Meanwhile Florian Varillo had not gone to Naples. He had been turned
back by a spectre evoked from his own conscience--coward fear. He was
on his way to the station when he suddenly discovered that he had lost
the sheath of his dagger. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead
as this fact flashed upon him. What had he done with it? Surely he had
drawn the weapon out and left the sheath in his breast pocket as
usual--but no!--search as he would, he could not find it. It must have
dropped on the floor of Angela's studio! If that were so, he would be
traced!--most surely traced--as the sheath was of curious and uncommon
workmanship, and many of his friends had seen it. He had told everybody
he was going to Naples, and of course he would be followed there. Then,
he would not go! But he went to the station as if bent on the journey,
and took a ticket for Naples. Then, setting down his portmanteau on a
bench, he surreptitiously tore off the label on which his name was
written, and tearing it up in small bits scattered the fragments on the
line. After this, he walked away leisurely, leaving the portmanteau
behind him for there was nothing in it by which he could be traced, and
sauntered slowly out of the station into the streets of Rome once more.
Hailing the first fiacre he saw, he told the driver to take him to
Frascati. The man was either lazy or sulky.
"Why not take the train, Signor?"
"Because I wish to drive!" replied Varillo. "What is your fare?"
"Twenty-five francs for half the way!" said the man, showing his white
teeth in a mischievous grin.
"Good!"
The driver was surprised, as he had not thought his terms would be
accepted. But he made no further demur, and Varillo jumped into the
vehicle, his teeth chattering with an inward terror he could not
control. "Drive quickly!" he said.
The man shouted an affirmative, and they clattered away through the
streets, Varillo shrinking back in the carriage overcome by panic. What
a fool he had been!--what a fool! He ought to have told Pon-Pon. If the
dagger-sheath were found and taken to his residence, it would be
recognised instantly! And all Rome would rise against Angela Sovrani's
murderer. Murderer! Yes,--that was what he had chosen to make of
himself!
"It was all an impulse," he muttered,--"Just a hot impulse, nothing
more! Just a sudden hatred of her which made me stab her! It was enough
to make any man angry to see such a picture as that painted by a woman!
Her fame would have ruined mine! But I never meant to kill her--no--no,
I never meant to kill her!"
Shuddering and whimpering, he huddled himself in a corner of the
carriage, and did not dare to look out of the window to see which way
he was being driven. He only rallied a little when the wheels moved
more quietly and smoothly, and he knew that he was on the open road,
and out of Rome. Suddenly, after jolting along a considerable time, the
vehicle stopped, and the driver shouted to him. Varillo dashed down the
window and put his head out, almost beside himself with rage.
"What are you stopping for! What are you stopping for!" he yelled. "Go
on--go on--we are not half way to Frascati yet! Go on, I tell you!"
"Ma-che! Eccellenza, I only stopped to ask a question!"
"What question--what? Is this a time for asking questions?" cried
Varillo,--"The night is falling,--I want to get on!"
"But we are going on as fast as we can!" expostulated the driver,--"It
is only this--there is an albergo on the way--where we can get food and
wine. Would the Eccellenza like to stop there? It is as far as I can
go, for I am wanted to-night in Rome."
"Very well--stop where you like--only get on now!" said Varillo,
pulling his head in with a jerk. And sinking back in his seat again he
wiped his hot face and cursed his miserable destiny. It would have been
all right if he had only remembered that sheath! No one would have got
on such a track of suspicion as that he, the lover and affianced
husband of Angela, was her brutal assassin!
"I wrote a loving letter and sent her flowers," he argued with himself,
"when I knew she would be dead! But her father would have got them, and
he would have wired to me in Naples, and I should have come back
overcome with sorrow,--and then I should have told them all how the
picture was a secret between my Angela and myself,--how _I_ had painted
the greater part of it, and how she in her sweetness had wished me to
surprise the world,--the plan was perfect, but it is all
spoiled!--spoiled utterly through that stupid blunder of the sheath!"
Such a trifle! It seemed to him incredible--unjust--that so slight a
thing could intervene between him and the complete success of his
meditated treachery. For notwithstanding the fact that he had been a
great reader and student of books, he now, in this particular hour of
his own emergency, completely forgot what all the most astute and
learned writers have always expounded to an inattentive world--namely,
the fact that crime holds within itself the seed of punishment.
Sometimes that seed ripens quickly,--sometimes it takes years to
grow,--but it is always there. And it generally takes root in a mere,
slight circumstance, so very commonplace and casual as to entirely
escape the notice of the criminal, till the network of destiny is woven
so closely about him that he can no longer avoid it,--and then he is
shown from what a trifling cause the whole result has sprung. Varillo's
present state of mind was one of absolute torture, for he felt that
whoever found the sheath of his dagger would at once recognise it and
declare the owner. If Angela had only been wounded,--if SHE had found
it--she would never have given up the name of its possessor,--the
miserable man knew her straight, pure soul intimately enough for that!
"If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her own
life!" he said--"She was always like that! SHE would never listen to
anything that was said against me,--and if she lived, she would love me
still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!" and he actually
smiled at the thought. "How strangely some women are
constituted!--especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted
standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it! They are
sublime fools!--and so useful to men! We can do anything we like with
them. We can ruin them--and they bear their shame in silence. We can
laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and they are too
pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We can vilify
whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,--we can murder
them--" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they die, without so
much as leaving a curse behind them!
Extraordinary!--angelic--superb!--and a wise Fate has ordained that we
men shall never sacrifice ourselves for SUCH women, or go mad for the
love of them! We love the virago better than the saint; we are afraid
of the woman who nags at us and gives us trouble--who screams vengeance
upon us if we neglect her in a trifle--who clamours for our money, and
insists on our gifts--and who keeps our lives in a perpetual fever of
excitement and terror. But the innocent woman we hate--very naturally!
Her looks are a reproach to us, and we like to kill her when we
can--and we often succeed morally,--but THAT is not called murder. The
other way of killing is judged as a crime--and--then--the punishment is
death!"
As this word passed his lips in a whisper, he trembled violently.
Death! It had a chill sound--yet he had not thought so when he
associated it with Angela. For of course Angela was dead. Was she not?
Surely she must be--he had driven the dagger straight home!
"She could not possibly live," he muttered--"Not after such a well
directed blow. And that amazing picture! If I could but claim it as my
work, I should be the greatest artist in the world! It would be quite
easy to make out a proof--only that cursed dagger-sheath is in the way!"
He was startled out of his reverie by another stoppage of the carriage,
and this time the driver jumped down from his box and came to the door.
"This is as far as I can take you, Signor," he said, looking curiously
at his passenger,--"It is quite half way to Frascati. There is the inn
I told you of--where those lights are," and he pointed towards the
left,--"The carriage road does not go up to it. It is a great place for
artists!"
"I am not an artist!" said Varillo brusquely.
"No? But artists are merry company, Eccellenza!--" suggested the
driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess of
amiability--"And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting place
on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there are
good-natured!"
"Ah! There are brigands, are there?" said Varillo, getting out of the
fiacre and beginning to recover something of his usual composure,--"And
I daresay you are one of them if the truth were known! Here is your
money." And he gave the man two gold pieces, one of twenty francs, the
other of ten.
"Eccellenza, I have no change--"
"I want none!" said Varillo airily,--"You asked twenty-five
francs--there are thirty. And now--as you say you have business in
Rome, be off with you!"
The man needed no second bidding; delighted with his thirty francs, he
called a gay "Buona notte, Signor!" and turning his horse's head jogged
down the road at a tolerably smart pace. The horse knew as well as the
driver, that the way now lay homeward, and lost no time. Varillo, left
to himself, paused a moment and looked about him. The Campagna! How he
hated it! Should he pass the night at that albergo, or walk on? He
hesitated a little--then made for the inn direct. It was a bright, cosy
little place enough, and the padrona, a cheery, dark-eyed woman seated
behind the counter, bade him smiling welcome.
Lodging--oh yes! she said, there was a charming room at the Signor's
disposal, with a view from the windows which in the early morning was
superb! The Signor was an artist?
"No!" said Varillo, almost fiercely--"I am a tourist--travelling for
pleasure!"
Ah! Then the view would enchant the Signor, because it would be quite
new to him! The room should be prepared at once! Would the Signor take
supper?
Yes,--the Signor would take supper. And the Signor went and sat in a
remote corner of the common-room, with a newspaper of a week old,
pretending to read its contents. And supper was soon served to him,--a
tasty meal enough, flavoured with excellent wine,--and while he was
drinking his third glass of it, a man entered, tall and
broad-shouldered, wrapped in a heavy cloak, which he only partially
loosened as he leaned against the counter and asked for a cup of
coffee. But as he caught sight of the dark face, Varillo shrank back
into his corner, and put up his newspaper to shield himself from
view,--for he saw that the new-comer was no other than Monsignor
Gherardi. His appearance seemed to create a certain amount of
excitement and vague alarm in the little inn; the padrona evidently
knew him well, and hastened to serve him herself with the coffee he
asked for.
"Will you not sit down, Eccellentissima?" she murmured deferentially.
"No, I am in haste!" replied Gherardi, glancing carelessly about
him--"My carriage waits outside. There is strange news in Rome
to-night! The famous artist, Angela Sovrani, has been found in her
studio, murdered!"
The padrona uttered a little cry.
"Murdered!"
"So it seems! Here are the papers from which they cry the news. I will
leave them with you. It is perhaps the judgment of Heaven on the
Sovrani's uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!"
The mistress of the inn crossed herself devoutly.
"Guiosto cielo!--Would Heaven punish a Cardinal?"
"Certainly! If a Cardinal is a heretic!"
The stout padrona clasped her hands and shuddered.
"Not possible!"
"Quite possible!" And Gherardi drained his coffee-cup. "And when so
great a personage of the Church is a renegade, he incurs two
punishments--the punishment of God and the punishment of the Church!
The one comes first--the other comes--afterwards! Buena notte!"
And throwing down the money for his refreshment, Gherardi cast another
glance around him, muffled himself up in his coat and went out into the
night. Florian Varillo breathed again. But he was not left in peace for
long. The padrona summoned her husband from the kitchen where he
performed the offices of cook, to read the halfpenny sheets of news her
visitor had left with her.
"Look you!" she said in a low voice, "The wicked Monsignor who has
thee, my poor Paolo, in his clutches for debt, has just passed by and
left evil tidings!--that beautiful girl who painted the famous pictures
in Rome, has been murdered! Do you not remember seeing her once with
her father at Frascati?"
Paolo, a round-faced, timid-looking little Piedmontese, nodded
emphatically.
"That do I!" he answered--"Fair as an angel--kind-hearted too,--and
they told me she was a wonder of the world. Che, che! Murdered! And who
could have murdered her? Someone jealous of her fame! Poor thing--she
is engaged to be married too, to another artist named Florian Varillo.
Gran Dio! He will die of this misery!" And they bent their heads over
the paper together and read the brief announcement headed
"Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!"
A sudden crash startled them. Varillo had sprung up from his table in
haste and overset his glass. It fell, shivering to atoms on the floor.
"Pardon!" he exclaimed, laughing forcedly,--"A thousand apologies! My
hand slipped--it was an accident--"
"Do not trouble yourself, Signor," said the landlord, Paolo, cautiously
going down on his fat knees to pick up the fragments--"It was an
accident as you say. And truly one's nerves get shaken nowadays by all
the strange things one is always hearing! Myself, I tremble to think of
the murder of the Sovrani--the poor girl was so innocent of evil--and
see you!--we might all be murdered in our beds with such villains about
. . ."
He broke off, surprised at the angry oath Varillo uttered.
"Per Dio! Can you not talk of something else?" he said
hoarsely,--"There is a murder nearly every day in Rome!"
Without waiting for a reply he hastily strode out of the inn, banging
the door behind him. He had engaged his room there for the
night--true!--but--after all this foolish gabble he resolved he would
not go back. They would still talk of murder, if he did! Murder was in
the air! Murder seemed written in letters of fire against the clear sky
now luminous with the moon and stars! He was in a fever and a fury--he
walked on and on, little heeding where he went. What the devil had
brought Gherardi to that particular inn at that particular time of
night? He could not imagine. For though he knew most scandals in Rome,
the scandal of the priest's "villa d'amour" at Frascati, was a secret
too closely guarded for anyone save the sharpest of professional
detectives to discover, and he was totally ignorant of it. He wondered
restlessly whether the crafty Vatican spy had seen him while pretending
not to see? If that were so, then he was lost! He could not satisfy
himself as to whether he had really escaped observation, and tormented
by this reflection he walked on and on, the burning impetus of his
thoughts hastening his footsteps. A cold wind began to rise,--a chill,
damp breath of the Campagna, bringing malaria with it. He felt heated
and giddy, and there was a curious sense of fulness in his veins which
oppressed him and made him uncertain of his movements. Presently he
stopped, and stood gazing vaguely from left to right. He was surely not
on the road to Frascati? There was a tall shadowy building not far from
him, surrounded with eucalyptus trees--he tried to locate it, but
somehow though, as a native of Rome and an artist, he was familiar with
most of the Campagna, he did not recognise this part of it. How bright
the stars were! Living points of fire flashing in dense purple!--one
could never paint them! The golden round of the moon spreading wide
reflections on the road, seemed to his excited mind like a magic ring
environing him, drawing him in, pointing him out as the one criminal
for whom all the world was seeking. He had no idea of the time,--his
watch had stopped. He began to count up hours. He remembered that when
he had gone to see Angela, it was about four o'clock. He had known
perfectly well that she was alone, for he had seen the Cardinal drive
past him in the streets on the way to the Vatican, and he had heard at
his "Cercolo" or club, that Prince Sovrani had gone out of Rome for a
few hours. And, thus informed, he had timed his visit to Angela well.
Then, had he meant to kill her? No. He was quite certain that he never
had had any such intention. Then what had been his purpose? First, to
see her picture, and then to condemn it. Not harshly, but gently--with
the chill toleration and faint commiseration of the critic who pretends
to judge everything. He knew--none better--the glowing ardour and
enthusiasm of the genius which was as much a part of Angela as colour
is part of a rose,--his intention had been to freeze all that warmth
with a few apparently kind words. For he had never thought it possible
that she,--a mere woman,--could evolve from her own brain and hand,
such a poetic, spiritual and magnificent conception as "The Coming of
Christ." And when he saw what she had done, he bitterly envied her her
power,--he realized the weakness of his own efforts as compared with
her victorious achievement, and he hated her accordingly, as all men
hate the woman who is intellectually superior to themselves. After all,
there was no way out of it, but the way he had chosen,--to kill her and
make an end! To kill her and make an end! He muttered these words over
and over to himself, as he stood irresolutely watching the broad
patterns of the moonlight, and thinking confusedly about the time.
Yes,--it was four o'clock when he went to Angela's studio,--it must
have been five, or past that hour when he left it,--when he slunk down
the side-street which led to the river, and threw the key and his
dagger together into the muddy tide. After that he had gone home,--and
had superintended his valet, while that individual packed his
portmanteau for Naples--and then--and then? Yes,--then he had written
to Angela,--one of the pretty gracious little notes she was accustomed
to receive from him,--how strange it was to write to a dead girl!--and
he had gone out to the nearest florist's shop, and chosen a basket of
lilies to send to her,--lilies were for dead maidens always,--and he
had sent the flowers and his love letter together. Then surely it must
have been about half-past six? He tried to fix the hour, but could not,
and again his thoughts went rambling on. After sending the lilies, he
had returned to his own house, and Pon-Pon had prepared a "petit cafe"
for him, and he had partaken of it, and had smoked a couple of
cigarettes with her, and then had said a leisurely good-bye, and had
started for the railway-station en route for Naples. What train had he
intended to go by? The eight o'clock express. He remembered that. But
on the way, he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath,--an
unforeseen fatality that had turned him back, and brought him to where
he now stood meditating. How long did the driver of that fiacre he
hired, take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to Frascati?
This he could not determine,--but to his uncertain memory it seemed to
have been an unusually tedious and tiresome journey. And now--here he
was--with no habitation in sight save the solitary building whose walls
loomed darkly through the eucalyptus trees. He went towards it after a
while, walking slowly and almost mechanically;--he was extremely tired,
and an oppressive sense of heat and weariness combined made him anxious
to obtain a night's lodging somewhere,--no matter in what sort of
place. Anything would be better than sleeping out on the Campagna, an
easy prey to the worst form of fever. As he approached more nearly to
the house among the trees, he saw that it was surrounded by a very
high, closely intertwisted iron railing,--and when he came within a few
paces of what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the
sudden heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air,
created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the sound.
He paused,--and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,--then as its
echo died away another deep monotone, steadily persistent, began to
stir the silence with words,--words, which to Florian Varillo in his
nervous excitation of mind sounded hellish and horrible.
"Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!"
"In die ilia tremenda!"
"Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!"
"Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"
He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With that
strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the artistic,
and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was excessively
superstitious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm of death seemed
to him at the moment, of supernatural and predetermined origin, devised
on purpose to intensify the growing terrors of his coward conscience.
"Tremens factus sum ego!"
"Et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque venerit ira!"
Once more the great bell tolled heavily, and its discordant tone seemed
to tear his brain. He uttered an involuntary cry,--every weak impulse
in his soul was aroused,--and in the excess of a miserable self-pity he
longed to excuse himself for his crime of treachery and cruelty to the
innocent woman who loved him,--to throw the blame on someone else,--if
he could only find that someone else! Anything rather than own himself
to be the mean wretch and traitor that he was. For he was a cultured
and clever man,--a scholar,--an artist,--a poet;--these things were not
consistent with murder! A man who painted beautiful pictures,--a man
who wrote exquisite verses,--he could never be suspected of stabbing a
helpless trusting woman in the back out of sheer jealousy, like a
common hired assassin! No no! He could never be suspected! Why had he
not thought of his intellectual gifts,--his position in the world of
art, before? No one in their senses could possibly accuse him in the
way he had imagined!--and even if the dagger-sheath were found, some
explanation might be given,--someone else might be found guilty . . .
"Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra;
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"
Again that horrible bell! Moved by a sudden desperate determination to
find out what this mysterious chanting was, and where it came from, he
braced himself up and walked resolutely and quickly on to a great
gateway, cross-barred and surmounted with tall spikes,--and there
seized by fresh panic, he clung to the grating for support and stared
through it affrightedly, his teeth chattering and his whole frame
shaking as with an ague fit. What were those dark terrible figures he
saw? Were they phantoms or men? Gaunt and black and tall, they swayed
to and fro, now bending, now rising, in the misty splendour of the
moonlight,--they were busy with the ground, digging it and casting out
shovels full of earth in heaps beside them. Each ghostly figure stood
by itself apart from its companions,--each one worked at its task
alone,--and only their voices mingled in harsh dismal unison as, with
the next stroke of the solemn bell, they chanted
"Dies ilia dies irae,
Calamitatis et miseriae!"
"No!" shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an infuriated
madman--"What are you doing in there? Who told you to sing my mass or
prepare my grave? I am not ready, I tell you! Not ready! I have done
nothing to deserve death--nothing!--I have not been tried!--you must
wait--you must wait till you know all--you must wait! . . ."
His voice choked in utterance, and thrusting one hand through the
grating he made frantic gesticulations to the spectral figure nearest
him. It paused in its toil and lifted its head,--and from the dark
folds of a drooping cowl, two melancholy deep-set eyes glittered out
like the eyes of a famished beast. The other spectres paused also, but
only for a moment,--the bell boomed menacingly over their heads once
more, and again they dug and delved, and again they chanted in dreary
monotone--
"Dies magna et amara valde,
Dum veneris judicare!
Libera nos Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda!"
Wild with terror Varillo shook the gate more furiously than before.
"Stop I tell you!" he cried--"It is too soon! You are burying me before
my time. You have no proof against me--none! I am young,--full of life
and strength--the world loves me--wants me!--and I--I will not die!--no
I will not!--not yet! Not yet--I am not ready! Stop--stop! You do not
know what you are doing--stop! You are driving me mad with your
horrible singing!" And he shrieked aloud. "Mad, I tell you!--mad!"
For one hazy moment he saw some of the dark figures begin to move
towards him--he clutched at them--fought with them--tore at their
garments,--he would have killed them all, he thought, if the moonlight
had not come in between him and them, and shut him up in a cold silver
circle of ice from which he could not escape,--yet he went on
struggling and talking and shrieking, contending sometimes, as he
fancied, with swords and daggers, and trying to find his way through
strange storms of mingled fire and snow--till all at once some strong
invisible force swooped down upon him, lifted him up and carried him
away--and he remembered no more.