The news of Cecilia Palladio's engagement to Guido d'Este surprised no
one, and was generally received with that satisfaction which society
feels when those things happen which are appropriate in themselves and
have been long expected. A few mothers of marriageable sons were
disappointed, but no mothers of marriageable daughters, because Guido
had no fortune and was so much liked as to have been looked upon rather
as a danger than a prize.
Though it was late in the season, and she was about to leave Rome, the
Princess Anatolie gave a dinner party in honour of the betrothed pair,
and by way of producing an impression on Cecilia and her mother, invited
all the most imposing people who happened to be in Rome at that time;
and they were chiefly related to her in some way or other, as all
semi-royal personages, and German dukes and grand-dukes and mediatised
princes, and princes of the Holy Empire, seemed to be. Now all these
great people seemed to know Cecilia's future husband intimately and
liked him, and called him "Guido"; and he called some of them by their
first names, and was evidently not the least in awe of any of them. They
were his relations, as the Princess was, and they acknowledged him; and
they were inclined to be affectionate relatives, because he had never
asked any of them for anything, and differed from most of them in never
having done anything too scandalous to be mentioned. They were his
family, for his mother had been an only child; and Princess Anatolie,
who was distinctly a snob in soul, in spite of her royal blood, took
care that the good Countess Fortiguerra should know exactly how matters
stood, and that her daughter ought to be thankful that she was to marry
among the exalted ones of the earth--at any price.
Now, when she had been an ambassadress, the Countess had met two or
three of those people, and had been accustomed to look upon them as
personages whom the Embassy entertained in state, one at a time, when
they condescended to accept an invitation, but who lived in a region of
their own, which was often, and perhaps fortunately so, beyond the
experience of ordinary society. She was therefore really pleased and
flattered to find herself in their intimacy and to hear what they had to
say when they talked without restraint. Her position was certainly very
good already, but there was no denying that her daughter's marriage
would make it a privileged one.
In the first place, Guido and Cecilia were clearly expected to visit
some of his relations during their wedding trip and afterwards, and at
some future time the Countess would go with them and see wonderful
castles and palaces she had heard of from her childhood. That would be
delightful, she thought, and the excellent Baron Goldbirn of Vienna
would die of envy. Not that she wished him to die of envy, nor of
anything else; she merely thought of his feelings.
Then--and perhaps that was what gave her the most real
satisfaction--Cecilia was to take the place for which her beauty and her
talents had destined her, but which her birth had not given her. The
mother's heart was filled with affectionate pride when she realised that
the marvel she had brought into the world, the most wonderful girl that
ever lived, her only child, was to be the mother of kings' and queens'
second cousins. It was quite indifferent that she should be called plain
Signora d'Este, and not princess, or duchess, or marchioness. The
Countess did not care a straw for titles, for she had lived in a world
where they are as plentiful as figs in August; but to be the mother of a
king's second cousin was something worth living for, and she herself
would be the mother-in-law of an ex-King's son, which would have made
her the something-in-law of the ex-King himself, if he had been alive.
Yet she cared very little for herself in comparison with Cecilia. She
was only a vicarious snob, after all, and a very motherly and loving
one, with harmless faults and weaknesses which every one forgave.
The Princess Anatolie saw that the impression was made, and was
satisfied for the present. She meant to have a little serious
conversation with the Countess before they parted for the summer, and
before the first impression had worn off, but it would have been a great
mistake to talk business on such an occasion as the present. The fish
was netted, that was the main thing; the next was to hasten the marriage
as much as possible, for the Princess saw at once that Cecilia was not
really in love with Guido, and as the fortune was hers, the girl had the
power to draw back at the last moment; that is to say, that all the
mothers of marriageable sons would declare that she was quite right in
doing what Italian society never quite pardons in ordinary cases. An
Italian girl who has broken off an engagement after it is announced does
not easily find a husband at any price.
Cecilia noticed that Monsieur Leroy was not present at the dinner, and
as she sat next to Guido she asked him the reason in an undertone.
"I do not know," he answered. "He is probably dining out. My aunt's
relations do not like him much, I believe."
The Countess was affectionately intent on everything her daughter said
and did, and was possessed of very good hearing; she caught the exchange
of question and answer, and it occurred to her that an absent person
might always be made a subject of conversation. She was not far from the
Princess at table.
"By-the-bye," she asked, agreeably, "where is Monsieur Leroy?"
Every one heard her speak, and to her amazement and confusion her words
produced one of those appalling silences which are remembered through
life by those who have accidentally caused them. Cecilia looked at
Guido, and he was gravely occupied in digging the little bits of truffle
out of some pate de foie gras on his plate, for he did not like
truffles. Not a muscle of his face moved.
"I suppose he is at home," the Princess answered after a few seconds, in
her most disagreeable and metallic tone.
As Monsieur Leroy had told Cecilia that he lived in the house, she
opened her eyes. Nobody spoke for several moments, and the Countess got
very red, and fanned herself. A stout old gentleman of an apoplectic
complexion and a merry turn of mind struggled a moment with an evident
desire to laugh, then grasped his glass desperately, tried to drink,
choked himself, and coughed and sputtered, just as if he had not been a
member of an imperial family, but just a common mortal.
"You are a good shot, Guido," said a man who was very much like him, but
was older and had iron-grey hair, "you must be sure to come to us for
the opening of the season."
"I should like to," Guido answered, "but it is always a state function
at your place."
"The Emperor is not coming this year," explained the first speaker.
"Why not?" asked the Princess Anatolie. "I thought he always did."
The man with the iron-grey hair proceeded to explain why the Emperor was
not coming, and the conversation began again, much to the relief of
every one. The Countess listened attentively, for she was not quite sure
which Emperor they meant.
"Please ask your mother not to talk about Monsieur Leroy," Guido said,
almost in a whisper.
Cecilia thought that the advice would scarcely be needed after what had
just happened, but she promised to convey it, and begged Guido to tell
her the reason for what he said when he should have a chance.
"I am sorry to say that I cannot," he answered, and at once began to
talk about an indifferent subject.
Cecilia answered him rather indolently, but not absently. She was at
least glad that he did not speak of their future plans, where any one
might hear what he said.
She was growing used to the idea that she had promised to marry him, and
that everybody expected the wedding to take place in a few weeks, though
it looked utterly impossible to her.
It was as if she had exchanged characters with him. He had become
hopeful, enthusiastic, in love with life, actively exerting himself in
every way. In a few days she had grown indolent and vacillating, and was
willing to let every question decide itself rather than to force her
decision upon circumstances. She felt that she was not what she had
believed herself to be, and that it therefore mattered little what
became of her. If she married Guido she should not live long, but it
would be the same if she married any one else, since there was no one
whom she liked half as much.
On the day after the engagement was announced Lamberti came, with Guido,
to offer his congratulations. Cecilia saw that he was thin and looked as
if he were living under a strain of some sort, but she did not think
that his manner changed in the least when he spoke to her. His words
were what she might have expected, few, concise, and well chosen, but
his face was expressionless, and his eyes were dull and impenetrable. He
stayed twenty minutes, talking most of the time with her mother, and
then took his leave. As soon as he had turned to go, Cecilia
unconsciously watched him. He went out and shut the door very softly
after him, and she started and caught her breath. It was only the
shutting of a door, of course, and the door was like any other door, and
made the same noise when one shut it--the click of a well-made lock when
the spring pushes the bevelled latch-bolt into the socket. But it was
exactly the sound she thought she heard each time her dream ended.
The impression had passed in a flash, and no one had noticed her nervous
movement. Since then, she had not met Lamberti, for after the engagement
was made known she went out less, and Guido spent much more of his time
at the Palazzo Massimo. Many people were leaving Rome, too, and those
who remained were no longer inclined to congregate together, but stayed
at home in the evening and only went out in the daytime when it was
cool. Some had boys who had to pass their public examinations before the
family could go into the country. Others were senators of the Kingdom,
obliged to stay in town till the end of the session; some were connected
with the ministry and had work to do; and some stayed because they liked
it, for though the weather was warm it was not yet what could be called
hot.
The Countess wished the wedding to take place in July, and Guido agreed
to anything that could hasten it. Cecilia said nothing, for she could
not believe that she was really to be married. Something must happen to
prevent it, even at the last minute, something natural but unexpected,
something, above all, by which she should be spared the humiliation of
explaining to Guido what she felt, and why she had honestly believed
that she loved him.
And after all, if she were obliged to marry him, she supposed that she
would never be more unhappy than she was already. It was her fate, that
was all that could be said, and she must bear it, and perhaps it would
not be so hard as it seemed. A character weaker than hers might perhaps
have turned against Guido; she might have found her friendly affection
suddenly changed into a capricious dislike that would soon lead to
positive hatred. But there was no fear of that. She only wished that he
would not talk perpetually about the future, with so much absolute
confidence, when it seemed to her so terribly problematic.
Such conversations were made all the more difficult to sustain by the
fact that if they were married, she, as the possessor of the fortune,
would be obliged to decide many questions with regard to their manner of
life.
"For my part," Guido said, "I do not care where we live, so long as you
like the place, but you will naturally wish to be near your mother."
"Oh yes!" cried Cecilia, with more conviction than she had shown about
anything of late. "I could not bear to be separated from her!"
Lamberti had once observed to Guido that she was an indulgent daughter;
and Guido had smiled and reminded his friend of the younger Dumas, who
once said that his father always seemed to him a favourite child that
had been born to him before he came into the world. Cecilia was
certainly fond of her mother, but it had never occurred to Guido that
she could not live without her. He was in a state of mind, however, in
which a man in love accepts everything as a matter of course, and he
merely answered that in that case they would naturally live in Rome.
"We could just live here, for the present," she said. "There is the
Palazzo Massimo. I am sure it is big enough. Should you dislike it?"
She was thinking that if she could keep her own room, and have Petersen
with her, and her mother, the change would not be so great after all.
Guido said nothing, and his expression was a blank.
"Why not?" Cecilia insisted, and all sorts of practical reasons
suggested themselves at once. "It is a very comfortable house, though it
is a little ghostly at night. There are dreadful stories about it, you
know. But what does that matter? It is big, and in a good part of the
city, and we have just furnished it; so of what use in the world is it
to go and do the same thing over again, in the next street?"
"That is very sensible," Guido was obliged to admit.
"But you do not like the idea, I am sure," Cecilia said, in a tone of
disappointment.
"I had not meant that we should live in the same house with your
mother," Guido said, with a smile. "Of course, she is a very charming
woman, and I like her very much, but I think that when people marry they
had much better go and live by themselves."
"Nobody ever used to," objected Cecilia. "It is only of late years that
they do it in Rome. Oh, I see!" she cried suddenly. "How dull of me!
Yes. I understand. It is quite natural."
"What?" asked Guido with some curiosity.
"You would feel that you had simply come to live in our house, because
you have no house of your own for us to live in. I ought to have thought
of that."
She seemed distressed, fancying that she had hurt him, but he had no
false pride.
"Every one knows my position," he answered. "Every one knows that if we
live in a palace, in the way you are used to live, it will be with your
money."
There was a little pause, for Cecilia did not know what to say. Guido
continued, following his own thoughts:
"If I did not love you as much as I do, I could not possibly live on
your fortune," he said. "I used to say that nothing could ever make me
marry an heiress, and I meant it. One generally ends by doing what one
says one will never do. A cousin of mine detested Germans and had the
most extraordinary aversion for people who had any physical defect. She
married a German who had lost the use of one leg by a wound in battle,
and was extremely lame."
"Did she love him?" asked Cecilia.
"Devotedly, to his dying day. They were the most perfectly loving couple
I ever knew."
"Would you rather I were lame than rich?" Cecilia asked, with a little
laugh.
Guido laughed too.
"That is one of those questions that have no answers. How could I wish
anything so perfect as you are to have any defect? But I will tell you a
story. An Englishman was very much in love with a lady who was lame, and
she loved him but would not marry him. She said that he should not be
tied to a cripple all his life. He was one of those magnificent
Englishmen you see sometimes, bigger and better looking than other men.
When he saw that she was in earnest he went away and scoured Europe till
he found what he wanted--a starving young surgeon who was willing to cut
off one of his legs for a large sum of money. That was before the days
of chloroform. When the Englishman had recovered, he went home with his
wooden leg, and asked the lady if she would marry him, then. She did,
and they were happy."
"Is that true?" Cecilia asked.
"I have always believed it. That was the real thing."
"Yes. That was the real thing."
Cecilia's voice trembled a very little, and her eyes glistened.
"The truth is," said Guido, "that it is easier to have one's leg cut off
than to make a fortune."
He was amused at his thought, but Cecilia was wondering what she would
be willing to suffer, and able to bear, if any suffering could buy her
freedom. At the same time, she knew that she would do a great deal to
help him if he were in need or distress. She wondered, too, whether
there could be any fixed relation between a sacrifice made for love and
one made for friendship's sake.
"There must never be any question of money between us," she said, after
a pause. "What is mine must be ours, and what is ours must be as much
yours as mine."
"No," Guido answered gently. "That is not possible. I have quite enough
for anything I shall ever need, but you must live in the way you like,
and where you like, with your own fortune."
"And you will be a sort of perpetual guest in my house!"
For the first time there was a little bitterness in her laugh, and he
looked at her quickly, for after the way she had spoken he had not
thought that what he had said could have offended her. Of the two, he
fancied that his own position was the harder to accept, the position of
the "perpetual guest" in his wife's palace, just able to pay for his
gloves, his cigarettes, and his small luxuries. He did not quite
understand why she was hurt, as she seemed to be.
On her part she felt as if she had done all she could, and was angry
with herself, and not with him, because all her fortune was not worth a
tenth of what he was giving her, nor a hundredth part. For an instant
she was on the point of speaking out frankly, to tell him that she had
made a great mistake. Then she thought of what he would suffer, and once
more she resolved to think it all over before finally deciding.
So nothing was decided. For when she was alone, all the old reasons came
and arrayed themselves before her, with their hopeless little faces,
like poor children standing in a row to be inspected, and trying to look
their best though their clothes were ragged and their little shoes were
out at the toes.
But they were the only reasons she had, and she coaxed them into a sort
of unreal activity till they brought her back to the listless state in
which she had lived of late, and in which it did not matter what became
of her, since she must marry Guido in the end.
Her mother paid no attention to her moods. Cecilia had always been
subject to moods, she said to herself, and it was not at all strange
that she should not behave like other girls. Guido seemed satisfied, and
that was the main thing, after all. He was not, but he was careful not
to say so.
The preparations for the wedding went on, and the Countess made up her
mind that it should take place at the end of July. It would be so much
more convenient to get it over at once, and the sooner Cecilia returned
from her honeymoon, the sooner her mother could see her again. The good
lady knew that she should be very unhappy when she was separated from
the child she had idolised all her life; but she had always looked upon
marriage as an absolute necessity, and after being married twice
herself, she was inclined to consider it as an absolute good. She would
no more have thought of delaying the wedding from selfish considerations
than she would have thought of cutting off Cecilia's beautiful hair in
order to have it made up into a false braid and wear it herself. So she
busied herself with the dressmakers, and only regretted that both
Cecilia and Guido flatly refused to go to Paris. It did not matter quite
so much, because only three months had elapsed since the last interview
with Doucet, and all the new summer things had come; and after all one
could write, and some things were very good in Rome, as for instance all
the fine needle-work done by the nuns. It would have been easier if
Cecilia had shown some little interest in her wedding outfit.
The girl tried hard to care about what was being made for her, and was
patient in having gowns tried on, and in listening to her mother's
advice. The days passed slowly and it grew hotter.
After she had become engaged to Guido, she had broken with her dream
life by an effort which had cost her more than she cared to remember.
She had felt that it was not the part of a faithful woman to go on
loving an imaginary man in her dreams, when she was the promised wife of
another, even though she loved that other less or not at all.
It was a maidenly and an honest conviction, but at the root of it lay
also an unacknowledged fear which made it even stronger. The man in the
dream might grow more and more like Lamberti, the dream itself might
change, the man might have power over her, instead of submitting to her
will, and he might begin to lead her whither he would. The mere idea was
horrible. It was better to break off, if she could, and to remember the
exquisite Vestal, faithful to her vows, living her life of saintly
purity to the very end, in a love altogether beyond material things. To
let that vision be marred, to suffer that life to be polluted by
mortality, to see the Vestal break the old promises and fall to the
level of an ordinary woman, would be to lose a part of herself and all
that portion of her own existence which had been dearest to her. That
would happen if the man's eyes changed ever so little from what they
were in the dream to the likeness of those living ones that glittered
and were ruthless. For the dream had really changed on the very night
after she had met Lamberti; the loving look had been followed by the one
fierce kiss she could never forget, and though afterwards the rest of
the dream had all come back and had gone on to its end as before, that
one kiss came with it again and again, and in that moment the eyes were
Lamberti's own. It was no wonder that she dared not look into them when
she met him.
And worse still, she had begun to long for it in the dream. She blushed
at the thought. If by any unheard-of outrage Lamberti should ever touch
her lips with his in real life, she knew that she would scream and
struggle and escape, unless his eyes forced her to yield. Then she
should die. She was sure of it. But she would kill herself rather than
be touched by him.
She did not understand exactly, that is to say, scientifically, how she
put herself into the dream state, for it was not a natural sleep, if it
were sleep at all. She did not put out the light and lay her head on the
pillow and lose consciousness, as Lamberti did, and then at once see the
vision. In real sleep, she rarely dreamed at all, and never of what she
always thought of as her other life. To reach that, she had to use her
will, being wide awake, with her eyes open, concentrating her thoughts
at first, as it seemed to her, to a single point, and then abandoning
that point altogether, so that she thought of nothing while she waited.
It was in her power not to begin the process, in other words not to
hypnotise herself, though she never thought of it by that name; and when
she had answered Guido's question, rightly or wrongly, she knew that it
must be right to break the old habit. But she did not know what she had
resolved to forego till the temptation came, that very night, after she
had shut the door, and when she was about to light the candles, by force
of habit. She checked herself. There was the high chair she loved to sit
in, with the candles behind her, waiting for her in the same place. If
she sat in it, the light would cast her shadow before her and the vision
would presently rise in it.
She had taken the lid off the little Wedgwood match box and the candles
were before her. It seemed as if some physical power were going to force
her to strike the wax match in spite of herself. If she did, five
minutes would not pass before she should see the marble court of the
Vestals' house, and then the rest--the kiss, and then the rest. She
stiffened her arm, as if to resist the force that tried to move it
against her will, and she held her breath and then breathed hard again.
She felt her throat growing slowly dry and the blood rising with a
strange pressure to the back of her head. If she let her hand move to
take the match, she was lost. As the temptation increased she tried to
say a prayer.
Then, she did not know how, it grew less, as if a sort of crisis were
past, and she drew a long breath of relief as her arm relaxed, and she
replaced the lid on the box. She turned from the table and took the big
chair away from its usual place. It was a heavy thing for a woman to
carry, but she did not notice the weight till she had set it against the
wall at the further end of the room.
She slept little that night, but she slept naturally, and when she awoke
there was no sound of the door being softly closed. But she missed
something, and felt a dull, inexplicable want all the next day.
A habit is not broken by a single interruption. It is hard for a man
whose nerves are accustomed to a stimulant or a narcotic to go without
it for one day, but that is as nothing compared with giving it up
altogether. Specialists can decide whether there is any resemblance
between the condition of a person under the influence of morphia or
alcohol, and the state of a person hypnotised, whether by himself or by
another, when that state is regularly accompanied by the illusion of
some strong and agreeable emotion. Probably all means which produce an
unnatural condition of the nerves at more or less regular hours may be
classed together, and there is not much difference between the kind of
craving they produce in those who use them. Moreover it is often said
that it is harder for a woman to break a habit of that sort, than for a
man.
Cecilia was young, fairly strong and very elastic, but she suffered
intensely when night came and she had to face the struggle. Bodily pain
would have been a relief then, and she knew it, but there was none to
bear. The chair looked at her from its distant place against the wall,
and seemed to draw her to it, till she had it taken away, pretending
that it did not suit the room. But when it was gone, she knew perfectly
well that it really made no difference, and that she could dream in any
other chair as easily.
And then came a wild desire to see the man's face again, and to be sure
that it had not changed. She was certain that she only wished to see it;
she would have been overwhelmed with shame, all alone in her room, if
she had acknowledged that it was the kiss that she craved and the one
moment of indescribable intoxication that came with it.
Are there not hundreds of men who earn their living by risking their
lives every night in feats of danger, and who miss that recurring moment
when they cannot have it? They will never admit that what they crave is
really the chance of a painful death, yet it is perfectly true.
Cecilia could not have been induced to think that she desired no longer
the lovely vision of a perfect life; that she could have parted with
that easily enough, though with much calm regret; and that, instead, she
had a nervous, material, most earthly longing for the single moment in
that life which was the contrary of perfect, which she despised, or
tried to despise, and which she believed she feared.
She struggled hard, and succeeded, and at last she could go to bed
quietly, without even glancing at the place where the chair had stood,
or at the candles on the table.
Then, when it all seemed over, a terrible thing happened. She dreamed of
the real Lamberti in her natural sleep, in a dream about real life.