-chestnut-trees. The judgment of the bedding-out plants was soon

over. When questioned as to their votes, the ladies assumed a very

serious air.

“We shall see ... we must consider ... we must decide....” said the

Aldemoresco, as serious as a politician who declines to be compromised.

They entered the great conservatory, in which cut flowers and bouquets

and delicate exotics were exhibited. It had been provided by the

Prefect with blue sun-blinds, and as the day wore on a gentle breeze

cooled the air. In the centre, under a group of palms, a fountain had

been erected for the occasion; stools, wicker-chairs, and benches were

hidden in the profusion of flowers that bloomed in every corner. The

ladies, as they entered, uttered sighs of satisfaction and relief.

Outside, the sun had scorched and the dust had choked them, and

bedding-out flowers were of minor interest. Inside, the atmosphere

was full of perfume and softened light. Pleasure beamed in their

smiles; Lucia shivered and her nostrils dilated. Turning, the better

to observe a great bush of heliotrope, she perceived Andrea in the

doorway, where he was chatting with Enrico Cantelmo; she affected not

to see him, but stooped to inhale a longer draught of its perfume. His

eyes followed her absently, while he discussed horses with Cantelmo.

Then he had a sudden inspiration: she turned round, and approaching a

group of orchids, found herself in close proximity to the door; Andrea

understood her. He left Cantelmo, advanced towards her, and held out

his hand as if they met for the first time in the course of the day.

They conversed with the coolness of ordinary acquaintances.

“How are you?”

“Better, thank you. Why have you returned?”

“... I happened to pass this way. Besides, the place is full of people;

there is no reason why I should not pass through it.”

“Stay here, you must be fond of flowers.”

“No; I don’t care for them. This atmosphere is heavy with perfume.”

“Do you think so? I don’t notice it.”

“Oh! it is overpowering. I don’t know how so many ladies can endure it.”

“I will exchange explanations with you, Signor Andrea. I adore these

flowers and appreciate them. Look at this jasmin; it is a star-like

Spanish flower of strong perfume--a creeper that will cling as

tenaciously as humble, constant love.”

“What do you know of love?” said Andrea, ironically.

“What is unknown to others, and what you do not know,” she replied.

“Look, look, how beautiful is that large sheaf of white and tea-roses,

how light and delicate its colouring!”

“You wore the same flowers at the Casacalenda ball, and at the

Inauguration the other day.”

“You have a good memory. Does this inspection weary you?”

“No,” he replied, with an effort, as if his mind had been wandering.

“Lamarra’s exhibits are the best, Signora Sanna,” said the Cantelmo,

stopping to talk to her. “We will award the prize to him. Just look at

this flower-carpet.”

She passed on. Andrea and Lucia crossed to the extreme end of the great

conservatory, where the flower-carpet was. Stretched on the ground was

a long rectangular rug, entirely composed of heartsease in varied but

funereal shades of velvety violet and yellow, streaked with black; some

of them large, with luscious petals, and others no bigger than your

nail: no leaves. This funereal carpet was divided down its centre by a

large cross formed of snowy gardenias which stood out in bold relief.

“It looks like the covering of a tomb,” she said. “I remember a picture

of Morelli’s: 'The Daughter of Jairus.’ The carpet which is stretched

on the ground and cuts the picture in two runs across the whole canvas.”

“You take too much delight in sadness,” said he, wearily.

“Because the world is sad. These Neapolitan Lamarras are uneducated

people, yet they have a feeling for art; they understand that a flower

may express joy, but that it often expresses sorrow. Gardenias are

refined flowers; they remind me of double, or rather of glorified,

jasmin. The gardenia might almost have a soul, it certainly is not

devoid of individuality. Sometimes it is small and insignificant,

with tightly curled petals; at others as tall and delicate as an

eighteen-year old maiden, and of transparent purity; or it is full and

nobly developed and of a passionate whiteness. And when it fades it

turns yellow, and when it dies it looks as if it had been consumed by

fire.”

She was drawn to her full height before the mortuary carpet when she

said this to him, absently and in an undertone, as if telling herself

the story of the flowers. She was very pale, but her eyes were suffused

with tenderness. A strong perfume rose from the gardenias so pungent

that Andrea felt it prick his nostrils, mount to his brain and beat in

his temples, where it seemed to him that the blood rushed heavily and

swiftly.

“Here,” he said, wishing to get away from the funereal carpet and the

sight of the cross that stood out in such dazzling whiteness on its

dark background of pansies; “here is a beautiful bouquet.”

“Yes, yes, it is pretty,” said Lucia, approaching to examine it

critically, and then moving away the better to observe its effect;

“really charming, with a discreet virginal charm of its own. Don’t you

think so? It is composed of the most delicate and youthful-looking

of exotics: the heart of the bouquet of minute fragrant mignonette;

then a broad band of heliotrope, contrasting the pale lilac of its

lace-like blossoms with the green of the mignonette, and over all

cloud-like sprays of heather which give an effect of distance to the

whole. Heather is a northern flower, lacking perfume and brilliancy,

but reposeful and grateful.... Here at least is a group of pure and

innocuous flowers.”

Yet Andrea felt ill at ease while inhaling the delicate fragrance of

mignonette and heliotrope. He felt as if his breath were failing him,

with an unwonted oppression and a sensation of fatigue as if he had

passed the night at a ball.

“What do you say to Kruepper, Signora Sanna?” said the San Celso, who

passed, leaning on the arm of her young adorer, like a ruin about to

fall to pieces.

“I haven’t yet seen it, Duchess.”

“Pray look at it: that German has something in him, he is inspired;

don’t you think so, Gargiulo?”

“You always express yourself so well and artistically,” replied the

latter, with a tender inflexion in his voice, bending to kiss the bare

skinny arm and hand which displayed the swollen veins of old age.

They passed on. The crowd increased. The murmur of voices waxed louder;

they smiled and jested more freely amid the luxuriant bloom; some of

them disappeared amid the shrubs and blossoming plants to chat with

their friends, to reappear with flushed faces and laughing behind

their fans. The atmosphere grew heavier and more than ever charged

with ylang-ylang, opoponax, new-mown hay, and other pungent feminine

odours, and the perfume exhaled by silken stuffs, silken tresses, and

lace that had lain amid sachets of orris. Those women were so many

artificial flowers, with lips and cheeks tinted like their petals, with

eyes as dark as the velvet heartsease, and skins as white and fragrant

as gardenias. And it seemed as if the vitiated atmosphere suited their

morbid brains and lungs, refreshed their sickly blood, and revived

their worn-out nerves. Lucia’s face was tinted with pink in patches;

her melancholy, leaden eyelids were raised, unveiling the lightning of

her glance; pleasure acute as it was intense imprinted the smile on her

lips.

Andrea began to see the spectacle as in a dream. He could no longer

struggle against the torpor that was numbing his overtaxed brain. He

made violent efforts to shake it off, but in vain, for he was mastered

by a prostration that seemed to break his joints. As to his legs, they

felt like cotton-wool, lifeless and powerless. He could only feel the

leaden weight of his head, and he feared that it would fall upon his

chest because the throat had ceased to support it. Unconsciously he

wiped great beads of perspiration from his forehead, while his listless

eyes still followed Lucia.

“Here is Kruepper, of Naples,” said Lucia. “Oh! look, look, Andrea.”

Kruepper, of Naples, exhibited many gradations of vases, wherein a

monstrous tropical vegetation of cactus contorted itself with the

twists and bends of a venomous green serpent: its pricks might have

been fangs, its branches reared themselves or fell back as if their

spine had been broken, or turned on one side as if overcome with sleep.

These horror-inspiring branches supported a rich cup-like flower of

transparent texture and yellow pistils, or a white blossom like a lily:

superb flowers that lived with splendour and intensity for twenty-four

hours, chalices wherein burned strong incense. Lucia bent over one of

them to inspire its perfume, as if she would fain have drawn all its

essence from it. When she raised her head, her lips were powdered with

fine yellow dust.

“Smell them, Andrea, they are intoxicating.”

“No, it would make me ill,” he said, rubbing his eyes to clear them

of the mist that veiled them. The truth was that he would have given

anything to sit down and go to sleep, or rather to stretch his full

length on a sofa, or throw himself prone on the ground. Sleep was

gradually creeping on him while he strove with all his might, but in

vain, to keep awake. He kept his eyes open by force and squeezed one

hand in the other, trying to think of something to keep himself awake

with. But he longed to lay his head somewhere, no matter where, against

something, only to sleep for five minutes. Five minutes would have

sufficed, he knew it; he was nodding already. The passers-by looked

more than ever like phantoms gliding over the ground; there was no

noise, only an ever increasing haze, in which the flowers dilated,

expanded and contracted, assuming fantastic aspects, strange colours

and perfumes. Oh! the perfume. Andrea felt it more acutely than

anything else. It burned in his head like a flame, it filtered through

the recesses and blended with the phosphorus of his brain. His nerves

vibrated until exhaustion supervened, and then somnolence, and that

all-compelling catalepsy from which his prisoned will struggled in vain

to free itself.

All at once he turned: Lucia had disappeared. His pain at this

discovery was so intense, that he would have uttered a loud cry

but that his voice failed him. Then some of these female phantoms

disappeared silently, as if the earth had swallowed them up. Could he

get five minutes’ sleep now, quietly? No; a shade had approached him.

Cantelmo was talking of flowers, of Kruepper again, and the warlike

sound of the barbarous name annoyed him. What did he think of the

hyacinths?

The hyacinths reared their stately heads in a jardinière of golden

trellis-work. There were pink hyacinths, lilac ones and white,

blending and uniting their voluptuous fragrance. Next to them, in a

large Venetian amphora, stood a bunch of ten magnolias, exhaling the

strongest perfume of them all.

In the lethargy that was upon him Andrea saw Lucia appear under the

doorway. In her dark green dress, with her pink bonnet, she looked like

a rose, a woman turned into a flower, a flower-made woman. To that

flower Andrea felt all his being drawn--and he longed ... sole, supreme

desire, to seize that flower, press it to his lips, and drink in its

life with its perfume.

IV.

The fountain Michelangelo Viglia....

... SUL AUGUSTO ESEMPIO

LO DO AD ALTRUIDA ME,

dripped tranquilly into its grey stone basin. The second part of the

inscription:

IL PELEGRINO, IL VILLICO,

IL CITTADINO L’AVRA.

VENITE, DISSETATEVI,

FRESCA PER VOI QUI STA....[1]

could not incite any one to accept its invitation. In the silent

darkness of the night the solitary fountain repeated its purling

cadence, for Centurano was asleep; its grey, white, and yellow houses

had all their shutters barred. The first lights to be extinguished had

been those of the architect Maranca, who rose earlier than any one else

to superintend the repairs of the dome of Caserta. Next to his, those

of lawyer Marini, who had to plead a case on the morrow at the Court of

Santa Maria; and then those of Judge Scardanaglia, with whom they had

been keeping rather late hours to play at _mediatore_, and because on

the following day there was no sitting for him in the law courts. The

friends of the Member for Santa Maria had driven off towards Caserta

after an exchange of salutations from the road to the balcony, in two

sleepy carriage-loads--lights, coachmen, and horses. The last lights

to go out were those of Casa Lieti, at the corner, overlooking the

fountain. The drawing-room had subsided into darkness; lights had

appeared in the two sleeping apartments, divided from each other by an

intermediate room, each having balconies that overlooked the street.

Large and small shadows--tall, thin ones, pygmies, and Colossi--had

flitted across the window-panes, defining themselves against the

curtains. Then darkness.

A dark night, dark with the profound density of meridional nights. A

gleam of stars, a shining dust spread haphazard, hither and thither,

with a beating motion, a palpitation of the constellations. Under them,

amid the black fields, a whitish line was perceptible; the lane that

led to the high road towards Caserta. The lamps were out. Suddenly the

first balcony to the left opened; noiselessly, from the narrow opening,

a slight white form emerged, remaining motionless on the balcony; it

was unrecognisable. It stood still, leaning again the balustrade. Was

it gazing at the sky or at the soil? Impossible to tell, nothing could

be seen of it except that every now and then the hem of the white

garment stirred as if an impatient foot had moved it. Behind that form,

which appeared elongated against the dark background of the night, the

window remained ajar. It maintained its immobility and its attitude

of contemplation. The parish clock struck the quarter, and the calm

sound rang out gently on the silent air. Then, with a slight creaking

of hinges, the window to the right opened wide. A black mass, that

melted into the general darkness, appeared; but nothing was defined.

A luminous point glowed, the end of a lighted cigar. At every breath

drawn by the person smoking, the lighted end glowed brighter, casting a

little light on a heavy moustache, and emitting a light cloud of smoke.

Suddenly the glowing ember sped like a star, from the balcony to the

road, and the dark mass passed to the extreme end of the balcony to

approach the one on the left. The white shadow fluctuated and trembled;

it moved towards the right, standing at the corner motionless, then a

breath traversed the space between them.

“Lucia.”

The faintest breath made answer: “Andrea.”

That was all, except that the fountain, ever fresh and young, continued

singing its eternal song. Above shimmered the Milky Way that overhung

Caserta. They, immersed in the profound darkness of the night, gazed at

each other athwart its shade, straining their sight to see each other

through it. Not a movement, not a word. And so the time passed, and

again the parish clock struck the quarter--and they stood shrouded in

darkness, without notion of space or time, losing themselves in the

gloom, lost in the thought of searching each other’s features. Once

or twice the white figure leant over the balustrade, as if overcome

by fatigue; once or twice the dark, massive one leant over it as if

to measure its height from the ground. But they drew back and fell

into their former attitudes. Once or twice the figures hanging over

the sides of their respective balconies appeared to stretch out their

arms towards each other, but they fell back again, as if discouraged;

condemned to inaction, to the torture of unfulfilled desire; parts of

that immovable, pitiless balcony, turned into statues of stone and

iron. How long did it last, that torture of the minimum of distance,

which in the night seemed immeasurable, the torture of not seeing,

while knowing each other to be so near? At last a faint breath

whispered: “Andrea.” And a passionate one made answer: “Lucia.”

Through the air projected by a trembling hand flew a white object, from

one balcony to the other. He caught it on the edge of the balustrade,

just as it was about to fall. From a neighbouring ruin, an owl

screeched three times; a hoarse cry of terror answered from the left,

and the white figure suddenly disappeared: the window closed. On the

balcony to the right, the dark mass stood waiting and watching.

When Andrea re-entered his room, he found the lamp lighted and Caterina

standing by the bed in slippers, fastening her wrapper.

“What ails you, Andrea?”

“Nothing; that’s to say, I feel the heat.”

“Are you feverish, like last night?”

“No, no; I was getting a little air on the balcony; go back to bed,

Caterina.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing; Nini, you have been dreaming.”

“The cold air woke me. And when I felt for you, I found you missing.”

“Were you frightened? Try to go to sleep again.”

She threw the wrapper off; her mind was at rest.

“To-morrow--have you to rise early, Andrea?”

“Yes, early.”

“At seven?”

“Yes.”

“Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Caterina put out the light, crossed herself, and immediately fell

asleep, according to her wont. Andrea had waited, throbbing for that

moment, to press to his heart the lace scarf, warm from the neck of

Lucia, to kiss it, to put his teeth into it, to wind it round his hands

and his throat, to cool his temples, and cover his eyes with it, during

his long vigil.

* * * * *

Next morning Alberto alarmed the whole household by his sighs and

groans. On rising he had coughed three times, and while washing his

face he had coughed again. His throat was rough and relaxed, and he

complained of an oppression on his chest.

“Where can I have caught cold? Where can I have caught it? I who am

so cautious. I always wear a silk handkerchief round my neck, and a

flannel shirt. A draught, I suppose.”

He gave vent to his feelings in front of the glass, which reflected

a pale face; putting out his tongue, trying to see down his throat,

drawing long breaths to discover any possible obstruction. Lucia

comforted him sweetly.

“Do you think I am ill? Do I look very seedy?”

“Why, no; don’t indulge in fancies. You have your everyday face. Often,

when I’m quite well, I cough on getting out of bed.”

“Even when you wash your face?”

“Oh! always.”

“Oh! really? But I am so delicate....”

“No, indeed, you are much stronger since we came here.”

“True, but I must take care not to get ill. Listen, Lucia; I should

like to go to Naples, to-day.”

“What for?”

“For Carderelli to examine my chest thoroughly.”

“And leave me alone?”

“For a short time, dear. _Sai_, just to reassure myself.”

“I shall weary for you, Alberto _mio_. When do you return?”

“To-day, at half-past six, in time for dinner.”

“Without fail, _caro mio_?”

“Why, of course! When I arrive at the station, I shall breakfast; then

go home for a moment; then to Carderelli, and back again.”

“Return, Alberto _mio_. I shall not move from this room; I shall await

thee here, counting the hours. Listen, my heart; don’t you think you

caught this cold riding the day before yesterday?”

“True, true; you are right, I am a fool; you tried to persuade me not

to go. I never take your advice, my Lucia. You are my good angel. I

will tell Carderelli of my carelessness.”

“Ask him also if we are to stay on here.”

“Why? I like being here. And you?”

“I am well wherever you are.”

Lucia appeared at breakfast with red eyes, and hardly ate anything.

Andrea was silent, and so was Caterina; they exchanged looks of pity

for the poor thing. Lucia recounted with much sadness the risk Alberto

had run in insisting on riding, the cold he had caught by getting

overheated, and her sorrow when she heard his harsh cough that morning.

“I felt knives in my own chest,” she concluded, with a fresh fit of

weeping.

Nobody ate another morsel. Caterina sat down beside her, trying to

comfort her, holding her hands in hers, in memory of their school-days.

Andrea stood by her side without finding a word to say to her. She

regained her composure later.

Caterina had to go to that never-ending “jury”; luckily it was only to

sit for two days longer. Lucia was so cast down that she did not even

venture to propose that she should accompany her. Andrea, too, was

obliged to go to Caserta, on business. Husband and wife took leave of

her, Caterina kissed her cheek, Lucia sobbed and wept. This delayed

their departure. Andrea was getting impatient, and Caterina feared that

Lucia would perceive it. They bade her good-bye.

“Return soon, my friends; return soon,” she said with intense languor.

They turned to go. She called them back. They reappeared in the doorway.

“Whatever happens, you, my friends, will always love me?”

This question was addressed to both of them. They looked at each other:

Caterina smiling, Andrea confused.

“Yes, yes, yes; I answer for him and for myself,” cried Caterina.

“You, too, Andrea?”

“Yes,” he replied, curtly.

“Lucia appears ... rather queer to you?” said Caterina, in the

carriage, to her husband.

“To me...? No.”

“She is so unhappy.”

“I know....”

“How preoccupied you are!”

“In the Faete vineyards--you know where they are--the vines have gone

wrong.”

“Oh, dear! Tell me all about it.”

* * * * *

The custodian of the English Garden bowed low to the pale lady in

black, opened the gate for her, and inquired if she needed a guide.

She refused, saying that she knew her way. Indeed, she trod the broad

level path, whence branched many narrow ones, as deliberately as if she

were accustomed to walk there. She had closed her black lace parasol,

allowing the sun to warm her arms and shoulders under the slightly

transparent gauze of her dress. Her black lace bonnet was fastened

on with hammer-headed jet pins, like a veil. She hesitated when she

reached the spot where the paths diverged. She turned and looked at

the closed gate; through it she could catch a glimpse of the park,

before her the enchanting incline of the walks, sloping under green

boughs. She turned slowly into one that was bordered by a hedge of

green myrtle, treading so lightly that her high heels hardly touched

the cool ground. The trees formed a verdant arch, like the walls of a

grotto, and far off, at the end of the walk, a hole let in the light.

She wandered on through the grey twilight, suffering a stray leaf that

dropped from overhead to rest on her garments, standing to watch the

lizards at play. Then she resumed her rhythmic walk, while her dress

brushed the myrtle hedge, and her gaze wandered through the murmuring

solitude.

At the end of the slanting walk there was a little vale where other

walks met and crossed; in its midst was a shady valley, shut in by dark

hilly ground that was seamed in every direction by the yellow lines of

the gravel. All round her stood horse-chestnuts, dwarf oaks, and tall,

meagre, dusty eucalypti: complete solitude. She bent her steps towards

the field, but all at once stopped midway, frightened and trembling,

for Andrea had suddenly appeared before her. Without speaking, they

looked into each other’s eyes. He had come from below: she must have

appeared to him like a Madonna, descending from the clouds.

They did not speak, but went on side by side, without looking at each

other. They went down into the vale; Andrea, aggrieved because she was

not hanging on his arm, yet not daring to ask her to do so.

“How is it that you are here?” she asked, suddenly and curtly.

“I can’t tell you. Down there the heat and the boredom were enough to

kill one.”

“For no other reason?”

“I ... thought you would come here.”

“And you were right; it is fate.”

She looked tragic under her black veil, in her black gown, with the

little silver dagger hanging from her waistband. The violet lines under

her eyes gave them a voluptuous and sinister expression.

“If Caterina were to come ...” she said, grinding her teeth.

“She will not come....”

“It would be better that she came; I could kill myself here.”

“Oh, Lucia!”

“Do not call me by my name. I hate you.”

Her tone was so passionate in its anger, her lips so livid, that he

turned pale, and took off his hat to pass his hand across his forehead.

Then suddenly two big tears burst from his frank, sorrowful eyes, ran

down his honest, despairing face, and melted on his hands.

“Oh! Andrea, for pity’s sake do not weep. Oh! I implore you, do not

make me so unhappy, so unhappy!”

“_Che!_ I am not weeping,” he said, recovering himself and smiling. “It

was a passing impression. It used to happen to me with my mother when I

was a boy. Will you take my arm? I will take you all over this place.”

“Where the shadow is deepest, where there is a sound of rushing water,

where no one will think of coming,” she murmured, in a melting mood.

Leaning on his arm, in a narrow lane where the hedges were high, she

gathered sheaves of wild anemones and stuck bunches of them in her

waistband, in the lace round her throat, and the ribbons of her parasol.

Those hedges, blooming in the shade, pierced here and there by faint

rays of sun, were full of wild anemones. She slipped some into the

pockets of his coat and others in his button-hole. Andrea laughed

silently, delightedly; happy in the sensation of the touch of those

light fingers on the cloth. They said nothing to each other, but

because of the narrow path she kept very close to him. A little bird

lightly grazed her brow. Lucia uttered a cry, started away from him,

and ran on.

“Come, come, Andrea; how enchanting!”

They had reached a platform, a sort of green terrace that looked down

over another valley. High up, from the side of the rock, rushed a

dancing, foaming torrent, falling straight down like a white, flaky

cataract, and forming far below a wide, limpid, but shallow stream,

that ran like a nameless river to an unknown sea, between two rows of

poplars. From the terrace they could look down on the little northern

landscape, the placid stream, and pale verdure: while the fine spray

refreshed their faces, and they revelled in the grateful moisture and

the soft breeze from the falling water.

“Oh! how beautiful, how beautiful,” said Lucia, absorbed.

“This is better than your drawing-rooms, where one cannot breathe,” he

said, with a long breath.

“It is beautiful ...” murmured Lucia. She rested her cheek against his

shoulder, and he thrilled at the slight contact. Her hair was turned

up high under the black lace, leaving the white nape bare; her arm was

bare under the silken gauze, and on the slightest pressure he could

feel the rustle of the crisp diaphanous stuff.

“Let us try to get down to the stream, to see where it goes,” said

Lucia.

“There is no road down here.”

“Let us find a way, an unknown way.”

“We shall lose ourselves.”

“Let us lose ourselves, for this is Paradise.”

Soon they were making their way along an endless narrow path. They

laughed as they hastened along. They came to an interminable avenue of

exotic trees, ending in a square with a group of palms in its centre.

They turned into a walk without knowing whither it led; she, who had

relapsed into her melancholy languor, allowing herself to be dragged.

“You are tired; let us sit on the ground, instead of looking for the

stream.”

“Shall we die here?”

“Perhaps some one will pass.”

“No, do not say that any one may pass; you frighten me--how you

frighten me! Let us look for the stream.”

At last they found it; shallower, narrower, slower than at its source,

as if dying out under the trees. They stood by its edge, bending over

it; Lucia leant down to gaze at its grey bed where green weeds waved

mysteriously. A green light was reflected on her face. She cast her

anemones into the water, watching them disappear and following them

with her eyes; then she threw down others, interested and preoccupied

in their destruction. When there were no more of her own, she took back

those she had given to Andrea; he tried to oppose her.

“No, no; away with it all, all,” said Lucia, harshly.

And she threw them away in bunches, closing her eyes. When her hands

were empty, she made a gesture as if to let herself go after them.

“What are you doing?” he said, seizing her wrists. “Let us sit here,

will you?”

“Not here. Let us find a secret place, that no one knows of; a

beautiful green place that the sun cannot reach, where we cannot see

the sky; I am afraid of all those things.”

They began the search again eagerly, climbing steep ascents and

descending little precipices; he supporting her by passing an arm round

her waist. They crossed broad meadows, where the damp grass wetted

Lucia’s little shoes; holding each other by the hand, almost in each

other’s arms, with eyes averted, subdued by the innocent intoxication

of verdant Nature. They came to a tiny stream; Andrea took Lucia in his

arms and placed her on the other side; when he put her down his light

pressure made her utter a cry.

“Have I hurt you?” he asked in contrition.

“No.”

They had to stoop to pass under low-hanging boughs that knitted into

each other like those of a virgin forest. A hare rushed by at full

speed, to Lucia’s great surprise.

“Ah!” cried Andrea, biting his forefinger, “if I had but a gun.”

“Wicked, cruel, how can you long for the death of an innocent animal?”

“Oh! it is rapture; you cannot understand the wild excitement of a man

on the track of a hare. It is a combat of animal cunning; the man does

not always get the best of it. But when he does hit his prey, and the

animal falls in the death struggle, and the hot blood rushes out in

floods....”

“It is horrible, horrible!”

“Why?” said the other, ingenuously.

“You have no heart, you have no feeling!”

“You are jesting?”

“_Che!_ I am in earnest. Do not say these cruel, blood-thirsty things

to me. You can only realise hate, torture, revenge. You know nothing of

love.”

“But I neither hate nor love the hare. I kill it for the pleasure of

the thing.”

“Pleasure! a great word; that which you sacrifice everything to; it is

brutality.”

“I cannot argue with you,” he said, humbly. “You always conquer me by

saying things that pain me.”

“I wish you were good and tender-hearted,” murmured Lucia, vaguely.

“You men have bursts of violent but short-lived passion; but women have

constant, enduring tenderness.”

“That is why love is so beautiful,” he cried, triumphantly.

To save her from being scratched by a straggling briar, Andrea drew her

towards him, murmuring close to her ear: “Love ... love.”

She permitted him to do so at first, and tolerated his breath on her

cheeks, but all at once freed herself in alarm, with eyes apparently

fixed on a terrible vision.

“I want to go away, away from here,” stamping her feet nervously,

gasping from terror.

“Let us go,” he said, bowing his head, subjugated, incapable of having

any other will than Lucia’s. He tried to find a way out, and went

as far as the turning, where he disappeared amid the trees. Then he

returned to Lucia, whom the thought of going away had already calmed.

“Over there,” he said, “is the little lake I told you of, and the way

out besides. We can get there by a short cut.”

They wended their way in silence, he playing with the parasol, as if

he meant to break it, while he tried to subdue his anger. They found

themselves, by means of a descent so steep that it seemed as if it must

lead underground, at the spot for which they had been seeking, but

which they now no longer cared for.

It was a tiny, round lake; its clear water was of a transparent

tint--deep-set in the wooded hills of the English Garden, which

screened it from sight and made it difficult of approach; invisible,

except to those who stood on its margin. This margin was planted with

pale-leaved acacias, and tall, lean, dull-green poplars. Bending into

its waters from the shore, a desolate, nymph-like weeping willow

laved its pale-green hair. The ground was covered with short, close

turf, studded here and there with bunches of shamrock. Flowerless,

velvet-leaved aquatic plants floated on the surface of its still

waters. In one spot, close to the shore, a Ninfea had risen from its

depths to display the large white blossom that lures the male flowers,

its lovers, to break from their roots and die. The landscape was

steeped in a grey light, so soft that it appeared to fall through an

awning; a mere reflection of the sun, toned down and attenuated. No

sound, complete forgetfulness; the cool, unknown, ideal spot where none

came nor went. A hint of far-off, pale, blue distance, high up among

the trees.... She stood in speechless contemplation on the shore.

“What is the name of this lake?” she asked, without turning to Andrea.

“_Bagno di Venere._”

“Why?”

“Look there.”

Behind the weeping willow there rose out of the waters of the lake

a marble statue of the goddess. She was white and of life-size; her

head, like that of every other Venus, was too small and had the beauty

of this imperfection. Her hair was partly bound to her nape, partly

hanging on her neck. The water came up to her waist, hiding the lower

part of her body; under the surface, reeds and other aquatic plants

formed a pedestal for the white bust. The full-throated Venus leant

forward to gaze placidly into the water, her still bosom inflated

with delight, as if she had no cause of complaint against it, or the

plants held her bound in their enchantments. When Lucia turned from the

apparition to Andrea, her expression had undergone a change. Thought

was on her brow, in her eyes, on her lips.

“And what is there over there, Andrea?”

“Come and see.”

It was something hidden in the trees. They went round the lake to

it and found the ruin of a mock portico, with eight or ten columns,

falling into utter decay, and a hole made in the roof through which the

weeds grew in abundance. The cracked walls, after the antique, were

peeling; the ivy was devouring the mock ruin in good earnest; some of

its stones had fallen. Under the damp shelter of the portico there was

a musty smell that made one shudder, like the air of a vault.

“And this, Andrea?”

“The ruin of a portico.”

“There must have been a temple?”

“Yes; the temple of Venus.”

“Venus, who at night descends from her altar to bathe in the lake,” she

said, dreamily. “One night, jealous Dian enchanted her and bound her

in the waters. Never more did Venus return to the temple; the temple,

reft of the goddess, fell, and was no more. All that is left of it is

the portico; that will also fall. For all eternity, through the moon’s

spell, Venus is a prisoner amid the waters that gnaw her feet and the

reeds that pierce her sides. One fatal day the rotten pedestal will

give way, and fallen Venus will lie drowned at the bottom of the lake.”

She was silent.

“Speak on, speak,” whispered Andrea, taking her hand in his; “your

voice is music, and you say strange, harmonious things.”

She left her gloved hand in his, but did not add another word, keeping

her eyes fixed on the hole in the roof which let in the light. His

fingers strayed idly to her wrist, and thence to where the glove joined

the sleeve of her dress.

“Have you a pencil?” she said.

Andrea took a gold pencil-case off his watch-chain and gave it to her.

She sought the darkest corner of the portico, and thereon traced the

outline of a heart. Inside she wrote:

A VENERE DEA

LUCIA,

and gave Andrea back the pencil. He stooped to read her inscription,

and thus wrote his own name:

A VENERE DEA

LUCIA

ANDREA.

“Fate, fate,” she cried, escaping from Andrea’s outstretched arms.

She had seated herself on the ground, with her little feet almost in

the water, so that the white lace of her petticoats peeped out from

under the skirt of her dress. Her parasol lay on the ground, at some

distance. She picked up little pellets of earth with her black-gloved

hands and threw them into the lake, watching them dissolve in the

water, and the concentric circles that widened around them like

wrinkles. Beside her sat Andrea, noting the curves of her white throat,

and the movements of the arm and fingers that played with the soil. He

had cast aside his hat to let the cool, moist air play on his heated

brow. Although she did not turn towards him, she appeared to feel the

influence of that passionate gaze, for every now and then she swayed

towards him as if to fall into his arms. He hardly dared to move,

under the spell of a new and exquisite emotion, inspired by a woman as

fragile as she was seductive. When she was tired of throwing grassy

pellets into the water, she let her hand lie on the turf. Andrea took

the hand and began gently to unbutton her glove, looking sideways at

her, fearful of angering her. But no, Lucia closed her eyes as if she

were going to sleep. When he had got one glove off, he thrilled with

triumph; then, reaching out a little further, he as gently took off the

other. He threw them on the grass, near to his hat and the parasol.

When he as gently stroked her arm through the transparent sleeve, Lucia

drew it away, but without smile or anger; she was looking at the Venus

Anadyomene, through the green screen of the willow. Then she slowly

unfastened the black lace scarf that fastened her bonnet under the chin

and cast the ends behind her: she drew out the hammer-headed pins and

stuck them in the turf, as if it were a pincushion, and, taking off her

bonnet, sent it to join the gloves and parasol. Then she rose, bent

over the water, and smiling took up some in the hollow of her hand and

bathed her temples with it, her lips aflame, and her hair dripping. He

lost his head, and, rising to his full height, clasped her in his arms

and kissed her wildly on eyes, throat, and wrists.... She struggled in

his embrace, but uttered no cry; her eyes were dilated, and her lips

tightly drawn; with hair dishevelled, she screened her face.

“Leave me, leave me.”

“No, love.... my love....”

“Leave me, I implore you.”

“Oh! my beautiful love, love of my life.”

“Andrea, for the love I bear you, let me go.”

He instantly loosed his hold on her. The lace round her neck was torn,

and there were red marks on her throat and wrists; her breath came

short and quick, yet she looked at him with the triumphant pride of

a queen. Andrea, with nerves and senses calmed after the outburst,

smiled in humble rapture. They resumed their places on the turf, she

reclining, with one arm under her head, to keep it off the ground,

looking up at the sky; he crosswise, so that his head scarcely reached

her knee. Lucia still gazing at the sky, stroked his hair with a

gesture that was almost maternal, while he rubbed his head against the

hand that toyed with his curls, like a cat who is being petted. Then

under the stillness of the great trees, a voice rang out, cool and

clear:

“Andrea, what we are doing is infamous.”

“Why, my sainted love?”

“If you do not realise our infamy, I cannot explain it to you. Remember

two innocent beings who love us, who will suffer through us--Alberto

and Caterina.”

“They will never know.”

“Maybe, but the infamy and the treachery will be ours. We are not meant

to love each other.”

“Why, if I love you? You are my heart, my sweetness, my perfume....”

“Hold your peace. This love is a sin, Andrea.”

“I know nothing about it. I love you, you are fond of me; you have said

so.”

“I adore you,” she said, coldly. “I feel that this love is driving me

mad; but it must cease. It is a sin before God, a crime in the eyes of

man, a felony in the sight of the law.”

“What care I for God, or man, or law? I love you....”

“We are guilty sinners. Every tribunal, human and divine, condemns

us....”

“What matter...? I love you!”

“We are full of deceit, bad faith, and iniquity.”

“Love, cast these nightmares aside. Give me a kiss; no one sees us.”

“No, it is a sacrilege. I belong to another man; you to another woman.”

“Then what have we come here for?” he whined like a child. “Why did you

give me your scarf last night? Why did you make me love you? What am I

to do now? Must I die? I cannot live without you, without kissing you.

I cannot live if you are not mine. You are beautiful, and I love you;

it is not my fault.”

“It is fate,” she concluded, funereally crossing both hands under her

head, and closing her eyes as if awaiting death.

“Lucia,” broke in Andrea, in the tones of a melancholy child.

“Well?”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Say it: 'I love you.’”

“I love you,” she repeated, monotonously.

“And how much do you love me, dear love?”

“I cannot measure it.”

“Tell me, about how much,” he persisted, childishly.

“Let me think,” she said, crossly.

“What are you thinking of? Lucia _bella_, Lucia _mia_, tell me what you

are thinking of?”

“Of you, rash boy,” said Lucia, starting suddenly into an upright

posture, and taking his head between her hands to look him straight

in the eyes.... “Of you, unthinking creature, who are about to commit

a terrible act, with nothing but love in your heart: neither fear nor

remorse....”

“Why remorse? I love you, I want but you, naught besides.”

“Bravo! how straight to the goal! You will have your way. Do you know

what you leave behind you? Do you gauge all that you lose or what the

future holds in store for you?”

“No, neither do I care; I only care to know that you love me....”

“Be a man, Andrea. Love is so serious a thing, passion is so terrible.

Beware; there is great danger for you, in loving, in being loved, by

me.”

“I know it; that is what tempts me.”

“I am not speaking for myself. I am an unhappy, suffering being, a

defenceless prey to human passion. I love you, and I yield to this my

love, even if it is to cost me my life. It is for you that I speak. I

am a fatal woman: I shall bring misfortune upon you.”

“So be it. I love you.”

“This love is madness, Andrea.”

“So be it. I will have it so.”

“You are binding yourself for life, Andrea.”

“Oh! Lucia; tell me that you love me.”

She moved towards the shore, and spread her arms as if in invocation:

“Oh! distant sky, oh! passing clouds, oh! trees that crowd together to

mirror yourselves in the lake, bear witness that I have told him the

truth. Oh! sorrowing willow, oh! still waters, oh! reeds and lilies,

you have heard my words. Oh! Mother, Venus, Goddess, I have read the

future for him. Thou Nature, who liest not, bear witness that I have

not lied. ’Tis he will have it so.”

“How divine you are, joy of my life!”

She turned, and throwing her arms round his neck, gave him kiss for

kiss. Then, as if everything were irrevocably settled, she calmly

picked up her things.

“It is fate,” she added. Then the tall, haughty, queen-like figure

moved slowly down the path, followed by her love-lorn vassal.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Literal translation:--“Following an august example ... I give it

from myself to others.... The pilgrim, the peasant ... The citizen may

have it.... Come, quench your thirst ... Here is fresh water for you.”