Valeria soon fell asleep; but Fabio could not sleep. In the stillness of
the night, everything he had seen, everything he had felt presented itself
more vividly; he put to himself still more insistently questions to which
as before he could find no answer. Had Muzzio really become a sorcerer,
and had he not already poisoned Valeria? She was ill ... but what was
her disease? While he lay, his head in his hand, holding his feverish
breath, and given up to painful reflection, the moon rose again upon a
cloudless sky; and together with its beams, through the half-transparent
window-panes, there began, from the direction of the pavilion--or was it
Fabio’s fancy?--to come a breath, like a light, fragrant current ... then
an urgent, passionate murmur was heard ... and at that instant he observed
that Valeria was beginning faintly to stir. He started, looked; she rose
up, slid first one foot, then the other out of the bed, and like one
bewitched of the moon, her sightless eyes fixed lifelessly before her, her
hands stretched out, she began moving towards the garden! Fabio instantly
ran out of the other door of the room, and running quickly round the corner
of the house, bolted the door that led into the garden.... He had scarcely
time to grasp at the bolt, when he felt some one trying to open the door
from the inside, pressing against it ... again and again ... and then there
was the sound of piteous passionate moans....
‘But Muzzio has not come back from the town,’ flashed through Fabio’s head,
and he rushed to the pavilion....
What did he see?
Coming towards him, along the path dazzlingly lighted up by the moon’s
rays, was Muzzio, he too moving like one moonstruck, his hands held out
before him, and his eyes open but unseeing.... Fabio ran up to him, but he,
not heeding him, moved on, treading evenly, step by step, and his rigid
face smiled in the moonlight like the Malay’s. Fabio would have called him
by his name ... but at that instant he heard, behind him in the house, the
creaking of a window.... He looked round....
Yes, the window of the bedroom was open from top to bottom, and putting one
foot over the sill, Valeria stood in the window ... her hands seemed to be
seeking Muzzio ... she seemed striving all over towards him....
Unutterable fury filled Fabio’s breast with a sudden inrush. ‘Accursed
sorcerer!’ he shrieked furiously, and seizing Muzzio by the throat with one
hand, with the other he felt for the dagger in his girdle, and plunged the
blade into his side up to the hilt.
Muzzio uttered a shrill scream, and clapping his hand to the wound, ran
staggering back to the pavilion.... But at the very same instant when Fabio
stabbed him, Valeria screamed just as shrilly, and fell to the earth like
grass before the scythe.
Fabio flew to her, raised her up, carried her to the bed, began to speak to
her....
She lay a long time motionless, but at last she opened her eyes, heaved a
deep, broken, blissful sigh, like one just rescued from imminent death, saw
her husband, and twining her arms about his neck, crept close to him. ‘You,
you, it is you,’ she faltered. Gradually her hands loosened their hold, her
head sank back, and murmuring with a blissful smile, ‘Thank God, it is all
over.... But how weary I am!’ she fell into a sound but not heavy sleep.
X
Fabio sank down beside her bed, and never taking his eyes off her pale and
sunken, but already calmer, face, began reflecting on what had happened ...
and also on how he ought to act now. What steps was he to take? If he had
killed Muzzio--and remembering how deeply the dagger had gone in, he could
have no doubt of it--it could not be hidden. He would have to bring it
to the knowledge of the archduke, of the judges ... but how explain, how
describe such an incomprehensible affair? He, Fabio, had killed in his own
house his own kinsman, his dearest friend? They will inquire, What for?
on what ground?... But if Muzzio were not dead? Fabio could not endure
to remain longer in uncertainty, and satisfying himself that Valeria was
asleep, he cautiously got up from his chair, went out of the house, and
made his way to the pavilion. Everything was still in it; only in one
window a light was visible. With a sinking heart he opened the outer door
(there was still the print of blood-stained fingers on it, and there were
black drops of gore on the sand of the path), passed through the first dark
room ... and stood still on the threshold, overwhelmed with amazement.
In the middle of the room, on a Persian rug, with a brocaded cushion under
his head, and all his limbs stretched out straight, lay Muzzio, covered
with a wide, red shawl with a black pattern on it. His face, yellow as wax,
with closed eyes and bluish eyelids, was turned towards the ceiling, no
breathing could be discerned: he seemed a corpse. At his feet knelt the
Malay, also wrapt in a red shawl. He was holding in his left hand a branch
of some unknown plant, like a fern, and bending slightly forward, was
gazing fixedly at his master. A small torch fixed on the floor burnt with
a greenish flame, and was the only light in the room. The flame did not
flicker nor smoke. The Malay did not stir at Fabio’s entry, he merely
turned his eyes upon him, and again bent them upon Muzzio. From time to
time he raised and lowered the branch, and waved it in the air, and his
dumb lips slowly parted and moved as though uttering soundless words. On
the floor between the Malay and Muzzio lay the dagger, with which Fabio
had stabbed his friend; the Malay struck one blow with the branch on the
blood-stained blade. A minute passed ... another. Fabio approached the
Malay, and stooping down to him, asked in an undertone, ‘Is he dead?’ The
Malay bent his head from above downwards, and disentangling his right
hand from his shawl, he pointed imperiously to the door. Fabio would have
repeated his question, but the gesture of the commanding hand was repeated,
and Fabio went out, indignant and wondering, but obedient.
He found Valeria sleeping as before, with an even more tranquil expression
on her face. He did not undress, but seated himself by the window, his head
in his hand, and once more sank into thought. The rising sun found him
still in the same place. Valeria had not waked up.