On his way down-stairs Prospero came upon the _padrona di casa_.
She stood at the door of the first floor, which he had supposed
untenanted, the windows on the street being always dark. She looked
pleased, anxious, and full of business.
"Just step in for a moment, signorino," she said, "and tell me what it
seems to you."
The young man followed her. The windows of the apartment were wide
open--most likely to let in the heat, for to lean forth beyond the
chill boundary of the stone walls was like dipping into a warm bath.
The long, old, neatly darned lace curtains waved gently in the April
air. The stone floors had been sprinkled; a pleasant freshness arose
from them. Everything had an air of having just been gone over with a
damp dust-cloth; everything that could be furbished shone to the utmost
of its capacity.
The little woman led Prospero into the large _sala_, from which,
through several open doors, one got glimpses of other airy chambers.
The great height of the ceiling--increased to illusion by the cunning
of the fresco, which professed to open into the sky itself, and show
a flight of rosy cupids tumbling among the clouds--had the effect of
dwarfing the furniture, even the gigantic vases under their shining
bells. The seats were placed about in social groups; in the embrasure
of the balcony window stood a small table supporting a coral-colored
coffee service, lately placed between two low chairs, with a view to
spreading about suggestions of cosiness--the joys of intimate life.
"I see that you are expecting a tenant," said Prospero.
"So it is indeed; a great lady--a foreigner," replied the _padrona_,
under her breath. "Just see, signorino, what you make of this name."
While she felt in her pocket she went on: "It is Dottor Segati sends
her to me. Oh, he has sent me families before when there was a patient
among them; and this apartment has always given satisfaction; that I
can say with my hand upon my conscience. There--can you read it? I can
tell the letters, but I can't make the sound. One ought to have another
tongue on purpose for these foreign names."
Prospero studied a second, then pronounced, clearly, "Gräfin Paula von
Schattenort."
"_Gräfin_ means Countess," said the landlady. "The doctor told me that
she is a Countess; but whether Danish or Swedish or Hollandish I don't
remember. For me all those countries are the same. Schattenort, you
call it? What would that be in Italian?"
Prospero laughed. "It stays as it is, dear lady. Is this Countess
young, do you know?" he went on, looking again at the name on the
paper he still held. "Is she coming here for her health?"
"I don't know anything beyond the fact that the doctor engages the
rooms for her, and I can rely upon him. Oh, he has sent me families
before, you know, who have always been perfectly satisfied with me, and
I with them. You can see yourself that the quarters are such that even
a Countess might find herself well in them--"
"Yes, truly," replied Prospero, agreeably. "She would be hard to please
if she were not content. Well, if you allow me now, I go. Have you
perhaps a commission of any sort for me? I shall do myself a pleasure
in serving you."
"Too good--much too good. If you would just say the name over--"
"Von Schattenort."
"What it is to have a memory! What a thing is education! Not but
that also I can make myself understood in the French tongue.
Schattenort--Schattenort. I should not like to _scomparire_, you will
understand, at the very first meeting. But if I forget, I will simply
say _Signora Contessa_. Only one likes to be able to tell friends whom
one has got in the house."
Prospero, late already, was hurrying down the stairs, his music under
his arm; at the foot he was forced to stop. He took off his hat, and
leaned against the wall to let the ladies pass.
The gray-haired gentleman talking unpractised French he knew to be
Dottor Segati. He fixed upon Paula von Schattenort without a second's
hesitation; of the two ladies, only the one in the hat and feather
could, in his conception of possibility, be she. He was half-conscious
as she passed him on her upward way of a faint pang of disappointment.
The name had suggested to his imagination something tall and frail,
delicate yet imposing, exceedingly, luminously blond, with eyes of a
corn-flower blue. The magic of the name was defeated.
He bethought him how late he would be, and without turning his head for
a second look, or giving another thought to the arrivals, slipped past
the two maids, who stood in the doorway talking in a language unknown
to him, while the Countess's man handed them bundles from the carriages
drawn up to the door.
Paula, on entering the apartment, let her little gloved hands drop at
her sides, and looking around with wide, quick eyes, gave a long sigh
of pleasure.
"Here I can breathe--here I can breathe indeed!" she said to her
companion, in their Northern tongue; then turning to the doctor, she
assured him in French that she found it charming, as she had found
everything in Italy--that she thanked him for his goodness. The doctor
and the landlady both watched her with a half smile and slightly raised
eyebrows as she walked quickly through the rooms, exclaiming at every
window with delight at sight of the fawn-colored, warm-looking river
flowing below and flashing back the sunshine, and the low hills clothed
in their early green.
Her companion followed her with an unusual solemn dignity of manner,
intended to counterbalance Paula's unaccustomed vivacity, and give the
people of the house, if possible, an adequate impression of the two as
a whole.
"Oh, look--look, Cousin Veronika!" exclaimed the younger woman from the
balcony, over the parapet of which she had been leaning venturously
far--"look at that dear old bridge; it is the Jeweller's Bridge; I
recognize it. _N'est-ce pas, cher docteur?_ Oh, what a sky! But have
you any patients at all in this city, doctor? Is it possible to be ill
here? Do persons die? Of what? I will never believe it!"
"My dear lady," said the gray doctor, his kindly face lighting as if
with the reflection of her childish excitement, "will you be advised by
me? Will you sit down on this commodious divan and rest a little, while
you take what the signora has brought for you--this little glass of our
white _vin santo_? It will do you good. You must be tired, very tired."
"Oh no! no, doctor! It is like magic. I do not understand it. I feel
like another. I shall not be tired here, ever. You must come and see
me every day indeed, but not as a doctor--as my good, good friend.
Tell me, is it still standing, the house where Dante lived? Have you a
book--I mean, could you advise me a book--in which there is everything
of the story about him and Beatrice? It must be sweet to think of when
one is in their city."
"I will do myself the pleasure of sending you the _Vita Nova_," he
said; then, solicitously, "but accommodate yourself, my dearest lady,
and drink this--"
"_Vita Nova?_ Does that mean new life? New life!" she said, as if to
herself, suddenly half stretching her arms up in the air and smiling in
indeterminate happiness at the ceiling, whereon the shining river cast
a restless, quivering brightness. "Yes, send it me; I want to read it.
I will drink this to please you, signor, but not that I am tired. Here
is to New Life!"
She touched her glass to the doctor's and Veronika's, and emptied it
at an eager draught. Veronika watched her in surprised displeasure,
sipping her own wine staidly and decorously. It warmed her very heart
to see Paula merry, only she thought it unbecoming to behave in the
presence of strangers as if one were a person of no importance.
Her good-humor returned as soon as the doctor and the _padrona_
had excused themselves. When they were alone she seized Paula
unceremoniously by the wrists and forced her back into an arm-chair;
then lifted her feet, and with much decision placed them upon a
footstool. "Now you don't stir," she said, shaking her finger in
Paula's face.
"But, cousin, it is so different," pleaded Paula. "I feel no more
as I do at home, than this mild, heavenly air is like our joyless
atmosphere. Are your eyes open, Cousin Veronika? Do you perceive the
things about you--or is it all a dream of my own? It seemed to me as we
drove from the station that we had arrived in an enchanted place."
"It's just a city," murmured Veronika.
"Those sombre palaces we passed, how they make the spring-time in the
sky above them more lightsome, more warm! And those flowers banked up
for sale against that black stone wall, could you see what they were?
They seemed to me all new sorts--marvellous. Have you noticed how happy
every one looks in Italy, even the beggars sitting in the sun? And what
beautiful faces one sees--"
She stopped and mused, gazing ahead in silence for a few moments; then
went on aloud: "Yes--beautiful faces, like pictures. Did you see the
young man whom we met on the stairs? Not? Veronika, for what have you
eyes? The light just there was a little dim, but I saw him perfectly.
I passed him slowly on purpose--he leaned against the wall to let us
go by him. He had wavy hair, longer than is usual, falling over his
forehead, and soft brown eyes like an animal's. I am sure one sees such
eyes only in Italy, half asleep, yet deeply intelligent, that when you
look in them you think a thousand things--"
"You certainly took in a great deal at a glance," said Veronika.
"Oh, I could tell you much else," laughed Paula; "beside that he wore a
pink in his button-hole and carried a roll of music."
"Veronika," she said, after a pause, jumping up from her chair and
walking about excitedly as before, "we must be very happy here. We must
begin at once. Think how much time we have lost--all our years up to
this day. Now we must really enjoy ourselves, live--love!" she added,
recklessly, with light in her eyes.
Veronika, kneeling over an open satchel, paused in her task to look
over her spectacles with a vaguely shocked air, as if something immoral
had been said.
"This seems like the opening chapter in a lovely story-book that
becomes more interesting with every page," said Paula, dropping
on her knees and crushing her cheek to Veronika's gray hair, with
an expansiveness that took this lady aback. "I have the happiest
presentiments! Ah, Veronika, there was once a woman who said that
happiness is to be young, beloved, and in Italy!"
"Unless you keep quiet and rest," said Veronika, "you will be ill, and
that is as far as _you_ will get--"
Paula stared a second in wonder at Veronika's impatience; then she
reflected that her cousin was old and could not understand. "Poor
Veronika!" she thought, with a sympathetic shake of the head, "_she_
can never have but Italy!"
Like a good child, she went back to her chair, but before settling down
in it she pushed it to the balcony window; then she sat with her eyes
fixed upon San Miniato.
Dr. Segati came the next day, early. He found Paula pale and infinitely
tired, but wearing a contented face. She sat in the balcony window,
closed to-day, with a cushion behind her shoulders; flowers stood in
the water near her--a delight to the eyes, wonderful wind-flowers,
white and pink, purple, scarlet, pale violet. She rose to meet the
doctor, and gave him the childish smile that had won his heart to her
the day before.
She pointed to the book she held. "It came last night. I thank you. I
am trying to read it, you see. But I do not know enough. I can make
only just a little sense here and there, where it resembles French. Oh,
I like it all the same--very much. The title is beautiful--_Vita Nova_!"
"Tell her she must not read, doctor," said Veronika. "It is bad for
her. She has been tiring herself over the book."
The doctor listened politely, an intelligent eye fixed on Veronika's,
and made no objection to what she said. She had always after that half
an idea that he understood her.
"I had the cook sent in," said Paula, with a brightening face. "The
native cook whom the _padrona_ was so good as to engage for me. I asked
her about some passages. She could read them easily--how I envied
her!--but she could not make them clear to me, though she seemed to do
her best."
The doctor laughed amusedly, and took a seat beside her. "What an eager
little lady! Certainly that is the way to learn. But why this hurry?
The great object first is to become robust. Oh, this air will do it! I
have no fear. And how did you sleep?"
Paula blushed as if caught in fault. "I don't know why it should
be I lay awake so much. My old doctor at home (I bless him for his
inspiration of sending me here!) has written you about me, I suppose. I
dare say you know I cough sometimes in the night. Doctor," she asked,
abruptly, "who lives above us?"
He looked interrogatively at the ceiling, and shook his head.
"Oh, I am so sorry you do not happen to know. It is a great musician,
and I feel much gratitude towards him. I was becoming nervous with
lying awake--I was on the point of calling my poor cousin--when some
one began playing on the piano in the room above me. Sweetly, very
sweetly. I could hear it just distinctly enough. It was a joy. I lay
awake, but it soothed me more than sleep."
"I seem to remember that there is a music-master living in the house,"
said the doctor. "I will beg the _padrona_ to speak to him. He should
not play in the night."
"Not at all," exclaimed Paula, with a warmth he could not expect.
"Please, I want him to play. I shall be grieved if you say anything to
prevent him. It does not keep me awake. If I were sleepy I could not
hear it."
The doctor prolonged his visit far into the forenoon. At the first
movement he made to go, Paula said, pleadingly: "Oh, not yet. I
entertain myself so willingly with you!" And he stayed.
He was interested, in the woman as well as in the case. She was
different from his other aristocratic patients. She was of a type new
to him; without appearing to, he studied her face as she spoke, and
from it, and from frequent allusions she dropped, he built up a theory
of her past.
He divined that she was older than she looked. It was, he resolved,
the childlike glance and smile, the voice as of shyness overcome, her
artlessness, her continually outcropping ignorance of the world, her
immature mind perhaps, that gave the impression of youthfulness one at
first received from her. If one looked well, she had even already a
sad little beginning of faded appearance. Her face was a trifle broad,
and the high cheek-bones were commencing slightly to accuse themselves,
as they say in French. The charm of her countenance, to such as felt
it, lay in her eyes: they were unsophisticated, hopeful, interested,
idealizing eyes. Vanity, it must be pityingly related, had taught her
nothing. Her blond hair, dull and fine and soft--a large treasure
that would have made the boast of many another woman--was drawn away
rigorously from her forehead, braided, and wound compactly against the
back of her head, like a school-girl's.
He noticed with amused wonder how unpretending--nay, provincial,
homely, for persons of rank and fortune--was the _mise_ of the two
women. Fashion by them was misconstrued, or else despised. He did
not incline to the latter interpretation of their plainness; he
rather laid to a touching innocence of the mode's dictates Mamsell
Veronika's pelerine and the black lace tabs on the sides of her head;
the antiquated cut of Paula's deep violet gown, the little black silk
mitts that covered her pale pretty hands to the point where her rings
began. These were numerous rather than rich, and gave the impression
of being heirlooms--things worn for a memory: brilliants mounted in
darkening silver, enamels, carnelians; one showed a pale gleam of human
hair.
Paula had never spoken so much about herself to any one as she did to
the doctor. Her loquacity was an effect of her unreasoning instinct
that in this new place everything was good to her, every influence
favorable. She let herself go in a way that would have seemed out of
her nature at home.
All she had ever read in the long, melancholy winter evenings at
Schattenort, of poetry or romance, came back to her mind in essence,
drawn to the surface by an inexplicable magic. Her conversation in this
mental excitement teemed with allusions and modest flowers of speech
that almost surprised herself, and gave her a strange delight. She felt
as she were some one she had some time read of.
"Oh, we will make you well, quite well, soon," said the doctor,
cheerily, on taking his leave. "But you must promise to be very good,
very prudent."
He gave his directions with a light air, but as he turned from the door
a shadow settled upon his kindly old face.
In his breast-pocket lay folded the letter his colleague, Paula's
former doctor, had written him. The consciousness of what was said in
it gave rise in his heart to a tender, grateful thought of his own
children--grown-up daughters, fair and healthy, happily established in
life.
Paula had hoped to go for a drive that day, but a light rain fell, and
she could only watch the turbid stream outside through the glistening
window-pane. She sat with her forehead leaning against it, her book in
her lap. Now and then she opened this and let her eyes wander over the
lines, without trying to understand, just for a pleasure she found in
its being Italian too.
She had prevailed upon Veronika to go out for a walk, so that she might
amuse her with an account of what there was to see.
Towards evening the clouds broke. She saw the red reflection of the
sunset on the river. Tempted, she opened the balcony door; a smell of
damp stone came gratefully to her nostrils. She slipped out and leaned
over the cool balusters, and looked up and down the empty gleaming
street. The hills were as if washed with wine; the air was sparkling.
She heard a footstep; she hoped it might be Veronika's. She looked. But
it was not a woman. She recognized the young man who had been on the
stairs when she arrived. He did not look up. She leaned over to see
him disappear in the _portone_ below. Then, swiftly, she came in-doors
and stopped in the middle of the floor. She listened intently. In a
few moments she thought to hear, faintly, faintly, footsteps in the
room above. She clasped her hands silently, saying to herself with
unaccountable excitement: "I knew it already. I knew it well."
Late in the night again she heard music. She had been listening for
it a long time. Night to her was often tediously long. Often she spent
many hours staring at the square of paler darkness, star-bestrewn, the
window made. At a certain pitch of nervousness, soon reached when the
city had become quiet and the stillness of the bedroom was full of
mysterious sounds, she always thought of a dear sister she had lost,
rehearsing old sad scenes vivid in her brain as if they had been lived
through but yesterday. Her own physical discomfort increased as she
thought of that other girl's long-drawn-out suffering. It seemed to her
that already she could not breathe; her body was damp with sweat of
fear. "It is all useless!" she groaned, tossing wretchedly. "I too--I
too am going that way!" Then she prayed diligently, and looked out up
at the stars with a return of tranquillity, hoping steadfastly in a
beautiful world beyond them.
But on the night in question she lay patiently and happily watchful.
And late in the night again she heard music. No very definite melody
was played; it was as if skilful hands were dreamily straying over
the keys, unravelling a little tangled skein of musical impression,
thinking aloud. The tune wandered and flitted like a butterfly over
a summer garden. Paula's thought climbed upward and entered the
musician's chamber. She saw him clearly, leaning back, looking upward,
swaying slightly. She took joy in the symmetry of his dark Italian
face. She pictured him intensely, and held her breath gazing. Then she
tried to build up his surroundings; she adorned his room poetically.
Satisfied at last, her imagination folded its wings and dropped back
into its nest. She merely listened, and let herself be comforted;
accepted passively what dreams the music imposed. It was as if she and
another were walking in a moonless starry night along a quiet village
road; and the dewy flowers in the stilly little gardens skirting the
way were giving forth perfume in the warm dark. Then it was as if
another and she were in a boat with drooping sail, becalmed, drifting
slowly. The moon was behind a great cloud wonderfully silvered on the
ravelled edges; the sea at the horizon was a streak of pure light. The
other had laid her on velvet cushions and covered her with a cloak, was
playing and singing softly to her. They hoped the wind would not rise.
Drifting--drifting. And she slept.
In the gayest mood next day she showed the doctor a little package of
letters to different persons in the city, but said that she was not
ready yet to let these distinguished ones know of her arrival; she must
first attend to various important things. He derived from her words
that she wished to make her establishment more elegant, and became
gruff and severe when she asked him to procure for her the address of
the most fashionable mantua--maker. She almost cried when he forbade
the expense of any precious energy on worldly vanities, but was half
consoled by his promise soon to make her well enough to employ a master
in the art of playing the guitar.
He prescribed a daily drive in the sunniest hour. Paula came back from
her first excursion with flushed cheeks. Veronika grumbled: "I will
tell the doctor, and he will forbid your going out at all. It is not to
kneel in damp churches will help you. You might as well take up your
abode in the cellar."
"Don't scold me," said Paula, gently. "I had to thank God."
Towards sunset she seated herself on the balcony wrapped in fleecy
white, and looked down the street towards the Jeweller's Bridge. She
saw Prospero come. But he did not look up. That night again she heard
him play.
Many times she sat on the balcony and saw Prospero coming. Sometimes he
looked up, but oftener he passed into the house unaware of a Countess
gazing after him from above.
Some nights he did not play; those were restless, disappointed nights
for her.
Once or twice she met him on the stairs as she was going to her
carriage; he glanced at her with an unimpressed eye, then looked
elsewhere, standing against the wall, hat in hand.
Occasionally she saw him in the street, but he seemed never to see her.
A vague heartache grew out of those occasions.
The Italian spring deepened in warmth and color; the air had a
fragrance, some days, as of lilacs; other days, more penetrating, as of
hyacinths. The little hills in the midst of which Florence lies took
on dewy morning hues of the opal, changing evening tints of the dark
dove's neck. The pure noon light made the statues in the King's Garden,
where Paula walked sometimes, look dazzlingly white against the sombre
walls of clipped laurel. The open country now was full of blossoming
fruit trees; Paula often begged Veronika to alight from the carriage
and gather for her the flowers she saw shining in the grass--primroses
and violets, tulips, narcissi, fleurs-de-lis. She brought home immense
nosegays, which she spent long minutes breathing; this perfume of Italy
went to her brain.
At sunset once a red flower lay by chance on the rail of the balcony,
just where a movement of her arm would brush it off; it would drop in
the street. A bold thought crossed her mind. But that evening Prospero
did not come at the usual hour. She sat outside, trembling slightly as
the dusk closed around her and the dew fell; then Veronika, with shrill
cries of surprise and blame, came to fetch her in. She felt guilty and
ashamed, and did not protest. She spent the evening on the divan, with
her face to the wall, crying softly with a vast invincible melancholy,
a sense of forlornness and failure, giving no explanation of her humor.
She was kept in-doors for many days after that. Only she insisted upon
being folded in a fur and seated on the balcony at a certain hour
every afternoon. The beggar-woman stationed at the street corner with
a basket on her knees got used to seeing the sick _forestiera_ appear,
who always threw her a bit of silver, and gave her a faint little
smile.
Veronika suffered from Paula's silence and depression. She went about
with two deep lines constantly between her updrawn brows. Her heart
misgave her; her inability to communicate with the doctor and those
around her became a gnawing despair. She formed a habit, which never
left her after, of talking audibly to herself. She gave up the effort
to hold cheerful conversation with Paula, and simply tried to preserve
in her presence an unconcerned attitude. She secretly yearned to be at
home. She felt an unappeasable animosity towards this Italy, that had
seemed to do her Paula so much good, only to make her worse. She began
to hate everything Italian.
Paula herself sat by the window watching the hills opposite with an
absent face. Now and then she rose to take a few desultory steps about
the large room, touching the things, passing her hand over the flowers,
making the guitar-strings give forth a murmur as she brushed them; she
went back to her chair and closed her eyes, tired out.
Once a friend was walking at Prospero's side. They were talking. As
they approached, the friend looked up, and evidently asked a question
of Prospero, who looked up too: she thought his lips framed her name.
Her heart leaped; she drew back, faint, and felt foolish at feeling
such pleasure. She waited more eagerly than usual that night to
hear him; it seemed the music must have a special message for her.
Silence--utter, atrocious. The night seemed unending.
The doctor wondered next day what spring had broken within her. She
showed so little interest in anything; she was fretful as he had never
seen her before. He scarcely knew how to conduct himself to avoid
irritating her. At a loss, he picked up the little tome of _Vita Nova_,
that always lay on the table at her side, and inquired of her progress
in it.
"Oh, put it away!" she said, tears springing to her eyes. "Put it away!
I cannot suffer it. That title exasperates me; it works upon my nerves.
Doctor, doctor, I shall never be well again!" and she poured forth a
long complaint.
[Illustration: "PAULA HERSELF SAT BY THE WINDOW"]
He feigned to make light of her fears; he comforted her. Casting about
in his mind for things to say that should divert, interest her in her
gray mood, he found this, which brought the sudden color to her face:
"Did you not once ask me who lived in the apartment above? I know now.
I will not take the credit of having applied myself to discover just on
that hint of curiosity from you; I confess hearing it by chance. Your
neighbor is the young _maestro_ Prospero C----, celebrated in his way.
He has written an opera, to be produced for the first time precisely
to-night. Those who know promise great things for it--"
She had leaned forward, listening thirstily. The doctor could
congratulate himself.
When Veronika went to the door with him, he turned upon her suddenly,
and asked, almost violently: "Why did you wait so long? Why did you not
bring her to this climate before?"
She looked at him in a puzzled way, and in her turn said something he
could not understand.
He appeared for a moment as if he meant to shake her, but shrugged his
shoulders and brusquely left.
Some who were present at the first night of "Parisina" remember well
how when the curtain dropped on the first act and they looked about to
discover whom they should salute, their attention was arrested by the
strange apparition in one of the second-tier boxes. There, in a crimson
velvet chair, sat very upright an unknown lady in a gown such as no
one nowadays wears--a gown of cloth of gold, that might have figured
at a court ball perhaps a century earlier. An ermine-lined mantle half
covered her arms and neck, dainty thin and white as wax, and half
extinguished the gleam of her heavy jewels. A wreath of roses was
twined in her pale hair, that might have made one laugh in its _démodé_
pretentiousness but that one divined the lady to be a foreigner from
some Northern country, where perhaps it is still customary to adorn
the hair with a garland. She held her fan like a sceptre, her fingers
stiffly closed on the pearl sticks. A mass of roses lay in her lap.
She turned a colorless face upon the stage; her eyes were wide and
glassy, and fixed as a somnambulist's.
On the opposite side of the box, less clearly defined against the
darkness, sat an elderly, soberly clad lady, whose face expressed
a degree of uneasiness, misery, and fear almost pitiful--if not
comical--to behold. She made no pretence of interest in the stage or
the gleaming galleries, but watched her golden-haired companion with an
unswerving, frightened eye.
No one knew who these were, though many took pains to discover.
Through the second act the lady in gold listened breathlessly, as if
life itself were suspended. It seemed to her that the soul left her
body, and went floating up, up, on the strains of the music. She was
praying, praying with all her strength, for the success of this work,
that the people might feel just as she felt how it was beautiful!
When a crash of applause came and a call for the composer, it seemed
but an answer to her prayer. She rose to her feet, radiant.
Prospero C---- came to the foot-lights below, looking a slight thing,
the acclaimed great man, in his close black evening dress, and bowed
his thanks. Then, as the applause continued, he lingered a moment, and
let his eye pass along the friendly faces in the boxes, a grateful
emotion expressed in his smile.
The lady in gold leaned over the velvet parapet, breathing short,
tremulously smiling, her flowers in her hands. His eye passed her
unrecognizing. She wanted to shout: "It is I, Paula! Nothing could keep
me away!" The clamor subsided. Panting, she leaned back in the shade.
The third act ended in triumph. Again the composer was called. Paula
laughed and cried at the same time, clapping her little hands like mad,
forgetting herself.
Then, when it was all over and she sat in the dark carriage rolling
homeward, she felt a chill seizing upon her very heart; she began to
shiver. But her physical condition scarcely interested her; a sense of
the sad things of life weighed heavily upon her: the vanity of earthly
hopes, the evanescence of happy things, the inequality in the measure
of pain and pleasure to God's children, the fugitiveness of illusions,
the foolishness of dreams. She thought of the beggar sitting at the
corner in sun and rain through years: she felt disgust for a world
where such things could be. She said, "It is a good thing to have done
with it. It is a deliverance. I will not give it one regret; no, not
one." She felt suddenly that she did not love Italy: it had betrayed
her. "It is you, you who are to blame," she said, full of helpless
resentment, shaking a pale small hand vaguely from the window out
at the balmy moonlit world; "you, soft air! you, flower smell! you,
velvety firmament with the many-colored stars! I was a simple soul: my
common life was enough for me; you sowed in my unguarded heart all the
seeds of vain dreams, and fostered them. And they bear no fruit; they
wither on their shallow roots--they are weeds!--But I will not curse
you, for God made you lovely."
She closed her eyes; her thoughts turned to remote Schattenort;
she wished she were there again, in the dull, quiet, big, cold,
familiar country house where she had been born and bred. A mist of
bitter longing rose in her eyes. The moon was shining clamorously,
obtrusively; it cast a green light, a light almost warm, on the pale
pavement. She hated its fervent beauty. "Would God I were home!" she
sighed.