Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli arrived first at the place appointed for
the meeting, accompanied by the physician and two artillery officers,
friends of Cariolin, who had volunteered to act as seconds. He was
most calm. Like a true poet, he praised the mild April morning. “The
zephyr returns, bearing with it fair weather--” He praised the trilling
of the birds, saluting the sun; inhaled voluptuously the resinous
odor which the pine trees gave out, and the cypresses of the handsome
villa nearby; recited an ode of Anacreon which he had translated, and
finally told the two officers that they were enjoying the apologue of
the geese and the migrating crane. He was the crane; that is to say,
according to the geese, a madman. “For I have neither overeaten nor
drunk too much, you must know. Since yesterday, gentlemen, food has
not entered my disheartened stomach. Water; I have drunk water at the
public fountain. Diogenes, gentlemen, had a cup, but when he saw a boy
drinking out of his own hand, he broke his own cup and he too drank
out of his own hand. I do the same. I do not know whether I shall eat
to-day, or where I shall sleep. Perhaps I will present myself to some
farmer in the country. I will dig. Then I shall eat; but free from
all ties in this absolute, sublime liberty which intoxicates me, and
which must naturally seem like madness to the slaves of the law, of
necessity, of social conventions. In a short time I shall break the
head of the imbecile who has tried to cross my path, and then I shall
work on my great poem, ‘Erostratus.’”
A little later Biagio Speranza, Dario Scossi, and Momo Cariolin arrived
with another physician. Biagio Speranza was very nervous; the thought
of fighting with this madman, who had struck him, seemed to degrade
him. But he tried to appear hilarious, so as not to lend too much
importance to this duel, the grotesque epilogue of a silly prank. His
valises and everything for his departure were ready, prepared at home.
Now he would either give or receive a scratch, and all would be over.
And by Jove, it was time!
The direction of the duel fell by lot to the young officer who acted
as first second. But already it appeared that everything was being
arranged most amicably. The ground being chosen and measured, the
adversaries were then invited to take their places opposite each other.
“If you please,” said the officer to Cocco Bertolli, “you must remove
your coat.” Cocco took it off furiously and flung it far from him. At
sight of his ragged and soiled shirt, torn at the elbows, all received
a most painful impression; repulsion, disgust, and pity, all in one;
they looked in each other’s eyes, questioning if this were not a case
that should be brought to an end at once. But Cocco Bertolli, who
already had his sword in hand, and quivered with impatience, demanded
with proud indignation: “Well?”
“On guard!” said the officer.
Immediately Cocco Bertolli leaped forward like a tiger with terrible
fury, flourishing his sword, and howling, upon his adversary. Thus
attacked, Biagio Speranza, still under that painful impression, started
back, parrying the storm of blows as well as he could. He might easily
have run Cocco through the body simply by holding his sword stiff,
straight out, with a sudden lunge; but he banished the temptation,
and continued parrying the attacks. Suddenly, in his fury, the sword
fell from Cocco Bertolli’s hand. “Enough!” cried the officer who was
directing the encounter.
“What do you mean by enough?” cried Cocco Bertolli, out of breath. “Do
you wish to profit by my misfortune? I appeal to my adversary, who
surely can not consider such paltry satisfaction ‘enough.’”
Biagio Speranza stooped and picked up the fallen sword, and offered it
courteously to Cocco Bertolli. “Here it is. On guard!” Then he glanced
at his friends, as much as to say: “You see to what you have brought
me?” And his nervous irritation increased. “If the other evening, after
that blow, you had allowed me to give him a sound beating, I should not
now have found myself under the hard necessity of killing this poor
madman, so forlorn and miserable, or of letting him kill me.”
At the second command for attack, Speranza was resolved to oppose his
adversary seriously. But without warning Cocco Bertolli was upon him
again with redoubled fury. “Stop!” cried the officer.
But already, in this lightning-like assault, Biagio Speranza had been
wounded, for he suddenly fell to the ground, his hands clenched to his
breast. A sneer choked in his throat. He looked at the four seconds and
the physicians, tried to say: “It is nothing!” but instead of words
blood gushed from his mouth, and he sank back, terrified.
Having recovered from their first feeling of horror, the others bent
over him, lifted him cautiously, and carried him with the greatest
care into the house of the keeper of the villa, where they deposited
him on a bed. The doctors thought at first that he had but a few
minutes to live; nevertheless, they administered the first remedies,
and waited, anxious, terrified. An hour passed, two, and one of the
physicians proposed to send some one to the city for a stretcher. So,
toward evening, Biagio Speranza was carried home, between life and
death. The Pentoni, his old landlady, and Nannetta were waiting for
him, all bathed in tears. But the latter, shortly after, when the
first confusion was over, was politely sent away by Scossi. “It is not
proper for you to stay here, my dear.” She made no reply, but under
Carolinona’s very eyes wished to imprint a kiss upon the brow of the
wounded man, who lay unconscious, flushed with fever.
“Ah,” she then said weeping to Scossi, “if you had only left us there
in the country! Poor Biagio! My heart told me this would happen. But at
least take away this unfortunate woman from his side; if he opens his
eyes he will die of despair at seeing her beside him.” Then she went
away.
While Nannetta was saying this, Carolinona had left the head of his
bed, understanding herself that the sight of her in these first moments
would not be acceptable to the wounded man. She had desired so ardently
that he might return to the pension, but she had not said even a word
to that effect, nor taken a single step to urge him to return. It would
be most unjust to hold her responsible for the misfortune that had
happened; and he should be the first to admit it, he who had forced
her, actually forced her, to commit this folly. So he ought not to feel
horror at sight of her there by his bed, nor cherish any rancor. But
Carolinona at heart felt the positive necessity, almost instinct, to
ascribe to others the fault of our own misfortunes; so she drew back
into the shadow to watch, to give him the most passionate care, without
any flattering hope of recompense. She merely wished, longed, and
prayed that he might recover; she wished nothing for herself, not even
gratitude, not even that he should know that she had secretly nursed
him.
Dario Scossi, Cariolin, and Cedebonis, after the first few days, seeing
that the wound began to improve, began to insist that she should take
some hours of rest. But they insisted in vain. “It will do me no harm;
I am accustomed to it,” Carolinona would reply.
One day Dario Scossi looked at her, and she no longer appeared so ugly
to him. Grief and love, both despairing, seemed to have transfigured
her. Those eyes, for instance, so intense with passion; she did not
know it, but they were actually beautiful at that moment. Seeing
herself gazed at kindly, Carolinona smiled faintly at him, while her
eyes filled with tears. And to Dario Scossi that smile seemed sublime.
The vigils continued heroically for about a month, during which time
Carolinona, like mother and sweetheart in one, watched anxiously at
the sick man’s bedside while he slept, ready to retire into shadow as
soon as he awoke. She actually lost flesh, but, illuminated from within
by the joy of knowing him safe at last, she became beautiful--really
beautiful? No, but--in the opinion of all--more than possible as a
wife. “And then,” they added, “if she has won out, that is saying very
little. Has she not actually restored him to the world? Biagio is her
own from now on.”
But she could not believe in her own happiness until one day Biagio,
still in bed, but already convalescent, called her to him, and said in
a voice trembling with tenderness, gazing into her eyes, and pressing
her hand: “My good Carolina!”