"I came to beg you to hold my son at the baptism."
The old man looked at me with surprise; then he looked at my brother.
His confusion increased. He murmured:
"You do me too much honor!"
"Well, what is your answer?"
"I am at your orders. May God reward you for the honor you have done me
to-day! May God be praised for the joy that he has accorded me in my
old age! May the benedictions of heaven descend on your son!"
"Thank you, Giovanni."
I gave him my hand. And I saw his profound and sad eyes become moist
from tenderness. My heart swelled with acute anguish.
The old man asked me:
"What name will you give him?'
"Raymond."
"The name of your father of sacred memory. He was a man, and you
resemble him."
My brother said:
"Do you sow alone?"
"Alone, yes. I sow it and I reap it."
He showed the harrow, and the pickaxe that glittered on the brown earth.
All around could be seen the still uncovered seed, the germs of future
grain.
My brother said:
"Continue. We will leave you to your work. You will come to-morrow
morning to the Badiola. Farewell, Giovanni. May God bless your work!"
We clasped that unwearied hand, sanctified by the seed it scattered, by
the good it had shed. The old man made a movement to accompany us as
far as the road; but he stopped and said, not without hesitation:
"Grant me one favor, I pray you."
"Speak out, Giovanni."
He opened the bag suspended from his neck.
"Take a handful of seed and throw it on my furrows."
I plunged my hand first into the wheat, took as much as I could, and
scattered it. My brother did the same.
"And now, heed what I tell you," continued Giovanni di Scordio in an
agitated voice, contemplating the seeded ground. "God grant that my
godson be as good as the bread raised from this seed! Amen!"
*XXXVIII.*
The following morning the baptismal ceremony took place without
festivity or pomp, on account of Juliana's condition. My mother, my
brother, Maria, Natalia, Miss Edith, the midwife, the wet-nurse, and the
Chevalier Jemma were present. I remained by the invalid's bedside.
A heavy somnolence weighed upon her. She scarcely breathed through her
half-open mouth, as pale as the palest flowers that blossom in the
shade. Darkness reigned in the alcove. On looking at her, I thought:
"Can I not save her? I have succeeded in banishing death so far; but
death seems to be returning. If there is no change quickly, she will
certainly die. So long as I succeeded in keeping Raymond away from her,
so long as I succeeded by tenderness in causing her a partial illusion
and forgetfulness, she seemed desirous of getting well. But when she
sees her son, when the torture begins again, she grows worse from day to
day, she loses more blood than if the hemorrhage still continued. I
witness her agony. She no longer hears me, no longer obeys me as she
did before. Who will be the cause of her death? _He_. It is he, most
assuredly, he who will kill her." A flood of hate mounted from the
deepest depths of my being, and I felt it even invade my hands with a
homicidal impulse. I saw the little malefic being who was growing fat
on milk, who prospered in peace, removed from all danger, in the midst
of infinite cares. "My mother loves him better than she loves Juliana.
My mother is more concerned about him than she is about the poor dying
creature. Oh! I will make away with him, at any cost. I must!" And
the vision of the crime already consummated passed over me like a flash:
the vision of the little dead body in swaddling-clothes, the little
innocent corpse in its coffin. "The baptism shall be his viaticum.
Giovanni's arms will carry him."
A sudden curiosity seized me. The painful spectacle attracted me.
Juliana was still slumbering. I cautiously left the alcove; I left the
room; I called Cristina and left her on guard; then, with rapid step, I
walked toward the gallery, suffocated by anguish.
The small door was open. I perceived a man kneeling before the railing;
and I recognized Pietro, the faithful old servant who was with us at my
birth and was present at my baptism. He arose, not without pain.
"Stay, stay, Pietro!" I said in a low voice, placing my hand on his
shoulder to make him kneel again. And I knelt down near him, and leaned
my head against the railing, and looked below into the chapel. I saw
everything with perfect clearness; I heard the formulas of the ritual.
The ceremony had already begun. I learned from Pietro that the infant
had already received the salt. The officiant was the priest of Tussi,
Don Gregorio Artese. He was at that moment reciting the Credo with the
sponsor, the one in a loud voice, the other repeating in low tones.
Giovanni held the infant with his right arm, the arm which the evening
before had sowed the wheat. His left hand was laid on the white ribbons
and laces. And those bony hands, dry and brown, which seemed as if cast
in living bronze--those hands, hardened by the instruments of
agriculture, sanctified by the good they had done, by the immense labor
that they had accomplished, and now occupied in holding that little
child, had such charming delicacy and timidity that I could not remove
my gaze from them. Raymond did not cry, but his mouth moved
ceaselessly, full of a liquid froth that ran down his chin on to the
embroidered bib.
After the exorcism the priest wet his finger with saliva and touched the
little pink ears, pronouncing the miraculous word:
"_Ephpheta._"
Then he touched the nostrils, saying:
"_In odorem sanctitatis..._"
Then he dipped his thumb in the oil of the catechumens, and while
Giovanni held the child on its back, he administered the unction in form
of a cross on the chest; and when Giovanni turned the child on its
stomach, he administered the unction between the shoulder blades, in
form of a cross, saying:
"_Ego te linio oleo salutis in Christo Jesu Domino Nostro..._"
Then, with a small tuft of cotton, he wiped off the unction.
Then he removed the violet veil, the color of mourning and of sorrow,
and put on the white stole, in token of joy, in order to announce that
the original sin was about to be removed. And he addressed Raymond by
his name, putting to him the three solemn questions, which the sponsor
answered:
"_Credo, credo, credo._"
The chapel was singularly sonorous. A ray of sunlight, entering by one
of the high oval windows, fell upon the marble paving stones covering
the deep sepulchres where several of my ancestors reposed in peace. My
mother and brother stood behind Giovanni, side by side. Maria and
Natalia stood on tiptoe to catch a view of the child, inquisitive,
smiling from time to time, whispering to each other. These whisperings
caused Giovanni to turn partially around, with an indulgent gesture
indicating all the ineffable tenderness which the old man bore children
and that overflowed from his big heart.
"_Raymunde, vis baptizari?_" asked the officiant.
"_Volo_," responded the sponsor, repeating the word that had been
prompted to him.
The clerk presented the silver basin, in which shone the baptismal
water. My mother removed the infant's hood, while the sponsor extended
the child on its stomach in order to receive the ablution. The round
head, on which I could distinguish the whitish eruptions of the
milk-crust, hung above the basin. And the priest, after having taken
some water from a little vase, poured it three times on the child's
head, each time making the sign of the cross.
"_Ego te baptize in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti._"
Raymond began to wail violently, and louder still when his head was
being dried. And, when Giovanni raised him up, I saw that his face was
reddened by the afflux of blood and by his efforts, and winkled by the
contractions of the mouth. And, as usual, the wailings caused me the
same sensation of painful laceration, the same exasperation of anger.
Nothing in him irritated me more than that voice, than that obstinate
wailing which for the first time had struck me so cruel a blow on that
lugubrious October morning. It was an intolerable shock to my nerves.
The priest dipped his thumb into the consecrated oil and anointed the
neophyte's forehead, reciting the ritual, which rose above the wailings.
Then he put on the white robe, symbol of Innocence.
"_Accipe vestem candidam._"
Then he handed the blessed taper to the sponsor.
"_Accipe lampadem ardentem._"
The Innocent became quiet. His eyes were fixed on the little flame that
trembled at the tip of the long colored candle. Giovanni di Scordio
bore the newly made Christian on his right arm, and with his left hand
he held the symbol of the divine fire, in a simple and grave attitude,
regarding the priest who recited the litany. He towered above all those
present by a full head. All round there was no whiteness as pure as the
whiteness of his hair, not even the Innocent's robe.
"_Vade in pace, et Dominus sit tecum._"
"_Amen._"
My mother took the Innocent from the old man's arms, pressed him against
her bosom, and kissed him. My brother kissed him too. All the
spectators kissed him in turn.
Near me Pietro was still on his knees weeping. Overcome, distracted, I
rose abruptly, went out, crossed the corridors rapidly, and entered
Juliana's room unannounced.
Cristina asked with fear, lowering her voice:
"What has happened, signor?"
"Nothing, nothing. Is she awake?"
"No, signor. I think she is asleep."
I parted the curtains and softly entered the alcove. At first I
perceived nothing in the darkness but the whiteness of the pillow. I
approached, and bent over. Juliana's eyes were wide open and were
gazing at me fixedly. Perhaps she divined all my anguish from my aspect;
but she said not a word. She closed her eyes again, as if never to open
them.
*XXXIX.*
From that day began the last and vertiginous period of the lucid madness
which was to lead me to the crime. From that day commenced the
premeditation of the easiest and surest means of causing the Innocent's
death.
It was a cold, ingenious, incessant premeditation, that absorbed all my
inner faculties. The fixed idea possessed me absolutely with
inconceivable power and tenacity. All my being labored in a supreme
crisis; and the fixed, clear, rigid idea directed me, without deviation,
toward the goal as if I were gliding along over steel rails. My
perspicacity seemed to be trebled. Nothing escaped me, within me or
about me. There was not a single minute of relaxation in my
circumspection. I said nothing, I did nothing, that could awaken
suspicion or cause surprise. I simulated, I dissimulated, ceaselessly,
and not only with my mother, my brother, and all the others who knew
nothing, but even with Juliana.
With Juliana I affected resignation, appeasement, at times even a sort
of forgetfulness. I studied to avoid the slightest allusions to the
intruder. I sought by every means to encourage her, to inspire her with
confidence, to cause her to observe the directions that must bring her
back to health. I multiplied my zealous endeavors. I wanted to feel
for her a tenderness so profound, so forgetful of the past, that it
would permit her to again find the freshest and purest savor in life. I
felt again the sensation that my being was becoming transfused into the
body of the invalid, that I was communicating to her some of my
strength, that I imparted an impulse to her exhausted heart. It was I,
it seemed, who, from day to day, forced her to live and breathed into
her an artificial vigor, while waiting the tragic and liberating hour.
I repeated to myself: "To-morrow!" and to-morrow came, passed,
disappeared, without the hour having sounded. I again repeated:
"To-morrow!"
I was convinced that the mother's health depended on the child's death.
I was convinced that, after the suppression of the intruder, she would
be cured. I thought: "It would be impossible for her not to get well.
She would resuscitate gradually, be regenerated with new blood. She
would appear a new creature, freed from all impurity. We would both feel
purified, worthy of each other, after so long and so painful an
expiation. The illness, the convalescence, would relegate the sad
memories to an indefinite distance. And I would try to efface from her
soul even the shadow of the recollection; I would try to cause her
perfect oblivion in love. After this great trial, every other human
love would seem frivolous by comparison with ours." The vision of the
future burned me with impatience; the incertitude became intolerable to
me; the crime appeared to me exempt from horror. I bitterly reproached
myself for the perplexities which an excess of prudence kept me in; but
no light had yet illumined my brain. I had not succeeded in finding a
_sure means_.
Raymond must appear to have died a natural death. The doctor himself
must not have a glimmer of suspicion. Of the various methods I
examined, not one seemed to me satisfactory, practicable. And yet,
while I awaited the revealing flash, the divine inspiration, I felt
myself attracted by a strange fascination toward the victim.
Frequently I unexpectedly entered the nurse's room with so strong a
palpitation that I feared she would hear my heart-beats. Her name was
Anna. She was a woman from Montegorgo Pausula, of a grand race of
robust mountaineers. She was dressed after the fashion of her country--a
red petticoat with a thousand straight and symmetrical folds, a black
corsage embroidered with gold, with two long sleeves through which her
arms were rarely passed. Her head arose bistre-like above her very white
chemise; but the whiteness of her eyes and teeth exceeded in intensity
the snowy whiteness of the fabric. Her eyes, brilliant like enamel,
remained almost always motionless, without revery, without thought. The
mouth was large, half-open, taciturn, illuminated by a row of even and
well-set teeth. The hair, so black that it seemed to have a violet
reflection, was parted on a low forehead, and terminated in two tresses
that were rolled up behind the ears like the horns of a ram. She was
almost constantly seated, with the nursing child in her arms, in a
sculptured attitude, neither sad nor joyous.
I entered. Usually the room was dark. I saw the white spot made by
Raymond's dresses on the arm of that bronzed and powerful woman, who
fixed on me her eyes like those of an inanimate idol, without a word and
without a smile.
Sometimes I stopped and watched the nursing infant sucking at the
rounded breast, which was of a singularly light tone in comparison with
the face, and crossed by blue veins. He sucked, sometimes gently,
sometimes vigorously, sometimes without appetite, sometimes with sudden
avidity. The soft cheek followed the movement of the lips, the throat
palpitated with every aspiration, the nose almost disappeared beneath
the pressure of the swollen breast. I imagined seeing the good spread
through that tender body with that inflow of fresh, healthy, and
substantial milk. I imagined that at every new swallow the vitality of
the intruder became more tenacious, more resistant, more malefic. I felt
a dull chagrin at noticing that he was growing and bore no indication of
weakness, except those whitish crusts, light and inoffensive. I
thought: "Have not all the agitations, all the sufferings of the mother,
while she was bearing him, done him some harm? Or has he really some
organic vice that is not yet manifest, but which, in the end, could
develop and cause his death?"
One day, when I found him undressed in his cradle, I surmounted my
repugnance; I felt him, I examined him from head to foot, I applied my
ear to his chest to listen to his heart beat. He drew up his little
limbs, then forcibly extended them; he waved his hands, all covered with
dimples and folds; he buried in his mouth his fingers terminated by
minute nails. Folds of flesh accumulated around the wrists, at the
ankles, behind the knees, on the thighs, at the groins, on the lower
abdomen.
Several times also I watched him while he slept. I looked at him for a
long time, thinking and re-thinking of the means, made absent-minded by
the inner vision of the little corpse in swaddling-clothes stretched in
the coffin, amidst the wreaths of white chrysanthemums, between four
lighted candles. He slept very peacefully; he lay on his back, his fist
closed over his thumb. At times his moist lips made a movement as of
sucking. If the innocence of that slumber went to my heart, if the
unconscious act of those lips softened me, I said to myself, as if to
make my resolution firm: "He _must_ die!" And I represented to myself
the sufferings already endured for him--the recent sufferings, those
that were preparing--and how much affection he usurped to the detriment
of my own children, and Juliana's agony, and all the menaces that the
mysterious tempest suspended over our heads concealed. In that way I
rekindled my homicidal will, I confirmed the sentence of the sleeper. In
a corner, in the dark, the guardian was seated, the woman from
Montegorgo, taciturn, motionless, like an idol; and the whiteness of her
eyes, the whiteness of her teeth, rivalled in brilliancy the large
golden circles in her ears.
*XL.*
One evening--it was the 14th of December--I was returning to the Badiola
with Federico, when we perceived before us, in the avenue, a man whom we
recognized to be Giovanni di Scordio.
"Giovanni!" cried my brother.
The old man stopped. We approached.
"Good evening, Giovanni. What brings you here?"
The old man smiled, timid, embarrassed, as if we had detected him doing
wrong.
"I came," he stammered, "I came to ask about my godson."
He was very much ashamed. One would have thought that he was asking
pardon for his temerity.
"You wish to see him?" asked Federico, in a low voice, certain of having
understood the sweet and sad sentiment which stirred the heart of the
deserted grandfather.
"No, no--I only came to ask----"
"Don't you wish to see him?"
"No--yes-- It would perhaps be too much trouble--just now."
"Come," said Federico, taking him by the hand like a child. "Come and
see him."
We entered. We went up to the nursery.
My mother was there. She smiled kindly at Giovanni, and cautioned us to
make no noise.
"He is asleep," she said.
And, turning toward me, she added with uneasiness:
"He coughed a little to-day."
The news agitated me, and my agitation was so manifest that my mother
thought she reassured me by adding:
"Only very little, you know--a mere nothing."
Already Federico and the old man had approached the cradle, and by the
light of the lamp they looked at the little sleeper. The old man had
bent over, and around him there was no whiteness as pure as the
whiteness of his hair.
"Kiss him," whispered Federico.
He rose, looked at my mother and at me with an indefinite look; then he
passed his hand over his mouth, over his chin, which had not been
freshly shaven.
And in a low tone he said to my brother, with whom he was less
ceremonious:
"If I kiss him my beard will prick him, and certainly awaken him."
My brother, who saw that the poor, forsaken old man was dying with
desire to kiss the child, encouraged him with a gesture. And then that
great hoary head bent over the cradle, softly, softly, softly.
*XLI.*
When my mother and I were alone in the room, in front of the cradle in
which Raymond still slept with the kiss on his forehead, she said to me,
very much moved:
"Poor old man! Do you know that he comes here almost every evening? He
hides himself in the garden. I heard it from Pietro, who has seen him
wandering around the house. The day of the baptism he had the window of
this room pointed out to him, doubtless so that he might come and look
at it. Poor old man! How sorry I am for him!"
I listened to Raymond's breathing. It did not seem to me to be changed.
His slumber was tranquil.