Orsino reached the Corleone's house before three o'clock on that
afternoon. They lived on the second floor of a large new building in the
Via Venti Settembre, 'Twentieth of September Street,' as it would be in
English, so named to commemorate the taking of Rome on that day in 1870.
A porter in livery asked Orsino whom he wished to see, rang an electric
bell, spoke through a speaking-tube, took off his cocked hat in order to
listen for the answer, and finally told Orsino that he would be
received. There is always something mysterious to the looker-on about
any such means of communication at a distance, when he does not hear the
voice speaking from the other end.
It would not have surprised Orsino, if he had heard, as the porter did,
that the answer came back in Tebaldo Pagliuca's voice; but he would then
not have been so much surprised, either, at being admitted so readily.
Tebaldo, in fact, had told the porter to send the visitor up, for he had
been waiting for the porter's bell; but he then told his servant that a
gentleman was coming upstairs to see him, who was to be shown into the
drawing-room at once, whither Tebaldo himself would presently come.
Tebaldo had been quite sure that his mother and sister would be at home
at that hour, since the former was not yet well enough to go out; he had
been equally sure that his mother would refuse to receive Orsino; he
had, therefore, so arranged matters that Orsino should be ushered into
her presence unexpectedly, and to accomplish this he had lain in wait in
the neighbourhood of the speaking-tube, which came up into the hall of
his apartment just inside the door opening upon the stairs.
So far the explanation of what happened is quite simple. It would be a
different thing to unravel the complicated and passionate workings of
Tebaldo's intricate thoughts. In the first place, in spite of his
behaviour in public, he hated Orsino with all his heart for having
unwittingly killed his brother, and, important as the advantages would
be if Vittoria married the heir of the great house, they by no means
outweighed his desire for revenge.
Tebaldo was not an inhuman monster, though a specialist might have said
that he had a strong tendency to criminality. He was capable of
affection in a certain degree, apart from mere passion. He was
unscrupulous, treacherous, tortuous in his reasonings; but he was above
all tenacious, and he was endowed with much boldness and daring, of the
kind which cast a romantic glamour over crimes of violence.
It had been one thing to threaten Ferdinando with the law, if he refused
to sign the deed by which Camaldoli was to be sold. It was quite another
matter to give his sister to the man who had shot Ferdinando like a wild
animal. There the man's humanity had revolted, though Orsino had not
guessed it, when they had met and talked together at the party on the
previous evening.
On the other hand, his cunning bade him not to put himself in the
position of refusing Orsino's request, seeing that he denied his own
relationship with his dead brother. It was easy enough for him to bring
Orsino and his mother unexpectedly face to face, and to let the young
man hear from her lips what she thought of such a union, if indeed the
interview should ever get so far as that. Tebaldo could then calmly
intrench himself behind his mother's refusal, and yet maintain outward
relations with Orsino, while waiting for an opportunity to avenge his
brother, which was sure to present itself sooner or later.
Orsino mounted the stairs resolutely, squaring himself to meet Tebaldo
and tell him of Sant' Ilario's refusal as briefly and courteously as he
could. At the same time he was half painfully and half happily conscious
of Vittoria's presence in the house. The pain and the pleasure were
intermittent and uncertain.
A servant was waiting and holding the door ajar.
'Don Tebaldo said that he would see me,' said Orsino, mechanically.
The man bowed in silence, shut the door upon the landing, and then led
the way through the little hall and the antechamber beyond, opened a
door, and stood aside to let Orsino pass.
As the door closed behind him, he heard a short and sharp cry in the
room, like the warning note of certain fierce wild animals. It was
followed instantly by an exclamation of terror in another voice. At the
same instant he was aware that there were two women in the room,--Maria
Carolina d'Oriani and her daughter.
The mother had been lying on a couch, and on seeing him had started up,
supporting herself on her hand. The room was half darkened by the partly
closed blinds.
Maria Carolina was dressed in a loose black gown with wide sleeves that
showed her thin, bare arms, for the weather was warm. Her white face was
thin and ghastly, and her dark eyes gleamed as they caught a little of
the light from the window. Orsino stood still two paces from the door.
'Assassin!'
The one word--a word of the people, hissed from her dry lips with such
horror and hatred as Orsino had never heard. There was silence then.
Vittoria, as white as her mother, and in an agony of terror, had risen,
shrinking and convulsed, grasping with one hand the heavy inner curtain
of the window.
Slowly the lean, dark woman left her seat, raising one thin arm, and
pointing straight at Orsino's face, her head thrown back, her parched
lips parted and showing her teeth.
'Murderer!' she cried. 'You dare to show me your face--you dare to show
me the hands that killed my son! You dare to stand there before God and
me--to hear God's curse on you and mine--to answer for blood--'
Her lips and throat were dry, so that she could not speak, but choked,
and swallowed convulsively, and her eyes grew visibly red. Orsino was
riveted to the spot and speechless. For a moment he did not even think
of Vittoria, cowering back against the curtain. The woman's worn face
was changed in her immense wrath, and he could not take his eyes from
her. She found her voice again, painfully, fighting against the fiery
dryness that choked her.
'With his innocent blood on your hands, you come here--you come to face
his very mother in her sacred grief--to see my tears, to tear out the
last shreds of my heart, to revile my mother's soul--to poison the air
that breathes sorrow! But you think that I am weak, that I am only a
woman. You think, perhaps, that I shall lose my senses and faint. It
would be no shame, but I am not of such women.'
Her voice gathered fulness but sank in tone as she went on. Still Orsino
said nothing, for it was impossible to interrupt her. She must say her
say, and curse her curse out, and he must listen, for he would not turn
and go.
'You have come,' she said, speaking quickly and with still rising fury.
'I am here to meet you. I am here to demand blood of you for blood. I am
here to curse you, and your name, and your race, your soul and their
souls, dead and living, in the name of God, who made my son, of Christ,
who died for him, of the Holy Saints, who could not save him from the
devil you are--in the name of God, and of man, and of the whole world, I
curse you! May your life be a century of cruel deaths, and when you die
at last with a hundred years of agony in you, may your immortal soul be
damned everlastingly a thousand-fold! May you pray and not be heard, may
you repent and not be forgiven, may you receive the Holy Sacraments to
your damnation and the last Unction with fire in hell! May every living
creature that bears your name come to an evil before your eyes, your
father--your mother--the men and women of your house, and your unborn
children! Blood--I would have blood! May your blood pay for mine, and
your soul for my son's soul, who died unconfessed in his sins! Go,
assassin! go, murderer of the innocent! go out into the world with my
mother's curse on you, and may every evil thing in earth and hell be
everlastingly with you and yours, living and dead!
Blood!--blood!--blood!'
Her voice was suddenly and horribly extinguished in the last word, as
an instrument that is strained too far cracks in a last discordant note
and is silent. She stood one moment more, with outstretched hand and
fingers that would still make the sign of one more unspoken curse, and
then, without warning, she fell back in a heap towards the couch.
Simultaneously, Vittoria and Orsino sprang forward to catch her, but
even before Vittoria could reach her she lay motionless on the floor,
her head on the edge of the sofa, her hands stretched out on each side
of her, her thin fingers twitching desperately at the carpet. A moment
later, they were still too, and she was unconscious, as the two began to
lift her up.
For an instant neither looked at the other, but as Orsino laid the
fainting woman upon the couch, he raised his eyes to Vittoria's. The
girl was still overcome with fear at the whole situation, and trembling
with horror at her mother's frightful outbreak of rage and hate. She
shook her head in a frightened, hopeless way, as she bent down again and
arranged a cushion for Maria Carolina.
'Why did you come--why did you come?' she almost moaned. 'I told you--'
Orsino saw that if there was to be any explanation, he must seize the
opportunity at once.
'I felt that I must see you before leaving,' he answered. 'Last night I
told your brother Tebaldo that we were engaged to each other. He asked
me to come at three o'clock, and said that your mother would receive
me--I sent up word to ask--I was told to come up.'
'We knew nothing of your coming. It must have been the servant's fault.'
She did not suspect her brother of having purposely brought about the
meeting. 'Now go!' she added quickly. 'Go, before she comes to herself.
Do not let her see you again. Go--please go!'
'Yes--I had better go,' he answered. 'Can I not see you again?
Vittoria--I cannot go away like this--'
As he realised that it might be long before he saw her again, his voice
trembled a little, and there was a pleading accent in his words which
she had never heard.
'Yes--no--how can I see you?' she faltered. 'There is no way--no
place--when must you leave?' Maria Carolina stirred, and seemed about to
open her eyes. 'Go--please go!' repeated Vittoria, desperately. 'She
will open her eyes and see you, and it will begin again! Oh, for
Heaven's sake--'
Orsino kissed her suddenly while she was speaking, once, sharply, with
all his heart breaking. Then he swiftly left the room without looking
back, almost trying not to think of what he was doing.
He closed the door behind him. As he turned to look for the way out, in
his confusion of mind, the door opposite, which was ajar, opened wide,
and he was confronted by Tebaldo, who smiled sadly and apologetically.
Orsino stared at him.
'I am afraid you have had an unpleasant scene,' said the Sicilian,
quickly. 'It was a most unfortunate accident--a mistake of the servant,
who took you for the doctor. The fact is, my mother seems to be out of
her mind, and she will not be persuaded that Ferdinando is alive and
well, till she sees him. She was so violent an hour ago that I sent for
a doctor--a specialist for insanity. I am afraid I forgot that you were
coming, in my anxiety about her. I hope you will forgive me. Of course,
you have seen for yourself how she feels towards you at present, and in
any case--at such a time--'
He had spoken so rapidly and plausibly that Orsino had not been able to
put in a word. Now he paused as if expecting an answer.
'I regret to have been the cause of further disturbing your mother, who
indeed seems to be very ill,' said Orsino, gravely. 'I hope that she
will soon recover.'
He moved towards the outer hall, and Tebaldo accompanied him to the door
of the apartment.
'You will, of course, understand that at such a time it will be wiser
not to broach so serious a matter as my sister's marriage,' said
Tebaldo. 'Pray accept again my excuses for having accidentally brought
you into so unpleasant a situation.'
He timed his words so that he uttered the last when he was already
holding the door open with one hand and stretching out the other to
Orsino, who had no choice but to take it, as he said goodbye. Tebaldo
closed the door and stood still a moment in thought before he went back.
As he turned to go in, Vittoria came quickly towards him.
'How did it happen that Don Orsino was brought into the drawing-room?'
she asked, still very pale and excited.
'I suppose the servant took him for the doctor,' said Tebaldo, coolly,
for he knew she would not stoop to ask questions of the footman. 'I am
very sorry,' he added.
He was going to pass on, but she stopped him.
'Tebaldo--I must speak to you--it will do as well here as anywhere. The
nurse is with her,' she said, looking towards the drawing-room. 'She
fainted. Don Orsino told me in two words, before he went away, that he
had spoken to you last night, and that you had told him to come here
to-day.'
'That is perfectly exact, my dear. I have no doubt you have found out
that your admirer, our brother's assassin, is a strictly truthful
person. He insisted upon seeing you; it was impossible to talk at ease
at a party, and I told him to come here, intending to see him myself. I
told him to come at three o'clock--I daresay you know that, too?'
'Yes--he said it was to be at three o'clock.'
Tebaldo took out his watch and looked at it.
'It is now only four minutes to three,' he observed, 'and he is already
gone. He came a good deal before his time, or I should have been in the
antechamber to receive him and take him into my room, out of harm's way,
where I could have explained matters to him. As it is, I was obliged to
show him out with some apology for the mistake.'
'How false you are!' exclaimed Vittoria, her nostrils quivering.
'Because I refuse to ruin you, and our own future position here? I think
I am wise, not false. Yes, I myself assured him last night that he did
not kill our brother, but one of the Pagliuca di Bauso. I took the hand
that did it, and shook it--to save your position in Roman society. You
seem to forget that poor Ferdinando had turned himself into an
outlaw--in plain language, he was a brigand.'
'He was worth a score of his brothers,' said Vittoria, who was not
afraid of him. 'You talk of saving my position. It is far more in order
to save your own chance of marrying the American girl with her fortune.'
'Oh yes,' answered Tebaldo, with perfect calm. 'I include that in the
general advantages to be got by what I say. I do not see that it is so
very false. On the one hand, Ferdinando was my brother. I shall not
forget that. On the other, to speak plainly, he was a criminal. You see
I am perfectly logical. No one is obliged to acknowledge that he is
related to a criminal--'
'No one is obliged to lie publicly, as you do,' broke in Vittoria,
rather irrelevantly. 'As you make me lie--rather than let people know
what kind of men my surviving brothers are.'
'You are not obliged to say anything. You do not go out into the world
just now, because you have to stay with our mother. I will wager that
you have not once told the lie you think so degrading.'
'No--I have not, so far. No one has forced me to.'
'You need only hold your tongue, and leave the rest to me.'
'You make me act a lie--even in not wearing mourning--'
'Of course, if you make morality and honesty depend upon the colour of
your clothes,' said Tebaldo, scornfully, 'I have nothing more to say
about it. But it is a great pity that you have fallen in love with that
black Saracinesca, the assassin. It will be a source of considerable
annoyance and even suffering to you, I daresay. It even annoyed me. It
would have been hard to refuse so advantageous an offer without accusing
him of Ferdinando's death, which is precisely what I will not do, for
the sake of all of us. But you shall certainly not marry him, though you
are inhuman enough to love him--a murderer--stained with your own
blood.'
'He is not a murderer, for it was an accident--and you know it. I am not
ashamed of loving him--though I cared for Ferdinando more than any of
you. And if you talk in that way--if you come between us--' she stopped.
'What will you do?' he asked contemptuously.
'I will tell the truth about Ferdinando,' she said, fixing her eyes upon
him.
'To whom, pray?'
'To Miss Slayback and her aunt,' answered Victoria, her gentle face
growing fierce.
'Look here, Vittoria,' said Tebaldo, more suavely. 'Do you know that
Orsino Saracinesca is going back to Camaldoli? Yes. And you know that
Ferdinando had many friends there, and I have some in the neighbourhood.
A letter from me may have a good deal to do with his safety or danger,
as the case may be. It would be very thoughtless of you to irritate me
by interfering with my plans. It might bring your own to a sudden and
rather sad conclusion.'
Vittoria turned pale again, for she believed him. He was playing on her
fears for Orsino and on her ignorance of the real state of things at
Camaldoli. But for the moment his words had the effect he desired. He
instantly followed up his advantage.
'You can never marry him,' he said. 'But if you will not interfere with
my own prospects of marriage, nothing shall happen to Saracinesca.
Otherwise--' he stopped and waited significantly.
Exaggerating his power, she believed that it extended to giving warrant
of death or safety for Orsino, and her imagination left her little
choice. At all events, she would not have dared to risk her lover's life
by crossing Tebaldo's schemes for himself.
'I am sorry for the American girl,' she said. 'I like her for her own
sake, and I would gladly save her from being married to such a man as
you. But if you threaten to murder Don Orsino if I tell her the truth,
you have me in your power on that side.'
'On all sides,' said Tebaldo, scornfully, as he saw how deep an
impression he had made on the girl. 'I hold his life in my hand, so long
as he is at Camaldoli, and while he is there you will obey me. After
that, we shall see.'
Vittoria met his eyes fiercely for an instant, and then, thinking of
Orsino, she bent her head and went away, going back to her mother.
She found her conscious again, but exhausted, lying down on the couch
and tended by the nurse, who had been in the house since the news of
her son's death had prostrated Maria Carolina. She looked at Vittoria
with a vague stare, not exactly recollecting whether the girl had been
in the room during her outburst of rage against Orsino or not. Vittoria
had been behind her all the time.
'Is he gone?' asked Maria Carolina, in a faint and hollow voice. 'I am
sorry--I could have cursed him much more----'
'Mother!' exclaimed Vittoria, softly and imploringly, and she glanced at
the nurse. 'You may go now,' she said to the latter, fearing a fresh
outburst. 'I will stay with my mother.'
The nurse left the room, and the mother and daughter were alone
together. They were almost strangers, as has been explained, Vittoria
having been left for years at the convent in Palermo, unvisited by any
of her family, until her uncle's death had changed their fortunes. It
was impossible that there should be much sympathy between them.
There was, on the other hand, a sort of natural feeling of alliance
between the two women of the household as against the two men. Maria
Carolina was mentally degraded by many years of a semi-barbarous life at
Camaldoli, which had destroyed some of her finer instincts altogether,
and had almost effaced the effect of early education. She looked up to
Vittoria as to a superior being, brought up by noble ladies, in
considerable simplicity of life, but in the most extreme refinement of
feeling on all essential points, and in an atmosphere of general
cultivation and artistic taste, which had not been dreamed of in her
mother's youth, though it might seem old-fashioned in some more modern
countries. The girl had received an education which had been good of its
kind, and very complete, and she was therefore intellectually her
mother's superior by many degrees. She knew it, too, and would have
despised her mother if she had been like her brothers. As it was, she
pitied her, and suffered keenly when Maria Carolina did or said anything
in public which showed more than usual ignorance or provinciality.
They had one chief characteristic in common, and Ferdinando had
possessed it also. They were naturally as frank and outspoken as the
other two brothers were deceitful and treacherous. As often happens, two
of the brothers had inherited more of their character from their father,
while the third had been most like his mother. She, poor woman, felt
that her daughter was the only one of the family whom she could trust,
and looking up to her as she did, she constantly turned to her for help
and comfort at home, and for advice as to her conduct in the world.
But since Ferdinando's death her mind, though not affected to the extent
described by Tebaldo in speaking with Orsino, had been unbalanced.
Nothing which Vittoria could say could make her understand how the
catastrophe had happened, and though she had formerly liked Orsino, she
was now persuaded that he had lain in wait for her son and had
treacherously murdered him. Vittoria had soon found that the only
possible means of keeping her quiet was to avoid the subject altogether,
and to lead her away from it whenever she approached it. It would be
harder than ever to accomplish this since she had seen Orsino.
She lay on her couch, moaning softly to herself, and now and then
speaking articulate words.
'My son, my son! My handsome boy!' she cried, in a low voice. 'Who will
give him back to me? Who will find me one like him?'
Her lamentations were like the mourning of a woman of the people.
Vittoria tried to soothe her. Suddenly she sat up and grasped the girl's
arm, staring into her face.
'To think that we once thought he might marry you!' she cried wildly.
'Curse him, Vittoria! Let me hear you curse him, too! Curse him for your
soul's sake! That will do me good.'
'Mother! mother!' cried the girl, softly pressing the hand that gripped
her arm so roughly.
'What is the matter with you?' asked the half-mad creature fiercely, as
her strength came back. 'Why will you not curse him? Go down on your
knees and pray that all the saints will curse him as I do!'
'For Heaven's sake, mother! Do not begin again!'
'Begin! Ah, I have not ended--I shall not end when I die, but always
while he is alive my soul shall pursue him, day and night, and I will--'
she broke off. 'But you, too--you must wish him evil--you, all of
us--then the evil will go with him always, if many of us cast it on
him!'
She was like a terrible witch, with her pale face and dishevelled hair,
and gaunt arms that made violent gestures.
'Speak, child!' she cried again. 'Curse him for your dead brother!'
'No. I will never do that,' said Vittoria.
A new light came into the raving woman's eyes.
'You love him!' she exclaimed, half choking. 'I know you love him--'
With a violent movement she pushed Vittoria away from her, almost
throwing her to the ground. Then she fell back on the couch, and slowly
turned her face away, covering her eyes with both her hands. Her whole
body quivered, and then was still, then shook more violently, and then,
all at once, she broke into a terrible sobbing, that went on and on as
though it would never stop while she had breath and tears left.
Vittoria came back to her seat and waited patiently, for there was
nothing else to be done. And the sound of the woman's weeping was so
monotonous and regular that the girl did not always hear it, but looked
across at the half-closed blinds of the window and thought of her own
life, and wondered at all its tragedy, being herself half stunned and
dazed.
It was bad enough, as it appeared to her, but could she have known it
all as it was to be, and all that she did not yet know of her brother
Tebaldo's evil nature, she might, perhaps, have done like her mother,
and covered her eyes with her hands, and sobbed aloud in terror and
pain.
That might be said of very many lives, perhaps. And yet men do their
best to tear the veil of the future, and to look through it into the
darkened theatre which is each to-morrow. And many, if they knew the
price and the struggle, would give up the prize beyond; but not knowing,
and being in the fight, they go on to the end. And some of them win.