Orsino remained in his corner a few minutes, after San Giacinto had left
him, and then rose to go into the drawing-room. As he went he passed the
other men, who were seated and standing, all near together and not far
from the empty fireplace, listening to Tebaldo Pagliuca, who was talking
about Sicily with a very strong Sicilian accent. Orsino paused a moment
to hear what he was saying. He was telling the story of a frightful
murder committed in the outskirts of Palermo not many weeks earlier, and
about which there had been much talk. But Tebaldo was on his own ground
and knew much more about it than had appeared in the newspapers. His
voice was not unpleasant. It was smooth, though his words were broken
here and there by gutturals which he had certainly not learned on his
own side of the island. There was a sort of reserve in the tones which
contrasted with the vividness of the language. Orsino watched him and
looked at him more keenly than he had done as yet. He was struck by the
stillness of the deep eyes, which were slightly bloodshot, like those of
some Arabs, and at the same time by the mobility and changing expression
of the lower part of the face. Tebaldo made gestures, too, which had a
singular directness. Yet the whole impression given was that he was a
good actor rather than a man of continued, honest action, and that he
could have performed any other part as well. Near him stood his brother
Francesco. There was doubtless a family resemblance between the two, but
the difference of constitution was apparent to the most unpractised eye.
The younger man was stouter, more sanguine, less nervous. The red blood
glowed with strong health under his brown skin, his lips were scarlet
and full, his dark moustache was soft and silky like his short, smooth
hair, and his eyes were soft, too, and moistly bright, very long, with
heavy drooping lids that were whiter than the skin of the rest of the
face. Francesco was no more like his sister than was Tebaldo.
Orsino found himself by his father as he paused in passing, and he
suddenly realised how immeasurably nearer he was to this strong,
iron-gray, middle-sized, silent man beside him, than to any other one of
all the men in the room, including his own brothers. Sant' Ilario had
perhaps never understood his eldest son; or perhaps there was between
them the insurmountable barrier of his own solid happiness. For it is
sorrow that draws men together. Happiness needs no sympathy; happiness
is not easily disturbed; happiness that is solidly founded is itself a
most negative source of the most all-pervading virtue, without the least
charity for unhappiness' sins; happiness suffices to itself; happiness
is a lantern to its own feet; it is all things to one man and nothing to
all the rest; it is an impenetrable wall between him who has it and
mankind. And Sant' Ilario had been happy for nearly thirty years. In
appearance, as was to be anticipated, he had turned out to be like his
father, as the latter had been at the same age. In temper, he was
different, as the conditions of his life had been of another sort. The
ancient head of the house had lost his Spanish wife when very young, and
had lived many years alone with his only son. Giovanni had met with no
such misfortune. His wife was alive and still beautiful at an age when
many women have forgotten the taste of flattery; and his four sons were
all grown men, straight and tall, so that he looked up to their faces
when they stood beside him. Strong, peaceable, honest, rather hard-faced
young men, they were, excepting Ippolito, the second of them, who had
talent and a lovable disposition in place of strength and hardness of
character.
They were fond of their father, no doubt, and there was great solidarity
in the family. But what they felt for Sant' Ilario was perhaps more like
an allegiance than an affection, and they looked to him as the principal
person of importance in the family, because their grandfather was such a
very old man. They were accustomed to take it for granted that he was
infallible when he expressed himself definitely in a family matter,
whereas they had no very high opinion of his judgment in topics and
questions of the day; for they had received a modern education, and were
to some extent imbued with those modern prejudices compared with which
the views of our fathers hardly deserved the name of a passing caprice.
Orsino thought that there was something at once cunning and ferocious
about Tebaldo's way of telling the story. He had a fine smile of
appreciation for the secrecy and patience of the two young men who had
sought occasion against their sister's lover, and there was a squaring
of the angular jaws and a quick forward movement of the head, as of a
snake when striking, to accompany his description of the death-blow.
Orsino listened to the end and then went quietly out and returned to the
drawing-room.
Vittoria d'Oriani was seated near Corona, who was talking to her in a
low tone. The other ladies were standing together before a famous old
picture. The Marchesa di San Giacinto was smoking a cigarette. Orsino
sat down by his mother, who looked at him quietly and smiled, and then
went on speaking. The young girl glanced at Orsino. She was leaning
forward, one elbow on her knee, and her chin supported in her hand, her
lips a little parted as she listened with deep interest to what the
elder woman said. Corona was telling her of Rome many years earlier, of
the life in those days, of Pius the Ninth, and of the coming of the
Italians.
'How can you remember things that happened when you were so young!'
exclaimed Vittoria, watching the calm and beautiful face.
'I was older than you even then,' answered Corona, with a smile. 'And I
married very young,' she added thoughtfully. 'I was married at your age,
I think. How old are you, my dear?'
'I am eighteen--just eighteen,' replied Vittoria.
'I was married when I was scarcely seventeen. It was too young.'
'But you have always been so happy. Why do you say that?'
'What makes you think that I have always been happy?' asked the
Princess.
'Your face, I think. One or two of the nuns were very happy, too. But
it was different. They had quite another look on their faces.'
'I daresay,' answered Corona, and she smiled again, and looked proudly
at Orsino.
She rose and crossed the room, feeling that she was neglecting her older
guests for the young girl, who was thus left with Orsino again. He did
not see Donna Maria Carolina's quick glance as she discovered the fact,
and made sure of it, looking again and again at the two while she joined
a little in the conversation which was going on around her. She was very
happy, just then, poor lady, and almost forgot to struggle against the
accumulated provincialisms of twenty years, or to be anxious lest her
new friends should discover that her pearls were false. For the passion
for ornament, false or real, had not diminished with the improvement in
her fortunes.
But Orsino was not at all interested in Vittoria's mother, and he had
seen too much to care whether women wore real jewelry or not. He had
almost forgotten the young girl after dinner when he had sat down in a
corner of the smoking-room, but San Giacinto's remark had vividly
recalled her face to his memory, with a strong desire to see her again
at once. Nothing was easier than to satisfy such a wish, and he found
himself by her side.
Once there, he did not trouble himself to speak to her for several
moments. Vittoria showed considerable outward self-possession, though it
was something of an ordeal to sit in silence, almost touching him and
not daring to speak, while he was apparently making up his mind what to
say. It had been much easier during dinner, she thought, because she had
been put in her place without being consulted, and was expected to be
there, without the least idea of attracting attention. Now, she felt a
little dizzy for a moment, as though the room were swaying; and she was
afraid that she was going to blush, which would have been ridiculous.
Now, he was looking at her, while she looked down at her little white
fan that lay on the white stuff of her frock, quite straight, between
her two small, white-gloved hands. The nuns had not told her what to do
in any such situation. Still Orsino did not speak. Two minutes had
crawled by, like two hours, and she felt a fluttering in her throat.
It was absurd, she thought. There was no reason for being so miserable.
Very probably, he was not thinking of her at all. But it was of no use
to tell herself such things, for her embarrassment grew apace, till she
felt that she must spring from her seat and run from the room without
looking at him. The fluttering became almost convulsive, and her hands
pressed the little fan on each side, clenching themselves tightly. Still
he did not speak.
In utter despair she began to recite inwardly the litany of the saints,
biting her lips lest they should move and he should guess what she was
doing. In her suppressed excitement the holy personages raced and
tumbled over each other at a most unseemly rate, till the procession was
violently checked by the gravely indifferent tones of Orsino's voice.
Her hands relaxed, and she turned a little pale.
'Have you been to Saint Peter's?' he enquired calmly.
He was certainly not embarrassed, but he could think of nothing better
to say to a young girl. On the first occasion, at dinner, he had asked
her how she liked Rome. At all events it had opened the conversation. He
remembered well enough the half dozen earnest words they had exchanged;
and there was something more than mere memory, for he knew that he half
wished they might reach the same point again. Perhaps, if the wish had
been stronger and if Vittoria had been a little older, it might have
been easier.
'Yes,' she said. 'My mother took me as soon as we came. She was very
anxious that we should pay our devotion to the patron saint.'
Orsino smiled a little.
'Saint Peter is not the patron of Rome,' he observed. 'Our protector is
San Filippo Neri.'
Vittoria looked up in genuine surprise.
'Saint Peter is not the patron saint of Rome!' she exclaimed. 'But--I
always thought--'
'Naturally enough. All sorts of things in Rome seem to be what they are
not. We seem to be alive for instance. We are not. Six or seven years
ago we were all in a frantic state of excitement over our greatness. We
have turned out to be nothing but a set of embalmed specimens in glass
cases. Do not look so much surprised, signorina--or shocked--which is
it?'
He laughed a little.
'I cannot help it,' answered Vittoria simply, her brown eyes still fixed
on him in wonder. 'It is--it is all so different from what I
expected--the things people say--' She hesitated and stopped short,
turning her eyes from him.
The light was strong in the room, for the aged Prince hated the modern
fashion of shading lamps almost to a dusk. Orsino watched Vittoria's
profile, and the graceful turn of her young throat as she looked away,
and the fine growth of silky hair from the temples and behind the
curving little ear. The room was warm, and he sat silently watching her
for a moment. She was no longer embarrassed, for she was not thinking of
herself, and she did not know how he was thinking of her just then.
'I wonder what you expected us to be like,' he said at last. 'And what
you expected us to say,' he added as an afterthought.
It crossed his mind that if she had been a married woman three or four
years older he might have found her very amusing in conversation. He
could certainly not have been talking in detached and almost idiotic
phrases, as he was actually doing. But if she had been a young married
woman, her charm would have been different, and of a kind not new to
him. There was a novelty about Vittoria, and it attracted him strongly.
There was real freshness and untried youth in her; she had that sort of
delicacy which some flowers have, and which is not fragility, the bloom
of a precious thing fresh broken from the mould and not yet breathed
upon. He wondered whether all young girls had this inexpressible
something, and if so, why he had never noticed it.
'I am not quite sure,' answered Vittoria, blushing a little at the
thought that she could have had a preconceived idea of Orsino
Saracinesca.
The reply left everything to be desired in the way of brilliancy, but
the voice was soft and expectant, as some women's voices are, that seem
just upon the point of vibrating to a harmonic while yielding the
fundamental tone in all its roundness. There are rare voices that seem
to possess a distinct living individuality, apart from the women to whom
they belong, a sort of extra-natural musical life, of which the woman
herself cannot control nor calculate the power. It is not the 'golden
voice' which some great actresses have. One recognises that at the first
hearing; one admits its beauty; one hears it three or four times, and
one knows it by heart. It will pronounce certain phrases in a certain
way, inevitably; it will soften and swell and ring with mathematical
precision at the same verse, at the identical word, night after night,
year after year, while it lasts. Vittoria's voice was not like that. It
had the spontaneity of independent life which a passion itself has when
it takes possession of a man or a woman. Orsino felt it, and was
conscious of a new sensitiveness in himself.
On the whole, to make a very wide statement of a general truth, Italian
men are moved by sense and Italian women are stirred by passion. Between
passion and sense there is all the difference that exists between the
object and the idea. Sense appreciates, passion idealises; sense desires
all things, passion hungers for one; sense is material, though ever so
æsthetised and refined, but passion clothes fact with unearthly
attributes; sense is singly selfish, passion would make a single self of
two. The sensual man says, 'To have seen much and to have little is to
have rich eyes and poor hands'; the passionate man or woman will 'put it
to the test, to win or lose it all,' like Montrose. Sense is vulgar when
it is not monstrous in strength, or hysterical to madness. Passion is
always noble, even in its sins and crimes. Sense can be satisfied, and
its satisfaction is a low sort of happiness; but passion's finer strings
can quiver with immortal pain, and ring with the transcendent harmony
that wakes the hero even in a coward's heart.
Vittoria first touched Orsino by her outward charm, by her voice, by her
grace. But it was his personality, or her spontaneous imagination of
it, which made an indelible impression upon her mind before the first
evening of their acquaintance was over. The woman who falls in love with
a man for his looks alone is not of a very high type, but the best and
bravest men that ever lived have fallen victims to mere beauty, often
without much intelligence, or faith, or honour.
Orsino was probably not aware that he was falling in love at first
sight. Very few men are, and yet very many people certainly begin to
fall in love at a first meeting, who would scout the idea as an
absurdity. For love's beginnings are most exceedingly small in the
greatest number of instances. Were they greater, a man might guard
himself more easily against his fate.