The next morning Madame Krasinska woke up quite cheerful and happy. But
she began, nevertheless, to suffer, ever since the day after the Fosca
ball, from the return of that quite unprecedented and inexplicable
depression. Her days became streaked, as it were, with moments during
which it was quite impossible to amuse herself; and these moments grew
gradually into hours. People bored her for no accountable reason, and
things which she had expected as pleasures brought with them a sense of
vague or more distinct wretchedness. Thus she would find herself in the
midst of a ball or dinner-party, invaded suddenly by a confused sadness
or boding of evil, she did not know which. And once, when a box of new
clothes had arrived from Paris, she was overcome, while putting on one
of the frocks, with such a fit of tears that she had to be put to bed
instead of going to the Tornabuoni's party.
Of course, people began to notice this change; indeed, Madame Krasinska
had ingenuously complained of the strange alteration in herself. Some
persons suggested that she might be suffering from slow blood-poisoning,
and urged an inquiry into the state of the drains. Others recommended
arsenic, morphia, or antipyrine. One kind friend brought her a box of
peculiar cigarettes; another forwarded a parcel of still more peculiar
novels; most people had some pet doctor to cry up to the skies; and one
or two suggested her changing her confessor; not to mention an attempt
being made to mesmerise her into cheerfulness.
When her back was turned, meanwhile, all the kind friends discussed the
probability of an unhappy love affair, loss of money on the Stock
Exchange, and similar other explanations. And while one devoted lady
tried to worm out of her the name of her unfaithful lover and of the
rival for whom he had forsaken her, another assured her that she was
suffering from a lack of personal affections. It was a fine opportunity
for the display of pietism, materialism, idealism, realism, psychological
lore, and esoteric theosophy.
Oddly enough, all this zeal about herself did not worry Madame
Krasinska, as she would certainly have expected it to worry any other
woman. She took a little of each of the tonic or soporific drugs; and
read a little of each of those sickly sentimental, brutal, or politely
improper novels. She also let herself be accompanied to various doctors;
and she got up early in the morning and stood for an hour on a chair
in a crowd in order to benefit by the preaching of the famous Father
Agostino. She was quite patient even with the friends who condoled about
the lover or absence of such. For all these things became, more and
more, completely indifferent to Madame Krasinska--unrealities which had
no weight in the presence of the painful reality.
This reality was that she was rapidly losing all power of amusing
herself, and that when she did occasionally amuse herself she had to pay
for what she called this _good time_ by an increase of listlessness and
melancholy.
It was not melancholy or listlessness such as other women complained of.
They seemed, in their fits of blues, to feel that the world around them
had got all wrong, or at least was going out of its way to annoy them.
But Madame Krasinska saw the world quite plainly, proceeding in the
usual manner, and being quite as good a world as before. It was she
who was all wrong. It was, in the literal sense of the words, what
she supposed people might mean when they said that So-and-so was _not
himself_; only that So-and-so, on examination, appeared to be very much
himself--only himself in a worse temper than usual. Whereas she... Why,
in her case, she really did not seem to be herself any longer. Once, at
a grand dinner, she suddenly ceased eating and talking to her neighbour,
and surprised herself wondering who the people all were and what they
had come for. Her mind would become, every now and then, a blank; a
blank at least full of vague images, misty and muddled, which she was
unable to grasp, but of which she knew that they were painful, weighing
on her as a heavy load must weigh on the head or back. Something had
happened, or was going to happen, she could not remember which, but she
burst into tears none the less. In the midst of such a state of things,
if visitors or a servant entered, she would ask sometimes who they were.
Once a man came to call, during one of these fits; by an effort she was
able to receive him and answer his small talk more or less at random,
feeling the whole time as if someone else were speaking in her place.
The visitor at length rose to depart, and they both stood for a moment
in the midst of the drawing-room.
"This is a very pretty house; it must belong to some rich person. Do you
know to whom it belongs?" suddenly remarked Madame Krasinska, looking
slowly round her at the furniture, the pictures, statuettes, nicknacks,
the screens and plants. "Do you know to whom it belongs?" she repeated.
"It belongs to the most charming lady in Florence," stammered out the
visitor politely, and fled.
"My darling Netta," exclaimed the Chanoiness from where she was seated
crocheting benevolently futile garments by the fire; "you should not
joke in that way. That poor young man was placed in a painful, in a very
painful position by your nonsense."
Madame Krasinska leaned her arms on a screen, and stared her respectable
relation long in the face.
"You seem a kind woman," she said at length. "You are old, but then you
aren't poor, and they don't call you a mad woman. That makes all the
difference."
Then she set to singing--drumming out the tune on the screen--the
soldier song of '59, _Addio, mia bella, addio_.
"Netta!" cried the Chanoiness, dropping one ball of worsted after
another. "Netta!"
But Madame Krasinska passed her hand over her brow and heaved a great
sigh. Then she took a cigarette off a cloisonne tray, dipped a spill in
the fire and remarked,
"Would you like to have the brougham to go to see your friend at
the Sacre Coeur, Aunt Therese? I have promised to wait in for Molly
Wolkonsky and Bice Forteguerra. We are going to dine at _Doney's_ with
young Pomfret."