"Yes, a little, Tullio. But do not let that worry you."
"Perhaps he has taken cold?"
"It seems impossible that he should have taken cold, with so many
precautions."
A flash passed through my brain. A great internal trembling assailed me
suddenly. All at once my mother's presence became insupportable. I was
agitated, I was discountenanced, I feared I would betray myself. The
inner idea threw out such flashes that fear overtook me: "Something must
show on my face." This fear was vain; but I could not command myself.
I made a step forward and bent over the cradle.
My mother perceived something; but she interpreted it in my favor, for
she added:
"How frightened you are! Don't you hear how calm his breathing is?
Don't you see how peaceful his sleep is?"
But, in spite of the words she spoke, there was anxiety in her voice,
and she did not succeed in hiding her apprehension from me.
"You are right, it is nothing," I answered, doing myself violence. "Do
you remain here?"
"Yes, until Anna returns."
I left the room. I went to Juliana. She expected me. All was ready for
her dinner, which I habitually took with her so that the invalid's meal
should be less sad and that my example and my pleading should persuade
her to eat. In my acts, in my words, I showed myself unusually exalted.
I was a prey to a strange superexcitation of which I had an exact
consciousness; but, although capable of watching myself, I was not able
to moderate it. Contrary to my habit, I drank two or three glasses of
the wine prescribed for Juliana. I also wished her to take more than
usual.
"You feel a little better, do you not?"
"Yes."
"If you are good I promise you that you shall get up for Christmas--in
ten days more. You can regain your strength in ten days, if you want
to. Drink a little more, Juliana."
She looked at me with surprise mingled with curiosity, making an effort
to give me her entire attention. Perhaps she was already tired, perhaps
her eyelids began to feel heavy. The raised position was again
beginning to cause in her the symptoms of cerebral anemia. She
moistened her lips with the wine that I handed her.
"Tell me," I continued, "where would you like to pass your
convalescence?"
She smiled feebly.
"At the seaside? Shall I write to Aric to find us a villa? If only the
Ginosa villa were free! Do you remember it?"
She smiled feebly again.
"You are tired? Perhaps my voice tires you?"
I perceived that she was on the point of losing consciousness. I
supported her, I removed the pillows that raised her, and put her at her
ease by lowering her head; helped her with the usual remedies. Very
soon she seemed to come to, for she murmured, as if in a dream:
"Yes, yes, let us go."
*XLII.*
A strange anxiety harassed me. Sometimes it was like a sort of keen
pleasure, a kind of confused joy; sometimes it was like an exasperating
impatience and unbearable frenzy; sometimes it was a desire to see some
one, to search for some one, to speak, to unbosom myself. At times it
was a desire for solitude, a desire to run and shut myself up in some
place where I would be alone with myself, where I could look into my
soul clearly, where I could follow the development of my idea, examine
and study the details of the approaching event, make my preparations.
These divers and extraordinary impulses, and still other impulses,
innumerable, indefinable, inexplicable, succeeded each other impetuously
in my soul with an extraordinary acceleration of my inner life.
The flash that had traversed my brain, that ray of sinister light,
seemed all at once to have illuminated a pre-existent state of
consciousness, seemed to have awakened a deep layer of my memory. I
felt that it was a _recollection_. But, despite several efforts that I
made, I could not recover the origin of this recollection or discover
its nature. Without doubt _I remembered_. Was it the remembrance of
something read long ago? Had I found in some book the description of a
similar case? Or had some one told me the particulars as having
occurred in actual life? Or was that sensation of _remembrance_
illusory; was it only the effect of a mysterious association of ideas?
What is certain is, that the means, it seemed to me, had been suggested
to me by some strange person. It seemed to me that, all at once, some
one had relieved me of all my perplexities by saying: "_This is how it
must be done--what the other did in your place._" Who was _that other_?
I must certainly have known him in some manner. But, in spite of all my
efforts, I could not separate him from myself, render him objective. It
is impossible for me to define with exactness the singular state of
consciousness in which I found myself. I had the complete notion of a
fact in all the circumstances of its development; in other words, I had
the notion of a series of acts by which a man had succeeded in putting a
certain project in execution. But that man, my predecessor, was unknown
to me, and I could not associate with that notion the images relative
thereto without putting myself in that man's place. It was therefore I
whom I saw accomplishing the special acts already accomplished by
another, imitating the conduct assumed by another in a case similar to
mine. The feeling of the initial spontaneity was lacking.
When I left Juliana's room, I passed a few minutes in uncertitude,
wandering aimlessly along the corridors. I met no one. I walked toward
the nursery; I listened at the door; I heard my mother speaking in a low
voice; I went away.
Perhaps she had not left the cradle? Had the infant had a more serious
attack of coughing? I well knew the bronchial catarrh to which new-born
babes are subject, that terrible malady, with its insidious progress. I
remembered the danger that Maria had run in her third month; I
remembered all the symptoms. At the beginning Maria had sneezed several
times, coughed lightly; she had shown a strong tendency to sleep. "Who
knows?" I thought. "_The good God_ may perhaps intervene in time, and I
may be saved." I retraced my steps; I listened again; I heard my
mother's voice again; I entered.
"Well, how is Raymond?" I asked, without dissimulating my emotion.
"He is doing well. He is quiet; he has not coughed again; his breathing
is regular and temperature normal. Look! he has taken the breast."
In fact, my mother seemed to be reassured, tranquillized.
Anna, seated on the bed, was nursing the infant, who drank eagerly, and,
at times, during the aspiration, his lips made a slight noise. Anna's
face was bent down, her eyes fixed on the carpet, motionless as bronze.
The little flickering lamp-flame threw reflections and shadows on her
red petticoat.
"Is it not too warm here?" I said, because I felt a slight suffocation.
The room really was very hot. In a corner, over a red-hot fire, some
swaddling-clothes had been placed to warm. The hissing of boiling water
could also be heard. From time to time the windows were rattled by the
whistling, howling wind.
"Do you hear how furious the wind is?" murmured my mother.
I became inattentive to all other sounds. I listened to the wind with
anxious interest. Several shudders ran through my bones, as if a stream
of cold had penetrated me. I walked toward the window. On opening the
inner shutters my fingers trembled. I leaned my forehead against the
icy glass and looked out, but the mist suddenly produced by my breath
prevented my seeing anything. I raised my eyes, and saw through the
upper window the scintillation of the starry sky.
"It is a clear night," I said, leaving the window.
Within me I had a vision of the homicidal night, clear as a diamond,
while my eyes wandered toward Raymond, who was still feeding.
"Has Juliana eaten anything this evening?" asked my mother of me in an
affectionate tone.
"Yes," I answered rather harshly.
And I thought:
"This whole evening you have not found a minute's time to go and see
her! It is not the first time that you neglect her. You have given
your heart to Raymond."
*XLIII.*
The following morning Dr. Jemma examined the child and declared that he
was perfectly healthy. He attached no importance whatever to the cough
noticed by my mother. Then, smiling at the excess of cares and anxiety,
he recommended caution during the very cold days, advised extreme
prudence in washing and bathing.
I was present while he spoke of those things before Juliana, and two or
three times my eyes met hers, in fugitive flashes.
So, then, _Providence_ would not come to my aid. I must act; I must
profit by an opportune moment, hasten the event. I made up my mind. I
waited for the evening to commit the crime resolved upon.
I gathered together all that yet remained of my energy; I sharpened my
perspicacity; I studied all my words, all my acts. I said nothing, I
did nothing that could awaken suspicion, provoke surprise. My
circumspection did not relax for a second. Not for a moment did I feel
a sentimental weakness. My inner sensibility was compressed,
suffocated, and my mind concentrated every useful faculty to prepare the
way for the solution of a material problem that was expressed as
follows: to succeed at evening, to remain alone with the intruder for
several minutes, under certain precise conditions of security.
In the course of the day I entered the nursery several times. Anna was
always at her post, an impassable guardian. If I addressed a few
questions to her, she answered in monosyllables. Her voice was
guttural, of singular quality. Her silence and inertia irritated me.
As a rule, she did not go out except at meal-time; and then, as a rule,
she was replaced by my mother or by Miss Edith, or by Cristina, or by
some other of the maid-servants. In the last case I could easily rid
myself of the witness by giving an order. But there always remained the
danger that some one would unexpectedly come at the critical moment.
Moreover, I was at the mercy of chance, since I was not able to select
the substitute myself. That evening, as on several evenings past, it
would probably be my mother. However, it seemed to me impossible to
indefinitely prolong my espionage and anguish, to keep watch endlessly,
to live in this continual expectation of the fatal hour.
While I was in this perplexity Miss Edith entered with Maria and
Natalia: two little graces animated by a run in the open air, enveloped
in their sable fur mantles, with their hoods over their heads, gloved
hands, and cheeks rosy from the cold. When they perceived me, they came
rushing towards me joyously, and for several minutes the room was full
of their chatter.
"The mountaineers have come," cried Maria. "The nine days' prayers
begin this evening in the chapel. If you saw the manger that Pietro has
made! You know, grandmother has promised us a Christmas-tree. Didn't
she, Miss Edith? We must put it in mamma's room. Mamma will be well by
Christmas, won't she? Oh! do try and make her well!"
Natalia had stopped to look at Raymond, and, from time to time, she
laughingly made a face at the infant, who ceaselessly moved his limbs as
if to free himself from his bandages. A caprice seized her:
"I want to take him in my arms!"
She noisily insisted on having him. She put forth all her strength to
carry her burden, and her face grew serious as if she were playing at
being mother with her doll.
"My turn now!" cried Maria.
The odious little brother passed from one to the other without crying.
But suddenly, while Maria walked around with him under the watchful eyes
of Miss Edith, he lost his equilibrium and was about to slip from the
hands that held him. Edith caught him, took him, gave him back to the
nurse, who seemed profoundly absorbed, far from all persons and
surrounding things.
Following my secret thought, I said:
"So it's to-night that the nine days' prayers begin?"
"Yes, to-night."
I looked at Anna, who seemed startled out of her torpor, and paid
unusual attention to the conversation.
"How many mountaineers came?"
"Five," answered Maria, who appeared to be minutely informed about
everything. "Two bagpipes, two flageolets, and one fife."
"They come from the mountains," I said, turning toward Anna. "Perhaps
one of them is from Montegorgo."
The nurse's eyes had lost their enamel-like hardness, had become
animated, had acquired a humid and sad lustre. Her entire face visibly
expressed extraordinary emotion. Then I understood that she was
suffering, and that her malady was homesickness.
*XLIV.*
Evening approached. I went down to the chapel, and saw the preparations
for the nine days' prayers: the manger, the flowers, the candles of
virgin wax. I went out without knowing why; I looked up at the window
of Raymond's room. I walked up and down the lawn with rapid steps in
the hope of overcoming my convulsive trembling, the acute chill that
penetrated my bones, the spasm that contracted my empty stomach.
It was a freezingly cold evening. A greenish lividity spread over the
distant horizon, and at the bottom of the valley, where flowed the
tortuous Assoro. The river glistened, solitary.