Madame Krasinska had repeated her evening drives in the rain. Indeed
she began also to walk about regardless of weather. Her maid asked her
whether she had been ordered exercise by the doctor, and she answered
yes. But why she should not walk in the Cascine or along the Lung' Arno,
and why she should always choose the muddiest thoroughfares, the maid
did not inquire. As it was, Madame Krasinska never showed any repugnance
or seemly contrition for the state of draggle in which she used to
return home; sometimes when the woman was unbuttoning her boots, she
would remain in contemplation of their muddiness, murmuring things which
Jefferies could not understand. The servants, indeed, declared that the
Countess must have gone out of her mind. The footman related that she
used to stop the brougham, get out and look into the lit shops, and that
he had to stand behind, in order to prevent lady-killing youths of a
caddish description from whispering expressions of admiration in her
ear. And once, he affirmed with horror, she had stopped in front of a
certain cheap eating-house, and looked in at the bundles of asparagus,
at the uncooked chops displayed in the window. And then, added the
footman, she had turned round to him slowly and said,
"They have good food in there."
And meanwhile, Madame Krasinska went to dinners and parties, and gave
them, and organised picnics, as much as was decently possible in Lent,
and indeed a great deal more.
She no longer complained of the blues; she assured everyone that she
had completely got rid of them, that she had never been in such spirits
in all her life. She said it so often, and in so excited a way, that
judicious people declared that now that lover must really have jilted
her, or gambling on the Stock Exchange have brought her to the verge of
ruin.
Nay, Madame Krasinska's spirits became so obstreperous as to change her
in sundry ways. Although living in the fastest set, Madame Krasinska had
never been a fast woman. There was something childlike in her nature
which made her modest and decorous. She had never learned to talk slang,
or to take up vulgar attitudes, or to tell impossible stories; and she
had never lost a silly habit of blushing at expressions and anecdotes
which she did not reprove other women for using and relating. Her
amusements had never been flavoured with that spice of impropriety, of
curiosity of evil, which was common in her set. She liked putting on
pretty frocks, arranging pretty furniture, driving in well got up
carriages, eating good dinners, laughing a great deal, and dancing a
great deal, and that was all.
But now Madame Krasinska suddenly altered. She became, all of a sudden,
anxious for those exotic sensations which honest women may get by
studying the ways, and frequenting the haunts, of women by no means
honest. She made up parties to go to the low theatres and music-halls;
she proposed dressing up and going, in company with sundry adventurous
spirits, for evening strolls in the more dubious portions of the town.
Moreover, she, who had never touched a card, began to gamble for large
sums, and to surprise people by producing a folded green roulette cloth
and miniature roulette rakes out of her pocket. And she became so
outrageously conspicuous in her flirtations (she who had never flirted
before), and so outrageously loud in her manners and remarks, that her
good friends began to venture a little remonstrance....
But remonstrance was all in vain; and she would toss her head and laugh
cynically, and answer in a brazen, jarring voice.
For Madame Krasinska felt that she must live, live noisily, live
scandalously, live her own life of wealth and dissipation, because ...
She used to wake up at night with the horror of that suspicion. And in
the middle of the day, pull at her clothes, tear down her hair, and rush
to the mirror and stare at herself, and look for every feature, and
clutch for every end of silk, or bit of lace, or wisp of hair, which
proved that she was really herself. For gradually, slowly, she had come
to understand that she was herself no longer.
Herself--well, yes, of course she was herself. Was it not herself who
rushed about in such a riot of amusement; herself whose flushed cheeks
and over-bright eyes, and cynically flaunted neck and bosom she saw
in the glass, whose mocking loud voice and shrill laugh she listened
to? Besides, did not her servants, her visitors, know her as Netta
Krasinska; and did she not know how to wear her clothes, dance, make
jokes, and encourage men, afterwards to discourage them? This, she often
said to herself, as she lay awake the long nights, as she sat out the
longer nights gambling and chaffing, distinctly proved that she really
was herself. And she repeated it all mentally when she returned, muddy,
worn out, and as awakened from a ghastly dream, after one of her long
rambles through the streets, her daily walks towards the station.
But still.... What of those strange forebodings of evil, those muddled
fears of some dreadful calamity ... something which had happened, or was
going to happen ... poverty, starvation, death--whose death, her own? or
someone else's? That knowledge that it was all, all over; that blinding,
felling blow which used every now and then to crush her.... Yes, she had
felt that first at the railway station. At the station? but what had
happened at the station? Or was it going to happen still? Since to the
station her feet seemed unconsciously to carry her every day. What was
it all? Ah! she knew. There was a woman, an old woman, walking to the
station to meet.... Yes, to meet a regiment on its way back. They came
back, those soldiers, among a mob yelling triumph. She remembered the
illuminations, the red, green, and white lanterns, and those garlands
all over the waiting-rooms. And quantities of flags. The bands played.
So gaily! They played Garibaldi's hymn, and _Addio, Mia Bella_. Those
pieces always made her cry now. The station was crammed, and all the
boys, in tattered, soiled uniforms, rushed into the arms of parents,
wives, friends. Then there was like a blinding light, a crash.... An
officer led the old woman gently out of the place, mopping his eyes. And
she, of all the crowd, was the only one to go home alone. Had it really
all happened? and to whom? Had it really happened to her, had her
boys.... But Madame Krasinska had never had any boys.
It was dreadful how much it rained in Florence; and stuff boots do wear
out so quick in mud. There was such a lot of mud on the way to the
station; but of course it was necessary to go to the station in order to
meet the train from Lombardy--the boys must be met.
There was a place on the other side of the river where you went in and
handed your watch and your brooch over the counter, and they gave you
some money and a paper. Once the paper got lost. Then there was a
mattress, too. But there was a kind man--a man who sold hardware--who
went and fetched it back. It was dreadfully cold in winter, but the
worst was the rain. And having no watch one was afraid of being late
for that train, and had to dawdle so long in the muddy streets. Of
course one could look in at the pretty shops. But the little boys were
so rude. Oh, no, no, not that--anything rather than be shut up in an
hospital. The poor old woman did no one any harm--why shut her up?
"_Faites votre jeu, messieurs_," cried Madame Krasinska, raking up the
counters with the little rake she had had made of tortoise-shell, with a
gold dragon's head for a handle--"_Rien ne va plus--vingt-trois--Rouge,
impair et manque_."