down upon Box No. 4 of the first tier as from her former; she had to
turn round a little in order to see it, and thus her interest in
it was made manifest. Cesare Dias and Luigi Caracciolo, after their
visit to the Contessa d'Alemagna, had taken a turn in the corridor
to smoke a cigarette, and had then returned to their places. Anna,
the creature of her hopes and her desires, could not resist the
temptation to gaze steadily at her guardian, though she felt that
thereby she was drawing upon herself the attention of all observers,
and exposing her deepest feelings to ridicule and misconstruction.
And now the divine music of Meyerbeer surged up and filled the hall,
and Anna was conscious of nothing else--of nothing but the music and
the face of Cesare Dias shining through it, like a star through the
mist. How much time passed? She did not know. Twice her sister spoke
to her; she neither heard nor answered.
When the curtain fell again, and Anna issued from her trance, Laura
said, "There is Giustino Morelli."
"Ah!" cried Anna, unable to control a contraction of her features.
But she had self-constraint enough not to ask "_where?_" Falling
suddenly from a heaven of rapture to the hard reality of her life,
where traces of her old folly still lingered; hating her past, and
wishing to obliterate it from her memory, as the motives for it were
already obliterated from her heart, she did not ask where he was. She
covered her face with her fan, and two big tears rolled slowly down
her cheeks.
Stella Martini looked at her, desiring to speak, but fearing lest
thereby she might only make matters worse.
At last: "We were wrong to come here, Anna," she said.
"No, no," responded Anna. "I am very well--I am very happy," she
added, enigmatically.
The door of the box was slowly pushed open. Cesare Dias and Luigi
Caracciolo entered. With a word or two their guardian presented the
young man to the sisters. The men sat down, Cesare Dias next to Anna,
Luigi Caracciolo next to Laura. They began at once to talk in a light
vein about the performance. Overcoming the tumult of her heart, Anna
alone answered them. Stella Martini was silent, and Laura, with her
eyes half shut, listened without speaking.
"Stagno is a great artist; he is immensely talented," observed Luigi
Caracciolo, with a bland smile, passing his fingers slowly through
his blonde beard.
"And so much feeling--so much sentiment," added Anna.
"To say that he is talented, that he is an artist, is enough,"
replied Cesare Dias, with an accent in which severity was tempered by
politeness.
Anna assented, bowing her head.
"For the rest, the number of decent opera singers on the modern stage
is becoming less and less. We have a multitude of mediocrities, with
here and there a star," continued Luigi Caracciolo.
"Ah, I have heard the great ones," sighed Cesare Dias.
"Yes, yes. You must have heard Fraschini, Negrini, and Nourrit in
their time," Luigi Caracciolo said, smiling with the fatuity of a
fellow of twenty who imagines that his youth will last for ever.
"You were a boy when I heard them, that's a fact--which doesn't
prevent my being an old man now," rejoined Cesare Dias, with that
shadow of melancholy in his voice which seemed so inconsistent with
his character.
"What do years matter?" asked Anna, suddenly. "Other things matter
much more; other things affect us more profoundly, more intimately,
than years. Years are mere external, insignificant facts."
"Thanks for that kindly defence, my dear," Cesare Dias exclaimed,
laughing; "but it only springs from the goodness of your heart."
"From the radiance of youth," said Luigi Caracciolo, bowing, to
underline his compliment.
Anna was silent and agitated. Nothing so easily upset her equilibrium
as light wordly conversation, based upon personalities and frivolous
gallantry.
"Not enough, not enough," said Cesare Dias, wishing to cap the
compliment, and at the same time to bring his own philosophy into
relief. "As often as I find myself in the presence of these two
girls, Luigi, who are two flowers of youthfulness, I seem to feel
older than ever. I feel that I must be a hundred at least. How many
changes of Government have I seen? Eight or nine, perhaps. Yes, I'm
certainly more than a hundred, dear Anna."
And he turned towards her with a light ironical smile.
"Why do you say such things--such sad things?" murmured Anna.
"Indeed they are sad--indeed they are. Youth is the only treasure
whose loss one may weep for the whole of one's life."
"But don't feel badly about it, dear Cesare. Consider. Isn't
knowledge better than ignorance? Isn't the calm of autumn better than
the storms of spring? You are our master--the master of us all. We
all revere him, don't we, _Signorina_?" said Luigi, turning to Anna.
A shadow crossed Anna's face, and she let the conversation drop.
"And you, who say nothing, reasonable and placid Laura?" asked Cesare
Dias. "Which is better--youth or age? Which is better--knowledge or
ignorance? Here are knotty problems submitted to your wisdom, dear
Minerva. You are a young girl, but you are also Minerva. Illuminate
us. Who should be the happier--I, the master, or Caracciolo, my
pupil?"
Laura thought for a moment, with an intent expression in her
beautiful eyes, and then answered:
"It is best to combine the two--to have youth and wisdom together."
"The problem is solved!" cried Cesare Dias.
"And the _entr'acte_ is over; everything in its time. Good evening,
good evening; good-bye, Cesare," said Luigi.
So Caracciolo took his leave, very correctly, without shaking hands
with Dias. Dias had risen, but Luigi seemed to understand that he
meant to stay in the girls' box.
Anna, who had been looking up anxiously, waiting, looked down again
now, reassured. The door closed noiselessly upon the young man.
"A pleasant fellow," observed Cesare Dias.
"Very pleasant," agreed Stella Martini, for politeness' sake, or
perhaps because she desired to state her opinion.
"In my quality of centenarian I feel at liberty to stop where I am,"
said Cesare Dias, reseating himself behind Anna, while beside him,
behind Laura, sat Stella Martini.
"You won't get a good view of the stage from there," said Stella.
"I don't care to see. It will be enough to hear it, this fourth act."
Anna said nothing. Courtesy forbade her looking directly at the
scene, for thus she must have turned her back upon Cesare Dias. It
embarrassed her a little to feel him there behind her. She did not
move. Their two chairs were close together; and their two costumes
made a striking contrast: his black dress-suit, the modern and
elegant uniform of the man of the world, so austere and so handsome
in its soberness; and her gown of white silk, the ceremonial robe of
a young girl in society.
She was afraid her arm might touch Cesare's. He held his opera-hat in
his hand. She forbore to fan herself, lest he might have to change
his position. Now and then she raised her handkerchief to her lips,
as if to refresh them with the cool linen.
While Saint-Bris, stirred by fanaticism, was telling the Catholic
lords of the excesses of the Huguenots, and exciting them by his
eloquence to share his fury; while the noble Nevers, the husband
of Valentina, was protesting against the massacre; while, through
the silence of the theatre, the grand musical poem of hatred, of
wrath, of generosity, of love, and of piety, was surging up to the
fascinated audience, Anna was thrilling at the thought that Cesare
Dias was looking at her, at her hair, at her lips, at her person; she
felt that she was badly dressed, pale, awkward, stupid. Wasn't the
Contessa d'Alemagna a thousand times more beautiful than she? The
Contessa d'Alemagna, with her dark complexion and her blue eyes, and
her expression of girlish ingenuousness deliciously contrasted with
womanly charm; the Contessa d'Alemagna, whom Cesare Dias had visited
before coming to his ward's box. Weren't there a hundred women of
their set present in the theatre this evening, each of them lovelier
than she? Young girls, smiling brides, and ladies to whom maturity
lent a richer attraction, all of them acquaintances of Cesare Dias,
who, from time to time, looked at them through his opera-glass. And,
indeed, her own sister, the wise Minerva, was she not more beautiful,
more maidenly, more poetical than Anna? Was it not because of her
beauty, her pure profile, her calm smile, that Cesare had called her
by that gracious name, Minerva?
Anna bowed her head, as if oppressed by the heat and by the music,
but really from a sense of self-contempt and humiliation. There was a
looking-glass behind her. She was sorry now that she hadn't made an
inspection of herself in it, on entering the box. She had forgotten
her own face. Fantastically, she imagined it as brown and scarred,
and hideously pallid. Her white frock made it worse. She registered
a silent vow that she would always hereafter wear black. Only blonde
women could afford to dress in white.
"You have dropped your fan," said Cesare Dias, stooping to recover it.
He smiled as he handed it to her.
"Thank you," said she, taking the fan.
Presently she put it down on an empty chair next to her. Cesare Dias
picked it up, and began to fan himself. Then he pressed it to his
face.
"What is it perfumed with?" he asked.
"Heliotrope."
"I like it," he said, and put the fan down.
She was burning with a desire to take it, to touch what he had
touched, but she dared not.
Cesare Dias leaned forward a little, to look at the stage. He was so
close to her, it seemed to Anna that she could hear him breathe.
For her own part, a sort of intoxication, due no doubt in some
measure to the passionate art of the great composer, whose music
surged like a flood about her, had mounted from her heart to her
brain; she was conscious of nothing save a great world of love, save
the near presence of Cesare Dias. Her soul held a new and precious
treasure, a new joy. She delighted herself with the illusion that
the beating of her own heart was the beating of Cesare's. She forgot
everything--the place, the time, the future, youth, age, beauty,
everything; motionless, with her eyes cast down, she seemed to float
in a wave of soft warm light, aware of one single sweet sensation,
his nearness to her. She had forgotten the stage, the people round
her, Stella Martini, her sister Laura; the music itself was only a
distant echo; her whole being was concentrated in an ecstasy, which
she hoped might never end. She did not dare to move or speak, lest
she might thereby wake from her heavenly dream. She had again entered
anew into the land of passion. She was one of those natures which,
having ceased to love, begin again to love.
"I could die like this," she thought.
She felt that she could die thus, in a divine moment, when new love,
young and strong, has not yet learned the lessons of sorrow, of
shame, of worldly wickedness, that await it; it would be sweet to die
with one's illusions undisturbed, to die in the fulness of youth,
before one's ideals have begun to decay; to die loving, rather than
to live to see love die.
So, on the stage, Raoul and Valentina, victims of an irrepressible
but impossible passion, were calling upon Heaven for death, praying
to be allowed to die in their divine moment of love. Anna, recoiling
from the thought of the future, with its inevitable vicissitudes,
struggles, tears, and disappointments, realised the fascination of
death. Involuntarily, she looked at Cesare. He smiled upon her, and
thereat she too smiled, like his faithful image in a mirror. And her
sublime longing to die, disappeared before the reality of his smile.
She looked at him again, but this time he was intent upon the scene.
Anna felt that her love was being sung for her by the artists there,
by Raoul and Valentina.
Cesare said to her, "How beautiful it is!"
"It is beautiful," she murmured, bowing her head.
It seemed to her that his voice had been unusually soft. What was
the reason? What commotion was taking place in his heart? She asked
herself these questions, but could not answer them. She loved him.
That was enough. She loved him; she could not hope to be loved by him.
The music ceased. The curtain fell.
"Have you ordered the carriage?" Cesare Dias asked of Stella Martini.
"Yes, for twelve o clock.
"If you'll wait for me a moment I'll go and get my overcoat."
The ladies were putting on their cloaks, when Cesare came back,
wearing his hat and overcoat. He helped Stella on with hers, then
Laura, then Anna.
And looking at the sisters, he said, "You ought to have your
portraits painted, dressed like this. I assure you, you're looking
extremely handsome. I speak as a centenarian."
Laura smiled; Anna looked down, embarrassed. Her trouble was
increased when she saw Cesare politely offer his arm to Stella
Martini. Had she hoped that he would offer it to _her_? He motioned
to the girls to take the lead in leaving the box. Anna put her arm
through Laura's and went out slowly.
He conducted them to their carriage, and when they were safely in it,
"I shall walk," he said, "It's such a fine evening. Good-night."
In the darkness, as they drove home, Laura asked, "Did you see
Giustino Morelli?"
"No, he wasn't there."
"What do you mean? He _was_ there."
"For me, he wasn't there. Giustino Morelli is dead."
V.
Cesare Dias encouraged the attentions which his young friend Luigi
Caracciolo was paying to his ward Anna Acquaviva. He encouraged them
quietly, with the temperance which he showed in all things, not
with the undisguised eagerness of a father anxious to marry off his
daughter.
And yet he was certainly anxious to marry her off. He was anxious to
hand his responsibilities over to a husband, to confide to the care
of another the safeguarding of that ardent and fragile soul, which
threatened at any moment to fall into emotional errors. A thousand
symptoms that could not escape his observant eye, kept him in a
state of secret nervousness about her. It was true, nevertheless,
that she had greatly changed for the better. Thanks to his constant
watchfulness, to his habit of reproving her whenever she betrayed the
impulsive side of her nature, to his sarcasm, to his biting speech,
she had indeed greatly changed in manner.
A desire to obey him, to please him, a painless resignation, a loving
humility, showed themselves in everything she said and did.
He saw that she was making mighty efforts to dominate the
impetuousness of her character; he saw that she listened with close
attention to his talk, trying to reconcile herself to those perverse
theories of his which pained her mortally. That was what he called
giving her a heart of bronze, strengthening her against the snares
and delusions of the world. If he could but deprive her of all
capacity for enthusiasm he would thereby deprive her of all capacity
for suffering, as well.
Cesare Dias congratulated himself upon this labour of his, glorifying
himself as a sort of creator, who had known how to make over the most
refractory of all metals, human nature. And yet his mind was not
quite at ease.
Her docility, her obedience, her self-control, roused his suspicions.
He began to ask himself whether the girl might not be a monster of
hypocrisy, whether under her tranquil surface she might not still be
on fire within.
But had she not always been a model of sincerity? Her very faults,
had they not sprung from the truthfulness and generosity of her
nature?
No; the hypothesis of hypocrisy was untenable. Cesare Dias was far
too intelligent to believe that the intimate essence of a soul can
undergo alteration. It was impossible that a soul so essentially
truthful as Anna's should suddenly become hypocritical.
And yet he was not easy in his mind.
What profound reason, what occult motive, could be at the bottom of
Anna's change of front? What was it that enabled her and persuaded
her to withhold her tears, suppress her sobs, and master the ardour
of her temperament?
Ah, no! Cesare Dias was not easy in his mind. He knew the strength
of his own will, he understood his own power to rule people and to
impose his wishes upon them; but that was not enough to account for
the conditions that puzzled him. There must be something else.
He was not anxious about Laura. The wise and beautiful Minerva
he could marry whenever he liked, to whomsoever he liked. He was
sure that Laura would be able to take care of herself. He held the
opinion, common to men of forty, that marriage was the only destiny
proper for a young girl. And it was only by means of a marriage that
he would be able to relieve himself of his weight of responsibility
in respect of Anna Acquaviva.
So, as often as he decently could, he brought meetings to pass
between Luigi Caracciolo and his wards: sometimes at the theatre,
sometimes in the Villa Nazionale, sometimes at parties and dances;
indeed, it would seldom happen that Cesare would speak to the girls
in public, without the handsome young Luigi Caracciolo appearing a
few minutes later.
There was probably a tacit understanding between the two men.
Anna seemed to be unconscious of what was going on. Whenever her
guardian approached her, presenting himself with that elegant manner
which was one of his charms, she welcomed him with a luminous smile,
giving him her hand, gazing at him with brilliant, joyful eyes,
listening eagerly to what he had to say, and by every action showing
him her good-will. And when, in turn, Luigi Caracciolo followed, she
gave him a formal handshake, and exchanged a few words with him,
distantly, coldly. He would try his hardest to shine before her, to
bring the talk round to subjects with which he was familiar; but
their interviews were always so short! At the theatre, between the
acts; at the Villa, walking together for ten minutes at the utmost;
at a ball, during a quadrille; and always in the presence of Laura,
or Stella, or the Marchesa Scibilla, the girls' distant cousin, who
often chaperoned them; and always watched from afar by their guardian
Cesare Dias.
The relations between Luigi Caracciolo and Anna Acquaviva were such
as, save in rare exceptional cases, always exist between people of
the aristocracy. They were founded upon conventionality tempered by a
certain amount of sympathy. The rigorous code of our nobility forbids
anything approaching intimacy. Luigi Caracciolo's courtship of Anna
was precisely like that of every other young man of his world. During
the Carnival, it became a little more pressing, perhaps; he began to
take on the appearance of a man in love. It seemed as if he invented
pretexts for seeing her every day.
Willingly or unwillingly, Cesare Dias was his accomplice. Luigi was
becoming more and more attentive. If Anna mentioned a book, he would
send it to her, with a note; he would underline the sentimental
passages, and when he met her again would ask her opinion upon
it. If she mentioned a friend of her childhood, he would interest
himself in all the particulars of the friendship. He was burning to
know something about her first love affair; he had heard it vaguely
rumoured that she had had one, that it had ended unhappily, and been
followed by a violent illness.
And, indeed, from the way in which she would sometimes suddenly turn
pale, from certain intonations of her voice, from her habit of going
off into day-dreams when something said or done seemed to suggest old
memories to her, it was easy for him to see that she must have passed
through some immense emotional experience, and suffered from some
terrible shock. She had a secret! Behind her great black eyes, behind
her trembling lips, behind her silence, she hid a secret.
Luigi was in love with her, in his own way; not very deeply in love,
but in love.
If Cesare Dias, in Anna's hearing, spoke of love, of the folly of
passion, of the futility of hope, the girl bowed her head, listening
without replying, as if she considered Cesare the infallible judge of
all things.
Luigi Caracciolo saw this, and it tormented him with curiosity. Once
he openly asked Dias if Anna had not already been in love. Dias, with
the air of a man of the world, answered:
"Yes, she was interested in a young man, a decent young fellow, who
behaved very well."
"Why didn't they marry?"
"The young man was poor."
"Was she very fond of him?"
"A mere girlish fancy."
"And now she has quite forgotten him?"
"Absolutely, absolutely."
This dialogue relieved Luigi for a moment; but he soon felt that it
could not have contained the whole truth. He felt that the whole
truth could only be told by Anna Acquaviva herself. And when he was
alone with her he longed to question her on the subject, but his
questions died unspoken on his lips.
Luigi's attentions to her had by this time become so apparent, and
Cesare's manner was so much that of a father desirous of giving his
consent to the betrothal of his daughter, that Anna could no longer
pretend not to understand. Sometimes, when Cesare would come up to
her, arm in arm with his young friend, she would look into his eyes
with an expression which seemed to ask, "Oh, why are you doing this?"
He would appear not to notice this silent appeal. He knew very well
that to attain his object he would have to overcome tremendous
obstacles; that to persuade Anna Acquaviva to marry Luigi Caracciolo
would be like taking a strong fortress. But he was a determined man,
and he had determined to succeed. He saw her humility, he saw how she
lowered her eyes before him, he felt that in most things she would
be wax under his hand. But he was not at all sure that she would obey
him when it came to a question of love, when it came to a question of
her marriage. She might again rebel, as she had already rebelled.
Anna felt a latent irritation at perceiving Luigi's intentions and
Cesare's approval of them, and she revenged herself by adopting
towards the young man a demeanour of haughty politeness, against
which he was defenceless. She took pleasure in contradicting him. If
he seemed sentimental--and he was often sentimental in his way, which
involved an element of sensuality--she became ironical, uttering
paradoxes against sentiment in general; her voice grew hard; she
seemed almost cynical. From sheer amiability Luigi Caracciolo always
ended by agreeing with her, but it was easy to see that in doing so
he was obeying his affection for her; he had quite the air of saying
that she was right, not because he was convinced, but because she was
a charming woman of whom he was devotedly fond.
"You agree with me for politeness' sake. What weakness!" she said
angrily, with the impatience that women take no pains to conceal from
men whom they don't like.
The slight smile with which Luigi assented to this proposition, and
implied, moreover, that weakness born of a desire to please a loved
one, was not altogether reprehensible, annoyed her more than ever.
Anna wished the whole exterior world to keep tune to her own ruling
thought, and anybody who by any means prevented such a harmony became
odious to her. Such an one was Luigi Caracciolo.
Cesare Dias, with his acute insight, watched the couple rather
closely. And when he saw Anna trying to avoid a conversation with
Luigi, refusing to dance with him, or receiving him with scant
courtesy, a slight elevation of his eyebrows testified to his
discontent.
One day, when she had turned her back upon the young man at a
concert, Cesare Dias, coming up, said to her, "You appear to be
treating Caracciolo rather badly, Anna."
"I don't think so," she replied, trembling at his harsh tone.
"I think so," he insisted. "And I beg you to be more civil to him."
"I will obey you," she answered.
For several days after that she seemed very melancholy. Laura, who
continued to sleep in the same room with her, often heard her sighing
at night in her bed. Two or three times she had asked a little
anxiously, "What is the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing. Go to sleep," Anna replied.
On the next occasion of her meeting Caracciolo, she treated him
with exaggerated gentleness, in which, however, the effort was very
apparent. He took it as so much to the good. She persevered in this
behaviour during their next few interviews, and then she asked Dias,
triumphantly: "Am I doing as you wish?"
"In what respect?"
"In respect of Caracciolo."
"Do you need my approbation?" he asked, in surprise. "For politeness'
sake alone you should be civil to the young man."
"But it was you who told me to be so," she stammered meekly.
"I merely told you what a young lady's duty is--that's all."
She bent her head contritely. She had made a great effort to please
Cesare Dias, and this was all the recognition she got. However, she
could not feel towards him the least particle of anger; and the
result was that her dislike of Luigi Caracciolo took a giant's stride.
Luigi Caracciolo's name was in everybody's mouth; everybody talked
about him to her--Laura, Stella Martini, the Marchesa Scibilla. She
shrugged her shoulders, without answering. Her silence seemed like a
consent; but it is easy to guess that it was really only a means of
concealing her unpleasant thoughts.
When, however, it was her guardian who mentioned Caracciolo, vaunting
not only his charm, but also the seriousness of his character, she
became excessively nervous. She looked at him in surprise, wondering
that he could speak thus of such a disagreeable and vulgar person,
and smiling ironically.
One day, overcome by impatience, she asked: "But do you really take
him so seriously?"
"Who?--Caracciolo?"
"Of course--Caracciolo."
"I take every man seriously, who deserves it; and he does, I assure
you."
"I don't want to contradict you," she said, softly; "but that is not
my opinion."
"Have you really an opinion on the subject?" he responded, with a
slight inflexion of contempt.
"Yes, indeed, I have an opinion."
"And why?"
"Why, because----"
"The opinions of young girls don't count, my dear. You are very
intelligent; there's no doubt of that. But you know absolutely
nothing."
"But, after all," she exclaimed, "do you really wish to persuade me
that Caracciolo is a clever man?"
"Certainly."
"That he has a heart?"
"Certainly," he answered, curtly.
"That he is sympathetic?"
"Certainly," he repeated for the third time.
"Well, well," she said, disconcerted. "I find him arid in mind, hard
of heart, and often absurd in his manners. No one will ever convince
me of the contrary. He's a doll, not a man. Such a creature a man! It
doesn't require much knowledge to see through _him_!"
"It is quite unnecessary to discuss it, my dear," said Cesare Dias,
icily. "We won't discuss it farther. I'm not anxious to convince you,
and it doesn't matter. Think what you like of anybody. It's not my
affair to correct your fancies. I have unlimited indulgence still at
your disposal for your extravagances; but there's one thing I can't
tolerate--ingratitude. Do you understand--I hate ingratitude?"
"But what do you mean?" she cried, in anguish.
"Nothing more. Good night."
He turned on his heel and went away. For ten days he did not reappear
in the Acquaviva household. He had never before let so long an
interval pass without calling, unless he was out of town. Stella
Martini, not seeing him, ingenuously sent to ask how he was. He
replied, through his servant, that his health was perfect and that he
thanked her for her concern.
In reality, he was furious because in his first skirmish with Anna on
the subject of Luigi Caracciolo she had beaten him; furious, not only
because of the wounds his _amour-propre_ had received, but because
his schemes for the girl's marriage were delayed. His anger was
mixed with certain very lively suspicions, lively, though as yet not
altogether clear in substance. It was impossible that Anna's conduct
should not be due to some secret motive. He began at last to wonder
whether she was still in love with Giustino Morelli.
Meanwhile, he refrained from calling upon her, well aware that in
dealing with women no method is more efficacious than to let them
alone. And, indeed, Anna was already sorry for what she had said, not
because it wasn't true, but because she felt that she had thereby
offended Cesare Dias, perhaps very deeply. But what could she do,
what could she do? That Cesare Dias should plead with her for another
man! It was too much. She felt that she must no longer trust to time;
she must take decisive action at once.
Cesare's absence caused her great bitterness. Her regret for what
she had said was exceedingly sharp during the first few days. She
realised that she had been wrong, at least in manner. She ought to
have held her tongue when she saw his face darken, and heard his
voice tremble with scorn. Instead, in her foolish pride, she had held
up her head, and spoken, and offended him. For two days, and during
the long watches of two nights, stifling her sobs so that Laura
should not hear them, she had longed to write him a little note to
ask his pardon; but then she had feared that that might increase his
irritation. Mentally, she was constantly on her knees before him,
begging to be forgiven, as a child begs, weeping. She believed, she
hoped he would come back; on his entrance she would press his hand
and whisper a submissive word of excuse. She had not yet understood
what a serious thing his silent vengeance could be.
He did not call. And now a dumb grief began to take the place of
Anna's contrition, a dumb, aching grief that nothing could assuage,
because everything reminded her of its cause, his absence. Whenever
she heard a door opened, or the sound of a carriage stopping in the
street before the house, she trembled. She had no peace. She accused
him of injustice. Why was he so unjust towards her, towards _her_ who
ever since that fatal day at Pompeii had only lived to obey him? Why
did he punish her like this, when her only fault had been that she
saw the insignificance, the nullity, of Luigi Caracciolo? Every hour
that passed intensified her pain. In her reserve she never spoke of
him. Stella Martini said now and again, "Signor Dias hasn't called
for a long time. He must be busy."
"No doubt," replied Laura, absently.
"No doubt," assented Anna, in a weak voice.
She was burning up with anxiety, with heartache, with suspicion, and
with jealousy. Yes, with jealousy. It had never occurred to her that
Cesare might have some secret love in his life, as other men have
their secret loves, and as he would be especially likely to have
his, for he was rich and idle. In her ingenuousness and ignorance,
it had never occurred to her. It was as if other women didn't exist,
or as if, existing, they were quite unworthy of his interest. But
now it did occur to her. In the darkness of his absence the thought
came to her, and took possession of her; and sometimes it seemed so
infinitely likely, that she could scarcely endure it.
It was more than probable that amongst all the beautiful women of his
acquaintance there was one whom he loved. It was with her that he
passed his hours--his entire days, perhaps. That was why Anna never
saw him! At the end of a week her distress had become so turbulent,
that her head reeled, as it used to reel when she thought of flying
with Giustino Morelli. As it used to reel then? Nay, more, worse than
then.
In those days she had not felt the consuming fires of jealousy, fires
that destroy for ever the purest joys of love. In those days the man
she cared for was so absolute in his devotion to her, she had not
tasted the bitterness of jealousy, a bitterness beyond the bitterness
of gall and wormwood, a poison from whose effects those who truly
love never recover.
But who was she, the woman that so powerfully attracted Cesare as
to make him forget his child! The Contessa d'Alemagna, perhaps.
Yes, it must be she--that dark lady, with the blue eyes, the
wonderful toilets, the youthful colour, the vivacious manner; she
was indeed an irresistible enchantress. Poor Anna! During Cesare's
absence she learned all the phases of hope and fear, of torturing
jealousy, of wretched loneliness. He did not come he did not come;
perhaps he would never come again. What had he said? That he
detested ingratitude, that he despised people who were ungrateful.
Ungrateful--she! But how could he expect her to thank him for wishing
to marry her to Luigi Caracciolo? Was she really ungrateful?
Three or four times she had written to him, begging him to come;
now a simple little note; now a long passionate letter, full of
contradictions, wherein, to be sure, the word "love" never appeared,
but where it could be read between the lines; now a frank, short
love-letter: but each in turn had struck her as worse than the
others, as more trivial, more ineffectual; and she had ended by
tearing them to pieces.
It was she who had put it into Stella Martini's head to send to
inquire how he was; his curt response to that inquiry struck a chill
to her heart: he was in town, and he was well. Then she would go out
for long walks with Stella, in the hope of meeting him.
One afternoon in February, at last, she did meet him, thus, in the
street.
"How do you do?" she said, nervously.
"Very well," he answered, with a smile.
"It's a long while since we have seen you," said Stella Martini.
"I hadn't noticed it."
"You haven't called for many days," said Anna, looking into his eyes.
"Many?"
"Eight days."
"Eight. Really? Are you sure?"
"I have counted them," she said, turning away her head, as if to look
at the sea.
"I'm sure that's a great compliment." And he bowed gallantly.
"It wasn't a compliment. It was affection, it was gratitude."
"Good. I see you're in a better frame of mind. I'll call to-morrow."
When he had left them, Anna and Stella went on towards the
Mergellina, walking more rapidly than before. Anna kept looking at
the sea, with a slight smile upon her lips, a new colour in her
cheeks. She buried her hands in her muff. Had he not pressed one
of those hands at parting with her? Now and then she would look
backwards, as if expecting to see him again; it was the hour of the
promenade. She did see him again, indeed; but this time he was in a
carriage, a smart trap of the Viennese pattern, driven dashingly by
Luigi Caracciolo.
She saw them approaching from afar, swiftly. She bowed and smiled
to both of them. Her smile was luminous with happiness; and Luigi
Caracciolo imagined himself the cause of it, and drove more slowly;
and Cesare Dias was pleased by it, for he took it as an earnest of
her better frame of mind.
When Stella Martini asked her, "Shall we continue our walk or go
home?" she answered, "Let us go home."
She had seen him; she had told him how anxiously she had counted the
days of his absence; he had promised that he would call to-morrow.
She had seen him again, and had smiled upon him. That was enough. She
mustn't ask too much of Providence in a single day.
Anna went home as happy as if she had recovered a lost treasure. And
yet Cesare Dias had been cold and distant. But what did that matter
to Anna? She had got back her treasure; that was all. Again she would
enjoy his dear presence, she would hear his voice, she would sit near
to him, she would speak with him, answer him; he would come again
every day, at his accustomed hour; she could please herself with the
fancy that that hour was sacred to him, as it was to her. Nothing
else mattered. It was true that she had met him by the merest chance;
it was true, that had chance ordered otherwise, a fortnight might
have passed without her seeing him. It was true, that he had taken no
pains to bring about their meeting. It was true, also, that she and
Stella had as much as begged him to call upon them. But in all this
he had been so like himself, his conduct had been so characteristic,
that Anna was glad of it. It was a great thing to have made her peace
with him, without having had to write to him.
"Signor Dias was looking very well," said Stella Martini, "we shall
see him to-morrow."
"Yes, to-morrow," said Anna, smiling.
"I missed him immensely during his long absence."
"So did I."
"You're very fond of him, aren't you?" Stella inquired ingenuously.
"Yes," answered Anna, after a little hesitation.
"He's so good--in spite of the things he says," observed the
governess.
"He is as he is," murmured Anna, with a gesture.
When they got home, Laura noticed Anna's air of radiant joy. Anna
moved about the room, without putting by her hat or muff.
At last she said, "You know, we met Dias."
"Ah?" responded Laura, without interest.
"He's very well."
"That's nothing extraordinary."
"He's coming to-morrow."
"Good."
But when he arrived the next day, it was Laura who received him.
Anna, at the sound of the bell, had taken refuge in her own room.
"Oh, wise Minerva!" cried Dias, pressing her little white hand. "You
are well. You are natural. You know no weakness. You, I am sure,
haven't been counting the days of my absence. I understand. I am
wise, too. We are like the Seven Sages of Greece."
She responded with a smile. Cesare Dias looked at her admiringly.
Then Anna came. She was embarrassed; and red and white alternated in
her cheek. She spoke nervously, and kept her eyes inquiringly fixed
upon Cesare's face. He, on the other hand, was calm and superior. He
behaved as if he had never been away. He had the good sense not to
mention Luigi Caracciolo; and Anna, who was waiting for that name
as for an occasion to show her submissiveness, was disconcerted.
Dias appeared to have forgotten the ingratitude with which he had
reproached her. He had the countenance of a man too magnanimous
to bear a grudge. And Anna was more than ever disconcerted by
such unmerited generosity. For several days he did not speak of
Caracciolo; then, noticing how Anna said yes to every remark he made,
little by little he began to reintroduce the subject. Little by
little Caracciolo regained his position, became a new, an important
member of their group. He returned to the attack, encouraged by
the smile he had received that day in the Mergellina. His manner
was more devoted than ever. He treated the girl as a loved object
before whom he could pass his life kneeling. She could not control a
movement of dislike at first seeing him, because it was he who had
occasioned her quarrel with Cesare Dias; but Luigi did not notice it;
and she soon got herself in hand, determined to treat him as kindly
as she possibly could. It was a sacrifice she was making to please
Cesare Dias. She closed her eyes to shut out the vision of the peril
towards which she was advancing. She compromised herself with Luigi
Caracciolo day after day. She compromised herself as a girl does
only with the man she means to marry; accepting flowers from him,
answering his notes, listening to his compliments; and at night, when
she was alone, she would tremble with anger and with self-contempt,
counting the steps she had made during the afternoon towards the
great danger! But the fear of seeing Cesare Dias again absent himself
for eight days, the fear that he might again pass eight days at the
feet of the Contessa d'Alemagna, or at those of some other beautiful
woman--this fear rendered her so weak that she went on, not knowing
where she might stop, feeling that she was approaching the most
terrible crisis of her life.
Cesare Dias, somewhat easier in his mind about the girl appeared to
be pleased in a fatherly way by her conduct; it seemed as if he was
watching his chance to speak the decisive word. Anna, dreading that
word, had got into an overwrought nervous condition, where her humour
changed from minute to minute. Now she would cry, now she would
laugh, now she would blush, now she would turn pale.
"What's the matter?" asked Dias.
"Nothing," she answered, passing her hand over her eyes.
But at his question she smiled radiantly, and he felt that he had
worked a little miracle.
He was a clever man, and he knew that he must strike while the iron
was hot. He must attack Anna in one of her moments of meekness, or
not at all. Luigi Caracciolo became more and more pressing; he loved
the girl, and he told her so in every look he gave her. And time was
flying. Everybody who met Anna congratulated her upon her engagement;
and when she replied: "No, I'm not engaged," people shook their
heads, smiling sceptically.
One afternoon, angry with Caracciolo because of a letter he had
written to her, and which he insisted upon her answering, she said to
Dias, who was talking with Laura:
"I want to speak to you."
"Good. And I want to speak to you."
"Then--will you call to-morrow?"
"Yes. In the morning."
He returned to his conversation with Laura.
All night long she prayed for strength and courage.
And when, the next morning, she was alone with him, too frightened to
speak, she simply handed him Caracciolo's letter. He took it, read
it, and silently returned it.
"What do you think of it?" she asked.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, as if he did not wish to express an opinion.
"Does it strike you as a serious letter?"
"Yes, it's serious."
"I may easily be mistaken," she said. "That is why I want to ask your
advice. You--you know so much."
"A little," he assented, smiling.
They spoke very quietly, seated side by side, without looking at each
other.
"Doesn't he strike you as bold?" she asked.
"Who? Caracciolo? For having written that letter?"
"Yes."
"No. People in love are always writing letters. They don't always
send them, but they always write them."
"Ah, is that so?"
"He loves you, therefore he writes to you."
"He loves me?" she inquired, trembling.
"Of course."
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly."
"Has he told you so?"
"He has told me so."
"And what did you answer?"
"I? Nothing. He asked me nothing. He merely announced a fact. It's
from you that he expects an answer."
"From me?" she exclaimed.
"Every letter calls for an answer."
"I shan't answer this one."
"Why not?"
"Because I have nothing to say to him."
"Don't you love him?"
"No."
"Not even a little? Don't you like him?"
"No, I don't love him, I don't even like him."
"I can't believe it," he said, very gravely, as if he saw before him
an insurmountable obstacle.
"You deceive yourself then," said she.
"I see that you receive him kindly, that you speak to him politely,
that you listen to his compliments, apparently with pleasure. That's
a great deal for a young girl to do." And he lifted his eyebrows.
"I have done it to please you--because he is a friend of yours," she
cried.
"Thank you," he cried, curtly.
Then befell a silence. She played with an antique coin attached to
her watch-chain, and kept her eyes cast down.
"So," he began presently, "so you won't marry Luigi Caracciolo?"
"No. Never."
"He's a splendid fellow, though. He has a noble name, a handsome
fortune. And he loves you."
"I don't love him, and I won't marry him."
"Love isn't necessary in marriage," said Cesare coldly.
"Not for others, perhaps. For me it is necessary," she cried, pained
in the bottom of her heart by this apothegm.
"You know nothing about life, my dear. A marriage for love and a
marriage for convenience are equally likely to turn out happily or
unhappily. And of what use is passion? Of none."
She bowed her head, not convinced, obstinate in her faith, but
respecting the man who spoke to her.
"If you don't care for Luigi Caracciolo, you ought to try not to see
him."
"I will avoid him."
"But he will seek you."
"I'll stay in the house."
"He'll write to you."
"I have already said I won't answer him."
"He will persevere; I know him. The prize at stake is important. He
will persevere."
"You will tell him that the marriage is impossible."
"Ah, no, my dear. I shan't be the bearer of any such ungracious
message."
"Aren't you--aren't you my guardian?"
"Yes, I am your guardian. But I heartily wish Francesco Acquaviva had
not chosen me. Frankly, I would prefer to be nothing to you."
"Am I--so bad?" she pleaded, with tears in her eyes.
"I don't know whether you are good or bad. I don't waste my time
trying to make such distinctions. I only know that he's a fine young
fellow, handsome and rich, who loves you, and that you, without a
single earthly reason, refuse him. I know that he is anxious to marry
you, in spite of the fact that you don't care for him, in spite
of--pass me the word--in spite of the extravagance of your character.
Excuse me, dear Anna, but I want to ask you whether you think it will
be easy to find another husband?"
"How can I tell?"
"I ask, do you think another will be likely to ask you for your hand?"
"Excuse me. I don't understand," she said, turning pale, because she
did understand.
"My dear, have you forgotten the past?"
"What past?" she demanded, proudly.
"Nothing but a flight from home, my dear. A day passed at Pompeii
with a young man. Nothing else."
"Oh, heavens!" she sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
"Don't cry out, Anna. This is a serious moment. You must control
yourself. Remember that what you did respectable girls don't do.
Luigi Caracciolo knows nothing about it, or nothing definite. But a
man who did know about it, wouldn't marry you, my dear. It's hard;
it's cruel; but it's my duty to tell it to you. Marry him; marry
Luigi. That is the advice of a friend, of a true friend, Anna. Marry
Luigi Caracciolo."
"I committed a great fault," she said, in a dull voice, "but haven't
you forgiven me, you and Laura?"
"Yes, yes. But husbands--but young men about to marry, don't pardon
such faults. With what jealous care I have kept that secret! I have
guarded it as if I were your father. And now you let a chance like
this slip away! Not realising that such a chance may never come
again! But another man, an equal of Caracciolo, where is he to be
found?"
"It is true that I committed a great fault," she said, returning
always to the same idea; "but my honour was untouched."
"I am the only person who knows that."
"It is enough for me that you know it."
"Anna, Anna, you're a foolish child; that's what you are. You fall
in love with a penniless nobody, you escape from your home, you risk
your honour, and you are saved by a miracle. Afterwards, you are
ill, you get well, you forget the young beggar; and then when a fine
fellow like Caracciolo falls in love with you, you refuse him. You're
mad, Anna. Marry Luigi Caracciolo. I beg you to marry him."
"You can't ask me that," she murmured.
"Love is a fancy. Marry Caracciolo."
"I can't."
"But why not? It's not a sufficient reason to say that you don't love
him."
"Look for another reason, then," she said.
"I'll find it."
Cesare Dias had spoken these words in a threatening tone, unusual to
him. He rarely lost his temper.
After a long pause he asked, smiling sarcastically, "You are in love
with some one else, I suppose?"
Anna did not answer. She wrung her hands and hid her eyes.
"Why don't you answer? You've fallen in love again, have you not?"
"Again? What do you mean?" she exclaimed.
"I mean that to explain your refusal of Luigi Caracciolo, you must be
in love with some other man. You little girls believe that passion is
everlasting. You believe in faithfulness that lasts, if not beyond
the grave, at least up to its brink. Are you still in love with
Giustino Morelli?"
"Oh, don't insult me like that," she cried, in a convulsion of sobs.
"Calm yourself," said he, studying her with cold curiosity, while she
wept.
"For pity's sake, don't think that of me," she besought him; "Say
anything that I deserve, but not that, not that."
"Calm yourself," repeated Dias. "We will speak of this another day."
"Listen, listen," she cried. "Don't go away yet. Forgive me, first,
for having interfered with one of your plans. But marry Luigi
Caracciolo--I can't, indeed I can't. I never can. You smile at my
word _never_. You are right, the human heart is such a fickle thing.
Forgive me. But you will see that I am not wrong. You will never
never have any more trouble with me. I will be so obedient, so meek.
I will do everything you wish. Compared to you I am such a little,
poor, worthless thing."
She was weeping. Giustino Morelli and Luigi Caracciolo had
disappeared from the conversation; only Cesare Dias and Anna
Acquaviva remained in it. He listened with growing curiosity. If in
one sense he had lost a battle, in another his vanity had gained a
victory. A smile passed over his face.
"Don't cry," he said.
"Oh, let me cry. I am so unhappy, so miserable. I have played away
my life so foolishly. But I didn't know. I swear to you, I didn't
understand. Now all is over. I am a lost woman----"
"Don't exaggerate."
"Oh, you yourself said it. You are right. A respectable girl, who
holds dear her honour, who is jealous of her reputation, doesn't fly
from her home, doesn't throw herself into the arms of a man. You are
right--you only--you are always right--you who are so wise. But if
you knew--if you knew what it is like, this madness that springs up
from my heart to my brain--if you knew how I lose my head, when my
feelings get the better of me--you would be sorry for me."
"Don't cry any more," he said, very low.
"Ah, if tears could only wash out the past," she sighed.
"Good-bye, Anna," he said, rising.
"Don't go away." And she took his hand. "I haven't said anything to
you yet. I haven't explained. You are going away angry with me. But
you are right. The sooner it is finished the better. To-day I have no
strength. I irritate you. Women who make scenes are always tiresome.
But you ought to know, you ought. I will write to you--I will write
everything. You permit me to, don't you? Say that you permit me. I
can't live unless you let me write and tell you everything."
"Write," he said, softly.
"And you forgive me?"
"I have nothing to forgive. Write. Good-bye, Anna."
She sat down. Dias went away. Laura and Stella came into the room.
"Well, is the marriage arranged?" asked Stella, not noticing Anna's
red eyes and pale cheeks.
"No. It will never be arranged."
An hour later Laura asked: "Are you in love with Cesare Dias?"
"Yes," answered Anna, simply.
VI.
Anna's letter to Cesare Dias ran thus:
"I don't know what name to call you by, whether by your own name, so
soft and proud, or whether by that of Friend, which says so much, and
yet says nothing. I don't know whether I should write here the word
that my respect for you imposes upon me, or the word that my heart
inspires. Perhaps I had better call you by no name at all; perhaps
I ought not to struggle against the unconquerable superior will
that dominates me. I am so poor a creature, I am so devoid of moral
strength, that the best part of my soul is unconscious of what it
does, and when I attempt to act, I am defeated from the outset; is it
not true? Ah, there is never an hour of noble and fruitful battle in
my heart! Only an utter ignorance of things, of feelings, a complete
surrender to the sweetness of love, and, thereby, the loss of all
peace, all hope!
"How you must despise me. You are just and wise. You can't help
despising a poor weak thing like me, a woman whose heart is always
open, whose imagination is always ready to take fire, whose
changeable mind is never fixed, whose veins, though cured of their
great fever, are still burning, as if her rebellious blood could do
nothing but burn, burn, burn. If you despise me--and your eyes, your
voice, your manner, all tell me that you do--you are quite right. I
never seem to be doing wrong, yet I am always doing it; and then,
when I see it, it is too late to make good my error, to recover my
own happiness, or to restore that of others. Ah, despise me, despise
me; you are right to despise me. I bend to every wind that blows,
like a broken reed. I am overturned and rent by the tempest, for I
know neither how to defend myself nor how to die. Despise me; no one
can despise me as you can, no one has so good a right to do it.
"When you are away from me, I can think of you with a certain amount
of courage, trusting to your kindness, to your charity, to forgive me
my lack of strength. When you are away from me, I feel myself more a
woman, braver; I can dream of being something to you, not an equal,
no, but a humble follower in the things of the soul. Dreams, dreams!
When you are with me, all my faith in myself disappears; I recognise
how feeble I am, how extravagant, how incoherent; no more, never
more, can I hope for your indulgence.
"I think of my past--justly and cruelly you reproached me with
it--and I find in it such a multitude of childish illusions, such
an entirely false standard of life and love, such a monstrous
abandonment of all right womanly traditions, that my shame rushes in
a flame to my face. Have you not noticed it?
"Before that fatal day at Pompeii--the first day of my real
existence--I had a treasury of feelings, of impressions, of ideas, my
own personal ones, by which my life was regulated, or rather by which
it was disturbed; they were swept away, they were destroyed, they
disappeared from my soul on that day. To you, who showed me how great
my fault was, to you, who trampled down all that I had cared for, I
bow my head, I bow my spirit. You were right. You are right. You only
are right. You are always right. I want to convince you that I see
the truth clearly now. Let me walk behind you, let me follow you, as
a servant follows her master. Ah, give me a little strength you who
are strong, you who have never erred, you who have conquered yourself
and the world. Give me strength, you who seem to me the model of
calmness and justice--above all hazards, because you have known how
to suffer in silence, above all human joy, because you understand
its emptiness; and yet so kind, so indulgent, so quick to forgive,
because you are a man and never forget to be a man.
"You despise me, that is certain; for all strong natures must despise
weakness. But it is also certain that you pity me, because I am
buffeted about by the storms of life, without a compass, without a
star. I have already once been wrecked; in that wreck I left behind
me years of health and hope, the best part of my youthful faith. And
now I am in danger of being wrecked again, utterly and for ever,
unless you save me.
"Say what you will to me; do what you will with me. Insult me, after
having despised me. But don't leave me to my weakness, don't withdraw
your support from me. It is my only help.
"What shall I call you? Friend?
"Friend, I shall be lost if you do not save me, if you refuse to
allow my soul to follow yours, strengthened by your strength, if you
cast me out from your spiritual presence, if you do not give me the
support that my life finds in yours. Friend, friend, friend, don't
cast me off. Say what you will, do what you will, but don't separate
me from you. If you do, I shall die. I, a beggar, knock at your door."
The letter continued--
"You wounded me profoundly when you said that it was perhaps Giustino
Morelli, the man for whose sake I refused to marry Luigi Caracciolo.
I can't hear the bare name of Morelli, without shuddering with
contempt. It isn't that I am angry with him, no, no. It is that he
does not exist for me; he is the vain shadow of a dead man. On the
evening of "The Huguenots,"--ah me! that music sings constantly in my
soul, I shall never forget it--he was there, and I didn't see him, I
wouldn't see him. I don't hate him. He was a poor, weak fool; honest
perhaps, for you have said so; but small in heart and mind! And thus
my contempt for him is really contempt for myself, who made an idol
of him. How was I ever able to be so blind? When I think of it, I
wring my hands in desperation, for it was before him that I burned
the first pure incense of my heart. I shall never forgive myself."
Cesare Dias read this letter twice through. Then he left his house
to go about his affairs and his pleasures. Returning home, he read
it for a third time. Thereupon he wrote the following note, which he
immediately sent off.
"Dear Anna,--All that you say is very well; but I don't know yet who
the man is that you love.--Very cordially, Cesare Dias."
She read it, and answered with one line: "I love you.--Anna
Acquaviva."
Cesare Dias waited a day before he replied: "Dear Anna,--Very well.
And what then?--Cesare Dias."
In the exaltation of her passion she had taken a step whereby she
risked her entire future happiness; and she knew it. She had taken
the humiliating step of declaring her love. Would Dias hate her? She
had expected an angry letter from him, a letter saying that he would
never see her again; instead of which she had received a colourless
little note, neither warm nor cold, treating her declaration as he
might have treated any most ordinary incident of his day.
That was the unkindest cut of all. Cesare Dias was simply
indifferent. For her, love was a tragedy; for him, it was an ordinary
incident of his day.
What to do now? She could not think. What to do? What to do? Had
he himself not asked, with light curiosity: "And what then?" He
had asked it with the sort of curiosity one might show for the
continuation of a novel one was reading.
All night long she sobbed upon her pillow.
"What is the matter?" asked Laura, waking up.
"Nothing. Go to sleep."
In the morning she wrote to him again:
"Why do you ask me _what then_? I don't know; I cannot answer. God
has allowed me to love a second time. I know nothing of 'then.' I
only know one thing--I love you. Perhaps you have known it too, this
long while. My eyes, my voice, my words wherein my soul knelt before
you, must have told you that I loved you. Have you not seen me bow
my proud head daily in humility before you? I began to love you that
evening when we came home together from Pompeii, when my fever was
beginning. Afterwards, my whole nature was transformed by my love
of you. I don't ask you to love me. Perhaps you are bound by other
loves, past loves. Perhaps you have never loved, and wish never to
love. Perhaps I don't please you, either spiritually or bodily. What
is passing in your mind? Who knows? I only know that you are strong
and wise, that you never turn aside, that you follow your noble path
tranquilly, in the triumphant calm of your greatness. Have you loved?
Will you love? Who knows? All I ask is that you will let me love
you, without being separated from you. I ask that you will promise
to wish me well, not as your ward, not as your sister, but as a poor
girl who loves you with all her soul and life. I don't ask you to
change your habits in any way; the least of your habits, the least
of your desires, is sacred to me. Live as you have always lived,
only remember that in a corner of Naples there is a heart that finds
its only reason for existence in your existence, and continue from
time to time to give it a minute of your presence. My love will be a
silent companion to you.
"Are you not the same man who said to me, with a voice that trembled
with pity, in that dark, empty room at the inn in Pompeii, while I
felt that I was dying--are you not the same man who said, _My poor
child, my poor child_?
"You pitied me. You do pity me. You will pity me. I know it, I know
it. And that is the 'then' of my love.
"Don't write to me. I should be afraid to read what you might write.
"Ah, how I love you! How I love you!
"ANNA ACQUAVIVA."
Cesare Dias was very thoughtful after he had read this letter. His
vanity, the vanity of a man of forty, was flattered by it. And Anna's
love, for the present, at any rate, seemed to be entirely obedient
and submissive. But would it remain so? Cesare Dias had had a good
deal of experience. Anna's he knew to be a proud and self-willed
character; would it always remain on its knees, like this? Some day
she would not be content only to love, she would demand to be loved
in return.
He did not answer the letter. He was an enemy to letter writing in
general, to the writing of love letters in particular; and, anyhow,
what could he say?
For two days he did not call upon her. On the third day, he arrived
as usual, at two o'clock.
Anna, during these days, had lived in a state of miserable suspense
and nervousness.
"What is the matter with her?" Stella Martini asked of Laura.
"I don't know."
But the governess tormented her with questions, and at last she
answered impatiently: "I think she is in love."
"Again?"
"Yes, again."
"And with whom?"
"She has never told me to tell you," cried Laura, leaving the room.
"What is the matter with you?" Stella asked of Anna. "You are
suffering. Why do you conceal your sorrow from me?"
"If I am suffering, it's my own fault," said Anna. "Only God can help
me."
"Can't I help you? You are in deep grief."
"Deep grief."
"You have placed your hopes where they can't be realised? Again?"
"Again."
"Why, dear? Explain it to me."
"Because it is my destiny, perhaps."
"You are young, beautiful, and rich. You ought to be the mistress of
your destiny. It is only poor solitary people who have to submit to
destiny."
"I am poorer than the poorest beggar that asks for alms in the
street."
"Don't talk like that," said Stella, gently, taking her hand. "Tell
me about it."
"I can't tell you about it, I can't. It is stronger than I am," said
Anna, and her anguish seemed to suffocate her.
"Tell me nothing, then, darling. I understand. I'm only a poor
servant; but I love you so. And I want to tell you, Anna, that there
are no sorrows that can't be outlived."
"If Heaven doesn't help me, my sorrow will kill me."
"The only irremediable sorrow in this world is the death of some one
whom we love," said Stella, shaking her head. "You will see."
"I would rather die than live like this."
"But is the case quite desperate? Is there no ray of light?"
"Perhaps."
"Is it a man on whom your hope depends?"
"Yes."
"Do I know him?"
But Anna put her fingers on her lips, to silence Stella. The bell had
rung. And, at the sound of it, Stella heard a great sigh escape from
Anna's breast.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing, nothing," said Anna, passing her pocket-handkerchief over
her face. "Go to the drawing-room."
"Must I leave you alone?"
"I beg you to. I am so upset. I want a minute of peace."
"And you will come afterwards?"
"I'll come when I can--when I am calm again."
Stella went slowly away. In the drawing-room she found Dias, who was
showing a copy of the illustrated _Figaro_ to Laura. Dias bowed and
asked, "And Anna?"
"She will come presently."
"Is she well?"
"Not ill."
"Then she is not well?"
"I don't think so. But you will see for yourself."
He and Laura returned to the engravings in the _Figaro_, which were
very good. Stella left them.
Anna entered the room. Her heart was beating wildly. She did not
speak. She sat down at the opposite side of the table on which the
newspaper was spread out.
Dias said, referring to the pictures, "They're very clever."
"Very clever," agreed Laura.
Dias bowed to Anna, smiling, and asking, "How do you do?"
"Well," she answered.
"Signora Martini told me that she feared you were not very well."
"It's her affection for me, that imagines things. I am quite well."
In his tone she could feel nothing more than pity for her. "I am only
a little nervous."
"It's the weather, the sirocco," said Dias.
"Yes, the sirocco," repeated Anna.
"You'll be all right when the sun shines," said he.
"When the sun shines, perhaps," she repeated mechanically.
Laura rose, and left the room.
After a silence, Cesare Dias said, "It is true, then, that you love
me?"
Anna looked at him. She could not speak. She made a gesture that said
yes.
"I should like to know why," he remarked, playing with his
watch-chain.
She looked her surprise, but did not speak.
"Yes, why," he went on. "You must have a reason. There must be a
reason if a woman loves one man and not another. Tell me. Perhaps I
have virtues whose existence I have never suspected."
Anna, confused and pale, looked at him in silence. He was laughing at
her; and she besought him with her gaze to have pity upon her.
"Forgive me, Anna. But you know it is my bad habit not to take
seriously things that appear very serious to others. My raillery
hurts you. But some day you must really try to tell me why you care
for me."
"Because you are you," she said softly.
"That's a very profound reason," he answered smiling. "But it would
require many hours of meditation to be understood. And, of course,
you will always love me?"
"Always."
"May I say something that will pain you?"
"Say it," she sighed.
"It seems to me, then, that you are slightly changeable. A year ago
you thought you loved another, and would love him always. Confess
that you have utterly forgotten him. And in another year--what will
my place be?"
But he checked himself. She had become livid, and her eyes were full
of tears.
"I have pained you too much. Nothing gives pain like the truth,"
he said. "But there, smile a little. Don't you think smiles are as
interesting as tears? You're very lovely when you smile."
And obediently she smiled.
"Well, then, this eternal love," he went on, "what are we to do about
it?"
"Nothing. I only love you."
"Does that suffice?"
"I must make it suffice."
"You are easily satisfied. Will you always be so modest in your
hopes?"
"The future is in the hands of God," said she, not having the courage
to lie.
"Ah! that is what I want to talk about--the future. You are hoping
something from the future. Otherwise you would not be satisfied. The
future, indeed! You are twenty. You have never thought of my age,
have you?"
"It doesn't matter. For me you are young."
"And I will come to love you? That is your hope?"
"I have asked for nothing. Don't humiliate me."
He bowed, slightly disconcerted.
He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little portfolio in red
leather, which he opened, drawing forth two or three letters.
"I have brought your letters with me. Letters are so easily lost, and
other people read them. So, having learned their contents, I return
them to you."
She did not take them.
"What!" he cried, "aren't you glad to get them back? But there's
nothing women wish so much as to get back the letters they have
written."
"Tear them up--you," she murmured.
"It's not nice to tear up letters."
"Tear them, tear them."
"As you like," he said, tearing them up.
She closed her eyes while he was doing it. Then she said with a sad
smile:
"So, it is certain, you don't care for me?"
"I mustn't contradict you," he answered gallantly.
He took her hand to bid her good-bye.
Slowly she went back to her bedroom.
There she found Stella Martini.
"Do you remember, Stella, that day I left you in the Church of Santa
Chiara?"
"Yes; I remember."
"Well, now I tell you this--never forget it. On that day I signed my
own death-sentence."
VII.
The Villa Caterina was embowered amongst the flowering orange-trees
of Sorrento. On the side towards the town the villa had a beautiful
Italian garden, where white statues gleamed amidst green leaves,
and where all day long one could listen to the laughing waters
of fountains. From the garden a door led directly into a big
drawing-room. On the other side of the house a broad terrace looked
over the sea.
This was the summer home of the Acquaviva family. It was bigger
and handsomer than the house in Naples. There was greater freedom,
greater luxury, greater cheerfulness here, than in the gloomy palace
of the Piazza dei Gerolomini. The girls were very fond of Villa
Caterina, and their father, Francesco Acquaviva, had been very fond
of it. He had named it for his wife. It was here that the couple
had passed all the summers of their married life; it was here that
Caterina Acquaviva had died. The girls had a sweet, far-away memory
of their mother; in her room at the Villa she was almost like a
living presence to them.
When the spring came Anna began to speak of going to Sorrento. She
felt that if she could get away from Naples she might experience a
change of soul. The broad light and ceaseless murmur of the sea would
calm her and strengthen her. When Laura or Stella asked her, "What is
the matter?" she would answer, "I don't like being _here_."
She said nothing of her great sorrow. She shut it into her heart,
and felt that it was killing her by inches. She passed long hours in
silent meditation, her eyes fixed vaguely upon the air; when spoken
to, she would start nervously, and look at her interlocutor as if she
had suddenly been called back from a distant land of dreams.
Those who loved her saw her moral and physical trouble. She stayed
in the house day after day; she gave up her walks; she went no more
to the theatre. She had lost her interest in the things that used to
please her. She was very gentle, very kind to everybody. To Cesare
Dias she showed an unfailing tenderness. She was often silent before
him. When he spoke to her, she would reply with a look, a look of
such deep melancholy that even his hard heart was touched. She was
very different to the impetuous creature of former times.
When the spring came, with its languorous warmth, her weakness
increased. In spite of all her efforts to conquer her desire to do
so, she would spend long hours writing to Cesare. It was her only
way of showing the love that was consuming her. It was a great
comfort, and, at the same time, a great pain. She wrote at great
length, confusedly, with the disorder and the monotony of a spirit
in distress; and as she wrote she would repeat her written phrases
aloud, as if he were present, and could respond. She wrote thrilling
with passion, and her cheeks burned. But, after she had committed her
letters to the post, she would wish them back, they seemed so cold,
so absurd, so grotesque, and she cursed the moment in which she had
put pen to paper.
Cesare Dias never answered her. How could she expect him to, indeed?
Had he not torn her first letters up, under her eyes?
Whenever his servant brought him one of Anna's letters he received
it with a movement of impatience. He was not altogether displeased,
however. He read them with a calm judicial mind, amused at their
"rhetoric," and forbore to answer them. He went less frequently to
her house than formerly. They were rarely alone together now. But
sometimes it happened that they were; and then, observing her pale
face, her eyes red from weeping, he asked: "What is it? Why do you go
on like this?"
"What do you wish me to do?" she returned.
"I want you to be merry, to laugh."
"That--that is impossible," she said, drooping her eyes to hide the
tears in them.
And Dias, fearing a scene, was silent.
He was a man of much self-control, but he confessed to himself that
he would not be able, as she was, to bear an unrequited love with
patience.
Anna was a woman, a woman in the full sense of the word. She had
hoped to win his heart; but now she relinquished hope. And one day,
in May, she wrote him a letter of farewell; she would never write
again; it was useless, useless. She bade him farewell; she said she
would like to go away, go away from Naples to Sorrento, to the Villa
Caterina, where her mother had loved and died.
She begged Laura and Stella to take her to Sorrento. And Stella wrote
to Dias to ask his permission. He replied at once, saying he thought
the change of air would be capital for Anna. They had best leave at
once. He could not call to bid them good-bye, but he would soon come
to see his dear girls at the Villa.
Stella said: "Dias has written to me."
"When?" asked Anna.
"Yesterday. He says he can't come to bid us good-bye, he's too busy."
"Of course--too busy. Will you give me the letter?"
"It's a very kind letter," said Stella. She saw that Anna's hand was
trembling as it held the white paper. Anna did not return it.
"Dias is very kind," said Anna.
They left Naples on the last day of May.
When they reached the villa, the two girls went directly to their
mother's room. Laura opened the two windows that looked out upon
the sea and let in the sunlight, and she moved from corner to
corner, taking note of the dust on the furniture. Anna knelt at the
praying-desk, above which hung a cross, an image of the Virgin, and a
miniature of her mother.
Laura asked:
"Are you going to stay here?"
Anna did not answer.
"When you come away bring me the key," said the wise Minerva, and
went off, softly closing the door behind her.
"Where is Anna?" asked Stella.
"She is still up there," said Laura.
"What is she doing?"
"Weeping, or praying, or thinking. I don't know."
"Poor Anna," sighed Stella.
How long did Anna remain on her knees before the image of the Virgin
and the portrait of her mother? No one disturbed her. She kept
murmuring: "Oh, Holy Virgin! Oh, my mother!" alternately.
When she came away, having closed the windows and locked the door,
she was so pale that Stella said:
"You have stayed up there too long. It has done you harm."
"No, no," Anna answered; "I am very well; I am so much better. I am
glad we have come here. I should like to live here always."
But Stella was not reassured. And at night the thought of her pupil
troubled her and would not let her sleep. Sometimes she would get up
and go to the door of Anna's room. There was always a light burning
within. Two or three times she had entered; Anna lay motionless on
her bed, with her eyes closed. Then Stella had put out the light.
"Why do you leave your light burning at night?" she asked Anna one
day.
"Because I am afraid of the dark."
Thereupon Stella had prepared a little lamp for her, with a shade of
opalescent crystal that softened its light; and almost every night
Stella would go to Anna's room to see whether she was asleep. Her
pale face in the green rays of the lamp had the semblance of a wreck
slumbering at the bottom of the sea. Sometimes, hearing Stella's
footsteps, Anna opened her eyes and smiled upon her; then relapsed
into her stupor. For it was not sleep; it was a sort of bodily
and mental torpor that kept her motionless and speechless. Stella
returned to her own room, in no wise reassured. And what most worried
this good woman was the long visit which Anna made every day to the
room of her dead mother.
The villa was delightful during these first weeks of the summer, with
its fragrant garden, its big, airy, cheerful, luxurious apartments,
its splendid view of the sea. In the cool and perfumed mornings, in
the evenings that palpitated with starlight, every window and balcony
had its special fascination. But Anna saw and felt nothing of all
this; her mother's room alone attracted her. There she passed long
hours kneeling beside the bed, or seated at a window, silent, gazing
off at the sea, with a white expressionless face. Sometimes Stella
came to the door and called:
"Anna--Anna!"
"Here I am," she answered, starting out of her reverie.
"Come away; it is late."
"I am coming."
But she did not move; it was necessary to call her again and again.
Her stations there exhausted her. She would return from them with
dark circles under her eyes, her lips colourless, the line of her
profile sharpened and accentuated.
Stella felt a great pity for her, a great longing to be of help
to her. She tried to persuade her to cut short her vigils in her
mother's room.
"You ought not to stay so long. It is bad for you."
"No, no," Anna answered. "If you knew the peace I find there."
"But a young girl like you ought to wish for the excitements of life,
not the peace."
"There are no more flowers for Margaret," quoted Anna, going to the
window and looking towards the sea.
During the whole month of June, a lovely month at Sorrento, where the
mornings are warm and the evenings fresh, Anna fell away visibly in
health and spirits. Laura and Stella did not interfere with her, but
it saddened them to witness her decline. Stella's anxiety was almost
motherly. When she saw Anna's pale, peaked face, when she noticed
her transparent hands, a voice from within called to her that she
must do something for the poor girl.
One day she said, "Signor Dias has promised to come here for a visit.
But he's delaying a little. Perhaps he'll come for the bathing
season."
"You will see. He'll not come at all," replied Anna, her eyes
suddenly filling with tears.
"He's so kind, and he has promised. He will come."
"I don't believe it," Anna answered sadly.
Indeed, he neither came nor wrote. The first fortnight of July had
passed; the bathing season had already begun. Sorrento was full
of people. In the evening, till late into the night, from every
window, from every balcony, and from the big brilliantly lighted
drawing-rooms of the hotels, came the sounds of singing and dancing,
the tinkling of mandolines, the laughter of women--a gay, passionate,
summer music. The villas were protected from the sun by blue and
white striped awnings, which fluttered in the afternoon breeze like
the sails of ships. At night the moon bathed houses, country, and
sea in a radiance dazzling as snow. Anna, in the midst of all this
merriment, this health and beauty, felt only the more profoundly a
great longing to end her life. It was seldom now that she so much as
moved from one room to another. In the evening, when Stella and Laura
would go out to call upon their friends, Anna would seat herself in
an easy-chair on the terrace of the Villa, and fix her eyes upon the
sky, where the Milky Way trembled in light. And on the sea beyond
her, people were singing in boats, or sending up fireworks from
yachts. Round about her sounded the thousand voices of the glorious
summer night, voices of joy, voices of passion. Anna neither saw nor
heard.
But in Stella's face she could not help noticing an expression of
sympathy which seemed to say, "I have divined--I have guessed." And
in the kiss which Stella gave her, before going out, on the evening
of the 17th of July, Anna felt an even deeper affection than usual.
Laura and Stella were going to a dance at the Villa Victoria.
"Be strong and you will be happy," Stella said, and her kiss seemed
meant as a promise of good news.
But the poor child did not understand. She took Stella's words as one
of those vague efforts at consolation which people make for those who
are inconsolable, and shook her head, smiling sadly. Lovely in her
white frock, Laura too came and kissed her. And then she heard the
carriage drive away. Anna left the drawing-room and went out upon
the terrace. There was a full moon; its light was so brilliant one
might have read by it. There was something divinely beautiful in the
view--from the horizon to the arch of the sky, from the hills behind
her, covered with olives and oranges, to the sea before her. And she
felt all the more intensely the sorrow of her broken life.
She lay back in her easy-chair, with her eyes closed.
"Good evening," said Cesare Dias.
She opened her eyes, but she could not speak. She could only look at
him, and she did so with such an expression of desolate joy that he
told himself: "This woman really loves me."
He appeared to be very thoughtful. He drew up a chair, and sat down
next to her.
"Are you surprised to see me, Anna? Didn't I promise to come?"
"I thought--that you had forgotten. It is so easy to forget."
"I always keep my promise," he declared.
When had she heard him speak like this before, with this voice, this
inflexion--when? Ah, she remembered: when she was ill, when they
thought she was going to die. So it was pity for one threatened with
death that had brought him to Sorrento; it was pity that banished its
habitual irony from his voice.
"The air of Sorrento hasn't cured you," he said, bending a little to
look at her.
"It hasn't cured me. It has cured me of nothing. I think I shall
never be cured. There is no country in the world that can cure me."
"There is only one doctor who can do you any good--that doctor is
yourself."
He opened his silver cigarette-case, took out a cigarette, and lit it.
She watched the vacillating flame of his match, and for a moment did
not speak.
"It is easy to say that," she went on finally, with a feeble voice.
"But you know I am a weak creature. That is why you have so much
compassion for me. I shall never be cured, Cesare."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure. I have tried. My love has proved itself stronger than I.
It is destroying me. My heart can no longer endure it."
He looked off into the clear air of the night, watching the spiral of
his cigarette smoke.
"And all those beautiful spiritual promises," he said, "that
wonderful structure of abnegation, of sacrifice, of unrequited love,
has come to nothing! Those plans for the future, which you conceived
in such lofty unselfishness, have failed?"
"Failed, failed," she exclaimed, with a sigh, gazing up at the starry
sky, as if to reproach it with her own unhappiness. "All that I
wrote to you was absurd, a passing illusion. All my plans were based
upon absurdities. Perhaps there are people in the world who are so
perfectly made that they can be contented to love and not be loved
in return; they are fortunate, they are noble; they live only for
others; they are purity incarnate. But I am a miserable, selfish
woman, nothing else; I have expected too much; and I am dying of my
selfishness, of my pride."
She raised herself in her chair, grasping its arms nervously with her
hands, and shaking her beautiful head, wasted by grief.
He was silent. He threw away his cigarette, which had gone out.
The soft moonlight covered all things.
"I am so earthly," she went on. "I have prayed for a better nature,
for an angelic heart, raised above all human desires, that I might
simply love you, and wish for nothing else. I have exhausted myself
with prayers and tears, trying thus to forget that you could not
care for me. I have forbidden myself the great comfort of writing
to you. I left Naples, and came here, far from you--from you who
were, who are my light, my life. In vain, I have passed whole days
here, praying to my mother and to the Madonna to free me from these
terrible, heavy, earthly chains that bind me to that longing to be
loved, and that are killing me. No use, no use! My prayers have not
been answered. I have come away from them with a greater ardour,
a more intense longing, than ever. I am a woman. I am a woman
who doesn't know how to lift herself above womanly things, who,
womanlike, longs to be loved, and who will never, never be consoled
for the love she cannot have."
After a long pause, he asked, "And what do you wish me to do, Anna?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"There is nothing to be done. All is ended; all is over. Or, rather,
nothing has ever been begun."
"Anna, I assure you, it grieves me to see you suffer."
"Thank you. But what can you do for me? It is all due to my own
folly. I admit that I am unbalanced, extravagant. I know it. I am
paying dearly for my folly; ah, the expiation is hard. It is all due
to my one mistake, my one fault. Everybody is very kind to me, more
than kind. But I have sinned, and I must expiate my sin."
"But how is it all to end?" he cried.
"Do you know what the simplest solution would be?"
"What?"
"My death. Ah, to rest! to rest for ever, under the earth, in a dark
grave!"
"Don't say that. People don't die of love."
"Yes that is true. There is indeed no recognised disease called
_love_. Neither ancient nor modern doctors are acquainted with it;
they have never discovered it in making their autopsies. But love is
such a subtle deceiver! It is at the bottom of all mortal illnesses.
It is at the bottom of those wasting declines from which people
suffer for years, people who have loved too much, who have not been
loved enough. It is in those maladies of the heart, where the heart
bursts with emotion or dries up with despair. It is in those long
anæmias which destroy the body fibre by fibre, sapping its energies.
It is in that nervousness which makes people shiver with cold and
burn with insupportable heat. Oh, no one dies suddenly of love. We
die slowly, slowly, of troubles that have so many names, but are
really all just this--that we can endure to love no longer, and that
we are not loved. Who will ever know the right name of the illness
from which I shall die? The doctor will write a scientific word on
paper, to account for my death to you, to Laura, to Stella. But you
know, you at least, that I shall die because you do not love me."
"Calm yourself, Anna."
"I am calm. I have no longer the shadow of a hope. But I am calm,
believe me. I have to tell you these things because they well up from
my soul of their own accord. I am an absolutely desperate woman, but
I am calm, I shall always be calm. Don't answer me. Everything that
you can say I have already said to myself. All is ended. Why should I
not be calm?"
"But, if you no longer hope for anything, then you have hoped for
something. For what?" he asked, with a certain curiosity.
"Oh, heavens!" she cried. "That you should ask me that!"
"Tell me, Anna. You see that I ask it with sympathy, with lively
sympathy."
"But you must have forgotten what love is like, if you ask me to tell
you what its hopes are," she exclaimed. "One hopes for everything
when one loves. From the moment when I first trembled at the sound
of your voice, from the moment when first the touch of your hand on
mine thrilled me with delight, from the moment when first the words
you spoke, whether they were hard or kind, scornful or friendly,
seemed to engrave themselves upon my spirit, from the moment when I
first realised that I was yours--yours for life, from that moment I
have hoped that you might love me. From that moment it has been my
dream that you might love me, with a love equal to my own, with a
self-surrender equal to my own, with an absolute concentration of all
your heart and soul, as I love you. That has been the sublime hope
that my love has cherished."
"It was an illusion," he said softly, looking off upon the broad
shining sea, bathed in the moonlight.
"I know it. Why do you remind me of it? Why are we talking of it? My
soul had fallen into a torpor. But now you rouse me from it. My heart
throbs as if you had reopened its wound. Don't tell me again that you
don't care for me. I know it, I know it."
"Anna, Anna, why do you torment yourself like this?"
"Ah, yes, I have known it a long while now. My great hope died
little by little, day by day, as I saw how unlike me you were, how
far from me; as I understood your contempt for me, your pity; as
I realised that there were secrets in your life which I could not
know; as I perceived that the differences of our ages and tastes
had bred differences of feeling. In a hundred ways, voluntarily and
involuntarily, you showed me that love did not exist for you, either
that you would never love, or, at any rate, that you would never love
me. I read my sentence written in letters of flame on my horizon.
And yet, you see, in spite of the blows that fate had overwhelmed
me with, I was not resigned. I told myself that a young and ardent
woman could not thus miserably lose herself and her love. I thought
that there was a way of saving herself which ought to be tried, a
humble way, but one that I could pursue in patience. Shall I tell you
my other dream?"
"Yes, tell me."
"Well, I dreamed that you would let me unite my weak and stormy youth
to your warm and serene maturity, in such a manner as to complete
more profoundly and more intimately the work of protection that
Francesco Acquaviva had confided to you at his death. You saved me
at Pompeii. That seemed to sanction a supreme act of devotion on my
part. My dream was simple and modest. I would love you with all my
strength, but in silence; I would live with you, loving and following
you like a fond shadow. Every hour, every minute, I would be able to
offer you unspoken, but eloquent proofs of my love. I would be your
satellite, circling round you, drinking in the light of my sun. I
would watch my chance to do for you, to serve you, to make you happy.
And in this way, never asking for gratitude, asking for nothing, I
would spend my life, to its last day, blessing you, worshipping you,
for your kindness in letting me be near you, in letting me love you.
Ah, what a vision! It would be worthy of me, to make such a sacrifice
of every personal desire; and worthy of you to lift a poor girl up to
the happiness of seeing you every day, of sharing your home and your
name."
"You would like me to marry you?" asked Dias.
"Your wife, your mistress, your friend, your servant--whatever you
wish will suffice for me. To be where you are, to live my life out
near to you----"
"I am old," he said, coldly, bitterly.
"I am young, but I am dying, Cesare."
"Old age is a sad thing, Anna. It freezes one's blood and one's
heart."
"What does it matter? I don't ask you to love me. I only want to love
you."
"Will you never ask it of me?"
"Never."
"Promise."
"I promise."
"By whatever you hold most sacred, will you promise it?"
"By Heaven that hears me, by the blessed souls of my mother and
father who watch over me; by my affection for my sister Laura; by the
holiest thing in my heart, that is, by my love for you, I promise it,
I swear it, I will never ask you to love me."
"You won't complain of me, and of my coldness?"
"I will never complain. I will regard you as my greatest benefactor."
"You will let me live as I like?"
"You will be the master. You shall dispose of your life and of mine."
"You will let me go and come, come and go, without finding fault,
without recriminations?"
"When you go out I will await in patience the happy hour of your
return."
He was silent for a moment. There was another question on his mind,
and he hesitated to ask it. But with burning eyes, with hands clasped
imploringly, she waited for him to go on.
"You won't torment me with jealousy?" he asked at last.
"Oh, heavens!" she cried, stretching out her arms and beating her
brow with her hands; "must I endure that also?"
"As you wish," he said, coldly. "I see that I displease and offend
you. I am making demands that are beyond your strength. Well, let us
drop the subject."
And he rose as if to go away. She moved towards him and took his hand.
"No, no; don't leave me. For pity's sake stay a little longer. Let
us talk--listen to me. You ask me not to be jealous; I'll not be
jealous. At least, you'll not see my jealousy. Do you wish me to
visit the woman you're in love with, or have been in love with, or
the woman who's in love with you? Do you wish me to receive the women
who are your friends? I'll do it--I'll do everything. Put me to the
most dreadful trial--I'll endure it. Ask me to go to the furthest
pass a soul and body can reach--I'll do it for you."
"I wish to be free, heart-free, that is all," he said, firmly.
"As you are to-day, so you will always be--free in heart," she
responded.
"Listen to me, Anna, and understand me clearly. For a moment try
to escape from your own personality, forget that you are you, and
that you love me. For a moment consider calmly and carefully the
present and the future. Anna, I am old, and you are young; and the
discrepancy of our ages which now seems trifling to you, in ten
years' time will seem terrible, for I can only decline, while you
will grow to maturity. In your imagination you have conceived an
ideal of me which doesn't correspond to the truth, and which the
future will certainly correct, to your sorrow. Between our characters
and our temperaments there is a profound gulf; we have no reason to
believe that the future can close it up. If I am making a sacrifice,
as I confess I am, in speaking to you thus, it is certain that you
would make a more painful and a more lasting one in living with me.
Think of it, think of it. Think of my age, of your illusions which
must inevitably be destroyed, of our mutual sacrifice. Anna, there is
still time."
She looked at him, surprised to hear him speak in this earnest way,
the man who was accustomed to dominate all his own emotions. He was
really moved; his brow was knitted; and on it, for the first time,
Anna could read a secret distress. There was something almost like
shyness in his eyes; he seemed less distant, less strong perhaps,
than he had ever seemed to her before, but more human, more like
other people, who suffer and weep.
"Anna, Anna," he went on, "put aside all selfishness, and be
yourself the judge. Judge whether I ought to consent to what you
wish. I have told you cruelly, brutally, what I shall expect from you
in return from my sacrifice. I have repeated to you again and again
what a grave step it is that you propose. Now, my dear child be calm,
and judge for yourself."
She was leaning with her two hands on the parapet of the terrace, and
kept her eyes cast down.
"But why," she asked slowly, in a low voice, "why are you
willing--you who are so wise, so cold, who despise all passion, as
you do--why are you willing to make this sacrifice? Who has persuaded
you? Who has won you?"
"I am willing because you have told me that there is no other way of
saving you; because Stella Martini has written to me saying that I
ought to save you; because I myself feel that I ought to save you."
"It is for pity then that you are willing to do this thing?"
"You have said it," he replied, not wishing to repeat the unkind word.
"God bless you for your pity," she said humbly, crossing her hands as
in prayer.
There was a deep silence. He stood with his head bowed, thinking, and
waiting for her to speak. She was looking at the sky as if she wished
to read there the word of her destiny. But in her heart and in her
mind, from the sky, and from the glorious landscape, only one word
could she, would she, hear.
"Well, Anna, what have you to say?"
"Why do you ask? I love you, and without you I should die. Anything
is better than death. You are my life."
"Then you will be my wife and my friend," he said resolutely.
"Thank you, love," and she knelt before him.
* * * * *
When he had gone away, she bent down and kissed devotedly the wall of
the terrace, where he had leaned, speaking to her.
And then she went to each of the big vases that stood in a row along
the terrace, and picked all the flowers that grew in them, the roses,
the geraniums, the jasmine-buds, and pressed them to her bosom in
a mass, because they had listened to her talk with him. And before
re-entering the house, she looked again, with brilliant eyes full of
happiness, upon the sea and the sky and the wide moonlit landscape.
Within the house every one was asleep. The servant who was sitting
up for Laura and Stella nodded in the anti-chamber. Anna was quite
alone, and her heart danced for joy.
Silently she passed through the house, and entered her mother's room.
"Oh, Mamma, Mamma, it is you who have done this," she said.
END OF PART I.