The weeks drew into months, and Beppino in his turn was short-coated and
crept about the floors with his playthings. Mimmo, after the first
attack of infantile jealousy had passed, succumbed to the fascinations
of his baby brother and adored him with the whole strength of his little
heart.
Beppino was a strange child, grave and self-contained; the selfishness
of his nature made itself apparent from the very beginning, and it
needed all the sunny brightness of Mimmo's character, all his childish
good nature to cope with the other's exactions. Beppino wanted the
blocks. Mimmo relinquished them to him. Beppino threw the precious red
ball out of the window, to keep his brother from playing with it. Mimmo
wept over the loss of his treasure but straightway invented a new game
for the delectation of baby-brother. Beppino took a special delight in
tormenting animals, pussy fled at his approach. Pallino, the little
Pomeranian incontinently turned tail and sought shelter when the baby's
toddling footsteps announced his coming. He loved to tear the wings off
flies laughing at their vain efforts to escape, and once he carried his
experiment too far, for he swallowed the hapless insects and Ragna was
surprised by his rushing to her side his hands applied to his round
little stomach, shrieking with fright.
"Mammina! Mammina! I can feel them crawling and buzzing inside!"
Egidio had come to spend less and less time at home, his affairs
prospered, one commission followed another, and often Ragna hardly saw
him for weeks together. They had moved into another and larger apartment
in a good street, an apartment occupying two floors of the house in
which it was situated, the living and reception rooms being on the first
floor and the bedrooms above. Egidio's studio was also in the house, on
the first floor, it had a separate street entrance and staircase and was
connected with the rest of the apartment by a long winding passageway.
In this studio, forbidden territory to the rest of the household,
Valentini spent most of his time when in the house, rarely condescending
to appear in the sitting-room, and these occasions were anything but
occasions for rejoicing, as his bursts of temper grew more and more
frequent, and when in the grip of one of the headaches from which he so
often suffered, the whole household trembled at his approach. Once, in a
fit of rage at the unintentional banging of a door he seized the tureen
of steaming soup from the hands of the offending servant, and flung it,
contents and all at the man's head, meeting Ragna's remonstrance with:
"I am master in my own house, if you please, and since you show yourself
incompetent to train the servants, I must try my hand at it."
He had become openly contemptuous in his treatment of her; the brief
glow of affection aroused by the birth of Beppino had soon faded and he
took an unholy joy in holding her up to ridicule before the servants and
the children. Mimmo especially, he taught to be impertinent, insolent
even--a child is very ready to adopt the tone and manner of the head of
the house, and when Ragna pleaded with him with tears in her eyes to
desist, he laughed at her and asked her what she had ever done to
deserve either consideration or respect.
"But I am your wife, Egidio, the mother of your children," she paused
biting her lip, at the unfortunate slip of the tongue.
"Oh, yes, _my_ children--very fine indeed. Your generosity does you
credit--but as a title to veneration--"
"Leave me out then," she interrupted, flushing painfully, "consider only
the boys. How do you think they will grow up, without love and respect
for their parents?"
"Oh, I warrant you they will always respect me," he growled, "the hand
that holds the purse-strings commands respect."
"So you think now, Egidio," returned Ragna, for once speaking out her
mind--generally she schooled herself to submission, "but I tell you the
time will come when all the disrespect you inspire them with towards
their mother will be turned against yourself. You think you can hold
them by your power over them, by your authority, I tell you that you are
building on sand. Love begets love, coldness begets coldness and hatred
begets hatred!"
Valentini's face grew red, the veins swelled in his forehead, his eyes
glared from under the beetling brows.
"You talk of love and respect, you!" he roared, and she recoiled
involuntarily from his violence. "How dare you speak to me like that?
Remember that I picked you out of the gutter--where would you be now if
it were not for me? If I ever married you at all, it was because my head
was still so weak from the fever that I knew no better than to let
myself be roped in. And here I find myself, saddled with a bad
tempered, puling wife and a family that is only half mine, where other
young men of my age--"
"Egidio!" she cried with flashing eyes, "recollect please, that I only
married you because you wore down my resistances, because you begged and
implored--"
"Silence, you lie! How dare you interrupt me?"
"I dare because what I say is true."
"True!" his hands appealed to Heaven. "It is as false as Hell, like
yourself! How much do you suppose I believed of that cock-and-bull story
you told me, about your being the light-of-love of a prince? A
prince!--a gondolier perhaps, or a _facchino di piazza_!"
"Hush," she said, as pale as death, "the servants will overhear you."
"The servants! What do I care for the servants? Let them hear, I have
nothing to conceal from them!"
The taunt was like a blow in the face; Ragna stiffened under it and
turned cold.
"You forget, Signor Valentini, that in insulting me, you insult
yourself, for when all is said and done, I am the wife you have chosen.
Policy at least should dictate another course of conduct towards
me,--everything that lowers me in the eyes of the world lowers you,
too."
His answer was to seize a large Contagalli vase, standing on a console
between the windows and smash it on the tiled floor, then he turned and
rushed from the room. Ragna stood looking after him a scornful smile
creeping over her frozen face. In that moment she had seen revealed the
innermost hideous recesses of the man's soul, the man who was her
husband, the father of Beppino. In the silence there rose to her ears
the reverberating bang of the _portone_, and the angry beat of his
footsteps on the stone pavement outside.
After a few days of sullen silence, he appeared before her one evening
before dinner, a little box in his hand. It was never his way to offer
an apology, but the desire for peace which stood to him for remorse,
frequently took the form of material reparation. Never would he, in any
circumstances, have admitted himself in the wrong. He opened the box,
displaying a ruby ring set with diamonds, saying:
"You must admit that I am a generous husband, my dear!"
"Thank you," said Ragna, without looking up, "I do not care for it."
"Not care for it!" he exclaimed, straightening up suddenly as though
struck by some unseen missile. "A nice return I get for all my kindness.
Of all the ungrateful--"
She raised her eyes slowly and something in their cold, scornful gaze
silenced him. He stood uncertainly opening and shutting the box.
Meanwhile a thought came to her--why not take the jewel after all? Why
not take all that she could get? Life with this man was becoming fast
unbearable, and when at last she should be able to endure it no longer,
these trinkets might provide her with the means of escape.
"If you very much desire it," she said coldly, "I will accept your
gift."
"I thought you would when you came to think it over. It is a good
stone," he said taking up the ring and holding it in the light of the
lamp, "and it is worth considerably more than I gave for it. I am not
one of your fools who pay the fancy prices of a fashionable
jeweller--indeed it is they who come to me for advice, they know I have
a good eye for stones, and for a bargain."
"So have the Jews," said Ragna, biting her thread, she was sewing a
little garment for Beppino.
"The Jews!" said Valentini, glaring at her, "what do you mean by that?
Of course you are so accustomed to the society of princes and grandees
that you think yourself above prudence and wise expenditure. You are a
fool, which of your princes would have done for you what I have done?"
Ragna bowed her head over her work; she tried to hold herself above the
continual taunts and reproaches, and she realized that sometimes, as in
this instance, she drew them on herself by her resentment of her
husband's little meannesses. He never gave her a present but he
expatiated on his shrewdness in buying at a pawn-broker's sale at the
proper moment or in taking advantage of some impoverished nobleman's
hour of need. The things were, many of them, beautiful and valuable both
artistically and intrinsically but the pleasure of their possession was
spoiled to Ragna by the unvarying circumstances of their purchase and
bestowal.
Egidio's meanness showed itself also in other ways. In September he had
accompanied his wife and children to the sea-side for a fortnight and
having installed them in the lodgings he had taken, went out for a
stroll. It lacked two hours to dinner-time and as little Mimmo was
hungry and the baby fretful, Ragna requested the landlady to send up two
bowls of bread and milk. Valentini returned in the midst of this frugal
repast and with lowering brow inquired the meaning thereof.
"The children were hungry," said Ragna, "and it is too long for them to
wait for dinner."
"Too long! They can wait if I can! Besides you should have thought of it
before and brought something with you. I tell you, Ragna, your senseless
extravagance will be the ruin of me! If you dare ever again to order
extras without my permission--" The rest of the threat was lost as he
seized the bowls and emptied them out of the window. He then beat a
rapid retreat leaving Ragna to quiet as best she could the disappointed
and hungry children.
This was one of the many instances that rose to her mind as she sat
there sewing, choking down the lump in her throat, while Egidio flashed
the ruby admiringly in the ray of the lamp. When times were hard, she
had understood his economies, but now that they were prosperous, that
there was no need for it! She did not understand that certain meannesses
were ingrained in his character, as were certain generosities--that it
was as much a part of his nature to stint her in handkerchiefs and
stockings as it was to bestow costly jewels upon her--yet, the key to it
was simple, the one redounded publicly to his credit, the other was
unknown except to himself and to her. She had long ago lost any feeling
of gratitude towards him, he had shown her all too clearly what personal
motives had actuated him at the time of their marriage, and his attempts
to throw the onus of the transaction on her, caused her a bitter
amusement; they revealed so plainly the innate selfishness of him, his
desire to divest himself of responsibility, and yet to claim gratitude,
where according to his own showing, it least was due!
"Your friends will admire this ring," said Valentini, "but I must beg of
you, Ragna, not to give it away. The things I buy for you I do not
intend to let pass out of the family." This because she had once sent a
small and not particularly valuable brooch he had given her, to her
sister Ingeborg, much to the latter's pleasure and surprise, though Fru
Boyesen had sniffed when the gift was shown her.
"Why don't you answer?" demanded Valentini, "you might at least attend
to what I say. When I give you a thing it is for yourself, not for
others."
"But if it should please me better to give it to a sister whom I love,
than to wear it myself?"
"You have no right to squander my property or my gifts."
"Very well," said Ragna wearily, "I have not the slightest intention of
giving the ring away."
They relapsed into silence and Egidio read the evening paper. The
rustling of the pages grated so on her nerves that she thought she must
scream and she jerked her needle in and out till the thread snapped.
Generally she took but little interest in the local news, but to-night,
when Egidio laid the paper on the table, she took it up, and in turning
the pages over, her eye fell by chance on the list of names of
travellers stopping at the large hotels. An involuntary exclamation rose
to her lips as the name "Count Angelescu" stared at her from the printed
column.
"What is it?" inquired Egidio suspiciously.
"Nothing--I have pricked my finger--" She still held her sewing crushed
in her left hand.
He turned again to the design he was making on the back of an old
envelope.
Angelescu in Florence! Angelescu! The blood surged and beat in her
temples, her hands shook as she raised the paper to her eyes. No, there
could be no mistake, it must be he and no other!
For so long she had hardly thought of him; the realities of her everyday
life had deadened her memory of the past, and unless something out of
the ordinary occurred to recall them specially to her mind, her thoughts
rarely turned to those days in Rome. Her household cares, the constant
attention required by the children, her interest in her writing, which
she still carried on, and the social intercourse with the little circle
of friends she had formed, all these sufficiently occupied her time,
leaving her but little leisure for brooding over past or present.
Egidio mocked at her social proclivities, at her friends, especially
when they happened to be titled folk, and called her a snob, so that it
was with terror and dismay that she viewed his arrival when any of her
friends happened to be present, for unless they were young and pretty
women, he exaggerated his habitual boorishness of manner. If a really
pretty woman occupied his wife's drawing-room, his airs and graces were
a sight to see, and caused Ragna even more shame than his rudeness.
It must be admitted that titles had an attraction for her, as
they inevitably must to those in whose countries they are
non-existent--strange that such should be the result of democracy--but a
snob she was not. A title to her represented continuity of race,
historic and chivalric tradition, something removed from the plane of
ordinary life, and which appealed to her sense of romance. This must
have been strong indeed, to blind her to the faults and weaknesses of
the bearers of some of these titles, but such was the glamour of an
historic name that her otherwise clear vision and independent judgment
not infrequently played her false and she saw the object of her
veneration through a rose-coloured mist which exaggerated qualities and
obscured defects.
She had gone on from day to day, bearing her heavy burden with a sort
of sodden resignation. Now and again a scene worse than usual made her
feel that this life was past enduring, and she beat her wings against
the bars, but never for long. The treadmill of the daily round carried
her on and her half-hearted attempts at self-assertion fell by the
wayside. The utmost she could oppose to her husband's tyranny was a
passive resistance, infinitely irritating to him. His character was so
much more violent than hers that if she attempted to meet him on his own
ground, the force of his passion bore her down, swept her from her feet,
buried her beneath the floods of his wrath. She had grown patient, God
knows she had need to be; and just lately a dim light had shone on her
horizon, a vague hope of relief, for Ingeborg had written that Fru
Boyesen was relenting, had inquired after her wayward niece, had even
asked to see the photographs of the children. If she should be restored
to favour, reinstated as her Aunt's heiress it would mean for her the
independence that only the possession of money can give, and it would
silence for ever Egidio's taunts as to her dowerless state. He would
have to consult her wishes when she had the money, she thought with
secret exultation.
So time had passed, the present absorbing her whole being, barring out
alike memories and regrets. The announcement of Angelescu's presence in
Florence came to her as a trumpet-call, the dead rose from their graves,
dead hopes, dead fears, dead emotions, and walked with her.