CHAPTER I

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_The_

CHILD OF PLEASURE

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

TRANSLATED BY

GEORGINA HARDING

VERSES TRANSLATED BY

ARTHUR SYMONS

INTRODUCTION BY

ERNEST BOYD

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INTRODUCTION

It is characteristic of the atmosphere of legend in which Gabriele

d'Annunzio has lived that even the authenticity of his name has been

disputed. It was said that his real name was Gaetano Rapagnetta, and the

curious will find amongst the Letters of James Huneker the boast that he

was the first person to reveal to America the fact that d'Annunzio's

name was "Rapagnetto"--a purely personal contribution to the legend.

Yet, the plain fact, as proven by his birth certificate, is that the

author of "The Child of Pleasure" was born at Pescara, on the 12th of

March, 1863, the son of Francesco Paolo d'Annunzio and Luisa de

Benedictis. _Il Piacere_, to give this novel its Italian name, was

published when d'Annunzio was only twenty-six years of age, and except

for an unimportant and imitative volume of short stories, it was his

first sustained prose work. It is the book which at once made the

novelist famous in his own country and very soon afterwards in England

and France, where it was the first of his works to be translated. In

America d'Annunzio was already known as the author of a powerful

realistic novelette, "Episcopo & Co.," which was published in Chicago in

1896, two years before "The Child of Pleasure" appeared in London. As

has so often happened since, America led the way in introducing into the

English language a writer who is one of the foremost figures in

Continental European literature.

In order to realize the sensation which Gabriele d'Annunzio created, it

is necessary to glance back at the opinions of some of his early

champions in foreign countries. Ouida claims, I think rightly, that her

article in the _Fortnightly Review_, which was reprinted in her

"Critical Studies," was the first account in English of the author and

his work. In the main, although besprinkled with moral asides, it is,

with one exception, as good an essay as any that has since been written

on the subject. Ouida was sure that the wickedness of d'Annunzio was

such that the only work of his which will become known to the English

public in general will be the _Vergini delle Rocce_, because "(as far as

it has gone) it is not indecent. The other works could not be reproduced

in English." In proof of her contentions Ouida disclosed the fact that

the French versions of the trilogy, "The Child of Pleasure," "The

Victim," and "The Triumph of Death," were bowdlerized. At the same time

she obligingly referred her readers to some of the choicer passages in

the original, such as Chapter X of "The Child of Pleasure," where she

claimed that "ingenuities of indecency" had been gratuitously

introduced. For the guidance of those interested in such matters I may

explain that, by a coincidence, the "ingenuity" in question is almost

identical with that which was cited in the earlier part of _La Garçonne_

as proof that Victor Margueritte was unworthy of the Legion of Honor.

After Ouida in England came the venerable Vicomte Melchior de Vogüé in

France, who is best known to readers in this country for his standard

tome on the Russian novel. In the austere pages of the _Revue des Deux

Mondes_ he carefully explained to his readers that d'Annunzio's lewdness

must not be confused with the obscenities of Zola, whereat Ouida

protested that they were alike in their complacent preoccupation with

mere filth. The Frenchman is the sounder critic, it must be said, for

while d'Annunzio frequently parallels some of the most unclean--in the

literal, not the moral sense--scenes and incidents in Zola, his attitude

about sex is as unlike Zola's as that of the late W. D. Howells. Only in

"Nana" did Zola describe the life and emotions of a woman whose whole

life is given up to love, and then, as we know, he chose a singularly

crude and professional person, using her career as a symbol of the

Second Empire. D'Annunzio has never described women with any other

reason for existence but love, yet none of his heroines has poor Nana's

uninspiring motives. They are amateurs with a skill undreamed of in

Nana's philosophy; they believe in love for art's sake. Consequently,

the French critic was right in insisting that Zola and d'Annunzio are

two very different persons, although confounded in an identical obloquy

by the moralists. He is, however, not quite so subtle when he tries to

argue from this that, in the conventional sense, d'Annunzio is more

moral.

At this point I will cite an unexpectedly intelligent witness, one of

the early admirers of d'Annunzio in English, and the author of an essay

on him which is assuredly the best which has appeared in that language.

This is what Henry James has to say of "The Child of Pleasure" in his

"Notes on Novelists": "Count Andrea Sperelli is a young man who pays,

pays heavily, as we take it we are to understand, for an unbridled

surrender to the life of the senses; whereby it is primarily a picture

of that life that the story gives us. He is represented as inordinately,

as quite monstrously, endowed for the career that from the first absorbs

and that finally is to be held, we suppose to engulf him; and it is a

tribute to the truth with which his endowment is presented that we

should scarce know where else to look for so complete and convincing an

account of such adventures. Casanova de Seingalt is of course infinitely

more copious, but his autobiography is cheap loose journalism compared

with the directed, finely-condensed iridescent epic of Count Andrea."

It would be difficult to find, couched in such euphemistically

appreciative language, so accurate a summary of the intention and

quality of this book. Casanova is pale, diffuse, and unconvincing,

indeed, beside the d'Annunzio who so early gave his full measure as the

supreme novelist of sensual pleasure in this book. As Arthur Symons so

well says, "Gabriele d'Annunzio comes to remind us, very definitely, as

only an Italian can, of the reality and the beauty of sensation, of the

primary sensations; the sensations of pain and pleasure as these come to

us from our actual physical conditions; the sensation of beauty as it

comes to us from the sight of our eyes and the tasting of our several

senses; the sensation of love, which, to the Italian, comes up from a

root in Boccaccio, through the stem of Petrarch, to the very flower of

Dante. And so he becomes the idealist of material things, while seeming

to materialize spiritual things. He accepts, as no one else of our time

does, the whole physical basis of life, the spirit which can be known

only through the body."

D'Annunzio has declared that the central male character in all three

novels, Andrea Sperelli in "The Child of Pleasure," Tullio Hermil in

"The Intruder" and Giorgio Aurispa in "The Triumph of Death," are

projections of himself. They are as autobiographical as Stelio Effrena

in "The Fire of Life," which is generally accepted as an elaboration of

the poet's life with Eleonora Duse. His attitude, therefore, is clearly

defined in the passage where he says: "In the tumult of contradictory

impulses Sperelli had lost all sense of will power and all sense of

morality. In abdicating, his will had surrendered the sceptre to his

instincts; the æsthetic was substituted for the moral sense. This

æsthetic sense, which was very subtle, very powerful and always active,

maintained a certain equilibrium in the mind of Sperelli. Intellectuals

such as he, brought up in the religion of Beauty, always preserve a

certain kind of order, even in their worst depravities. The conception

of Beauty is the axis of their inmost being: all their passions turn

upon that axis." He is, in other words, the re-incarnation of Don Juan,

pursuing in woman an elusive and impossible ideal.

If d'Annunzio had not gone into the adventure of the war, with its

sequel at Fiume, we might have continued to enjoy the spectacle of the

adventures of this restless soul amongst feminine masterpieces. As a

soldier and a statesman his prestige in the English-speaking world is

low, and we are apt to forget while reading the political bombast of the

years of the war and the period after the Armistice that it differs in

no respect from all other patriotic claptrap, except that it is the work

of the greatest living master of Italian prose. Of this fact his early

novels are a needed reminder to a generation which is making its

acquaintance with Italian writers of to-day through the intermediary of

a converted anti-clerical, who cannot even retell the story of Christ

without branding himself a vulgarian. In the prim days when young

d'Annunzio first flaunted his carnal delights and sorrows before a world

not yet released from Victorian stuffiness, the word "vulgar" was a

polite English epithet for "fleshly," an adjective much beloved by

indignant gentlemen who were permitting their wrath to triumph over

their desire to be respectable. It is a word which we apply nowadays to

the writings of a vulgarian like Papini, whose name is now as familiar

to the general public as d'Annunzio's was when "The Child of Pleasure"

was first translated. That is a measure of progress in this connection

which justifies the hope that the "idealist of material things" will

find again an audience which can understand and appreciate his quest.

D'Annunzio has nothing to offer the sterile theorists of the new

illiterate literature, who are as incapable of appreciating his refined

and subtle perversities as they are of admiring the beautiful form in

which his full-blooded and exuberant imagination clothes his

conceptions. He is an æsthete, but his æstheticism has never expressed

itself in barren theory, but has always turned to life itself. He

realized at the outset of his career that life is a physical thing,

which we must compel to surrender all that it can offer us, which the

artist must bend and shape to his own creative purposes. It has been

said that d'Annunzio had a philosophy and Nietzsche and Tolstoy were

invoked as influences, but there is as little of Tolstoy's moralizing in

"The Intruder" as of Nietzsche's pessimistic idealism in "The Child of

Pleasure" or "The Triumph of Death." Whatever conclusions may be drawn

from the problem of the Eternal Feminine as postulated in all his

novels--and that is the only problem which he confronts--it is hardly to

be dignified by the name of a philosophy. One gathers that men can be

exalted and destroyed by the attraction of women, but the author

remains to the end--as late certainly as 1910, when the last of the

novels in the first mood, _Forse che si, forse che no_, appeared--of the

opinion that they are the one legitimate preoccupation of the artist in

living. Elena Muti in "The Child of Pleasure," Foscarina in "The Flame

of Life," Ippolita in "The Triumph of Death" are superb incarnations of

the one and ever varied problem which troubles the world in which

d'Annunzio lives.

An American critic, Mr. Henry Dwight Sedgwick, once demanded in tones of

passionate scorn that d'Annunzio be tried before a jury of

"English-speaking men," and he called the tale: "Colonel Newcome! Adam

Bede! Bailie Jarvie! Tom Brown! Sam Weller!"--notes of exclamation

included, from which one was to conclude that the creator of Sperelli,

Hermil and Aurispa would slink away discomfited at the very sound of

those names. Yet, on the other hand, can one imagine Andrea and Elena,

Giorgio and Ippolita arguing with our advanced thinkers of the moment:

Is Monogamy Feasible? or Can Men and Women be Friends? D'Annunzio is not

to be approached either in a mood of radical earnestness or of

evangelical fervor. He must be regarded as an artist of sensations, an

Italian of the Renaissance set down in the middle of a drab century. He

began his life by a quest for perfect physical pleasure through all the

senses, and inaugurated its last phase with a gesture of military

courage which was not only a retort to those who, like Croce, had called

him a dilettante, but an earnest of his conviction that he was a great

artist of the lineage which bred men who were simultaneously great men

of action.

Ernest Boyd.

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

Andrea Sperelli dined regularly every Wednesday with his cousin the

Marchesa d'Ateleta.

The salons of the Marchesa in the Palazzo Roccagiovine were much

frequented. She attracted specially by her sparkling wit and gaiety and

her inextinguishable good humour. Her charming and expressive face

recalled certain feminine profiles of the younger Moreau and in the

vignettes of Gravelot. There was something Pompadouresque in her manner,

her tastes, her style of dress, which she no doubt heightened purposely,

tempted by her really striking resemblance to the favourite of Louis XV.

One Tuesday evening, in a box at the Valle Theatre, she said laughingly

to her cousin, 'Be sure, you come to-morrow, Andrea. Among the guests

there will be an interesting, not to say _fatal_, personage. Forewarned

is forearmed--Beware of her spells--you are in a very weak frame of mind

just now.'

He laughed. 'If you don't mind, I prefer to come unarmed,' he replied,

'or rather in the guise of a victim. It is a character I have assumed

for many an evening lately, but alas, without result so far.'

'Well, the sacrifice will soon be consummated, _cugino mio_.'

'The victim is ready!'

The next evening, he arrived at the palace a few minutes earlier than

usual, with a wonderful gardenia in his button-hole and a vague

uneasiness in his mind. His _coupé_ had to stop in front of the

entrance, the portico being occupied by another carriage, from which a

lady was alighting. The liveries, the horses, the ceremonial which

accompanied her arrival all proclaimed a great position. The Count

caught a glimpse of a tall and graceful figure, a scintillation of

diamonds in dark hair and a slender foot on the step. As he went

upstairs he had a back view of the lady.

She ascended in front of him with a slow and rhythmic movement; her

cloak, lined with fur as white as swan's-down, was unclasped at the

throat, and slipping back, revealed her shoulders, pale as polished

ivory, the shoulder-blades disappearing into the lace of the corsage

with an indescribably soft and fleeting curve as of wings. The neck rose

slender and round, and the hair, twisted into a great knot on the crown

of her head, was held in place by jewelled pins.

The harmonious gait of this unknown lady gave Andrea such sincere

pleasure that he stopped a moment on the first landing to watch her. Her

long train swept rustling over the stairs; behind her came a servant,

not immediately in the wake of his mistress on the red carpet, but at

the side along the wall with irreproachable gravity. The absurd contrast

between the magnificent creature and the automaton following her brought

a smile to Andrea's lips.

In the anteroom while the servant was relieving her of her cloak, the

lady cast a rapid glance at the young man who entered.

The servant announced--'Her Excellency the Duchess of Scerni!' and

immediately afterwards--'Count Sperelli-Fieschi d'Ugenta!' It pleased

Andrea that his name should be coupled so closely with that of the lady

in question.

In the drawing-room were already assembled the Marchese and Marchesa

d'Ateleta, the Baron and Baroness d'Isola and Don Filippo del Monte. The

fire burned cheerily on the hearth, and several low seats were

invitingly disposed within range of its warmth, while large leaf plants

spread their red-veined foliage over the low backs.

The Marchesa, advanced to meet the two new arrivals with her delightful

ready laugh.

'Ah,' she said, 'a happy chance has forestalled me and made it

unnecessary for me to tell you one another's names. Cousin Sperelli,

make obeisance before the divine Elena.'

Andrea bowed profoundly. The Duchess held out her hand with a frank and

graceful gesture.

'I am very glad to know you, Count,' she said, looking him full in the

face. 'I heard so much about you last summer at Lucerne from one of your

friends--Giulio Musellaro. I must confess I was rather curious--Besides,

Musellaro lent me your exquisite "Story of the Hermaphrodite" and made

me a present of your etching "Sleep"--a proof copy--a real gem. You have

a most ardent admirer in me--please remember that.'

She spoke with little pauses in between. Her voice was so warm and

insinuating in tone that it almost had the effect of a caress, and her

glance had that unconsciously voluptuous and disturbing expression which

instantly kindles the desire of every man on whom it rests.

'Cavaliere Sakumi!' announced the servant, as the eighth and last guest

made his appearance.

He was one of the secretaries to the Japanese Legation, very small and

yellow, with prominent cheek-bones and long, slanting, bloodshot eyes

over which the lids blinked incessantly. His body was disproportionately

large for his spindle legs, and he turned his toes in as he walked. The

skirts of his coat were too wide, there was a multitude of wrinkles in

his trousers, his necktie bore visible evidence of an unpractised hand.

It was as if a _daimio_ had been taken out of one of those cuirasses of

iron and lacquer, so like the shell of some monstrous crustacean, and

thrust into the clothes of a European waiter. And yet, with all his

ungainliness and apparent stupidity there was a glint of malice in his

slits of eyes and a sort of ironical cunning about the corners of his

mouth.

Arrived in the middle of the room, he bowed low. His gibus slipped from

his hand and rolled over the floor.

At this, the Baroness d'Isola, a tiny blonde with a cloud of fluffy

curls all over her forehead, vivacious and grimacing as a young monkey,

called to him in her piping voice:

'Come over here, Sakumi--here, beside me.'

The Japanese cavalier advanced with a succession of bows and smiles.

'Shall we see the Princess Issé this evening?' asked Donna Francesca

d'Ateleta, who had a mania for gathering in her drawing-rooms all the

most grotesque specimens of the exotic colonies of Rome, out of pure

love of variety and the picturesque.

The Asiatic replied in a barbarous jargon, a scarcely intelligible

compound of English, French, and Italian.

For a moment everybody was speaking at once--a chorus through which now

and then the fresh laughter of the Marchesa rang like silver bells.

'I am sure I have seen you before--I cannot remember when and I cannot

remember where, but I am certain I have seen you,' Andrea Sperelli was

saying to the duchess as he stood before her. 'When I saw you going

upstairs in front of me, a vague recollection rose up in my mind,

something that took shape from the rhythm of your movements as a picture

grows out of a melody. I did not succeed in making the recollection

clear, but when you turned round, I felt that your profile answered

incontestably to that picture. It could not have been a divination,

therefore it must have been some obscure phenomenon of memory. I must

have seen you somewhere before--who knows--perhaps in a dream--perhaps

in another world, a previous existence--'

As he pronounced this last decidedly hackneyed, not to say silly remark,

Andrea laughed frankly as if to forestall the lady's smile, whether of

incredulity or irony. But Elena remained perfectly serious. Was she

listening, or was she thinking of something else? Did she accept that

kind of speech, or was she, by her gravity, amusing herself at his

expense? Did she intend assisting him in the scheme of seduction he had

begun with so much care, or was she going to shut herself up in

indifference and silence? In short, was she or was she not the sort of

woman to succumb to his attack? Perplexed, disconcerted, Andrea examined

the mystery from all sides. Most men, especially those who adopt bold

methods of warfare, are well acquainted with this perplexity which

certain women excite by their silence.

A servant threw open the great doors leading to the dining-room.

The Marchesa took the arm of Don Filippo del Monte and led the way.

'Come,' said Elena, and it seemed to Andrea that she leaned upon his arm

with a certain abandon--or was it merely an illusion of his

desire?--perhaps. He continued in doubt and suspense, but every moment

that passed drew him deeper within the sweet enchantment, and with every

instant he became more desperately anxious to read the mystery of this

woman's heart.

'Here, cousin,' said Francesca, pointing him to a place at one end of

the oval table, between the Baron d'Isola and the Duchess of Scerni with

the Cavaliere Sakumi as his _vis-à-vis_. Sakumi sat between the Baroness

d'Isola and Filippo del Monte. The Marchesa and her husband occupied the

two ends of the table, which glittered with rare china, silver, crystal

and flowers.

Very few women could compete with the Marchesa d'Ateleta in the art of

dinner giving. She expended more care and forethought in the preparation

of a menu than of a toilette. Her exquisite taste was patent in every

detail, and her word was law in the matter of elegant conviviality. Her

fantasies and her fashions were imitated on every table of the Roman

upper ten. This winter, for instance, she had introduced the fashion of

hanging garlands of flowers from one end of the table to the other, on

the branches of great candelabras, and also that of placing in front of

each guest, among the group of wine glasses, a slender opalescent Murano

vase with a single orchid in it.

'What a diabolical flower!' said Elena Muti, taking up the vase and

examining the orchid which seemed all blood-stained.

Her voice was of such rich full _timbre_ that even her most trivial

remarks acquired a new significance, a mysterious grace, like that King

of Phrygia whose touch turned everything to gold.

'A symbolical flower--in your hands,' murmured Andrea, gazing at his

neighbour, whose beauty in that attitude was really amazing.

She was dressed in some delicate tissue of palest blue, spangled with

silver dots which glittered through antique Burano lace of an

indefinable tint of white inclining to yellow. The flower, like

something evil generated by a malignant spell, rose quivering on its

slender stalk out of the fragile tube which might have been blown by

some skilful artificer from a liquid gem.

'Well, I prefer roses,' observed Elena, replacing the orchid with a

gesture of repulsion, very different from her former one of curiosity.

She then joined in the general conversation.

Donna Francesca was speaking of the last reception at the Austrian

Embassy.

'Did you see Madame de Cahen?' asked Elena. 'She had on a dress of

yellow tulle covered with humming birds with ruby eyes--a gorgeous

dancing bird-cage. And Lady Ouless--did you notice her?--in a white

gauze skirt draped with sea-weed and little red fishes, and under the

sea-weed and fish another skirt of sea-green gauze--Did you see it?--a

most effective aquarium!' and she laughed merrily.

Andrea was at a loss to understand this sudden volubility These

frivolous and malicious things were uttered by the same voice which, but

a few moments, ago had stirred his soul to its very depths; they came

from the same lips which, in silence, had seemed to him like the mouth

of the Medusa of Leonardo, that human flower of the soul rendered divine

by the fire of passion and the anguish of death. What then was the true

essence of this creature? Had she perception and consciousness of her

manifold changes, or was she impenetrable to herself and shut from her

own mystery? In her expression, her manifestation of herself, how much

was artificial and how much spontaneous? The desire to fathom this

secret pierced him even through the delight experienced by the proximity

of the woman whom he was beginning to love. But his wretched habit of

analysis for ever prevented him losing sight of himself, though every

time he yielded to its temptation he was punished, like Psyche for her

curiosity, by the swift withdrawal of love, the frowns of the beloved

object and the cessation of all delights. Would it not be better to

abandon oneself frankly to the first ineffable sweetness of new-born

love? He saw Elena in the act of placing her lips to a glass of pale

gold wine like liquid honey. He selected from among his own glasses the

one the servant had filled with the same wine, and drank at the same

moment that she did. They replaced their glasses on the table together.

The similarity of the action made them turn to one another, and the

glance they exchanged inflamed them far more than the wine.

'You are very silent,' said Elena, affecting a lightness of tone which

somewhat disguised her voice. 'You have the reputation of being a

brilliant conversationalist--exert yourself therefore a little!'

'Oh cousin! cousin!' exclaimed Donna Francesca with a comical air of

commiseration, while Filippo del Monte whispered something in his ear.

Andrea burst out laughing.

'Cavaliere Sakumi; we are the silent members of this party--we must wake

up!'

The long narrow eyes of the Asiatic--redder than ever now that the wine

had kindled a deeper crimson on his high cheek-bones--glittered with

malice. All this time he had done nothing but gaze at the Duchess of

Scerni with the ecstatic look of a _bonze_ in presence of the divinity.

His broad flat face, which might have come straight out of a page of

O-kou-sai, the great classical humorist, gleamed red among the chains of

flowers like a harvest moon.

'Sakumi is in love,' said Andrea in a low voice, and leaning over

towards Elena.

'With whom?'

'With you--have you not observed it yet?'

'No.'

'Well, look at him.'

Elena looked across at him. The amorous gaze of the disguised _daimio_

suddenly affected her with such ill-disguised mirth that the Japanese

felt deeply hurt and humiliated.

'See,' she said, and to console him she detached a white camellia and

threw it across the table to the envoy of the Rising Sun,--'find some

comparison in praise of me!'

The Oriental carried the flower to his lips with a ludicrous air of

devotion.

'Ah--ah--Sakumi!' cried the little Baroness d'Isola, 'you are unfaithful

to me!'

He stammered a few words while his face flamed. Everybody laughed

unrestrainedly, as if the foreigner had been invited solely to provide

entertainment for the other guests. Andrea turned laughing towards

Elena.

Her head was raised and a little thrown back, and she was gazing

furtively at the young man under her eyelashes with one of those

indescribably feminine glances which seem to absorb--almost one would

say drink in--all that is most desirable, most delectable in the man of

their choice. The long lashes veiled the soft dark eyes which were

looking at him a little side-long, and her lower lip had a scarcely

perceptible tremor. The full ray of her glance seemed to rest upon his

lips as the most attractive point about him.

And in truth his mouth was very attractive. Pure and youthful in outline

and rich in colouring, a little cruel when firmly closed, it reminded

one irresistibly of that portrait of an unknown gentleman in the

Borghese gallery, that profound and mysterious work of art in which the

fascinated imagination has sought to recognise the features of the

divine Cesare Borgia depicted by the divine Sanzio. As soon as the lips

parted in a smile the resemblance vanished, and the square, even

dazzlingly white teeth lit up a mouth as fresh and jocund as a child's.

The moment Andrea turned, Elena withdrew her eyes, though not so quickly

but that the young man caught the flash. His delight was so poignant

that it sent the blood flaming to his face.

'She is attracted by me!' he thought to himself, inwardly exulting in

the assurance of having found favour in the eyes of this rare creature.

'This is a joy I have never experienced before!' he said to himself.

There are certain glances from a woman's eye which a lover would not

exchange for anything else she can offer him later. He who has not seen

that first love-light kindle in a limpid eye has never touched the

highest point of human bliss. No future moment can ever approach that

one.

The conversation around them grew more animated, and Elena asked

him--'Are you staying the winter in Rome?'

'The whole winter--and longer,' was Andrea's reply, to whom the simple

question seemed to open up a promise.

'Ah, then you have set up a home here?'

'Yes, in the Casa Zuccari--_domus aurea_.'

'At the Trinità de' Monti?--Lucky being!'

'Why lucky?'

'Because you live on a spot I have a great liking for.'

'You are quite right I always think--don't you?--that there the most

perfect essence of Rome is concentrated as in a cup.'

'Quite true! I have hung up my heart--both Catholic and Pagan--as an

_ex-voto_ between the obelisk of the Trinità and the column of the

Conception.'

She laughed as she spoke. A sonnet to this suspended heart rose

instantly to his lips, but he did not give it utterance, for he was in

no mood to continue their conversation in this light vein of false

sentiment, which broke the sweet spell she had been weaving about him.

He was silent therefore.

She, too, remained a moment pensive, and then threw herself with renewed

vivacity into the general conversation, prodigal of wit and laughter,

flashing her teeth and her _bon mots_ at all in turn. Francesca was

retailing spicily a piece of gossip about the Princess di Ferentino on

the subject of a recent, and somewhat risky, adventure of hers with

Giovanella Daddi.

'By the by--the Ferentino announces another charity bazaar for

Epiphany,' said the Baroness d'Isola. 'Does anybody know anything about

it yet?'

'I am one of the patronesses,' said Elena Muti.

'And you are a most valuable patroness,' broke in Don Filippo del Monte,

a man of about forty, almost bald, a keen sharpener of epigrams, whose

face seemed a sort of Socratic mask; the right eye was forever on the

move, and flashed with a thousand changing expressions, while the left

remained stationary and glazed behind the single eye-glass, as if he

used the one for expressing himself and the other for seeing. 'At the

May bazaar, you brought in a perfect shower of gold.'

'Oh, the May bazaar--what a mad affair that was!' exclaimed the

Marchesa.

While the servants were filling the glasses with iced champagne, she

added, 'Do you remember, Elena, our stalls were close together?'

'Five louis d'or a drink--five louis d'or a bite!' Don Filippo called,

in the voice of a street-hawker. Elena and the Marchesa burst out

laughing.

'Why yes, of course, Filippo, you cried the wares,' said Donna

Francesca. 'Now what a pity you were not there, _cugino mio_! For five

louis you might have eaten fruit out of which I had had the first bite,

and have drunk champagne out of the hollow of Elena's hands for five

more.'

'How scandalous!' broke in the Baroness d'Isola, with a horrified

grimace.

'Ah, Mary, I like that! And did you not sell cigarettes that you lighted

up first yourself for a louis?' cried Francesca through her laughter.

Then she became suddenly grave. 'Every deed, with a charitable object in

view, is sacred,' she observed sententiously. 'By merely biting into

fruit, I collected at least two hundred louis.'

'And you?' Andrea Sperelli turned to Elena with as constrained

smile--'With your human drinking-cup--how much did you get?'

'I?--oh, two hundred and seventy louis.'

Everybody was full of fun and laughter, excepting the Marchese

d'Ateleta, who was old, and afflicted with incurable deafness; was

padded and painted--in a word, artificial from head to foot. He was very

like one of the figures one sees at a wax work show. From time to

time--usually the wrong one--he would give vent to a little dry cackling

laugh, like the rattle of some rusty mechanism inside him.

'However,' Elena resumed, 'you must know, that after a certain point in

the evening, the price rose to ten louis, and at last, that lunatic of a

Galeazzo Secinaro came and offered me a five hundred lire note, if I

would dry my hands on his great golden beard!'

As was ever the case at the d'Ateletas', the dinner increased in

splendour towards the end; for the true luxury of the table is shown in

the dessert. A multitude of choice and exquisite things, delighting the

eye no less than the palate, were disposed with consummate art in

various crystal and silver-mounted dishes. Festoons of camellias and

violets hung between the vine-wreathed eighteenth century candelabras,

round which sported fairies and nymphs, and on the wall-hangings more

fairies and nymphs, and all the charming figures of the pastoral

mythology--the Corydons, the Phylises, the Rosalinds--animated with

their sylvan loves one of those sunny Cytherean landscapes originated by

the fanciful imagination of Antoine Watteau.

The slightly erotic excitement, which is apt to take hold upon the

spirits at the end of a dinner graced by fair women and flowers,

betrayed itself in the tone of the conversations, and the reminiscences

of this bazaar, at which the ladies--urged on by a noble spirit of

emulation in collecting the largest sums--employed the most unheard of

audacities to attract buyers.

'And did you accept it?' asked Andrea of the Duchess.

'I sacrificed my hands on the altar of Benevolence,' she replied.

'Twenty-five louis more to my account!'

'_All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand._' He

laughed as he quoted Lady Macbeth's words, but, in reality, his heart

was sore with a confused, ill-defined pain, that bore a strong

resemblance to jealousy. And suddenly he became aware of something

excessive, almost--it might be--a touch of the courtesan, defacing the

manners of the great lady. Certain inflections of her voice, certain

tones of her laughter, here a gesture, there an attitude, certain

glances, exhaled a charm that was perhaps a trifle too Aphrodisiac. She

was, besides, somewhat over-lavish with the visible favours of her

graces, and the air she breathed was continually surcharged with the

desire she herself excited.

Andrea's heart swelled with bitterness; he could not take his eyes off

Elena's hands. Out of those hands, so delicately, ideally white and

transparent, with their faint tracery of azure veins--from those rosy

hollowed palms, wherein a chiromancer would have discovered many an

intricate crossing of lines, ten, twenty different men had drunk at a

price. He could _see_ the heads of these unknown men bending over her

and drinking the wine. But Secinaro was one of his friends--a great

handsome jovial fellow, imperially bearded like a very Lucius Verus, and

a most formidable rival to have. He felt as if the dinner would never

come to an end.

'You are such an innovator,' Elena was saying to Donna Francesca, as she

dipped her fingers into warm water in a pale blue finger-glass rimmed

with silver, 'Why do you not revive the ancient fashion of having the

water offered to one after dinner with a basin and ewer? The modern

arrangement is very ugly, do you not think so, Sperelli?'

Donna Francesca rose. Every one followed her example. Andrea, with a

bow, offered his arm to Elena and she looked at him without smiling as

she slowly laid her hand on his arm. Her last words were gaily and

lightly spoken, but her gaze was so grave and profound that the young

man felt it sink into his very soul.

'Are you going to the French Embassy to-morrow evening?' she asked him.

'Are you?' Andrea asked in return.

'I am.'

'So am I.'

They smiled at one another like two lovers.

'Sit down,' she added as she sank into a seat.

The seat was far from the fire, with its back to the curve of a grand

piano which was partially draped in some rich stuff. At one end of the

divan, a tall bronze crane held in his beak a tray hanging by three

chains like one side of a pair of scales, and on it lay a new book and a

little Japanese scimitar--a _waki-gashi_--the scabbard and hilt

encrusted with silver chrysanthemums.

Elena took up the book, which was only half cut, read the title, and

then replaced it on the tray which swung to and fro. The scimitar fell

to the ground. As both she and Andrea stooped to pick it up, their hands

met. She straightened herself up and examined the beautiful weapon with

some curiosity, retaining it in her hand while Andrea talked about the

new novel, insinuating into his remarks general arguments upon love; and

her fingers wandered absently over the chasing of the weapon, her

polished nails seeming a repetition of the delicate gems that sparkled

in her rings.

Presently, after a pause, Elena said without looking at him: 'You are

very young--have you often been in love?'

He answered by another question--'Which do you consider the truest,

noblest way of love--to imagine you have discovered every aspect of the

eternal Feminine combined in one woman, or to run rapidly over the lips

of woman as you run your fingers over the keys of a piano, till, at

last, you find the sublime chord of harmony?'

'I really cannot say--and you?'

'Nor I either--I am unable to solve the great problem of sentiment.

However, by personal instinct, I have followed the latter plan and have

now, I fear, struck the grand chord--judging, at least, by an inward

premonition.'

'You fear?'

'_Je crains ce que j'espère._'

He instinctively employed this language of affected sentiment to cloak

his really strong emotion, and Elena felt herself caught by his voice as

in a golden net and drawn forcibly out of the life surrounding them.

'Her Excellency the Princess di Micigliano!' announced a footman.

'Count di Gissi!'

'Madame Chrysoloras!'

'The Marchese and the Marchesa Massa d'Alba!'

The rooms began to fill rapidly. Long shimmering trains swept over the

deep red carpet, white shoulders emerged from bodices starred with

diamonds, embroidered with pearls, covered with flowers, and in nearly

every coiffure glittered those marvellous hereditary gems for which the

Roman nobility are so much envied.

'Her Excellency the Princess of Ferentino!'

'His Excellency the Duke of Grimiti!'

The guests formed themselves in various groups, the rallying points of

gossip and of flirtation. The chief group, composed exclusively of men,

was in the vicinity of the piano, gathered round the Duchess of Scerni,

who had risen to her feet, the better to hold her own against her

besiegers. The Princess of Ferentino came over to greet her friend with

a reproach.

'Why did you not come to Nini Santamarta's to-day? We all expected you.'

She was tall and thin with extraordinary green eyes sunk deep in their

shadowy sockets. Her dress was black, the bodice open in a point back

and front, and in her hair, which was _blond cendré_, she wore a great

diamond crescent like Diana. She waved a huge fan of red feathers

hastily to and fro as she spoke.

'Nini is at Madame Van Hueffel's this evening.'

'I am going there later on for a little while, so I shall see her,'

answered the Duchess.

'Oh, Ugenta,' said the Princess turning to Andrea, 'I was looking for

you to remind you of our appointment. To-morrow is Thursday and Cardinal

Immenraet's sale begins at twelve. Will you fetch me at one?'

'I shall not fail, Princess.'

'I simply must have that rock crystal.'

'Then you must be prepared for competition.'

'From whom?'

'My cousin for one.'

'And who else?'

'From me,' said Elena.

'You?--Well, we shall see.'

Several of the gentlemen asked for further enlightenment.

'It is a contest between ladies of the 19th century for a rock crystal

vase which belonged to Niccolo Niccoli,' Andrea explained with

solemnity; 'a vase, on which is engraved the Trojan Anchises untying one

of the sandals of Venus Aphrodite. The entertainment will be given

gratis, at one o'clock to-morrow afternoon, in the Public Sale-rooms of

the Via Sistina. Contending parties--the Princess of Ferentino, the

Duchess of Scerni and the Marchesa d'Ateleta.'

Everybody laughed, and Grimiti asked, 'Is betting permitted?'

'The odds! The odds!' yelled Don Filippo del Monte, imitating the

strident voice of the bookmaker Stubbs.

The Princess gave him an admonitory tap on the arm with her red fan, but

the joke seemed to amuse them hugely and the betting began at once.

Hearing the bursts of laughter, other ladies and gentlemen joined the

group in order to share the fun. The news of the approaching contest

spread like lightning and soon assumed the proportions of a society

event.

'Give me your arm and let us take a turn through the rooms,' said Elena

to Andrea Sperelli.

As soon as they were in the west room, away from the noisy crowd,

Andrea pressed her arm and murmured, 'Thanks.'

She leaned on him, stopping now and again to reply to some greeting. She

seemed fatigued, and was as pale as the pearls of her necklace. Each

gentleman addressed her with some hackneyed compliment.

'How stupid they all are! it makes me feel quite ill,' she said.

As they turned, she saw Sakumi was following them noiselessly, her

camellia in his button-hole, his eyes full of yearning not daring to

come nearer. She threw him a compassionate smile.

'Poor Sakumi!'

'Did you not notice him before?' asked Andrea.

'No.'

'While we were sitting by the piano, he was in the recess of the window,

and never took his eyes off your hands when you were playing with the

weapon of his native country--now reduced to being a paper-cutter for a

European novel.'

'Just now, do you mean?'

'Yes, just now. Perhaps he was thinking how sweet it would be to perform

_Hara-Kiri_ with that little scimitar, the chrysanthemums on which

seemed to blossom out of the lacquer and steel under the touch of your

fingers.'

She did not smile. A veil of sadness, almost of suffering, seemed to

have fallen over her face; her eyes, faintly luminous under the white

lids, seemed drowned in shadow, the corners of her mouth drooped

wearily, her right arm hung straight and languid at her side. She no

longer held out her hand to those who greeted her; she listened no

longer to their speeches.

'What is the matter?' asked Andrea.

'Nothing--I must go to the Van Hueffels' now. Take me to Francesca to

say good-bye, and then come with me down to my carriage.'

They returned to the first drawing-room, where Luigi Gulli, a young man,

swarthy and curly-haired as an Arab, who had left his native Calabria in

search of fortune, was executing, with much feeling, Beethoven's sonata

in C# minor. The Marchesa d'Ateleta, a patroness of his, was standing

near the piano, with her eyes fixed on the keys. By degrees, the sweet

and grave music drew all these frivolous spirits within its magic

circle, like a slow-moving but irresistible whirlpool.

'Beethoven!' exclaimed Elena in a tone of almost religious fervour, as

she stood still and drew her arm from Andrea's.

She had halted beside one of the great palms and, extending her left

hand, began very slowly to put on her glove. In that attitude her whole

figure, continued by the train, seemed taller and more erect; the shadow

of the palm veiled and, so to speak, spiritualised the pallor of her

skin. Andrea gazed at her in a kind of rapture, increased by the pathos

of the music.

As if drawn by the young man's impetuous desire, Elena turned her head a

little, and smiled at him--a smile so subtle, so spiritual, that it

seemed rather an emanation of the soul than a movement of the lips,

while her eyes remained sad and as if lost in a far away dream. Thus

overshadowed they were verily the eyes of the Night, such as Leonardo da

Vinci might have imagined for an allegorical figure after having seen

Lucrezia Crevelli at Milan.

During the second that the smile lasted, Andrea felt himself absolutely

alone with her in the crowd. An immense wave of pride flooded his heart.

Elena now prepared to put on the other glove.

'No, not that one,' he entreated in a low voice.

She understood, and left her hand bare.

He was hoping to kiss that hand before she left. And suddenly he had a

vision of the May Bazaar, and the men drinking champagne out of those

hollowed palms, and for the second time that night he felt the keen stab

of jealousy.

'We will go now,' she said, taking his arm once more.

The sonata over, conversation was resumed with fresh vigour. Three or

four new names were announced, amongst them that of the Princess Issé,

who entered smiling, with funny little tottering steps, in European

dress, her oval face as white and tiny as a little _netske_ figurine. A

stir of curiosity ran round the room.

'Good-night, Francesca,' said Elena, taking leave of her hostess, 'I

shall see you to-morrow.'

'Going so soon?'

'I am due at the Van Hueffels'. I promised to go.'

'What a pity! Mary Dyce is just going to sing.'

'I must go--good-bye!'

'Well, take this, and good-bye. Most amiable of cousins, please look

after her.'

The Marchesa pressed a bunch of double violets into her hand and hurried

away to receive the Princess Issé very graciously. Mary Dyce, in a red

dress, slender and undulating as a tongue of fire, began to sing.

'I am so tired!' murmured Elena, leaning wearily on Andrea's arm.

'Please ask for my cloak.'

He took her cloak from the attendant, and in helping her to put it on,

touched her shoulder with the tips of his fingers, and felt her shiver.

The words of one of Schumann's songs was borne to them on Mary Dyce's

passionate soprano, _Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben!_

They descended the stairs in silence. A footman preceded them to call

the duchess's carriage. The stamping of the horses rang through the

echoing portico. At every step, Andrea felt the pressure of Elena's arm

grow heavier; she held her head high, and her eyes were half closed.

'As you ascended these stairs, my admiration followed you, unknown to

you. Now, as you come down, my love accompanies you,' he said softly,

almost humbly, faltering a little between the two last words.

She made no reply, but she lifted the bunch of violets to her face, and

inhaled the perfume. In so doing, the wide sleeve of her evening cloak

slipped back over her arm beyond her elbow, thrilling the young man's

senses almost beyond control. His lips trembled, and he with difficulty

restrained the burning words that rose to them.

The carriage was standing at the foot of the great stairway; a footman

held open the door.

'To Madame Van Hueffel's,' said the duchess to him, while Andrea helped

her in.

The man left the door and returned to his seat beside the coachman. The

horses stamped, striking out sparks from the stones.

'Take care!' cried Elena, holding out her hand to the young man. Her

eyes and her diamonds flashed through the gloom.

'Oh, to be in there with her in the shadow--to press my lips to her

satin neck under the perfumed fur of her mantle!'

'Take me with you!' he would like to have cried.

But the horses plunged. 'Oh, take care!' Elena repeated.

He kissed her hand--pressing his lips to it as if to leave the mark of

his burning passion. He closed the door and the carriage rolled rapidly

away under the porch, and out to the Forum.

And thus ended Andrea Sperelli's first meeting with the Duchess of

Scerni.

CHAPTER II

The gray deluge of democratic mud, which swallows up so many beautiful

and rare things, is likewise gradually engulfing that particular class

of the old Italian nobility in which from generation to generation were

kept alive certain family traditions of eminent culture, refinement and

art.

To this class, which I should be inclined to denominate Arcadian because

it shone with greatest splendour in the charming atmosphere of the

eighteenth century life, belonged the Sperelli. Urbanity, hellenism,

love of all that was exquisite, a predilection for out-of-the-way

studies, an æsthetic curiosity, a passion for archæology, and an

epicurean taste in gallantry were hereditary qualities of the house of

Sperelli. An Alessandro Sperelli brought in 1466 to Frederic of Aragon,

son of Ferdinand King of Naples, and brother to Alfonso Duke of

Calabria, a manuscript in folio containing the 'less rude' poems of the

old Tuscan writers which Lorenzo de Medici had promised him at Pisa in

1465; and in concert with the most erudite scholars of his time, that

same Alessandro wrote a Latin elegy on the death of the divine

Simonetta--sad and melting numbers after the manner of Tibullus. Another

Sperelli--Stefano,--was during the same century in Flanders, in the

midst of all the pomp, the extravagant elegance, the almost fabulous

magnificence of the court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, where

he remained, having allied himself with a Flemish family. A son of his,

named Giusto, learned painting under the direction of Gossaert, in whose

company he came to Italy in the suite of Philip of Burgundy, the

ambassador of the Emperor Maximilian to Pope Julius II. in 1508. He

settled in Florence, where the chief branch of his family continued to

flourish, and had for his second master Piero di Cosimo, that jocund and

facile painter and vivid and harmonious colourist, under whose brush the

pagan deities came to life again. This Giusto was by no means a mediocre

artist, but he consumed all his forces in the vain effort to reconcile

his primary Gothic education with the newly awakened spirit of the

Renaissance. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century the Sperelli

family migrated to Naples. There a Bartolomeo Sperelli published in 1679

an astrological treatise: _De Nativitatibus_; in 1720 a Giovanni

Sperelli wrote for the theatre an opera bouffe entitled _La Faustina_

and also a lyrical tragedy entitled _Progne_; 1756 a Carlo Sperelli

brought out a book of amatory verses in which much licentious persiflage

was expressed with the Horatian elegance so much affected at that

period. A better poet, and moreover a man of exquisite gallantry, was

Luigi Sperelli, attached to the court of the _lazzaroni_ king of Naples

and his queen Caroline. His Muse was very charming, and affected a

certain epicurean melancholy. He loved much and with a fine

discrimination, and had innumerable adventures--some of them famous--as,

for instance, that with the Marchesa di Bugnano who poisoned herself out

of jealousy, and with the Countess of Chesterfield who died of

consumption, and whom he mourned in a series of odes, sonnets and

elegies--very moving, if perhaps somewhat overladen with metaphor.

Count Andrea Sperelli-Fieschi d'Ugenta, sole heir to the family, carried

on its traditions. He was, in truth, the ideal type of the young Italian

nobleman of the nineteenth century, a true representative of a race of

chivalrous gentlemen and graceful artists, the last scion of an

intellectual line.

He was, so to speak, thoroughly impregnated with art. His early youth,

nourished as it was by the most varied and profound studies, promised

wonders. Up to his twentieth year, he alternated between severe study

and long journeys, in company with his father, and could thus complete

his extraordinary æsthetic education under paternal direction, without

the restrictions and constraints imposed by tutors. And it was to his

father that he owed his taste for everything pertaining to art, his

passionate cult of the Beautiful, his paradoxical disdain of prejudice,

and his keen appetite for the sensuous.

That father, who had grown up in the midst of the last expiring

splendours of the Bourbon court of Naples, understood life on a large

scale, was profoundly initiated into all the arts of the voluptuary,

combined with a certain Byronic leaning towards fantastic romanticism.

His marriage had occurred under _quasi_ tragic circumstances, the finale

of a mad passion; then, after disturbing and undermining the conjugal

peace in every possible fashion, he had separated from his wife, and,

keeping his son always with him, had travelled about the whole of

Europe.

Andrea's education had thus been a living one; that is to say, derived

less from books than from the study of life as he had seen it. His mind

was corrupted not only by over-refined culture, but also by actual

experiments, and in him curiosity grew keener in proportion as his

knowledge grew wider. From the beginning, he had ever been prodigal of

his powers, for the great nervous force with which nature had endowed

him was inexhaustible in providing him with the treasures he dispensed

so lavishly. But the expansion of that energy caused in him the

destruction of another force: the moral one, which his own father had

not scrupled to repress in him. And he never perceived that his whole

life was a steady retrogression of all his faculties, of his hopes, his

joys--a species of gradual renunciation--and that the circle was slowly

but inexorably narrowing round him.

Among other fundamental maxims his father had given him the following:

You must _make_ your own life as you would any other work of art. The

life of a man of intellect should be of his own designing. Herein lies

the only true superiority.

Again: Never, let it cost what it may, lose the mastery over yourself

even in the most intoxicating rapture of the senses. _Habere non haberi_

is the rule from which the man of intellect should never swerve.

And again--Regret is the idle pastime of an unoccupied mind. The best

method, therefore, to avoid regret is to keep the mind constantly

occupied with new fancies, fresh sensations.

Unfortunately, however, these _voluntary_ axioms, which from their

ambiguity might just as easily be interpreted as lofty moral rules, fell

upon an _involuntary_ nature; that is to say, one in which the will

power was extremely feeble.

Another seed sown by the paternal hand had borne evil fruit in Andrea's

spirit--the seed of sophistry. Sophistry, said this imprudent teacher,

is at the bottom of all human pleasure or pain. Therefore, quicken and

multiply your sophisms and you quicken and multiply your own pleasure or

your own pain. It is possible that the whole science of life consists in

obscuring the truth. The word is a very profound matter in which

inexhaustible treasure is concealed for the man who knows how to use it.

The Greeks, who were artists in words, were the most refined

voluptuaries of antiquity. The sophists flourished in the greatest

number during the age of Pericles, the Golden Age of pleasure.

This germ had found a favourable soil in the unhealthy culture of the

young man's mind. By degrees, insincerity--rather towards himself than

towards others--became such a habit of Andrea's mind, that finally he

was incapable of being wholly sincere or of regaining dominion over

himself.

The death of his father left him alone at the age of twenty, master of a

considerable fortune, separated from his mother, and at the mercy of his

passions and his tastes. He spent fifteen months in England. His mother

married again, and he returned to Rome from choice.

Rome was his passion--not the Rome of the Cæsars, but the Rome of the

Popes--not the Rome of the Triumphal Arches, the Forums, the Baths, but

the Rome of the Villas, the Fountains, the Churches. He would have given

all the Colosseums in the world for the Villa Medici, the Campo Vaccino

for the Piazza di Spagna, the Arch of Titus for the Fountain of the

Tortoises. The princely magnificence of the Colonnas, the Dorias, the

Barberinis, attracted him far more than the ruins of imperial grandeur.

It was his dream to possess a palace crowned by a cornice of Michael

Angelo's, and with frescos by the Carracci like the Farnese palace--a

gallery of Raphaels, Titians and Domenichini like the Borghese; a villa

like that of Alessandro Albani, where deep shadowy groves, red granite

of the East, white marble from Luni, Greek statues and Renaissance

pictures should weave an enchantment round some sumptuous amour of his.

In an album of 'Confessions' at his cousin's, the Marchesa d'Ateleta,

against the question--'What would you most like to be?' he had written,

'A Roman prince.'

Arriving in Rome about the end of September, he set up his 'home' in the

Palazzo Zuccari, near the Trinità de' Monti, where the obelisk of Pius

VI. marks with its shadow the passing hours. The whole of October was

devoted to furnishing them. When the rooms were all finished and

decorated to his taste, he passed some days of invincible melancholy and

loneliness in his new abode. It was a St. Martin's summer, a 'Springtime

of the Dead,' calmly sad and sweet, in which Rome lay all golden, like a

city of the Far East, under a milk-white sky, diaphanous as the

firmament reflected in Southern seas.

All this languor of atmosphere and light, in which things seemed to lose

their substance and reality, oppressed the young man with an infinite

weariness, an inexpressible sense of discontent, of discomfort, of

solitude, emptiness and home-sickness, mostly, no doubt, the result of

the change of climate and customs.

It was just this, that he was entering upon a new phase of life. Would

he find therein the woman and the work capable of dominating his heart

and becoming an object in life to him? Within himself he felt neither

the conviction of power nor the presage of fame or happiness. Though

penetrated, impregnated with art, as yet he had not produced anything

remarkable. Eager in the pursuit of pleasure and of love, he had never

yet really loved or really enjoyed whole-heartedly. Tortured by

aspirations after an Ideal, and abhorring pain both by nature and

education, he was vulnerable on every side, accessible to pain at every

point.

In the tumult of his conflicting inclinations, he had lost all guiding

will-power and moral perception. Will, in abdicating had yielded the

sceptre to instinct and the æsthetic sense was substituted for the

moral. But, it was nevertheless precisely to his æsthetic sense--in him

most subtle and powerful--that he owed a certain strength and

equilibrium of mind, so that one might say his existence was a perpetual

struggle between contrary forces, enclosed within the limits of that

equilibrium. Men of intellect, educated in the cult of the beautiful,

preserve a certain sense of order even in their worst depravities. The

conception of the beautiful is, so to speak, the axis of their being,

round which all their passions revolve.

Over this sadness, the recollection of Constance Landbrooke still

floated like a faded perfume. His love for Conny had been a very

delicate affair, for she was a very sweet little creature. She was like

one of Lawrence's creations, with all the dainty feminine graces so dear

to that painter of furbelows and laces and velvets, of lustrous eyes and

pouting lips, a very re-incarnation of the little Countess of

Shaftesbury. Lively, chattering, never still, lavish of infantile

diminutives and silvery peals of laughter, easily moved to sudden

caresses and as sudden melancholies and quick bursts of anger, she

contributed to her share of love a vast amount of movement, much variety

and many caprices. But Conny Landbrooke's melodious twitterings had left

no more mark on Andrea's heart than the light musical echo left in one's

ear for a time by some gay ritornella. More than once in some pensive

hour of twilight melancholy, she had said to him with a mist of tears

before her eyes--'I know you do not love me.' And in truth he did not

love her, she did not by any means satisfy his longings. His ideal was

less northern in character. Ideally he felt himself attracted by those

courtesans of the sixteenth century, over whose faces there would appear

to be drawn some indefinable veil of sorcery, some transparent mask of

enchantment, some divine nocturnal spell.

The moment Andrea set eyes on the Duchess of Scerni, he said to

himself--'_This_ is my Ideal Woman!' and his whole soul went out to her

in a transport of joy, in the presentiment of the future.

CHAPTER III

The next day the public sale-room of the Via Sistina was thronged with

fashionable people, come to look on at the famous contest.

It was raining hard; the light in the low-roofed damp rooms was dull and

gray. Along the walls were ranged various pieces of carved furniture,

several large diptychs and triptychs of the Tuscan school of the

fourteenth century; four pieces of Flemish tapestry representing the

Story of Narcissus hung from ceiling to floor; Metaurensian majolicas

occupied two long shelves; stuffs--for the most part ecclesiastical--lay

spread out on chairs or heaped up on tables; antiquities of the rarest

kind--ivories, enamels, crystals, engraved gems, medals, coins,

breviaries, illuminated manuscripts, silver of delicate workmanship were

massed together in high cabinets behind the auctioneer's table. A

peculiar musty odour, arising from the clamminess of the atmosphere and

this collection of ancient things, pervaded the air.

When Andrea Sperelli entered the room with the Princess di Ferentino, he

looked about him rapidly with a secret tremor--Is _she_ here? he said to

himself.

She was there, seated at the table between the Cavaliere Davila and Don

Filippo del Monte. Before her on the table lay her gloves and her muff,

to which a little bunch of violets was fastened. She held in her hand a

little bas-relief in silver, attributed to Caradosso Foppa, which she

was examining with great attention. Each article passed from hand to

hand along the table while the auctioneer proclaimed its merits in a

loud voice, those standing behind the line of chairs leaning over to

look.

The sale began.

'Make your bids, gentlemen! make your bids!' cried the auctioneer from

time to time.

Some amateur encouraged by this cry bid a higher sum with his eye on his

competitors. The auctioneer raised his hammer.

'Going--Going--Gone!'

He rapped the table. The article fell to the last bidder. A murmur went

round the assemblage, then the bidding recommenced. The Cavaliere

Davila, a Neapolitan gentleman of gigantic stature and almost femininely

gentle manners, a noted collector and connoisseur of majolica, gave his

opinion on each article of importance. Three lots in this sale of the

Cardinal's effects were really of 'superior' quality: the Story of

Narcissus, the rock-crystal goblet, and an embossed silver helmet by

Antonio del Pollajuolo presented by the City of Florence to the Count of

Urbino in 1472 for services rendered during the taking of Volterra.

'Here is the Princess,' said Filippo del Monte to the Duchess.

Elena rose and shook hands with her friend.

'Already in the field!' exclaimed the Princess.

'Already.'

'And Francesca?'

'She has not come yet.'

Four or five young men--the Duke of Grimiti, Roberto Casteldieri,

Ludovico Barbarisi, Gianetto Rutolo--drew up round them. Others joined

them. The rattle of the rain against the windows almost drowned their

voices.

Elena held out her hand frankly to Sperelli as to everybody else, but

somehow he felt that that handshake set him at a distance from her.

Elena seemed to him cold and grave. That instant sufficed to freeze and

destroy all his dreams; his memories of the preceding evening grew

confused and dim, the torch of hope was extinguished. What had happened

to her?--She was not the same woman. She was wrapped in the folds of a

long otter-skin coat, and wore a toque of the same fur on her head.

There was something hard, almost contemptuous, in the expression of her

face.

'The goblet will not come on for some time yet,' she observed to the

Princess, as she resumed her seat.

Every object passed through her hands. She was much tempted by a centaur

cut in a sardonyx, a very exquisite piece of workmanship, part, perhaps,

of the scattered collection of Lorenzo the Magnificent. She took part in

the bidding, communicating her offers to the auctioneer in a low voice

without raising her eyes to him. Presently the competition stopped; she

obtained the intaglio for a good price.

'A most admirable acquisition,' observed Andrea Sperelli from behind her

chair.

Elena could not repress a slight start. She took up the sardonyx and

handed it to him to look at over her shoulder without turning round. It

was really a very beautiful thing.

'It might be the centaur copied by Donatello,' Andrea added.

And in his heart, with his admiration for the work of art, there rose up

also a sincere admiration for the noble taste of the lady who now filled

all his thoughts. 'What a rare creature both in mind and body!' he

thought. But the higher she rose in his imagination, the further she

seemed removed from him in reality. All the security of the preceding

evening was transformed into uneasiness, and his first doubts re-awoke.

He had dreamed too much last night with waking eyes, bathed in a

felicity that knew no bounds, while the memory of a gesture, a smile, a

turn of the head, a fold of her raiment held him captive as in a net.

Now all this imaginary world had tumbled miserably about his ears at the

touch of reality. In Elena's eyes there had been no sign of that special

greeting to which he had so ardently looked forward; she had in no wise

singled him out from the crowd, had offered him no mark of favour. Why

not? He felt himself slighted, humiliated. All these fatuous people

irritated him, he was exasperated by the things which seemed to engross

Elena's attention, and more particularly by Filippo del Monte, who

leaned towards her every now and then to whisper something to

her--scandal no doubt. The Marchesa d'Ateleta now arrived, cheerful as

ever. Her laugh, out of the centre of the circle of men who hastened to

surround her, caused Don Filippo to turn round.

'Ah--so the trinity is complete!' he exclaimed, rising from his seat.

Andrea instantly slipped into it at Elena Muti's side. As the subtle

perfume of the violets reached him, he murmured--

'These are not those of last night, are they?'

'No,' she answered coldly.

In all her varying moods, changeful and caressing as the waves of the

sea, there always lay a hidden menace of rebuff. She was often taken

with fits of cold restraint. Andrea held his tongue, bewildered.

'Make your bids, gentlemen,' cried the auctioneer.

The bids rose higher. Antonio del Pollajuolo's silver helmet was being

hotly contested. Even the Cavaliere Davila entered the lists. The very

air seemed gradually to become hotter; the feverish desire to possess so

beautiful an object seemed to spread like a contagion.

In that year the craze for _bibelots_ and _bric-à-brac_ reached the

point of madness. The drawing-rooms of the nobility and the upper middle

classes were crammed with curios; every lady must needs cover the

cushions of her sofas and chairs with some piece of church vestment, and

put her roses into an Umbrian ointment pot, or a chalcedony jar. The

sale-rooms were the favourite meeting-places, and every sale crowded. It

was the fashion for the ladies when they dropped in anywhere for tea in

the afternoon, to enter with some such remark as--'I have just come from

the sale of the painter Campos' things. Tremendous bidding! Such

Hispano-Moresque plaques! I secured a jewel belonging to Maria

Leczinska. Look!'

The bidding continued. Fashionable purchasers crowded round the table,

vieing with each other in artistic and critical comparisons between the

Giottoesque Nativities and Annunciations. Into this atmosphere of

mustiness and antiquity the ladies brought the perfume of their furs,

and more especially of the violets which each one wore on her muff,

according to the then prevailing charming fashion, and their presence

diffused a delicious air of warmth and fragrance. Outside, the rain

continued to fall, and the light to fade. Here and there a little flame

of gas struggled feebly with such daylight as remained.

'Going--going--gone!' The stroke of the hammer put Lord Humphrey

Heathfield in possession of the Florentine helmet. The bidding then

began for smaller articles, which passed in turn from hand to hand down

the long table. Elena handled them carefully, examined them, and placed

them in front of Andrea without remark. There were enamels, ivories,

eighteenth century watches, Milanese goldsmiths' work of the time of

Ludovico the Moor, Books of Hours inscribed in gold letters on pale blue

vellum. These precious things seemed to increase in value under the

touch of Elena's fingers; her little hands had a faint tremor of

eagerness when they came in contact with some specially desirable

object. Andrea watched them intently, and his imagination transformed

every movement of her hands into a caress. 'But why did she place each

thing upon the table instead of passing it to him?'

He forestalled her next time by holding out his hand. And from

thenceforth the ivories, the enamels, the ornaments passed from the

hands of the lady to those of her lover, to whom they communicated an

ineffable thrill of delight. He felt that thus some particle of the

charm of the beloved woman entered into these objects, just as a portion

of the virtue of the magnet enters into the iron. It was, in truth, the

magnetic sense of love--one of those acute and profound sensations which

are rarely felt but at love's beginning, and which, differing

essentially from all others, seem to have no physical or moral seat, but

to exist in some neutral element of our being--an element that is

intermediate, and the nature of which is unknown.

'Here again is a rapture I have never felt before,' thought Andrea.

A kind of torpor seemed creeping over him. Little by little, he was

losing consciousness of time and place.

'I recommend this clock to your notice,' Elena was saying to him, with a

look the full significance of which he did not for the first moment

understand.

It was a small Death's-head, carved in ivory with extraordinary power

and anatomical skill. Each jaw was furnished with a row of diamonds, and

two rubies flashed from the deep eye-sockets. On the forehead was

engraved, _Ruit Hora_; and on the occiput _Tibi_, _Hippolyta_. It opened

like a box, the hinging being almost imperceptible, and the ticking

inside lent an indescribable air of life to the diminutive skull. This

sepulchral jewel, the offering of some unknown artist to his mistress,

had doubtless marked many an hour of rapture, and served as a warning

symbol to their amorous souls.

Could a lover wish for anything more exquisite and more suggestive? 'Has

she any special reason for recommending this to me?' thought Andrea, all

his hopes reviving on the instant. He threw himself into the bidding

with a sort of fury. Two or three others bid against him, notably

Giannetto Rutolo, who, being in love with Donna Ippolita Albonico, was

attracted by the dedication: _Tibi, Hippolyta_.

Presently Rutolo and Sperelli were left alone in the contest. The

bidding rose higher than the actual value of the article, which forced a

smile from the auctioneer. At last, vanquished by his adversary's

determination, Giannetto Rutolo was silent.

'Going--going--!'

Donna Ippolita's lover, a little pale, cried one last sum. Sperelli

named a higher--there was a moment's silence. The auctioneer looked from

one to the other, then he raised his hammer and slowly, still looking at

the two--'Going--going--gone!'

The Death's-head fell to the Conte d'Ugenta. A murmur ran round the

room. A sudden flood of light burst through the windows, lit up the

gleaming gold backgrounds of the triptychs, and played over the

sorrowfully patient brow of the Siennese Madonna and the glittering

steel scales on the Princess di Ferentino's little grey hat.

'When is the goblet coming on?' asked the princess impatiently.

Her friends consulted the catalogue. There was no hope of the goblet for

that day. The unusual amount of competition made the sale go slowly.

There was still a long list of smaller articles--cameos, medallions,

coins. Several antiquaries and Prince Stroganow disputed each piece

hotly. The rest felt considerably disappointed. The Duchess of Scerni

rose to go.

'Good-bye, Sperelli,' she said. 'I shall see you again this

evening--perhaps.'

'Why perhaps?'

'I do not feel well.'

'What is the matter?'

She turned away without replying, and took leave of the others. Many of

them followed her example and left with her. The young men were making

fun of the 'spectacle manqué.' The Marchesa d'Ateleta laughed, but the

princess was evidently thoroughly out of temper. The footmen waiting in

the hall called for the carriages as if at the door of a theatre or

concert hall.

'Are you not coming on to Laura Miano's?' Francesca asked the duchess.

'No, I am going home.'

She waited on the pavement for her brougham to come up. The rain was

passing over; patches of blue were beginning to appear between the great

banks of white cloud; a shaft of sunshine made the wet flags glitter.

Flooded by this pale rose splendour, her magnificent furs falling in

straight symmetrical folds to her feet, Elena was very beautiful. As

Andrea caught a glimpse of the inside of her brougham, all cosily lined

with white satin like a little boudoir, with its shining silver

foot-warmer for the comfort of her small feet, his dream of the

preceding evening came back to him--'Oh, to be there with her alone,

and feel the warm perfume of her breath mingling with the

violets--behind the mist-dimmed windows through which one hardly sees

the muddy streets, the gray houses, the dull crowd!'

But she only bowed slightly to him at the door, without even a smile,

and the next moment the carriage had flashed away in the direction of

the Palazzo Barberini, leaving the young man with a dim sense of

depression and heartache.

She only said 'perhaps,' so it was quite possible that she would not be

at the Palazzo Farnese that evening. What should he do then? The thought

that he might not see her was intolerable; already every hour he passed

far from her weighed heavily on his spirits. 'Am I then so deeply in

love with her already?' he asked himself. His spirit seemed imprisoned

within a circle in which the phantoms of all his sensations in presence

of this woman surged and wheeled around him. Suddenly there would emerge

from this tangle of memory, with singular precision, some phrase of

hers, an inflection of her voice, an attitude, a glance, the seat where

they had sat, the finale of the Beethoven sonata, a burst of melody from

Mary Dyce, the face of the footman who had held back the

_portière_--anything that happened to have caught his attention at the

moment--and these images obscured by their extreme vividness the actual

life around him. He pleaded with her; said to her in thought what he

would say to her in reality by and by.

Arrived in his own rooms, he ordered tea of his man-servant, installed

himself in front of the fire and gave himself up to the fictions of his

hope and his desire. He took the little jewelled skull out of its case

and examined it carefully. The tiny diamond teeth flashed back at him in

the firelight, and the rubies lit up the shadowy orbits. Behind the

smooth ivory brow time pulsed unceasingly--_Ruit Hora_. Who was the

artist who had contrived for his Hippolyta so superb and bold a fantasy

of Death, at a period too when the masters of enamelling had been wont

to ornament with tender idylls the little watches destined to warn

Coquette of the time of the rendezvous in the parks of Watteau? The

modelling gave evidence of a masterly hand--vigorous and full of

admirable style; altogether it was worthy of a fifteenth century artist

as forcible as Verrocchio.

'I recommend this clock to your consideration.' Andrea could not help

smiling a little at Elena's words uttered in so peculiar a tone after so

cold a silence. He was assured that she intended him to put the

construction upon her words which he had afterwards done, but then why

retire into impenetrable reserve again--why take no further notice of

him--what ailed her? Andrea lost himself in a maze of conjecture.

Nevertheless, the warm atmosphere of the room, the luxurious chair, the

shaded lamp, the fitful gleams of firelight, the aroma of the tea--all

these soothing influences combined to mitigate his pain. He went on

dreamingly, aimlessly, as if wandering through a fantastic labyrinth.

With him reverie sometimes had the effect of opium--it intoxicated him.

'May I take the liberty of reminding the Signor Conte that he is

expected at the Casa Doria at seven o'clock,' observed his valet in a

subdued and discreet murmur, one of his offices being to jog his

master's memory. 'Everything is ready.'

He went into an adjoining octagonal room to dress, the most luxurious

and comfortable dressing-room any young man of fashion could possibly

desire. On a great Roman sarcophagus, transformed with much taste into a

toilet table, were ranged a selection of cambric handkerchiefs, evening

gloves, card and cigarette cases, bottles of scent, and five or six

fresh gardenias in separate little pale blue china vases--all these

frivolous and fragile things on this mass of stone, on which a funeral

_cortège_ was sculptured by a masterly hand!

CHAPTER IV

At the Casa Doria, speaking of one thing and another, the Duchess

Angelieri remarked--'It seems that Laura Miano and Elena Muti have

quarrelled.'

'About Giorgio perhaps?' returned another lady laughing.

'So they say. The story began this summer at Lucerne--'

'But Laura was not at Lucerne,'

'Exactly--but her husband was--'

'I believe it is a pure invention,' broke in the Florentine countess

Donna Bianca Dolcebuono--'Giorgio is in Paris now.'

Andrea heard it all in spite of the chattering of the little Contessa

Starnina, who sat at his right hand, and never gave him a moment's

peace. Bianca Dolcebuono's words did little to ease the smart of his

wound. At least, he would have liked to know the whole story. But the

Duchess Angelieri did not resume the thread of her discourse, and other

conversations crossed and recrossed the table under the great gorgeous

roses from the Villa Pamfili.

Who was this Giorgio? A former lover? Elena had spent part of the summer

at Lucerne,--she had just come from Paris. After the sale she had

refused to go to Laura Miano's. A fierce desire assailed him to see her,

to speak to her again. The invitation at the Palazzo Farnese was for ten

o'clock--half past ten found him there waiting anxiously.

He waited long. The rooms filled rapidly; the dancing began. In the

Carracci gallery the divinities of fashionable Rome vied in beauty with

the Ariadnes, the Galateas, the Auroras, the Dianas of the frescos;

couples whirled past; heads glittering with jewels drooped or raised

themselves, bosoms panted, the breath came fast through parted crimson

lips.

'You are not dancing, Sperelli?' asked Gabriella Barbarisi, a girl brown

as the _oliva speciosa_, as she passed him on the arm of her partner,

fanning herself and smiling to show a dimple she had at the corner of

her mouth.

'Yes--later on,' Andrea responded hastily--'later on.'

Heedless of introductions or greetings, his torment increased with every

moment of this fruitless expectation, and he roamed aimlessly from room

to room. That 'perhaps' made him sadly afraid that Elena would not come.

And supposing she really did not? When was he likely to see her again?

Donna Bianca Dolcebuono passed, and, almost without knowing why, he

attached himself to her side, saying a thousand agreeable things to her,

feeling some slight comfort in her society. He had the greatest desire

to speak to her about Elena, to question her, to reassure himself; but

the orchestra struck up a languorous mazurka and the Florentine countess

was carried off by her partner.

Thereupon, Andrea joined a group of young men near one of the

doors--Ludovico Barbarisi, the Duke di Beffi, Filippo del Gallo and Gino

Bomminaco. They were watching the couples, and exchanging observations

not over refined in quality. One of them turned to Andrea as he came up.

'Why, what has become of you this evening? Your cousin was looking for

you a moment ago. There she is dancing with my brother now.'

'Look!' exclaimed Filippo del Gallo--'the Albonico has come back, she is

dancing with Giannetto.'

'The Duchess of Scerni came back last week,' said Ludovico; 'what a

lovely creature!'

'Is she here?'

'I have not seen her yet,'

Andrea's heart stopped beating for a moment, fearing that something

would be said against her by one or other of these malicious tongues.

But the passing of the Princess Issé on the arm of the Danish Minister

diverted their attention. Nevertheless, his desire for further knowledge

was so intense, that it almost drove him to lead back the conversation

to the name of his lady-love. But he was not quite bold enough. The

mazurka was over; the group broke up. 'She is not coming! She is not

coming!' His secret anxiety rose to such a pitch that he half thought of

leaving the place altogether; the contact of this laughing, careless

throng was intolerable.

As he turned away, he saw the Duchess of Scerni entering the gallery on

the arm of the French ambassador. For one instant their eyes met, but

that one glance seemed to draw them to each other, to penetrate to the

very depths of their souls. Both knew that each had only been looking

for the other, and at that moment there seemed to fall a silence upon

both hearts, even in the midst of the babel of voices, and all their

surroundings to vanish and be swept away by the force of their own

absorbing thought.

She advanced along the frescoed gallery where the crowd was thinnest,

her long white train rippling like a wave over the floor behind her. All

white and simple, she passed slowly along, turning from side to side in

answer to the numerous greetings, with an air of manifest fatigue and a

somewhat strained smile which drew down the corners of her mouth, while

her eyes looked larger than ever under the low white brow, her extreme

pallor imparting to her whole face a look so ethereal and delicate as to

be almost ghostly. This was not the same woman who had sat beside him at

the Ateleta's table, nor the one of the Sale Rooms, nor the one standing

waiting for a moment on the pavement of the Via Sistina. Her beauty at

this moment was of ideal nobility, and shone with additional splendour

among all these women heated with the dance, over-excited and restless

in their manner. The men looked at her and grew thoughtful; no mind was

so obtuse or empty that she did not exercise a disturbing influence upon

it, inspire some vague and indefinable hope. He whose heart was free

imagined with a thrill what such a woman's love would be; he who loved

already conceived a vague regret, and dreamed of raptures hitherto

unknown; he who bore a wound dealt by some woman's jealousy or

faithlessness suddenly felt that he might easily recover.

Thus she advanced amid the homage of the men, enveloped by their gaze.

Arrived at the end of the gallery, she joined a group of ladies who were

talking and fanning themselves excitedly under the fresco of Perseus

turning Phineus to stone. They were the Princess di Ferentino, Hortensa

Massa d'Alba, the Marchesa Daddi-Tosinghi and Bianca Dolcebuono.

'Why so late?' asked the latter.

'I hesitated very much whether to come at all--I don't feel well.'

'Yes, you look very pale.'

'I believe I am going to have neuralgia badly again, like last year.'

'Heaven forefend!'

'Elena, do look at Madame de la Boissière,' exclaimed Giovanella Daddi

in her queer husky voice; 'doesn't she look like a camel with a yellow

wig!'

'Mademoiselle Vanloo is losing her head over your cousin,' said Hortensa

Massa d'Alba to the Princess as Sophie Vanloo passed on Ludovico

Barbarisi's arm. 'I heard her say just now when they passed me in the

mazurka--_Ludovic, ne faites plus ça en dansant; je frissonne toute_--'

The ladies laughed in chorus, fluttering their fans. The first notes of

a Hungarian waltz floated in from the next room. The gentlemen came to

claim their partners. At last Andrea was able to offer Elena his arm and

carry her off.

'I thought I should have died waiting for you! If you had not come I

should have gone to find you--anywhere. When I saw you come in I could

scarcely repress a cry. This is only the second evening I have met you,

and yet I feel as if I had loved you for years. The thought of you and

you alone is now the life of my life.'

He uttered his burning words of love in a low voice, looking straight

before him, and she listened in a similar attitude, apparently quite

impassive, almost stony. Only a sprinkling of people remained in the

gallery. Between the busts of the Cæsars along the walls, lamps with

milky globes shaped like lilies shed an even, tempered light. The

profusion of palms and flowering plants gave the whole place the look of

a sumptuous conservatory. The music floated through the warm-scented air

under the vaulted roof and over all this mythology like a breeze though

an enchanted garden.

'Can you love me?' he asked: 'tell me if you think you can ever love

me.'

'I came only for you,' she returned slowly.

'Tell me that you will love me,' he repeated, while every drop of blood

seemed to rush in a tumult of joy to his heart.

'Perhaps----' she answered, and she looked into his face with that same

look which, on the preceding evening, had seemed to hold a divine

promise, that ineffable gaze which acts like the velvet touch of a

loving hand. Neither of them spoke; they listened to the sweet and

fitful strains of the music, now slow and faint as a zephyr, now loud

and rushing like a sudden tempest.

'Shall we dance?' he asked with a secret tremor of delight at the

prospect of encircling her with his arm.

She hesitated a moment before replying. 'No; I would rather not.'

Then, seeing the Duchess of Bugnare, her aunt, entering the gallery with

the Princess Alberoni and the French ambassadress, she added hurriedly,

'Now--be prudent, and leave me.'

She held out her gloved hand to him and advanced alone to meet the

ladies with a light firm step. Her long white train lent an additional

grace to her figure, the wide and heavy folds of brocade serving to

accentuate the slenderness of her waist. Andrea, as he followed her with

his eyes, kept repeating her words to himself, 'I came for you alone--I

came for you alone!' The orchestra suddenly took up the waltz measure

with a fresh impetus. And never, through all his life, did he forget

that music, nor the attitude of the woman he loved, nor the sumptuous

folds of the brocade trailing over the floor, nor the faintest shadow on

the rich material, nor one single detail of that supreme moment.

CHAPTER V

Elena left the Farnese palace very soon after this, almost stealthily,

without taking leave of Andrea or of any one else. She had therefore not

stayed more than half an hour at the ball. Her lover searched for her

through all the rooms in vain. The next morning, he sent a servant to

the Palazzo Barberini to inquire after the duchess, and learned from him

that she was ill. In the evening he went in person, hoping to be

received; but a maid informed him that her mistress was in great pain

and could see no one. On the Saturday, towards five o'clock, he came

back once more, still hoping for better luck.

He left his house on foot. The evening was chill and gray, and a heavy

leaden twilight was settling over the city. The lamps were already

lighted round the fountain in the Piazza Barberini like pale tapers

round a funeral bier, and the Triton, whether being under repair or for

some other reason, had ceased to spout water. Down the sloping roadway

came a line of carts drawn by two or three horses harnessed in single

file, and bands of workmen returning home from the new buildings. A

group of these came swaying along arm in arm, singing a lewd song at the

pitch of their voices.

Andrea stopped to let them pass. Two or three of the debased,

weather-beaten faces impressed themselves on his memory. He noticed that

a carter had his hand wrapped in a blood-stained bandage, and that

another, who was kneeling in his cart, had the livid complexion, deep

sunken eyes and convulsively contracted mouth of a man who has been

poisoned. The words of the song were mingled with guttural cries, the

cracking of whips, the grinding of wheels, the jingling of horse bells

and shrill discordant laughter.

His mental depression increased. He found himself in a very curious

mood. The sensibility of his nerves was so acute that the most trivial

impression conveyed to them by external means assumed the gravity of a

wound. While one fixed thought occupied and tormented his spirit, the

rest of his being was left exposed to the rude jostling of surrounding

circumstances. Groups of sensations rushed with lightning rapidity

across his mental field of vision, like the phantasmagoria of a magic

lantern, startling and alarming him. The banked-up clouds of evening,

the form of the Triton surrounded by the cadaverous lights, this sudden

descent of savage looking men and huge animals, these shouts and songs

and curses aggravated his condition, arousing a vague terror in his

heart, a foreboding of disaster.

A closed carriage drove out of the palace garden. He caught a glimpse of

a lady bowing to him, but he failed to recognise her. The palace rose up

before him, vast as some royal residence. The windows of the first floor

gleamed with violet reflections, a pale strip of sunset sky rested just

above it; a brougham was turning away from the door.

'If I could but see her!' he thought to himself, standing still for a

moment. He lingered, purposely to prolong his uncertainty and his hope.

Shut up in this immense edifice she seemed to him immeasurably far

away--lost to him.

The brougham stopped, and a gentleman put his head out of the window and

called--'Andrea!'

It was the Duke of Grimiti, a near relative of his.

'Going to call on the Scerni?' asked the duke with a significant smile.

'Yes,' answered Andrea, 'to inquire after her--she is ill, you know.'

'Yes, I know--I have just come from there. She is better.'

'Does she receive?'

'Me--no. But she may perhaps receive you.' And Grimiti laughed

maliciously through the smoke of his cigarette.

'I don't understand,' Andrea answered coldly.

'Bah!' said the duke. 'Report says you are high in favour. I heard it

last night at the Pallavicinis', from a lady, a great friend of

yours--give you my word!'

Andrea turned on his heel with a gesture of impatience.

'_Bonne chance_!' cried the duke.

Andrea entered the portico. In reality he was delighted and flattered

that such a report should be circulated already. Grimiti's words had

suddenly revived his courage like a draught of some cordial. As he

mounted the steps, his hopes rose high. He waited for a moment at the

door to allow his excitement to calm down a little. Then he rang.

The servant recognised him and said at once: 'If the Signor Conte will

have the kindness to wait a moment I will go and inform _Mademoiselle_.'

He nodded assent, and began pacing the vast ante-chamber, which seemed

to echo the violent beating of his heart. Hanging lamps of wrought iron

shed an uncertain light over the stamped leather panelling of the walls,

the carved oak chests, the antique busts on pedestals. Under a

magnificently embroidered baldachin blazed the ducal arms: a unicorn on

a field gules. A bronze card-tray, heaped with cards, stood in the

middle of a table, and happening to cast his eye over them, Andrea

noticed the one which Grimiti had just left lying on the top--_Bonne

chance!_--The ironical augury still rang in his ears.

Mademoiselle now made her appearance. 'The duchess is feeling a little

better,' she said. 'I think the Signor Conte might see her for a moment.

This way, if you please.'

She was a woman past her first youth, rather thin and dressed in black,

with a pair of gray eyes that glittered curiously under the curls of her

false fringe. Her step and her movements generally were light, not to

say furtive, as of one who is in the habit of attending upon invalids

or of executing secret orders.

'This way, Signor Conte.'

She preceded Andrea though the long flight of dimly-lighted rooms, the

thick soft carpets deadening every sound; and even through the almost

uncontrollable tumult of his soul, the young man was conscious of an

instinctive feeling of repulsion against her, without being able to

assign an adequate reason for it.

Arrived in front of a door concealed by two pieces of tapestry of the

Medicean period, bordered with deep red velvet, she stopped.

'I will go first and announce you. Please to wait here.'

A voice from within, which he recognised as Elena's, called,

'Christina!'

At the sound of her voice coming thus unexpectedly, Andrea began to

tremble so violently that he thought to himself--'I am sure I am going

to faint.' He had a dim presentiment of some more than mortal happiness

in store for him which should exceed his utmost expectations, his

wildest dreams--almost beyond his powers to support. She was there--on

the other side of that door. All perception of reality deserted him. It

seemed to him that he had already imagined--in some picture, some

poem--a similar adventure, under the self-same circumstances, with these

identical surroundings and enveloped in the same mystery, but of which

_another_--some fiction of his own brain--was the hero. And now, by some

strange trick of the imagination, the fictitious was confounded with the

real, causing him an indescribable sense of confusion and bewilderment.

On each of the pieces of tapestry was a large symbolical figure--Silence

and Slumber--two Genii, tall and slender, which might have been designed

by Primaticcio of Bologna, guarding the door. And he--he himself--stood

before the door waiting, and on the other side of it was his divine

lady. He almost thought he could hear her breathe.

At last Mademoiselle returned. Holding back the heavy draperies she

smiled, and in a low voice said:

'Please go in.'

She effaced herself, and Andrea entered the room.

He noticed first of all that the air was very hot, almost stifling, and

that there was a strong odour of chloroform. Then, through the

semi-darkness, he became aware of something red--the crimson of the wall

paper and the curtains of the bed--and then he heard Elena's languid

voice murmuring, 'Thank you so much for coming, Andrea--I feel better

now.'

He made his way to her with some difficulty, being unable to distinguish

things very clearly in the half light.

She smiled wanly at him from among the pillows out of the gloom. Across

her forehead and round her face, like a nun's wimple, lay a band of

white linen which was scarcely whiter than the cheeks it encircled, such

was her extreme pallor. The outer angles of her eyelids were contracted

by the pain of her inflamed nerves, the lower lids quivering

spasmodically from time to time, and the eyes were dewy and infinitely

melting as if veiled by a mist of unshed tears under the trembling

lashes.

A flood of pity and tenderness swept over the young man's heart when he

came close to her and could see her clearly. Very slowly she drew one

hand from under the coverlet and held it out to him. He bent over it

till he half knelt on the edge of the couch and rained kisses thick and

fast upon that burning, fevered hand, and the white wrist with its

hurrying pulse.

'Elena--Elena--my love!'

Elena had closed her eyes, as if to resign herself more wholly to the

ecstasy that penetrated to the most hidden fibre of her being. Then she

turned her hand over that she might feel those kisses on her palm, on

each finger, all round her wrist, on every vein, in every pore.

'Enough!' she murmured at last, opening her eyes again, and passed her

languid hand softly over Andrea's hair.

Her caress, though light, was so ineffably tender, that to the lover's

soul it had the effect of a rose leaf falling into a full cup of water.

His passion brimmed over. His lips trembled under a confused torrent of

words which rose to them but which he could not express. He had the

violent and divine sensation as of a new life spreading in widening

circles round him beyond all physical perception.

'What bliss!' said Elena, repeating her fond gesture, and a tremor ran

through her whole person, visible through the coverlet.

But when Andrea made as if to take her hand again--'No,' she entreated,

'do not move--stay as you are, I like to have you so.'

She gently pressed his head down till his cheek lay against her knee.

She gazed at him a little, still with that caressing touch upon his

head, and then in a voice that seemed to faint with ecstasy she

murmured, lingering over the syllables--

'How I love you!'

There was an ineffable seduction in the way she pronounced the words--so

liquid, so enthralling on a woman's lips.

'Again!' whispered her lover, whose senses were languishing with passion

under the touch of those hands, the sound of that caressing voice. 'Say

it again--go on speaking.'

'I love you,' repeated Elena, noticing that his eyes were fixed upon her

lips, and being perhaps aware of the fascination that emanated from them

while pronouncing the words.

With a sudden movement she raised herself from the pillows, and taking

Andrea's head between her two hands, she drew him to her, and their lips

met in a long and passionate kiss.

Afterwards she fell back again, and lying with her arms stretched

straight along the coverlet at her sides, she gazed at Andrea with wide

open eyes, while one by one the great tears gathered slowly, and

silently rolled down her cheeks.

'What is it, Elena--tell me--What is it?' asked her lover, clasping her

hands and leaning over her to kiss away the tears.

She clenched her teeth and bit her lips to keep back the sobs.

'Nothing--nothing--go now, leave me--please! You shall see me

to-morrow--go now.'

Her voice and her look were so imploring that Andrea obeyed.

'Good-bye,' he said, and kissed her tenderly on the lips, carrying away

upon his own the taste of her salt tears. 'Good-bye! Love me--and do not

forget.'

As he crossed the threshold, he seemed to hear her break into sobs

behind him. He went on a little unsteadily, like a man who is not sure

of his sight. The odour of chloroform lingered in his nostrils like the

fumes of an intoxicating vapour; but, with every step he took, some

virtue seemed to go out of him, to be dissipated in the air. The rooms

lay empty and silent before him. 'Mademoiselle' appeared at a door

without any warning sound of steps or rustle of garments, like a ghost.

'This way Signor Conte, you will not be able to find your way.'

She smiled in an ambiguous and irritating manner, her gray eyes

glittering with ill-concealed curiosity. Andrea did not speak. Once more

the presence of this woman annoyed and disturbed him, arousing an

undefined sense of repulsion and anger in him.

No sooner was he outside the door than he drew a deep breath like a man

relieved from some heavy burden. The gentle splash of the fountain came

through the trees, broken now and then by some clearer, louder sound;

the whole firmament glittered with stars, veiled here and there by long

trailing strips of cloud like tresses of pale hair; carriage lamps

flitted rapidly hither and thither, the life of the great city sent up

its breath into the keen air, bells were ringing far and near. At last,

he had the full consciousness of his overwhelming felicity.

CHAPTER VI

Thus began for them a bliss that was full, frenzied, for ever changing

and for ever new; a passion that wrapped them round and rendered them

oblivious of all that did not minister immediately to their mutual

delight.

'What a strange love!' Elena said once, recalling those first days--her

illness, her rapid surrender--'My heart was yours from the first moment

I saw you.'

She felt a certain pride in the fact.

'And when, on that evening, I heard my name announced immediately after

yours,' her lover replied, 'I don't know why, but I suddenly had the

firm conviction that my life was bound to yours--for ever!'

And they really believed what they said. Together they re-read Goethe's

Roman elegy--_Lass dich, Geliebte, nicht reu'n, dass du mir so schnell

dich ergeben!_--Have no regrets, my Beloved, that thou didst yield thee

so soon--'Believe me, dearest, I do not attribute one base or impure

thought to you. Cupid's darts have varying effects--some inflict but a

slight scratch, and the poison they insinuate lingers for years before

it really touches the heart, while others, well feathered and armed with

a sharp and penetrating point, pierce to the heart's core at once and

send the fever racing through the blood. In the old heroic days of the

loves of the gods and goddesses desire followed upon sight. Think you

that the goddess of Love considered long in the grove of Ida that day

Anchises found favour in her eyes? And Luna?--had she hesitated, envious

Aurora would soon have wakened her handsome shepherd.'

For them, as for Faustina's divine singer, Rome was illumined by a new

light. Wherever their footsteps strayed they left a memory of love. The

forgotten churches of the Aventine--Santa Sabina with its wonderful

columns of Parian marble, the charming garden of Santa Maria del

Priorata, the campanile of Santa Maria in Cosmedin piercing the azure

with its slender rose-coloured spire grew to know them well. The villas

of the cardinals and the princes--the Villa Pamfili mirrored in its

fountains and its lakes, all sweetness and grace, where every shady

grove seems to harbour some noble idyll; the Villa Albani, cold and

silent as a church, with its avenues of sculptured marble and

centenarian trees; where in the vestibules, under the porticos and

between the granite pillars, Caryatides and Hermes, symbols of

immobility, gaze at the immutable symmetry of the verdant lawns; and the

Villa Medici--like a forest of emerald green spreading away in a fairy

tale, and the Villa Ludovici--a little wild--redolent of violets,

consecrated by the presence of that Juno adored by Goethe in the days

when the plane-trees and the cypresses, that one might well have thought

immortal, had already begun to tremble with the foreboding of sale and

death--all the patrician villas, the crowning glory of Rome, became well

acquainted with their love. The picture and sculpture galleries too--the

room in the Borghese where, before Correggio's 'Danae' Elena smiled as

at her own reflection; and the Mirror Room, where her image glided among

the Cupids of Ciro Ferri and the garlands of Mario de' Fiori; the

chamber of Heliodorus, where Raphael has succeeded in making the dull

walls throb and palpitate with life; and the apartments of the Borgias,

where the great fantasia of Penturicchio unfolds its marvellous web of

history, fable, dreams, caprices and audacities; and the Galatea Room,

through which is diffused an ineffable freshness, a perennial serenity

of light and grace; and the room where the Hermaphrodite, that gentle

monster, offspring of the loves of a nymph and a demi-god, extends his

ambiguous form amidst the sparkle of polished stone--all these

unfrequented abodes of Beauty were well acquainted with them.

They echoed fervently the sublime cry of the poet--_Eine Welt zwar bist

du, O Rom!_ Thou art a world in thyself, oh Rome! But as without love

the world would not be the world, so Rome without love would not be

Rome, and the stairway of the Trinità, glorified by the slow ascension

of the Day, became the Stairway of Felicity by the ascent of Elena the

Fair on her way to the Palazzo Zuccari.

'At times,' Elena said to him, 'my feeling for you is so delicate, so

profound, that it becomes--how shall I describe it?--maternal almost!'

Andrea laughed, for she was his senior by barely three years.

'And at times,' he rejoined, 'I feel the communion of our spirits to be

so chaste that I could call you sister while I kiss your hands.'

These fallacious ideas of purity and loftiness of sentiment were but the

reaction after more carnal delights, when the soul experiences a vague

yearning for the ideal. At such times too, the young man's aspirations

towards the art he so much loved were apt to revive. The desire to give

pleasure to his mistress by his literary or artistic efforts drove him

to work. He accordingly wrote _La Simona_, and executed his two

engravings: _The Zodiac_ and _Alexander's Bowl_.

For the execution of his art, he chose by preference, the most

difficult, exact, and incorruptible vehicles--verse and engraving; and

he aimed at adhering strictly to, and reviving, the traditional Italian

methods, by going back to the poets of the _stil novo_, and the painters

who were precursors of the Renaissance. His tendencies were essentially

towards form; his mind more occupied by the expression of his thought

than the thought itself. Like Taine, he considered it a greater

achievement to write three really fine lines, than to win a pitched

battle. His _Story of the Hermaphrodite_ imitated in its structure

Poligiano's _Story of Orpheus_ and contained lines of extraordinary

delicacy, power and melody, particularly in the choruses of hybrid

monsters--the Centaurs, Sirens and Sphinxes. His new tragedy, _La

Simona_, of moderate length, possessed a most singular charm. Written

and rhymed though it was, on the ancient Tuscan rules, it might have

been conceived by an English poet of Elizabeth's time, after a story

from the _Decameron_, and it breathed something of the strange and

delicious charm of certain of the minor dramas of Shakespeare.

On the frontispiece of the single copy, the author had signed his work:

A. S. CALCOGRAPHUS AQUA FORTI SIBI TIBI FECIT.

Copper had greater attractions for him than paper, nitric acid than ink,

the graving-tool than the pen. One of his ancestors before him, Giusto

Sperelli, had tried his hand at engraving. Certain plates of his,

executed about 1520, showed distinct evidences of the influence of

Antonio del Pollajuolo by the depth and acidity, so to speak, of the

design. Andrea used the Rembrandt method _a tratti liberi_ and the

_maniera nera_ so much affected by the English engravers of the school

of Green, Dixon, and Earlom. He had formed himself on all models, had

studied separately the effects sought after by each engraver, had

schooled himself under Albrecht Dürer and Parmigianino, Marc' Antonio

and Holbein, Hannibal Carracci, MacArdell, Guido, Toschi and Audran; but

once his copper plate before him, his one aim was to light up, by

Rembrandtesque effects, the elegance in design of the fifteenth-century

Florentines of the second generation, such as Botticelli, Ghirlandajo

and Filippino Lippi.

One of Andrea's most precious possessions was a bed-cover of finest silk

in faded blue, round the border of which circled the twelve signs of the

Zodiac, each with its appropriate legend: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer,

Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius,

Pisces--in gothic characters. A flaming golden sun occupied the centre;

the animal figures, drawn in somewhat archaic style, as one sees in

mosaics, were extraordinarily brilliant. The whole thing was worthy to

grace an Emperor's bed, and had, in fact, formed part of the trousseau

of Bianca Maria Sforza, niece of Ludovico the Moor, when she espoused

the Emperor Maximilian.

One of the engravings represented Elena asleep under this celestial

counterpane. The rounded limbs appeared outlined under the silken folds,

the head thrown carelessly back towards the edge of the couch, the hair

rippling in a torrent to the floor, one arm hanging down, the other

stretched along her side. The parts which were left uncovered, the face,

the neck, the shoulders, and the arms, were extremely luminous, and the

stile had reproduced most effectively the glitter of the embroidery in

the half-light and the mysterious quality of the symbols. A tall white

hound, Famulus, brother to the one which lays its head on the knee of

the Countess of Arundel in Rubens' picture, stretched his muzzle towards

the lady, guarding her slumbers, and was designed with much felicitous

boldness of foreshortening. The background of the room was sumptuous and

shadowy.

The other engraving referred to an immense silver basin which Elena had

inherited from her aunt Flaminia.

This basin was historical, and was known as Alexander's Bowl. It had

been given to the Princess of Bisenti by Caesar Borgia on his departure

for France, when he went to carry the Papal Bill of divorce and

dispensation to Louis XII. The design for the figures running round it

and the two which rose over the edge at either side were attributed to

Raphael.

It was called the Bowl of Alexander because it purported to be a

reproduction of the prodigious vessel out of which the famous King of

Macedonia was wont to drink at his splendid festivals. Groups of archers

surrounded its base, their bows stretched, in the admirable attitudes of

those painted by Raphael aiming their arrows at Hermes in the fresco of

that room in the Borghese decorated by John of Bologna. They were in

pursuit of a great Chimera, which emerged over the edge of the bowl in

guise of a handle, while on the opposite side bounded the youthful

Bellerophon, his bow at full stretch against the monster. The ornaments

of the base and the edge were of rare elegance. The inside was gilded,

the metal sonorous as a bell, and weighed three hundred pounds. Its

shape was extremely harmonious.

Never had Andrea Sperelli experienced so intensely both the delight and

the anxiety of the artist who watches the blind and irreparable action

of the acid; never before had he brought so much patience to bear upon

the delicate work of the dry point. The fact was, that like Lucas of

Leyden, he was a born engraver, possessed of an admirable knowledge, or,

more properly speaking, a rare instinct as to the most minute

particularity of time and degree, which may aid in varying the efficacy

of the acid on copper. It was not only practice, industry, and

intelligence, but more especially this inborn, well-nigh infallible

instinct which warned him of the exact instant at which the corrosion

had proceeded far enough to give such and such a value to the shadows

as, in the artist's intention, the engraving required. It was just this

triumph of mind over matter, this power of infusing an æsthetic spirit

into it, as it were, this mysterious correspondence between the throb of

his pulses and the progressive gnawing of the acid that was his pride,

his torment, and his joy.

In his dedication of these works to her, Elena felt herself deified by

her lover as was Isotta di Rimini by the medals which Sigismondo

Malatesta caused to be struck in her honour; and yet, on those days when

Andrea was at work, she would become moody and taciturn, as if under the

influence of some secret grief, or she would give way to such sudden

bursts of tenderness, mingled with tears and half-suppressed sobs, that

the young man was startled and, not understanding her, became

suspicious.

One evening, they were returning on horseback from the Aventine down the

Via di Santa Sabina, their eyes still filled with a vision of imperial

palaces flaming under the setting sun that burned red through the

cypresses and seemed to cover them with golden dust. They rode in

silence, for Elena seemed out of spirits, and her depression had

communicated itself to her lover. As they passed the church of Santa

Sabina, Andrea reined up his horse.

'Do you remember?' he said.

Some fowls, picking about peacefully in the grass, skurried away at the

barking of Famulus. The whole place was as quiet and unassuming as the

purlieus of a village church, but the walls had that singular luminous

glow which the buildings of Rome seem to give out at 'Titian's hour.'

Elena drew up beside him.

'That day--how long ago it seems now!' she said with a little tremor in

her voice.

In truth, the memory of it had already dropped away into the gulf of

time as if their love had endured for years. Elena's words raised that

illusion in Andrea's mind, but, at the same time, a certain uneasiness.

She began recalling the details of their visit to Santa Sabina one

afternoon in January under a prematurely mild sun. She dwelt insistently

upon the most trivial incidents, breaking off from time to time as if

following a separate train of thought, distinct from the words she

uttered. Andrea fancied he caught a note of regret in her voice. Yet,

what had she to regret? Surely their love had many a sweeter day before

it still--the Spring had come again to Rome. Doubting and perplexed, he

ceased to listen to her. The horses went on down the hill at a walk,

side by side, snorting noisily from time to time, and putting their

heads together, as if exchanging confidences. Famulus sped on before, or

bounded after them, perpetually on the gallop.

'Do you remember,' Elena went on, 'do you remember the Brother who came

to open the gates for us when we rang the bell?'

'Yes--yes.'

'And how perfectly aghast he looked when he saw who it was? He was such

a little, little red-faced man without any beard. When he went to get

the keys of the church, he left us alone in the vestibule--and you

kissed me--do you remember?'

'Yes.'

'And all those barrels in the vestibule! And the smell of wine while the

Brother was explaining the legends carved on the cypress-wood door. And

then about the Madonna of the Rosary--do you remember?--his explanation

made you laugh, and I could not help laughing too, and the poor man was

so put out, that he would not open his mouth again, not even to thank

you at the last--'

There was a little pause. Then she began again.

'And at Sant' Alexio, where you would not let me look at the cupola

through the keyhole. How we laughed then too!'

Renewed silence. Along the road towards them came a party of men

carrying a coffin, and followed by a hired conveyance full of tearful

relatives. They were on their way to the Jewish cemetery. It was a grim

and silent funeral. The men with their hooked noses and rapacious eyes

were all as like one another as brothers. The two horses separated to

let the procession pass, keeping close to the wall on either side, and

the lovers looked at each other across the dead, their spirits sinking

lower with every moment.

When presently they rejoined one another, Andrea said--'Tell me--what is

the matter? What is on your mind?'

She hesitated a moment before replying, keeping her eyes on her horse's

neck and stroking it with the end of her riding whip, irresolute and

very pale.

'You have something on your mind,' persisted the young man.

'Very well then--yes--and I had better tell you and get it over. I am

going away next Wednesday. I do not know for how long--perhaps for a

long time--perhaps for ever. I cannot say. We must break with one

another. It is entirely my fault. But do not ask me why--do not ask me

anything, I entreat you--I could not answer you.'

Andrea looked at her incredulously. The thing seemed to him so utterly

impossible that it did not affect him painfully.

'Of course you are only joking, Elena?'

She shook her head; there was a lump in her throat, and she could not

speak. She suddenly set her horse into a trot.

Behind them the bells of Santa Sabina and Santa Prisca began to ring

through the twilight. They trotted on in silence, awakening the echoes

under the arches and among the temples--all the solitary and desolate

ruins on their way. They passed San Giorgio in Velabo on their left,

which still retained a gleam of rosy light on its campanile; they passed

the Roman Forum, the Forum of Nerva already full of blue shadow like

that which hovers over the glaciers at night, and stopped at last at the

Arco dei Pantani, where their grooms and carriages awaited them.

Hardly was Elena out of the saddle, than she held out her hand to Andrea

without meeting his eyes. She seemed in a great hurry to be gone.

'Well?' said Andrea as he helped her into the carriage.

'To-morrow--not this evening--I cannot----'

CHAPTER VII

The Campagna stretched away before them under an ideal light, as a

landscape seen in dreams, where the objects seem visible at a great

distance by virtue of some inward irradiation which magnifies their

outlines.

The closed carriage rolled along smoothly at a brisk trot; the walls of

ancient patrician villas, grayish-white and dim, slid past the windows

with a continuous and gentle motion. Great iron gateways came in view

from time to time, through which you caught a glimpse of an avenue of

lofty beech trees, or some verdant cloister inhabited by antique

statues, or a long green arcade pierced here and there by a laughing ray

of pale sunshine.

Wrapped in her ample furs, her veil drawn down, her hands encased in

thick chamois leather gloves, Elena sat and mutely watched the passing

landscape. Andrea breathed with delight the subtle perfume of heliotrope

exhaled by the costly fur, while he felt Elena's arm warm against his

own. They felt themselves far from the haunts of men--alone--although

from time to time the black carriage of a priest would flit past them,

or a drover on horseback, or a herd of cattle.

Just before they reached the bridge she said--'Let us get out here.'

Here in the open country the light was translucent and cold as the

waters of a spring, and when the trees waved in the wind their

undulation seemed to communicate itself to all the surrounding objects.

She clung close to his arm, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. 'I

am going away this evening,' she said,--'this is the last time----'

There was a moment's silence; then in plaintive tones, and with frequent

pauses in between, she began to speak of the necessity of her departure,

the necessity of their rupture. The wind wrenched the words from her

lips, but she continued in spite of it, till Andrea interrupted her by

seizing her hand.

'Don't!' he cried--'be quiet.'

They walked on struggling against the fierce gusts of wind.

'Don't go--don't leave me! I want you--want you always.'

He had managed to unfasten her glove and laid hold of her bare wrist

with a caressing insistent clasp that was full of tormenting desire.

She threw him one of those glances that intoxicate like wine. They were

quite near the bridge now, all rosy under the setting sun. The river

looked motionless and steely throughout its sinuous length. Reeds swayed

and shivered on the banks, and some stakes, fixed in the clay of the

river-bed to fasten nets, shook with the motion of the water.

He then endeavoured to move her by reminiscences. He recalled those

first days--the ball at the Farnese palace, a certain hunting party out

in the Campagna, their early morning meetings in the Piazza di Spagna in

front of the jewellers' windows, or in the quiet and aristocratic Via

Sistina when she came out of the Barberini palace followed by the flower

girls offering her baskets of roses.

'Do you remember--do you remember?'

'Yes.'

'And that evening--quite at the beginning, when I brought in such a mass

of flowers.--You were alone--beside the window--reading. You remember?'

'Yes--yes.'

'I came in. You scarcely turned your head and you spoke quite harshly to

me--what was the matter?--I do not know. I laid the flowers upon the

tables and waited. You spoke of trivial things at first, with

indifference--without interest. I thought to myself bitterly--"She is

tired of me already--she does not love me." But the scent of the flowers

was very strong--the room was full of it. I can see you now--how you

suddenly seized the whole mass in your two hands and buried your face in

it, drinking in the perfume. When you lifted it again all the blood

seemed to have left your face, and your eyes were swimming in a kind of

ecstasy----'

'Go on--go on!' said Elena feverishly, as she leaned over the parapet

fascinated by the rushing waters below.

'Afterwards, you remember on the sofa--I smothered you in flowers--your

face, your bosom, your shoulders, and you raised yourself out of them

every moment to offer me your lips, your throat, your half closed lids.

And between your skin and my lips I felt the rose leaves soft and cool.

I kissed your throat and a shiver ran through you, and you put out your

hands to keep me away.--Oh, then--your head was sunk in the cushions,

your breast hidden under the roses, your arms bare to the elbow--nothing

in this world could be so dear and sweet as the little tremor of your

white hands upon my temples--do you remember?'

'Yes--go on.'

He went on with ever-increasing fervour. Carried away by his own

eloquence, he was hardly conscious of what he said. Elena, her back

turned to the light, leaned nearer and nearer to him. Under them the

river flowed cold and silent; long slender rushes, like strands of hair,

bent with every gust and trailed on the surface of the water.

He had ceased to speak, but they were gazing into one another's eyes and

their ears were filled with a low continuous murmur which seemed to

carry away part of their life's being--as if something sonorous had

escaped from their very brains and were spreading away in waves of sound

till it filled the whole air about them.

Elena rose from her stooping posture. 'Let us go on,' she said. 'I am so

thirsty--where can we get some water?' They crossed the bridge to a

little inn on the other side, in front of which some carters were

unharnessing their horses with much lively invective. The setting sun

lit up the group of men and beasts vividly.

The people at the inn showed not the faintest sign of surprise at the

entry of the two strangers. Two or three men shivering with ague, morose

and jaundiced, were crouching round a square brazier. A red-haired

bullock-driver was snoring in a corner, his empty pipe still between his

teeth. A pair of haggard, ill-conditioned young vagabonds were playing

at cards, fixing one another in the pauses with a look of tigerish

eagerness. The woman of the inn, corpulent to obesity, carried in her

arms a child which she rocked heavily to and fro.

While Elena drank the water out of a rude earthenware mug, the woman,

with wails and plaints, drew her attention to the wretched infant.

'Look, signora mia--look at it!'

The poor little creature was wasted to a skeleton, its lips purple and

broken out, the inside of its mouth coated with a white eruption. It

looked as if life had abandoned the miserable little body, leaving but a

little substance for fungoid growths to flourish in.

'Feel, dear lady,--its hands are icy cold. It cannot eat, it cannot

drink--it does not sleep any more----'

The mother broke into loud sobs. The ague-stricken men looked on with

eyes full of utter prostration, while the sound of the weeping only drew

an impatient movement from the two youths.

'Come away--come away!' said Andrea, taking Elena by the arm and

dragging her away, after throwing a piece of money on the table.

They returned over the bridge. The river was lighted up by the flames of

the dying day, and in the distance the water looked smooth and

glistening as if great spots of oil or bitumen were floating on it. The

Campagna, stretching away like an ocean of ruins, was of a uniform

violet tint. Nearer the town the sky flushed a deep crimson.

'Poor little thing!' murmured Elena in a tone of heartfelt compassion,

and pressing closer to Andrea.

The wind had risen to a gale. A flock of crows swept across the burning

heavens, very high up, croaking hoarsely.

A sudden passionate exaltation suddenly filled the souls of the two at

sight of this vast solitude. Something tragic and heroic seemed to enter

into their love and the hill-tops of their passion to catch the blaze of

the stormy sunset. Elena stood still.

'I can go no further,' she gasped.

The carriage was still at some distance, standing motionless where they

had left it.

'A little further, Elena, just a step or two! Shall I carry you?'

Then, seized with a sort of frenzy, he burst out again--Why was she

going away? Why did she want to break with him? Surely their destinies

were indissolubly knit together now? He could not live without

her--without her eyes, her voice, the constant thought of her. He was

saturated through and through with love of her--his whole blood was on

fire as with some deadly poison. Why was she running away from him?--He

would hold her fast--would suffocate her on his heart first----No--it

could not, must not be--never!

Elena listened, with bent head to meet the blast, but she did not

answer. Presently she raised her hand and beckoned to the coachman. The

horses pawed and pranced as they started.

'Stop at the Porta Pia,' she called to the man, and entered the carriage

with her lover. Then she turned and with a sudden gesture yielded

herself to his desire, and he kissed her greedily--her lips, her brow,

her hair, her eyes--rapidly, without giving himself time to breathe.

'Elena! Elena!'

A vivid gleam of crimson light reflected from the red brick houses

penetrated the carriage. The ringing trot of several horses came nearer

along the road.

Leaning against her lover's shoulder with ineffable tenderness she

said--'Good-bye, dear love--good-bye--good-bye!'

As she raised herself again, ten or twelve red-coated horsemen passed

to right and left of the carriage returning from a fox hunt. One of

them, the Duke di Beffi, bent low over his saddle to peer in at the

window as he rode by.

Andrea said no more. His whole soul was weighed down by hopeless

depression. The first impulse of revolt over, the childish weakness of

his nature almost led him to give way to tears. He wanted to cast

himself at her feet, to humble himself, to beg and entreat, to move this

woman to pity by his tears. He felt giddy and confused; a subtle

sensation of cold seemed to grip the back of his head and penetrate to

the roots of his hair.

'Good-bye,' repeated Elena for the last time, and the carriage stopped

under the archway of the Porta Pia to let him get out.

CHAPTER VIII

Their final farewells _au grand air_, by Elena's desire, did nothing

towards dissipating Andrea's suspicions. 'What could be her secret

reasons for this abrupt departure?' He tried in vain to penetrate the

mystery; he was oppressed with doubt and fear.

During the first days, the anguish of his loss was so cruelly poignant

that he thought he must die of it. His jealousy, lulled to sleep by the

persistent ardour of Elena's affection, awoke now with redoubled vigour,

and the suspicion that a man was at the bottom of this enigmatical

affair increased his sufferings a hundredfold. Sometimes he would be

seized with sullen anger against the absent woman, a bitter rancour,

almost a desire for revenge, as if she had mystified and duped him in

order to give herself to another. Then again he would feel that he did

not long for her, did not love her any more, had never loved her. But

these fits of oblivion were but of short duration. The Spring had come

again to Rome in a riot of colour and sunshine. The city of limestone

and brick absorbed the light as a parched forest the rain, the papal

fountains rose into a limpid sapphire sky, the Piazza di Spagna was

fragrant as a rose-garden, and above the great flight of steps, alive

with little children, the Trinità de' Monti shone in a blaze of gold.

Excited by the re-awakened beauty of Rome, all that still remained of

Elena's fascination in his blood and his spirit revived and re-kindled.

He was stirred to his very depths by sudden invincible pain, by

implacable inward tumults, by indefinable languors, almost like some

strange renewal of his adolescence.

Andrea's liaison with Elena Muti had been perfectly well known, as

sooner or later every adventure and every flirtation becomes known in

Roman society, or the society of any other city for the matter of that.

Precautions are useless. To the initiated a look, a gesture, a smile

suffices to betray the secret. Besides which, in every society there are

certain persons who make it their business in life to ferret out and

follow up the traces of a love affair with an assiduity only to be

equalled by the hunter of rare game. They are ever on the watch, though

not apparently so; never, by any chance, miss a murmured word, the

faintest smile, a tremor, a blush, a lightning glance. At balls or any

large gatherings, where there is more probability of imprudence, they

are ubiquitous, with ear stretched to catch a fragment of dialogue, and

eye keenly on the watch to note a stolen hand-clasp, a tremulous sigh,

the nervous pressure of delicate fingers on a partner's shoulder.

One such terrible trapper, for example, was Don Filippo del Monte. But

to tell the truth, Elena Muti did not trouble herself overmuch about

what society said of her covering her every audacity with the mantle of

her beauty, her wealth, and her ancient name; and she went on her way

serenely, surrounded by adulation and homage, by reason of a certain

good-natured tolerance which is one of the most pleasing qualities of

Roman society, amounting almost to an article of faith.

In any case, Andrea's connection with the Duchess of Scerni had

instantly raised him enormously in the estimation of the women. An

atmosphere of favour surrounded him and his successes became

astonishing. Moreover, he owed something to his reputation as a

mysterious artist, and two sonnets which he wrote in the Princess di

Ferentino's album became famous, in which, as in an ambiguous diptych,

he lauded in turn a diabolical and an angelic mouth--the one that

destroys souls and the other that sings 'Ave!'

He responded, without a moment's hesitation, to every advance. No longer

restrained by Elena's complete dominion over him, his energies returned

to their original state of disorder. He passed from one liaison to

another with incredible frivolity, carrying on several at the same time,

and weaving without scruple a great net of deceptions and lies, in which

to catch as much prey as possible. The habit of duplicity undermined his

conscience, but one instinct remained alive, implacably alive in

him--the repugnance at all this which attracted without holding him

captive. His will, as useless to him now as a sword of indifferently

tempered steel, hung as if at the side of an inebriated or paralysed

man.

One evening, at the Dolcebuonos', when he had outstayed the rest of the

guests in the drawing-room, full of flowers and still vibrating with a

_Cachoucha_ of Raff's, he had spoken of love to Bianca. He did it almost

without thinking, attracted instinctively by the reflected charm of her

being a friend of Elena's. Maybe too, that the little germ of sympathy

sown in his heart by her kindly championship at the dinner in the Doria

palace was now bearing fruit. Who can say by what mysterious process

some contact--whether spiritual or material--- between a man and a woman

may generate and nourish in them a sentiment which, latent and

unsuspected for long, may suddenly wake to life through unforeseen

circumstances? It is the same phenomenon so often encountered in our

mental world, when the germ of an idea or a shadowy fancy suddenly

reappears before us after a long interval of unconscious development as

a finished picture, a complex thought. The same law governs all the

varying activities of our being; and the activities of which we are

conscious form but a small part of the whole.

Donna Bianca Dolcebuono was the ideal type of Florentine beauty, such as

Ghirlandajo has given us in the portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni at Santa

Maria Novella. Her face was fair and oval, with a broad white brow, a

sweet and expressive mouth, a nose a trifle _retroussé_ and eyes of that

deep hazel so dear to Firenzuola. She was fond of wearing her hair

parted and arranged in full puffs half way over her cheeks in the quaint

old style. Her name suited her admirably for into the artificial life of

fashionable society she brought a great natural sweetness of temper,

much indulgence for the failings of others, courtesy accorded

impartially to high and low, and a most melodious voice.

On hearing Andrea's hackneyed phrases, she exclaimed in graceful

surprise--

'What, have you forgotten Elena so soon?'

Then after a few days of engaging hesitation, it pleased her to yield to

his solicitations, and she often spoke of Elena to the faithless young

lover, but with perfect frankness and without jealousy.

'But why did she go away sooner than usual this year?' she asked him one

day with a smile.

'I have no idea,' answered Andrea, not without a touch of impatience and

bitterness.

'Then it is all over between you--quite over?'

'For pity's sake, Bianca, let us talk about ourselves,' he retorted

sharply. The subject disturbed and irritated him.

She remained pensive for a moment, as if seeking to unravel some enigma,

then she smiled and shook her head with a little fugitive shadow of

melancholy in her eyes.

'Such is love!' she sighed, and returned Andrea's kisses.

In her he seemed to possess all those charming women of whom Lorenzo the

Magnificent sang:

'And on every side we find,

Absence, as men say, estranges,

Fancy ranges as the eye ranges,

Out of sight is out of mind.

Love departs and is not love:

As from sight the eye departs

Even so do hearts from hearts;

And at other hands we prove

Fancies love as the eyes rove,

Parted pleasures come again.'

When the summer came, and she was on the point of leaving Rome, she

said to him, without seeking to conceal her gentle emotion--

'When we meet again I know you will not love me any more. That is love.

But think of me always as a friend.'

He did not love her, certainly; nevertheless during the heat and tedium

of the days that followed, certain cadences of that dulcet voice

returned to him like a haunting melody, suggesting visions of a garden,

fresh with splashing fountains, where Bianca wandered in company with

other fair women playing on the viol and singing as in a vignette of the

'Dream of Polyphilo.'

And Bianca passed and was succeeded by others--sometimes two at a time;

but it was finally the little ivory Death's-head which had belonged to

the Cardinal Immenraet, the funereal jewel dedicated to an unknown

Ippolita, that suggested to him the caprice of tempting Donna Ippolita

Albonico.

CHAPTER IX

Donna Ippolita Albonico had a great air of princely nobility in her

whole person, and bore some resemblance to Maria Maddalena of Austria,

wife of Cosimo II. of Medici, whose portrait by Suttermans is at

Florence in the possession of the Corsinis. She affected a sumptuous

style of dress--brocades, velvets, laces--and the high Medici collars

which seemed the most appropriate setting to her superb and imperial

head.

One day at the races, when seated beside her, Andrea was suddenly seized

with the whim to get her to promise to come to the Palazzo Zuccari and

receive the mysterious little clock dedicated to her namesake. Hearing

his audacious words, she frowned, wavering between curiosity and

prudence; but as he, nothing daunted, persevered in the attack, an

irrepressible smile quivered on her lips. Under the shadow of her large

hat with its white plumes, and with her lace-flounced parasol as a

background, she was marvellously handsome.

'_Tibi, Hippolyta!_ Then you will come? I shall be on the look-out for

you all the afternoon, from two o'clock till evening--Is that settled?'

'You must be mad!'

'What have you to fear? I swear that I will not rob Your Majesty of so

much as a glove. You shall remain seated as on a throne, as befits your

regal state, and even in taking a cup of tea, you shall not lay aside

the invisible sceptre you carry for ever in your imperial right hand. On

these conditions is the grace accorded?'

'No.'

But she smiled nevertheless, flattered by this exaltation of the regal

aspect of her beauty, wherein she gloried. And Sperelli continued to

tempt her, always in a tone of banter or entreaty, but adding to the

seduction of his voice a gaze so subtle, so penetrating and disturbing

that, at length, Donna Ippolita, half offended and blushing faintly,

said to him--

'I will not have you look at me like that.'

Few persons besides themselves remained upon the stand. Ladies and

gentlemen strolled up and down across the grass, along the barrier, or

surrounded the victorious horse or the yelling bookmakers, under the

inconstant rays of the sun that came and went between the floating

archipelago of clouds.

'Let us go down,' she said, unaware of Giannetto Rutolo leaning with

watchful eyes upon the railing of the staircase.

As they passed him, Sperelli called back over his shoulder--

'Addio, Marchese--see you again soon. Our race is on directly.'

Rutolo bowed profoundly to Donna Ippolita, and a deep flush rose

suddenly to his face. He seemed to have caught a touch of derision in

Sperelli's greeting. Leaning on the railing, he followed the retreating

couple with hungry eyes. He was obviously suffering.

'Rutolo, be on your guard!' said the Contessa di Lucoli with a malicious

laugh as she passed down the stairs on the arm of Don Filippo del Monte.

The blow struck home. Donna Ippolita and the Conte d'Ugenta having

penetrated as far as the umpire's stand were now retracing their steps.

The lady held her sunshade over her shoulder, twirling the handle

languidly in her fingers; the white cupola stood out round her head like

a halo, and the lace frills rose and fluttered incessantly. Within this

revolving circle, she laughed from time to time at what her companion

said, and a delicate flush stained the noble pallor of her face.

Sometimes they would both stand still.

Under pretext of examining the horses now entering the race-course,

Giannetto turned his field-glass upon the two. His hands trembled

visibly. Every smile, every movement, every glance of Ippolita's was a

sword-thrust in his heart. When he dropped his glass, he was deadly

pale. He had surprised a look in the eyes that met Sperelli's which he

knew full well of old. Everything seemed crumbling to ruins around him.

The love of years was over--irrevocably lost--slain by that glance. The

sun was the sun no longer, life was not life any more.

The grand stand was rapidly refilling; the signal for the third race was

about to be given. The ladies stood up on their seats. A murmur ran

along the tiers like a breeze over a sloping garden. The bell rang. The

horses started like a flight of arrows.

'I shall ride in your honour, Donna Ippolita,' said Andrea Sperelli as

he look leave of her to get ready for the next race, which was for

gentlemen riders--'_Tibi, Hippolyta, Semper!_'

She pressed his hand warmly for luck, never remembering that Giannetto

Rutolo was also among the competitors. When, a moment later, she noticed

him going down the stairs, pale and alone, the unconcealed cruelty of

indifference shone in her beautiful dark eyes. The old love had fallen

away from her like a useless garment, and had given place to the new.

This man was nothing to her, had no claims of any kind upon her now that

she no longer loved him. It is inconceivable how quickly a woman regains

entire possession of her own heart once she has ceased to love a man.

'He has stolen her from me!' he thought to himself, as he made his way

to the Jockey Club tent, and the grass seemed to give beneath his feet

like sand. At a little distance in front of him walked the other with a

firm and elastic step. In his long gray overcoat his tall and shapely

figure had that peculiar and inimitable air of elegance which only

breeding can give. He was smoking, and Giannetto Rutolo, coming up

behind him, caught the delicate aroma of the cigarette with every puff,

causing him an intolerable nausea as if it had been poison.

The Duke di Beffi and Paolo Caligaro were at the entrance, already in

racing dress. The duke was making gymnastic movements to test the

elasticity of his leather breeches and the strength of his knees. Little

Caligaro was execrating last night's rain, which had made the ground

heavy.

'You have a very good chance with _Miching Mallecho_, I consider,' he

remarked to Sperelli when he came up.

Giannetto Rutolo heard this forecast with a bitter pang. He had founded

a vague hope on the event of his own victory. He represented to himself

the advantage he might gain over his enemy by a victorious race and a

successful duel. As he changed his clothes his every movement betrayed

his preoccupation.

'Here is a man who before getting on horseback sees the grave open

before him,' said the duke, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder

with a serio-comic air--'_Ecce homo novus_.'

Andrea Sperelli, who felt in the best of spirits at that moment, gave

vent to one of those frank bursts of laughter which were the most

engaging trait of his youth.

'What are you laughing at?' demanded Rutolo, lividly pale, glaring at

him from under frowning brows.

'It seems to me, my dear fellow,' returned Sperelli unmoved 'that you

are a little out of temper----'

'And if I am?'

'You are at liberty to think what you like about my laughing.'

'Then I think it is idiotic.'

Sperelli bounded to his feet and made a stride forward with uplifted

whip. By a miracle, Paolo Caligaro managed to catch his arm. Violent

words followed. Don Marc Antonio Spada appeared upon the scene and heard

the altercation.

'That's enough, boys--you both know what you have to do

to-morrow--you've got to ride now.'

The two adversaries finished their dressing in silence and then went

out. The news of the quarrel had already spread through the enclosure

and up to the grand stand, increasing the excitement of the race. With

a refinement of perfidy, the Contessa di Lucoli repeated it to Donna

Ippolita.

The latter gave no sign of inward perturbation. 'I am sorry to hear

that,' was her only comment, 'I thought they were friends.'

The crowd surged round the bookmakers. _Miching Mallecho_, the horse of

the Conte d'Ugenta, and _Brummel_, that of the Marchese Rutolo, were the

favourites; then came the Duke di Beffi's _Satirist_ and Caligaro's

_Carbonilla_. However, the best judges had not overmuch confidence in

the two first, thinking that the nervous excitement of their riders must

inevitably tell upon the racing.

But Andrea Sperelli was perfectly calm, not to say gay.

His sense of superiority over his rival gave him assurance; moreover,

his romantic taste for any adventure savouring of peril, inherited from

his Byronic father, shed a halo of glory round the situation, and all

the inborn generosity of his young blood awoke at the prospect of

danger.

With a beating heart, he went forward to meet his horse as to a friend

who was bringing him the news of some great good fortune. He stroked its

nose fondly, and the glances of the animal's eye, an eye that flashed

with the inextinguishable fire of noblest breeding, intoxicated him like

a woman's magnetic gaze.

'Mallecho,' he whispered as he caressed the horse, 'this is a great

day--we must win!'

His trainer, a little red-faced man, who was engaged in scrutinising the

other horses as they were led past by their grooms, answered in his

rough husky voice,--'There's no doubt but you will!'

Miching Mallecho was a superb bay from the stables of the Baron de

Soubeyran, and combined extreme elegance of build with extraordinary

strength of muscle. His fine and shining coat, under which the tracery

of veins was distinctly visible on chest and flank, seemed almost to

exhale a fiery vapour, so intense was the creature's vitality. A

splendid jumper, he had often carried his master in the hunting-field

over every obstacle of the Roman countryside, irrespective of the nature

of the ground, never refusing the highest gate, the most forbidding

wall, for ever at the tail of the hounds. A word from his rider had more

effect on him than the spur, a caress made him quiver with delight.

Before mounting, Andrea carefully examined every strap and buckle, then

with a smile he vaulted into the saddle. As he watched his master move

away the trainer expressed his confidence in an eloquent gesture.

A crowd of bettors pressed round the indicator. Andrea felt that every

eye was upon him. Gazing eagerly at the stand to the right, he tried to

catch sight of Ippolita Albonico, but could distinguish no one among the

multitude of ladies. The Marchesa d'Ateleta, who had heard of the

quarrel, made him a sign of reproof from afar.

'How is the betting on Mallecho?' he asked of Ludovico Barbarisi.

As he moved towards the starting-post, he reflected calmly on the means

he would employ for winning, and considered his three rivals critically,

calculating the strength and science of each of them. Paolo Caligaro was

a tricky devil, as thoroughly versed in all the knavery of the stable as

any jockey; but Carbonilla, although fast, had little staying power. The

Duke di Beffi, a rider of the 'haute école' style, who had come off

victorious in more than one race in England, was mounted on an animal of

uncertain temper which would probably refuse some of the jumps.

Giannetto Rutolo, on the contrary, was riding a well-bred and

well-trained horse, but though he was a very capable rider he was too

impetuous; moreover, this was the first time he had taken part in a

public race. Besides, he must be in a terrible state of nervous

irritation, as was apparent from numerous signs.

As he looked at him, Andrea thought to himself--'I have no doubt that my

victory to-day would influence the course of the duel to-morrow. In both

instances, he will lose his head--it behoves me to keep calm on both

fields----' Then--'I wonder what Donna Ippolita feels about it?' There

seemed to be an unusual silence round about him. With his eye he

measured the distance that separated him from the first hurdle; he

noticed a shining stone on the course; he observed that Rutolo was

watching him, and a tremor ran through him from head to foot.

The bell gave the signal, but Brummel was off too soon and the start was

no good. The second time too they made a false start, and again through

Brummel's fault. Sperelli and the duke exchanged a furtive smile.

The third start was successful. Brummel instantly detached himself from

the group and swept along by the palings. The other three horses

followed abreast for a moment or so, and cleared the first hurdle and

then the second very well. Each of the three riders played a different

game. The Duke di Beffi tried to keep with the group, so that Satirist

might be induced to follow the example of the other horses at the

obstacles; Caligaro moderated Carbonilla's pace in order to save up her

strength for the last five hundred yards. Sperelli increased his speed

gradually with the intention of catching up with his adversary in the

neighbourhood of the most difficult obstacle. In effect, Mallecho soon

distanced his two companions and began to press Brummel very closely.

Rutolo heard the rapidly approaching hoof-thuds behind him and was

seized with such nervousness that his sight seemed to fail him.

Everything swam before his eyes as if he were on the point of swooning.

He made a frightful effort to keep his spurs at his horse's sides,

overcome by terror at the thought that his senses might leave him. There

was a muffled roar in his ears, and through that roar he caught the

hard, clear sound of Andrea Sperelli's 'Hi!'

More susceptible to the voice than any other mode of urging, Mallecho

simply devoured the intervening space; he was not more than two or three

lengths behind Brummel--was on the point of joining--of passing him.

'Hi!'

A high barrier intersected the course. Rutolo actually did not see it,

having lost all sense of his surroundings, and only preserved a furious

instinct to remain glued to his horse and force it along, never mind

how. Brummel jumped, but receiving no aid from his rider, caught his

hind legs against the barrier, and came down so awkwardly on the other

side that the rider lost his stirrups, without, however, coming out of

the saddle, and he continued to run. Andrea Sperelli now took the lead,

Giannetto Rutolo, without having recovered his stirrups, being second,

with Paolo Caligaro close upon his heels; the duke, retarded by a

refusal from Satirist, came last. In this order they passed the grand

stand. They heard a confused clamour but it soon died away.

The spectators held their breath in suspense. From time to time,

somebody would remark aloud on the various incidents of the running. At

every change in the order of the horses numerous exclamations sounded

through the continuous murmur, and the ladies thrilled visibly. Donna

Ippolita Albonico, mounted on a seat, with her hands on the shoulders of

her husband who stood below her, watched the race with marvellous

self-control and without a trace of apparent emotion, unless the

over-tight compression of her lips and a scarcely perceptible furrow

between her brows might have revealed the effort to an observant eye. At

a certain moment, however, she drew her hands away from her husband's

shoulder, fearful of betraying herself by some involuntary movement.

'Sperelli is down!' announced the Contessa di Lucoli in a loud voice.

Mallecho, in jumping, had slipped on the wet grass and come down on his

knees, but recovered himself in an instant. Andrea had gone over his

head, but was none the worse, and with lightning rapidity was back in

the saddle as Rutolo and Caligaro came up with him. Brummel performed

prodigies, in spite of the wounded leg, and showed the quality of his

blood. Carbonilla was at last putting out all her speed, guided with

consummate skill by her rider. There were still about eight hundred

yards to the winning post.

Sperelli saw victory escaping him and gathered up all his forces to

grasp it again. Standing in the stirrups, bent low over his horse's

neck, he uttered from time to time that short, sharp, ringing word which

always acted so effectively upon the noble creature. While Brummel and

Carbonilla, fatigued by the heaviness of the ground, began to lose the

pace, Mallecho steadily increased the vehemence of his rush and had

nearly reconquered his former position, scenting victory already with

his fiery nostrils. Flying over the last obstacle, he passed

Brummel--his head was level with Carbonilla's shoulder--a hundred yards

from the post he skirted the barrier--on--on--leaving Caligaro's black

mare ten lengths behind. The bell rang--a furious clapping of hands,

like the pelting of hail-stones, and then a dull roar spread through the

great crowd on the green sward under the flood of brilliant sunshine.

As he entered the enclosure, Andrea Sperelli thought to

himself--'Fortune is with me to-day, but how will it be to-morrow?' And

feeling the breath of triumph surge round him, a vague sense of

resentment rose up in him against the possibilities of the morrow. He

would have preferred to face it to-day and get it over, that he might

enjoy a double victory and then taste the fruit offered to him by the

hand of Ippolita Albonico. He was possessed, for the moment, by that

inexplicable intoxication which results--with certain men of

intellect--from the exercise of their physical powers, the experience of

their courage and the revelation of their inherent brutality. The

substratum of primitive ferocity which exists at the bottom of most of

us rushes to the surface, on occasion, with curious vehemence, and under

the skin-deep varnish of modern civilisation, our hearts swell sometimes

with a nameless sanguinary fury, and visions of carnage rise up before

us. Inhaling the hot and acrid exhalations of his horse, Andrea Sperelli

felt that none of the delicate perfumes affected by him up till now, had

ever afforded him such intense enjoyment.

He had scarcely quitted the saddle, before he found himself surrounded

by friends of both sexes, eager to congratulate him. Mallecho, breathing

hard, smoking and covered with foam, snorted and stretched his neck,

shaking the bridle. His sides rose and fell with a deep continuous

movement, as if they must burst; his muscles vibrated under skin like a

bow-string after the shot; his eyes, dilated and bloodshot, had the

cruel glare of those of a beast of prey; his coat, now showing great

patches of darker colour, ran down with rivulets of perspiration. The

incessant trembling of his whole body was pitiable to see, like the

suffering of a human being.

'Poor fellow!' murmured one of the ladies.

Andrea examined his knees to see if he had taken any hurt from his fall.

They were sound. Then patting him softly on the neck, he said in an

indefinable tone of gentleness--'Go, Mallecho, go----'

And he followed him with his eyes till he disappeared.

Directly he had changed his clothes, he went in search of Ludovico

Barbarisi and the Baron di Santa Margherita.

Both instantly accepted the office of arranging preliminaries with

Rutolo. He begged them to hasten matters as much as possible.

'Fix it all by this evening. To-morrow by one o'clock I absolutely must

be free. But let me sleep till nine to-morrow morning. I dine with the

Ferentinos, then I shall look in at the Palazzo Giustiniani, and after

that I shall go to the Club, but it will be late--You will know where to

find me. Many thanks, my dear fellows, and _a rividerci_.'

He repaired to the grand stand, but avoided approaching Donna Ippolita

at once. He smiled, feeling every feminine eye upon him. Many

a fair hand was held out, many a sweet voice called him

familiarly--'Andrea'--some of them even a little ostentatiously. The

ladies who had bet upon his horses told him the amount of their

winnings, others asked curiously if he were really going to fight.

It seemed to him that in one day he had reached the summit of

adventurous glory. He had come out victor in a record race, had gained

the graces of a new love, magnificent and serene as a Venetian

Dogaressa, had provoked a man to mortal combat and now was passing calm

and courteous--but neither more so nor less than usual--amid the openly

adoring smiles of all these fair women.

'See the conquering hero comes!' cried Ippolita's husband with

outstretched hand and pressing Andrea's with unusual warmth.

'Yes, indeed; quite a hero!' echoed Donna Ippolita in the superficial

tone of necessary compliment, affecting ignorance of the real drama.

Sperelli bowed and passed on, feeling strangely embarrassed by

Albonico's excessive friendliness. A suspicion crossed his mind that he

was grateful to him for having provoked a quarrel with his wife's lover,

and the cowardice of the man brought a supercilious smile to his lips.

Returning from the races on the Prince di Ferentino's mail coach, he

espied Giannetto Rutolo tearing back to Rome in a little two-wheeled

trap behind a great fast-trotting roan; bending forward with head down,

a cigar between his teeth and utterly regardless of the injunctions of

the police to keep in the line. Rome rose up before them, black against

a band of saffron light, and in the violet sky above that light the

statues on the Basilica of San Giovanni stood out exaggeratedly large.

And Andrea then fully realised the pain he was inflicting on this man's

soul.

CHAPTER X

At the Palazzo Giustiniani that evening, Andrea said to Ippolita

Albonico, 'Well then, it is a fixed thing that I expect you to-morrow

between two and five?'

She would like to have said: 'Then you are not going to fight

to-morrow?' but she did not dare.

'I have promised,' she replied.

A minute or two afterwards, her husband came up to Andrea and taking his

arm with much effusion, began asking particulars about the duel. He was

a youngish man, slim, with very thin fair hair and colourless eyes and

projecting teeth. He had a slight stammer.

'Well, well--so it is to come off to-morrow, is it?'

Andrea could not repress his disgust, and let his arm hang loosely at

his side to show that he was in no mood for these familiarities. Seeing

the Baron di Santa Margherita enter the room, he disengaged himself

quickly.

'Excuse me, Count,' he said, 'I want to speak to Santa Margherita.'

The Baron met him with the assurance that all was in order. 'Very

good--at what hour?'

'Half-past ten at the Villa Sciarra. Rapiers and fencing-gloves, _à

outrance_.'

'Whom else have you got for seconds?'

'Roberto Casteldieri and Carlo de Souza. We settled everything as

quickly as possible, avoiding formalities. Giannetto had got his seconds

already. We arranged the proceedings at the Club without any fuss. Try

not to be too late in going to bed--you must be dead tired.'

But, heedless of this good advice, on leaving the Palazzo Giustiniani,

Andrea betook himself to the Club, where Santa Margherita came upon him

at two o'clock in the morning, and, forcing him to leave the

card-tables, bore him off on foot to the Palazzo Zuccari.

'My dear boy,' he said reproachfully as they walked along, 'you are

really foolhardy. In a case like this, the smallest imprudence might

lead to fatal results. To preserve his full strength and activity, a

good swordsman should have as much care for his person as a tenor has

for his voice. The wrist is as delicate an organ as the throat--the

articulations of the legs as sensitive as the vocal chords. The

mechanism suffers from the smallest disturbance; the instrument gets out

of gear and will not answer to the player. After a night of play or

drink, Camillo Agrippa himself could not thrust straight, and his

parries were neither sure nor rapid. An error of a hair's breadth will

suffice to let three inches of steel into one's body.' They were at the

top of the Via Condotti, and in the distance they could see the Piazza

di Spagna, lighted up by the full moon, the stairway bathed in silver,

and the Trinità de' Monti rising into the soft blue.

'Certainly,' continued the Baron, 'you have great advantages over your

adversary, amongst others, a cool head--also you have been out before. I

saw you in Paris in your affair with Gauvaudan--you remember? A grand

duel that! You fought like a god!'

Andrea laughed, much gratified. The praise of this unrivalled duellist

made his heart swell with pride, and infused fresh vigour into his

muscles. Instinctively, he grasped his walking stick, and repeated the

famous pass which pierced the arm of the Marquis de Gauvaudan the

previous winter.

'Yes,' he said, 'it was a direct return hit after a parry of "contre de

tierce."'

'On the floor, Giannetto Rutolo is a skilful swordsman, but in the open

he gets confused. He has only been out once before with my cousin

Cassibile, and he came off badly. He does far too much of the one,

two,--one, two, three business in attacking. Stop thrusts and hits with

a _half volte_ would be useful to you. It was just in that way that my

cousin touched him in the second round. And those thrusts are your

special _forte_. Keep a sharp look-out and try to keep your distance.

And do not forget that you have to do with a man whom, as I hear, you

have robbed of his mistress, and to whom you lifted your whip.'

They had reached the Piazza di Spagna. The Barcaccia splashed and

gurgled softly, glistening under the moon that was mirrored in its

waters. Four or five hackney carriages stood in a line with their lamps

lighted. From the Via del Babuino came a tinkle of bells, and the dull

tramp of hoofs, as of a herd in motion.

At the foot of the steps the Baron took leave of him.

'Good-bye then, till to-morrow. I shall be with you a little before nine

with Ludovico. You must make a pass or so, just to unstiffen the

muscles. We will see about the doctor. Off with you now and get a good

sleep.'

Andrea mounted the steps. At the first broad landing, he stood still to

listen to the tinkle of the approaching bells. In truth, he did feel

rather tired, and even a little heartsick. Now that the excitement

called up by the conversation on fencing, and the recollection of his

former doughty deeds in that line had subsided, a sense of

dissatisfaction had come upon him, confusedly, as yet, and mingled with

doubt and regret. After being on the stretch throughout the violent

feverish incidents of the day, his nerves relaxed under the balmy

influences of the spring night. Why should he, without any excuse of

passion, out of mere caprice, from pure vanity and arrogance, have taken

pleasure in awakening the hatred, and deeply wounding the heart of a

fellow man? The thought of the horrid pain that must be torturing his

adversary filled him with a sort of compassion. Elena's image flashed

before him, and he called to mind the anguish he had endured the year

before, what time he had lost her--his jealousy, his anger, his nameless

torments. Then, as now, the nights were serene and calm, and filled

with perfume, and yet how they weighed upon his spirit! He inhaled the

fragrant breath of the roses blooming in the little gardens about, and

watched the flock of sheep passing through the Piazza below.

The mass of thick white fleece advanced with a continuous undulating

motion, a compact and unbroken surface, like a muddy wave pouring over

the pavement. A sharp quavering bleat would mingle with the tinkling

bells to be answered by other voices, fainter and more timid; from time

to time, the mounted shepherds, riding at either side or behind the

flock, gave a sharp word of command, or used their long staves. The

splendour of the moonlight lent to this passage of flocks through the

midst of the slumbering city the mystery of things seen in a dream.

Andrea recalled one serene February night when, on coming away from a

ball at the English Embassy, he and Elena had met a flock of sheep in

the Via Venti Settembre which obliged their carriage to stop. Elena, her

face pressed to the window, watched the sheep crowding against the

carriage wheels, and pointed to the little lambs with childish delight;

and he with his face close to hers, his eyes half closed, listened to

the pattering hoofs, the bleating, the tinkling bells.

Why should these recollections of Elena come back to him just now?--He

resumed his way slowly up the steps, his feet heavy with fatigue, his

knees giving way beneath him. Suddenly the thought of death flashed

across his mind. 'What if I were killed, or received such a wound as to

maim me for life?' But his thirst for life and pleasure caused his whole

being to revolt against such a sinister possibility. 'I _must_ come off

victorious!' he said to himself. And he began reviewing all the

advantages that would fall to him from this second victory: the prestige

of his success, the fame of his prowess, Ippolita's kisses, new loves,

new pleasures, the gratification of new whims.

Presently, however, he bethought him of the necessary precautions for

insuring his bodily vigour. He went to bed and slept soundly till he

was awakened by the arrival of his seconds; took his customary

shower-bath; had a strip of linoleum laid down and invited Santa

Margherita and then Barbarisi to exchange a few passes with him, during

which he executed with precision several stop thrusts.

'In capital form!' the Baron congratulated him.

Sperelli then took two cups of tea and some biscuits, donned a very easy

pair of trousers, comfortable shoes with low heels and a very slightly

starched shirt; he prepared his gloves by moistening the palm slightly

and rubbing in powdered resin; arranged a leather strap for fastening

the guard to his wrist; examined the blade and the point of both

rapiers; omitted no precaution, no detail.

When all was to his satisfaction--'Let us be going now,' he said;

'better be on the ground before the others. What about the doctor?'

'He will be waiting for us there.'

On the way down stairs they met Grimiti, who had come on behalf of the

Marchesa d'Ateleta.

'I shall follow you to the Villa and then bring the news as quickly as

possible to Francesca,' said he.

They all went down together. The Duke jumped into his buggy and the

others entered a closed carriage. Andrea made no show of indifference or

good spirits--to make jokes before engaging in a serious duel seemed to

him execrably bad taste--but he was perfectly calm. He smoked and

listened composedly to Santa Margherita and Barbarisi, who were

discussing--apropos of a recent case in France--whether it was

legitimate or not to use the left hand against an adversary. Now and

again, he leaned forward to look out of the window.

On this May morning Rome shone resplendent under the caressing sun. Here

a fountain lit up with its silvery laughter a little piazzetta still

plunged in shadow; there the open gates of a palace disclosed a vista of

courtyard with a background of portico and statues; from the baroque

architecture of a brick church hung the decorations for the month of

Mary. Under the bridge, the Tiber gleamed and glistened as it hurried

away between the gray-green houses towards the island of San Bartolomeo.

After a short ascent, the whole city spread out before them, immense,

imperial, radiant, bristling with spires and columns and obelisks,

crowned with cupolas and rotundas, clean cut out of the blue like a

citadel.

'_Ave Roma, moriturus te salutat!_' exclaimed Andrea Sperelli, throwing

away the end of his cigarette. 'Though, to tell the truth, my dear

fellows.' he added, 'a sword-thrust would decidedly inconvenience me

this morning.'

They had reached the Villa Sciarra, already partially profaned by the

builders of modern houses, and were passing through an avenue of tall

and slender laurels bordered by hedges of roses. Santa Margherita,

putting his head out of the window, caught sight of another carriage

standing in the drive before the villa.

'They are waiting for us,' he said.

He consulted his watch--ten minutes yet to the hour agreed upon. He got

out of the carriage and went across with the other seconds and the

surgeons to the opponents. Andrea stayed behind in the avenue. He went

over, in his own mind, certain points of attack and defence he hoped to

employ successfully, but the miracles of light and shadow playing

fitfully through the interlacing laurels distracted his attention. While

his mind was occupied with the position of the wound he intended

inflicting, his eyes were attracted by the reeds shivering in the

morning breeze, and the trees, tender as the amorous allegories of

Petrarch, sighed gently over a head that was wholly absorbed in plans of

dealing a mortal blow.

Barbarisi came to call him.

'Everything is ready,' he said. 'The caretaker has opened the villa for

us--we have the rooms on the ground floor at our disposal--most

convenient. Come and undress.'

Andrea followed him. While he undressed, the two surgeons opened their

surgical cases and displayed the array of glittering steel instruments

within. One of them was a youngish man, pale, bald, and with feminine

hands and a hard mouth, with a continual and visible contraction of the

lower jaw, which was extraordinarily developed. The other was a thickset

man of mature years with a freckled face, bushy red beard and the neck

of an ox. The one seemed the antithesis of the other, and their

disparity excited Sperelli's curiosity and attention. They set out upon

a table bandages and carbolic acid for disinfecting the weapons. The

smell of the acid diffused itself through the room.

As soon as Sperelli was ready, he went out accompanied by his second and

the surgeons. Once again, the view of Rome seen through the laurels

attracted his eyes and made his heart beat fast. He was full of

impatience. He wished he could put himself on guard at that very

instant, and hear the signal for the attack. He seemed to have the

decisive thrust, the victory in his hand.

'Ready?' asked Santa Margherita advancing to meet him.

'Quite ready.'

The spot chosen for the encounter was a path at the side of the villa,

in the shade, and covered with fine rolled gravel. Rutolo was already

stationed there, at the further end, with Roberto Casteldieri and Carlo

di Souza. Everybody wore a grave, not to say solemn, air. The two

adversaries were placed opposite to one another and their eyes met.

Santa Margherita, who had the direction of the combat, noticed that

Rutolo's shirt was very stiffly starched and the collar too high. He

remarked upon it to Casteldieri who exchanged a few words with his

principal, and Sperelli saw the blood rush to his adversary's face while

he proceeded resolutely to divest himself of his shirt. Andrea with cold

composure followed his example. He then turned up his trousers and Santa

Margherita handed him the glove, the strap and the rapier. He armed

himself with scrupulous care, and shook his weapon slightly to see that

he had it well in hand. The movement brought out the play of his biceps

very visibly bearing witness to long practice of the arm and the

strength it had thereby acquired.

When the two combatants measured their swords for the distance, that of

Giannetto Rutolo shook convulsively. After the usual set phrases as to

the honour and good faith of the combatants, Santa Margherita gave the

word in a ringing powerful voice.

'Gentlemen--on guard!'

The duellists threw themselves on guard simultaneously; Rutolo, with a

stamp of the foot, Sperelli, bending forward lightly. Rutolo was of

medium height, very slender, all nerves, with an olive face, to which

the curled moustaches and the little pointed beard à la Charles I. in

Van Dyck's pictures lent a certain piquant and dashing air. Sperelli was

taller, more dignified, admirable of attitude, calm and collected,

perfectly balanced between grace and strength, his whole person

proclaiming the _grand seigneur_. They looked each other full in the

eye, and each experienced a curious internal thrill at the sight of the

bare flesh against which he pointed his sharp blade. Through the silence

came the fresh murmur of the fountain mingled with the rustle of the

breeze among the climbing rose-bushes, where innumerable yellow and

white roses nodded their fragrant heads.

'Play!' cried the Baron.

Andrea was prepared for an impetuous attack from Rutolo, but the latter

did not move. For about a minute, they stood watching each other closely

without ever crossing swords, almost motionless. Sperelli bending his

knees still more, on guard with the point low, assumed the tierce guard

and sought to provoke his adversary by the insolent challenge of his

eyes and by stamping his foot. Rutolo made a step forward with a menace

of straight thrust, accompanying it with a cry after the manner of

certain Sicilian fencers. The duel began.

Sperelli avoided any decisive movement, restricting himself to parrying

only, forcing his opponent to discover his intentions, to exhaust all

his methods, to bring out his whole repertoire of sword-play. His

parries were neat and rapid, never yielding a foot of ground, admirable

in precision, as if he were taking part in a fencing match in the school

with blunt foils; whereas Rutolo attacked him warmly, accompanying each

thrust with a hoarse cry like that of the wood-cutters when they use

their hatchets.

'Halt!' cried Santa Margherita, whose vigilant eye marked every flash of

the blades.

He went up to Rutolo, 'You are touched, if I am not mistaken,' he said.

True, Rutolo had a scratch on the forearm, but so slight that there was

no need even of sticking-plaster. Nevertheless, he was breathing hard,

and his livid pallor bore witness to his suppressed anger.

'I know my man thoroughly now,' whispered Sperelli with a smile to

Barbarisi. 'You watch the second round. I mean to pink him on the right

breast.'

As he spoke, he absently rested the point of his rapier on the ground.

The bald young surgeon with the strong jaw immediately came up to him

with a sponge soaked in carbolic acid and proceeded to purify the weapon

again.

'Good heavens!' Andrea exclaimed in a low voice to Barbarisi, 'he has

all the air of a _jettatore_. This rapier is certain to break.'

A thrush began to sing somewhere in the trees. Here and there a rose

scattered its petals on the breeze. Some low-lying fleecy clouds rose to

meet the sun, broke up into airy flakes and gradually dispersed.

'On guard!'

Conscious of his inferiority, Rutolo determined to hamper his opponent's

play, to attack him at close quarters and so break his continuity of

action. For this he enjoyed the advantage of shorter stature and a frame

which, being wiry, thin and flexible, offered but little mark to the

other's weapon.

Andrea foresaw that Rutolo would adopt this plan. He stood on guard,

bent like a taut bow, watching for the right moment.

'Halt!' cried Santa Margherita.

A streak of blood showed on Rutolo's breast. The rapier had penetrated,

just under the right breast, almost to the rib. The surgeons hurried

over, but the wounded man instantly turned to Casteldieri, and with a

tremor of anger in his voice said roughly:--

'It is a mere scratch. I shall go on.'

He refused to go inside to have the wound-dressed. The bald doctor,

after squeezing the small hole, which scarcely bled, and sponging it

with antiseptic lotion, applied a simple piece of lint and said:--

'You may go on now.'

At Casteldieri's invitation, the Baron gave the word without delay for

the third round.

'On guard!'

Sperelli perceived his danger. Directly in front of him stood his

adversary, his knees firmly bent, masked, as it were, behind his rapier,

his whole strength resolutely collected for one supreme effort. His eyes

had a singular glitter, and the calf of his left leg quivered

perceptibly under the excessive tension of the muscles. This time, in

order to avoid the shock of his opponent's impetus, Andrea determined to

throw himself to one side and repeat the thrust which Cassibile had

employed so successfully, the white patch of lint on Rutolo's breast

serving him as a mark. It was there he proposed wounding him again, but,

this time, the rapier should enter the intercostal space and not be

deterred by the rib. The silence all about them deepened, the spectators

felt the homicidal desire that animated the two men, and were seized

with apprehension, their hearts sinking at the thought that doubtless

they would have to carry away a dead or dying man. The sun, veiled by

fleecy cloudlets, shed a milky light over the scene, the trees rustled

fitfully, the thrush sang on invisible.

'Play!'

Rutolo charged his adversary with a double derobe. Sperelli parried and

returned, giving way a step. Rutolo followed up furiously with a rush of

rapid thrusts, nearly all in the low line, without uttering the usual

cries. Sperelli, nothing daunted by this onslaught, and wishing to avoid

an actual hand-to-hand fight, parried vigorously, and returned with such

directness that he might, had he so wished, have run his adversary

through the body each time. Rutolo's leg was bleeding near the groin.

'Halt!' cried Santa Margherita the moment he perceived it.

But in the same instant Sperelli, parrying low quarte and not

encountering his adversary's blade, received a thrust full in the

breast. He fell back into Barbarisi's arms and fainted.

'Wound penetrating the thorax through the fourth intercostal space on

the right side with superficial wound of the lung,' pronounced the

bull-necked surgeon, after his examination in the room to which they had

conveyed the wounded man.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

Convalescence is a purification, a new birth. Never is life so sweet as

after the pangs of physical suffering, and never is the human soul so

inclined towards purity and faith as after having had a glimpse into the

abyss of death.

After his terrible wound, after a long, slow, agonising struggle, Andrea

Sperelli came back to life renewed in body and spirit--like another man,

like a creature risen out of the icy waters of death, with a mind swept

bare of all that has gone before. The past had receded into the dim

perspective, the troubled waters had calmed, the mud sunk to the bottom;

his soul was cleansed. He returned to the bosom of Mother Nature, and he

felt her re-inforce him maternally with goodness and with strength.

The guest of his cousin at her villa of Schifanoja, Andrea returned to

life again in sight of the sea. The convalescent drew his breath in

harmony with the deep, calm breath of the ocean; his mind was

tranquillised by the serenity of the horizon. Little by little, in these

hours of enforced idleness and retirement, his spirit expanded, bloomed

out, erected itself slowly, like the grass trodden under foot on the

pathway, and he returned to truth and simple faith, became natural and

free of heart, open to the knowledge and disposed to the contemplation

of pure things.

August was drawing to a close. An ecstatic serenity reigned over the

sea; the waters were so transparent that they repeated every image with

absolute fidelity, and their ultimate line melted so imperceptibly into

the sky that the two elements seemed as one, impalpable and

supernatural. The wide amphitheatre of hills, clothed with olives,

oranges and pines and all the noblest forms of Italian vegetation,

embraced the silent sea, and seemed not a multiplicity of things, but a

single vast object under the all-pervading sunshine.

Lying on the grass, or sitting on a rock or under a tree, the young man

felt the river of life flow within him; as in a trance, he seemed to

feel the whole universe throb and palpitate in his breast; in a species

of religious rapture, he felt that he possessed the infinite. That which

he experienced was ineffable, divine. The vista before him opened out by

degrees into a profound and long continued vision, the branches of the

trees overhead supported the firmament, filling the blue, and shining

like the garlands of immortal poets. And he gazed and listened and

breathed with the sea and the earth, placid as a god.

Where were now all his vanities and his cruelties, his schemes and his

duplicities? What had become of all his loves and his illusions, his

disappointments and his disgusts, and the implacable reaction after

pleasure? He remembered none of them. His spirit had renounced them all,

and with the absence of desire, he had found peace.

Desire had abandoned its throne and intellect was free to follow its

proper course, and reflect the objective world purely from the outside

point of view; things appeared clearly and precisely under their true

form, in their true colours, in all their real significance and beauty;

every personal sentiment was in abeyance.

'_Die Sterne, die begehrt man nicht--Man freut sich ihrer Pracht._'

One desires not the stars, but rejoices in their splendour--and for the

first time in his life the young man really recognised the poetic

harmony of summer skies at night.

These were the last nights of August, and there was no moon. Innumerable

in the deep starry vault, the constellations throbbed and palpitated

with ardent life. The two Bears, Hercules, Cassiopeia, glittered with so

rapid a palpitation that they seemed almost to approach the earth, to

penetrate the terrestrial atmosphere. The Milky Way flowed wide like a

regal aërian river, a confluence of the waters of Paradise, over a bed

of crystal between starry banks. Brilliant meteors cleft the motionless

air from time to time, gliding lightly and silently as a drop of water

over a sheet of glass. The slow and solemn respiration of the sea

sufficed to measure the peace of the night without disturbing it, and

the pauses were almost sweeter than the music.

In every aspect of the things around him he beheld some analogy to his

own inner life. The landscape became to him a symbol, an emblem, a sign

to guide him through the labyrinthine passes of his own soul. He

discovered secret affinities between the visible life around him and the

intimate life of his desires and memories. 'To me, high mountains are a

_feeling_'--and as the mountains were to Byron, so the sea was to him a

_sentiment_.

Oh, that limpid September sea! Calm and guileless as a sleeping child,

it lay outstretched beneath the pearly sky--now green, the delicate and

precious green of malachite, the little red sails upon it like

flickering tongues of fire, now intensely--almost one might call it

heraldically--blue, and veined with gold like lapis-lazuli, with

pictured sails upon it as in a church procession. At other times, it

took on a dull metallic lustre as polished silver mingled with the

greenish-yellow tint of ripe lemons, indefinable, strange and delicate,

and the sails would come crowding like the wings of the cherubim in the

background of a Giotto picture.

Forgotten sensations of early youth came back to him, that impression of

freshness which the salt breath of the sea infuses into young blood, the

indescribable effects produced by the changing lights and shadows, the

tints, the smell of the salt water upon the unsullied soul. The sea was

not only a delight to his eyes, but also an inexhaustible wellspring of

peace, a magic fount of youth wherein his body regained health, and his

spirit nobility. The ocean had for him the mysterious attraction of a

mother country, and he abandoned himself to it with filial confidence,

as a feeble child might sink into the arms of an omnipotent mother. And

he received comfort and encouragement; for who ever confided his pain,

his yearnings or his dreams to her in vain?

For him the sea had ever a profound word, some sudden revelation, some

unlocked for enlightenment, some unexpected significance. She revealed

to him, in the secret recesses of his soul, a wound still gaping though

quiescent, and she made it bleed again, but only to heal it with balm

that was doubly sweet. She re-awakened the dragon that slumbered within

him, till he felt once more the terrible grip of its claws, and then she

slew it once for all and buried it deep in his heart never to rise

again. No corner of his being but lay open to the great Consolatrix.

But at times, under the continuous dominion of this influence, under the

persistent tyranny of this fascination, the convalescent was conscious

of a sort of bewilderment and fear, as if both the dominion and

fascination were insupportable to his weak state. The incessant colloquy

between him and the sea gave him a vague sense of prostration, as if the

sublime language were beyond his restricted powers, so eager to grasp

the meaning of the incomprehensible.

But this period of visions, of abstractions, of pure contemplativeness

was of short duration. By degrees, he began to resume his attitude of

self-consciousness, to recover the sensation of his personality, to

return to his original frame of mind. One day at the hour of high noon,

the vast and terrible silence when all life seems suspended, a sudden

glimpse into his own heart revealed shuddering abysses, inextinguishable

desires, ineffaceable memories, accumulations of suffering and

regret--all the wretchedness he had gone through, all the inevitable

scars of his vices, all the results of his passions. He seemed to be

witnessing the shipwreck of his whole life. A thousand voices cried to

him for succour, imploring aid, cursing death--voices that he knew, that

he had listened to in days gone by. But they cried and implored and

cursed in vain, feeling that they were perishing, choked by the hungry

waves; then the voices grew faint, broken, irrecognisable--and died away

into silence.

He was alone. Of all his youth, of all his boasted fulness of inner

life, of all his ideality, not a vestige remained; within--a black and

yawning abyss, around him--impassive nature, endless source of pain to

solitary souls. Every hope was dead, every voice mute, every anchor

gone--what use was life?

Suddenly the image of Elena rose up before him, then that of other women

whom he had known and loved. Each of them smiled a hostile smile, and

each one, as she vanished, seemed to carry away something of him--what,

he could not definitely say. An unspeakable distress weighed upon him,

an icy breath of age swept over him, a tragic, warning voice rang

through his heart--Too late! Too late!

All his recent comfort and peace seemed now a vain delusion, a dream

that had flown, a pleasure enjoyed by some other spirit. Every wound he

had ruthlessly dealt to his soul's dignity bled afresh; every

degradation he had inflicted upon his conscience started out and spread

like a leprosy. Every violation he had committed upon his ideality

roused an endless, despairing, terrible remorse in him. He had lied too

flagrantly, had deceived, debased himself beyond all power of redress.

He loathed himself and all his evil works--Shame! Shame! Nothing could

wipe out those dishonouring stains, no balm could ever heal those

wounds, he must for ever endure the torment of that

self-loathing.--Shame!----

His eyes filled with tears, and dropping his head upon his arms he

abandoned himself to the weight of his misery, prostrate as a man who

has no hope of salvation.

With the new day, he awoke to new life, one of those awakenings, so

fresh and limpid, that are only vouchsafed to adolescence in its

triumphant springtide. It was a marvellous morning--only to breathe the

air was pure delight. The whole earth rejoiced in the living light; the

hills were wrapped about with a diaphanous silvery veil and seemed to

quiver with life, the sea appeared to be traversed by rivulets of milk,

by rivers of crystal and of emerald, by a thousand currents forming the

rippling intricacies of a watery labyrinth. A sense of nuptial joy and

religious grace emanated from the concord between earth and sky.

And he breathed and gazed and listened, not a little surprised During

his sleep the fever had left him. He had slumbered, lulled by the voice

of the waters as if by the voice of a faithful friend--and he who sleeps

to the sound of that lullaby enjoys a repose that is full of healing

peace.

He gazed and listened mutely, fondly, letting the flood of immortal life

penetrate to his heart's core. Never had the sacred music of a great

master--an Offertory of Haydn, a Te Deum of Mozart--produced in him the

emotion caused now by the simple chimes of the distant village churches,

as they greeted the rising of the sun into the heavens. His soul swelled

and overflowed with unspeakable emotion. Some vision, vague but sublime,

hovered over him like a rippling veil through which gleamed the

splendour of the mysterious treasure of ultimate felicity. Up till now,

he had always known exactly what he wished for, and had never found any

pleasure in desiring vainly. Now, he could not have named his desire,

but he had no doubts that the thing wished for was infinitely sweet,

since the very act of wishing was bliss. The words of the Chimera in

'The King of Cyprus'--old world, half-forgotten verses, recurred to him

with all the force of a caressing appeal--

'Would'st thou fight?

Would'st kill? would'st thou behold rivers of blood?

Great heaps of gold? white herds of captive women?

Slaves? other, and far other spoils? Would'st thou

Bid marble breathe? Would'st thou set up a temple?

Would'st fashion an immortal hymn? Would'st (hearken,

Hearken, O youth, hearken!)--would'st thou divinely

Love?'

He smiled faintly to himself. 'Whom should I love?--Art?--a woman?--what

woman?' Elena seemed far removed from him, lost to him, a

stranger--dead. The others--still further off, dead for evermore.

Therefore he was free. But why renew a pursuit so useless and so

perilous? Why stretch out his hand again towards the tree of knowledge?

'The tree of knowledge has been plucked--all's known!' as Byron said in

Don Juan. What he desired, at the bottom of his heart, was to give

himself freely, gratefully to some higher and purer being. But where to

find that being was the question.

Truly his salvation in the future lay rather in the practice of caution,

prudence, sagacity. His tone of mind seemed to him admirably expressed

in a sonnet of a contemporary poet, whom, from a certain affinity of

literary tastes and similar æsthetic education, he particularly

affected--

'I am as one who lays himself to rest

Under the shadow of a laden tree;

Above his head hangs the ripe fruit, and he

Is weary of drawing bow or arbalest.

He shakes not the fair bough that lowliest

Droops, neither lifts he hand, nor turns to see;

But lies, and gathers to him indolently

The fruits that drop into his very breast.

In that juiced sweetness, over-exquisite,

He bites not deep; he fears the bitterness;

Yet sets it to his lips, that he may smell,

Sucks it with pleasure, not with greediness,

And he is neither grieved nor glad at it.

This is the ending of the parable.'

Art! Art! She was the only faithful mistress--forever young--immortal;

there was the Fountain of all pure joys, closed to the multitude but

freely open to the elect; that was the precious Food which makes a man

like unto a god! How could he have quaffed from other cups after having

pressed his lips to that one?--how have followed after other joys when

he had tasted that supreme one?

'But what if my intellect has become decadent?--if my hand has lost its

cunning? What if I am no longer _worthy_?' He was seized with such panic

at the thought, that he set himself wildly to find some immediate means

of proving to himself the irrational nature of his fears. He would

instantly compose some difficult verses, draw a figure, engrave a plate,

solve some problem of form. Well--and what then? Might not the result be

entirely fallacious? The slow decay of power may be imperceptible to the

possessor--that is the terrible thing about it. The artist who loses his

genius little by little is unaware of his progressive feebleness, for as

he loses his power of production he also loses his critical faculty, his

judgment. He no longer perceives the defects of his work--does not know

that it is mediocre or bad. That is the horror of it! The artist who has

fallen from his original high estate is no more conscious of his

failings than the lunatic is aware of his mental aberration.

Andrea was seized with terror. Better--far better be dead! Never, as at

this moment, had he so fully grasped the divine nature of that _gift_,

never had the _spark_ of genius appeared to him so sacred. His whole

being was shaken to its foundations by the mere suggestion that that

gift might be destroyed, that spark extinguished. Better to die!

He lifted his head and shook off his inertia, then he went down to the

park and walked slowly under the trees, unable to form a definite plan.

A light breeze rippled through the tree tops, now and again the leaves

rustled as if a band of squirrels were passing through them; patches of

blue sky gleamed between the branches like eyes beneath their lids.

Arrived at a favourite spot of his, a sort of tiny _lucus_ presided over

by a four-fronted Hermes plunged in quadruple meditation, he stopped and

seated himself on the grass, with his back against the pedestal of the

statue and his face turned to the sea. Before him the tree-trunks,

straight but of uneven height, like the pipes of the great god Pan,

intercepted his view of the sea; all around him the acanthus spread the

exquisite grace of its foliage, symmetrical as the capitals of

Callimachus.

He thought of the words of Salamis in the _Story of the Hermaphrodite_,

'Noble acanthus, in the woods of Earth

Tokens of peace, high-flowering coronals,

Of most pure form; O ye, the slender basket

That Silence weaves with light, untroubled hand

To gather up the flowers of woody dreams,

What virtue have ye poured on this fair youth

Out of those dusky and sweet-smelling leaves?

Naked he sleeps; his arm supports his head.'

Other lines came back to him, and yet others--a riot of verse. His soul

was filled with the music of rhymes and rhythmic measures. He was

overjoyed; coming to him thus spontaneously and unexpectedly, this

poetic agitation caused him inexpressible happiness. And he gave ear to

the music, delighting himself in rich imagery, in rare epithets, in the

luminous metaphors, the exquisite harmonies, the subtle refinements

which distinguished his metrical style and the mysterious artifices of

the endecasyllabic verse learned from the admirable poets of the

fourteenth century, and more especially from Petrarch. Once more the

magic spell of versification subjugated his soul, and he felt the full

force of the sentiment of a contemporary poet--Verse is everything!

A perfect line of verse is absolute, immutable, deathless. It encloses a

thought as within a clearly marked circle which no force can break; it

belongs no more to the poet, it belongs to all and yet to none, as do

space, light, all things intransitory and perpetual. When the poet is

about to bring forth one of these deathless lines he is warned by a

divine torrent of joy which sweeps over his soul.

Andrea half closed his eyes to prolong this delicious tremor which with

him was ever the forerunner of inspiration, and more especially of

poetic inspiration, and he determined in a moment upon the metrical form

into which he would pour his thoughts, like wine into a cup--the sonnet.

While composing Andrea studied himself curiously. It was long since he

had made verses. Had this interval of idleness been harmful to his

technical capacities? It seemed to him that the lines, rising one by one

out of the depths of his brain, had a new grace. The consonance came of

itself, and ideas were born of the rhymes. Then suddenly some obstacle

would intercept the flow, a line would rebel and the whole verse would

be displaced like a shaken puzzle; the syllables would struggle against

the constraint of the measure; a musical and luminous word which had

taken his fancy had to be excluded by the severity of the rhythm, do

what he would to retain it, and the verse was like a medal which has

turned out imperfect through the inexperience of the caster, who has not

calculated the proper quantity of metal necessary for filling the mould.

With ingenious patience he poured the metal back into the crucible and

began all over again. Finally the verse came out full and clear, and the

whole sonnet lived and breathed like a free and perfect creature.

Thus he composed--now slow, now fast--with a delight never felt before.

As the day grew, the sea cast luminous darts between the trees as

between the columns of a jasper portico. Here Alma Tadema would have

depicted a Sappho with hyacinthine locks, seated at the foot of the

marble Hermes, singing to a seven-stringed lyre and surrounded by a

chorus of maidens with locks of flame, all pallid and intent, drinking

in the pure harmony of the verses.

Having accomplished the four sonnets, he heaved a sigh and proceeded to

recite them silently but with inward emphasis. Then he wrote them on the

quadrangular pedestal of the Hermes, one on each surface in the

following order--

I

'Four-fronted Hermes, to thy four-fold sense

Have these my marvellous tidings been made known?

Suave spirits, singing on their way, have flown

Forth from my heart, light-hearted; and from thence

Have cast forth every foul intelligence,

And every foul stream dammed, and overthrown

The old unguarded bridges, stone by stone,

And quenched the flame of my impenitence.

Singing, the spirits ascend; I know the voice,

The hymn; and, inextinguishable and vast,

Delighting laughters from my heart arise.

Pale, but a king, I bid my soul rejoice

To hearken my heart's laughter, as at last

Low in the dust the conquered evil lies.

II

The glad soul laughs, because its loves have fled,

Because the conquered evil bites the dust

Which into intertangled fires had thrust,

As into fiery thickets, feet now led

Into the circle human sorrows tread;

It leaves the treacherous labyrinths of lust,

Where the fair pagan monsters lure the just,

In hyacinth robes, a novice, garmented.

Now may no Sphinx with golden nails ensnare,

No Gorgon freeze it out of snaky folds,

No Siren lull it on a sleepy coast;

But, at the circle's summit, see, a fair

White woman, in the act of worship, holds

In her pure hands the sacrificial Host.

III

Beyond all harm, all ambush, and all hate,

Tranquil of face, and strong at heart, she stands,

And knows till death, and scorns, and understands

All evil things that on her passage wait.

_Thou hast in ward and keeping every gate,

The winds breathe sweetness at thy sweet commands,

Might'st thou but take, when with these restless hands

I lay at thine untroubled feet my fate!_

_Even now there shines before me in thy meek

And holy hands the Host, like to a sun.

Have I attained, have I then paid the price?_

She, that is favourable to all that seek,

Lifting the Host, declares: _Now is begun

And ended the eternal sacrifice!_

IV

_For I_, she saith, _am the unnatural Rose,

I am the Rose of Beauty. I instil

The drunkenness of ecstasy, I fill

The spirit with my rapture and repose_.

_Sowing with tears, sorrowful still are those

That with much singing gather harvest still.

After long sorrow, this my sweetness will

Be sweeter than all sweets thy spirit knows._

So be it, Madonna; and from my heart outburst

The blood of tears, flooding all mortal things,

And the immortal sorrow be yet whole;

Let the depths swallow me, let there as at first

Be darkness, so I see the glimmerings

Of light that rain on my unconquered soul!

Die XII. Septembris MDCCCLXXXVI.'

CHAPTER II

Schifanoja was situated on the heights at that point where the chain of

hills, after following the curving coast line, took a landward bend and

sloped away towards the plain. Notwithstanding that it had been built in

the latter half of the eighteenth century--by the Cardinal Alfonso

Carafa d'Ateleta--the villa showed a certain purity of architectural

design. It was a square building of two stories, with arched colonnades

alternating with the apartments, which imparted to the whole edifice a

look of lightness and grace. It was a real summer palace, open on all

sides to the breath of the sea. At the side towards the sloping gardens,

a wide hall opened on to a noble double flight of steps leading to a

platform like a vast terrace, surrounded by a stone balustrade and

adorned by two fountains. At either end of this terrace, other flights

of steps interrupted by more terraces led by easy stages almost to the

sea, affording a full view from the level ground of their seven-fold

windings through superb verdure and masses of roses. The special glories

of Schifanoja were its cypresses and its roses. Roses were there of

every kind and for every season, enough '_pour en tirer neuf ou dix

muytz d'eaue rose_' as the poet of the _Vergier d'honneur_ would have

said. The cypresses, sharp-pointed and sombre, more hieratic than the

Pyramids, more enigmatic than the obelisks, were in no respect inferior

either to those of the Villa d'Este, or the Villa Mondragone or any of

the giants growing round the glorious Roman villas.

The Marchesa d'Ateleta was in the habit of spending the summer and part

of the autumn at Schifanoja; for, though a thorough woman of the world,

she was fond of the country and its freedom, and liked to keep open

house there for her friends. She had lavished every care and attention

upon Andrea during his illness; had been to him like an elder sister,

almost a mother, and untiring in her devotion. She cherished a profound

affection for her cousin, was ever ready to excuse or pardon, was a good

and frank friend to him, capable of understanding many things, always at

his beck and call, always cheerful, always bright and witty. Although

she had overstepped the thirties by a year, she had lost nothing of her

youth, vivacity and great personal charm, for she possessed the secret

of Madame de Pompadour's fascination, that '_beauté sans traits_' which

lights up with unexpected graces. Moreover, she possessed that rare gift

commonly called tact. A fine feminine sense of the fitness of things was

an infallible guide to her. In her relations with a host of

acquaintances of either sex she always succeeded in steering her course

discreetly; she never committed an error of taste, never weighed heavily

on the lives of others, never arrived at an inopportune moment nor

became importunate, no deed or word of hers but was entirely to the

point. Her treatment of Andrea during the somewhat trying period of his

convalescence was beyond all praise. She did her utmost to avoid

disturbing or annoying him, and, what is more, managed that no one else

should; she left him complete liberty, pretended not to notice his whims

and melancholies; never worried him with indiscreet questions; made her

company sit as lightly as possible on him at obligatory moments, and

even went so far as to refrain from her usual witty remarks in his

presence to save him the trouble of forcing a smile.

Andrea recognised her delicacy and was profoundly grateful.

Returning from the garden with unwonted lightness of heart on that

September morning after writing his sonnets on the Hermes, he

encountered Donna Francesca on the steps, and, kissing her hand, he

exclaimed in laughing tones:

'Cousin Francesca, I have found the Truth and the Way!

'Alleluja!' she returned, lifting up her fair rounded arms,--'Alleluja!'

And she continued on her way down to the garden while Andrea went on to

his room with heart refreshed.

A little while afterwards there came a gentle knock at the door and

Francesca's voice asking--'May I come in?'

She entered with the lap of her dress and both arms full of great

clusters of dewy roses, white, yellow, crimson, russet brown. Some were

wide and transparent like those of the Villa Pamfili, all fresh and

glistening, others were densely petalled, and with that intensity of

colouring which recalls the boasted magnificence of the dyes of Tyre and

Sidon; others again were like little heaps of odorous snow, and gave one

a strange desire to bite into them and eat them. The infinite gradations

of red, from violent crimson to the faded pink of over-ripe

strawberries, mingled with the most delicate and almost imperceptible

variations of white, from the immaculate purity of freshly fallen snow

to the indefinable shades of new milk, the sap of the reed, dull silver,

alabaster and opal.

'It is a _festa_ to-day,' she said, her laughing face appearing over the

flowers that covered her whole bosom up to the throat.

'Thanks! Thanks!' Andrea cried again and again as he helped her to empty

the mass of bloom on to the table, all over the books and papers and

portfolios--'_Rosa rosarum!_'

Her hands once free, she proceeded to collect all the vases in the room

and fill them with roses, arranging each cluster with rare artistic

skill. While she did so, she talked of a thousand things with her usual

blithe volubility, almost as if compensating herself for the parsimony

of words and laughter she had exercised up till now, out of regard for

Andrea's taciturn melancholy.

Presently she remarked, 'On the 15th we expect a beautiful guest, Donna

Maria Ferrès y Capdevila, the wife of the Plenipotentiary for Guatemala.

Do you know her?'

'I think not,'

'No, I do not suppose you could. She only returned to Italy a few months

ago, but she will spend next winter in Rome because her husband has been

appointed to that post. She is a very dear friend of mine--we knew each

other as children, and were three years together at the Convent of the

Annunciation in Florence. She is younger than I am.'

'Is she an American?'

'No, an Italian. She is from Sienna. She comes of the Bandinelli family,

and was baptized with water from the "Fonte Gaja." For all that, she is

rather melancholy by nature, but very sweet. The story of her marriage

is not a very cheerful one. Ferrès is a most unsympathetic person.

However, they have a little girl--a perfect darling--you will see; a

little white face with enormous eyes and masses of dark hair. She is

very like her mother--Look, Andrea, is not that rose just like velvet?

And this--I could eat it--look--it is like glorified cream. How

delicious!'

She went on picking out the different roses and chatting pleasantly. A

wave of perfume, intoxicating as century-old wine, streamed from the

massed flowers; some of the petals dropped and hung in the folds of

Francesca's gown; beneath the window the dark shaft of a cypress pierced

the golden sunshine, and through Andrea's memory ran persistently, like

a phrase of music, a line from Petrarch:--

_'Cosi partia le rose e le parole._'

Two days afterwards he repaid his cousin by presenting her with a sonnet

curiously fashioned on an antique model and inscribed on vellum with

illuminated ornaments in the style of those that enliven the missals of

Attavante and of Liberale of Verona.

'Ferrara, for its d'Estes glorious,

Where Cossa strove in triumphs to recall

Cosimo Tura's triumphs on the wall,

Saw never feast more fair and plenteous.

Monna Francesca plucked and bore to us

Such store of roses, and so shed on all,

That heaven had lacked for such a coronal

The little angels it engarlands thus.

She spoke, and shed the roses in such showers,

And such a loveliness was seen in her,

_This_ said I, _is some Grace the sun discloses._

I trembled at the sweetness of the flowers.

A verse of Petrarch mounted in the air:

_She scatters words and scatters with them roses_.

CHAPTER III

On the following Wednesday, the 15th of September, the new guest

arrived.

The Marchesa, accompanied by Andrea and her eldest son, Fernanindo,

drove over to Rovigliano, the nearest station, to meet her. As they

drove along the road shadowed by lofty poplars, the Marchesa spoke to

Andrea of her friend with much affection.

'I think you will like her,' she remarked in conclusion.

Then she began to laugh as if at some sudden thought.

'Why do you laugh?' asked Andrea.

'I am making a comparison.'

'What comparison?'

'Guess.'

'I can't.'

'Well, I was thinking of another introduction I gave you about two years

ago, which I accompanied by a delightful prophecy--you remember?'

'Ah--ha--'

'And I laughed because this time again there is an unknown lady in

question and this time too I may play the part of--an involuntary

providence.'

'Oh--oh!'

'But this case is very different, or rather the difference lies in the

heroine of the possible drama.'

'You mean--'

'That Maria Ferrès is a _turris eburnea_.'

'And I am now a _vas spirituale_.'

'Ah yes, I had forgotten that you had, at last, found the Truth and the

Way--"'The glad soul laughs because its loves have fled--'"

'What--you are quoting my verses?'

'I know them by heart.'

'How sweet of you!'

'However, I confess, my dear cousin, that your "fair white woman"

holding the Host in her pure hands seems to me a trifle suspicious. She

has, to my mind, too much of the air of a hollow shape, a robe without a

body inside it, at the mercy of whatever soul, be it angel or demon,

that chooses to enter it and offer you the communion.

'But this is sacrilege--rank sacrilege!'

'Ah, you had better take care! Watch that figure and use plenty of

exorcisms--But there, I am prophesying again! Really, it seems a

weakness of mine.'

'Here we are at the station.'

They both laughed, and all three entered the little station to wait for

the train, which was due in a few minutes. Fernandino a sickly-looking

boy of twelve, was carrying a bouquet which he was to present to Donna

Maria. Andrea, put in excellent spirits by his little conversation with

his cousin, took a tea-rose from the bouquet and stuck it in his

button-hole, then cast a rapid glance over his light summer clothes and

noticed with complaisance that his hands had become whiter and thinner

since his illness. But he did it all without reflection, simply from an

instinct of harmless vanity which had suddenly awakened in him.

'Here comes the train,' said Fernandino.

The Marchesa hurried forward to greet her friend, who was already

leaning out of the carriage window waving her hand and nodding. Her head

was enveloped in a large gray gauze veil which half covered her large

black hat.

'Francesca! Francesca!' she cried with a little tremor of joy in her

voice.

The sound of that voice made a singular impression on Andrea--it

reminded him vaguely of a voice he knew--but whose?

Donna Maria left the carriage with a rapid and light step, and with a

pretty grace raised her veil above her mouth to kiss her friend.

Suddenly Andrea was struck by the profound charm of this slender,

graceful, veiled woman of whose face he saw only the mouth and chin.

'Maria, let me present my cousin to you--Count Andrea Sperelli-Fieschi

d'Ugenta.'

Andrea bowed. The lady's lips parted in a smile that was rendered

mysterious from the rest of the face being concealed by the veil.

The Marchesa then introduced Andrea to Don Manuel Ferrès y Capdevila;

then, stroking the hair of the little girl who was gazing at the young

man with a pair of wide-open, astonished eyes, 'This is Delfina,' she

said.

In the carriage, Andrea sat opposite to Donna Maria and beside her

husband. She kept her veil down still; Fernandino's bouquet lay in her

lap and from time to time she raised it to her face to inhale the

perfume while she answered the Marchesa's questions. Andrea was right;

there were tones in her voice exactly like Elena's. He was seized with

impatient curiosity to see her face--its expression and colouring.

'Manuel,' she was saying, 'has to leave on Friday. He will come back for

me later on.'

'Much later, let us hope,' said Donna Francesca cordially. 'A month, at

the very least, eh, Don Manuel? The best plan would be to wait and all

go on the same day. We are at Schifanoja till the first of November.'

'If my mother were not expecting me, nothing would delight me more than

to stay with you. But I have promised faithfully to be in Sienna for the

17th of October--Delfina's birthday.'

'What a pity! on the 20th there is the Festival of the Donations at

Rovigliano--so very beautiful and peculiar.'

'What is to be done? If I do not keep my promise, my mother will be

dreadfully disappointed. She adores Delfina.'

The husband took no part whatever in the conversation, he seemed a very

taciturn man. He was of middle height, inclined to be stout and bald,

and his skin of a most peculiar hue--something between green and violet,

in which the whites of the eyes gleamed as they moved like the enamel

eyes of certain antique bronze heads. His moustache, which was harsh and

black and cut evenly like the bristles of a brush, shadowed a coarse and

sardonic mouth. He appeared to be about forty, or rather more. In his

whole appearance there was something disagreeably hybrid and morose,

that indefinable air of viciousness which belongs to the later

generations of bastard races brought up in the midst of moral disorder.

'Look, Delfina--orange trees, all in flower!' exclaimed Donna Maria,

stretching out her hand to pluck a spray as they passed.

Near Schifanoja, the road lay between orange groves, the trees being so

high that they afforded a pleasant shade, through which the sea-breeze

sighed and fluttered, so laden with perfume that one might almost have

quaffed it like a draught of cool water.

Delfina was kneeling on the carriage seat and leaned out to catch at the

branches. Her mother wound an arm about her to keep her from falling

out.

'Take care! Take care! You will tumble--wait a moment till I untie my

veil. Would you mind helping me, Francesca?'

She bent her head towards her friend to let her unfasten the veil from

her hat, and in doing so the bouquet of roses fell at her feet. Andrea

promptly picked them up, and as he rose from his stooping position, he

at last saw her whole face uncovered.

It was an oval face, perhaps the least trifle too long, but hardly worth

mentioning--that aristocratic oval which the most graceful portrait

painters of the fifteenth century were rather fond of exaggerating. The

refined features had that subtle expression of suffering and lassitude

which lends the human charm to the Virgins of the Florentine _tondi_ of

the time of Cosimo. A soft and tender shadow, the fusion of two

diaphanous tints--violet and blue, lay under her eyes, which had the

leonine irises of the brown-haired angels. Her hair lay on her forehead

and temples like a heavy crown, and was gathered into a massive coil on

her neck. The shorter locks in front were thick and waving as those that

cover the head of the Farnese Antinous. Nothing could exceed the charm

of that delicate head, which seemed to droop under its burden as under

some divine chastisement.

'Dio mio!' she sighed, endeavouring to lighten with her hands the weight

of tresses gathered up and compressed under her hat. 'My head aches as

if I had been hanging by the hair for an hour. I cannot keep it fastened

up for long together, it tires me so. It is a perfect slavery.'

'Do you remember at school,' broke in Francesca, 'how we were all wild

to comb your hair? It led to furious quarrels every day. Fancy,

Andrea--at last it came to bloodshed! Oh, I shall never forget the scene

between Carlotta Fiordelise and Gabriella Vanni. It got to be sheer

monomania. To comb Maria Bandinelli's hair was the one ambition in life

of every school-girl there--big or little. The epidemic spread through

the whole school, and resulted in scoldings, punishments, and finally

threats to have your hair cut off. Do you remember, Maria? Our very

souls were enthralled by the magnificent black plait that hung like a

rope to your heels!'

Donna Maria smiled a mournful, dreamy smile. Her lips were slightly

parted, the upper one projecting the least little bit beyond the under

one; the corners of her mouth drooped plaintively, the soft curve losing

itself in shadow which gave her an expression both sad and kind, but

with a dash of that pride which reveals the moral elevation of those who

have suffered much and been strong.

To Andrea the story of these girls enamoured of a plait of hair,

enflamed with passion and jealousy, wild to pass a comb or their fingers

through the living treasure, seemed a charming and poetic episode of

convent life, and in his imagination, this woman with the sumptuous hair

became vaguely illumined like the heroine of some Christian legend of

the childhood of a saint destined for martyrdom and future canonisation.

At the same time, it struck him what rich and varied lines might be

afforded to the design of a female figure by the undulating masses of

that black hair.

Not that it was really black, as Andrea perceived next day at dinner,

when a ray of sunshine touched the lady's head, bringing out sombre

violet lights, reflections as of tempered steel or burnished silver.

Notwithstanding its density too, it was perfectly light, each hair

seeming to stand apart as if permeated by and breathing the air. Her

conversation revealed keen intelligence and a delicate mind, much

refinement of taste and pleasure in the æsthetic. She possessed abundant

and varied culture, a vivid imagination, and the rich, descriptive

language of one who has seen many lands, lived under widely different

climes, known many people. To Andrea, she seemed to exhale some exotic

charm, some strange fascination, some spell born of the phantoms of the

far off things she had looked upon, the scenes she still preserved

before her mind's eye, the memories that filled her soul; as if she

still bore about her some traces of the sunshine she had basked in, the

perfumes she had inhaled, the strange dialects she had heard--all the

magic of these countries of the Sun.

That evening, in the great room opening off the hall, she went over to

the piano, and opening it, she said: 'Do you still play, Francesca?'

'Oh, no,' replied the Marchesa, 'I have not practised for years. I feel

that listening to others is decidedly preferable. However, I affect to

be a patroness of Art, and during the winter I gladly preside at the

execution of a little good music. Is that not so, Andrea?'

'My cousin is too modest, Donna Maria; she does something more than

merely patronise--she is a reviver of good taste. Only last February,

thanks to her, we were made acquainted with a quintett, a quartett, and

a trio of Boccherini, and besides that with a quartett of

Cherubini--music that was well-nigh forgotten, but admirable and always

new. Boccherini's adagios and minuets are deliciously fresh; only the

finales seem to me a trifle antiquated. I am sure you must know

something of his.'

'I remember having heard one of his quintetts four of five years ago at

the Conservatoire in Brussels, and I thought it magnificent--in the very

newest style and full of unexpected episodes. I remember perfectly that

in certain passages the quintett was reduced to a duet by employing the

unison, but the effects produced by the difference in the tone of the

instruments was something marvellous! I cannot recall anything the least

like it in other instrumental compositions.'

She discussed music with all the subtlety of a true connoisseur, and in

describing the sentiments aroused in her by some particular composition,

or the entire work of a master, she expressed herself most felicitously.

'I have played and heard a great deal of music,' she said, 'and of every

symphony, every sonata, every nocturne I have a separate and distinct

picture, an impression of shape and colour, of a figure, a group, a

landscape, so that each of my favourite compositions has a name

corresponding to the picture;--for instance, the Sonata of the Forty

Daughters-in-law of Priam; the Nocturne of the Sleeping Beauty in the

Wood, the Gavotte of the Yellow Ladies, the Gigue of the Mill, the

Prelude of the Drops of Water, and so on.'

She laughed softly, a laugh which surprised one with its ineffable grace

on that plaintive mouth.

'You remember, Francesca, the multitude of notes with which we afflicted

the margins of our favourite pieces at school. One day, after a most

serious consultation, we changed the title of every piece of Schumann's

we possessed, and each title had a long explanatory note. I have the

papers still. Now, when I play the _Myrthen_ or the _Albumblätter_, all

these mysterious annotations are quite incomprehensible to me; my

emotions and my point of view have changed completely, but there is a

delicate pleasure in comparing the sentiments of the present with those

of the past, the new picture and the old. It is a pleasure very similar

to that of re-reading one's diary, only perhaps rather more mournful and

intense. A diary is generally the description of real events, a

chronicle of days happy or otherwise, the gray or rosy traces left by

time in its flight; the notes written in youth on the margin of a piece

of music are, on the contrary, fragments of the secret poems of a soul

that is just breaking into bloom, the lyric effusions of our ideality as

yet untouched, the story of our dreams. What language? What a flow of

words! You remember, Francesca?'

She talked with perfect freedom, even with a touch of spiritual

exaltation, like a person long condemned to intercourse with inferiors,

who has the irresistible desire to open her mind and heart to a breath

of the higher life. Andrea listened to her and was conscious of a

pleasing sense of gratitude towards her. It seemed to him that in

speaking of these things in his presence, she offered him a kindly proof

of friendship, and permitted him to draw nearer to her. He thereby

caught a glimpse of her inner world, less through the actual words she

uttered than by the modulations of her voice. And again he recognised

the accents of _the other_.

It was an ambiguous voice, a voice with double chords in it, so to

speak. The more virile tones, deep and slightly veiled, would soften,

brighten, become feminine, as it were, by a transition so harmonious

that the ear of the listener was at once surprised, delighted, and

perplexed by it. The phenomenon was so singular that it sufficed by

itself to occupy the mind of the listener independently of the sense of

the words, so that after a few minutes the mind yielded to the

mysterious charm and remained suspended between expectation and desire

to hear the sweet cadence, as if waiting for a melody played upon an

instrument. It was the feminine note in this voice which recalled _the

other_.

'You sing?' asked Andrea half shyly.

'A little,' she replied.

'Then please sing a little,' entreated Donna Francesca.

'Very well, but I can only give you a sort of idea of the music, for,

during the last year, I have almost lost my voice.'

In the adjoining room, Don Manuel was silently playing cards with the

Marchese d'Ateleta. In the drawing-room the light of the lamps shone

softly red through a great Japanese shade. The sea-breeze, entering

through the pillars of the hall, shook the high Karamanieh curtains and

wafted the perfume of the garden on its wings. Beyond the pillars was a

vista of tall cypresses, massive and black as ebony against a diaphanous

sky throbbing with stars.

'As we are on the subject of old music,' said Donna Maria seating

herself at the piano, 'I will give you an air of Paisiello's out of

_Nina Pazza_, an exquisite thing.'

She accompanied herself as she sang. In the fervour of the song, the two

tones of her voice blended into one another like two precious metals

combining to make a single one--sonorous, warm, caressing, vibrating.

Paisiello's melody--simple, pure and spontaneous, full of delicious

languor and winged sadness, with a delicately light

accompaniment--issued from that plaintive mouth and rose with such a

flame of passion that the convalescent was moved to the depths of his

being, and felt the notes drop one by one through his veins, as if all

the blood in his body had stopped in its course to listen. A cold shiver

stirred the roots of his hair, shadows, thick and rapid, passed before

his eyes, he held his breath with excitement. In the weak state of his

nerves his sensations were so poignant that it was all he could do to

keep back his tears.

'Oh, dearest Maria!' exclaimed Donna Francesca, kissing her fondly on

the hair when she stopped.

Andrea could not utter a word; he remained seated where he was, with his

back to the light and his face in shadow.

'Please go on,' said Francesca.

She sang an Arietta by Antonio Salieri, then she played a Toccata by

Leonardo Leo, a Gavotte by Rameau, a Gigue by Sebastian Bach. Under her

magic fingers the music of the eighteenth century lived again--so

melancholy in its dance airs, that sound as if they were intended to be

danced to in a languid afternoon of a Saint Martin's summer, in a

deserted park, amid silent fountains and statueless pedestals, on a

carpet of dead roses by pairs of lovers on the point of ceasing to love

one another.

CHAPTER IV

'Let down a rope of your hair to me that I may climb up,' Andrea called

laughingly from the terrace below to Donna Maria, where she stood

between two pillars of the loggia opening out of her rooms.

It was morning, and she had come out into the sun to dry her wet hair,

which hung round her like a heavy mantle, and accentuated the soft

pallor of her face. The black border of the vivid orange-coloured awning

hung above her head like a frieze, such as one sees round the antique

Greek vases of the Campagna. Had she had a garland of narcissus on her

brows and at her side a great nine-stringed lyre with bas-reliefs of

Apollo and a greyhound, she might have been taken for a pupil of the

school of Mytilene, or a Lesbian musician in repose as imagined by a

Pre-Raphaelite.

'You send me up a madrigal,' she answered in the same playful tone, but

drawing back a little from view.

'Very well, I will go and write one in your honour on the marble

balustrade of the lowest terrace. Come down and read it when you are

ready.'

Andrea proceeded slowly to descend the steps leading to the lower level.

In that September morning his soul seemed to dilate with every breath he

drew. A certain sanctity seemed to pervade the air; the sea shone with a

splendour of its own, as if the sources of magic rays lay in its depths;

the whole landscape was steeped in sunshine.

He stood still from time to time. The thought that Donna Maria was

perhaps watching him from the loggia disturbed him curiously, made his

heart beat fast and flutter timidly, as if he were a boy in love for

the first time. It was unspeakable bliss merely to breathe the same warm

and limpid air that she did. An immense wave of tenderness flooded his

heart and communicated itself to the trees, the rocks, the sea, as if to

beings who were his friends and confidants. He was filled with a desire

to worship humbly and purely; to bend his knee and clasp his hands and

offer up to some one this vague mute adoration which he would have been

at a loss to explain. He felt as if the goodness of all created things

was being poured out upon him and mingling with all he possessed of

goodness into one jubilant stream.

'Can it be that I love her?' he asked himself. But he dared not look

closely into his soul, lest the delicate enchantment should disperse and

vanish like a dream at break of day.

'Do I love her? And what does she think? And if she comes alone, shall I

tell her that I love her?' He took pleasure in thus asking himself

questions which he did not answer, intercepting the reply of his heart

by another question, prolonging his uncertainty--at once so tormenting

and so sweet. 'No, no--I shall not tell her that I love her. She is far

above all the others.'

Arrived at the lowest terrace, he turned round and looked up, and there

in the loggia, in the full blaze of the sun, he could just make out the

indistinct outline of a woman's form. Had she followed him with her eyes

and her thoughts down the long flights of steps? A childish impulse made

him suddenly pronounce her name aloud on the deserted terrace. 'Maria!

Maria!' he repeated, listening to his own voice. No word, no name had

ever seemed to him so sweet, so melodious so caressing. How happy he

would be if she would only allow him to call her Maria, like a sister.

This woman--so spiritual, so soulful--inspired him with the highest

sentiment of devotion and humility. If he had been asked what he

considered the sweetest possible task, he would have answered in all

sincerity--'To obey her.' Nothing in the world would have mortified him

so much as to be accounted by her a commonplace man. By no other woman

had he so ardently desired to be praised, admired, understood,

appreciated in his tastes, his cultivation, his artistic aspirations,

his ideals, his dreams, all the noblest parts of his spirit and his

life. And his highest ambition was to fill her heart.

She had now been ten days at Schifanoja, and in those ten days how

entirely she had subjugated him! They had conversed sometimes for hours

seated on the terrace or on one of the numerous marble benches scattered

about the grounds or in the long rose-bordered avenues, while Delfina

sped like a little gazelle through the winding paths of the orange

groves. In her conversation she displayed a charming flow of language,

many gems of delicate yet keen observation, occasionally affording

glimpses of her inner self with a candour that was full of grace; and

when speaking of her travels, she would often, by a single picturesque

phrase, call up before Andrea's eyes wide vistas of distant lands and

seas. On his part, he did his utmost to show himself to the best

advantage, to impress upon her the wide range of his culture, the

refinement of his taste, the exquisite keenness of his susceptibilities,

and his heart swelled with pride when she said in tones of unfeigned

sincerity after reading his _Story of the Hermaphrodite_--

'No music has ever carried me away like this poem, nor has any statue

ever given me such an impression of harmonious beauty. Certain lines

haunt me persistently, and will continue to do so for long, I am

sure--they are so intense.'

As he sat now on the marble balustrade, he was thinking of these words

of hers. Donna Maria was no longer in the loggia, the awning concealed

the whole space between the pillars. Perhaps she would soon be

down--should he write the madrigal he had promised her? But even the

slight effort necessary for writing the lines thus in hot haste seemed

intolerable to him here in the wide and opulent garden, blossoming under

the September sunshine in a sort of magical Spring. Why disturb these

rare and delicious emotions by a hurried search after rhymes? why

reduce this far reaching sentiment to a brief metrical sigh?

He resolved to break his promise and remained as he was, idly watching

the sails on the distant horizon, like fiery torches outshining the sun.

But as time went on, he grew restless and nervous, turning round every

minute to see if a feminine form had not appeared between the columns of

the vestibule which gave access to the steps--'Was this then a love

tryst? Did he expect her to join him here for some secret interview? Had

she any idea of his agitation?'

His heart gave a great throb--it was she!

She was alone. Slowly she descended the steps, and when she reached the

first terrace she stopped beside the fountain. Andrea followed her

intently with his eyes; her every movement, every attitude sent a

delicious thrill through him, as if each one of them had some special

significance, were a form of individual expression. Thus she passed down

the succession of steps and terraces, appearing and disappearing, now

completely hidden by the rose-bushes, now only her head or her rounded

bust visible above them. Sometimes the thickly interlaced boughs hid her

for several minutes, then, where the bushes were thinner, the colour of

her dress would show through them and the pale straw of her hat would

catch the sunlight. The nearer she came the more slowly she walked,

loitering among the verdant shrubs, stopping to gaze at the cypresses,

stooping to gather a handful of fallen leaves. From the last terrace but

one, she waved her hand to Andrea standing waiting for her at the foot

of the steps, and threw down to him the leaves she had gathered, which

first rose fluttering in the air like a cloud of butterflies and then

floated down--now fast, now slow,--noiseless as snowflakes on the

stones.

'Well?' she asked, leaning over the balustrade, 'what have you got for

me?'

Andrea bent his knee to the step and lifted his clasped hands.

'Nothing!' he was obliged to confess. 'I implore you to forgive me;

but, this morning, you and the sun together filled the whole world for

me with sweetness and light. _Adoremus!_

The confession was perfectly sincere, as was the adoration also, though

both were uttered in a tone of banter. Donna Maria evidently felt the

sincerity, for she coloured slightly as she said with peculiar

earnestness--

'No--don't--please don't kneel.'

He rose, and she offered him her hand, adding, 'I will forgive you this

time because you are an invalid.'

She wore a dress of a curious indefinable dull rusty red, one of those

so-called æsthetic colours one meets with in the pictures of the Early

Masters or of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was arranged in a multitude of

straight regular folds beginning immediately under the arms, and was

confined at the waist by a wide blue-green ribbon, of the pale tinge of

a faded turquoise, that fell in a great knot at her side. The sleeves

were very full and soft, and were gathered in closely at the wrist.

Another ribbon of the same shade, but much narrower, encircled her neck

and was tied at the left side in a small bow, and a similar ribbon

fastened the end of the prodigious plait which fell from under her straw

hat, round which was twined a wreath of hyacinths like that of Alma

Tadema's Pandora. A great Persian turquoise, her sole ornament, shaped

like a scarabeus and engraved with talismanic characters, fastened her

dress at the throat.

'Let us wait for Delfina,' she said, 'and then, what do you say to our

going as far as the gate of the Cybele? Would that suit you?'

She was full of delicate consideration for the convalescent Andrea was

still very pale and thin, which made his eyes look extraordinarily

large, the somewhat sensual expression of his mouth forming a singular

and not unattractive contrast to the upper part of his face.

'Yes,' he replied, 'and I am deeply grateful to you.' Then, after a

moment's hesitation--'Do you mind if I am rather silent this morning?'

'Why do you ask me that?'

'Because I feel as if I had lost my tongue and could find nothing to

say; and yet silence becomes burdensome and annoying if it is prolonged.

That is why I ask if, during our walk, you will allow me to be silent

and only listen to you.'

'Why, then, we will be silent together,' she said with a little smile.

She looked up towards the villa with evident impatience--'What a long

time Delfina is!'

'Was Francesca up when you came out?' asked Andrea.

'Oh no, she is incredibly lazy--ah, there is Delfina, do you see her?'

The little girl came hurrying down, followed by her governess. Though

not visible on the flight of steps, she appeared upon the terraces which

she traversed at a run, her hair floating over her shoulders in the

breeze from under a broad-brimmed straw hat wreathed with poppies. On

the last step she opened her arms wide to her mother and covered her

face with kisses. After this she said--'Good morning, Andrea,' and

presented her forehead to his kiss with childlike and adorable grace.

She was a fragile creature, highly strung and vibrating as an instrument

fashioned of sentient material, her flesh so delicately transparent as

to seem incapable of concealing or even veiling the radiance of the

spirit that dwelt within it like a flame in a precious lamp.

'Heart's dearest!' murmured her mother, gazing at her with a look in

which was concentrated all the tenderness of a soul wholly occupied by

this one absorbing affection. But at those words, that look, that

caress, Andrea felt a sudden stab of jealousy, something like a rebuff,

as if her heart were turning away from him, eluding him, becoming

inaccessible.

The governess asked permission to return to the villa, and the three

turned into a path bordered by orange-trees. Delfina ran on in front

with her hoop, her straight slender little legs in their long black

stockings, moving with rhythmic grace.

'You seem a little out of spirits now,' said Donna Maria to her

companion, 'and only a little while ago, when you came down, you seemed

so bright. Is something troubling you?--do you not feel so well?'

She put these questions in an almost sisterly manner soberly and kindly,

inviting his confidence. A timid desire, a vague temptation assailed the

invalid to slip his arm through hers, and let her lead him in silence

through the flickering shadows and the perfumes, over the flower-strewn

ground, down the pathways measured off at intervals by ancient

moss-grown statues. He seemed, all at once, to have returned to the

first days of his illness, those never-to-be-forgotten days of happy

languor and semi-unconsciousness, and felt as if he had great need of a

friendly support, an affectionate, a familiar arm. The desire grew so

intense that the words which would give it voice rushed to his lips.

However he merely replied--

'No, Donna Maria, thank you, I feel quite well. It is only that the

September weather rather affects me.'

She looked at him as if she rather doubted the sincerity of his reply;

but, to avoid an awkward silence after his evasive remark, she asked--

'Which of the neutral months do you like best--April or September?'

'Oh, September. It is more feminine, more discreet, more

mysterious--like a Spring seen in a dream. Then all the plants slowly

lose their vital forces, and, at the same time, some of their reality.

Look at the sea over there--has it not more the appearance of an

atmosphere than of a solid mass of water? And never, to my mind, does

the union of sea and sky seem so mystical, so profound as in September.'

They had very nearly reached the end of the path. Why should Andrea be

suddenly seized with a tremor of nervous fear on approaching the spot

where, a fortnight ago, he had written the sonnets on his deliverance?

Why this struggle between hope and anxiety lest she should discover them

and read them? Why did some of the lines keep running in his mind to

the exclusion of others, as if they expressed his actual sentiments at

that moment, his aspirations, the new dream he carried in his heart?

'I lay at thine untroubled feet my fate!'

It was true! It was true! He loved her, he laid his whole life at her

feet--was conscious of but one desire--humble and absorbing--to be the

earth between her footsteps.

'How beautiful it is here!' exclaimed Donna Maria, as she entered the

demesne of the four-fronted Hermes, into the paradise of the acanthus.

'But what a strange scent!'

The whole air was full of the odour of musk, as from the unseen presence

of some musk-breathing insect or animal. The shadows were deep and

mysterious, the rays of light which pierced the foliage, already touched

by the finger of autumn, seemed like shafts of moonlight shining through

the storied windows of a cathedral. A mixed sentiment, partly Pagan,

partly Christian, seemed to emanate from this sylvan retreat, as from a

mythological picture painted by an early Christian artist.

'Oh look, look, Delfina!' her mother exclaimed in the excited tones of

one who suddenly comes upon a thing of beauty.

Delfina had skilfully woven little sprays of orange blossom into a

garland, and now, with the fancifulness of childhood, she was eager that

it should encircle the head of the marble deity. She could not reach it,

but did her best to accomplish her object by standing on tip-toe and

stretching her arm to its utmost extent; her slender, elegant and

vivacious little figure offering a striking contrast to the rigid,

square and solemn form of the statue, like a lily-stem against an oak.

All her efforts were, however, fruitless.

Smilingly, her mother came to her aid. Taking the wreath from the

child's hand, she placed it on the pensive brows of the god. As she did

so, her eyes fell involuntarily upon the inscriptions.

'Who has been writing verses here.--You?' she asked, turning to Andrea

in surprise and pleasure. 'Yes--I recognise your hand.'

Forthwith, she knelt upon the grass to read with eager curiosity. While

Donna Maria read the words in a low voice, Delfina leaned upon her

mother's shoulder, one arm about her neck, cheek pressed to cheek. The

two figures thus bending over the pedestal of the tall flower-wreathed

statue, in the uncertain light, surrounded by the emblematical acanthus,

formed a group so harmonious in line and colouring that the poet stood a

moment lost in pure æsthetic pleasure and admiration.

But the next moment the old obscure sense of jealousy was upon him once

more. The fragile little creature clinging to the mother, indissolubly

connected with her mother's very being, seemed to him an enemy, an

insurmountable obstacle rising up against his love, his desires, his

hopes. He was not jealous of the husband, but he was of the daughter. It

was not the body but the soul of this woman that he longed to possess,

and to possess it wholly, undivided, with all its tenderness, all its

joys, its hopes, its fears, its pain, its dreams--in short the sum total

of her spiritual being, and be able to say--'I am the life of her life.'

But instead, it was the daughter who possessed all this incontestably,

absolutely, continuously. When her idol left her side, even for a short

time, the mother seemed to miss some essential element of her existence.

Her face was instantaneously and visibly transfigured when, after a

brief absence, that childish voice fell upon her ear once more. At

times, unconsciously and as if by some occult correspondence, some law

of common vital accordance, she would repeat a gesture of the child's, a

smile, an attitude, a pose of the head. Again, when the child was in

repose or asleep, she had moments of contemplation so intense that she

seemed to have lost all sense of her surroundings and to have absorbed

herself into the creature she was contemplating. When she spoke to her

darling, every word was a caress, and the plaintive lines vanished from

her mouth. Under the child's kisses, her lips quivered and her eyes

filled with ineffable happiness like the eyes of an ecstatic at a

beatific vision. If she happened to be conversing with other people or

listening to their talk, she would appear to have sudden lapses of

attention, momentary absence of mind, and this was for her daughter--for

her--always for her.

Who could ever break that chain? Could any one ever succeed in

conquering a part--even the very smallest atom of that heart? Andrea

suffered as under an irreparable loss, some forced renunciation, some

shattered hope. At this moment, this very moment, was not the child

stealing something from him?

For Delfina was playfully constraining her mother to remain upon her

knees. She hung with all her weight round Donna Maria's neck, crying

through her laughter--

'No--no--no--you shall not get up!'

And whenever her mother opened her mouth to speak, she clapped her

little hands over it to prevent her, made her laugh, bandaged her eyes

with the long plait--played a hundred pranks.

Watching her, Andrea felt, that by all this playful commotion, she was

dispelling from her mother all that his verses had possibly instilled

into her mind.

When, at last, Donna Maria succeeded in freeing herself from her darling

tyrant, she saw his annoyance in his face, and hastened to say--'Forgive

me, Andrea, Delfina is sometimes taken with these fits of wildness.'

With a deft hand she re-arranged the disordered folds of her dress.

There was a faint flush under her eyes and her breath came quickly.

'And forgive her too,' she continued with a smile to which the unwonted

animation of colour lent a singular light, 'out of consideration for her

unconscious homage, for it was she who had the happy inspiration to

place a nuptial wreath over your verses which sing of nuptial communion.

That sets a seal upon the alliance.'

'My thanks both to you and to Delfina,' answered Andrea. It was the

first time she had called him by his Christian name, and the unexpected

familiarity, combined with her gentle words, restored his confidence.

Delfina had run off down one of the paths.

'These verses are a spiritual record, are they not?' Donna Maria

resumed. 'Will you give them to me that I may not forget them?'

His natural impulse was to answer--'They are yours by right to-day, for

they speak of you and to you----' But he only said--

'You shall have them.'

They continued their way towards the Cybele, but as they were leaving

the little enclosure, Donna Maria suddenly turned round towards the

Hermes as if some one had called her; her brow seemed heavy with

thought.

'What are you thinking about?' Andrea asked her almost timidly.

'I was thinking about you,' she replied.

'What were you thinking about me?'

'I was thinking of your past life, of which I know nothing whatever. You

have suffered greatly?'

'I have greatly sinned.'

'And loved much?'

'I do not know. Perhaps it was not love that I felt. Perhaps I have yet

to learn what love is--really I cannot say.'

She did not answer. They walked on in silence for a little way. To their

right, the path was bordered by high laurels, alternating at regular

intervals with cypress trees, and in the background, through the

fluttering leaves, the sea rippled and laughed, blue as the flower of

the flax. On their left ran a kind of parapet like the back of a long

stone bench, ornamented throughout its whole length with the Ateleta

shield and arms and a griffin alternately, under each of which again was

a sculptured mask through whose mouth a slender stream of water fell

into a basin below, shaped like a sarcophagus and ornamented with

mythological subjects in low relief. There must have been a hundred of

these mouths, for the walk was called the avenue of the Hundred

Fountains, but many of them were stopped up by time and had ceased to

spout, while others did very little. Many of the shields were broken and

moss had obliterated the coats of arms; many of the griffins were

headless and the figures on the sarcophagi appeared through a veil of

moss like fragments of silver work through an old and ragged velvet

cover. On the water in the basins--more green and limpid than

emerald--maiden-hair waved and quivered, or rose leaves, fallen from the

bushes overhead, floated slowly while the surviving waterpipes sent

forth a sweet and gurgling music that played over the murmur of the sea

like the accompaniment to a melody.

'Do you hear that?' said Donna Maria, standing still to listen,

attracted by the charm of the sound. 'That is the music of salt and of

sweet waters!'

She stood in the middle of the path, finger on lip, leaning a little

towards the fountains, in the attitude of one who listens and fears to

be disturbed. Andrea, who was next the parapet, turned and saw her thus

against a background of delicate and feathery verdure such as an Umbrian

painter would have given to an Annunciation or a Nativity.

'Maria!' he murmured, his heart filling with fond adoration,

'Maria!--Maria--!'

It afforded him untold pleasure to mingle the soft accents of her name

with the music of the waters. She did not look at him, but she laid her

finger on her lips as a sign to him to be silent.

'Forgive me,' he said, unable to control his emotion--'but I cannot help

myself--it is my soul that calls to you.'

A strange nervous exaltation had taken possession of him, all the

hill-tops of his soul had caught the lyric glow and flamed up

irresistibly; the hour, the place, the sunshine, everything about them

suggested love--from the extreme limits of the sea to the humble little

ferns of the fountains--all seemed to him part of the same magic circle

whose central point was this woman.

'You can never know,' he went on in a subdued voice as if fearful of

offending her--'You can never know how absolutely my soul is yours.'

She grew suddenly very pale, as if all the blood in her veins had rushed

to her heart. She did not speak, she did not look at him.

'Delfina!' she cried, with a tremor of agitation in her voice.

There was no answer; the little girl had wandered off among the trees at

the end of the long avenue.

'Delfina,' she repeated, louder than before, in a sort of terror.

In the pause that followed her cry the songs of the two waters seemed to

make the silence deeper.

'Delfina!'

There was a rustling in the leaves as if from the passage of a little

kid, and the child came bounding through the laurel thicket, carrying in

her hands her straw hat heaped to the brim with little red berries she

had gathered. Her exertions and the running had brought a deep flush to

her cheeks, broken twigs were sticking in her frock, and some leaves

hung trembling in the meshes of her ruffled hair.

'Oh mamma, come quick--do come with me!'

She began dragging her mother away--'There is a perfect forest over

there--heaps and heaps of berries! Come with me, mamma, do come--'

'No, darling, I would rather not--it is getting late.'

'Oh, do come!'

'But it is late.'

'Come! Come!'

Donna Maria was obliged to give in and let herself be dragged along by

the hand.

'There is a way of reaching the arbutus wood without going through the

thicket,' said Andrea.

'Do you hear, Delfina? There is a better way.'

'No, mamma, I want you to come with me.'

Delfina pulled her mother along towards the sea through the laurel

thicket, and Andrea followed, content to be able to gaze without

restraint at the beloved figure in front of him, to devour her with his

eyes, to study her every movement and her rhythmic walk, interrupted

every moment by the irregularities of the path, the obstacles presented

by the trees and their interlaced branches. But while his eyes feasted

on these things, his mind was chiefly occupied in recalling the one

attitude, the one look--oh, that pallor, that sudden pallor just now

when he had proffered those few low words! And the indefinable tone of

her voice when she called Delfina.

'Is it far now?' asked Donna Maria.

'No, no, mamma, we are just there--here it is!'

As they neared the spot a sort of shyness came over Andrea. Since those

words of his he had not met Maria's eye. What did she think? What were

her feelings? What would her eyes say when, at last, she looked at him?

'Here it is!' cried the little girl.

The laurels had grown thinner, affording a freer view of the sea, and

the next moment the mass of arbutus flushed rosy-red before them like a

forest of coral with large tassels of blossom at the end of their

branches.

'What a glory!' murmured Maria.

The marvellous wilderness bloomed and bore fruit in a deep and sunny

space curved like an amphitheatre, in which all the delicious sweetness

of that aromatic shore seemed gathered up and concentrated. The stems,

tall and slender, crimson for the most part, but here and there yellow,

bore great shining green leaves, all motionless in the calm air.

Innumerable tassels of blossom, like sprays of lily-of-the-valley, white

and dewy, hung from the young boughs, while the maturer ones were loaded

with red or orange-yellow fruit. And all this wondrous pomp of blossom

and fruit, of green leaves and rosy stems displayed against the

brilliant blue of the sea, like a garden in a fairy tale, intense and

fantastic as a dream.

'What a marvel!'

Donna Maria advanced slowly, no longer led by Delfina, who, wild with

delight, rushed about with no thought but for stripping the whole wood.

Andrea plucked up his courage.

'Can you forgive me?' he asked anxiously. 'I did not mean to offend you.

Indeed, seeing you so far above me, so pure, so unapproachable, I

thought that never in this world could I reveal my secret to you, never

ask anything of you, never put myself in your way. Since ever I saw you,

I have thought of you night and day, but without hope, without any

definite end in view. I know that you do not love me, that you never can

love me. And yet, believe me, I would renounce every promise that life

may have in store for me, just for the hope of living in a little corner

of your heart----'

She continued to advance slowly under the sun-flecked trees, while the

delicate tassels of pink and white blossom swayed gently above her head.

'Believe me, Maria--only believe me! If I were bidden at this moment to

give up every desire and every ambition, the dearest memories of the

past and the most flattering promises of the future, and to live solely

in the thought of and for you--without a to-morrow, without a yesterday,

without other ties or attachments, far from the world, lost to

everything but you, till death--to all eternity--I would not hesitate

for one instant. You have looked at me and talked to me, have smiled and

answered; you have sat at my side pensive and silent; side by side with

me you have lived your own inner life, that inscrutable and inaccessible

existence of which I know nothing--can never know anything--- and your

soul has taken full and absolute possession of mine to its deepest

depths, but without ever a thought, without being aware of it, as the

ocean swallows up a river.--What is my love to you? What is any one's

love to you? The word has too often been profaned, and the sentiment too

often a make-believe.--I do not offer you love. But surely you will not

refuse the humble tribute of devotion that my spirit offers up to a

being nobler and higher than itself.'

She walked on at the same slow pace, her head bent, her face bloodless,

towards a seat at the further end of the wood and facing the sea.

It was a wide semicircle of white marble with a back running round the

entire length and, for sole ornamentation, a lion's paw at each end as a

support. It recalled those antique seats on which, in some island of the

Archipelago or in Greece or Pompeii, ladies reclined and listened to a

reading from the poets, under the shade of the oleanders, within sight

of the sea. Here the arbutus cast the shadow of its blossom and its

fruit, and in contrast to the marble, the coral of the stems seemed more

vivid than elsewhere.

'I care for everything that interests you; you possess all those things

after which I am seeking. Pity from you would be more precious to me

than passionate love from any other woman. Your hand upon my heart--I

know--would cause a second youth to spring up in me far purer than the

first and stronger. The ceaseless vacillation which makes up the sum of

my inner life would find rest and stability in you. My unsatisfied and

restless spirit, harried by a perpetual warfare between attraction and

repulsion, eternally and irremediably alone, would find in yours a haven

of refuge against the doubts which contaminate every ideal, and weaken

the will. There are men more unfortunate, but I doubt if in the whole

wide world there was ever one less happy than I.'

He was making use of Obermann's words as his own. In the sort of

sentimental intoxication to which he had worked himself up, all his

melancholy broodings surged to his lips, and the mere sound of his own

voice--with a little quiver of humble entreaty in it--served to augment

his emotions.

'I do not venture to tell you all my thoughts. At your side, during the

few days since I first met you, I have had moments of oblivion so

complete as almost to make me feel that I was back in the first days of

my convalescence, when the sense of another world was still present with

me. The past, the future were obliterated--as if the former had never

been, and the latter never would be. The whole world was without form

and void. Then, something like a dream, dim but stupendous, rose upon my

soul--a fluttering veil, now impenetrable, now transparent, and yielding

intermittent glimpses of a splendid but unattainable treasure. What did

you know or care about me in such moments? Doubtless your spirit was far

away from me. And yet, your mere bodily presence was sufficient to

intoxicate me--I felt it flowing through my veins like blood, taking

hold upon my soul with superhuman force----'

She sat silent and motionless, gazing straight before her, her figure

erect, her hands rigidly clasped in her lap, in the attitude of one who

makes a supreme effort to brace himself against his own weakness. Only

her mouth--the expression of the lips she vainly strove to keep

firm--betrayed a sort of anguished rapture.

'I dare not tell you all I feel.--Maria, Maria, can you forgive me?--say

that you forgive me.'

Two little hands came suddenly from behind the seat and clasped

themselves over the mother's eyes, and a voice panting with fun and

mischief cried--

'Guess who it is--guess who it is!'

She smiled, and allowed herself to be drawn backwards by Delfina's

clinging fingers, and instantly, with preternatural clearness, Andrea

saw that smile wipe away all the obscure, delicious pain from her lips,

efface every sign that might be construed into an avowal, put to flight

the least lingering shadow of uncertainty that he might possibly have

converted into a gleam of hope. He sat there like a man who has expected

to drink from an overflowing cup and suddenly finds it has nothing but

the empty air to offer to his thirsty lips.

'Guess!'

The little girl covered her mother's head with loud, quick kisses, in a

kind of frenzy, even hurting her a little.

'I know who it is--I know who it is,' cried Donna Maria--'Let me go!'

'What will you give me if I do?'

'Anything you like.'

'Well, I want a pony to carry back my berries to the house. Come and see

what a heap I have collected.'

She ran round the seat and pulled her mother by the hand. Donna Maria

rose rather wearily, and as she stood up she closed her eyes for a

moment as if overcome by sudden giddiness. Andrea rose too, and both

followed in Delfina's wake.

The mischievous child had stripped half the wood of fruit. The lower

branches had not a single berry left. With the aid of a stick, picked up

goodness knows where, she had reaped a prodigious harvest and then piled

up the fruit into one great heap, so intense in colouring against the

dark soil, that it looked like a heap of glowing embers. The flowers had

apparently not attracted her; there they hung, white and pink and yellow

and translucent, more delicate than the flowering locks of the acacia,

more graceful than the lily-of-the-valley, all bathed in dim golden

light.

'Oh Delfina! Delfina!' exclaimed Donna Maria, looking round upon the

devastation, 'what have you done!'

The child laughed and clapped her hands with glee in front of the

crimson pyramid.

'You will have to leave it all here.'

'No--no--'

At first she refused, but she thought for a moment, and then said, half

to herself with beaming eyes: 'The doe will come and eat them.'

She had probably noticed the beautiful creature moving about in the

park, and the thought of having collected so much food for it pleased

her and fired her imagination, already full of stories in which deer are

beneficent and powerful fairies who repose on silken cushions and drink

from jewelled cups. She remained silent and absorbed, picturing to

herself the beautiful tawny animal browsing on the fruit under the

flowering trees.'

'Come,' said Donna Maria, 'it is getting late.'

Holding Delfina by the hand, she walked on till they came to the edge of

the wood. Here she stopped to look at the sea, which, catching the

reflection of the clouds, was like a vast undulating, glittering sheet

of silk.

Without a word, Andrea plucked a spray of blossom, so full that the twig

it hung from bent beneath its weight, and offered it to Donna Maria. As

she took it from his hand she looked at him, but she did not open her

lips.

They passed on down the avenue, Delfina talking, talking incessantly;

repeating the same things over and over again, infatuated about the doe,

inventing long monotonous tales in which she ran one fairy story into

another, losing herself in labyrinths of her own creation, as if the

sparkling freshness of the morning air had gone to her head. And round

about the doe she grouped the children of the king, Cinderellas, fairy

queens, magicians, monsters--all the familiar personages of those

imaginary realms, crowding them in tumultuously with the kaleidoscopic

rapidity of a dream. Her prattle sounded like the warbling of a bird;

full of sweet modulations, with now and then a rapid succession of

melodious notes that were not words,--a continuation of the wave of

music already set in motion, like the vibrations of a string during a

pause--when in the childish mind, the connection between the idea and

its verbal expression met with a momentary interruption.

The other two neither spoke nor listened. To them the little girl's

bird-like twittering covered the murmur of their own thoughts, and if

Delfina stopped for a moment's breathing space, they felt as strangely

perturbed and apprehensive as if the silence might disclose or lay bare

their souls.

The avenue of the Hundred Fountains stretched away before them in

diminishing perspective; a peacock, perched upon one of the shields,

took flight at their approach, scattering the rose leaves into a

fountain below. A few steps further on, Andrea recognised the one beside

which Donna Maria had stood, and listened to the music of the waters.

In the retreat of the Hermes the smell of musk had evaporated. The

statue, all pensive under its garland, was flecked with patches of

sunshine which filtered through the surrounding foliage. Blackbirds

piped and answered one another.

Taken with a sudden fancy, Delfina exclaimed, 'Mamma, I want the wreath

again.'

'No, leave it there--why should you take it away?'

'I want it for Muriella.'

'But Muriella will spoil it.'

'Do, please, give it me.'

Donna Maria looked at Andrea. He slowly went up to the statue, lifted

the wreath and handed it to Delfina. In the exaltation of their spirits,

this simple little episode had all the mysterious significance of an

allegory--was in some way symbolical. One of his own lines ran

persistently in Andrea's head--

'Have I attained, have I then paid the price?'

The nearer they approached the end of the pathway, the fiercer grew the

pain at his heart; he would have given half his life for a word from the

woman he loved. A dozen times she seemed on the point of speaking, but

she did not.

'Look, mamma, there are Fernandino and Muriella and Ricardo,' cried

Delfina, catching sight of Francesca's children; and she started off

running towards them and waving her wreath.

'Muriella! Muriella! Muriella!'

CHAPTER V

Maria Ferrès had always remained faithful to her girlhood's habit of

setting down daily in her journal the passing thoughts, the joys, the

sorrows, the fancies, the doubts, the aspirations, the regrets and the

hopes--all the events of her spiritual life as well as the various

incidents of her outward existence, compiling thereby a sort of

Itinerary of the Soul which she liked occasionally to study, both for

guidance on the path still to be pursued and also to follow the traces

of things long dead and forgotten.

Perpetually denied, by force of circumstances, the relief of

self-expansion, enclosed within the magic circle of her purity as in a

tower of ivory for ever incorruptible and inaccessible, she found solace

and refreshment in the daily outpourings she confided to the white pages

of her private book. Therein she was free to make her moan, to abandon

herself to her griefs, to seek to decipher the enigma of her own heart,

to interrogate her conscience; here she gained courage in prayer,

tranquillised herself by meditation, laid her troubled spirit once more

in the hands of the Heavenly Father. And from every page shone the same

pure light--the light of Truth.

'_September 15th_ (Schifanoja).--How tired I feel! The journey was

rather fatiguing and the unaccustomed sea air makes my head ache at

first. I need rest, and I already seem to have a foretaste of the

sweetness of sleep and the happiness of awaking in the morning in the

house of a friend and to the pleasures of Francesca's cordial

hospitality at Schifanoja with its lovely roses and its tall cypress

trees. I shall wake up to the knowledge that I have some weeks of peace

before me--twenty days, perhaps even more, of congenial intellectual

companionship. I am very grateful to Francesca for her invitation. To

see her again was like meeting a sister. How much and how profoundly I

have changed since the dear old days in Florence!

'Speaking to-day of my hair, Francesca began recalling stories of our

absurd childish passions and melancholies in those days; of Carlotta

Fiordelise and Gabriella Vanni and various incidents of that distant

school life which seems to me now as though I had never lived it, but

only read it of it in some old forgotten book or seen it in a dream. My

hair has not fallen, but for every hair of my head there has been a

thorn in my destiny.

'But why let my sad thoughts get the upper hand over me again? And why

let memory cause me pain? It is useless to lament over a grave which

never gives back its dead. Would to Heaven I could remember that, once

for all!

'Francesca is still young, and has retained the frank and charming

gaiety which, in our school days, exercised such a strange fascination

over my somewhat gloomy temperament. She has one great and rare virtue:

though she is light-hearted herself, she can enter into the troubles of

others and knows how to lighten them by her kindly sympathy and pity.

She is above all things a woman of high intelligence and refined tastes,

a perfect hostess and a friend who never palls upon one. She is perhaps

a trifle too fond of witty _mots_ and sparkling epigrams, but her darts

are always tipped with gold, and she aims them with inimitable grace.

Among all the women of the great world I have ever known there is

certainly not one to compare with her, and of all my friends, she is the

one I care for most.

'Her children are not like her, they are not handsome. But the youngest,

Muriella, is a dear little thing, with the sweet laugh and the eyes of

her mother. She did the honours of the house to Delfina with all the air

of a little lady; she has certainly inherited her mother's perfect

manner.

'Delfina seems to be happy. She has already explored the greater part of

the grounds, as far as the sea, and has run down all the flights of

steps. She came to tell me about all the wonderful things she had

seen--panting, swallowing half the words, her eyes looking almost

dazzled. She spoke continually of her new friend Muriella--a pretty name

that sounds still prettier from her lips.

'She is fast asleep. When her eyes are closed, her lashes cast a long,

long shadow on her cheeks. Francesca's cousin was struck by their length

this evening and quoted a beautiful line from Shakespeare's Tempest on

Miranda's eyelashes.

'The scent of the flowers is too strong in this room. Delfina was

anxious to keep the bouquet of roses by her bedside, but now that she is

asleep I shall take them away and put them out into the loggia in the

fresh air.

'I am tired, and yet I have written four pages; I am sleepy, and yet I

would gladly prolong this languor of soul, lulled by I know not what

unwonted sense of tenderness diffused around me. It is so long--so

long--since I have felt myself surrounded by a little kindness!

'I have just carried the vase of roses into the loggia and stayed there

a few moments to listen to the voices of the night, moved by the regret

of losing in the blindness of sleep the hours that pass under so

beautiful a sky. How strange is the harmony between the song of the

fountains and the murmur of the sea! The cypresses seemed to be the

pillars of the firmament; the stars shining just above them tipped their

summits with fire.

'_September 16th._--A delightful afternoon, spent almost entirely in

conversation with Francesca in the loggia, on the terraces, in the

avenues, at the various points of outlook of this villa, which looks as

if it had been built by a princely poet to drown a grief. The name of

the Palace at Ferrara suits it admirably.

'Francesca gave me a sonnet of Count Sperelli's to read--a trifle, but

of rare literary charm, and inscribed on vellum. Sperelli has a mind of

a very high order, and is most intense. To-day at dinner, he said

several very beautiful things. He is recovering from a terrible wound

received in a duel in Rome last May. In all his actions, his looks, his

words, there is that affectionate and charming licence which is the

prerogative of the convalescent, of those who have newly escaped the

clutches of death. He must be very young, but he has gone through much

and lived fast. He bears the evidences of it.... A charming evening of

conversation and music all by ourselves after dinner. I talked too much,

or, at any rate, with two much eagerness. But Francesca listened and

encouraged me, and so did Count Sperelli. That is just the delightful

part of a conversation not on common subjects--to feel the same degree

of warmth animating the minds of all present. Only then do one's words

have the true ring of sincerity and give real pleasure, both to the

speaker and the hearer.

'Francesca's cousin is a most cultivated judge of music. He greatly

admires the masters of the eighteenth century, Domenico Scarlatti being

his special favourite. But his most ardent devotion is reserved for

Sebastian Bach. He does not care much for Chopin, and Beethoven affects

him too profoundly and perturbs his spirit.

'He listened to me with a singular expression, almost as if dazed or

distressed. I nearly always addressed myself to Francesca, but I felt

his eyes upon me with an insistence which embarrassed but did not offend

me. He must still be weak and ill and a prey to his nerves. Finally he

asked me--"Do you sing?" in the same tone in which he would have

said--"Do you love me?"

'I sang an air of Paisiello's and another by Salieri, and I played a

little eighteenth century music. I was in good voice and my touch on the

piano happy.

'He gave me no word of thanks or praise, but remained perfectly silent.

I wonder why?

'Delfina was in bed by that time. When I went upstairs afterwards to see

her, I found her asleep, but with her eyelashes wet as if with tears.

Poor darling! Dorothy told me that my voice could be heard distinctly up

here, and that Delfina had wakened from her first sleep and begun to

sob, and wanted to come down.

'She is asleep again now, but from time to time her little bosom heaves

with a suppressed sob which sends a vague distress into my own heart,

and a desire to respond to that involuntary sob, to this grief which

sleep cannot assuage. Poor darling!

'Who is playing the piano downstairs, I wonder? With the soft pedal

down, some one is trying over that gavotte of Rameau's, so full of

bewitching melancholy, that I was playing just now. Who can it be?

Francesca came up with me--it is late.

'I went out and leaned over the loggia. The room opening into the

vestibule is dark, but there is light in the room next to it, where

Manuel and the Marchese are still playing cards.

'The gavotte has stopped, some one is going down the steps into the

garden.

'Why should I be so alert, so watchful, so curious? Why should every

sound startle me to-night?

'Delfina has wakened and is calling me.

'_September 17th._--Manuel left this morning. We accompanied him to the

station at Rovigliano. He will return about the 10th of October to fetch

me, and we all go on to Sienna, to my mother. Delfina and I will

probably stay at Sienna till after the New Year. I shall see the Loggia

of the Pope and the Fonte Gaja, and my beautiful black and white

Cathedral once more--that beloved dwelling-place of the Blessed Virgin,

where a part of my soul has ever remained to pray in a spot that my

knees know well.

'I always have a vision of that spot clearly before me, and when I go

back I shall kneel on the exact stone where I always used to. I know it

as well as if my knees had left a deep hollow there. And there too I

shall find that portion of my soul which still lingers there in prayer

beneath the starry blue vault above, which is mirrored in the marble

floor like a midnight sky in a placid lake.

'Assuredly nothing there is changed. In the costly chapel, full of

palpitating shadow and mysterious gloom, alive with the glint of

precious marble, the lamps burned softly, all their light seemingly

gathered into the little globe of oil that fed the flame as into some

limpid topaz. Little by little, under my intent gaze, the sculptured

stone grew less coldly white, took on warm ivory tints, became gradually

penetrated by the pallid life of the celestial beings, and over the

marble forms crept the faint transparency of angelic flesh.

'Ah, how fervent and spontaneous were my prayers then! When I absorbed

myself in meditation, I seemed to be walking through the secret paths of

my soul as in a garden of delight, where nightingales sang in the

blossoming trees and turtle-doves cooed beside the running waters of

Grace divine.

'_September 18th._--A day of nameless torture. Something seems to be

forcing me to gather up, to re-adjust, to join together the fragments of

a dream, half of which is being confusedly realised outside of me, and

the other half going on equally confusedly in my own heart. And try as I

will, I cannot succeed in piecing it completely together.

'_September 19th._--Continued torture. Long ago, some one sang to me but

never finished the song. Now some one is taking up the strain at the

point where it broke off, but meanwhile, I have forgotten the beginning.

And my spirit loses itself in vain gropings after the old melody, nor

can it find any pleasure in the new.

'_September 20th._--To-day, after lunch, Andrea Sperelli invited me and

Francesca to come to his room and look at some drawings that had arrived

for him yesterday from Rome.

'It would not be too much to say that an entire Art has passed before

our eyes to-day--an art studied and analysed by the hand of a master

draughtsman. I have never experienced a more intense pleasure.

'The drawings are Sperelli's own work--studies, sketches, notes,

mementos of every gallery in Europe; they are, so to speak, his

breviary, a wonderful breviary in which each of the Old Masters has his

special page, affording a condensed example of his manner, bringing out

the most lofty and original beauties of his work, the _punctum saliens_

of his entire productions. In going through the large collection, not

only have I received a distinct impression of the various schools, the

movements, the influences which have combined to develop the art of

painting in various countries, but I feel that I have had a glimpse into

the spirit, the essential meaning of the art of each individual painter.

I am as if intoxicated with art, my brain is full of lines and figures,

but in the midst of the apparent confusion there stand out clearly

before me the women of the early masters, those never-to-be-forgotten

heads of Saints and Virgins which smiled down upon my childish piety in

old Sienna from the frescoes of Taddeo and Simone.

'No masterpiece of art, however advanced and brilliant, leaves upon the

mind so strong and enduring an impression. All these slender forms,

delicate and drooping as lily-buds, these grave and noble attitudes for

receiving a flower offered by an angel, placing the fingers on an open

book, bending over the Holy Infant, or supporting the body of Christ; in

the act of blessing, of agonising, of ascending into Heaven--all these

things, so pure, so sincere, so profoundly touching, affect the soul to

its depths and imprint themselves for ever on the memory.

'Thus, one by one, the women of the Early Masters passed in review

before us. Francesca and I were seated on a low couch with a great stand

before us, on which lay the portfolio containing the drawings which the

artist, seated opposite, slowly turned over, commenting on each in

succession. I watched his hand as he took up a sheet and placed it with

peculiar care on the other side of the portfolio, and each time I felt a

sort of thrill, as if that hand were going to touch me--Why?--

'Presently, his position doubtless becoming uncomfortable, he knelt on

the floor, and in that attitude continued turning over the drawings. In

speaking, he nearly always addressed himself to me, not at all with the

air of imparting instruction, but as if discussing the pictures with a

person as familiar with the subject as he was himself; and, at the

bottom of my heart, I was conscious of a sense of complacency mingled

with gratitude. Whenever I exclaimed in admiration, he looked at me with

a smile which I can still see, but cannot define. Two or three times,

Francesca rested her arm on his shoulder in unconscious familiarity.

Looking at the head of the first-born of Moses, copied from Botticelli's

fresco in the Sistine Chapel, she said--"It has a look of you when you

are in one of your melancholy moods."--And when we came to the head of

the Archangel Michael from Perugino's Madonna of Pavia, she

remarked---"It is a little like Giulia Moceto, is it not?" He did not

answer, but only turned the page over rather sooner than usual. Upon

which she added with a laugh--"Away with the pictures of sin!"

'This Giulia Moceto is, I suppose, some one he was once in love with.

The page once turned, I had a wild, unreasoning desire to look at the

Michael again and examine the face more closely. Was it merely artistic

curiosity?

'I cannot say, I dare not pry into my heart, I prefer to temporise, to

deceive myself; I have not the courage to face the battle, I am a

coward.

'And yet the present is so sweet. My imagination is as excited as if I

had drunk strong tea. I have no desire to go to bed. The night is soft

and warm as if it were August, the sky is cloudless but dimly veiled,

the breathing of the sea comes slow and deep, but the fountains fill up

the pauses. The loggia attracts me--shall we go out and dream a little,

my heart and I?--dream of what?

'The eyes of the Virgins and the Saints pursue me--deep-set, long and

narrow, with meekly downcast lids, from under which they gaze at one

with that charmed look--innocent as the dove, and yet a little side-long

like the serpent. "Be ye harmless as doves and wise as serpents," said

Our Lord--

'Yes, be wise--go, say your prayers, and then, to bed and sleep----

'_September 21st._--Alas, must the heavy task ever painfully begin again

from the beginning, the steep path be climbed, the battle that was won

fought over again!

'_September 22nd._--He has given me one of his poems, _The Story of the

Hermaphrodite_, the twenty-first of the twenty-five copies, printed on

vellum and with two proof engravings of the frontispiece.

'It is a remarkable work, enclosing a mystic and profound idea, although

the musical element predominates, entrancing the soul by the unfamiliar

magic of its melody, which envelopes the thoughts that shine out like a

glister of gold and diamonds through a limpid stream. Certain lines

pursue me incessantly and will continue to do so for long, no

doubt--they are so intense.... Every day and every hour he subjugates me

more and more, mind and soul--against my will, despite my resistance.

His every word and look, his slightest action sinks into my heart.

'_September 23rd._--When we converse with one another, I sometimes feel

as if his voice were an echo of my soul. At times, a sudden wild frenzy

comes over me, a blind desire, an unreasoning impulse to make some

remark, utter some word that would betray my secret weakness. I only

save myself from it by a miracle, and then there falls an interval of

silence, during which I am shaken with inward terror. Then, when I do

speak again, it is to say something trivial in the lightest tone I can

command, but I feel as if a flame were rushing over my face--that I am

going to blush. If he were to seize this moment to look me boldly in the

eyes, I should be lost!

'I played a good deal this evening, chiefly Bach and Schumann. As on the

first evening, he sat in a low chair to the right but a little behind

me. From time to time, at the end of each piece, he rose and leaned over

me, turning the pages to point out another Fugue or Intermezzo. Then he

would sit down again and listen, motionless, profoundly absorbed, his

eyes fixed on me, forcing me to _feel_ his presence.

'Did he understand, I wonder, how much of myself, of my thoughts and

griefs found voice in the music of others?

'It is a threatening night. A hot moist wind blows over the garden and

its dull moaning dies away in the darkness only to begin again more

loudly. The tops of the cypresses wave to and fro under an almost inky

sky in which the stars burn with feeble ray. A band of clouds spans the

heavens from side to side, ragged, contorted, blacker than the sky, like

the tragic locks of a Medusa. The sea is invisible through the darkness,

but it sobs as if in measureless and uncontrollable grief--forsaken and

alone.

'Why this unreasoning terror? The night seems to warn me of approaching

disaster, a warning that finds its echo in a dim remorse within my

heart.

'But I always take comfort from my daughter, she heals my fever like

some blessed balm.

'She is asleep now, shaded from the lamp which shines with the soft

radiance of the moon. Her face--white with dewy freshness of a white

rose, seems half buried in the masses of her dark hair. One would think

the eyelids were too delicately transparent to veil the splendour of her

eyes. As I lean over her and gaze at her, all the sinister voices of the

night are silenced for me, and the silence is measured only by her

gentle respiration.

'She feels the vicinity of her mother. The longer I contemplate her, the

more does she assume in my eyes the aspect of some ethereal creature, of

a being formed of "such stuff as dreams are made of."

'She shall grow up nourished and enwrapped by the flame of my love--of

my great, my _only_ love----

'_September 24th._--I can form no resolve--I can decide upon no plan of

action. I am simply abandoning myself a little to this new sentiment,

shutting my eyes to the distant peril, and my ears to the warning voice

of conscience, with the shuddering temerity of one who, in gathering

violets, ventures too near the edge of a precipice at the foot of which

roars a hungry torrent.

'He shall never know anything from my lips, I shall never know anything

from his. Our two souls will mount together, for a brief space, to the

mountain-tops of the Ideal, will drink side by side at the perennial

fountains, and then each go on its separate way, encouraged and

refreshed.

'How still the air is this afternoon! The sea has the faint milky-blue

tints of the opal, of Murano glass, with here and there a patch like a

mirror dimmed by a breath.

'I am reading Shelley, a favourite poet with him, that divine Ariel

feeding upon light and speaking with the tongues of angels. It is

night----

'_September 25th._--_Mio Dio! Mio Dio!_ His voice when he spoke my

name--the tremor in it--oh, I thought my heart was breaking in my bosom,

and that I must inevitably lose consciousness.--"You will never know,"

he said--"never know how utterly my soul is yours."

'We were in the avenue of the fountains--I was listening to the sound of

the water; but from that moment, I heard nothing more. Everything around

me seemed to flee away, carrying my life with it, and the earth to open

beneath my feet. I made a superhuman effort to control myself. Delfina's

name rose to my lips and I was seized with a wild impulse to fly to her

for protection, for safety. Three times I cried that name, but in the

intervals my heart ceased to beat and the breath died away upon my lips.

'_September 26th._--Was it true? Was it not merely some illusion of my

overwrought and distracted spirit? Why should that hour yesterday seem

to me so far away, so _unreal_?

'He spoke a second time, at greater length, close to my side while I

walked on under the trees as in a dream.--Under the trees was it? It

seemed to me rather that I was walking through the hidden pathways of my

soul, among flowers born of my imagination, listening to the words of an

invisible spirit that yet was part of myself.

'I can still hear the sweet and dreadful words--"I would renounce all

that the future may hold for me to live in a small corner of your

heart--Far from the world, wholly lost in the thought of you--until

death, to all eternity"--And again--"Pity from you would be far dearer

to me than love from any other woman. Your mere presence suffices to

intoxicate me--I feel it flowing into my veins like my life's blood and

filling my soul with rapture beyond all telling."

'_September 27th._--When he gathered the spray of blossom at the

entrance to the wood and offered it to me, did I not, in my heart, call

him--_Life of my life_?

'When, in the avenue, we passed again by the fountain where he first

spoke to me, did I not call him _Life of my life_?

'When he took the wreath from off the Hermes and gave it back to my

child, did he not give me to understand that the woman exalted in these

verses had fallen from her high estate, and that I, I alone, was all his

hope? And once more I called him _Life of my life_.

'_September 28th._--How long I have been in finding peace!

'From that moment onwards, what hours of struggle and travail I have

had, how painfully I have striven to penetrate the real state of my

mind, to see things in their true light, bring a calm and fair judgment

to bear upon what has happened, to recognise and determine upon my duty!

But I continually evaded myself, my mind became confused, my will was

but a broken reed on which to lean, every effort was vain. By a sort of

instinct, I have avoided being alone with him, kept close to Francesca

or my child, or stayed here in my room as in a haven of refuge. When my

eyes did meet his, I seemed to read in them a profound and imploring

sadness. Does he not know how deeply, deeply, deeply I love him?

'He does not know it, nor ever will. That is my firm resolve--that is my

duty. Courage!

'Help me, oh my God!

'_September 29th._--Why did he speak? Why did he break the enchanted

silence in which I let my soul be steeped, almost without regret or

fear? Why tear away the veil of uncertainty and put me face to face with

his unveiled love? Now I have no further excuse for temporising, for

deluding myself. The danger is there--certain, undeniable, manifest--it

attracts me to its dizzy edge like a precipice. One moment of weakness,

of languor, and I am lost.

'I ask myself--am I sincere in my pain and regret at this unexpected

revelation? How is it that I think perpetually of those words? And why,

when I repeat them to myself, does a wave of ineffable rapture sweep

over my soul? Why do I thrill to the heart's core at the imagined

prospect of hearing more--more such words?

'Night. The agitation of my soul takes the forms of questions,

riddles--I ask myself endless questions to which I never have an answer.

I have not had the courage to look myself through and through--to form a

really bold and honest resolution. I am pusillanimous, I am a coward. I

shrink from pain, I want to suffer as little as possible, I prefer to

temporise, to hang back, to resort to subterfuges, to wilfully blind

myself instead of courageously facing the risks of a decisive battle.

'The fact of the matter is this--that I am _afraid_ of being alone with

him, of having a serious conversation with him, and so my life is

reduced to a series of petty schemes and manoeuvrings and pretexts for

avoiding his company. Such devices are unworthy of me. Either I must

renounce this love altogether, and he shall hear my sad but firm

resolve, or I shall accept it, in so far as it is pure, and he will

receive my spiritual consent.

'And now I ask myself--What do I really want? Which of the two paths am

I to choose? Must I renounce--shall I accept?

'My God! my God! answer Thou for me--light up the path before me!

'To renounce is like tearing out a piece of my heart with my own hands.

The agony would be supreme, the wrench would exceed the limits of the

endurable. But, by God's grace, such heroism would be crowned by

resignation, would be rewarded by that sweet and holy calm which follows

upon every high moral impulse, every victory of the soul over the dread

of suffering.

'I shall renounce--my daughter shall keep possession of my whole life,

of my whole soul. That is the path of duty, and I will walk in it.

'Sow in tears, oh mourning souls, that ye may reap with songs of

gladness!

'_September 30th._--I feel somewhat calmer in writing these pages. I

regain, at least for the moment, some slight balance of mind. I can look

my misfortune more clearly in the face, and my heart seems relieved as

if after confession.

'Oh, if I could but go to confession!--could implore counsel and help of

my old friend and comforter, Dom Luigi!

'What sustains me most of all in my tribulation, is the thought that in

a short time I shall see him again and be able to pour out all my griefs

and fears to him, show him all my wounds, ask of him a balm for all my

ills, as I used to in the days when his benign and solemn words would

call up tears of tenderness to my eyes, that knew not then the

bitterness of other tears or--more terrible by far--the burning pain of

dry-eyed misery.

'Will he understand me still? Can he fathom the deep anguish of the

woman as he understood the vague and fitful melancholy of the girl?

Shall I ever again see him lean towards me in pity and consolation, that

gentle brow, crowned with silvery locks, illumined with purity and

holiness, and sanctified by the hand of the Lord?

'In the chapel, after mass, I played on the organ music of Bach and of

Cherubini. I played the same prelude as the other evening.

'A soul weeps and moans, weighed down with anguish, weeps and moans and

cries to God, asking His pardon, imploring His aid, with a prayer that

rises to heaven like a tongue of fire. It cries and it is heard--its

prayer is answered; it receives light from above, utters songs of

gladness reaches at length the haven of Peace and Truth and rests in the

Lord----

'The organ is not large nor is the chapel, but, nevertheless, my soul

expanded as in a basilica, soared up as under some vast dome, and

touched the pinnacle of high Heaven where blazes the Sign of Signs in

the azure of Paradise, in the sublime ether.

'Night. Alas: nothing is of any avail--nothing gives me one hour, one

minute, one second's respite. Nothing can ever cure me, no dream of my

mind can ever efface the dream of my heart.--All has been in vain; this

anguish is killing me. I feel that my hurt is mortal, my heart pains me

as if some one were actually crushing it, were tearing it to pieces. My

agony of mind is so great that it has become a physical

torment--atrocious, unbearable. I know perfectly well that I am

overwrought, nervous--the victim of a sort of madness; but I cannot get

the upper hand over myself, cannot pull myself together, cannot regain

control of my reason. I cannot--I simply cannot!

'So this, then, is love!

'He went off somewhere this morning on horseback accompanied by a

servant before I saw him, and I spent the whole morning in the chapel.

When lunch time came he had not returned. His absence caused me such

misery that I myself was astonished at the violence of my pain. I came

up to my room afterwards, and to ease my heart I wrote a page of my

journal, a devotional page, seeking to revive my fainting spirit at the

glowing memory of my girlhood's faith. Then I read a few pieces, here

and there, of Shelley's _Epipsychidion_, after which I went down into

the park looking for Delfina. But no matter what I did, the thought of

him was ever present with me, held me captive and tortured me

relentlessly.

'When, at last, I heard his voice again, I was on the first terrace. He

was speaking to Francesca in the vestibule. She came out and called to

me to come up.

'I felt my knees giving way beneath me at each step. He held out his

hand to me and he must have noticed the trembling of mine, for I saw a

sudden gleam flash into his eyes. We all three sat down on low cane

lounges in the vestibule, facing the sea. He complained of feeling very

tired, and smoked while he told us of his ride. He had gone as far as

Vicomile, where he had made a halt.

'Vicomile, he said, possesses three wonderful treasures--a pine wood, a

tower, and a fifteenth-century monstrance. Imagine a pine wood, between

the sea and the hill, interspersed by a number of pools that multiply

the trees indefinitely; a campanile in the old rugged Lombardy style

that goes back to the eleventh century--a tree-trunk of stone, as it

were, covered with sculptured sirens and peacocks, serpents and griffins

and dragons--a thousand and one monsters and flowers; and a silver-gilt

monstrance all enamelled, engraved and chased--Gothico-Byzantine in

style and form with a foretaste of Renaissance, the work of Gallucci, an

almost unknown artist, but who was the great forerunner of Benvenuto

Cellini----

'He addressed himself all the time to me. Strange how exactly I remember

every word he says! I could set down any conversation of his, word for

word, from beginning to end; if there were any means of doing so, I

could reproduce every modulation of his voice.

'He showed us two or three little sketches he had made, and then began

again describing the wonders of Vicomile with that warmth with which he

always speaks of beautiful things and that enthusiasm for art which is

one of his most potent attractions.

'"I promised the Canonico to come back to-morrow. We will all go, will

we not, Francesca? Donna Maria ought to see Vicomile!"

'Oh, my name on his lips! If it were possible, I could reproduce the

very movements of his lips in uttering each syllable of those two

words--Donna Maria----But what I never could express is my own emotion

on hearing it; could never explain the unknown, undreamed-of sensation

awakened in me by the presence of this man.

'We sat there till dinner-time. Contrary to her usual habit, Francesca

seemed a little pensive and out of spirits. There were moments when

heavy silence fell upon us. But between him and me there then occurred

one of those _silent colloquies_ in which the soul exhales the Ineffable

and hears the murmur of its thoughts. He said things to me then that

made me sink back against the cushions of my chair faint with

rapture--things that his lips will never repeat to me, that my ears will

never hear.

'In front of us, the cypresses, tipped with fire by the setting sun,

stood up tall and motionless like votive candles. The sea was the colour

of aloe leaves, dashed here and there with liquid turquoise; there was

an indescribable delicacy of varying pallor--a diffusion of angelic

light, in which each sail looked like an angel's wing upon the waters.

And the harmony of faint and mingled perfumes seemed like the soul of

the declining day.

'Oh sweet and tranquil death of September!

'Another month ended, lost, dropped away into the abyss of

Time--Farewell!

'I have lived more in this last fortnight than in fourteen years; and

not one of my long weeks of unhappiness has ever equalled in sharpness

of torture this one short week of passion. My heart aches, my head

swims; in the depths of my being, I feel a something obscure and

burning--a something that has suddenly awakened in me like a latent

disease, and now begins to creep through my blood and into my soul in

spite of myself, baffling every remedy--desire.

'It fills me with shame and horror as at some dishonour, some sacrilege

or outrage; it fills me with wild and desperate terror as at some

treacherous enemy who will make use of secret paths to enter the citadel

which are unknown to myself.

'And here I sit in the night watches, and while I write these pages,

with all the feverish ardour that lovers put into their love-letters, I

cease to listen to the gentle breathing of my child. She sleeps in

peace; she little knows how far away from her her mother's spirit is!

'_October 1st._--I see much in him that I did not observe before. When

he speaks, I cannot take my eyes off his mouth--the play of his lips and

their colouring occupies my attention more than the sound or the sense

of his words.

'_October 2nd._--To-day is Saturday--just a week since the

never-to-be-forgotten day, the 25th of September.

'By some strange chance, although I no longer avoid being alone with

him--for I am anxious now for the dread and heroical moment--by some

strange chance, that moment has not yet occurred.

'Francesca has always been with me the whole day long. This morning we

had a ride along the road to Rovigliano, and we spent the best part of

the afternoon at the piano. She made me play some sixteenth-century

dance music, and then Clementi's famous Toccata and two or three

Caprices of Scarlatti's, and, after that, I had to sing certain songs

from Schumann's _Frauenliebe_--what contrasts!

'Francesca has lost much of her old gaiety, she is not as she used to be

in the first days of my stay here. She is often silent and preoccupied,

and when she does laugh or make fun, her gaiety seems to me very forced.

I said to her once. "Is something worrying you?"

'"Why?" she answered with assumed surprise.

'"Because you seem to me a little out of spirits lately."

'"Out of spirits? oh, no, you are quite mistaken," she answered, and she

laughed, but with an involuntary note of bitterness. This troubles me

and causes me a vague sense of uneasiness.

'We are going to Vicomile to-morrow afternoon.

'He asked me--"Would it tire you too much to come on horseback? In that

way we could cut right through the pine wood!"

'So we are going to ride and Francesca will join us. The others,

including Delfina, will come in the mail-coach.

'What a strange state of mind I am in this evening! I feel a kind of

dull and angry bitterness at the bottom of my heart, without knowing

why--am impatient with myself, my life, the whole world--my nervous

irritation rises, at times, to such a pitch, that I am seized with an

insane desire to scream aloud, to dig my nails into my flesh, to bruise

my fingers against the wall--any physical suffering would be better than

this intolerable mental discomfort, this unbearable wretchedness. I feel

as if I had a burning knot in my bosom, that my throat were closed by a

sob I dared not give vent to--I am icy cold and burning hot by turns

and, from time to time, a sudden pang darts through me, an irrational

terror that I can neither shake off nor control. Thoughts and images

flash suddenly across my brain, coming from I know not what ignoble

depths of my soul.

'_October 3rd._--How weak and miserable is the human soul, how utterly

defenceless against the attacks of all that is least noble and least

pure in us, and that slumbers in the obscurity of our unconscious life,

in those unexplored abysses where dark dreams are born of hidden

sensations!

'A dream can poison a whole soul, a single involuntary thought is

sufficient to corrupt and break down the force of will.

'We are just starting for Vicomile. Delfina is in raptures.

'It is the festival of Our Lady of the Rosary. Courage, my heart!

'_October 4th._--I found no courage.

'Yesterday was so full of trifling incidents and great emotions, so

joyful and so sad, so strangely agitating that I am almost at a loss

when I try to remember it all. And yet all--all other recollections pale

and vanish before the one.

'After having visited the tower and admired the monstrance, we prepared

to return home at about half-past five. Francesca was tired and

preferred going back in the coach to getting on horseback again. We

followed them for a while, riding behind or beside them, while Delfina

and Muriella waved long flowering bulrushes at us, laughing and

threatening us with their splendid spears.

'The evening was calm, not a breath of wind stirred. The sun was sinking

behind the hill at Rovigliano in a sky all rosy-red, like a sunset in

the Far East.

'When we came in sight of the pine-wood, he suddenly said to me: "Shall

we ride through it?"

'The high road skirted the wood, describing a wide curve, at one part of

which it almost touched the sea-shore. The wood was already growing dark

and was full of deep-green twilight, but under the trees the pools

gleamed with a pure and intense light, like fragments of a sky far

fairer than the one above our heads.

'Without giving me time to answer, he said to Francesca, "We are going

to ride through the wood and shall join you at the other side, on the

high road, by the bridge"--and he reined in his horse.

'Why did I consent--why did I follow him? There was a sort of dazzle

before my eyes. I felt as if I were under the influence of some nameless

fascination, as if the landscape, the light, this incident, the whole

combination of circumstances were not new to me, but things that had all

happened to me before, in another existence, and were now only being

repeated. The impression is quite indescribable. My will seemed

paralysed. It was as when some incident of one's life reappears in a

dream, but with added details that differ from the real circumstances. I

shall never be able to adequately describe even a part of this strange

phenomenon.

'We rode in silence at a foot's pace; the cawing of the rooks, the dull

beat of the horses' hoofs and their noisy breathing in no way disturbed

the all-pervading peace that seemed to grow every minute deeper and more

magical.

'Ah, why did he break the spell we ourselves had woven?

'He began to speak; he poured out upon me a flood of burning

words--words which, in the silence of the wood, frightened me because

they carried with them an impression of something preternatural,

something indefinably weird and compelling. He was no longer the humble

suppliant of that morning in the park, spoke no more of his diffident

hopes, his half-mystical aspirations, his incurable sense of sorrow.

This time he did not beg and entreat. It was the voice of passion, full

of audacity and virile power, a voice I did not know in him.

'"You love me, you love me--you cannot help but love me--tell me that

you love me!"

'His horse was close beside mine. I felt him brush me; I almost felt the

breath of his burning words upon my cheek, and I thought I must swoon

with anguish and fall into his arms.

'"Tell me that you love me," he repeated obstinately, relentlessly.

"Tell me that you love me!"

'Under the terrible strain of his insistent voice, I believe I answered

wildly--whether with a cry or a sob, I do not know--

'"I love you, I love you, I love you!" and I set my horse at a gallop

down the narrow rugged path between the crowded tree-trunks, unconscious

of what I was doing.

'He followed me crying--"Maria, Maria, stop--you will hurt yourself."

'But I fled blindly on. I do not know how my horse managed to keep clear

of the trees, I do not know why I was not thrown; I am incapable of

retracing my impressions in that mad flight through the dark wood, past

the gleaming patches of water. When at last I came out upon the road,

near the bridge, I seemed to have come out of some hallucination.

'"Do you want to kill yourself?" he said almost fiercely. We heard the

sound of the approaching carriage and turned to meet it. He was going to

speak to me again.

'"Hush, for pity's sake," I entreated, for I felt I was at the end of my

forces.

'He was silent. Then, with an assurance that stupefied me, he said to

Francesca--"Such a pity you did not come! It was perfectly enchanting."

'And he went on talking as quietly and unconcernedly as if nothing had

happened, even with a certain amount of gaiety. I was only too thankful

for his dissimulation which screened me, for if I had been obliged to

speak, I should inevitably have betrayed myself, and for both of us to

have been silent would doubtless have aroused Francesca's suspicions.

'A little further on, the road wound up the hill towards Schifanoja. Oh,

the boundless melancholy of the evening! A new moon shone in the

faintly-tinted, pale-green sky, where my eyes, and perhaps mine alone,

detected a lingering rosy tinge--that same rosy light that gleamed upon

the pools down in the pine wood.

'_October 5th._--He knows now that I love him, and knows it from my own

lips. Nothing is left for me but flight--this is what I have come to!

'When he looks at me now, there is a strange gleam in the depths of his

eyes that was not there before. To-day, while Francesca was absent for a

moment, he took my hand and made as if he would kiss it. I managed to

draw it away, but I saw his lips tremble; I caught, as it were, the

reflection of the kiss that never left his lips, and the image of that

kiss haunts me now--it haunts me--haunts me----

'_October 6th._--On the 25th of September, on the marble seat in the

arbutus wood, he said to me--"I know you do not love me and that you

never will love me!" And on the 3rd of October--"You love me--you love

me--you cannot help but love me----"

'In Francesca's presence, he asked if I would allow him to make a study

of my hands, and I consented. He will begin to-day.

'I am nervous and frightened, as if I were going to expose my hands to

some nameless ordeal.

'Night. It has begun, the slow, sweet, unspeakable torture.

'He drew with red and black chalk. My right hand lay on a piece of

velvet; near me on the table stood a Corean vase, yellow and spotted

like the skin of a python, and in the vase was a group of orchids,

those grotesque flowers for which Francesca has so curious a

predilection.

'When I felt that I could no longer bear the ordeal, I looked at the

flowers to distract my thoughts, and their strange, distorted shapes

carried me to the distant countries of their birth, giving me a moment's

respite from my haunting grief. He went on drawing in silence; his eyes

passing continually from the paper to my hand. Two or three times he

looked at the vase; at last, rising from his chair, he said--"Excuse

me"--and lifting the vase, he carried it away and placed it on another

table. I do not know why.

'After that, he resumed his drawing with much greater freedom, as if

relieved of an annoyance.

'I cannot describe the sensation produced in me by his eyes. I felt as

if not my hand, but a part of my soul were laid bare to his scrutinising

gaze, that his eyes pierced to its very depths, exploring its most

secret recesses. Never had my hand felt so alive, so expressive, so

responsive to my heart, revealing so much that I would fain have kept

secret. Under his gaze I felt it quiver imperceptibly but continuously,

and the tremor spread to my innermost veins. When his gaze grew too

intense, I was seized with an instinctive desire to withdraw my hand

altogether, arising from a sense of shame.

'Now and then, he would stop drawing and sit for quite an appreciable

time with his eyes fixed, and then I had the impression that he was

absorbing something of me through his pupils, or that he was caressing

me with a touch that was softer than the velvet beneath my hand. At

other times, while he bent over the drawing, transferring maybe into the

lines what he had taken from me, a faint smile played round his mouth,

so faint that I only just caught it. I do not know why, but that smile

sent a pang of delight thrilling through my heart. Once or twice, I saw

the image of a kiss appear again upon his lips.

'At last, curiosity got the better of me and I said--"Well--what is

it?"

'Francesca was at the piano with her back turned to us, her fingers

wandering over the keys, trying to remember Rameau's Gavotte _of the

Yellow Ladies_ that I have played so often, and which will always be

connected in my mind with my stay at Schifanoja. She muffled the notes

with the soft pedal and broke off frequently. These interruptions and

gaps in the melody which was so familiar to me and which my ear filled

up each time, in advance, added immeasurably to my distress. All at

once, she struck one note hard several times in succession as if under

the spur of some nervous irritation; then she started up and came and

bent over the drawing.

'I looked at her--I understood it all.

'This last drop was wanting in my cup of bitterness. God had still this

last and cruelest trial of all reserved for me.--His will be done!

'_October 7th._--I have now but one thought, one desire--to fly from

here--to escape.

'I have come to the end of my strength. This love is crushing me, is

killing me, and the unexpected discovery I have made increases my

wretchedness a thousand-fold. What are her feelings towards me? What

does she think? So she loves him too?--and since when? Does he know it?

Or has he no suspicion of the fact?

'_Mio Dio! Mio Dio!_ I believe I am going out of my mind--all my

strength of will is forsaking me. At long intervals there comes a pause

in my torment, as when the wild elements of the tempest hold their

breath for a moment, only to break forth again with redoubled fury. I

sit then in a kind of stupor, with heavy head and my limbs feeling as

bruised and tired as if I had been beaten, and while my pain gathers

itself up for a fresh onslaught, I do not succeed in collecting

sufficient strength to resist it.

'What does she think of me? What does she think? How much does she know?

'Oh, to be misjudged by her--my best, my dearest friend--the one to

whom I have always been able to open my heart! This is my crowning

grief, my bitterest trial--

'I must speak to her before I go. She must know all from me, I must know

all from her--that is only right and just.

'Night. About five o'clock she proposed a drive along the Rovigliano

road. We two went alone in the open carriage. I was trembling with

agitation as I said to myself--"Here is my opportunity for speaking to

her." But my nervousness deprived me of every vestige of courage. Did

she expect me to confide in her? I cannot tell.

'We sat silent for a long while, listening to the steady trot of the

horses, looking at the trees and the meadows by the side of the road.

From time to time, by a brief remark or a sign, she drew my attention to

some detail of the autumnal landscape.

'All the witchery of the Autumn concentrated itself into this hour. The

slanting rays of the evening sun lit up the rich and sombre harmonies of

the dying foliage. Gold, amber, saffron, violet, purple,

sea-green--tints the most faded and the most violent mingled in one deep

strain, not to be surpassed by any melody of Spring, however sweet.

'"Look," she said, pointing to the acacias, "would you not say they were

in flower?"

'At last, after an interval of silence, to make a beginning I said:

"Manuel is sure to be here by Saturday. I expect a telegram from him

to-morrow, and we shall leave by the early train on Sunday. You have

been very good to me while I have been with you--I am deeply grateful to

you."

'My voice broke, a flood of tenderness swelled my heart. She took my

hand and clasped it tight without speaking or looking at me. We remained

silent for a long time, holding one another by the hand.

'Presently she asked--"How long will you be with your mother?"

'"Till the end of the year, I hope--perhaps longer."

'"As long as that?"

'We fell silent again. By this time, I felt I should never have the

courage to face an explanation; besides which, I felt that it was less

necessary now. Francesca seemed to have come back to me, to understand

me, to be once more the sweet kind sister of old. My sorrow drew out her

sadness as the moon attracts the waters of the ocean.

'"Listen!" she said.

'The sound of women's voices, singing, floated over to us from the

fields, a slow song, full and solemn as a Gregorian chant. Further on,

we came in sight of the singers. They were coming away from a field of

dried sunflowers; walking in single file like a religious procession,

and the sunflowers on their long leafless stalks, their great discs

stripped of their halo of petals and their wealth of seed, were like

liturgic emblems or monstrances of pale gold.

'My emotion waxed greater. The song spread wide through the evening air.

We passed through Rovigliano, where the lamps were beginning to twinkle,

and came out again upon the high road. The church bells rang softly

behind us. A moist breeze rustled in the trees that cast a faint blue

shadow on the white road, and in the air a shadow as liquid as water.

'"Are you not cold?" she asked me, and she ordered the footman to spread

a rug over us, and told the coachman to turn homewards.

'In the belfry at Rovigliano, a bell tolled with deep slow strokes as

for some solemn rite, and the wave of sound seemed to send a wave of

cold through the air. With a simultaneous movement, we drew closer to

one another, settling the rug more warmly over our knees, and a shiver

ran through us both. The carriage entered the town at a walk.

'"What can that bell be ringing for?" she murmured in a voice that

hardly seemed like her own.

'I answered--"I fancy it must be for the Viaticum."

'And in fact, a little further on we saw the priest just entering a door

while a clerk held the canopy over him, and two others stood upon the

threshold, straight as candelabra, holding up lighted lanterns. A

single window of the house was lighted up, the one behind which the

dying Christian was awaiting Extreme Unction. Faint shadows flitted

across the brightness of that pale yellow square on which was outlined

the whole mysterious drama of Death.

'The footman bent down from the box and asked in a low voice--"Who is

it?"

'The person addressed answered in dialect and mentioned a woman's name.

'I would have liked to muffle the sound of the carriage wheels upon the

stones, to have made our passage a silent one past the spot where a soul

was about to take flight. Francesca, I am sure, shared my feeling.

'The carriage turned into the road to Schifanoja and the horses set off

at a brisk trot. The moon, ringed by a halo, shone like an opal in the

milk-white sky. A train of cloud rose out of the sea and stretched away

by degrees in spiral form, like a trail of smoke. The somewhat stormy

sea drowned all other sounds with its roar. Never, I think, did a

heavier sadness weigh upon two spirits.

'I felt something wet upon my cold cheek, and turning to Francesca to

see if she noticed that I was crying, I met her eyes--they were full of

tears. And so we sat, side by side, with mute, convulsively closed lips,

clasping one another's hand, the tears rolling silently drop by drop

over our cheeks, both knowing that they were for him.

'As we neared Schifanoja I dried my eyes, and she did the same, each

striving to hide her own weakness.

'He was standing in the hall with Delfina and Muriella looking out for

us. Why did I feel a sudden vague distrust of him, as if some instinct

warned me of hidden danger? What troubles are in store for me in the

future? Shall I be able to escape from the passion that attracts and

blinds me?

'And yet, those few tears have given me much relief! I feel less broken,

less scorched, more self-confident; and it affords me an indescribable

fond pleasure to retrace again, for myself alone, that last drive, while

Delfina sleeps, made happy by the storm of kisses I rained upon her

face, and while the moon that so lately saw me weep smiles sadly through

the window panes.

'_October 8th._--Did I sleep last night--did I wake? I could not say.

Through my brain, like thick dark shadows, flitted terrifying thoughts,

insupportable images of torment; and my heart gave sudden throbs and

bounds, and I would find myself staring wide-eyed into the darkness, not

knowing whether I had just awakened from a dream or whether I had never

been asleep at all. And this state of semi-consciousness--infinitely

more unbearable than real sleeplessness--continued throughout the night.

'Nevertheless, when I heard my little girl's morning call, I did not

answer, but pretended to be sound asleep, so that I need not rise, so

that I might remain a few minutes longer in bed and thus retard for a

while the inexorable certainty of the realities of life. The torments of

thought and imagination seemed to me less cruel than those, so

impossible to foresee, which awaited me in these last two days.

'A little while later, Delfina came in on tip-toe, holding her breath.

She looked at me and then whispered to Dorothy, with a little fond

tremor in her voice--

'"She is fast asleep! We will not wake her!"

'Night. I do not believe I have a spark of life left in me. As I came

upstairs I felt, at each step, as if every drop of blood had left my

veins. I am as weak as one at the point of death.

'Courage! courage!--only a few hours more. Manuel will be here to-morrow

morning. We shall leave on Sunday, and on Monday I shall be with my

mother.

'Just now, I returned him two or three books he had lent me. In the

volume of Shelley I underlined with my nail the last two lines of a

certain verse and put a mark in the page--

"And forget me, for I _can never_--

Be thine!"

'_October 9th._--Night. All day long he has sought an opportunity for

speaking to me. His distress is evident. And all day long I have done my

utmost to avoid him, so that he might not sow fresh seeds of pain, of

desire, of regret and remorse in my heart. And I have triumphed--I was

strong and brave--My God, I thank Thee!

'This night is the last. To-morrow we leave--all will be over.

'All will be over? A voice out of the depths cries unto me--I do not

understand its words, but I know that it tells me of coming disaster,

unknown but inevitable, mysterious and inexorable as death. The future

is lugubrious as a cemetery full of open graves, ready to receive the

dead, with here and there a flicker of pale torches which I can scarce

distinguish, and I know not if they are there to lure me on to

destruction or to show me to a path of safety.

'I have re-read my Journal slowly, carefully, from the 15th of

September, the day of my arrival. What a difference between the first

entry and the last!

'I wrote:--I shall wake up in the house of a friend, to the enjoyment of

Francesca's cordial hospitality, in Schifanoja, where the roses are so

fair and the cypresses so tall and grand. I shall wake with the prospect

of some weeks of peace before me--twenty days or more of congenial

intellectual companionship--Alas! where is that promised peace? But the

roses, the beautiful roses, were they, too, faithless to their promise?

Did I perhaps, on that first night in the loggia, open my heart too wide

to their seductive fragrance while Delfina slept? And now the October

moon floods the sky with its cold radiance, and through the closed

windows I see the sharp points of the cypresses, all sombre and

motionless, and on that night they seemed to touch the stars.

'Of that prelude there is but one phrase which finds a place in this sad

finale: So many hairs on my head, so many thorns in my woeful destiny!

'I am going, and what will he do when I am far away? What will Francesca

do?

'The change in Francesca still remains incomprehensible,

inexplicable--an enigma that torments and bewilders me. She loves

him--but since when?--and does he know it? Confess, oh, my soul, to this

fresh misery. A new poison is added to that already infecting me--I am

jealous!

'But I am prepared for any suffering, even the most horrible; I know

well the martyrdom that awaits me; I know that the anguish of these days

is as nought compared to that which I must face presently, the terrible

cross on which my soul must hang. I am ready. All I ask, oh my God, is a

respite, a short respite for the hours that remain to me here. To-morrow

I shall have need of all my strength.

'How strangely sometimes the incidents of one's life repeat themselves!

This evening in the drawing-room, I seemed to have gone back to the 16th

of September, when I first played and sang and my thoughts began to

occupy themselves with him. This evening again I was seated at the

piano, and the same subdued light illumined the room, and next door

Manuel and the Marchese were at the card-table. I played the Gavotte _of

the Yellow Ladies_, of which Francesca is so fond and which I heard some

one trying to play on the 16th of September while I sat up in my room

and began my nightly vigils of unrest.

'He, I am sure, is not asleep. When I came upstairs, he went in and took

the Marchese's place opposite to my husband. Are they playing still?

Doubtless he is thinking and his heart aches while he plays. What are

his thoughts?--what are his sufferings?

'I cannot sleep. I shall go out into the loggia. I want to see if they

are still playing, or if he has gone to his room. His windows are at the

corner, in the second story.

'It is a clear, mild night. There are lights still in the card-room. I

stayed a long time in the loggia looking down at the light shining out

against the cypresses and mingling with the silvery whiteness of the

moon. I am trembling from head to foot. I cannot describe the almost

tragic effect of those lighted windows behind which the two men are

playing, opposite to one another, in the deep silence of the night,

scarcely broken by the dull sob of the sea. And they will perhaps play

on till morning, if he will pander so far to my husband's terrible

failing. So we shall all three wake till the dawn and take no rest, each

a prey to his own passion.

'But what is he really thinking of? Of what nature is his pain? What

would I not give, at this moment, to see him, to be able to gaze at him

till the day breaks, even if it were only through the window, in the

night dews, trembling, as I do now, from head to foot. The maddest,

wildest thoughts rush through my brain like flashes of lightning,

dazzling and confusing me. I feel the prompting of some evil spirit to

do some rash and irreparable thing, I feel as if I were treading on the

edge of perdition. It would, I feel, lift the great weight from my

heart, would take this suffocating knot from my throat if, at this

moment, I could cry aloud, into the silence of the night, with all the

strength of my soul--"I love him! I love him! I love him!"'

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

Two or three days after the departure of the Ferrès, Sperelli and his

cousins returned to Rome, Donna Francesca, contrary to her custom,

wishing to shorten her stay at Schifanoja.

After a brief stay at Naples, Andrea reached Rome on the 24th of

October, a Sunday, in the first heavy morning rain of the Autumn season.

He experienced an extraordinary pleasure in returning to his apartments

in the Casa Zuccari, his tasteful and charming _buen retiro_. There he

seemed to find again some portion of himself, something he had missed.

Nothing was altered; everything about him retained, in his eyes, that

indescribable look of life which material objects assume, amongst which

one has lived and loved and suffered. His old servants, Jenny and

Terenzio, had taken the utmost care of everything, and Stephen had

attended to every detail likely to conduce to his master's comfort.

It was raining. Andrea went to the window and stood for some time

looking out upon his beloved Rome. The piazza of the Trinità de' Monti

was solitary and deserted, left to the guardianship of its obelisk. The

trees along the wall that joins the church to the Villa Medici, already

half stripped of their leaves, rustled mournfully in the wind and the

rain. The Pincio alone still shone green, like an island in a lake of

mist.

And as he gazed, one sentiment dominated all the others in his heart;

the sudden and lively re-awakening of his old love for Rome--fairest

Rome--that city of cities, immense, imperial, unique--like the sea, for

ever young, for ever new, for ever mysterious.

'What time is it?' Andrea asked of Stephen.

It was about nine o'clock. Feeling somewhat tired, he determined to have

a sleep: also, that he would see no one that day and spend the evening

quietly at home. Seeing that he was about to re-enter the life of the

great world of Rome, he wished, before taking up the old round of

activity, to indulge in a little meditation, a slight preparation; to

lay down certain rules, to discuss with himself his future line of

conduct.

'If any one calls,' he said to Stephen, 'say that I have not yet

returned; and let the porter know it too. Tell James I shall not want

him to-day, but he can come round for orders this evening. Bring me

lunch at three--something very light--and dinner at nine. That is all.

He fell asleep almost immediately. The servant woke him at two and

informed him that, just before twelve o'clock, the Duke of Grimiti had

called, having heard from the Marchesa d'Ateleta that he had returned to

town.

'Well?'

'Il Signor Duca left word that he would call again in the afternoon.'

'Is it still raining? Open the shutters wide.'

The rain had stopped, the sky was lighter. A band of pale sunshine

streamed into the room and spread over the tapestry representing _The

Virgin with the Holy Child and Stefano Sperelli_, a work of art brought

by Giusto Sperelli from Flanders in 1508. Andrea's eyes wandered slowly

over the walls, rejoicing in the beautiful hangings, the harmonious

tints; and all these things so familiar and so dear to him seemed to

offer him a welcome. The sight of them afforded him intense pleasure,

and then the image of Maria Ferrès rose up before him.

He raised himself a little on the pillows, lit a cigarette and abandoned

himself luxuriously to his meditations. An unwonted sense of comfort and

well-being filled his body, while his mind was in its happiest vein. His

thoughts mingled with the rings of smoke in the subdued light in which

all forms and colours assume a pleasing vagueness.

Instead of reverting to the days that were past, his thoughts carried

him forward into the future.--He would see Donna Maria again in two or

three months--perhaps much sooner; there was no saying. Then he would

resume the broken thread of that love which held for him so many obscure

promises, so many secret attractions. To a man of culture, Donna Maria

Ferrès was the Ideal Woman, Baudelaire's _Amie avec des hanches_, the

perfect _Consolatrix_, the friend who can hold out both comfort and

pardon. Though she had marked those sorrowful lines in the volume of

Shelley, she had, most assuredly, said very different words in her

heart. 'I can never be thine!' Why _never_? Ah, there had been too much

passionate intensity for that in the voice in which she answered him

that day in the wood at Vicomile--'I love you! I love you! I love you!'

He could hear her voice now, that never-to-be-forgotten voice!

Stephen knocked at the door. 'May I remind the Signor Conte that it is

three o'clock?'

Andrea rose and passed into the octagonal room to dress. The sun shone

through the lace window screens and sparkled on the Hispano-Mauresque

tiles, the innumerable toilet articles of crystal and silver, the

bas-reliefs on the antique sarcophagus; its dancing reflections

imparting a delightful sense of movement to the air. He felt in the best

of spirits, completely cured, full of the joy and the vivacity of life.

He was inexpressibly happy to be back in his home once more. All that

was most frivolous, most capricious, most worldly in him awoke with a

bound. It was as if the surrounding objects had the power to evoke in

him the man of former days. His sensual curiosity, his elasticity, his

ubiquity of mind reappeared. He already began to feel the necessity of

expansion, of mixing in the world of pleasure and with his friends.

He discovered that he was very hungry, and ordered the servant to bring

the lunch at once. He rarely dined at home, but for special

occasions--some _recherché_ lunch or private little supper--he had a

dining-room decorated with eighteenth century Neapolitan tapestries

which Carlo Sperelli had ordered of Pietro Dinanti in 1766 from designs

by Storace. The seven wall panels represented episodes of Bacchic love,

the portières and the draperies above the doors and windows having

groups of fruit and flowers. Shades of gold--pale or

tawny--predominated, and mingling with the warm, pearly flesh-tints and

sombre blues, formed a harmony of colour that was both delicate and

sumptuous.

'When the Duke of Grimiti comes back, show him up,' he said to the

servant.

Into this room too, the sun, sinking towards the Monte Mario, shot his

dazzling rays. You could hear the rumble of the carriages in the piazza

of the Trinità de' Monti. The rain over, it looked as if all the

luminous gold of the Roman October were spread out over the city.

'Open the window,' he said to the servant.

The noise of the carriage wheels was louder now, a soft damp breeze

stirred the curtains lightly.

'Divine Rome!' he thought as he looked at the sky between the wide

curtains.

An irresistible curiosity drew him to the open window.

Rome appeared, all pearly gray, spread out before him, its lines a

little blurred like a faded picture, under a Claude Lorrain sky,

sprinkled with ethereal clouds, their noble grouping lending to the

clear spaces between an indescribable delicacy, as flowers lend a new

grace to the verdure which surrounds them. On the distant heights the

gray deepened gradually to amethyst. Long trailing vapours slid through

the cypresses of the Monte Mario like waving locks through a comb of

bronze. Close by, the pines of the Monte Pincio spread their sun-gilded

canopies. Below, on the piazza, the obelisk of Pius VI. looked like a

pillar of agate. Under this rich autumnal light everything took on a

sumptuous air.

Divine Rome!

He feasted his eyes on the prospect before him. Looking down, he saw a

group of red-robed clerics pass along by the church; then the black

coach of a prelate with its two black, long-tailed horses; then other

open carriages containing ladies and children. He recognised the

Princess of Ferentino with Barbarella Viti, followed by the Countess of

Lucoli driving a pair of ponies and accompanied by her great Danish

hound. A perturbing breath of the old life passed over his spirit,

awakening indeterminate desires in his heart.

He left the window and returned to his lunch. The sun shone on the wall

and lit up a dance of satyrs round a Silenus.

'The Duke of Grimiti and two other gentlemen,' announced the servant.

The Duke entered with Ludovico Barbarisi and Giulio Musellaro. Andrea

hastened forward to meet them and they greeted him warmly.

'You, Giulio!' exclaimed Sperelli, who had not seen his friend for more

than two years. How long have you been in Rome?'

'Only a week. I was going to write to you to Schifanoja, but thought I

would rather wait till you came back. And how are you? You are looking a

little thin, but very well. It was only when I got back to Rome that I

heard of your affair; otherwise, I would certainly have come from India

to offer you my services. At the beginning of May, I was at Padmavati in

the Bahara. What a heap of things I have to tell you!'

'And so have I!'

They shook hands heartily a second time. Sperelli seemed overjoyed. None

of his friends were so dear to him as Musellaro, for his noble

character, his keen and penetrating mind and rare culture.

'Ruggiero--Ludovico--sit down. Giulio, will you sit here?'

He offered them tea, cigarettes, liqueurs. The conversation grew very

lively. Grimiti and Barbarisi gave the news of Rome, especially the more

spicy items of society gossip. The aroma of the tea mingled with that of

the tobacco.

'I have brought you a chest of tea,' said Musellaro to Sperelli, 'and

much better tea too than your famous Kien Loung used to drink.'

'Ah, do you remember, in London, how he used to make tea after the

poetical method of the Great Emperor?'

'I say,' said Grimiti, 'do you know that the fair Clara Green is in

Rome? I saw her on Sunday at the Villa Borghese. She recognised me and

stopped her carriage to speak to me. She is as lovely as ever. You

remember her passion for you, and how she went on when she thought you

were in love with Constance Landbrooke? She instantly asked for news of

you.'

'I should be very pleased to see her again. Does she still dress in

green and wear sunflowers in her hat?

'Oh no. She has apparently abandoned the æsthetic for good and all. She

goes in for feathers now. On Sunday, she was wearing an enormous hat à

la Montpensier with a perfectly fabulous feather in it.'

'The season is in full swing, I suppose?'

'Earlier than usual this year, both as to saints and sinners.'

'Which of the saints are already in Rome?'

'Almost all--Giulia Moceto, Barbarella Viti, the Princess of Micigliano,

Laura Miano, the Marchesa Massa d'Alba, the Countess Lucoli----'

'I saw her just now from the window, driving. And I saw your cousin too

with Barbarella Viti.'

'My cousin is only here till to-morrow, then she goes back to Frascati.

On Wednesday, she gives a kind of garden party at the villa in the style

of the Princess of Sagan. Costume is not absolutely _de rigueur_, but

the ladies will all wear Louis XV. or Directoire hats. We are going.'

'You are not leaving Rome again so soon, I hope?' Grimiti asked of

Sperelli.

'I shall stay till the beginning of November. Then I am going to France

for a fortnight to see about some horses. I shall be back in Rome about

the end of the month.'

'Talking of horses,' said Ludovico, 'Leonetto Lanza wants to sell

_Campomorto_. You know it--a magnificent animal, a first-rate jumper.

That would be something for you.'

'How much does he want for it?'

'Fifteen thousand lire, I think.'

'Well, we might see----'

'Leonetto is going to be married directly. He got engaged this summer at

Aix-les-Bains.'

'I forgot to tell you,' said Musellaro, 'that Galeazzo Secinaro sends

you his remembrances. We travelled back from India together. If you only

knew of all Galeazzo's doughty deeds on the journey! He is at Palermo

now, but he will be in Rome in January.'

'And Gino Bomminaco begs to be remembered to you,' added Barbarisi.

'Ah, ha!' exclaimed the duke with a burst of laughter, 'you should get

Gino to tell you the story of his adventure with Donna Giulia Moceto.

You are, I fancy, in a position to give us some details on the subject

of Donna Giulia.'

Ludovico, too, began to laugh.

'Oh, I know,' broke in Musellaro, 'you have made the most tremendous

conquests in Rome. _Gratulator tibi_!'

'But tell me--do tell me about this adventure,' asked Andrea with

impatient curiosity.

These subjects excited him. Encouraged by his friends, he launched forth

into a discourse on female beauty, displaying the profound knowledge and

fervour of a connoisseur, taking a pleasure in using the most

highly-coloured expressions, with the subtle distinctions of an artist

and a libertine. Indeed, had any one taken the trouble to write down the

conversation of the four young men within these walls, hung with the

voluptuous scenes of the Bacchic tapestries, it might well have formed

the _Breviarium arcanum_ of upper-class corruption at the end of the

nineteenth century.

The shades of evening were falling, but the air was still permeated with

light as a sponge absorbs the water. Through the windows, one caught a

glimpse of the horizon and a band of orange against which the cypresses

of the Monte Mario stood out sharply like the teeth of a great ebony

rake. Ever and anon, came the cawing of the rooks, assembling in groups

on the roof of the Villa Medici before descending on the Villa Borghese

and into the narrow Valley of Sleep.

'What are you going to do this evening?' Barbarisi asked Andrea.

'I really don't know.'

'Well, then, come with us--dinner at eight, at Doney's, to inaugurate

his new restaurant at the Teatro Nazionale.'

'Yes, come with us, do come with us!' entreated Giulio Musellaro.

'Besides the three of us,' continued the duke, 'there will be Giulia

Arici, Bébé Silva and Maria Fortuna--That reminds me--capital idea!--you

bring Clara Green.'

'A capital idea!' echoed Ludovico Barbarisi.

'And where shall I find Clara Green?'

'At the Hotel de l'Europe, close by, in the Piazza di Spagna. A note

from you would put her in the seventh heaven. She is certain to give up

any other engagement she may have.'

Andrea was quite agreeable to the plan.

'But it would be better if I called on her,' he said. 'She is pretty

sure to be in now. Don't you think so, Ruggiero?'

'Well, dress quick and come out with us now.'

Clara Green had just come in. She received Andrea with childish delight.

No doubt she would have preferred to dine alone with him, but she

accepted the invitation without hesitating, wrote a note to excuse

herself from a previous engagement, and sent the key of her box at the

theatre to a lady friend. She seemed overjoyed. She told him a string of

sentimental stories and vowed that she had never been able to forget

him; holding Andrea's hands in hers while she talked.

I love you more than words can say, Andrew:

She was still young. With her pure and regular profile, her pale gold

hair parted and knotted very low on her neck, she looked like a beauty

in a Keepsake. A certain affectation of æstheticism clung to her since

her liaison with the poet-painter Adolphus Jeckyll, a disciple in poetry

of Keats, in painting of Holman Hunt; a composer of obscure sonnets, a

painter of subjects from the _Vita Nuova_. She had sat to him for a

_Sibylla Palmifera_ and a _Madonna with the Lily_. She had also sat to

Andrea for a study of the head of Isabella in Boccaccio's story. Art

therefore had conferred upon her the stamp of nobility. But, at bottom,

she possessed no spiritual qualities whatsoever; she even became

tiresome in the long-run by reason of that sentimental romanticism so

often affected by English _demi-mondaines_ which contrasts so strangely

with the depravity of their licentiousness.

'Who would have thought that we should ever be together again, Andrew?'

An hour later, Andrea left her and returned to the Palazzo Zuccari by

the little flight of steps leading from the Piazza Mignanelli to the

Trinità. The murmur of the city floated up the solitary little stairway

through the mild air of the October evening. The stars twinkled in a

cool pure sky. Down below, at the Palazzo Casteldelfina, the shrubs

inside the little gate cast vague uncertain shadows in the mysterious

light, like marine plants waving at the bottom of an aquarium. From the

palace, through a lighted window with red curtains, came the tinkle of a

piano. The church bells were ringing. Andrea felt his heart suddenly

grow heavy. The recollection of Donna Maria came back to him with a

rush, filling him with a dim sense of regret, almost of remorse. What

was she doing at this moment? Thinking? Suffering? Deep sadness fell

upon him. He felt as if something in the depths of his heart had taken

flight--he could not define what it was, but it affected him as some

irreparable loss.

He thought of his plan of the morning--an evening of solitude in the

rooms to which some day perhaps she might come, an evening, sad yet

sweet, in company with remembrances and dreams, in company with her

spirit, an evening of meditation and self-communings. In truth, he had

kept well to his promises! He was on his way to a dinner with friends

and _demi-mondaines_ and, doubtless, would go home with Clara Green

afterwards.

His regret was so poignant, so intolerable, that he dressed with

unwonted rapidity, jumped into his brougham and arrived at the hotel

before the appointed time. He found Clara ready and waiting, and offered

her a drive round the streets of Rome to pass the time till eight

o'clock.

They drove through the Via del Babuino, round the obelisk in the Piazza

del Popolo, along the Corso and to the right down the Via della

Fontanella di Borghese, returning by the Montecitorio to the Corso which

they followed as far as the Piazza di Venezia and so to the Teatro

Nazionale. Clara kept up an incessant chatter, bending, every other

minute, towards her companion to press a kiss on the corner of his

mouth, screening the furtive caress behind a fan of white feathers which

gave out a delicate odour of 'white rose.' But Andrea appeared not to

hear her, and even her caress only drew from him a slight smile.

'_Che pensi?_' she asked, pronouncing the Italian words with a certain

hesitation which was very taking.

'Nothing,' returned Andrea, taking up one of her ungloved hands and

examining the rings.

_'Chi lo sa!_' she sighed, throwing a vast amount of expression into

these three words, which foreign women pick up at once, because they

imagine that they contain all the pensive melancholy of Italian love.

'_Chi lo sa!_'

With a sudden change of humour, Andrea kissed her on the ear, slipped an

arm round her waist and proceeded to say a host of foolish things to

her. The Corso was very lively, the shop windows resplendent,

newspaper-vendors yelled, public and private vehicles crossed the path

of their carriage; all the stir and animation of Roman evening life was

in full swing from the Piazza Colonna to the Piazza di Venezia.

It was ten minutes past eight by the time they reached Doney's. The

other guests were already there. Andrea Sperelli greeted the assembled

company, and taking Clara Green by the hand--

'This,' he said, 'is Miss Clara Green, _ancilla Domini, Sibylla

palmifera, candida puella_.'

'_Ora pro nobis!_' replied Musellaro, Barbarisi, and Grimiti in chorus.

The women laughed though they did not understand. Clara smiled, and

slipping out of her cloak appeared in a white dress, quite simple and

short, with a V-shaped opening back and front, a knot of sea-green

ribbon on her left shoulder, and emeralds in her ears, perfectly

unabashed by the triple scrutiny of Giulia Arici, Bébé Silva and Maria

Fortuna.

Musellaro and Grimiti were old acquaintances; Barbarisi was introduced.

Andrea proceeded--'Mercedes Silva, surnamed Bébé--_chica pero qualsa_.

'Maria Fortuna, a veritable _Fortuna publica_ for our Rome which has the

good fortune to possess her.'

Then, turning to Barbarisi--'Do us the honour to present us to this lady

who is, if I am not mistaken, the divine Giulia Farnese.'

'No--Arici,' Giulia broke in.

'Oh, I beg your pardon, but really, to believe that, I should have to

call upon all my powers of credulity and to consult Pinturicchio in the

Fifth Room.'

He uttered these absurdities with a grave smile, amusing himself by

bewildering and teasing these pretty fools. In the _demi-monde_ he

adopted a manner and style entirely his own, using grotesque phrases,

launching the most ridiculous paradoxes or atrocious impertinences under

cover of the ambiguity of his words; and all this in most original

language, rich in a thousand different flavours, like a Rabelaisian

_olla podrida_ full of strong spices and succulent morsels.

'Pinturicchio,' asked Giulia turning to Barbarisi; 'who's that?'

'Pinturicchio,' exclaimed Andrea, 'oh, a sort of feeble house-painter

who once took it into his head to paint your picture on a door in the

Pope's apartments. Never mind him--he is dead.'

'Dead? How?'

'In a most appalling manner! His wife's lover was a soldier from Perugia

in garrison at Sienna--ask Ludovico--he knows all about it, but has

never liked to tell you, for fear of hurting your feelings. Allow me to

inform you, Bébé, that the Prince of Wales does not begin to smoke till

between the second and third courses--never sooner. You are

anticipating.'

Bébé Silva had lighted a cigarette and was eating oysters, while she let

the smoke curl through her nostrils. She was like a restless schoolboy,

a little depraved hermaphrodite; pale and thin, the brightness of her

eyes heightened by fever and kohl, with lips that were too red, and

short and rather woolly hair that covered her head like an astrachan

cap. Fixed tightly in her left eye was a single eye-glass; she wore a

high stiff collar, a white necktie, an open waistcoat, a little black

coat of masculine cut and a gardenia in her button-hole. She affected

the manners of a dandy and spoke in a deep husky voice. And just therein

lay the secret of her attraction--in this imprint of vice, of depravity,

of abnormity in her appearance, her attitudes and her words. _Sal y

pimienta_.

Maria Fortuna, on the contrary, was of somewhat bovine type, a Madame de

Parabère with a tendency to stoutness.

Like the fair mistress of the Regent, she possessed a very white skin,

one of those opaque white complexions which seem only to flourish and

improve on sensual pleasure. Her liquid violet eyes swam in a faint blue

shadow; and her lips, always a little parted, disclosed a vague gleam of

pearl behind their soft rosy line, like a half-opened shell.

Giulia Arici took Andrea's fancy very much on account of her

golden-brown tints and her great velvety eyes of that soft deep

chestnut that sometimes shows tawny gleams. The somewhat fleshy nose,

and the full, dewy scarlet, very firm lips gave the lower part of her

face a frankly animal look. Her eye-teeth, which were too prominent,

raised her upper lip a little and she continually ran the point of her

tongue along the edge to moisten it, like the thick petal of a rose

running over a row of little white almonds.

'Giulia,' said Andrea with his eyes on her mouth, 'Saint Bernard uses,

in one of his sermons, an epithet which would suit you marvellously. And

I'll be bound you don't know this either.'

Giulia laughed her sonorous rather vacant laugh, exhaling, in the

excitement of her hilarity, a more poignant perfume, like a scented

shrub when it is shaken.

'What will you give me,' continued Andrea, 'if I extract from the holy

sermon a voluptuous motto to fit you?'

'I don't know,' she replied laughing, holding a glass of Chablis in her

long slender fingers. 'Anything you like.'

'The substantive of the adjective.'

'What?'

'We will come back to that presently. The word is: _linguatica_--Messer

Ludovico, you can add this clause to your litanies--'_Rosa linguatica,

glube nos_.'

'What a pity,' said Musellaro, 'that you are not at the table of a

sixteenth-century prince, sitting between a Violante and an Imperia with

Pietro Aretino, Giulio Romano, and Marc' Antonio!'

CHAPTER II

The year was dying gracefully. A late wintry sun filled the sky over

Rome with a soft, mild, golden light that made the air feel almost

spring-like. The streets were full as on a Sunday in May. A stream of

carriages passed and repassed rapidly through the Piazza Barberini and

the Piazza di Spagna, and from thence a vague and continuous rumble

mounted to the Trinità de' Monti and the Via Sistina and even faintly

reached the apartments of the Palazzo Zuccari.

The rooms began slowly to fill with the scent exhaled from numberless

vases of flowers. Full-blown roses hung their heavy heads over crystal

vases that opened like diamond lilies on a golden stem, similar to those

standing behind the Virgin in the _tondo_ of Botticelli in the Borghese

Gallery. No other shape of vase is to be compared with this for

elegance; in that diaphanous prison, the flowers seemed to etherealise

and had more the air of a religious than an amatory offering.

For Andrea Sperelli was expecting Elena Muti.

He had met her only yesterday morning in the Via Condotti, where she was

looking at the shops. She had returned to Rome a day or two before,

after her long and mysterious absence. They had both been considerably

agitated by the unexpected encounter, but the publicity of the street

compelled them to treat one another with ceremonious, almost cold

politeness. However, he had said with a grave, half-mournful air,

looking her full in the eyes--'I have much to say to you, Elena; will

you come to my rooms to-morrow? Everything is just as it used to

be--nothing is changed.' To which she replied quite simply--'Very well,

I will come. You may expect me about four o'clock. I too have something

to say to you--but leave me now.'

That she should have accepted the invitation so promptly, without demur,

without imposing any conditions or seemingly attaching the smallest

importance to the matter, roused a certain vague suspicion in Andrea's

mind. Was she coming as friend or lover?--to renew old ties or to

destroy all hope of such a thing for ever? What vicissitudes had not

occurred in this woman's soul during the last two years? Of that he was

necessarily ignorant, but he had carried away with him the thrill of

emotion called up in him by Elena's glance when they suddenly met in the

street and he bent his head in greeting before her. It was the same look

as of old--so tender, so deep, so infinitely seductive from under the

long lashes.

Everything in the arrangement of the rooms showed evidences of special

loving care. Logs of juniper wood burned brightly on the hearth; the

little tea-table stood ready with its cups and saucers of Castel-Durante

majolica, of antique shape and inimitable grace, whereon were depicted

mythological subjects by Luzio Dolci, with lines from Ovid underneath in

black characters and a running hand. The light from the windows was

tempered by heavy curtains of red brocade embroidered all over with

silver pomegranates, trailing leaves and mottos. The declining sun, as

it caught the window-panes, cast the shadow of the lace blinds on the

carpet.

The clock of the Trinità struck half-past three. He had half an hour

still to wait. Andrea rose from the sofa where he had been lying and

opened one of the windows; he wandered aimlessly about the room, took up

a book, read a few lines and threw it down again; looked about him

undecidedly as if searching for something. The suspense was so trying

that he felt the necessity of rousing himself, of counteracting his

mental disquietude by physical means. He went over to the fireplace,

stirred up the logs and put on a fresh one. The glowing mass collapsed,

sending up a shower of sparks, and part of it rolled out as far as the

fender. The flames broke into a quantity of little tongues of blue fire,

springing up and disappearing fitfully, while the broken ends of the log

smoked.

The sight brought back certain memories to him. In days gone by Elena

had been fond of lingering over this fireside. She expended much art and

ingenuity in piling the wood high on the fire-dogs, grasping the heavy

tongs in both hands and leaning her head slightly back to avoid the

sparks. Her hands were small and very supple, with that tendril-like

flexibility, so to speak, of a Daphne at the very first onset of the

fabled metamorphose.

Scarcely were these matters arranged to her satisfaction than the logs

would catch and send forth a sudden blaze, and the warm ruddy light

would struggle for a moment with the icy gray shades of evening

filtering through the windows. The sharp fumes of the burning wood

seemed to rise to her head, and facing the glowing mass Elena would be

seized with fits of childish glee. She had a rather cruel habit of

pulling all the flowers to pieces and scattering them over the carpet at

the end of each of her visits and then stand ready to go, fastening a

glove or a bracelet, and smile in the midst of the devastation she had

wrought.

Nothing was changed since then. A host of memories were associated with

these things which Elena had touched, on which her eyes had rested, and

scenes of that time rose up vividly and tumultuously before him. After

nearly two years' absence, Elena was going to cross his threshold once

more. In half an hour, she would be seated in that chair--a little out

of breath at first, as of yore--would have removed her veil--be

speaking. All these familiar objects would hear the sound of her voice

again--perhaps even her laugh--after two long years.

'How shall I receive her--what shall I say?'

He was quite sincere in his anxiety and nervousness, for he had really

begun to love this woman once more, but the expression of his

sentiments, whether verbal or otherwise, was ever with him such an

artificial matter, so far removed from truth and simplicity, that he had

recourse to these preparations from pure habit even when, as was the

case now, he was sincerely and deeply moved.

He tried to imagine the scene beforehand, to compose some phrases; he

looked about him in the room, considering where would be the most

appropriate spot for the interview. Then he went over to a looking-glass

to see if his face were as pale as befitted the occasion, and his gaze

rested complacently on his forehead, just where the hair began at the

temples and where, in the old days, Elena was often wont to press a

delicate kiss. In matters of love, his vitiated and effeminate vanity

seized upon every advantage of personal grace or of dress to heighten

the charm of his appearance, and he knew how to extract the greatest

amount of pleasure therefrom. The chief reason of his unfailing success

lay in the fact that, in the game of love, he shrank from no artifice,

no duplicity, no falsehood that might further his cause. A great portion

of his strength lay in his capacity for deception.

'What shall I do--what shall I say when she comes?'

His mind was all undecided and yet the minutes were flying. Besides, he

had no idea in what frame of mind Elena might arrive.

It wanted but two or three minutes now to the hour. His excitement was

so great that he felt half suffocated. He returned to the window and

looked out at the steps of the Trinità. She used always to come up those

steps, and when she reached the top, would halt for a moment before

rapidly crossing the square in front of the Casa Casteldelfina. Through

the silence, he often heard the tapping of her light footsteps on the

pavement below.

The clock struck four. The rumble of carriage wheels came up from the

Piazza di Spagna and the Pincio. A great many people were strolling

under the trees in front of the Villa Medici. Two women seated on a

stone bench beside the church were keeping watch over some children

playing round the obelisk, which shone rosy red under the sunset, and

cast a long, slanting, blue-gray shadow.

The air freshened as the sun sank lower. Farther off, the city stood out

golden against the colourless clear sky, which made the cypresses on the

Monte Mario look jet black.

Andrea started. A shadow stole up the little flight of steps beside the

Casa Casteldelfina leading up from the Piazzetta Mignanelli. It was not

Elena; it was some other lady, who slowly turned the corner into the Via

Gregoriana.

'What if she did not come at all?' he said to himself as he left the

window. Coming away from the colder outside air he felt the warmth of

the room all the more cosy, the scent of the burning wood and the roses

more piercing sweet, the shadow of the curtains and portières more

delightfully mysterious. At that moment the whole room seemed on the

alert for the arrival of the woman he loved. He imagined Elena's

sensations on entering. It was hardly possible that she should be able

to resist the influence of these surroundings, so full of tender

memories for her; she would suddenly lose all sense of time and reality,

would fancy herself back at one of the old rendezvous, the Elena of

those happy days. Since nothing was altered in the _mise-en-scène_ of

their love, why should their love itself be changed? She must of

necessity feel the profound charm of all these things which once upon a

time had been so dear to her.

And now the anguish of hope deferred created a fresh torture for him.

Minds that have the habit of imaginative contemplation and poetic

dreaming attribute to inanimate objects a soul, sensitive and variable

as their own, and recognise in all things--be it form or colour, sound

or perfume--a transparent symbol, an emblem of some emotion or thought;

in every phenomenon and every group of phenomena they claim to discover

a psychical condition, a moral significance. At times the vision is so

lucid as to produce actual pain in such minds, they feel themselves

overwhelmed by the plenitude of life revealed to them and are terrified

by the phantom of their own creation.

Thus Andrea saw his own dire distress reflected in the aspect of the

objects surrounding him, and as his own fond desires seemed wasting

fruitlessly in this protracted expectation, so the erotic essence, so to

speak, of the room appeared to be evaporating and exhaling uselessly. In

his eyes these apartments in which he had loved and also suffered so

much had acquired something of his own sensibility--had not only been

witness of his loves, his pleasures, his sorrows, but had taken part in

it all. In his memories, every outline, every tint harmonised with some

feminine image, was a note in a chord of beauty, an element in an

ecstasy of passion. The very nature of his tastes led him to seek for a

diversity of enjoyment in his love, and seeing that he set out upon that

quest as an accomplished artist and æsthetic it was only natural that he

should derive a great part of his delight from the world of external

objects. To this fastidious actor the comedy of love was nothing without

the scenery.

From that point of view his stage was certainly quite perfect, and he

himself a most adroit actor-manager; for he almost always entered heart

and soul into his own artifice, he forgot himself so completely that he

was deceived by his own deception, fell into the trap of his own laying,

and wounded himself with his own weapons--a magician enclosed in the

spells of his own weaving.

The roses in the tall Florentine vases, they too were waiting and

breathing out their sweetness. On the divan cover and on the walls

inscriptions on silver scrolls singing the praises of woman and of wine

gleamed in the rays of the setting sun, and harmonised admirably with

the faded colours of the sixteenth century Persian carpet. Elsewhere the

shadow was deeply transparent and as if animated by that indefinable

luminous tremor felt in hidden sanctuaries where some mystic treasure

lies enshrined. The fire crackled on the hearth, each flame, as Shelley

puts it, like a separate jewel dissolved in ever moving light. To Andrea

it seemed that at that moment every shape, every colour, every perfume

gave forth the essential and delicate spirit of its being. And yet _she_

came not, _she_ came not!

For the first time, the thought of her husband presented itself to him.

Elena was no longer free. Some months after her abrupt departure from

Rome, she had renounced the agreeable liberty of widowhood to marry an

English nobleman, Lord Humphrey Heathfield. Andrea had seen the

announcement of the marriage in a society paper in the October following

and had heard a world of comment on the new Lady Humphrey in every

country house he stayed in during the autumn. He remembered also having

met Lord Humphrey some half a score of times during the preceding winter

at the Saturdays of the Princess Giustiniani-Bandini, or in the public

sale-rooms. He was a man of about forty, with colourless fair hair, bald

at the temples, an excessively pale face, a pair of piercing light eyes

and a prominent forehead, on which a network of veins stood out. He had

his name of Heathfield from that lieutenant-general who was the hero of

the defence of Gibraltar and afterwards immortalised by the brush of Sir

Joshua Reynolds.

What part had this man in Elena's life? What ties, beyond the convention

of marriage, bound her to him? What transformations had the physical and

moral contact of this husband brought to pass in her?

These enigmas rose tumultuously before him, making his pain so

intolerable, that he started up with the instinctive bound of a man who

has been stabbed unawares. He crossed the room to the ante-chamber and

listened at the door which he had left ajar. It was on the stroke of a

quarter to five.

The next moment he heard footsteps on the stair, the rustle of skirts

and a quick panting breath. A woman was coming up hurriedly. His heart

beat with such vehemence that--his nerves all unstrung by his long

suspense--he felt hardly able to stand on his feet. The steps drew

nearer, there was a long-drawn sigh--a step upon the landing--at the

door--Elena entered.

'O Elena--at last!'

There was in that cry such a profound accent of agony endured, that it

brought to Elena's lips an indescribable smile, mingled of pleasure and

pity. He took her by her ungloved right hand and drew her into the room.

She was still a little out of breath, and under her black veil a faint

flush diffused itself over her whole face.

'Forgive me, Andrea! I could not get away any sooner--there is so much

to do--so many calls to return--such tiring days! I hardly know where to

turn. How warm it is in here! What a delicious smell!'

She was standing in the middle of the room--a little undecided and ill

at ease in spite of her rapid and lightly spoken words. A velvet coat

with Empire sleeves, very full at the shoulders and buttoned closely at

the wrists and with an immense collar of blue fox for sole trimming,

covered her from head to foot, but without disguising the grace of her

figure. She looked at Andrea with eyes in which a curious tremulous

smile softened the flash and sparkle.

'You have changed somehow,' she said; 'I don't quite know what it

is--but round your mouth, for instance, there are bitter lines that used

not to be there.'

She spoke in a tone of affectionate familiarity. The sound of her voice

once more in this room caused him such exquisite delight that he

exclaimed--'Speak again, Elena--go on speaking!'

She laughed. 'Why?' she asked.

'You know why,' he answered, taking her hand again.

She drew her hand away and looked the young man deep in the eyes. 'I

know nothing any more.'

'Then you have changed very much.'

'Yes--very much indeed.'

They had both dropped their bantering tone. Elena's answer threw a

sudden search-light upon much that was problematical before. Andrea

understood, and with that rapid and precise intuition so often found in

minds practised in psychological analysis, he instantly divined the

moral attitude of his visitor, and foresaw the further development of

the coming scene. Moreover, he was already under the spell of this

woman's fascination as in the former days, besides being greatly piqued

by curiosity.

'Will you not sit down?' he asked.

'Yes--for a moment.'

'Here--in this arm-chair.'

'Ah--_my_ arm-chair!' she was on the point of exclaiming, for she

recognised an old friend, but she stopped herself in time.

The chair was deep and roomy, and covered with antique leather on which

pale dragons ramped in relief, after the style of the wall decorations

of one of the rooms in the Chigi palace. The leather had taken on that

warm and sumptuous tone which recalls the background of certain Venetian

portraits, or a fine bronze still retaining traces of former gilding, or

a piece of tortoise-shell with gleams of gold here and there. A great

cushion covered with a piece of a dalmatic of faded colouring--of that

peculiar shade which the Florentine silk merchants used to call 'rosa di

gruogo,' saffron red, contributed to its inviting easiness.

Elena seated herself in it, placing on the tea-table beside her her

right hand glove and her card-case, a fragile toy in polished silver

with a device and motto engraven on it. She then proceeded to remove her

veil, raising her arms high to unfasten the knot, her graceful attitude

throwing gleams of changeful light on the velvet of her coat, along the

sleeves and over the contour of her bust. The heat of the fire was very

strong, and with her bare hand, which shone transparent like rosy

alabaster, she screened her face from it. The rings on her fingers

glittered in the firelight.

'Please screen the fire,' she said, 'it is really too fierce.'

'What--have you lost your fondness for the flames?--and you used to be a

perfect salamander. This hearth is full of memories----'

'Let memory sleep,--do not stir the embers,' she interrupted him.

'Screen the fire and let us have some light. I will make the tea.'

'Won't you take off your coat?'

'No, I must go directly--it is late.'

'But you will be melted.'

She rose with a little gesture of impatience. 'Very well then--help me,

please.'

As he helped her off with the mantle, Andrea noticed that the scent was

not the same as the familiar one of old. However, it was so delicious

that it thrilled his every sense.

'You have a new scent,' he said with peculiar emphasis.

'Yes,' she answered simply, 'do you like it?'

Andrea still held the mantle in his hands. He buried his face in the fur

collar which had been next her throat and her hair--'What is it called?'

he inquired.

'It has no name.'

She re-seated herself in the arm-chair within the circle of the

firelight. Her dress was of black lace, on which sparkled a mass of tiny

jet and steel beads.

The day was fading from the windows. Andrea lit candles of twisted

orange-coloured wax in wrought-iron candlesticks, after which he drew a

screen before the fire.

During this pause, both felt a certain perplexing uneasiness; Elena was

no longer exactly conscious of the moment, nor was she quite mistress of

herself. In spite of all her efforts she was unable to recall with

precision her motives for coming here, to follow out her

intentions--even to regain her force of will. In the presence of this

man to whom, once upon a time, she had been bound by such passionate

ties, and in this spot where she lived the most ardent moments of her

life, she felt her reserve melting, her mind wavering and growing

feeble. She was at that dangerously delicious point of sentiment at

which the soul receives its every impulse, its attitudes, its form from

its external surroundings as an aërial vapour from the mutations of the

atmosphere. But she checked herself before wholly giving way to it.

'Is that right now?' asked Andrea in a low, almost humble voice.

She smiled without replying. His words had given her inexpressibly keen

delight.

She began her delicate manipulations--lit the spirit-lamp under the

kettle, opened the lacquer tea-caddy and put the necessary quantity of

aromatic leaves into the tea-pot, and finally prepared two cups. Her

movements were slow and a little hesitating, as happens when the mind is

busied with other things than the occupation of the moment; her

exquisite white hands hovered over the cups with the airiness of

butterflies, and from her whole lithe form there emanated an indefinable

charm which enveloped her lover like a caress.

Seated quite close to her, gazing at her from under his half-closed

lids, Andrea drank in the subtle fascination of her presence. Neither of

them spoke. Elena, leaning back in the cushions, waited for the water to

boil, with her eyes fixed on the blue flame while she absently slipped

her rings up and down her fingers, lost in a dream apparently. But it

was no dream; it was rather a vague reminiscence, faint, confused and

evanescent. All the recollections of the love that was past rose up in

her mind, but dimly and uncertain, leaving an indistinct impression, she

hardly knew whether of pleasure or of pain. It was like the indefinable

perfume of a faded bouquet, in which each separate flower has lost the

vivacity proper to its colour and its fragrance, but from which emanates

a common perfume wherein all the diverse component elements are

indistinguishably blended. She seemed to carry in her heart the last

breath of memories already faded, the last trace of joys departed for

ever, the last tremor of a happiness that was dead--something akin to a

mist from out of which images emerge fitfully without shape or name. She

knew not, was it pleasure or pain, but by degrees this mysterious

agitation, this nameless disquiet waxed greater and filled her soul with

joy and bitterness.

She was silent--withdrawn within herself--for though her heart was full

to overflowing, her emotion was pleasurably increased by that silence.

Speech would have broken the charm.

The kettle began its low song.

Andrea on a low seat, with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his

hand, sat watching the fair woman so intently that Elena, without

turning, felt that persistent gaze upon her with a sense of physical

discomfort. And while he gazed upon her he thought to himself that she

seemed altogether a new woman to him--one who had never been his, whom

he had never clasped to his heart.

And in truth, she was even more desirable than in the former days, the

plastic enigma of her beauty more obscure and more enthralling. Her head

with the low broad forehead straight nose and arched eyebrows--so pure

and firm in outline, so classically antique in the modelling--might have

come from some Syracusan coin. The expression of the eyes and that of

the mouth were in singular contrast, giving her that passionate,

ambiguous, almost preternatural look that only one or two master-hands,

deeply imbued in all the profoundest corruption of art, have been able

to infuse into such immortal types of woman as the Mona Lisa and Nelly

O'Brien.

The steam began to escape through the hole in the lid of the kettle, and

Elena turned her attention once more to the tea-table. She poured a

little water on the leaves; put two lumps of sugar in one of the cups,

then poured some more water into the tea-pot and extinguished the lamp;

doing it all with a certain fond care, but never once looking in

Andrea's direction. By this time her inward agitation had resolved

itself into such melting tenderness, that there was a lump in her throat

and her eyes filled involuntarily; all her contradictory thoughts, all

her trouble and agitation of heart, concentrated themselves in those

tears.

A movement of her arm knocked the little silver card-case off the table.

Andrea picked it up and examined the device: two true lovers' knots each

bearing an inscription in English--_From Dreamland_, and _A Stranger

here_.

When he raised his head, Elena offered him the fragrant beverage with a

mist of tears before her eyes.

He saw that mist, and, filled with love and gratitude at such an

unlooked-for sign of melting, he put down the cup, sank on his knees

before her, and seizing her hand pressed his lips passionately to it.

'Elena! Elena!' he murmured, his face close to hers as if he would drink

the breath from her lips. His emotion was quite sincere, though some of

the things he said were not. He loved her--had always loved her--had

never, never, never been able to forget her. On meeting her again, he

had felt his passion rekindle with such vehemence that it had given him

a kind of shock of terror--as if in one lightning flash he had witnessed

the upheaval, the convulsion of his whole life.

'Hush--hush----' said Elena with a look of pain, and turning very pale.

But Andrea went on, still on his knees, fanning the flames of his

passion by the images he himself evoked. When she had left him so

abruptly, he had felt that the greater and better part of him went with

her. Afterwards----never, never could he tell her all the misery of

those days, the agony of regret, the ceaseless, implacable, devouring

torture of mind and body. His wretchedness grew and increased daily till

it burst all bounds and overwhelmed him utterly. Despair lay in wait for

him at every turn. The mere flight of time became an intolerable burden.

His regrets were less for the happy days gone by than for those that

were passing all profitless for love. Those, at least, had left him a

memory, these nothing but profoundest regret--nay, almost remorse. His

life was preying upon itself, consumed in secret by the inextinguishable

flame of one desire, by the unconquerable distaste to any other form of

pleasure. Of all the fiery ardour of his youth nothing now remained to

him but a handful of ashes. Sometimes, like a dream that vanishes at

dawn, all the past, all the present would fade and fall away from his

inner consciousness--like a tale that is told, a useless garment. Then

he would remember the past no more, as a man newly risen from a long

illness, a convalescent still overcome with stupor. At last he could

forget--his tortured soul was sinking gently down to death.----But

suddenly, out of the depths of this lethal tranquillity his pain had

sprung up afresh, and the fallen idol was re-established higher than

ever. She and she alone held every fibre of his heart captive beneath

her spells, crushing out his intelligence, keeping the doors of his soul

against any other passion, any sorrow, any dream to the end of all

time----

He was lying of course, but his words were so fervid, his voice so

thrilling, the clasp of his hands so fondly caressing that Elena was

profoundly touched.

'Hush,' she said, 'I must not, dare not listen to you--I am yours no

longer, I never can be yours again--never. Do not say these things----'

'No--listen----'

'I will not--good-bye--I must go now. Good-bye, Andrea,--it is late--let

me go.'

She drew her hands out of the young man's clasp, and, successfully

throwing off the dangerous languor that was creeping over her, she

prepared to rise.

'Then why did you come?' he asked almost roughly, and preventing her

from doing so.

Slight as was the force he used, she frowned. She paused before

answering.

'I came,' she said in measured accents and looking her lover full in the

eyes--'I came because you asked me. For the sake of the love that was

once between us, for the manner in which that love was broken and for

the long and unexplained silence of my absence I had not the heart to

refuse your invitation. Besides, I wanted to say what I have said: that

I am no longer yours--that I never can be again--never. That is what I

wanted to tell you, honestly and frankly, to save you and myself all

painful disillusionment, all danger or bitterness in the future.--Do you

understand?'

Andrea bowed his head almost to her knee in silence. She stroked his

hair with a familiar gesture of old.

'And then,' she went on in a voice that thrilled him to the heart's

core--'and then--I wanted to tell you--that I love you--love you as much

as ever: that you are still the heart of my heart and that I will be the

fondest of sisters to you, the best of friends--do you understand?'

Andrea made no reply. She took his head between her hands and raised it,

forcing him to look her in the face.

'Do you understand?' she repeated in a still lower, sweeter tone. Her

eyes under the shadow of the long lashes were suffused with a pure and

tender light, her lips were slightly open and trembling.

'No; you never loved me, and you do not love me now!' Andrea burst out

at last, pulling Elena's hands from his temples and drawing away from

her, for he was sensible of the fire that was kindling in his veins

under the mere gaze of those eyes, and his regret at having lost

possession of this fairest of women grew more bitter and poignant than

before. 'No, you never loved me. You had the heart to strike your love

dead at a blow--treacherously almost--just when it had reached its

supremest height. You ran away, you deserted me, left me alone in my

bewilderment, my misery, while I was still blinded by your promises. You

never loved me--neither then nor now. And now, after such a long

absence, so full of mystery, so silent and inexorable, after I have

wasted the bloom of my life in cherishing a wound that was dear to me

because your hand had dealt it--after so much joy and so much pain, you

return to this room, in which every object is replete for us with living

memories, and you say to me calmly--"I am yours no

longer--good-bye."--Oh no--you do not love me.'

'Oh, you are ungrateful!' she cried, deeply wounded by the young man's

incensed tone. 'What do you know of all that has occurred, or of what I

have had to go through?--What do you know?'

'I know nothing, and what is more, I do not want to,' Andrea retorted

stubbornly, enveloping her in a darkling look in which burned the fever

of his desire. 'All I know is that you were mine once--wholly and

without reserve, and I know that body and soul I shall never forget

it----'

'Be silent!'

'What do I care for your sisterly affection? In spite of yourself you

offer it with your eyes full of quite another kind of love, and you

cannot touch me without your hands trembling. I have seen that look in

your eyes too often, you have too often felt me tremble with passion

beneath your hands--I love you!'

Carried away by his own words he grasped her wrists tightly and drew so

close to her that she felt his hot breath on her cheek. 'I love you, I

tell you--more than ever before,' he went on, slipping an arm about her

waist to draw her to his kiss--'Have you forgotten--have you forgotten?'

She pushed him forcibly from her and rose to her feet, trembling in

every limb.

'I will not--do you hear?'

But he would not hear. He came towards her with arms outstretched, very

pale and determined.

'Could you bear,' she cried turning at bay at last, indignant at his

violence, 'could you bear to share me with another?'

She flung the cruel question at him point-blank, without reflection, and

now stood looking at her lover with wide open frightened eyes, like one

who in self-defence has dealt a blow without measuring his strength, and

fears to have struck too deep.

Andrea's frenzy dropped on the instant, and his face expressed such

overwhelming pain that Elena was stricken to the heart.

After a moment's silence--'Good-bye!' he said, but that one word

contained all the bitterness of the words he refrained from saying.

'Good-bye,' she answered gently, 'forgive me.'

They both felt the necessity of putting an end, at least for that

evening, to this perilous conversation. Andrea affected an almost

over-strained courtesy. Elena became even gentler, almost humble. A

nervous tremor shook her continually.

She took her cloak from the chair and Andrea hastened to assist her. As

she did not succeed in finding the armholes, Andrea guided her hand to

it but scarcely touched her. He then offered her her hat and veil.

'There is a looking-glass in the next room if you would like----'

'No, thank you.' She went over beside the fireplace, where on the wall

hung a quaint little old mirror in a frame surrounded by little figures,

carved in so airy and vivacious a style that they seemed rather to be of

malleable gold than of wood. It was a charming thing, the work doubtless

of some delicate artist of the fifteenth century and designed to reflect

the charms of some Mona Amorrosisca or some Laldomine. Many a time in

the old happy days Elena had put on her veil in front of this dim, lack

lustre mirror. She remembered it again now.

On seeing her reflection rise out of its misty depths she was stirred by

a singular emotion. A rush of profound sadness came over her. She did

not speak.

All this time Andrea was watching her intently.

Her preparations concluded, she said, 'It must be very late.'

'Not very--about six o'clock, I think.'

'I sent away my carriage. I would be very grateful if you could send for

a closed cab for me.'

'Will you excuse me then if I leave you alone for a moment? My servant

is out.'

She assented. 'And please tell the man yourself where to go to--the

Hotel Quirinal.'

He went out and shut the door behind him. She was alone.

She cast a rapid glance around her, embracing the whole room with an

indefinable look that lingered on the vases of flowers. The room seemed

to her larger, the ceiling higher than she remembered. She began to feel

a little giddy. She did not notice the scent of the flowers any longer,

but the atmosphere of the room was close and heavy as in a hot-house.

Andrea's image appeared to her in a sort of intermittent flashes--a

vague echo of his voice rang in her ears. Was she going to faint?--Oh,

the delight of it if she might close her eyes and abandon herself to

this languor!

She gave herself a little shake and went over to one of the windows,

which she opened, and let the breeze blow in her face. Somewhat revived

by this she turned back into the room. The pale flame of the candles

sent flickering shadows over the walls. The fire burned low but sufficed

to light up in part the pious figures on the screen made of stained

glass from a church window. The cup of tea stood where Andrea had laid

it down on the table, cold and untouched. The chair cushion retained the

impress of the form that had leaned against it. All the objects

surrounding her breathed an ineffable melancholy, which condensed itself

in a heavy weight upon Elena's heart, till it sank beneath the well nigh

insupportable burden.

_'Mio Dio! mio Dio!'_

She wished she could make her escape unseen. A puff of wind inflated the

curtains, made the candles flicker, raised a general rustle through the

room. She shivered, and almost without knowing what she did, she

called--

'Andrea!'

Her own voice--that name in the silence startled her strangely, as if

neither voice nor name had come from her lips. Why was Andrea so long in

returning? She listened.----There was no sound but the dull deep

inarticulate murmur of the city. Not a carriage passed across the piazza

of the Trinità de' Monti. As the wind came in strong gusts from time to

time, she closed the window, catching a glimpse as she did so of the

point of the obelisk, black against the starry sky.

Possibly Andrea had not found a conveyance at once on the Piazza

Barberini. She sat herself down to wait on the sofa and tried to calm

her foolish agitation, avoiding all heartsearchings and endeavouring to

fix her attention on external objects. Her eyes wandered to the figures

on the fire-screen, faintly visible by the light of the dying logs. On

the mantelpiece a great white rose in one of the vases was dropping its

petals softly, languidly, one by one, giving an impression of something

subtly feminine and sensuous. The cup-like petals rested delicately on

the marble, like flakes of snow.

Ah, how sweet that fragrant snow had been _then_! she thought.

Rose-leaves strewed the carpets, the divan, the chairs, and she was

laughing, happy in the midst of the devastation, and her happy lover was

at her feet----

A carriage stopped down in the street. She rose and shook her aching

head to banish the dull weight that seemed to paralyse her. The next

moment, Andrea entered out of breath.

'Forgive me,' he said, 'for keeping you so long, but I could not find

the porter, so I went down to the Piazza di Spagna. The carriage is

waiting for you.'

'Thanks,' answered Elena with a timid glance at him through her black

veil.

He was grave and pale but quite calm.

'I expect my husband to-morrow,' she went on in a low faint voice. 'I

will send you a line to let you know when I can see you again.'

'Thank you,' answered Andrea.

'Good-bye then,' she said, holding out her hand.

'Shall I see you down to the street? There is no one there.'

'Yes--come down with me.'

She looked about her a little hesitatingly.

'Have you forgotten anything?' asked Andrea.

She was looking at the flowers, but she answered, 'Ah--yes--my

card-case.'

Andrea sprang to fetch it from the table. '_A stranger here_?' he read

as he handed it to her.

'_No, my dear, a friend_----'

Her answer was quick, her voice eager. Then suddenly with a smile

peculiarly her own, half imploring, half seductive, a mixture of

timidity and tenderness, she said: '_Give me a rose._'

Andrea went from vase to vase gathering all the roses into one great

bunch which he could scarcely hold in his hands--some of them shed their

petals.

'They were for you--all of them,' he said without looking at her.

Elena hung her head and turned to go in silence followed by Andrea. They

descended the stairs still in silence. He could see the nape of her neck

so fair and delicate where the little dark curls mingled with the

gray-blue fur.

'Elena!' he cried her name in a low voice, incapable any longer of

fighting against the passion that filled his heart to bursting.

She turned round to him with a finger on her lips--a gesture of agonised

entreaty--but her eyes burned through the shadow. She hastened her

steps, flung herself into the carriage and felt rather than saw him lay

the roses in her lap.

'Good-bye! Good-bye!'

And when the carriage turned away she threw herself back exhausted and

burst into a passion of sobs, tearing the roses to pieces with her poor

frenzied hands.

CHAPTER III

So she had come, she had come! She had re-entered the rooms in which

every piece of furniture, every object must retain some memory for her,

and she had said--'I am yours no more, can never be yours again, never!'

and--'Could you suffer to share me with another?'--Yes, she had dared to

fling those words in his face, in that room, in sight of all these

things!

A rush of pain--atrocious, immeasurable, made up of a thousand wounds,

each distinct from the other and one more piercing than the other, came

over him and goaded him to desperation. Passion enveloped him once more

in a thousand tongues of fire, re-kindling in him an inextinguishable

desire for this woman who belonged to him no more, re-awakening in his

memory every smallest detail of past caresses and all the sweet mad

doings of those days. And yet through it all, there persisted the

strange difficulty in identifying that Elena with the Elena of to-day,

who seemed to him altogether another woman, one whom he had never known,

never held in his arms. The torture of his senses was such that he

thought he must die of it. Impurity crept through his blood like a

corroding poison.

The impurity which _then_ the winged flame of the soul had covered with

a sacred veil, had surrounded with a mystery that was half divine,

appeared _now_ without the veil and without the mystery as a mere carnal

lust, a piece of gross sensuality. He knew that the ardour he had felt

to-day in her presence was not Love--had nothing in common with

Love--for when she had cried--'Could you suffer to share me with

another?'--Why, yes, he could suffer it perfectly.

Nothing therefore--nothing in him had remained intact. Even the memory

of his grand passion was now corrupted, sullied, debased. The last spark

of hope was extinct. He had reached his lowest level, never to rise

again.

He was seized by a terrible and frenzied desire to overthrow the idol

that still persistently rose up lofty and enigmatic before his

imagination, do what he would to abase it. With cynical cruelty, he set

himself to insult, to undermine, to mutilate it. The destructive

analysis he had already employed upon himself, he now turned upon Elena.

To those dubious problems which, at one time, he had resolutely put away

from him, he now sought the answer; of all the suspicions which had

formerly presented themselves to him only to disappear without leaving a

trace, he now studied the origin, found them justified and obtained

their confirmation. But whereas he thought to find relief in this

furious work of demolition, he only increased his sufferings, aggravated

his malady and deepened his wounds.

What had been the true cause of Elena's departure two years before?

There were many conflicting rumours at the time, and again when she

married Humphrey Heathfield; but the actual truth of the matter was what

he heard, quite by chance, among other scraps of society gossip, from

Giulio Musellaro one evening as they left the theatre together, nor did

Andrea doubt it for a moment. Donna Elena had been obliged to leave Rome

for pecuniary reasons, to work some 'operation' which should extricate

her from the serious embarrassments into which her outrageous

extravagance had plunged her. The marriage with Humphrey Heathfield, who

was Marquis of Mount Saint Michael and Earl of Broadford, and besides

possessing a considerable fortune was related to the highest nobility of

Great Britain, had saved her from ruin. Donna Elena had managed matters

with the utmost adroitness and succeeded marvellously in steering clear

of the threatening peril. It was not to be denied that the interval of

her three years of widowhood had been none too chaste a prelude to a

second marriage--neither chaste nor prudent--nevertheless, there was

also no denying that Elena Muti was a great lady----

'Ah, my boy, a grand creature!' said Musellaro, 'as you very well know.'

Andrea said nothing.

'But take my advice,' his friend went on, throwing away the cigarette

which had gone out while he talked, 'do not resume your relations with

her. It is the same with love as with tobacco--once out, it will not

bear relighting. Let us go and get a cup of tea from Donna Giulia

Moceto. They tell me one may go to her house after the theatre--it is

never too late.'

They were close by the Palazzo Borghese.

'You can,' answered Andrea, 'I am going home to bed. I am rather tired

after to-day's run with the hounds. My regards to Donna Giulia--my

blessing go with you!'

Musellaro went up the steps of the palace and Andrea continued on his

way past the Borghese fountain towards the Trinità.

It was one of those wonderful January nights, cold and serene, which

turn Rome into a city of silver set in a ring of diamonds. The full

moon, hanging in mid-sky, shed a triple purity of light, of frost, and

of silence.

He walked along in the moonlight like a somnambulist, conscious of

nothing but his pain. The last blow had been struck, the idol was

shattered, nothing remained standing above the ruins--this was the end!

So it was true--she had never really loved him. She had not scrupled to

break with him in order to contract a marriage of convenience. And now

she put on the airs of a martyr before him, wrapped herself round with a

mantle of conjugal inviolability! A bitter laugh rose to his lips, and

then a rush of sullen blind rage against the woman came over him. The

memory of his passion went for nothing--all the past was one long fraud,

one stupendous, hideous lie; and this man, who throughout his whole life

had made a practice of dissimulation and duplicity, was now incensed at

the deception of another, was as indignant at it as at some unpardonable

backsliding, some inexcusable and inexplicable perfidy. He was quite

unable to understand how Elena could have committed such a crime; he

denied her all possibility of justification, and rejected the hypothesis

of some secret and dire necessity having driven her to sudden flight. He

could see nothing but the bare brutal fact, its baseness, its

vulgarity--above all its vulgarity, gross, manifest, odious, without one

extenuating circumstance. In short, the whole matter reduced itself to

this: a passion which was apparently sincere, which they had vowed was

profound and inextinguishable, had been broken off for a question of

money, for material interests, for a commercial transaction.

'Oh, you are ungrateful! What do you know of all that has happened, of

all I have suffered!'

Elena's words recurred to him with everything else she had said, from

beginning to end of their interview--her words of fondness, her offer of

sisterly affection, all her sentimental phrases. And he remembered, too,

the tears that had dimmed her eyes, her changes of countenance, her

tremors, her choking voice when she said good-bye, and he laid the roses

in her lap. 'But why had she ever consented to come? Why play this part,

call up all these emotions, arrange this comedy? Why?

By this time he had reached the top of the steps, and found himself in

the deserted piazza. Suddenly the beauty of the night filled him with a

vague but desperate yearning towards some unknown good. The image of

Maria Ferrès flashed across his mind; his heart beat fast, he thought of

what it would be to hold her hands in his, to lean his head upon her

breast, to feel that she was consoling him without words, by her pity

alone. This longing for pity, for a refuge, was like the last struggle

of a soul that will not be content to perish. He bent his head and

entered the house without turning again to look at the night.

Terenzio was waiting up for him and followed him to the bedroom, where

there was a fire.

'Will the Signor Conte go to bed at once?' he asked.

'No, Terenzio, bring me some tea,' replied his master, sitting down

before the fire and stretching out his hands to the blaze.

He was shivering all over with a little nervous tremor.

'The Signor Conte is cold?' asked Terenzio, hastening with affectionate

interest to stir up the fire and put on fresh logs.

He was an old servant of the house of Sperelli, having served Andrea's

father for many years, and his devotion for the son reached the pitch of

idolatry. No human being seemed to him so handsome, so noble, so worthy

of devotion. He belonged to that ideal race which furnished faithful

retainers to the romance writers of old, but differed from the servants

of romance in that he spoke little, never offered advice, and concerned

himself with no other business than that of carrying out his master's

orders.

'That will do very nicely,' said Andrea, trying to repress the

convulsive trembling of his limbs and crouching closer over the fire.

The presence of the old man in this hour of misery and distress moved

him singularly. It was an emotion somewhat similar to that which, in the

presence of some very kind and sympathetic person, affects a man

determined upon suicide. Never before had the old man brought back to

him so strongly the recollection of his father, the memory of the

beloved dead, his grief for the loss of a great and good friend. Never

so much as now had he felt the want of that comforting voice, that

paternal hand. What would his father say could he see his son thus

crushed under the weight of a nameless distress? How would he have

sought to relieve him--what would he have done?

His thoughts turned to the dead father with boundless yearning and

regret. And he had not the shadow of a suspicion that in the very

teachings of that father lay the primary cause of his wretchedness.

Terenzio brought the tea. He then proceeded slowly to arrange the bed

with a care and solicitude that were almost womanly, forgetting nothing,

as if he wished to ensure to his master refreshing and unbroken slumbers

till the morrow.

Andrea watched him with growing emotion. 'Go to bed now, Terenzio,' he

said. 'I shall not want anything more.'

The old man retired and left him alone before the fire--alone with his

heart, alone with his misery. Tortured by his inward agitation, he rose

and began to pace the room. He was haunted by a vision of Elena, and

each time he came as far as the window and turned, he fancied he saw her

and started violently. His nerves were in such an overstrung condition

that they only increased the disorder of his imagination. The

hallucination grew more distinct. He stood still and covered his face

with his hands for a moment to control his excitement, and then returned

to his seat by the fire.

This time another image rose before him--that of Elena's husband.

He knew him better now. That very evening in a box at the theatre, Elena

had introduced them to one another, and he had seized that opportunity

to examine him attentively in detail with the keenest curiosity, as

though he hoped to obtain some revelation, to draw some secret from him.

He could still hear the man's voice--a voice of very peculiar tone,

somewhat harsh and strident, with an interrogative inflection at the end

of each sentence. Again he saw those pale, pale eyes under the great

prominent forehead, eyes that at times assumed a hideous, glassy, dead

look, and at others lit up with an indefinable gleam that savoured of

madness. Those hands too, he saw--white and smooth and thickly covered

with sandy yellow down, and with something obscene in their every

movement; their way of raising the opera-glass, of unfolding a

handkerchief, of reclining on the cushion in front of the box or turning

over the pages of the libretto--hands instinct with vice.

Oh, horror! he saw those hands touching Elena, profaning her with their

odious caresses.

The torture became insupportable. He rose once more, went to the

window, opened it, shivered under the biting breeze and shook himself.

The Trinità de' Monti glittered in the deep blue sky, sharply outlined

as if sculptured in faintly tinted marble. Rome, spread out beneath him,

had a sheen as of crystal, like a city cut in a glacier.

The calm and sparkling cold brought his mind back to the realities of

life and enabled him to recognise the true condition of his mind. He

closed the window and sat down again. Once more the enigmatical aspect

of Elena's character occupied him, questions crowded in upon him

tumultuously, persistently. But he had the strength of mind to

co-ordinate them, to attack them one by one, with singular lucidity. The

deeper he went in his analysis the more lucid became his mental vision,

and he worked out his psychological revenge with cruel relish. At last

he felt that he had laid bare a soul, penetrated a mystery. It seemed to

him, that thus he made Elena infinitely more his own than in the days of

their passion.

What, after all, was this woman?--An unbalanced mind in a sensually

inclined body. As with all who are greedy of pleasure, the foundation of

her moral being was overweening egotism. Her dominant faculty, her

intellectual axis, so to speak, was imagination--an imagination

nourished upon a wide range of literature, connected with her sex and

perpetually stimulated by neurotic excitement. Possessed of a certain

degree of intellectual capacity, brought up in all the luxury of a

princely Roman house--that papal luxury which is made up of art and

history--she had received a thin coating of æsthetic varnish, had

acquired a graceful taste, and, having thoroughly grasped the character

of her beauty, sought by skilful simulation and a sapient use of her

marked histrionic talents to enhance its spirituality by surrounding it

with a delusive halo of ideality.

Into the comedy of human life she thus brought some highly perilous

elements, and was thereby the occasion of more ruin and disaster than if

she had been a _demi-mondaine_ by profession.

Under the glamour of her imagination, every caprice assumed an

appearance of pathos. She was the woman of fulminating passions, of

suddenly blazing desire. She covered the lusts of the flesh with a

mantle of ethereal flame, and could transform into a noble sentiment

what was merely a base appetite.

Such was the scathing judgment brought by Andrea against the woman he

had once adored. At the root of every action, every expression of

Elena's love he now discovered studied artifice, an admirable natural

gift for carrying out a pre-arranged scheme, for playing a dramatic part

or organising a striking scene. He did not spare their most memorable

episodes--neither the first meeting at the Ateletas' dinner, nor the

Cardinal Immenraet's sale, nor the ball at the French Embassy, nor the

sudden offer of her love in the red room at the Barberini palace, nor

their farewells out in the country in the biting March blast. The magic

draught which had intoxicated him then now seemed but an insidious

poison.

Yet, in spite of it all, certain points perplexed him, as if in

penetrating Elena's soul he had penetrated his own, and in the woman's

perfidy had seen a reflection of his own. There was much affinity

between their two natures. Therefore he _understood_, and little by

little, his contempt changed to ironical indulgence. He was so

thoroughly conversant with his own mode of procedure.

Then with cold lucidity, he mapped out his plan of campaign. He reviewed

every detail of the interview that had taken place on New Year's

Eve--more than a week ago--and it pleased him to re-construct the scene,

but without the slightest indignation or excitement, only smiling

cynically both at Elena and himself. Why had she come?--Simply because

this impromptu _tête-à-tête_ with a former lover, in the well-known

place, after a lapse of two years, had tempted a spirit always on the

look-out for fresh emotions, had inflamed her imagination and her

curiosity. She thirsted to see into what new situations, new intrigues

the dangerous game would lead her. She was perhaps attracted by the

novelty of a platonic affection with a person who had already been the

object of her sensual passion. As ever, she had thrown herself into the

new part with a certain imaginative fervour. Also it was quite possible

that, for the moment, she believed what she said, and that this illusory

sincerity had furnished her with that deep tenderness of accent, those

despairing attitudes, those tears. How well he knew it all! She had a

sentimental hallucination as other people have a physical one. She

forgot that she was acting a lie, was no longer conscious whether she

were living in a world of truth or falsehood, of fiction or reality.

Now this was precisely the moral phenomenon which so constantly took

place in himself. Therefore he could not reproach her without injustice.

But the discovery very naturally deprived him of the hope of deriving

any pleasure from her other than sensual ones. In any case, mistrust

would poison all the sweetness of abandon, all soulful rapture. To

deceive a confiding and faithful heart, dominate a soul by artifice,

possess it wholly and make it vibrate like an instrument--_habere non

haberi_--all this, doubtless, gives intense pleasure; but to deceive,

and know that one is being deceived in return, is a stupid and fruitless

labour, a tiresome and aimless pursuit.

He must therefore work upon Elena to renounce the sisterly scheme and to

return to his arms once more. He must regain possession of this

beautiful woman, extract the utmost possible pleasure from her beauty

and free himself for ever of this passion by reaching the point of

satiety. But it was a task demanding prudence and patience. In that

first interview, his ardour had availed him nothing. Obviously, she had

founded her plan of impeccability on the grand phrase--'Could you endure

to share me with another?' The mainspring of the great platonic business

was a virtuous horror of divided possession. For the rest, it was just

within the bounds of possibility that this horror was not feigned. Most

women addicted to the practice of free love, if they do eventually

marry, affect, during the early days of their marriage, a savage

virtue, and make professions of conjugal fidelity with the most honest

determination. Perhaps, therefore, Elena had been affected by this

common scruple, in which case, nothing would be more ill-advised than to

show his hand too boldly and offend against her new-found virtue. The

better plan would be to second her spiritual aspirations, accept her as

'the fondest of sisters, the truest of friends,' intoxicate her with the

ideal, be skilfully platonic and then make her glide imperceptibly from

frank sisterly relations to a more passionate friendship, and from

thence to the complete surrender of her person. In all probability these

transitions would occur very rapidly. It all depended upon a wise

adjustment of circumstances----

Thus Andrea Sperelli reasoned, sitting in front of the fire which had

glowed upon Elena, laughing among the scattered rose leaves. A boundless

lassitude weighed upon him, a lassitude which did not invite sleep, a

sense of weariness, so empty, so disconsolate as to be almost a longing

for death; while the fire died out on the hearth and the tea grew cold

in the cup.

CHAPTER IV

He waited in vain during the days that followed for the promised note to

tell him when he might see Elena again----So she did intend to make

another appointment with him; the question was--where? At the Casa

Zuccari again? Would she risk such an imprudence a second time? This

uncertainty kept him on the rack. He passed whole hours in searching for

some way of meeting her, of seeing her again. He went several times to

the Hotel Quirinal in the hope of being received, but never once did he

find her at home. One evening, he saw her again in the theatre with

'Mumps,' as she called her husband. Though only saying the usual things

about the music, the singers, the ladies, he infused a supplicating

melancholy into his gaze. She seemed greatly taken up by the arrangement

of their house. They were going back to the Palazzo Barberini, her old

quarters, but were having them much enlarged, and she was for ever

occupied with upholsterers and decorators, giving orders and

superintending the placing of the furniture.

'Are you going to stay long in Rome?' asked Andrea.

'Yes,' she answered--'Rome will be our winter residence.' Then, after a

moment's pause--'You could give us some very good advice about the

furniture. Come to the palace one of these days. I am always there from

ten to twelve.'

He took advantage of a moment when Lord Heathfield was talking to Giulio

Musellaro, who had just entered the box, to say to her, looking her full

in the eyes.

'To-morrow?'

'By all means,' she replied with perfect simplicity, as if she had not

noticed the tone of his question.

The next morning, about eleven, he set off on foot to the Palazzo

Barberini through the Via Sistina. It was a road he had often traversed

before--and, for a moment, the impressions of those days seemed to come

back to him, and his heart swelled. The fountain of Bernini shone

curiously luminous in the sunshine, as if the dolphins and the Triton

with his conch-shell had, by some interrupted metamorphose transformed

themselves into a more diaphanous material--not stone, nor yet quite

crystal. The noise of the building of new Rome filled all the piazza and

the adjoining streets; country children ran in and out between the carts

and horses offering violets for sale.

As he passed through the gate and entered the garden, he felt that he

was beginning to tremble. 'Then I _do_ love her still?' he thought to

himself--'Is she still the woman of _my dreams_?'

He looked at the great palace, radiant under the morning sun, and his

spirit flew back to the days when, in certain chill and misty dawns,

this same palace had assumed for him a look of enchantment. That was in

the early times of his happiness, when he came away warm from her kisses

and full of his new-found bliss; the bells of Trinità de' Monti, of San

Isidoro and the Cappuccini rang out the Angelus into the dawning day,

with a muffled peal as if out of the far distance--at the corner of the

street, fires glowed red round cauldrons of boiling asphalt--a little

herd of goats stood against the white wall of the slumbering house----

These forgotten sensations rose up once more out of the depths of his

consciousness, and, for an instant, a wave of the old love swept over

his soul, for one moment he tried to imagine that Elena was still the

Elena of those days, that his happiness had endured till now, that none

of these miserable things were true. As he crossed the threshold of the

palace, all this illusory ferment died away on the instant, for Lord

Heathfield came forward to greet him with his habitual and somewhat

ambiguous smile.

With that his torture began.

Elena appeared, and shaking hands cordially with him in her husband's

presence, she said--'Bravo, Andrea! Come and help us, come and help us!'

She talked and gesticulated with much vivacity and looked very girlish

in a close-fitting jacket of dark-blue cloth, trimmed round the high

collar and the cuffs with black astrachan and fine black braiding. She

kept one hand in her pocket in a graceful attitude, and with the other

pointed out the various wall-hangings, the pictures, the furniture,

asking his advice as to their most advantageous disposal.

'Where would you put these two chests? Look--Mumps picked them up at

Lucca. These pictures are your beloved Botticelli's.--Where would you

hang these tapestries?'

Andrea recognised the four pieces of tapestry from the Immenraet sale

representing the Story of Narcissus. He looked at Elena, but could not

catch her eye. A profound sense of irritation against her, against her

husband, against all these things took possession of him. He would have

liked to go away, but politeness demanded that he should place his good

taste at the service of the Heathfields; it also obliged him to submit

to the archæological erudition of 'Mumps,' who was an ardent collector

and was anxious to show him some of his finds. In one cabinet Andrea

caught sight of the Pollajuolo helmet, and in another of the

rock-crystal goblet which had belonged to Niccolo Niccoli. The presence

of that particular goblet in this particular place moved him strangely

and sent a flash of mad suspicion through his mind.

So it had fallen into the hands of Lord Heathfield! The famous

competition between the Countesses having come to nothing, nobody

troubled themselves further about the fate of the goblet, and none of

the party had returned to the sale after that day. Their ephemeral zeal

had languished and finally died out and passed away, like everything

else in the world of fashion, and the goblet had been abandoned to the

competition of other collectors. The thing was perfectly natural, but

at that moment it appeared to Andrea most extraordinary.

He purposely stopped before the cabinet and gazed long at the precious

goblet on which the story of Venus and Anchises glittered as if cut in a

pure diamond.

'Niccolo Niccoli!' said Elena, pronouncing the name with an indefinable

accent in which the young man seemed to catch a note of sadness.

The husband had just gone into another room to open a cabinet.

'Remember--remember!' murmured Andrea, turning towards her.

'I do remember.'

'Then when may I see you?'

'Ah, when?'

'But you promised me----'

Lord Heathfield returned. They passed on into an adjoining room, making

the tour of the apartments. Everywhere they met workmen hanging papers,

draping curtains, carrying furniture. Each time Elena asked his opinion,

Andrea had to make an effort before answering her, in order to disguise

his ill-humour and his impatience. At last, he managed to seize a moment

when her husband was occupied with one of the men to say to her in a low

voice, unable any longer to conceal his chagrin--

'Why inflict this torture upon me? I expected to find you alone.'

Passing through one of the doors, Elena's hat caught in the portière and

was dragged out of place. She laughed and called to Mumps to come and

unfasten her veil. And Andrea was forced to look on while those odious

hands touched the hair of the woman he desired, ruffling the little

curls at the back of her neck, those curls which under his caresses had

seemed to breathe out a mysterious perfume, unlike any other, and

sweeter and more intoxicating than all the rest.

He hurriedly took his leave under pretext of being due at lunch with

some one else.

'We shall move in here on the 1st of February,' Elena said to him, 'and

then I hope you will be one of our _habitués_.'

Andrea bowed.

He would have given worlds not to be obliged to touch Lord Heathfield's

hand. He went away filled with rancour, jealousy and disgust.

CHAPTER V

At a late hour that same evening, happening to look in at the Club,

where he had not been for a long time, whom should he see at one of the

card-tables but Don Manuel Ferrès y Capdevila. Andrea greeted him with

effusion and inquired after Donna Maria and Delfina--whether they were

still at Sienna--when they were coming to Rome.

Don Manuel, who remembered to have won several thousand lire from the

young Count during the last evening at Schifanoja, and had recognised in

Andrea Sperelli a player of the best form and perfect style, responded

with the utmost courtesy and cordiality.

'They have been here some days already; they arrived on Monday,' he

answered. 'Maria was much disappointed not to find the Marchesa

d'Ateleta in town. I am sure it would give her the greatest pleasure if

you would call on her. We are in the Via Nazionale. Here is the exact

address.'

He handed one of his cards to Andrea and then returned to the game.

The Duke di Beffi, who was standing with a knot of gentlemen, called

Andrea over to them.

'Why did you not come to Cento Celli this morning?' asked the duke.

'I had another appointment,' Andrea replied without reflecting.

'At the Palazzo Barberini perhaps?' said the duke with a shy laugh, in

which he was joined by the others.

'Perhaps.'

'Perhaps, indeed?--why, Ludovico saw you go in.'

'And where were you, may I ask?' said Andrea turning to Barbarisi.

'Over the way, at my Aunt Saviano's.'

'Ah!'

'I don't know if you had better luck than we had,' Beffi went on, 'but

we had a run of forty-two minutes and got two foxes. The next meet is on

Thursday at the Three Fountains.'

'You understand--at the _Three_ Fountains, not at the _Four_,' Gino

Bomminaco admonished him with comic gravity.

The others burst into a roar of laughter which Andrea could not help

joining. He was by no means displeased at their gibes; on the contrary,

now that there was no truth in their suspicions, it flattered him for

his friends to think he had renewed his relations with Elena. He turned

away to speak to Giulio Musellaro, who had just come in. From a few

strays words that reached his ear, he found that the group behind him

were discussing Lord Heathfield.

'I knew him in London six or seven years ago,' Beffi was saying. 'He was

Gentleman of the Bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales as far as I

remember----'

The duke lowered his voice, he was evidently retailing the most

appalling things. Andrea caught scraps here and there of a highly-spiced

nature and, once or twice, the name of a newspaper famous in the annals

of London scandal. He longed to hear more; a terrible curiosity took

possession of him. His imagination conjured up Lord Heathfield's hands

before him--so white, so significant, so expressive, so impossible to

forget. Musellaro was still talking, and now said--

'Let us go--I want to tell you----'

On the stairs they encountered Albonico, who was coming up. He was in

deep mourning for Donna Ippolita, and Andrea stopped to ask for details

of the sad event. He had heard of her death when he was in Paris in

November from Guido Montelatici, a cousin of Donna Ippolita.

'Was it really typhus?'

The wan and pale-eyed widower grasped at an occasion for pouring out his

griefs, for he made a display of his bereavement as, at one time, he had

made a display of his wife's beauty. He stammered and grew lachrymose

and his colourless eyes seemed bulging from his head.

Seeing that the widower's elegy threatened to be somewhat long drawn

out, Musellaro said to Andrea--

'If we don't take care, we shall be late.'

Andrea accordingly took leave of Albonico, promising to hear the rest of

the funeral oration very shortly, and went away with Musellaro.

The meeting with Albonico had re-awakened the singular emotion--partly

regret, partly a certain peculiar satisfaction--which he had experienced

for several days after hearing the news of this death. The image of

Donna Ippolita, half obliterated by his illness and convalescence, by

his love for Maria Ferrès, by a variety of incidents, had reappeared to

him then as in the dim distance, but invested with a nameless ideality.

He had received a promise from her which, though it was never fulfilled,

had procured to him the greatest happiness that can befall a man: the

victory over a rival, a brilliant victory in the presence of the woman

he desired. Later on, between desire and regret another sentiment grew

up--the poetic sentiment for beauty idealised by death. It pleased him

that the adventure should end thus for ever. This woman who had never

been his, but to gain whom he had nearly lost his life, now rose up

noble and unsullied before his imagination in all the sublime ideality

of death. _Tibi, Hippolyta, semper!_

'But where are we going to?' asked Musellaro, stopping short in the

middle of the Piazza de Venezia.

At the bottom of all Andrea's perturbation and all his varying thoughts,

was the excitement called up in him by his meeting with Don Manuel

Ferrès and the consequent thought of Donna Maria; and now, in the midst

of these conflicting emotions, a sort of nervous longing drew him to her

house.

'I am going home,' he answered; 'we can go through the Via Nazionale.

Come along with me.'

He paid no heed to what his friend was saying. The thought of Maria

Ferrès occupied him exclusively. Arrived in front of the theatre, he

hesitated a moment, undecided which side of the street he had better

take. He would find out the direction of the house by seeing which way

the numbers ran.

'What is the matter?' asked Musellaro.

'Nothing--go on,--I am listening.'

He looked at one number and calculated that the house must be on the

left hand side, somewhere about the Villa Aldobrandini. The tall pines

round the villa looked feathery light against the starry sky. The night

was icy but serene; the Torre delle Milizie lifted up its massive bulk,

square and sombre among the twinkling stars; the laurels on the wall of

Servius slumbered motionless in the gleam of the street lamps.

A few numbers more and they would reach the one mentioned on Don

Manuel's card. Andrea trembled as if he expected Donna Maria to appear

upon the threshold. He passed so close to the great door that he brushed

against it; he could not refrain from looking up at the windows.

'What are you looking at?' asked Musellaro.

'Nothing--give me a cigarette and let us walk a little faster; it is

awfully cold.'

They followed the Via Nazionale as far as the Four Fountains in silence.

Andrea's preoccupation was patent.

'You must decidedly have something serious on your mind,' said his

friend.

Andrea's heart beat so fast that he was on the point of pouring his

confidences into his friend's ear, but he restrained himself. Memories

of Schifanoja passed across his spirit like an exhilarating perfume, and

in the midst of them beamed the figure of Maria Ferrès with a radiance

that almost dazzled him. But most distinctly and more luminously than

all the rest, he saw that moment in the wood at Vicomile, when she had

flung those burning words at him. Would he ever hear such words from her

lips again? What had she been doing--what had been her thoughts--how had

she spent the days since they parted? His agitation increased with every

step. Fragments of scenes passed rapidly before him like the

phantasmagoria of a dream--a bit of country, a glimpse of the sea, a

flight of steps among the roses, the interior of a room, all the places

in which some sentiment had had its birth, round which she had diffused

some sweetness, where she had breathed the charm of her person. And he

thrilled with profound emotion at the idea that perchance she still

carried in her heart that living passion, had perhaps suffered and wept,

had dreamed and hoped.

'Well?' said Musellaro, 'and how is your affair with Donna Elena

progressing?'

They happened to be just in front of the Palazzo Barberini. Behind the

railings and the great stone pillars of the gates stretched the garden,

dimly visible through the gloom, animated by the low murmur of the

fountains and dominated by the massive white palace where in the portico

alone was light.

'What did you say?' asked Andrea.

'I asked how you were getting on with Donna Elena.'

Andrea glanced up at the palace. At that moment he seemed to feel a

blank indifference in his heart, the absolute death of desire--the final

renunciation.

'I am following your advice. I have not tried to relight the cigarette.'

'And yet, do you know, in this one instance, I believe it would be worth

while. Have you noticed her particularly? It seems to me that she has

become more beautiful. I cannot help thinking there is something--how

shall I express it?--something new, something indescribable about her.

No, _new_ is not the word. She has gained intensity without losing

anything of the peculiar character of her beauty; in short, she is _more

Elena_ than the Elena of two years ago--the quintessence of herself. It

is, most likely, the effect of her second spring, for I should fancy

she must be hard on thirty. Don't you think so?'

As he listened, Andrea felt the dull ashes of his love stir and kindle.

Nothing revives and excites a man's desire so much as hearing from

another the praises of a woman he has loved too long or wooed in vain. A

love in its death-throes may thus be prolonged as the result of the envy

or the admiration of another; for the disgusted or wearied lover

hesitates to abandon what he possesses or is struggling to possess in

favour of a possible successor.

'Don't you think so?' Musellaro repeated. 'And, besides, to make a

Menelaus of that Heathfield would in itself be an unspeakable

satisfaction.'

'So I think,' answered Andrea, forcing himself to adopt his friend's

light tone. 'Well, we shall see.'

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

'Maria, grant me this one moment of unalloyed sweetness! Let me tell you

all that is in my heart.'

She rose. 'Forgive, me,' she said gently, without anger or bitterness

and with an audible quiver of emotion in her voice. 'Forgive me but I

cannot listen to you. You pain me very much.'

'Well, I will not say anything--only stay--I implore you.'

She seated herself once more. It was like the days of Schifanoja come

back again. The same matchless grace of the delicate head drooping under

the masses of hair as under some divine chastisement, the same deep and

tender shadow, a fusion of diaphanous violet and soft blue, surrounding

the tawny brown eyes.

'I only wanted,' Andrea went on humbly, 'I only wanted to remind you of

the words I spoke, the words you listened to that morning in the park

under the shadow of the trees, in an hour that will always remain sacred

in my memory.'

'I have not forgotten them.'

'Since that day my unhappiness has become ever deeper, darker, more

poignant. I can never tell you all I have suffered, all the abject

misery of that time: can never tell you how often in spirit I have

called upon you as if my last hour had come, nor describe to you the

thrill of joy, the upward bound of my whole soul towards the light of

hope, if, for one moment, I dared to think that the remembrance of me

still lived in your heart.'

He spoke in the accents of that morning long ago; he seemed to have

regained the same passionate rapture: all his vaguely felt happiness

rose to his lips. And she sat motionless, listening with drooping head,

almost in the same attitude as on that day; and round her lips, those

lips which she vainly sought to keep firm, there played the same

expression of dolorous rapture.

'Do you remember Vicomile? Do you remember our ride through the wood on

that evening in October?'

Donna Maria bent her head slightly in sign of assent.

'And the words you said to me?' the young man went on in a lower voice,

but in a tone of suppressed passion and bending down to look into the

eyes she kept steadfastly fixed upon the ground.

She raised them now to his--those sweet, patient, pathetic eyes.

'I have forgotten nothing,' she replied, 'nothing, nothing! Why should I

hide my heart from you? You are good and noble-minded, and I have

absolute trust in your generosity. Why should I act towards you like an

ordinary foolish woman? I told you that evening that I loved you. Your

question implies another one, I see that very well--you want to ask me

if I love you still.'

She faltered for a moment and her lips quivered. 'I love you.'

'Maria!'

'But you must give up all claim upon my love, you must keep away from

me. Be noble, be generous, and spare me the struggle which frightens me.

I have suffered much, Andrea, I have borne much; but the thought of

having to struggle with you, to defend myself against you, fills me with

a nameless terror. You do not know at the cost of what sacrifices I have

at last gained peace of heart; you do not know what lofty and cherished

ideals I have been obliged to bid farewell to--poor ideals! I am a

changed woman because I could not help it; I have had to place myself on

a lower level.'

There was a note of grave, sweet sadness in her voice.

'In those first days after I met you, I abandoned myself to the alluring

sweetness, let myself drift with eyes closed to the distant peril. I

thought--he shall never know anything from me, I shall never know

anything from him. I had nothing to regret and therefore I felt no fear.

But you spoke--you said things to me that no one had ever said before,

and then you forced my avowal from me. The danger suddenly appeared

before me, unmistakable, imminent. And then I abandoned myself to a

fresh dream. Your mental distress touched me to the heart, caused me

profound pain. "Impurity has sullied his soul," I thought to myself.

"Oh, that I had the power to purify it again! What happiness to offer

myself up as a sacrifice for his regeneration!" Your unhappiness

attracted mine. I thought I might scarcely be able to console you, but I

hoped at least you might find relief in having another soul to answer

eternally _Amen_ to all your plaints.'

She uttered the last words with a face so suffused with spiritual

exaltation that Andrea felt a wave of half-religious joy sweep over him,

and his one desire, at that moment, was to take those dear and spotless

hands in his and breathe upon them the ineffable rapture of his soul.

'But it cannot--it may not be.' she went on, shaking her head in sad

regret. 'We must renounce that hope for ever. Life is inexorable.

Without intending it, you would destroy a whole existence--and more than

one perhaps----'

'Maria, Maria! do not say such things!' the young man broke in, leaning

over her once more and taking one of her hands with a sort of timid

entreaty, as if looking for some sign of permission before venturing on

the liberty. 'I will do anything you tell me; I will be humble and

obedient, my one thought shall be to carry out your wishes, my one

desire, to die with your name upon my lips. In renouncing you, I

renounce my salvation, I fall back into irremediable ruin and disaster.

I have no words to express my love for you. I have need of you. You

alone are _true_--you are Truth itself, for which my soul is ever

seeking. All else is vanity--all else is nought. To give you up is like

signing my death-warrant. But if this immolation is necessary to your

peace of mind, it shall be done--I owe it to you. Do not fear, Maria, I

will never do anything to hurt you.'

He held her hand, but he did not press it. His voice had none of the old

passionate ardour, it was submissive, disconsolate, heart-broken, full

of infinite weariness. And Maria was so blinded by her compassion that

she did not draw away her hand, but let it lie in his, abandoning

herself for a moment to the unutterable rapture of that light contact--a

rapture so subtle as hardly to have any physical origin--as if some

magnetic fluid, issuing from her heart, diffused itself through her arm

to her fingers and there flowed forth in a wave of ineffable sweetness.

When Andrea ceased speaking, certain words of his, uttered on that

memorable morning in the park and revived by the recent sound of his

voice, returned to her memory--'Your mere presence suffices to

intoxicate me--I feel it flowing through my veins like blood, flooding

my soul with nameless emotion----'

There was an interval of silence. From time to time, a gust of wind

shook the window-panes and bore fitfully with it the distant roar of the

city and the rumbling of carriage wheels. The light was cold and limpid

as spring water; shadows were gathering thickly in the corners of the

room and in the folds of the Oriental curtains; from pieces of

furniture, here and there, came gleams of ivory and mother-of-pearl; a

great gilded Buddha shone out of the background under a tall palm.

Something of the exotic mystery of these things was diffused over the

drawing-room.

'And what do you suppose is going to become of me now?' asked Andrea.

She seemed lost in perplexing thought. There was a look of irresolution

on her face as if she were listening to two contending voices.

'I cannot describe to you,' she answered, passing her hand over her eyes

with a rapid gesture, 'I cannot describe to you the strange foreboding

that has weighed upon me for a long time past. I do not know what it is,

but I am _afraid_.'

Then, after a pause--'Oh, to think that you may be suffering, sick at

heart,--my poor darling--and that I can do nothing to ease your pain,

may not be with you in your hour of anguish--may not even know that you

have called me--_Mio Dio!_'

There was a quiver of tears in her breaking voice. Andrea hung his head

but did not speak.

'To think that my spirit will follow you always, always, and yet that it

may never, never mingle with yours, will never, never be understood by

you!--Alas, poor love!'

Her voice was full of tears and her mouth was drawn with pain.

Ah, do not desert me--do not desert me!' cried the young man, seizing

her two hands and half-kneeling at her feet, a prey to overwhelming

excitement--'I will never ask anything of you--I want nothing but your

pity. A little pity from you is more--far more--to me than passionate

love from any other woman--you know it. Your hand alone can heal me, can

bring me back to life, can raise me out of the slough into which I have

sunk, give me back my faith and free me from the bondage of those

shameful things that corrupt me and fill me with horror.

Dear--dear--hands!'

He bent over them and pressed his lips to them in a long kiss,

abandoning himself with half-closed eyes to the utter sweetness of it.

'I can feel you tremble,' he murmured in an indefinable tone.

She rose abruptly, trembling from head to foot, giddy, paler still than

on the morning when they walked together beneath the flower-laden trees.

The wind still shook the panes; there was a dull clamour in the distance

as of a riotous crowd. The shrill cries borne on the wind from the

Quirinal increased her agitation.

'Go, Andrea--please go--you must not stay here any longer. You shall see

me some other time--whenever you like, but go now, I entreat you----'

'Where shall I see you again?'

'At the concert to-morrow--good-bye.'

She was as perturbed and agitated as if she had been guilty of some

grave fault. She accompanied him to the door of the room. When she found

herself alone, she hesitated, not knowing what to do next, still under

the sway of her terror. Her temples throbbed, her cheeks and her eyes

burned with fierce intensity, while cold shivers ran through her limbs.

But on her hands she still felt the pressure of that beloved mouth, a

sensation so surpassingly sweet that she wished it might remain there

for ever indelible like some divine impress.

She looked about her. The light was fading, things looked shapeless in

the shadows, the great Buddha gleamed with a weird pale light. The cries

came up from the street fitfully. She went over to a window, opened it

and leaned out. An icy wind blew through the street; in the direction of

the Piazza dei Termini, they were already lighting the lamps. Across the

way, at the Villa Aldobrandini, the trees swayed to and fro, their tops

touched with a faint red glow. A huge crimson cloud hung solitary in the

sky over the Torre delle Milizie.

The evening struck her as strangely lugubrious. She withdrew from the

window and seated herself again where she had just had her conversation

with Andrea. Why had Delfina not returned yet? She earnestly desired to

escape from her thoughts, and yet she weakly allowed herself to linger

in the place where, only a few minutes ago, Andrea had breathed and

spoken, had sighed out his love and his unhappiness. The struggles, the

resolutions, the contrition, the prayers, the penances of four months

had been wiped out, made utterly unavailing in one second of time, and

she sank down more weary and vanquished than ever, without the will or

the power to fight against the foes that beset her in her own heart,

against the feelings that were upheaving her whole moral foundations.

And while she gave way to the anguish and despair of a conscience which

feels all its courage oozing from it, she still had the feeling that

something of _him_ lingered in the shadows of the room and enveloped her

with all the sweetness of a passionate caress.