PART II

THE PARDON

I

Whisperings, now slow now more frequent, filled the top of the church

dedicated to Santa Maria del Popolo, where the guests invited to the

wedding were gathered before the high altar, while the rest of the large

central nave preserved the usual solitude and silence of Roman temples.

Around the high altar were placed large clumps of palms, and white

azaleas with such a wealth of bloom that they seemed as white as snow,

without the shadow of a leaf between flower and flower. Some soft dark

carpets descended from the altar as far as the first row of seats. The

rest of the church, the greater part of it, which it would have been

vain to decorate, kept its cold, marbled, and imposing aspect.

Now and then the guests, politely restraining their impatience, turned

towards the great door, which was open to the limpid spring sky, to

watch if the couple, already late, had arrived. Compared with the

vastness of the church, and in spite of their large numbers, they

seemed a very small group near the high altar in an oasis of plants and

flowers.

All the relations of Casa Fiore were there, together with the Casalta,

who are not Romans but Neapolitans, of remote Neapolitan origin but

living in Rome for two or three generations. Many had come from the

outskirts of Rome, from Umbria and Campania, to be present at the

marriage of Marco Fiore and Vittoria Casalta, a marriage so resisted by

fate that for a time it had seemed quite broken off, but which had at

last become a reality. There was much whispering over the strange story,

the lateness of the couple, and the great size of the church.

“How has the bridegroom behaved during this second betrothal?”

“Perfectly.”

“Is he very much in love?”

“Full of affection.”

“Enamoured?”

“With ideal delicacy.”

“How large this church is!”

“But beautiful.”

“The church of Lucretia Borgia, is it not?”

“Certainly. You know that Gregorovius has rehabilitated Lucretia?”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Very cold; I would gladly go out.”

“Oh, they’ll come, they’ll come.”

“They are thirty-five minutes late.”

“Do you think that a lot? At the marriage of Giovanella Farnese we had

to wait nearly an hour.”

“What bad form; don’t you think so?”

“Is it true that the bride is very happy?”

“Diamine! Hasn’t she waited four years for the faithless one!”

“Only patient women are right in this world.”

“Does she show her happiness? I want to see her face as she comes into

church.”

“You will gather nothing from it; you know that Vittoria is most

reserved.”

“Too reserved; she is icy, like this church.”

“But why not have the marriage in Santa Maria della Vittoria? It is a

small church and beautiful.”

“It belongs to Casa Colonna, and the Colonna reserve it for their own

marriages.”

“Hush! Hush! Here they come!”

Suddenly the whispering ceased; the notes of the organ sounded, heavy

and sonorous, waking all the echoes of the church. It was an organ

placed up above, on the epistle side of the altar, and the organist was

invisible from below. He ought to have been signaled to, for from his

invisible hands on the stops escaped the profound and solemn melody of

Beethoven’s wedding march, so that every one rose to their feet to

honour the bridal pair, who surely had reached the church door at that

moment, to be accompanied on their procession to the high altar by

Beethoven’s music, which is a noble greeting and invitation, the

expression of fine desire, and the satisfaction of a strong and calm

affection.

The well-known notes rolled along among the arches of Santa Maria del

Popolo. The guests stood silent and attentive behind their seats, but

still no one entered. The march continued in its beauty and gravity; the

tones grew less and were extinguished. Silence reigned again. With a

noise somewhat louder and whisperings a little stronger, the guests--the

Ottoboni, Savelli, Farnese, Aldrobrandini, Caracciolo del Sole,

Carafa--reseated themselves. The top of the church took more than ever

the familiar appearance of a drawing-room. Groups were formed and seats

were turned round; there was even a little laughter. In the midst of the

general distraction the couple and their escort quite suddenly passed up

the church and reached the high altar, greeted by none and unaccompanied

by the music.

“That’s an entry missed!” exclaimed Gianni Provana, with a slight and

amiable grin.

* * * * *

In the white cloud of her satin dress and in the fleecy white cloud of

her veil, the bride knelt at a _prie-dieu_ of brown carved wood on which

had been placed a cushion of dark-red velvet. On this cushion she placed

her bouquet of orange-blossoms with its long white satin ribbon, and

while the religious rite proceeded read from her Prayer-book, a little

book bound in white and silver brocade; and her blonde head was slightly

bent as she read. The bridegroom was kneeling beside her at another

_prie-dieu_, also with bent head, thoughtful and collected. The Fiore

have a long reputation for religious piety in the family, and perhaps

conquered by the moment he was praying like a Christian to his God.

After the function had begun he glanced two or three times at Vittoria

almost questioningly, for according to Italian tradition he had not led

her to the altar. As she had no father alive she had been brought by her

eldest brother, and at the house he had only exchanged a rapid greeting

in the presence of everybody. Marco looked at his bride to read her

thoughts and measure her emotions, but Vittoria’s face, in its

indefinably white and virginal purity, had the virtue of never, or

scarcely ever, revealing the secret which was weighing on the mind. She

kept her eyes bent over the pages of her Prayer-book, and, as she

repeated the words of the prayers, her delicate and sinuous lips,

accustomed to silence and mystery, scarcely seemed to move.

The special moment arrived. Interrupting the Mass, after the first

Gospel, before the Elevation, the celebrant turned to the couple and

summoned them to him. They rose from their knees, and mounted the two

steps of the sanctuary, where they prostrated themselves. Fabrizio

Ottobone, the master of the ceremonies, placed himself beside them, a

tall, thin old man, with flowing whiskers, and in spite of his age a

very good figure. The usual form of marriage rite proceeded very slowly.

Vittoria’s right hand was still gloved, and at a word whispered in her

ear by Fabrizio Ottobone, she tried to take the glove off quickly. Not

succeeding she tore at it and stripped it off her fingers, and at last

the little right hand was stretched on that of Marco Fiore’s. The priest

pronounced the sacred words which demand the assent of the man and the

woman, and when obtained he declared them united in the name of God. The

little hand was closed in Marco’s; he felt it tremble like a leaf. He

pressed it in vain, as if to give it the strength of a promise and the

support of an oath, and yet the little hand trembled incessantly.

Marco looked at his wife intently. On her pure face, in every beautiful

line, in the fold of the fine taciturn mouth, and in the limpid and

clear eyes he read in a flash such anguish mixed with hope; he read

there anxiety, uncertainty, and fear, so that all his man’s heart filled

with pity for her loving, suffering, and fearing. An immense pity welled

in his heart, and not being able at that moment to speak a single word

to her, he bent his head and prayed with all his might to have the power

to console the woman who loved him.

Meanwhile, after completing the nuptial union, the priest stepped back

to the altar to continue the Mass, and the couple, now bound for life,

returned to their places. The organ again played music well known to all

feeling souls. After the first chords from the invisible organist had

sounded a cantor took his place, also invisible, but whose sonorous

voice diffused itself throughout the church, and was listened to with a

sigh of satisfaction by those who recognised the sympathetic timbre of a

well-known tenor. He sang the _aria di chiesa_ of Alessandro Stradella.

It is a prayer offered to a God of clemency and mercy, but it is one of

those musical prayers more vibrant in its mortal sadness than the human

voice in its emotional notes can pour forth. With the complacency of an

artiste, and perhaps with sincerity, the famous singer lent to the

lament of Stradella an emphasis more sorrowful and harrowing than ever.

The listeners were taken and subdued by it. Some turned anxiously to the

organ; several women in particular became pale with emotion, and their

eyes were clouded by tears.

Behind her soft veil Vittoria Casalta let her tears fall silently one by

one down her cheeks, nor did she make the slightest attempt to dry them,

and only Marco could see that silent weeping. He leant towards her a

little.

“Vittoria, don’t cry.”

She made no reply, only a slight movement of the hand to ask his

silence, to ask him not to bother about her crying. He became silent.

But up above the unseen, but not unknown, singer kept on singing

passionately the prayer, so singular for a wedding-day, with its

peculiar and painful words: “_Pietà, Signore, di me dolente._” Again all

hearts were touched and all souls secretly struck, for there were in

that society, rich and almost scintillating with exterior happiness, and

among those exquisitely dressed women covered with jewels, many who had

suffered, and all such felt the power of the melody, where the soul

cries to her God in waves of agony.

The bride continued to weep silently.

“Vittoria, you must not cry!” murmured Marco Fiore softly, but with

virile energy in his low voice. She made a slight nod of obedience;

gradually her tears dried, and her face became composed. Stradella’s air

was finished, the song gave forth its last sobs, and silence reigned

again. But in the silence there was a sigh of bitterness from some

breast still oppressed; among the rest almost a feeling of relief and a

subdued whispering.

“What a singer, that Varisco!”

“Divine.”

“He makes such an impression on me.”

“That air of Stradella’s is so beautiful.”

“But what an idea to sing such an air at a marriage!”

“It is sung everywhere.”

“But it is too, too sad.”

“Do you think matrimony such a gay matter?”

“Does this seem to you the moment to say such a thing?”

“Well, why did you cry?”

“Crying does one good every now and then.”

“In my time we laughed at weddings.”

“Now we manage better.”

“Be quiet, be quiet, it is the Elevation.”

At a hint which reached him the celebrant hurried the end of the Mass.

It was late; the young couple had delayed so much, and the day had been

completely disorganised thereby. A baritone sang in haste the _O

Salutaris Hostia_, and was scarcely listened to; the special marriage

prayers before the second Gospel were said with much rapidity. Every one

had the air of wanting to get up and leave even before it was time to do

so, since they had been in church nearly two hours. There was a sound of

chairs being moved, and even some footsteps resounded on the marble

pavement before the end. The procession was again formed at the high

altar. This time the bridegroom gave his arm to the bride, and, after

having kissed their nearest relations, they descended the steps of the

altar together. Marco Fiore’s slightly fragile good looks had for some

time assumed a more virile appearance, his physiognomy, which formerly

was gracious and sweet with something feminine in it, was composed and

settled in an expression of thought and peace. The bride beside him,

tall, but not too tall, fairly slender with a white face beneath a

shining wave of golden hair, with clear and lively eyes, over which now

and then a cloud seemed to pass, with her little mouth like a closed

flower, seemed made to be supported and protected by the man. As they

proceeded slowly through the church to gather the congratulations and

greetings, the organ sounded again for the last time to accompany them

out.

It was another march, the one with which the knights and ladies of

Thuringia accompanied Elsa of Brabant and Lohengrin, the son of

Parsifal, to the nuptial chamber. Involuntarily the procession regulated

its step to the rhythm of Wagner’s music, while after it had passed the

whispering began again.

“Marco Fiore is always sympathetic.”

“He doesn’t seem exuberantly happy to me.”

“Do you want him to start dancing?”

“How charming the bride is!”

“Poor thing!”

“Why do you pity her?”

“I always pity girls who get married.”

“Yes, she is very pretty, it is true, but I prefer _the other_.”

“The other? Which other?”

“Oh, you know quite well! Maria Guasco.”

“Sst! You might be overheard.”

“No, no; I liked the other very much. She was a woman.”

“Don’t raise your voice.”

“This one is a figure for a picture; I should place her in a frame and

leave her there.”

“You are very naughty.”

“Is everything over, then, between Marco and Maria?”

“Everything, for six or seven months.”

“Do you believe in this ending?”

“I? What does it matter what I believe?”

“Poor girl!”

“There! You see I was right to pity her.”

The music, spreading through the large central nave, still followed the

bridal couple and the long procession of guests with its sonorous and

precise notes. No word passed between them, and they contented

themselves with a handshake to the good wishes which accompanied their

passage; only at a certain point it seemed to Vittoria as if Marco’s

face was troubled by a secret idea crossing his spirit. Suddenly her

little white-gloved hand imperceptibly held his arm on which she was

leaning, as she asked him with a tremor in her voice--

“Marco, what is the matter?”

“Nothing,” he replied, seized by his secret and obscure thought.

Wagner’s music seemed to exhale a powerful and settled joy which rocked

the deep love of Elsa and Lohengrin, and spoke to them of a future of

soft and constant passion, even until death. But Marco’s face became

more clouded, as if his secret imaginings had mastered him.

“What is the matter, Marco?” Vittoria asked again a little anxiously,

holding him back almost at the threshold of the church, as if she was

unwilling to proceed further without an explanation.

“It is the music!” he exclaimed, sadly turning his head the other way.

“Ah!” she exclaimed without further comment, becoming exceedingly pale.

Vittoria had to suppose, with her cruel and devouring internal

suspicion, that the music brought recollections of a former time to her

husband, of other things, of another person. Her fine and tender mouth

closed as if sealed hermetically, and she assumed her aspect of a flower

dead and closed.

Meanwhile outside the view spread itself beneath the caressing April

sun. The bright, fresh, blue vault of the sky arched itself from the Via

Flaminia to the grandiose Piazza del Popolo, and far away the cypresses

of Monte Mario, from amidst the green of the Farnesina, bathed by the

twisting Tiber, hurled themselves against the almost quivering

firmament, while on the left rose the Pincio, with its groves already in

leaf. The large fountain in the middle of the Piazza del Popolo raised

its monumental marbles which time had obscured nobly, while its waters

fell back into the basin in soft spray. In the background the three

roads which lead to Rome spread out like a fan; the Corso in the middle,

the via di Ripetta on the right, and on the left the via del Babuino.

The morning joy was so complete that the Piazza del Popolo and adjoining

streets, often so austerely solitary, now showed a great animation with

the movement of passers-by and carriages.

Even the newly-married couple, once outside the large and glacial temple

and in the fresh air beneath the enchanting vault of the sky, felt a

flutter of exaltation raise their hearts, on which life had already left

its traces. That atmosphere of gaiety, so like their flourishing youth,

encompassed them, and the usual magnificent allurement of the spring

drew them and merged them in its gentle and fervid train. Every

recollection vanished, all the wounds seemed healed, and together they

began to believe again in life. Blushing Vittoria heard the people’s

exclamation of admiration as she got into the carriage: her veil thrown

back disclosed the white forehead, and a soft smile appeared on her

lips.

To the tender pity which Marco Fiore felt for the comely girl he had

married a quarter of an hour ago, by the rite which no human hand can

dissolve till death, there was united a kind of feeling of masculine

pride, a feeling as it were of a great mission to be accomplished worthy

of an upright and affectionate heart. Their two hands joined and their

glances spoke of a common hope, of a common faith.

The carriage entered the Corso and the ample and exultant view vanished,

and only a little narrow strip of cloud appeared between the big austere

palaces. They drove towards the Palazzo Casalta in via della Botteghe

Oscure. They were silent now. The two hands little by little

disentangled themselves naturally from their pressure, nor did they

rejoin. Both looked out of the window. As if she were speaking in a

dream, Vittoria asked--

“That last wedding music displeased you, Marco?”

He trembled, and replied suddenly, “Yes.”

“Will you tell me why, Marco?”

“Why do you ask so many things, little Vittoria?” he said sweetly; “it

doesn’t do to ask so much.”

“Tell me, tell me, Marco,” she insisted anxiously.

“You are like Elsa,” he murmured, shaking his head.

“What did Elsa do, Marco? She loved Lohengrin passionately.”

“Yes, little Vittoria, passionately. But she was not content with loving

him without asking anything more. _She wanted to know._”

“Ah!” she exclaimed, growing pale.

“Instead of loving she wanted to know who her spouse was.”

“Wasn’t she right, perhaps?” said Vittoria, trembling a little.

“She was wrong,” replied Marco gravely; “she had to love--that was

all--blindly and humbly. Wherefore Elsa’s imperfect and incomplete love

led her to deception, to betrayal, and to abandonment.”

Vittoria bit her little lip silently, as if to restrain a secret sigh.

“Haven’t you ever heard Lohengrin, little Vittoria?” murmured Marco, as

if speaking to an imaginary being; “at a certain point, in the nuptial

chamber, near his loving and faithful wife, the valiant knight discovers

the ambuscade of which Elsa is herself an accomplice. Have you never

heard, Vittoria, Lohengrin’s lament, deceived and betrayed an hour after

the marriage? His dumb cry of delusion and bitterness? The dream of love

was over and had vanished. Vittoria, I never could hear that cry without

feeling my heart break.”

“That is why, Marco, you suffered when that music accompanied us from

the church?”

“That is why, Vittoria.”

“But why was that wedding march played? It is a funeral march, Marco.

Why did they play it?” she asked convulsively, bending over him.

“I don’t know,” he replied desolately.

II

After descending from the carriage in the noisy station among the crowd

which the train from Florence was pouring forth, Donna Maria hesitated a

moment, and behind her soft black veil her eyes seemed to be looking for

some one. Her maid, carrying shawls and parcels, stood a few steps away

from her. Discovering no one she made a resolute movement and opened a

way for herself through the crowd, when a gentleman approached and

greeted her, taking her hand to kiss it.

“Welcome, Donna Maria.”

“Good-evening, Provana,” she replied with cold courtesy, “what are you

doing here?”

“I have come to meet you,” he said, surprised at the question.

“Very kind of you,” she replied, thanking him with a bow.

She approached the exit with him, followed at two or three steps’

distance by her maid. A servant of Casa Guasco was there; he touched his

hat, and inquired after the luggage. Maria drily directed the man to her

maid.

“The carriage is here too,” said Gianni fussily.

“You are very kind,” she said.

The great electric lights illuminated the arrival place, and Gianni

looked at her intently. The morbid and slightly proud grace of Maria’s

face seemed unchanged with its faintly rosy complexion, the large eyes

were closed purposely as if absorbed in their interior life. Her

undulating figure, even in its simple travelling costume, preserved its

fascination. Perhaps her glance was less vivid, and the lines of her

face were less decided, nor was the expression of the proud mouth quite

so firm, little changes due to fatigue, which in fact gave her an air of

languor, new and strangely attractive in her.

She did not speak to Gianni as he accompanied her to the coupé, a new

and elegant carriage. Before entering she hesitated slightly, and turned

to take leave of him. He bowed politely, and asked--

“Will you allow me to accompany you home?”

“Do you think it necessary?”

“To accomplish my duty,” he affirmed, with veiled insistence.

“If it is a duty, yes,” she consented coldly.

The door was closed on them. By the brightness of the electric light

Maria discovered a bunch of flowers in the pocket in front of her.

“Are they yours?” she asked.

“No, I wouldn’t allow myself,” he murmured, with a smile. “They are

Emilio’s; he has thought of everything. For several days he has busied

himself with nothing but your return.”

“You busy yourselves together, it seems to me,” she said, with a

fleeting tinge of irony.

“If you like. Emilio considers me, perhaps unworthily, one of the

authors of your return. Is he wrong?”

“He is wrong,” she replied precisely.

A silence fell between them. In spite of his wit and scepticism Gianni

Provana always felt the distance at which the woman held him, and the

confused repugnance, a repugnance sometimes cruelly apparent, with which

he inspired her.

“Because of this false idea of his, then,” resumed Provana, “Emilio

wished to organise your return with me.”

“And he sent you to the station?”

“He sent me to the station.”

“It was useless.”

“Ought you to have found no one?”

“I ought to have found Emilio,” she said in a low voice, as if to

herself. There was a heavy moment of silence.

“Such a meeting, Donna Maria, in public after what has happened! You

understand?” he murmured.

“I understand; be silent,” she rejoined, with a decisive gesture.

For some time the carriage proceeded on its way without either speaking.

Perhaps, in spite of his tenacity, hidden under an appearance of

graciousness and indifference, the man repented of having been involved

in that _histoire intime_, and perhaps the perverse conception he had of

life counselled him to be quiet, to be patient, and to wait. It was

Maria who resumed the conversation, as the carriage was drawing near its

destination.

“Is Emilio in Rome?”

“Yes.”

“Is he at home?”

“He is waiting for you.”

“You will leave me at the house door, Provana,” she added coldly.

“Of course, there is no necessity to order me to do it. I will come

to-morrow to greet you.”

“No, Provana.”

“Within a few days, then.”

“The latest possible, and better never.”

“Never is a big word, Donna Maria. Why don’t you want to see me any

more?”

“Do you believe that I am what I am, and what I shall always be, a

creature of truth? Do you believe that I have come this evening to

Emilio Guasco’s home, to my husband’s home, to accomplish a solemn act?

Why, then, do you wish me to become a creature of lies? Why, then, do

you wish to make grotesque, doubly grotesque, my act of humility, and my

husband’s act of pardon.”

“But why ever do you suppose that, Donna Maria?” he asked, a little

confused.

“I suppose what is, Provana; that it may please you hugely to be the

lover of your best friend’s wife, that it may please you to preserve a

friendship with the husband and love the wife; that you have a horror of

scandal, of noise, of open and undeniable betrayal; that the miserable

and nauseating betrayal of every day pleases you with all its lies and

transactions; that for a long time you have known that you wished to do

this to Emilio and to me; that no one upset your plan more than he whom

you know--and in fact that you have begun to hope again in its success.”

“Every one is allowed to hope for what he ardently desires,” replied

Gianni ambiguously.

“I shall only have had one love in my life,” she said, in a clear low

voice, “and only one lover. Good-bye, Provana.”

The carriage had driven round the circle of the courtyard of the Guasco

Palazzo, in via de’Prefetti, and stopped before the peristyle. Bowing

deeply Gianni Provana took his leave, while Maria, preceded by the

servants, mounted the stairs very slowly. An inexorable agitation

pressed deeply on the soul of the woman who, after the intense love

rhapsody in which she had thrown all that was good and bad in her

existence as upon a pyre, was retracing her steps and invoking the

pardon of him whom she had fatally and unjustly injured. Ah, she would

never have returned to the honest, faithful man unless she had seen the

magnificent pyre of her passion extinguished, and her life rendered

mute and deserted by love!

She had preferred to take time to calm her sorrow, to mature in her

conscience the act of remission and humility she had come to accomplish.

She had passed five months away from Rome in a villa near Florence,

without asking or giving news, and her heart and soul were immersed in a

great contrition. They had felt all the weight of the evil done to

others, of suffering inflicted undeservedly on the innocent. The sublime

idea of reparation had become in Maria so lofty and irrevocable that, at

the end of her exile, she was asking to touch the limit of every

personal sacrifice, if only to console, heal, and make Emilio Guasco

happy again.

In the solitude which she had imposed on herself, in which she had

prepared herself for the great work--the greatest and most beautiful

work the human soul can accomplish--of giving comfort and happiness, the

figure of Emilio Guasco, by his sufferings and the dignity with which he

had borne them, and the magnanimity with which he had recalled her to

himself, stretching his arms to her in pardon, seemed greater than it

had ever been. From the distance Emilio’s love for her seemed

immeasurable, since it had resisted betrayal, abandonment, and

dishonour. It seemed a different love to her--superior, immovable,

eternal, a love which she had never experienced, and, in fact, she felt

herself unworthy of having inspired. Contrition was breaking,

pulverising, volatilising Maria Guasco’s pride, that secret strength,

sin, and virtue of her life.

Slowly she reached the head of the stairs, her heart beating more

quickly, as she noticed again the well-known place where she had lived,

where again she had to see the well-known face and hear again the

familiar voice. She realised that she was holding in her convulsed hand

two existences.

Maria had no other feeling as she placed her feet on the threshold of

what had been her home, and was to become so again, except that of the

humility of the repentant sinner. All her being was humility. She was

begging pardon for the sin committed, and for the pardon was offering in

exchange the dedication of a soul, the dedication of a life.

In the large ante-room, with its dark-carved panels, the two servants

left their mistress, and retired to the other side of the living rooms.

Once alone her trembling increased, and she seemed to be falling. Where,

then, was Emilio, her husband and judge, her husband and her victim, who

had not had the strength to meet her at the station, whom at any rate

she had expected to find at the threshold? With an effort of will she

kept her step firm, and crossed the drawing-room and the little

drawing-room. Both rooms were deserted, and so was her bright boudoir.

Where was Emilio? A singular thought crossed her brain, which she

rejected as soon as she had accepted it, as she perceived him through

the open door of his study, standing by his large writing-table holding

in his hand, but not reading, a newspaper. The room was less illuminated

than the others, and the lamps were shaded in green, but if it had been

inundated with the light of the sun Maria would have noticed nothing, so

veiled were her eyes and scattered her senses. However, she advanced

towards him, where he was waiting silently for the proper word from her.

In spite of her horrible trembling, she turned to him contritely with

the sincerest repentance; bending her head and stretching out her hands

to him. With a very white face, she exclaimed in unspeakable humility--

“Emilio, I ask your pardon.”

If her knees were not bent nor the body prostrated, the soul was

prostrated, waiting for the complete pardon, for the word that absolves,

the act that cancels, the gesture that redeems. The woman listened

humbly without looking at him.

“I pardon you, Maria,” said the man.

Maria raised her eyes and fixed them on Emilio Guasco, and waited; but

he did not look at her, neither did he move. An immense silence, an

enormous distance seemed to have come between the man and the woman.

III

After having helped her into a soft white silk robe and laced her shoes,

Chiara, the faithful maid, looked at Donna Maria, expecting orders. It

was late, past eleven, and as they had been travelling weariness was

overwhelming both. After thinking for an instant, Maria said to Chiara--

“Braid my hair.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Chiara, with the slightest movement of surprise. Chiara

had forgotten the old custom. Formerly, when she had entered the service

of Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti about six months after her marriage,

every evening, whether her young mistress went out or not, sometimes

even after a theatre or a ball, Chiara had to undo the great thick mass

of chestnut hair, taking out the combs and pins, and having combed the

magnificent tresses with an almost caressing movement of the brush and

comb, she had to gather them into a long plait, tieing it at the end

with a white silk ribbon, while a similar ribbon went round the head in

a bow on top. This gave Maria an exceedingly young, almost girlish

appearance. When Maria had fled from Casa Guasco with Marco Fiore, and

had cloistered her life in the little villa at Santa Maria Maggiore,

where Chiara followed her in blind devotion and obedience, the tresses

were no longer unloosed by the girl’s expert hands and bound in a plait.

Such a fashion perhaps no longer pleased Donna Maria, as she remembered

the house she had left, or more likely it did not please her lover,

whose delight it was to plunge his fingers and face in the soft and

odorous waves of her hair.

“Make me a plait like you used to, Chiara,” Maria murmured, with her

eyes closed.

With a slight tinkle the small combs and pins fell on the

crystal-covered toilette table, and that well-known sound seemed to

strike the two women as if the old life had begun again. When she had

finished, Chiara searched for a moment among the silver-topped vials and

ivory boxes.

“Here is the ribbon,” she said softly.

The white ribbon was there, as if Chiara had left it the evening before

and four years had not passed, or as if a mysterious hand had placed the

things there as in former times, so that the singular resurrection

should seem like a continuation of life. In every particular Maria found

this secret care that every line and tint should produce the quiet and

persuasive impression of an existence which had had no interruptions,

which was pursuing its development without a break, so that to-day was

like yesterday, like a year ago or seven years ago, and to-morrow and

the day after like yesterday and to-day. Not only had none of the old

furniture been moved, not only had the carpets, portières and curtains

preserved their usual aspect, but they had not even grown old. Not only

did the hundred well-known and familiar objects attract the glance with

the sympathetic fidelity of inanimate objects, but they gave more than

ever the sense of unelapsed time, of objects viewed no later than

yesterday, and to-day found again sympathetically in their place. Maria

found again a little antique clock on a small table near her bed, with

the hours marked in blue figures, which she had left on her departure

and missed. It was ticking lightly and pointed to half-past eleven, as

if it had never ceased to go in all the time that had passed. In some

vases there were large bunches of grass, and green leaves without a

flower, such as she always liked to have in her bedroom, seeking out the

grasses most peculiar and delicate in form, and the leaves the most

varied in colour and marking. Formerly she did not care for the perfume

of flowers in her bedroom, fearing its insidious poison; but the green

of gardens and meadows, of fields and mountains, the healthy green of

leaves and grasses pleased her simple open spirit, her sane and

beautiful youth. The ink was fresh in the pen on the writing-table, just

as if her last letter had been written an instant ago, and near by was a

book in a dark-green binding, a book unfinished with the marker in its

place--_Salammbo_, of Gustave Flaubert.

Thus Donna Maria had the feeling of the abolition of time.

“Does Your Excellency want anything else?” asked Chiara, mechanically

uttering the words of formerly which had returned to her memory.

“Nothing, Chiara; good-night.”

In greeting her maid Maria’s voice trembled with tenderness. For seven

years she had given all her services to Maria, and little by little had

become a friendly and devoted shadow, almost as if she no longer existed

for her own personality. In every peculiar contingency of these seven

years, without speaking, without murmuring, even without judging or

thinking, Chiara had continued to serve and obey--the shadow of Donna

Maria.

On this day, profound with diverse and contrary sentiments, she returned

with her mistress silently and humbly, like her with a contrite heart,

to the house from which they had fled together, from which they had been

absent so long, and just as Donna Maria strangely began her life again

where it had been interrupted, and time and her deeds had seemed

abolished, so the poor little shadow of a Chiara returned to that which

had been formerly, naturally and tacitly like a faithful shadow.

IV

When Chiara had disappeared and Donna Maria’s eyes had followed her with

a little thrill of affection and gratitude for so much altruism in a

service requiring such tact, she settled herself in an arm-chair as of

yore. She resumed the novel on Carthage where she had left off, removed

the marker methodically from the open page, and fixed her eyes on the

printed letters, waiting for Emilio, her husband, to come as he used to.

“He will come now,” thought Maria, as her eyes read about the curious

refinements of the attiring of Salammbo, as she sets off for the field

of the rebels to seize from Matho the veil of Tanith, which he had

stolen.

However, her reading was but short. There arose in her soul a dull

agitation, which became stronger there where for a moment it had been

lulled, as it seemed to her that nothing had happened, and that her life

had had no break in its continuity; so much so that she awoke from the

calm and peaceful surroundings, speaking of an uninterrupted serenity

from which she had obtained a lingering caress of contentment, as in a

dream, only to be confronted with a reality. How could she read?

_Salammbo_ slid from her knees to the carpet. She rose to her feet,

crossed the large room, approached the closed door and listened if

Emilio were coming towards her, as formerly, even if differently to

formerly so long as he came to that room which had been theirs for

years; that she may confront his eyes, that their glances may unite and

melt together, that she may seize his hand and clasp it with hers, that

she may remember the gentle way he used to open his arms and close her

tenderly to his bosom.

“I will weep on his bosom,” she said to herself, “he will weep with me;

nothing is better than weeping when we have to pardon and forget, when

we have been pardoned and are invoking forgetfulness.”

However, the silence in Casa Guasco was supreme, and Donna Maria heard

no step approaching. The boudoir, which preceded her room, was in

half-darkness, lit by a single lamp. On the other side was her husband’s

study, where they had met an hour ago, and where he had remained silent

without following her. The study door was closed. No noise reached from

there.

“He is working, perhaps,” she thought. Then suddenly a contradiction

arose. “Working? At what? At this hour?”

Like a spectre Maria re-entered her room, praying for calm against the

heavy disturbance which was again oppressing her. She sat at her desk,

and pressing her burning forehead in her cool hands, endeavoured to

subdue herself, to conquer herself.

Again the sentiment of humility, with which she had mortified her proud

heart in the months of solitude and repentance which she had passed at

Florence, inundated her soul with pity, with affection, and with loving

charity. She thought of the state of Emilio’s heart, on that day on

which he had accomplished such a noble and tender deed, pardoning a long

and atrocious offence, in which he had given a beautiful proof of

magnanimity, receiving again into his home the traitress, the truant,

who had broken her sacred promises and vows. She thought of how he must

have suffered for four eternal years in the same land, in the same

society, having no comfort of any kind, having no children and in a

deserted house, and of how he must have cursed his destiny and her name.

She thought of what the pardon he had offered her must have cost him in

intense moral pain, and in powerful moral sacrifice, which she had only

accepted when it was convenient for her to accept it.

Again, the figure of her husband opposed to her egoism, opposed to her

love folly, opposed to the delirium of her own passion, seemed to grow

large with goodness, and she felt herself mean and unworthy before him.

She felt the need of seeing him, of telling him of her gratitude and

her admiration, since he alone possessed every virtue and energy of

well-doing, while she was a fragile and fallen creature. Thus in the

silence, in her solitude, she evoked the presence of her husband. She

invoked that presence, in order that she might tell him how a whole life

of devotion would compensate for his heroic pardon.

With fixed eyes Maria stood at the door, all ardour, to see it open

after the invocation. Her contracted face spoke of a heavy anguish, her

sinuous body in its flowing white gown was alert and rigid with waiting.

From not seeing her husband appear, as she had thought, hoped, and

desired, she suffered the more from the profound silence of the house,

from the desert which the house seemed to have become, from that mortal

solitude, but especially from her mortal delusion. She suffered acutely.

And it was intolerance of such torturing waiting, in all its moments of

repression, that exasperated her; she wished through her imperious will

to force the destiny of that long night to change.

“I will go and seek him,” she said to herself. Once having decided she

crossed the boudoir, reached the door of the study, where she supposed

her husband was closeted, and stooped to knock, even to open it

violently. But her raised hand did not obey the movement suggested by

her will. Quite apart, her feverish and convulsed brain had inspired

her with a shock, with an immense fear.

“Suppose he were to think.... Suppose he were to think....” she murmured

to herself almost deliriously.

With scarcely perceptible motion, taking every care not to make the

slightest noise, holding her breath, she turned back, palpitating and

trembling, yet striving to restrain the palpitation and the trembling.

At last she reached her room.

Throwing herself on the bed she hid her face in the pillow, even

stopping her mouth with it, so that her sobs of bitterness, of fear, and

terror may not be heard. Hers was all the shame of a woman, who suddenly

was fated to tell herself the hard and cruel truth that she was still a

young and beautiful woman, that the man she had sought was still young

and her husband as well, that, although the night was late, he who loved

her surely, since only he who loves pardons, had not come to look for

her dressed as she was as if for a love tryst; but that she had been on

the point of knocking at his door, as if not to beg merely a colloquy of

sadness, of repentance, of tears--not a colloquy of two bruised souls

which sought spiritual healing for their wounds--but a colloquy of love.

“No, no, no,” she kept on saying, scarcely breathing, with her mouth

against the fine linen of the pillow, fighting against the unjust

accusation of her conscience.

Unjust! She felt herself perfectly pure from such a transgression, one

of those miserable and mean transgressions of the inner feminine life

which lower and corrupt a woman even to despising herself. Maria had

only had, as she said, one love and one lover only, Marco Fiore, had

only lived with a complete and intense passion for the three years of

separation from Casa Guasco, and at once, but for ever, her heart and

her senses had become a heap of ashes. As she had never wished to divide

her soul and her person between Emilio Guasco and Marco Fiore at the

time of the height of her amorous delirium, as she had forgotten

everything, thrown everything aside to belong to one only, and had burnt

in a single flame all that life had conceded her of love for Marco

Fiore, so she, on returning home, to live again with her husband, had

not for a moment thought that her person ought to be offered and given

again as a sensible and tangible pledge, as a holocaust to the new

conjugal existence. The idea that her husband hearing her knock at that

door, hearing the handle creak, and seeing her appear in her soft

garment, with her look of former times, late at night when he had not

sought her; the idea that he might have believed it a sensual offering,

had aroused in her a tempestuous crisis of shuddering, of shame, and of

fear. Ah, how the lover was finished, was dead in Maria Guasco, dead

with a love which is measured and short, as short as human existence,

far, far shorter than all short affairs of which life is composed and in

which man, alas, desires to place his eternity! Love was over, the lover

was dead, and Maria Guasco felt every glory of the senses extinguished

within her. If her soul and fibres at Venice and Rome had proved the

immeasurable and inconsolable sorrow of her own sentimental and sensual

impotence for her delightful lover, never more could she have love and a

lover--not even her husband, Emilio Guasco.

“God has nullified and calmed me,” she thought, soothing the anguish of

her spirit little by little. “I can be faithful to the past since I have

been touched by death, and I have entered into an extreme quiet.”

But the man who was breathing, moving, living his unknown but powerful

life in a room not far from Maria’s, the man who was the first to clasp

her, his legitimate spouse, who had kept for her, even during the

betrayal, even during the abandonment, all his rights as a husband; the

man of whom Maria knew only this absolute and irrefutable right, was he,

too, finished with love and dead to the senses?

Had the years which were passed withdrawn him from the inebriating

flatteries of passion? Had they withdrawn him from all the burning

impulses of life in its fulness? Was he dead? And if he was not, if he

was alive, of what was he thinking, what was he desiring, what was he

wishing, what could he wish of Maria at the present moment, now so late?

“He used to love me--he did love me,” she said to herself, lifting

herself from her pillow, absorbed in the intensity of her thoughts.

And even now Emilio ought to love her. A feminine instinct told the

thoughtful woman this; a precise and clear presentiment repeated it to

her, and every act in daily reality had confirmed it for her, and his

very magnanimity bore testimony to it.

“Only he loves who pardons,” she thought, in a secret torture which kept

penetrating her spirit. The singular torture, that is, of all those who

do not love, who are unable to love, who could break their hearts, but

who could not place love there, and who, instead, are loved with

tenderness and enthusiasm; the torture, that is, which life inflicts on

thousands and thousands of miserable men and women, inept to love, who

must endure the love of another, endure it coldly, and measure all its

greatness without participating in it, and, in fact, feel all its

weight, all its annoyance, and all its execration!--an ineffable torture

indeed, which up to a certain point sent a rush of fear through Maria’s

excited and sensible fibres. Rising to her feet and gazing with scared

eyes at the door, she feared lest Emilio should appear there, should

come to her enamoured as of yore, even more enamoured, and burning with

precipitous desire. Maria in all that spiritual fever which flowed

through her acutest feelings, her sharpest sensations, retired to the

door of her room and wrung her hands in desperation, not knowing where

to fly from such a danger. And just as she had evoked and invoked that

presence of a good and honourable man which she had rendered so unhappy,

that presence from which she had desired to hear the voice repeat to her

the words of pardon, to let herself pronounce afresh those words of

humility and contrition, so that presence--not one of a brother, not one

of a friend, not of a suffering soul to be consoled and healed--that

presence of a man, of a husband, strong in his love, strong in his

instincts, strong in his right, seemed to her an abyss of abjection, of

perdition, into which she would have fallen with all her pride and all

her womanly dignity.

“What shall I do; whatever shall I do?” she exclaimed, as if invoking

succour.

But the silence of Casa Guasco was so profound and absolute! Conquering

her terror, Maria recrossed the room and mechanically, with the rigid

movements of one who obeys her will rather than dispute with it, she

left the boudoir and turned the knob of the electric light. The shadow

increased in the brightly lit room, and all fell into obscurity.

Entering her own room she closed the door without making any noise, but

dared not turn the key. Clothed as she was, leaving the lamp lit, she

threw herself on the bed, commanding all her exhausted forces to arouse

her, all her tired fibres not to abandon her, so much did she fear to

fall asleep since some one could enter her room, since she had not had

the courage to shut herself in.

Two or three times, in the torpor by which her mind and limbs were

conquered, she tossed about and then sat up in bed, only to fall again

without having heard or seen anything. Then a deep sleep fell upon her.

V

On entering the room at the usual hour, Chiara found her mistress asleep

and dressed on the bed with the electric light on, while outside the sun

was high. She turned out the light quietly, half opened the shutters,

and re-arranged the scattered things, knowing that her mistress would be

awakened. Turning round Chiara saw that Maria’s eyes were open and that

she was very pale; she wished her good-morning, and received a feeble

reply. Maria closed her eyes again and buried her head in the pillow, as

if she had need of escaping the spectacle of the living things around

her. A torpor held her on the rumpled bed, a desire to know, to hear, to

see nothing. The young maid entered and left two or three times with her

rhythmical and noiseless step, till at last Maria raised her head, and

asked--

“Is it late?”

“Almost nine. Shall I prepare the bath?”

“Later on,” she replied in a weak voice.

Chiara looked at her with such tender pity in her eyes that Maria gave

her a reassuring nod.

“It is nothing. I am all right.” And at the same time she made a

questioning movement which the loving soul understood--

“The master has gone out.”

“Gone out; where?”

“On business to Velletri. He returns this evening.”

“When did he go?”

“This morning at seven. Gaspare, the valet, called him very early.”

“But where did he sleep?” asked Maria, after a little hesitation.

“In his new room, Excellency.”

“His new room?”

“Over there, behind the billiard-room.”

There was a silence between the two women.

“How long has your master occupied this room?”

“For some time,” said the girl, lowering her eyes.

“Tell me how long, Chiara,” insisted Maria.

“Since Your Excellency left.”

“Ah!” replied Donna Maria without further observation, letting her head

fall on the pillow. Chiara stood waiting for orders.

“Are there any letters for me?” resumed Maria in a feeble voice.

“No, Excellency.”

“Has your master left a note for me?”

“Nothing, Excellency. It seems, though, that he has been awake all the

night.”

“Who told you that?”

“Gaspare.”

“Ah!”

Not another word passed between the two women.

Beginning her first day after the pardon, Maria read in her mind these

clear and indelible words: “He has pardoned me, but he avoids me; he has

pardoned me, but he hates me; he has pardoned me, but he despises me.”

And all sense of life was lost within her.

VI

Vittoria Fiore was alone in her room at the Hôtel de la Paix, dressed

ready to go out. She went to and fro from the balcony to the door,

waiting for her husband who was nearly an hour late, and every time she

withdrew from the balcony overlooking the white Lungarno and the river,

and went towards the door to peep into the corridor, to see if Marco

were coming, a sorrowful impatience contracted her youthful figure.

Passing before a large mirror, two or three times she threw a rapid

glance at herself, then shook her head sadly. On the face of the newly

made bride there was not shining that smile of gentle delight, of mutual

love which trusts in a long future of serene joy. She was thoughtful,

agitated, and sometimes completely tormented, as if her inmost soul

could find no peace.

But Marco did not return. Where was he then? For an instant the spasm of

impatience was so strong that her pale face became livid, and she placed

her hand to her heart, as if she felt it stopping. A step sounded in the

corridor. In an instant the lines of her face composed themselves, a

light wave of blood mounted to her cheeks. The expression of her face

became so tranquil and serene that it would have deceived the most

expert eye. To complete the deception she pretended to be buttoning her

glove.

Marco entered with a great bunch of white lilies and red velvety roses,

which shed their delicate fragrance in the room.

“I had to wait a little, Vittoria,” he said; “but in compensation I have

brought you these flowers.”

“I have waited a little, but I didn’t notice it,” she replied

untruthfully.

“I had something to do,” he added vaguely, without offering further

information; “don’t you like the flowers?”

“Yes, I like them,” she replied quickly, without any enthusiasm. “Thank

you, Marco, they are beautiful flowers.” And she immersed her face in

them.

He had thrown himself into a chair as if tired from a long walk or

fastidiousness, as if he had forgotten that he had come to take her out.

Vittoria herself, who had remained standing near the table, where she

had placed the flowers, now sat down and placed her purse, and parasol

there.

“What magnificent flowers Florence has,” added Marco, with an abstracted

smile, “every time I return here I am seized with a madness to have such

a lot of them, in fact, all if it were possible in my arms and my

room.”

“You have been several times to Florence?” she asked coldly, almost

imperiously.

“Yes,” he replied, without heeding either the question or its tone; “not

all understand this country, and so not all can love it. It is a country

of love and poesy,” he ended in saying, almost to himself, with a

far-away expression of recollection.

Silent and serene Vittoria seemed to have heard nothing, and, as Marco

was not getting up from his seat, nor expressing a wish to go out, she

drew off her gloves slowly, stretched them one after the other, and

placed them on the table beside the purse and the parasol.

“You have never seen it in the evening and at night, Vittoria, but I

assure you it is a dreamland. Shall we go this evening, would you like

to?”

“We will go,” she replied tranquilly, slightly distractedly, while she

raised her long white hands to draw the two large pearl-headed pins from

her hat.

“We must go if the evening is beautiful,” he continued, absorbed in his

plan. “Is there a moon, Vittoria?”

“Yes, I think so,” she replied, lifting the flowers of her hat with her

white fingers, and not appearing to give much attention to her husband’s

discourse.

“Very well, if there is a moon, and it rises late, we must go to the

Loggia di Orcagna. Do you remember you saw the Loggia di Orcagna

yesterday?”

“Yes, I saw it yesterday,” she replied, folding her white veil

accurately.

“At that hour there are no people in the streets of Florence, and it is

a city recollected and a little melancholy. Then we must sit on the

steps of the Loggia di Orcagna, beneath the statue of Judith, holding in

her hand the head of Holofernes, and look around the Piazza della

Signoria, and all the visions come to him who knows how to dream.”

“What visions? What dreams?” she demanded coldly, playing with the

charms on her gold chain.

Marco looked at her, marvelling a little.

“Do you never dream, little Vittoria?” he asked, with some irony.

“Never,” she replied drily.

“Not even of me when I am not there?” and the tone became still more

ironical.

“When you are not there I wait for you; that is all,” she murmured,

without further observation.

“That is not a great deal; but still it doesn’t matter!” and he broke

into a laugh.

She lowered her eyelids, as she always did to hide the trouble of her

eyes, and closed her lips to repress her words; but these actions were

so imperceptible that the man hardly ever noticed them.

“Aren’t you going to put your flowers in water? don’t you like them?”

“I am just going to,” she replied.

Then very slowly she took the flowers and untied them, almost without

looking at them, separating them on the table with a mechanical working

of the hands.

“It is eleven,” he said, looking at his watch. “I should like to lie

down a little; I am so tired. It is the spring perhaps.”

“Go and sleep; you have an hour and a half before lunch,” Vittoria

replied, without turning.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“No, I haven’t been out.”

“That is true. Doesn’t the spring tire you?”

“No.”

“I feel exhausted,” he added vaguely, “I am going to sleep. What are you

going to do?”

“I am going to write home.”

“Brava! Write for me too; tell them everything, little Vittoria.”

“You haven’t written to any one, Marco,” she observed.

“I am a poor letter-writer, little Vittoria.”

“Have you always been?” and the question seemed conventional and polite.

“Not always,” he replied, falling into the trap; “au revoir, Vittoria;

occupy yourself with the flowers, and this evening we will go under the

Loggia di Orcagna.”

He disappeared into the other room. For several minutes she continued to

gather together the branches of odorous lilies and fragrant roses. Then

she went on tip-toe to the bedroom door, looked in, and listened. Marco

was asleep, and his face was wasted with weariness. Then she returned to

the table, threw herself into a chair, and buried her face in her hands,

completely unstrung.

“O my God! my God!” she cried, through her clenched teeth, so as not to

be heard. But the fresh flowers, the lilies and rich red roses, which

were beneath her face and hands, repelled her as something horrid, fell

to the ground, and lay there while she sobbed and invoked Heaven

desperately in a stifled voice.

VII

“Decide, little Vittoria,” said Marco, spreading a small map on the

marble table, “you must decide. Here we are in Milan; we have seen the

Cathedral, the Brera Gallery, and the Sforza Castle. There is nothing

else to see; decide.”

“I decide to leave because you don’t wish to remain,” Vittoria replied,

with her usual reserve.

“But by which route shall we go to Paris? Right through from here by the

Gothard? Or shall we step off at Turin and go by Mont Cenis? Look at the

map carefully and decide.”

Ever since they had started on their travels, he had kept up this

amiable and slightly teasing tone, that of a travelling companion, a

little bored, who has seen everything, but is good-natured enough to

lend himself as the cicerone of a tyro. All his concern and care was

protecting. He had the expression of a person who spends for the

diversion and happiness of another without participating himself in the

diversion or the happiness. It was impossible to conceal this

expression, and Vittoria, with her common-sense, had understood his

peculiar behaviour. Of Florence, Pisa, Siena, Bologna, nothing mattered

to Marco Fiore, nor did it concern him to be in one hotel more than

another, nor did it matter to him whether he left by this or that

_train-de-luxe_--but that his little Vittoria should see and appreciate

everything, should pass a happy day without being too tired, that all

the Palace Hotels should give her hospitality, and that all the

_wagon-lits_ should make the journey less heavy and tiresome for her,

was his care and occupation. Certainly he was indifferent to all the

sights and changes, to the arrivals and departures, like one who has

seen everything and could see nothing more.

“Decide, then, Vittoria, for the Gothard or the Cenis?”

Was he not treating her like a child, of whom he was the affectionate

tutor? Vittoria looked at the map without the least understanding it,

and, raising her eyes, said to him--

“You, Marco, by which route would you go?”

“Oh, I?” he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders, “I have been so often

one way or the other.”

“Ah,” she said, “then it is quite indifferent to you.”

“To me, yes; though the Gothard route is the more beautiful.”

“Let us take the other then,” she added.

“Would you always be a spirit of contradiction, Vittorietta? Why do you

prefer the less beautiful?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

He frowned. Sometimes her cold replies surprised him, freezing all the

gentle concern he had in seeing her content and happy. When that

pleasant face grew fixed and the lips closed, she seemed like a little

unopened flower which no ray of the sun could open, and he experienced a

sense of delusion and melancholy. The control he exerted over himself

was very great. To be so abundantly affectionate he required so much

moral and sentimental effort, and she understood nothing of it. With a

word or a gesture she cut off all his tender good-will.

But to accomplish his sentimental existence of a mission, of a duty

which should fill the immense empty place of his dead love, was not

Marco bound to Vittoria’s good and happiness? Was it not his concern,

little by little, by daily sympathy and affection, by loving tenderness,

to heal the heart wounded by a long and cruel abandonment and betrayal?

Should he not make her forget all she had suffered for him? And if that

jealous and offended soul was not completely reassured, if that

disdainful soul martyred by waiting did not expand and tremble with joy,

she was right perhaps. He must be patient and sweet with her, as with an

invalid who has scarcely reached convalescence, and has still the horror

of the disease in the mind.

“Now, little Vittoria, melt all the ice which surrounds your soul, have

a desire and a will, my lady,” he resumed, in the half-mocking,

half-affectionate tone he liked to take with her. The poor cold soul who

only felt the affection of courteous words and the brilliant glance of

the clear eyes, asked--

“What do you wish, then, Marco?”

“That you express an idea, expound a plan for the continuance of our

journey. Don’t you know; can’t you decide? I will help you, little

Vittoria. Do you wish to go to Paris?”

“Yes.”

“At once?”

“This very evening.”

“Very good; this evening, then, by the Cenis. You won’t see the best

part of the journey, but that doesn’t matter. How long would you like to

stay in Paris?”

“As long as seems necessary to you,” she replied, with a little

uncertain smile.

“Well, ten days or a fortnight. To which hotel would you like to go?”

She started at this question, and lowered her eyes.

“Is it all the same to you perhaps? If it is----”

“It isn’t all the same to me,” she murmured, with an evident control of

her will. “I should like to go to a new hotel where you have never

been.”

Her face grew pale for having once dared to tell her secret thought;

then she blushed, and tears came to her eyes.

“If it is only that,” said Marco slowly, moved, “if it is only that, it

is easy. We will go to the Elysèe Palace.”

“Thanks,” she replied, “thanks.”

She dared not press his hand because they were in the large hall of the

Hôtel Milan, among a crowd of travellers coming and going, where every

one gave a glance to the handsome couple, above all to the blonde, with

her pale complexion and attractive beauty.

“And at Paris, what life do you intend to lead, Vittorietta?”

“Ah, that I don’t know,” she added serenely; “I have always heard from

my childhood of this fascinating and terrible place; but no one ever

told me anything exactly about it. You know they leave us girls very

ignorant in Rome, and you must find me so stupid sometimes, Marco.”

“Well, in a few sentences I am going to tell how to live in two ways in

Paris for ten days or a fortnight. You know that we have relations and

friends there, and quite well that our marriage has been announced in

the _Figaro_ and _Gaulois_, in fact that every one knows that we are

coming to Paris. Bear in mind the gravity of what I am telling you,

Vittoria,” he interrupted in emphatic tones.

“I understand deeply,” she replied smilingly, backing him up.

“There is more. At Paris there is my Great Aunt, the Aunt of all the

Fiore, the Great Aunt of the family, whom we have respected and

venerated ever since we were born, the Duchess of Altomonte, the

legitimist, who has been exiled from Italy for forty years; a _femme

terrible_, with whom they used to frighten us at night, when we were

small and could not sleep.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Vittoria, smiling.

“Very well, dear Vittoria, also flower of flowers, as the poet of Spello

said at our wedding, there is the first method of life at Paris. It is

that of arriving officially, of making a request to the Duchess of

Altomonte to be permitted to kiss her hand, if not her foot; to warn all

the other minor aunts, cousins, and friends; to accept all the

invitations to lunch, dinner and tea, to the theatre and to supper;

every day to have three luncheons and two dinners, three theatres and

two suppers; to have no more peace or liberty, not to be able to speak

to each other for a minute, falling asleep at night, and the next minute

it is morning with the oppression of all the worldly fatigues of the

day.

“Naturally you will put on all your best dresses, for the theatre, for

the garden party, or a ball, all your jewels en _grande toilette_, and

the little time which will remain at your disposal you will use to

change your costume, your hat, or your gloves--five times a day.”

“Does all that seem amusing to you?” she asked expressionlessly.

“Does it seem amusing to you?”

“Tell me the other way, Marco, to enable me to judge.”

“To enable you to choose, dear Minerva, the other way is: to arrive and

remain perfectly incognito; to let the proud and ferocious Duchess of

Altomonte go, let all the relations and friends go; not to place, and

prevent it from being placed, any notice of our arrival in the papers;

to live in perfect obscurity and liberty, only going where we wish, only

frequenting the places where we wish to amuse ourselves freely, going

for excursions in the neighbourhood of Paris, especially those of

beauty, poetry, and freshness, from Fontainebleau to Saint Germain, from

Chantilly to Enghien--true idylls, Vittoria. Otherwise than the Imperial

salon, dry and hard as the Duchess of Altomonte, who has been infesting

it for the last forty years! In fact a life gay and sympathetic,

especially free, without a single boring or heavy duty.”

Vittoria lowered her eyes wrapped in thought, then she asked--

“I suppose you have always, or nearly always, visited Paris in the

second way?”

“Not nearly always--always.”

“Well then, Marco,” she replied coldly and drily, “I choose the first

way. It seems more proper to me.”

“You are right, Minerva; let it be so!” he exclaimed, even more coldly.

VIII

Seated in an arm-chair of the most upright Empire style, a carved curial

chair of darkest mahogany, with bronze bosses and ornaments, cushioned

in a myrtle pattern, Vittoria sat upright before her Great Aunt and kept

respectful silence. The bride in this third and last visit to the

Duchess of Altomonte, a visit of thanks and farewell, wore a rich dress

of pleated silver, gay with handsome embroidery; in her little ears she

wore solitaires, a large hat with a silver-grey feather on her blond

tresses, and amid the lace of her corsage an antique necklace of

diamonds and emeralds. She was dressed so luxuriously because, on the

first visit made to the proud and austere Bourbon _grande dame_, the

Duchess had suddenly observed to her nephew that his wife was dressed

too humbly, and not suitably to her position and the visit she had come

to make.

“Vittoria is very simple in her toilette,” Marco had replied

philosophically.

“It is one of the mistakes of society in modern times, this affectation

of simplicity,” the Duchess had replied immediately.

So at the state dinner, which the Duchess had given to the young couple,

to which had been asked all the old gentlemen and ladies who had

remained faithful to the King of the Two Sicilies, and had followed him

in exile to Paris, Vittoria had not only put on her most expensive

evening dress, but wore in her hair the diadem given her by her

mother-in-law, Donna Arduina, and round her neck a necklace, a gift from

Marco.

Under the weight of the glittering jewels, in that respectable but

melancholy society, the pretty bride had not pronounced a single word.

Now, a day before their departure, she had come to present her

compliments to her Great Aunt, and intimidated by her surroundings, but

especially by the Duchess of Altomonte, Vittoria sat on her Empire

chair, with closed mouth and drooping eyes waiting for her great new

relation to condescend a word and speak to her.

The Duchess of Altomonte, Donna Guilia de’ Masi, born of the family of

Castropignano, had completed eighty years. Her abundant hair, which she

preserved to that age, was of the finest shining white, and dressed in

old-fashioned style, framing a face which in youth and maturity must

have reflected a majestic and imperious beauty. Of the past it was true

there remained only an expression of power in the still bright eyes, and

the proud smile, wonderful in its energy at that age. Certainly the

shoulders were bent and the step a little slow, but, even in this

decadence of years and the signs of dissolution, the Duchess had known

how to impress and be imposing. The great Empire chair, where she liked

to sit for hours together, with a big embroidered cushion in the fashion

of the period beneath her feet shod in black velvet, resembled a throne,

and the very black ebony stick with the curved silver handle, on which

she leaned her tottering steps, resembled a sceptre. Her whole person

gave a sense of immense respect, of silent devotion, of a past of honour

and fidelity to all promises and oaths, of a past of lofty sacrifice

accomplished in silence without a request for compensation, of a life

entirely rigid and firm, where perhaps there was wanting a sense of

kindness and indulgence, but where all the other virtues had triumphed.

The Duchess had little by little seen her kindred disappear, some

carried away by death, others by destiny, some far away returning now

and again, some far away for ever. Her legitimate King was dead, buried

in a lonely church in a lonely part of Austria, and every year she went

to visit her Queen, a Queen full of sorrow supported with a most brave

and admirable mind. The interview between them was usually short, sad,

and austere. So everything of the past and present added grandeur to the

figure of Guilia de’ Masi, Duchess of Altomonte.

“Marco!” she cried, in a still clear voice, in which there was always a

tone of command.

“Yes, aunt,” he replied at once.

“Haven’t you something to see about for your departure? Go and see to

it; leave me your wife and return for her.”

Without saying a word he bowed in obedience, and kissed the Duchess’s

hand covered with large emerald and topaz rings. He kissed, too, lightly

Vittoria’s little gloved hand, who shot him a beseeching glance

secretly, and left.

“My daughter,” said the Duchess coldly, playing with her gold

watch-chain, “I wanted to speak to you about something alone, so I sent

Marco away.”

Without replying Vittoria Fiore kept her eyes fixed on the majestic

lady, waiting for her words, not without secret emotion.

“I am very pleased that you have married my nephew, Marco Fiore. Even

when your engagement was announced three or four years ago I approved,

because I had heard much good of you and your virtues. The Fiore are

certainly a greater house than your own, and your dowry hasn’t been so

much; but that doesn’t matter. In marrying you Marco has turned his back

on a past of folly, and has begun a new life.”

A profound expression of suffering was depicted on the bride’s face, but

she kept silent.

“By the way, don’t delude yourself: you haven’t caused this miracle,”

continued the imperious lady icily, “he was bound to have enough of _the

other_. You will know later on how men tire of their most impassioned

loves. Maria--er--Guasco--I think I am right--was a most beautiful and

fascinating woman, and Marco raved about her. He is cured now.”

And her inquisitorial eyes, which had read into a thousand faces and a

thousand souls and hearts, read on Vittoria’s face the deep, tormenting

and incurable doubt. The old lady raised her eyebrows slightly, on

discovering this hidden and torturing truth, and shook her head.

“You don’t believe in this recovery? You are torturing yourself with the

fear of the past, my daughter? Your first matrimonial joys have been

poisoned by it?”

Seeing that she was understood even to the innermost recess of her soul,

Vittoria relaxed her face, and closed her eyes, as if about to faint.

“Well, well,” the Duchess said, in a stronger and harder voice, “why are

you ashamed to confess your sufferings to me? Are you perchance a timid

person? Have you, maybe, a jealous and reserved heart?”

“Yes, yes,” Vittoria murmured, with a sigh.

“Then you are preparing a sad existence for yourself. Timid characters

and reserved and jealous hearts are destined to languish in pain and

perish in suffering without the world being aware of it. Make a brave

effort over yourself, conquer yourself, and tell your thoughts if they

are worthy of being heard and understood; pour forth your feeling if it

has truth in it.”

The great lady acquired an even more solemn aspect, and seemed the

expression of virtue and nobility of life.

“Ah, I can’t, I can’t!” exclaimed Vittoria, placing her handkerchief to

her mouth to repress herself.

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I love him,” she proclaimed.

“He loves you too, I suppose,” replied the Duchess, becoming glacial

again.

What uncertain and sorrowful eyes Vittoria raised!

“You think he doesn’t love you?” the Duchess insisted.

The bride humbly and weakly replied, opening her arms--

“I don’t know; I don’t know.”

“You deceive yourself,” resumed the great lady slowly, “Marco is fond of

you.”

A great disillusion showed itself on Vittoria’s face, a disillusion

mixed with fear and sadness.

“Isn’t it enough for you, my daughter, that he is fond of you? What do

you want more? What are you desiring? What are you seeking?”

“Oh, aunt, aunt,” she ventured to cry in the sudden familiarity of

suffering, “I want him to love me, to love me with ardour and passion.”

“As _the other_, in fact.”

“As _the other_,” the unhappy woman ventured to cry.

“That is impossible,” stated the Duchess.

“Impossible, impossible?” and she placed her two little hands together

convulsively.

“It is so. Marco can’t have for you, and you can’t ask it of him, a true

and intense passion.”

“But why? But why? Am I not young? Am I not beautiful? Am I not his?

Don’t I adore him?”

“All that is of no avail. Learn, my daughter, that one doesn’t have two

passions one after the other, that there are entire existences which

scarcely arrive at feeling one, that there are other existences, many

others, which never feel one, not even the pretence of passion, not even

its shadow. Passion is an exceptional thing, it is outside life.”

Terrified and pale the wretched bride listened to the voice which seemed

that of her destiny, a grave voice and free from any interest which was

not true, a voice which seemed cruel, but whose cruelty contained a

lofty common-sense.

“For that matter don’t complain. You will know later on, when you are

calm and wise, how rarely a man marries with passion in his heart and

feelings for his bride. Men marry nearly always to be quiet, for

security from all amorous tempests. Hasn’t Marco done this? I add, to

reassure you, that in the rare cases in which marriage has taken place

in obedience to passion it has always ended in unhappiness.”

Vittoria listened nervelessly.

“Thus God wills it,” the Duchess pronounced with a voice more profound

and touching. “Christian marriage, which faith and the Church consecrate

for life and death, ought not, and can not, serve for the satisfaction

of the voracious flame of our senses. And if it be so it is a state of

sin. We don’t marry, Vittoria, for the intoxication of a short time. It

isn’t for this that the Lord calls us and chooses us in marriage blessed

by Himself. If we reduce this sacrament to a profane pleasure, we

violate a divine law.”

“It is horrible, it is horrible,” cried Vittoria, as if she felt herself

suffocated.

“It isn’t so horrible,” cried the Duchess. “Be more Christian than woman

in matrimony and more woman than sweetheart. Don’t commit the ugly sin

and grave mistake of being your husband’s mistress! Vittoria, Vittoria,

don’t degrade yourself in wishing to be like _the other_! After a little

you would be betrayed and despised. Thousands of women have tried to be

their husband’s mistresses, falling into a sentimental trap, and other

thousands will try it after you, and all, my daughter, all have had, and

will have, the same fate--they will be betrayed and despised.”

“But has the world always been so? Will it always be so? But you, you,

my aunt,” Vittoria ventured to cry, “weren’t you ardently loved by your

husband? You who shone with every virtue, rich, of a great family.

Didn’t you love your husband, the Duke of Altomonte, ardently? That is

what is known; tell me if it is true.”

The Duchess of Altomonte moved her hand vaguely and slowly, and for the

first time a slight smile appeared on her lips.

“All that is so long, long ago!” and emotion rendered her dominating

voice less firm, “from the day on which he knew me till that of his

death, the Duke of Altomonte had a peaceful and equal tenderness for me,

a strong moral sympathy, a tranquil and secure attachment.”

“Nothing more? Nothing more?”

“It was enough for me. I was quite content, and I thanked God for it

every day, and even now it still forms the sweetest and pleasantest

recollection of my life, now too long.”

“And you, and you, how did you love him?”

“As a Christian, Vittoria. I loved him with respect, devotion, and

fidelity.”

“Nothing more? Nothing more?”

“Nothing more.”

“Did it satisfy your husband?”

“He never asked anything else from me. I always saw him serene; he died

peacefully with his hand in mine.”

The blond bride, with her beautiful pale face, was silent for a moment,

then she raised her eyes resolutely and desperately.

“I shall never have the strength for this renunciation--never, never.”

“Ask for strength, and you will have it.”

“Who will give it to me?”

“Pray, and you will have it.”

“Bless me, aunt,” murmured the unhappy woman, kneeling before the

venerable figure and bowing her head.

The face of the Duchess seemed to shine with purest light. She touched

Vittoria’s forehead lightly with her hand, and raising her eyes to

Heaven, “Bless, O Lord, this my daughter. Give her strength, and she

shall have peace.”

Vittoria arose, but neither the prayer nor the blessing had given

consolation to her anguish.

IX

“Modane! Modane!” was cried from all sides as the _train-de-luxe_,

arriving from Paris, rumbled heavily into the station.

“At last we re-enter our fatherland,” cried Marco Fiore, with a sigh of

relief; and, without waiting for a reply from Vittoria, he placed his

grey travelling cap on his head and left the compartment.

“Ought I to come too?” Vittoria asked, as she rejoined him in the

corridor.

“If you want a stroll, yes. If not, it isn’t necessary. The station is

very grey and gloomy.”

“Very gloomy,” repeated the woman in a low voice.

“But our country is so beautiful. Aren’t you content to return home?”

“I am glad,” she replied, without further observation. He looked at her

as he did now and then with a scrutinising eye, but the pure face

assumed that cold and closed aspect against which every glance failed.

“I am going for a small stroll,” he said, shrugging his shoulders

lightly, “the luggage will be examined later on in the train.”

He disappeared along the corridor, and a little later Vittoria saw him

walking up and down in the gloomy station, which not even the late May

sun managed to lighten. Then she rose and placed herself before the

window on the other side of the compartment, watching another train stop

on its way to France. Her eyes were fixed on the train. She tried to

discover the faces of those who were travelling within, to question if

possible their physiognomies, and read there what was passing.

She heaved a deep sigh, and felt jealous of those who were leaving Italy

perhaps for ever, and were travelling to France or England, or further,

perhaps, never to return. She would have liked to have been one of those

unknown travellers, to turn her back for ever on her country, to take

away with her the man she adored, far, far away to unknown countries,

losing at last the recollection of her own country, of her own people.

“Oh, this returning, this returning!” she thought to herself so

desperately that she almost said it aloud.

She fell back on her seat and searched among the flowers and books in

front of her for something to distract herself, a volume or a

time-table. Then she leaned her head against the arm of the seat, and

closed her eyes in an endeavour not to think, to suppress the subtle and

voracious work of the jealousy which caused her to think.

“We are off at last,” said Marco, entering the compartment.

Heavily the train started, leaving the shadow of the gloomy station, and

began to run among the green meadows completely covered with flowers,

which stretched beneath the mountains around Mont Cenis.

“We are returning home, little Vittoria; we are returning to our own

house, to our own bed, where no one else has slept the night before, and

where no stranger will sleep the night after. Home, home; no more

hotels, no more restaurants where the cooking is of an unknown provision

and quantity. I assure you, my dear, that at Casa Fiore there is an

excellent cook, whose kitchen presents no mysteries. What a pleasure to

dine and sleep in the house of the Fiore in via Bocca di Leone!”

Vittoria listened attentively to Marco’s tirade, with its forced gaiety,

where a little irritation was pressing.

“This journey has tired you, Marco?” she asked, as if she had noticed

something of no importance.

“Physically, perhaps,” he replied quickly; “I am not so young as I was.”

“You are thirty-two.”

“But I have lived far more than my years,” he replied, with candour.

“That is true,” she replied calmly; “instead of travelling we could have

gone to Spello.”

“Oh, Spello isn’t very amusing, dear. You will see it this summer.

Besides, oughtn’t you to have a nice honeymoon.”

“I?” she exclaimed, trembling.

“Yes, you, Vittoria. I had to give you, my beauty, a nice, amusing,

pleasing honeymoon. You deserved it; I hope I behaved well?”

“Very well,” she replied ambiguously.

“Have I been a good travelling companion--intelligent, zealous,

amiable?”

“You have been all that, Marco,” she replied coldly.

“Have I, then, accomplished that part of my mission? Have I accomplished

it as I ought to?”

“Have you, Marco, a mission? And what is it?” she asked, not without

some harshness.

“That which the priest told me in Santa Maria del Popolo; that which the

mayor told us at Campidoglio; that which I have given myself.”

“That is?” she replied, still coldly.

“To make you happy, darling,” he concluded somewhat caressingly, to

alleviate the solemnity of the words.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, without further observation.

“Then you give me my first certificate, my wife? Have you been happy or

not on your travels? Have I done everything to make you happy?”

“You have done as much as you could,” she replied, without emphasising

the words.

“That is _all_?” he insisted, looking at her.

“All you could.”

He frowned, and was silent. She, too, was silent, turning her head away.

An instant afterwards, with a fastidious accent, he added--

“Now I am a little tired, and am glad to return home.”

The train ran on through the country that leads to Susa, and from Susa

to Turin.

“Have you written to your mother and sister that we are returning?” he

asked absently.

“No,” she replied.

“When do you count on doing it?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking of counter orders, of a prolonging of the

journey, of delay. I don’t know,” she said, confused.

“We will telegraph, then, from Turin; we stop two hours there,” he added

somewhat drily.

“Are we going straight on to Rome?” she asked a little timidly.

“Naturally, naturally. We arrive at Rome at ten to-morrow.”

“Ah.”

In spite of her intense power of dissimulation, she did not succeed in

hiding an expression of fear.

“It seems to me, Vittoria,” said Marco, who had become very

bad-tempered, “that you view with little pleasure our returning to

Rome.”

“You are mistaken.”

“Perhaps I am not mistaken. All other wives feel a real need of their

homes; you, it seems, scarcely experience this need.”

“It isn’t true; it isn’t true,” she stammered.

“Do me the honour not to take me for an idiot,” he retorted quickly;

“Casa Fiore doesn’t seem good enough for your presence!”

“Oh, Marco!” she protested, with a voice full of tears.

“Rome seems a capital too small for you? The place where your mother and

my mother live seems mean and empty to you, perhaps?”

“Marco! Marco!” she begged.

But her husband was now exasperated. The first angry, violent conjugal

dispute had broken out, and she tried in vain to calm it. Trembling

prevented her from pronouncing a word. She felt suffocated.

“Can you deny it?” he replied, in a voice where anger and irony hissed.

“Do you deny that you don’t share my consolation in returning to Rome?”

Without speaking she clasped her hands as if to implore him to torture

her no more.

“I am sorry to tell you, dear Vittoria,” he continued implacably, “that

sometimes you lie.”

“Oh! oh!” she exclaimed, with a movement of horror, hiding her face in

her hands.

“Or you dissimulate, which amounts to the same thing.”

Although he saw that she was growing pale, he was unable to restrain his

indignation.

“Vittoria!” he exclaimed loudly, as if to startle her, “will you answer

me?”

Terrified, she looked at him with wide-open eyes.

“I have always been used to truthful women; will you tell me the truth?”

“Yes,” she declared, as if this reminder had offended her mortally,

restoring all her strength to her.

“Why aren’t you glad to return home? Why don’t you rejoice to embrace

your people again? Why aren’t you happy to find yourself in Rome again

to-morrow, to begin your new life? Reply, conceal nothing, and don’t

dissimulate. Tell me the truth as it has always been told to me.”

“I hate Rome!” she exclaimed, offended, and making a supreme effort to

tell her secret.

“You hate Rome! Why?”

“You know the reason; don’t oblige me to tell it,” she added, with

dignity and supplication.

Immediately all the man’s anger evaporated. Again human charity and

fraternal pity moved him.

“You are ill, Vittoria,” he said. “You must get well.”

She made a vague gesture of denial and of impossibility, and said

nothing more. Nor did he attempt to break the heavy silence.

X

Emilio Guasco is forty. He is tall, thin, dried up, and appears robust.

His face is brown, with shining black moustaches. His hair is black,

though white at the temples, which brightens and sweetens the

swarthiness of his complexion. His eyes are exceedingly black, of an

opaque blackness when their glance is tired or in repose, but sometimes

a secret force animates them, giving an ardent and gloomy character to

his face. The forehead is ample and well-defined, the nose aquiline, the

chin long, showing an obstinate will. The profile is somewhat hard and

sharp, scarcely tempered by a mouth still fresh and youthful, in which

an acute eye can sometimes notice indulgence and good nature.

But in general Emilio’s face is austere, sometimes gloomy, while its

lines, if not exactly correct, are at least harmonious. In spite of all

this Emilio’s appearance is striking and attractive, with the attraction

of all men whose appearance speaks of spirit and energy. A portion of

the men he associated with, a small portion certainly, came to him with

that species of secure instinct, which human sympathy has for souls

which contain a really personal secret of life. Another portion, a

larger one, regarded him with a certain respect mixed with repulsion,

considering him a dramatic character in a laughable comedy. A last

portion, and this the greatest and most frivolous, avoided him as a

great bore, who prevented others from amusing themselves and taking life

as a farce.

Emilio Guasco belongs to the old Roman bourgeois, and to the old bank

which for over a hundred years has been allied with the Roman

aristocracy and later to the great Italian society, which has taken up

its abode in Rome around the rule of the Quirinal. His ancestors, as

well as his father and uncles, have always belonged to the smart set,

mixing with it intimately, while in business they had dealings with

other important sets of the capital. Frequently they have been the

saviours of noble fortunes in danger, and of secret aid to Italian

politics, so often in the early days in need of pecuniary assistance.

Emilio is the only son. His father is dead, and he is in partnership

with his uncles and cousins in the bank of Guasco and Co. But in spite

of the fact that from childhood, boyhood, and youth he has always been

in the midst of affairs, and that, during the last ten years, after a

violent economic crisis, affairs in Rome are waking up again, he is a

very mediocre man of business and banker. He never likes this

intellectual work, which is sometimes not without its excitement and

poetry, so he works at the Guasco Bank moderately, methodically, aridly,

without a gleam of geniality or passion. Thus he continues his father’s

work, which had been fervid, efficacious and fortunate; he continues it

as a heavy duty, which he limits to the narrowest and most external

mechanical participation.

Sometimes he believes that he would gladly leave the bank, leaving the

bulk of his capital there but renouncing its management: sometimes he

himself has vaguely hinted that he wished to hear nothing more of it.

However, his cousin, Robert Guasco, forced him to stay so as not to give

the appearance of weakening the bank. Robert, luckily, is a very

intelligent banker, capable and laborious, and his mind, strength, and

enormous activity compensate for Emilio’s cold inertia.

“Whatever do you want with an idiot and a business nonentity like me?

Let me go,” Emilio often said to his cousin, with a wan smile.

“Remain, remain,” Robert would say, without taking any notice of the

protest.

So Emilio Guasco remains at his work. Sometimes he even asks himself

what he would do if he were to leave the firm and had to spend his

considerable income alone, and how he would dedicate his time so tiring

and boresome. From youth he has always felt the natural sadness of his

temperament. He has tried to counteract and drive away this sadness by

giving himself to the sports held in honour in Rome for years, and to

the new games introduced there recently by the foreign element. Emilio

is an expert and daring rider, and few have a better seat. Every year he

is a faithful rider to hounds. But to this brilliant and rather

fashionable sport he prefers that other hunting, solitary and

melancholy, among the large regions about Palidoro, Maccarese, and

Pontegalera, where one goes dressed in thick fustian, exchanging a few

words with the cow-boys to be met with on horseback, wrapped in brown

mantles with a lining of green serge. Sometimes he is absent two or

three days at these hunts, so much in keeping with his thoughtful and

sad character, sleeping in a buffalo tent as in Africa. His friends tell

him of the example of Prospero Ludovisi, a keen hunter, who took a most

pernicious fever at Maccarese and died suddenly of it in thirty-six

hours. The malaria is especially deadly in that vast and deserted

region. Emilio only smiles. Among modern sports he prefers of all the

English games, on foot or horse, by sea or land, Golf--Golf, which is

the adoration of all spirits fond of the open air, of solitude and

silence,--Golf which is the true symbol of the solitary man. At his club

he seldom mixes with the many players of poker, but he is a silent and

unwearying devotee of bridge.

Emilio Guasco, in his early youth, has had his love affairs. He has not,

however, committed any of the follies of the pleasure-seekers, which in

public opinion has classed him among the coldest of men to whom women

have little or nothing to say. Some, the more spiteful, have accused him

of avarice, since love in general, and under certain conditions, implies

generosity of spirit and of purse.

He has never compromised any one, and his adventures have been discreet

and somewhat mediocre. The heart which he brought when married to the

lovely and fascinating Maria Simonetti was one very sane, without

perversion and corruption, a sincere heart which gave itself not in mad

transports but with seriousness and faith. If not exceedingly in love

during his engagement, he was in love.

One could say that he married for love of the enchanting girl who

brought him only a good name, but not a _soldo_ of dowry. Nor was his

love a smothered flame which alters in marriage, bursting forth as a

conflagration of passion. He loved Maria moderately, with a just

affection which afterwards had no diminution, but no increase. He had

esteemed his _fiancée_ deeply, and afterwards his wife, for her

character and mettle, her pride and truth; he had even felt a little of

her fascination, but not all of it. Especially, he had not experienced

in the first year of his marriage that joy of life which causes the

hearts of the newly married to vibrate, exalts their souls, and later on

seems to make them accept an existence less joyful and less happy

through the unforgettable beauty of their first recollections. Emilio

did not recognise till later, much later, the immense delusion he had

been as a husband to the passionate heart of Maria Simonetti; he became

aware of it when there was no longer time and all was lost.

For a long time he believed he had done all he could for his lady, being

fond of her, respecting, honouring, and never being false to her, but

nothing more. He had not understood that Maria Simonetti’s life and

happiness were in his two hands. Not having understood that, he had let

Maria’s life languish in sentimental and moral misery; so that she

sought elsewhere the way of magnifying all her faculties and sensations.

When he understood it was too late: that was _afterwards_. It was

_afterwards_ that, intolerant of lies, inept at deception, Maria Guasco

Simonetti had left her husband’s house and had fled with Marco Fiore.

Then Emilio Guasco had seen all the error of his existence, of his

indifference, his want of any abandonment, of any enthusiasm. Alone, in

a suddenly deserted house and dishonoured, he discovered his original

sin, aridity, that grave sin which separates us from everything

beautiful and everybody beloved; which makes those flee from us fatally

whom we do not know how to love. The tragedy which that day had brought

him in the flight of his wife with her lover had still more paralysed

Emilio’s mind, which was incapable of efficacious fury, incapable of

sustained impulse, and capable only of sorrow and a slow and pointless

sadness.

He had not acted and rushed after Maria and Marco; but had remained at

home to suffer in silence. A part of the society in which he lived

called it an immense disgrace, because to all of them he was what is

termed a perfect husband; a smaller part, more intelligent and original,

had proclaimed that he deserved no better treatment, since he had not

known how to love Maria worthily, and that, in fact, he had annoyed and

exasperated her. Secretly, in the long examinations of conscience which

every man makes with himself in the hours of moral crisis, Emilio

thought those right who had indicted him as the first author of his

wife’s funereal act. He saw, on one of his sleepless nights, with the

eyes of his soul all that he ought to have been and had not been.

Certain deep truths of the spirit and the heart, hitherto unknown to

him, appeared to him in vivid light. As in all great revolutions which

transform and remake the inner life of a being, many new habits were

formed by him in the three years of solitude and abandonment, singular

habits different and contradictory to each other.

While Maria’s flight with Marco had given him acute anguish, the moral

figure of his wife appeared prouder and bolder in its act of liberation,

and if the husband still carried with him all the pain of the offence,

so as to feel the impression of a bleeding wound for three years, the

man had admired in Maria her lofty contempt of every minor good to

obtain the one supreme good. While Maria was far away, as if lost in the

vast world, Emilio saw her again near him palpitating with beauty and

life, and he began to love her in solitary silence, vainly and

uselessly. He surprised himself into desiring and wanting her more than

ever, and in his empty love and desire he ended by knowing that powerful

and terrible instinct of love--jealousy.

He had always marvelled when he saw in others the interior torturing

lashes of jealousy, and its external manifestations. Now he is a victim

to this gloomy and fascinating force which comes from the lowest

elements of the human system, but which dominates a man entirely.

Sometimes he would give his blood to snatch his wife away from the arms

of Marco Fiore, at other times he was seized by an exasperation which

almost led him to a crime. Then he had to leave Rome and go far away

where only memory could follow him. On his return, through the natural

power of his equilibrium, he was always calm, patient, and sad.

At last, at the end of three years, so long to a heart which had never

known how to love, which perhaps had still not learned to love better

but was not inept to suffer, Emilio, with concealed curiosity and

anxiety, had learnt that the amorous folly of Marco and Maria had begun

to languish, had become a folly’s shadow, and was lapsing into a pale

usage. From this knowledge which reached him from reliable sources, from

secret inquiries which he had made with extreme caution, knowing how

every day that love shadow was vanishing more and more, a unique

sentiment, derived from so many opposite sentiments at war with each

other, had raised his heart almost to heroism. This was the sentiment of

human and Christian pity for a miserable woman who had wanted and still

wanted to give her life to her dream, who instead saw all her dream

vanish before her in a time which seemed as short as a flash of

lightning. Anger long repressed, sorrow long concealed, the offence

which wounds without ever a wound appearing, love rendered more supreme

and consuming in jealousy itself,--all in Emilio Guasco was sunk in this

tender compassion for Maria. He felt within himself all the evangelical

virtue of charity, perhaps stronger than any other sentimental impulse.

He was the good Samaritan who rescues the dying man on the road-side,

doctors his cruel wounds, and pours out the balsam that heals.

Thus the pardon had been offered by Emilio Guasco to the wife who had

betrayed and left him. When he had sent her word he had thought nothing

more of the past or the future; he had thought only of healing the poor

creature’s wounds, struck by passion’s cruel and implacable weapons; he

felt within himself a new soul greater, more generous, and superior to

sophisms and the world’s axioms. There seemed to be something heroic in

his heart, which raised and exalted him as at no other time in his life.

The immense tenderness he felt for her reacted on him; he pitied and

admired himself like the heroic person in a romance whose story he

sometimes read. The nearer the day of her return approached, the more

his emotion increased, the more the noble and sublime thing, which is

pardon, the law which Christ has given as the most supreme, seemed to

find in him a pure interpreter. So on that April evening in the presence

of the woman, pale and trembling as he had never seen her before and

would never see her again, he had pronounced those Christian words which

cancel, absolve, and redeem--

“I pardon you, Maria.”

But suddenly afterwards, in a flash, he felt this unique and noble

sentiment, this Christian pity, destroyed within him, as if it could

only give him one supreme moment of heroism. He felt all the old

sentiments rise again in his mind, contending among themselves--anger,

suffering, love and jealousy, and he was seized again in their power

without guide or will.

XI

Maria Guasco was proceeding minutely to the completion of her toilette.

That morning she was wearing a cloth dress of maroon colour, cut in the

English fashion, through the jacket of which a blouse of white Irish

lace was to be seen; the full skirt in big pleats discovered the neat

feet shod in black kid. A large straw hat, with a circlet of red roses

and a thin veil, was placed over the chestnut hair, affording a glimpse

of its waves over the forehead, temple and neck. In her simple dress

without ornaments, and in its exact lines, she looked enchantingly

young. She said to Chiara, who was hovering round offering her gloves,

parasol, and purse--

“Let your master know that I am ready and waiting for him here.”

Meanwhile she buttoned her yellow deerskin gloves and verified the

contents of her purse.

“The master begs Your Excellency to oblige him with your presence in the

study,” said Chiara on returning in a low voice.

Maria frowned slightly, and for an instant the colour left her cheeks.

Then, as if her will predominated immediately, she proceeded towards

her husband’s study, and not a shadow of her recent emotion appeared on

her recomposed face.

Seated behind his desk Emilio was writing a letter and smoking a

cigarette. He did not raise his head.

“Well, Emilio,” asked his wife in a soothing voice, standing in the

middle of the room, “aren’t you dressed for the meet?”

“No,” he replied, raising his head from his letter absently, “I am not

dressed.”

“Wasn’t this the hour?” she continued gently; “ten o’clock, I think.”

“Yes, ten o’clock,” and he lowered his head, resuming his writing.

Maria’s gloved hand nervously clutched the onyx knob of her parasol.

“Well, well,” she asked again, with a certain insistency. Emilio let his

pen fall, throwing it on the table, pushed the letter aside, and leaning

back in his chair regarded his wife for a long time earnestly without

speaking.

“I have decided not to go to this last meet.”

“Ah!” said Maria only.

Then, as if it annoyed her to remain standing before her husband’s desk,

her eyes sought a chair. She found one a little bit away and sat down,

still holding her parasol and purse, in the attitude of a lady paying a

visit.

Both were silent; though, as ever since her return, he fixed his eyes on

his wife’s face and person with a curiosity half thoughtful and half

observant, with an attitude of acute investigation which sometimes

embarrassed Maria.

“Still, Emilio,” she said in a low voice, to break the silence, “you are

so fond of fox-hunting.”

“I like it very much, it is true,” he replied.

“And it will be a year before you can begin again.”

“That is true.”

“Didn’t you decide yesterday evening to go?”

“Certainly I did decide to go; but a night has passed on it.”

“You don’t sleep at night and think of the meet at Cecilia Metella?” she

asked, trying to joke.

“Eh, one doesn’t always sleep,” he replied, with an irritable gesture of

annoyance.

She was silent. Then she raised her head resolutely.

“Since I should have accompanied you, may I consider myself free?” she

asked, with some impatience.

“You have other plans?” he murmured, looking at her again fixedly.

“I have had no others from the moment that it was arranged that we

should go out together,” she replied quickly.

“I beg your pardon for having made you dress; you have lost a

_toilette_.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, and she began

to trace the arabesque designs of the carpet with her parasol.

“Emilio?” she said suddenly.

“Maria!”

“Why don’t you go alone to Cecilia Metella? Go and put on your pink; the

victoria is ready, and will take you to where Francesco is waiting with

the horses. Go now.”

Her tone was quiet, indifferent, and persuasive.

“No!” he exclaimed, with an angry gesture; “I don’t want to.”

“Emilio,” she continued, in a voice still more persuasive, “I know that

it is on my account that you are not going to Cecilia Metella. I beg you

not to renounce this pleasure.”

“Thank you; I shall not go,” he said drily.

Maria got up suddenly, as if she had nothing further to say.

“Where are you going?” he exclaimed, rising from his seat and following

her for a few steps.

“To my room,” she replied, a little surprised; “then I shall go out.”

“To go where?” he asked again harshly.

“I don’t know; I shall go for a walk somewhere,” she said, still more

surprised.

“Where?” and anger trembled in the demand.