wandering about the terrace crossed the flower-garden once more and went
inside. Michel shuddered from head to foot.
"I don't know why your story has such an effect upon me," he said. "I
seem to feel the cold blade of that dagger in my breast. That woman
terrifies me. A strange superstition is creeping into my mind. A person
cannot have a murderer's blood in her veins without having either a
wicked heart or an unhinged mind. Give me a chance to breathe, Magnani,
before you finish your story."
"The painful emotion that you feel, the dark thoughts that come to your
mind," rejoined Magnani, "all fell to my lot at sight of Dionigi's
portrait; but I passed on and through another door; the staircase
leading to the casino was before me, and I found myself in the
princess's oratory, where I set down the prie-Dieu and looked about me.
No one there! I had no excuse for going farther; the mistress of that
depressing mansion had evidently gone out. So I must needs retire
without seeing her, lose the benefit of my audacity, and perhaps never
again have the courage or the opportunity.
"It occurred to me to make a noise to attract her attention, in case she
were in the adjoining room; for I was certainly in her apartments, I
could not doubt it. I took my hammer and struck the gilt nails of the
prie-Dieu, as if I were putting the finishing touch to it.
"My stratagem succeeded.--'Who is there? who is making such a noise?'
said a faint voice, with a pure and distinct enunciation which left no
doubt in my mind of the identity of that voice with that of the
mysterious visitor whose accents had not ceased to echo in my heart like
an ineffably sweet melody.
"I walked toward a velvet portière and raised it with the determination
born of a last hope. I saw a woman reclining on a couch, in a bedroom
sumptuously furnished in antique style: it was the princess; I had
roused her from her siesta.
"My appearance terrified her beyond words; she leaped into the middle of
the room as if she would fly. Her lovely face, whose gentle and somewhat
languid serenity I had been able to contemplate with admiration for a
second, was distorted by childish, incredible terror.
"I hastened to retrace the steps I had taken.--'I beg your excellency
not to be frightened,' I said: 'I am only a poor upholsterer's
apprentice, an awkward lout, ashamed of my mistake. I thought that your
highness was out, and I was working here----'
"'Go away!' she exclaimed, 'go away!'
"And with a gesture in which there was more bewilderment and dismay than
sternness and anger, she pointed to the door.
"I attempted to go, but I seemed to be rooted to the floor as in a
dream. Suddenly I saw the princess, who had risen with extraordinary
vehemence, turn as pale as a lovely lily; her breathing ceased; her head
fell back; her arms dropped at her sides. She would have fallen to the
floor had I not rushed to her and caught her in my arms.
"She had lost consciousness. I placed her on her couch, I was so
bewildered that it did not occur to me to call for help. Indeed what
would have been the use of ringing? Everybody was asleep or attending to
his special duty in that house, where silence and solitude alone seemed
to be absolute masters. May God forgive me! Twenty times since then I
have been tempted to enter her service as a footman!
"Oh! Michel, it would be impossible for me to tell you to-day what took
place within me during the two or three minutes that that woman lay
stretched out like a dead woman before my eyes, with her lips as white
and dry as pure wax, her eyes half-open, but strange and expressionless,
her dark hair falling over her brow on which the cold perspiration stood
in beads, and all that exquisite, refined beauty, above all comparison
in my thought. It was not the intoxicating flame of a gross animal
passion that was kindled in my plebeian blood. It was adoration, as pure
and timid and refined and mysterious as the being who inspired it. I
felt an irresistible longing to prostrate myself at the feet of a dead
and gone martyr, for I thought that she was dead, and it seemed as if my
soul were ready to leave the earth with hers.
"I dared not touch her; I did not know what to do to restore her. I had
no voice with which to call for help. I was motionless in my perplexity,
as one is when struggling violently in a horrible dream. At last a phial
fell under my hand, I know not how. She recovered consciousness little
by little, looked at me without seeing me, not understanding or seeking
to understand who I could be. At last she raised herself on her elbow
and seemed to be collecting her thoughts.
"'Who are you, my friend?' she said, seeing me on my knees by her side,
'and what do you want? You seem to feel very sorrowful.'
"'Ah! yes, your highness, God is my witness that I am very unhappy to
have frightened you so.'
"'You did not frighten me,' she said, with an evident embarrassment
which astonished me. 'Did I cry out?--Ah! yes,' she continued, with a
shudder, yielding once more to an impulse of distrust or alarm.--'I was
asleep; you came in; you frightened me. I do not like to be surprised in
that way. But did I say anything unkind to you, that you weep?'
"'No, your highness,' I replied; 'you fainted, and I would rather have
died than have caused you this discomfort.'
"'Am I alone here, pray?' she cried in a tone of distress that tore my
heart. 'Can anybody who pleases enter my apartments and insult me?'--She
rose and ran to her bell-rope. She seemed desperate--beside herself. Her
words and her excitement had affected me so painfully that it did not
occur to me to fly. And yet, if she had rung--if anyone had come--I
should have been treated like a criminal. But she stopped, and the
expression of her face told me the truth at once concerning her
disposition.
"It was a blending of unhealthy suspicion and sympathetic kindliness.
She had been so wretchedly unhappy in her early youth--so everyone said!
At all events, she could not have been ignorant of her father's
execrable character. She may have witnessed some murder in her
childhood. Who knows what scenes of violence and terror have been
enacted behind the thick walls of that dumb mansion? It was by no means
impossible that she might have acquired therefrom some mental malady of
which I had just witnessed an outbreak; and yet what angelic sweetness
her glance expressed when she dropped the bell-cord, apparently overcome
by my humble attitude and the grief by which I was overwhelmed!
"'You came in here by chance, did you not?' she said. 'You did not know
that it is a whim of mine not to like new faces; or, if you did know it,
you had the courage to disregard my orders, because you have had some
misfortune which I can lighten? I have seen you somewhere; I have a
vague remembrance of your features. Your name is----?'
"'Antonio Magnani, your highness. My father works here sometimes.'
"'I know him; he has some little means. Is he sick? Has he run in debt?'
"'No, signora,' I replied, 'I do not ask alms, although you are the only
person on earth from whom I could accept alms without blushing. I have
long wished to see you; not to beg from you, but to bless you. You saved
my mother; you encouraged me. You leaned over her pillow; you restored
my hope and her life. That is certain; of course you do not remember it,
but I shall never forget it. May God reward you for what you did for us!
That is all I wanted to say to your highness; and now I will go away,
begging you not to blame anyone, for the fault is entirely mine.'
"'I will not tell anyone that you came into my house in spite of my
orders,' she said. 'Your employer and your father would reprove you for
it. Nor do you say that you saw me in such a fright. People would say
that I am mad, as they say now, I believe, and I do not much like to
have people talk about me. As for your thanks, I do not deserve them.
You are mistaken; I never did anything for you, my child.'
"'Oh! I am not mistaken, your highness; I should have known you among a
thousand. The heart has instincts deeper and truer than the senses. You
do not wish your benefactions to be discovered, so I do not speak of
them. I do not intend to thank you for paying the doctor; no, you are
rich, and it is easy for you to give. But you are not obliged to love
and pity those whom you help. And yet you pitied me when you saw me
weeping at the door of the house where my mother lay dying, and you
loved my mother when you leaned over her bed of pain.'
"'But I tell you again, my child, that I do not know your mother.'
"'That is possible; but you knew that she was sick. You wished to see
her, and charity was in your very glance--how ardent at that
moment!--since your glance, your voice, your touch, your breath, cured
her as by a miracle. My mother was conscious of it; she remembers it;
she thinks that it was an angel who appeared to her; she addresses her
prayers to you because she thinks that you are in Heaven. But I was sure
that I should find you on earth, and should have an opportunity to thank
you.'
"Princess Agatha's cold and impassive face relaxed as if involuntarily.
It lighted up for an instant with a warm glow of sympathy, and I saw
that treasures of kindliness were contending in that suffering heart
against a painful misanthropical propensity.--'Well,' she said, with a
divine smile, 'I see, at all events, that you are a good son and adore
your mother. God grant that I may in truth have brought her good
fortune! but I believe that God alone deserves thanks. Thank Him and
worship Him, my child; He alone understands and can relieve certain
sorrows, for men cannot do much for one another. How old are you?'
"I was twenty at that time. She listened to my reply, and said, looking
at me as if she had not yet noticed my features: 'True, you are older
than I thought. You can come and work here when you choose. I am
accustomed to your face now, and it will not startle me again; but
another time do not wake me suddenly by hammering in my ears in that
way, for I am always depressed and nervous when I wake. That is my
disease!'
"While she was speaking, and while she looked after me as I walked
toward the door, her eyes expressed this thought: 'I do not offer you my
assistance in life, but I will keep my eye on you, as I do on so many
others, and I will find ways to serve you without your knowledge; and I
will take measures to avoid having to listen to your thanks again.'
"Yes, Michel, that is what was said by that face, at once angelic and
cold, maternal and unfeeling; a terrible enigma, which I have never been
able to solve, and which I am less able to solve to-day than ever."
XVII
THE CYCLAMEN
Magnani ceased to speak, and it did not occur to Michel to question him.
But at last the young painter, coming to himself, asked his friend for
the rest of his story.
"My story is at an end," replied Magnani. "Ever since that day I have
been admitted to the palace as a workman. I have often seen the
princess, but I have never spoken to her."
"How does it happen, then, that you love her? for you do not know her?
you do not know her real opinions?"
"I thought that I had guessed them. But, during this last week, when she
has seemed inclined to emerge suddenly from her tomb, throw open her
house, and take part in social life; especially to-day, when she has
been going about and conversing familiarly with people of our station,
with kindly words and cordial invitations--for I overheard the
conversation that you had with her and the Marquis della Serra on the
main staircase; I was close at hand,--I no longer know what to think of
her. Yes, even recently I thought that I had fathomed her character.
Twice a year, in spring and autumn, I have come here with other workmen,
I have seen her pass from time to time, walking slowly, with an
absent-minded, melancholy, yet perfectly tranquil air. If she sometimes
seemed downcast and distressed, the serenity of her glance was not
disturbed. She always bowed to us collectively with greater courtesy
than persons of her rank ordinarily show to us. Sometimes she would
exchange with the master upholsterer or my father a few pleasant words,
equally free from pride and from warmth. She seemed to feel an
instinctive respect for their years. I was the only young workman
admitted to her house, but she never seemed to pay the slightest
attention to me. She did not avoid my glances, but met them without
seeing them.
"At certain times, however, I noticed that she saw many more things than
she seemed to see; and that people who complained, even when she did not
seem to hear them, obtained justice or help at once, without knowing
whose was the mysterious hand put forth over them. You see, she conceals
her boundless charity as other people conceal their shameful
selfishness. And you ask me how it happens that I love her! Her virtue
arouses my admiration, and the dumb despair which seems to be crushing
her inspires in my heart profound and affectionate compassion. To admire
and to pity--is not that to adore? The pagans, who have left so many
magnificent ruins on our soil, sacrificed to their gods, all radiant
with strength and glory and beauty; but they did not love them; and we
Christians have felt the light of faith pass from our minds into our
hearts, because God was shown to us in the guise of a bleeding,
tear-bedewed Christ. Ah! yes, I do love that woman, who has paled, like
a flower of the woods, beneath the terrible shadow of paternal tyranny.
I do not know the story of her infancy, but I divine the misery of her
girlhood. They say that, when she was fourteen, her father, being unable
to force her to marry in accordance with the views dictated by his pride
and ambition, to which he proposed to sacrifice her, confined her for a
long time in a secluded room of yonder palace, and that she suffered
there from hunger, thirst, heat, neglect, and despair. Nothing definite
has ever been known about it. Another version of the story also gained
currency; it was said that she was in a convent; but the terror-stricken
air of her servants said plainly enough that her disappearance was a
part of some unjust and unnatural punishment.
"When Dionigi died, his heiress reappeared in the palace, with an old
aunt who was little better than he, but who allowed her to breathe a
little more freely. They say that at that time again she had several
brilliant offers of marriage, but that she obstinately refused, thereby
much angering the princess, her aunt. Her death put an end at last to
her niece's persecutions, and at the age of twenty she found herself
alone and free in the house of her fathers. But it was evidently too
late for her to rouse from the state of prostration to which so much
sorrow had brought her. She had lost the strength and the desire to be
happy. She was torpid, a little inclined to be morose, and seemingly
incapable of inviting the affection of others. She gained the affection,
however, of some persons of her own rank, and it is certain that the
Marquis della Serra, whom she refused to marry when he entered the lists
several years ago, has never ceased to love her ardently. Everybody says
so, and I know it; I will tell you how.
"Although I pride myself, without undue boasting, on being a good
workman, I confess that when I am in the palace, I am, in spite of
myself, the slowest of the slow. I am excited and perturbed. The ring of
the hammers irritates my nerves, as if I were a silly girl; I am
overcome by the heat at the slightest exertion with my arms. Every
moment of the time I either have a feeling that I am going to faint, or
am tempted to creep into dark corners, crouch there out of sight, and
allow myself to be left behind. I surprise myself listening, prowling,
spying. I no longer dare to go into the princess's oratory or her
bedroom alone. Oh! no; although I know the road perfectly well. My
respect is stronger now than my insane and restless passion! But if I
can breathe the perfume that escapes through the chinks of the door of
her boudoir; if I can hear, even at a distance, the sound of her light
footsteps, which I know so well--then I am content, I am drunk with joy.
"Thus I have heard, I dare not say involuntarily--for if chance placed
me within earshot, my will was not strong enough to prevent me from
listening,--more than one interview between the princess and the
marquis. How often have I been consumed by frantic jealousy? but I have
acquired certain knowledge that he is only her friend, a loyal,
respectful, submissive friend.
"One day, among others, they had a conversation, every word of which, I
believe, is engraved with fatal distinctness on my memory.
"The princess was saying when I entered the adjoining room:
"'Oh! why question me so persistently? You know, my friend, that I am
absurdly impressionable; that the thought of the past freezes my blood,
and that, if I could make up my mind to speak of it--I believe, yes, I
believe that I should go mad!'
"'Very well, very well,' he cried, 'let us not speak of it, let us be
content with our tranquil friendship. Look at that lovely sky and those
sweet cyclamens, which seem to smile in your hands.'
"'These flowers do not smile,' she replied, 'you do not understand their
language, and I can tell you why I love them. It is because they are in
my eyes the emblem of my life and the image of my heart. See how
curiously limp they are; they are pure and fresh and fragrant; but is
there not something unhealthy and decrepit in the inversion and
unnatural upturning of their petals?'
"'It is true,' said the marquis, 'they have a sort of dishevelled look;
they grow as a general rule on windswept peaks. One would say that they
were trying to fly away from their stalks as if there were nothing to
hold them, and that nature had provided them with wings like
butterflies.'
"'And yet they do not fly away,' continued the princess; 'they are
firmly attached to their stalks. Although apparently fragile, there are
no hardier plants, and the most violent winds never strip them of their
petals. While the rose succumbs to a hot day, and strews the burning
earth with its leaves, the cyclamen is obstinate, and lives many days
and nights in retirement, and, as it were, shrunken into itself: it is a
flower that has no youth. You probably have never seen it just as it is
opening. I have patiently watched that mysterious process; when the bud
opens, the petals are rolled tightly together and separate with an
effort. The first one that frees itself stretches out like a bird's
wing, then throws itself backward and resumes its twisted position.
Another follows, and the flower, almost before it is open, is already
tremulous and wrinkled, as if it were about to die of old age. That is
its way of living, and it lives a long while so. Ah! it is a melancholy
flower, and that is why I carry it everywhere.'
"'No, no, it does not resemble you,' said the marquis, 'for its
uncovered breast exhales its fragrance freely to all the winds of
heaven, whereas your heart is mysteriously closed, even to the most
discreet and least exacting affection!'
"They were interrupted; but I knew enough. Ever since that day, I too
have loved the cyclamen, and I always cultivate it in my little garden;
but I dare not pluck the flowers and smell them. Their odor makes me ill
and drives me mad!"
"It is the same with me," said Michel. "Yes, it is a dangerous odor! But
I no longer hear the carriages, Magnani. Doubtless the palace will soon
be closed. I must go and join my father, for he must be tired out,
whatever he may say, and he may need my help."
They walked in the direction of the ball-room. It was deserted; Visconti
and his fellow-servants were extinguishing the candles which were still
carrying on the struggle against the daylight.
"Why this fête after all?" said Magnani, as he glanced about that
immense hall, whose height seemed to be doubled by the darkness
overhead, while the bluish rays of dawn crept sadly into the lower
portions through the open doors. "The princess might have helped the
poor in other ways, and I cannot yet understand why she submitted to
make this public demonstration of charity when she had always done good
so mysteriously hitherto. What miraculous change has taken place in our
reserved benefactress's existence? Instead of rejoicing at it, I,
although I would give my life for her, am hurt by it, and cannot think
of it without bitterness. I loved her as she was; I cannot understand
her when she is cured, consoled, and effusive. Is everybody to know her
and to love her now? People will no longer say that she is mad, that she
once committed a crime, that she is concealing a horrible secret, that
she is ransoming her soul by pious works, although she detests mankind!
Madman that I am! I am afraid of being cured myself, and I am jealous of
the happiness that she may have recovered! Tell me, Michel, do you
suppose that she has made up her mind to love the Marquis della Serra,
and that she will invite the court, the city, and the country, to
celebrate her betrothal magnificently under her own roof? She gave a
royal fête to-day; perhaps she will give a popular fête to-morrow. She
is making her peace with everybody; great and small will make merry at
her wedding! Ah! there will be dancing there! what fun for us, eh? and
how kind the princess is!"
Michel remarked his companion's bitterness and irony; but although he
was conscious of a thrill of strange emotion at the idea of Agatha's
marriage to the marquis, he put all the more restraint upon himself. He,
too, had been struck to the heart, but the shock was too recent for him
to dare, or to deign, to give the name of love to his feeling. Magnani's
madness served as a warning to him. He pitied him, but there seemed to
him to be in that young man's abnormal position something humiliating to
which he did not choose to subject himself.
"Come to your senses, my friend," he said. "Such a beautiful fête, at
night, has a tendency to excite one, especially when one is only a
spectator. But here comes the sun above the horizon, and it should
dispel all phantoms and all visions. I feel as if I had just waked from
a fantastic dream. Listen! The birds are singing outside; there is
nothing here but dust and smoke. I am very sure that your madness is not
so absorbing every hour of your life as you fancy at this moment of
excitement and unreserve. I will wager that when you have slept two
hours you will return to your work feeling like a different man. For my
part, I already feel the salutary effect of real life, and I promise you
that the next time we see the spectre pass close to us, I will not try
to dispute her glance with you."
"Her glance!" cried Magnani, bitterly, "her glance! Ah! you remind me of
the glance she bestowed upon you, before the ball opened, the first time
she saw your face. My God! what an expression! If it had fallen upon me,
just once in my life, I would have killed myself instantly, in order not
to live any more upon certainty and cold reason, after such an illusion,
such delirious joy. And you, Michel, felt the consuming fire that she
communicated to you. You were scorched by it for an instant, and, but
for my mockery, you would still gloat over it with rapture. But what
does it matter to me now? I see clearly that she has lost her mind; that
she has deprived her solitary sorrow of its sanctity; that she loves
someone, you or the marquis--what matter which? Why this special display
of friendship for your father, whom she hardly knew a year ago? My
father has worked for her ever since she was born, and she barely knows
his name. Does she propose to cap the climax of her eccentric life by an
act of downright insanity? Does she propose to atone for her father's
tyranny and unpopularity by marrying a child of the people--a mere boy?"