THE TRUMP CARD APPEARS
"The boat is ready," said Ismaele, coming in unceremoniously, his pipe
in his left hand, a lantern in his right.
"What time is it?" Franco asked.
"Half-past eleven."
"And the weather?"
"It is snowing."
"That is good!" Uncle Piero exclaimed ironically, stretching his legs
towards the flames of the juniper bush that was crackling in the little
fireplace.
In the small parlour, arranged for winter, Luisa, on her knees, was
tying a muffler round Maria's neck. Franco, holding his wife's cape,
stood waiting while the old housekeeper, her bonnet on and her hands
buried in her muff, was grumbling at her master. "What a man you are!
What are you going to do all alone here at home?"
"I don't need any one when I am asleep," the engineer answered. "Other
people may be mad, but I am not. Put my milk and the lamp here."
It was Christmas Eve and the mad idea these otherwise sane people had
conceived, the determination which seemed so incomprehensible to Uncle
Piero, was to go to the solemn Midnight-Mass at S. Mamette.
"And that innocent victim also!" said he, glancing at the child.
Franco flushed hotly, and declared that he wished to prepare precious
memories for her. He believed this excursion at night, in the boat, on
the dark lake, the snow, the crowded and brightly lighted church, the
organ, the singing, the holy associations of Christmas, would prove to
be such. He spoke with heat, perhaps not so much for the uncle as for
some one who was silent.
"Yes, yes, yes," said Uncle Piero, as if he had expected this rhetoric,
this useless poetry.
"I am going to have some punch, too, you know!" said the child. The
uncle smiled. "That is not bad! That will indeed form a precious
memory!" Franco frowned at beholding his frail structure of poetical and
religious memories thus demolished.
"And Gilardoni?" Luisa asked.
"Here they are now," Ismaele said, going out with his lantern.
Professor Gilardoni had invited the Maironis and Donna Ester Bianchi to
come to his house for punch after Mass. He was now expected from
Niscioree, whither he had gone to fetch the young lady, who had lived
there alone with two maid-servants since her father's death, which had
taken place in 1852. The worthy Professor had mourned secretly for
Signora Teresa for a reasonable length of time, but during the
convalescence of his heart, which kept him weak and languid, and in
permanent danger of a relapse, he had not been careful enough of the
merry little face, the lively eyes, and sparkling gaiety of the little
Princess of Niscioree, as the Maironis called Donna Ester.
At seven-and-twenty Donna Ester looked like a girl of twenty, save in
her movements there was a certain languor, and in her eyes a certain
delicious hidden knowledge. She had not intended to fish for this
respectable lover, but now she knew he was caught, and she was pleased,
believing him to be a man of great genius, and infinite wisdom. That he
should ever dare speak to her of love, that she might marry all this
sallow, wrinkled, dry knowledge, had never entered her head.
Nevertheless she did not wish to quench this little fire, which was so
discreet, which was an honour to her, and probably a source of happiness
to him. If she sometimes laughed about him with Luisa she was never the
first to laugh, and always hastened to repeat: "Poor Signor Gilardoni!
Poor Professor!"
She came in hastily, her fair head enveloped in a great black hood,
looking like Spring out on the spree disguised as December. December was
close behind her, his neck shrouded in a great scarf, above which rose
the red and shining professorial nose, irritated by the snow. As it was
already late they immediately took leave of Uncle Piero, who was left
alone with his milk and his lamp before the dying embers of the
juniper-bush.
A slight shadow of disapproval still rested on his face. Franco was
playing the poet too much. Nowadays life was hard at Casa Maironi.
Breakfast consisted of a cup of milk and chicory-coffee, and they used a
sort of reddish sugar that tasted of the chemist's shop. They indulged
in meat only on Thursdays and Sundays. A bottle of Grimelli wine
appeared on the table regularly every day for Uncle Piero, who rebelled
against being the privileged one. Every day clouds gathered around this
bottle and a little storm burst forth, which, however, always ended as
Uncle Piero wished, in a short shower of the decoction into each of the
five glasses. The servant had been dismissed, and only Veronica remained
to do the heavy work, stir the _polenta_, and sometimes look after
Maria. But in spite of these and other economies Luisa could not make
both ends meet, though Cia had refused to accept any wages, and gifts of
curds, of _mascherpa_, of goats'-cheeses, of chestnuts and walnuts were
always pouring in upon them from the townspeople. She had obtained some
copying from a notary at Porlezza, but it was hard work for miserable
pay. Franco had also begun to copy diligently, but he accomplished less
than his wife and, moreover, there was not work enough for two. He
should have bestirred himself, have sought some private employment, but
Uncle Piero saw no signs of this, and so----?
And so this thinking about poetic expeditions seemed to him more out of
place than ever. After having pondered a long time upon their sad
plight, and upon the slender probability that Franco would ever be able
to extricate them from it, he reflected that, for him, the first thing
to do was to drink his milk, and the second, to go to bed. But another
thought came to him. He opened the hall-door, and seeing the room was
quite dark, went into the kitchen, lighted a lantern, and carried it to
the loggia, where he opened one of the windows. Although it was snowing
there was no wind, so he placed the lantern on the window-sill, that its
light might help those poetic people to steer their homeward course over
the dark lake.
Then he went to bed.
* * * * *
Ismaele brought his freight safely to S. Mamette in the covered boat.
The snow was still falling placidly in big flakes. The church was
already quite full, and even the ladies were obliged to stand, behind
the first row of benches. Ester volunteered to look after Maria, and
lifted her to a seat on top of the bench in front of them, while the
sacristan was busy lighting the candles on the high-altar. Cia was
tormenting the Professor, whom she believed to be a pious man, with a
thousand questions concerning the difference between the Roman and
Ambrosian rites, and Maria was keeping Ester busy with still more
puzzling questions.
"Who are they lighting those candles for?"
"For our Lord."
"Is our Lord going to bed now?"
"No, hush!"
"And has the _bambino Gesu_--the child Jesus--gone to bed already?"
"Yes, yes," Ester replied thoughtlessly, to put an end to these
questions.
"With the mule?"
Once Uncle Piero had brought Maria an ugly, little wooden mule which she
detested, and when she was obstinate and capricious her mother would put
her to bed with the mule under her pillow, under her obstinate little
head.
"Be quiet, chatterbox!" said Ester.
"I don't go to bed with the mule. I say _excuse me_!"
"Hush! Listen to the organ."
All the candles were now lighted, and the organist having mounted to his
post, was teasing his old instrument as if to waken it, drawing from it
what seemed to be angry grunts. When, on the ringing of a bell, the
organ poured forth all its great voice, and the altar-boys and the
priest appeared, Luisa stole her hand into her husband's, as if they had
still been lovers.
Those two hands pressing each other furtively were speaking of a fast
approaching event, of a serious resolve which must be kept a secret,
and which was not yet formed irrevocably. The little nervous hand said:
"Have courage!" The manly hand said: "I will!" They must indeed make up
their minds to it. Franco must go away, leave his wife, his child, and
the old man, perhaps for some months, perhaps for some years. He must
leave Valsolda, the dear little house, his flowers, perhaps for ever. He
must emigrate to Piedmont, seek for work and gain, in the hope of being
able to call his family to him in case that other great national hope
should not be realised. He was glad his wife had chosen this solemn
place and hour in which to encourage him in his sacrifice, and he did
not drop the gentle hand, but held it as a lover might, never looking at
Luisa, his face and person immovable. He spoke with his hand only, with
his soul in palm and fingers, he spoke the most varied, passionate
language, consisting of soft caresses, of embraces, of tenderness and
ardour. From time to time she would endeavour to gently withdraw her
hand, and then he would clasp it violently. His gaze was fixed on the
altar, and he held his head erect as if absorbed in the music of the
organ, in the voice of the priest, in the singing of the congregation.
As a matter of fact he was not following the prayers, but he felt the
Divine Presence, was experiencing an ecstasy, a fervour of love, of
pain, of hope in God. Luisa had taken his hand in the belief that he was
praying, that all his fears, all his doubts were stirring in his soul.
She had indeed wished to inspire him with courage, convinced that this
painful step was best for him. She only half understood the pressure
that answered her; it seemed to her a passionate protest against this
separation, and although this was most sweet to her, she could not
approve of it, and so from time to time she strove to withdraw her hand.
At the moment of the Elevation it was he who withdrew his, out of
respect. Then he was obliged to take Maria in his arms, for she had
fallen asleep, and slept on, her head on her father's shoulder,
displaying half of a little, peaceful face. She, his darling, did not
know that her father was going so far away, and his heart was filled
with tender yearning towards that little, warm treasure, which breathed
upon it, towards that tiny head, which had the perfume of a little wild
bird. He imagined himself already gone, imagined that she was seeking
for him, was crying, and then a desire to press her closer ran through
his arms, a desire he quickly checked for fear of waking her.
It had stopped snowing when they left the church.
"Wind! Wind!" said Ismaele, coming towards them.
"I shall walk! I shall walk!" groaned Cia, who had a great horror of the
lake. Meanwhile the crowd issuing from the church pushed and dispersed
the group, and carried them down the steps. The six travellers and the
boatmen met again in the square of S. Mamette and here Donna Ester
declared that, as she was not feeling very well, she must forego the
punch, and that she would walk home with Cia.
Franco, Luisa, and the Professor saw it would be useless to insist, and
the two women started towards Oria escorted by Ismaele, who was to come
back for the Maironis and the boat.
* * * * *
A _moderateur_ lamp illumined Gilardoni's salon, a good fire was burning
on the hearth, and Pinella had prepared everything for the punch over
which Luisa presided, the host himself being much depressed in spirit by
Donna Ester's desertion.
"Look at Maria," said Franco softly.
The little one had gone to sleep in the Professor's armchair near the
window. Franco took the lamp and held it aloft in order to see her
better. She seemed like some little creature descended from heaven,
fallen there with the star-light, unconscious, her face suffused with a
sweetness which was not of this world, with a solemnity full of mystery.
"Darling!" said he, and drew his wife towards him with an encircling
arm, his eyes still fixed on Maria. Gilardoni came up behind them, and
murmured: "How lovely!" Then he went back to the fireplace sighing:
"Happy people!"
Franco, who was deeply moved, whispered in his wife's ear: "Shall we
tell him?" She did not understand, and looked questioningly into his
eyes. "That I am going away," said he, still in an undertone. Luisa
started and answered, "Yes, yes!" She was greatly affected, for she had
not expected this. In the church she had believed he was still
undecided. Her astonishment did not escape Franco. He was troubled by it
and felt his resolution shaken, but she at once perceived this, and
repeated earnestly: "Yes, yes!" and gently pushed him towards Gilardoni.
"Dear friend," said he, "I have something to tell you."
The Professor, absorbed in contemplation of the fire, did not answer.
Franco placed a hand on his shoulder. "Ah!" he exclaimed, rousing
himself, "I beg your pardon! What it is?"
"I wish to commend some one to your care."
"To my care? Who is it?"
"An old man, a woman, and a little child."
The two men looked at each other in silence, one deeply moved, the other
amazed.
"Don't you understand?" Luisa whispered.
No, he neither understood nor answered.
"I commend my wife, my daughter, and the old uncle to your care," Franco
replied.
"Oh!" the Professor exclaimed, looking in astonishment from one to the
other.
"I am going away," said Franco, with a smile that went to Gilardoni's
heart. "We have not told Uncle Piero yet, but I must go. In our position
I cannot stay here doing nothing. I shall say I am going to Milan, and
those who will may believe it, but I shall really be in Piedmont."
Gilardoni clasped his hands in silent amazement. Luisa embraced Franco
and kissed him, holding his head upon her breast, her eyes closed.
The Professor imagined it was painful to her to bow to her husband's
will in this matter.
"Now listen to me," said he, addressing Franco. "If war had broken out I
could understand your going, but as it is, I think you do wrong to cause
your wife so much suffering for a question of money."
Luisa who was still clinging with one arm to her husband's neck,
motioned to Professor Gilardoni with the other hand, entreating him to
be silent.
"No, no, no!" she murmured, once more clasping her arms about Franco.
"You are doing right! You are doing right!" As Gilardoni continued to
insist, she drew away from her husband, and cried, her hands extended
protestingly towards their host: "But, Professor, it is I who tell him
he is doing right! I, his wife, tell him so! Dear Professor, don't you
understand?"
"After all, dear lady," Gilardoni burst out, "it is time you were
informed----"
Franco flung his arms towards him, crying impetuously: "Professor!"
"You are doing wrong," the other replied. "You are doing wrong, very
wrong!"
"What is it, Franco?" Luisa demanded in astonishment. "Is there
something I do not know?"
"Only that I must go away, that I shall go away. That is all!"
Franco's exclamation, "Professor!" had awakened Maria with a start.
Seeing her mother's agitation she prepared to cry; presently she burst
into violent sobbing, and wailed: "No Papa! Papa not go away! Not go
away!"
Franco took her in his arms, kissing and caressing her, while she kept
repeating: "My Papa! My Papa!" in a pitiful, grieved voice that made
their hearts ache. Her father yearned over her, and protested that he
would always stay with her; but he wept at his own deceit, wept with the
emotion this new tenderness, springing up at such a moment, caused him.
Luisa was thinking of her husband's cry. Gilardoni saw she suspected a
secret, and, hoping to distract her thoughts, asked her if Franco
intended to start at once. Franco himself replied. Everything depended
upon a letter from Turin. Perhaps it would be a week, at the latest a
fortnight, before he started. Luisa was silent, and the subject was
dropped. Then Franco talked of politics, of the probability that war
would break out in the Spring. But again conversation soon languished.
Gilardoni and Luisa seemed to be thinking of something else, to be
listening to the beat of the waves against the garden wall. Finally
Ismaele returned, drank his punch, and assured them that the lake was
not very rough, and that they could start homewards.
As soon as the Maironis were seated in the boat, and Maria had gone to
sleep, Luisa asked her husband if there was something she did not know,
and which Gilardoni must not tell.
Franco did not answer.
"Enough!" said she. Then her husband threw his arm around her neck and
pressed her to him, protesting against words she had not uttered. "Oh,
Luisa, Luisa!"
Luisa suffered his embrace, but did not return it, and at last, in
despair, her husband promised to tell her every thing, at once. "Do you
think I am curious?" she whispered, in his arms. No, no. He would tell
her at once, tell her everything; he would explain why he had not spoken
before. She did not wish this; she preferred that he should speak at
some other time, and of his own free will.
The wind was in their favour and the light shining in the window of the
loggia served Ismaele well as a guide. Franco's arm still encircled his
wife's shoulders, and his gaze was fixed upon that shining point.
Neither he nor she thought of the loving and prudent hand that had
lighted it. But Ismaele thought of it, and reflected that neither
Veronica nor Cia were capable of such an act of genius, and blessed the
engineer's kind heart.
On leaving the boat Maria woke up, and her parents seemed to have no
thought save for her. When they were in bed Franco put out the light.
"It concerns my grandmother," said he in a broken and agitated voice.
"Poor boy!" Luisa murmured and took his hand affectionately. "I have
never told you in order to avoid accusing my grandmother, and also
because----" He paused, and then it was he who mingled with his words
the most tender caresses, to which Luisa now no longer responded. "I
feared your impressions, your sentiments, the ideas you might
conceive----!" As his words began to express his doubts his voice grew
more tender.
Luisa felt the approach, not of a dispute, but of a far more lasting
disagreement. Now, she no longer wished her husband to speak, and he,
noticing her increasing coldness, did not continue. She rested her
forehead against his shoulder, and said, almost in spite of herself:
"Tell me!"
Then Franco, his lips against her hair, related the story the Professor
had told him on the night of their marriage. In repeating from memory
the contents of his grandfather's letter and will, he greatly softened
the injurious expressions used against his father and grandmother. In
the middle of his recital Luisa, who had not expected such a revelation,
raised her head from her husband's shoulder. He stopped. "Go on," said
she.
When he had finished she asked if there was any proof that his
grandfather's will had been suppressed. Franco promptly answered that
there was not. "Then," said she, "why did you speak of the ideas I
might conceive?" Her thoughts had immediately flown to the probability
of his grandmother's crime, to the possibility of a prosecution. But if
prosecution were not possible?
Franco did not answer, and she exclaimed, after a moment's reflection,
"Ah! the copy of the will! Could that be used? Would that be valid?"
"Yes."
"And you would not use it?"
"No."
"Why not, Franco?"
"There!" Franco exclaimed. "You see? I knew you would say so! No, I will
not make use of it! No, no, never!"
"But what reasons have you for not doing so?"
"Good Lord! My reasons! My reasons can be felt. You should feel them
without my having to explain them."
"I do not feel them. Don't imagine I am thinking of the money. We will
not touch the money. Give it to whomever you like; I feel the claims of
justice. There are your grandfather's wishes to be respected; there is
the crime your grandmother has committed. You who are so religious
should perceive that Divine Justice has brought this document to light.
Would you place yourself between this woman and Divine Justice?"
"Let Divine Justice alone," Franco retorted, hotly. "What do we know of
the ways of Divine Justice? There is also Divine Mercy. She is my
father's mother, think of that! And have I not always despised this
accursed money? What did I do when my grandmother threatened not to
leave me a penny if I married you?"
Unable to speak, he drew Luisa's head to his breast.
"I despised the money for your sake," he went on in a stifled voice.
"Would you have me try to regain it now by going to law?"
"No indeed!" Luisa broke in, raising her head. "You may give the money
to whomever you wish. I am talking of justice. Don't you also feel the
demand of justice?"
"_Dio mio!_" said he, with a deep sigh. "It would have been better if I
had not spoken to-night."
"Yes, perhaps. If you were bound never to alter your decision, it would
perhaps have been wiser."
Luisa's voice expressed sadness, not anger, as she uttered these words.
"In any way, that document no longer exists," Franco remarked.
Luisa started. "It no longer exists?" said she anxiously, in an
undertone.
"No. The Professor was to destroy it, by my orders."
A long silence followed. Very slowly Luisa withdrew her head and rested
it on her own pillow. Suddenly Franco exclaimed, aloud: "A law-suit
indeed! With those documents! With those insults! To the mother of my
father! And all for money!"
"Don't keep repeating that," his wife exclaimed indignantly. "Why do you
keep repeating that? Don't you know very well it is not true?"
Both spoke excitedly. It was plain that during the preceding silence
their thoughts had been hard at work on this point. The reproof
irritated him, and he replied blindly--
"I know nothing about it!"
"Oh, Franco!" cried Luisa, much hurt. He already regretted the affront,
and begged her to forgive him, accusing his hot temper, which made him
say things he did not mean, and he entreated her to speak a kind word to
him. "Yes, yes," Luisa answered with a sigh, but he was not satisfied,
and wished her to embrace him and say, "I forgive you." The touch of the
dear lips did not refresh him as usual. Some minutes passed, and then he
strained his ear to hear if his wife had fallen asleep. He heard the
wind, Maria's quiet breathing, the noise of the waves, the jarring of a
window, but that was all. "Have you really forgiven me?" he whispered,
and he heard her soft answer: "Yes, dear." Presently she, in her turn,
listened, and besides the wind, the waves, the creaking of a shutter,
the even, regular breathing of the child, she heard the even, regular
breathing of her husband. Then she once more sighed deeply, sighed
despairingly. Oh, God! How could Franco have acted thus? What wounded
her heart most sorely was the fact that he did not seem to sense the
injuries which her poor mother and Uncle Piero had suffered. But she
would not allow herself to dwell on this thought, at least not until she
had considered his other mistake, his mistaken idea of justice. And here
she felt bitterly, but not without a certain satisfaction, that he was
her inferior, that he was controlled by sentiments that were the outcome
of his fancy, while her own sentiment was inspired by reason. Franco had
in him so much of the child. He had, even now, been able to go to sleep,
while she was sure of not closing her eyes all night long. She believed
she was without imagination because she did not feel it move, because in
her it was less easily inflamed. She would have laughed had she been
told that imagination was more powerful in her than in her husband. But
indeed such was the case. Only, in order to demonstrate this, both souls
must be turned upside down, for Franco's imagination was visible on the
surface of his soul, and all his reason was at the bottom, while in
Luisa's soul imagination was at the bottom, and reason was plainly
visible on the surface. In fact, she did not sleep, but all night long
she thought, with that imagination that lay at the bottom of her soul,
how religion favours weak sentimentality, how incapable it is, even
while preaching the thirst for justice, of forming a correct sense of
justice in those intellects which are devoted to it.
* * * * *
The Professor also, who was subject to serious infiltrations of
imagination into the ratiocinative cells of his brain, as well as into
the amorous cells of his heart, having put out the light, spent the
greater part of the night in front of the fireplace, working with the
tongs and with his imagination, taking up, examining and then dropping
embers and projects, until only one glowing coal and one last idea
remained. Then he took a match, and having held it in contact with the
ember, lighted the lamp once more, seized the idea, which was also hot
and luminous, and carried it off to bed with him.
This was the idea. He would start secretly for Brescia, present himself
before the Marchesa with the terrible document, and obtain a
capitulation.