IN THE CAVALCANTIS' HOUSE
Prostrate on the dark old carved wood kneeling-desk, her elbows
resting on velvet cushions, head slightly bent, her face hidden in
her hands, Donna Bianca Maria Cavalcanti seemed to meditate after
praying. As long as twilight lighted up the little private chapel
the girl went on reading a chapter of the 'Imitation of Christ,'
attentively, in her usual thoughtful attitude. But the shadows had
grown deeper round her, first faintly purple, then gray, enfolding
the little altar and a figure of Our Lady of Sorrows, with seven
silver swords radiating from her heart, hiding a three-quarter
figure of Jesus Christ bound to the column, the Ecce Homo, crowned
with thorns, and bleeding in the face, hands, and side, blotting out
Bianca Maria's slender, neat figure. Then she quietly closed the
torn volume, put it on the cushion, and hid her face in her hands.
Only the faint light before Our Lady of Sorrows shone on the white,
clasped hands and the knot of dark brown hair on her neck. She kept
so motionless for some time that the white figure in the shadow of
the little chapel looked like one of those praying statues that
medieval piety placed on tombs to kneel in constant prayer. She
seemed not to feel the hours passing over her nor the faint, cold
breath the autumn evening brought into the chapel. Gazing through her
fingers at the Virgin's sad face, she seemed to go on praying and
meditating as if nothing could wrest her from it.
Still, as evening came on the little chapel got very gloomy. In the
daytime it was a poor, cold place, being only a narrow inside room,
badly lighted by a window looking into a narrow court of the Rossi,
formerly the Cavalcanti Palace. Once a wretched carpet covered the
floor, but it was so old and dusty that Bianca Maria had it taken
away. The floor was bare now, of shiny, icy bricks. The little altar
was painted dull blue, an ecclesiastical shade, covered by a rather
fine bit of linen, though yellow with age, as was also the lace
round it. Everything was old and shabby--the candle-sticks, the
printed prayers in metal cases, the red-leather-covered missal, the
poor silver sprays of leaves placed as sacred ornaments, and the
little gilt wooden door, behind which was the Pyx. By day Our Lady
of Sorrows, in black silk, embroidered in gold, with a batiste nun's
head-dress, and the seven swords in her heart, looked wretched and
poor, carrying a lace and batiste handkerchief in her pink stucco
hands. The great Ecce Homo, too, life size, of wood and stucco,
looked as poor as its surroundings. In spite of the carved wood
chairs, with the Cavalcanti crest on the velvet cushions, the chapel
had a look of frozen wretchedness, showing by daylight faded colours,
tarnished metals, stains in the velvet. Even the two lamps that
burned night and day before the Virgin and the Saviour were only two
yellow sputtering tongues of flame.
But at night--and that night, curiously enough, only one lamp was
burning, that before the Virgin--the wretchedness disappeared; only
great fluttering shadows filled the chapel. One could not see the
colour of the wood and metal; only the white altar-cloth was visible.
There were no sparks of brightness, only in the trembling light
Mary's sad face seemed agonized; and as the flame, shaken by an
invisible breath of wind, bent to the right or left, Jesus' hands and
side seemed really to bleed.
Bianca Maria was deep in thought, and, accustomed to the chapel, she
felt neither the cold nor the gloom. Suddenly she trembled, thinking
she heard a great noise in the room. It was then she noticed the lamp
before Christ was out. She shivered with cold and fear. The Virgin
seemed to weep over her bleeding Son's agony. Bianca Maria went
quickly out of the chapel, taking her book with her, crossing herself
hurriedly as if followed by some evil spirit.
In the antechamber an old servant in the Cavalcanti livery--dull
blue, piped with white--sat reading an old newspaper by the light of
one of those old brass lamps with three spouts one still sees in the
provinces and in very aristocratic houses. He rose as he heard Bianca
Maria's light step, looking her in the eyes.
'Giovanni,' she said, in her pure harmonious voice, 'in the chapel
the lamp before the Ecce Homo has gone out.'
The old servant looked at her, and hesitated a little before
answering.
'I did not light it,' he then muttered, casting down his eyes, and
crushing up the paper in his lean hands.
'Perhaps you had no oil?' she asked, with a little tremor in her
voice, turning her anxious face towards him.
'No, my lady, no,' the servant eagerly answered at once. 'There is
lots of oil in the pantry. It was by the Marquis's orders I did not
light the lamp.'
'Did he give you such an order?' she asked, amazed, arching her
eyebrows.
'Yes, my lady.'
'For what reason?'
But she regretted the question at once. It seemed to fail in the
profound respect she owed her father. Still, the word had rushed out.
She would have liked to go away and not hear the answer, whatever it
was; but she feared to make matters worse, and listened with open
eyes, ready to restrain her astonishment and fear.
'The Marquis is in a rage with Jesus Christ,' the servant said, in
that humble but familiar tone in which the common folk in Naples
often speak of the Deity. 'Last Saturday he asked a great favour
of that miracle-working Ecce Homo, but he did not get it. Then the
Marquis gave orders the lamp was not to be lighted again.'
'Did the Marquis tell you that?'
'Yes, my lady; but if you like, I will go and light it.'
'Obey the Marquis,' she murmured coldly, as she went on towards the
drawing-room.
As she wandered about alone in the spacious room, ill-lighted by a
petroleum-lamp, she searched for her work-basket and could not find
it, though she passed it twenty times without seeing it. She still
bitterly repented having asked the servant that question, since
throughout the ever-increasing family decay what most embittered her
was to be obliged to judge her father before servants or strangers.
It was in vain she shut her eyes so as not to see, that she spent her
days in her room, the chapel, and the Sacramentiste convent where her
aunt was; in vain she kept silence, trying not to hear what others
said: Margherita, who was the maid, and Giovanni's wife's remarks,
her aunt the nun's uneasy questions, and the hints of some old
relations who came to see her now and then; they spoke so pityingly,
it brought tears to her eyes. She had to lower her eyes, for she
could not help judging her father inwardly as they shook their
heads, pitying her. What shook her most throughout the financial
difficulties she vainly tried to hide in that decent poverty that
could not be kept secret much longer were her father's unexpected,
vexatious, often wild, eccentricities.
Now, quieted down a little, seated by a square baize card-table,
where the single lamp was placed, she worked at her fine pillow-lace,
moving the bobbins and thread quickly over the pinned-out pattern.
Perhaps she would have liked better to call in Margherita to work
with her at mending the house linen, which the old woman blinded
herself at in her little room. But Don Carlo Cavalcanti, Marquis
di Formosa, was very proud; he never would have allowed a servant
in the drawing-room, nor permitted his daughter to stoop to such
humble work. Bianca Maria would have liked to spend the evening in
her own room reading or working, but her father liked to find her
in the drawing-room when he came in every evening. He called it the
_salone_ pompously, not noticing its bareness; for the four narrow
sofas of discoloured green brocade, the twelve slight hard chairs
put along the wall, the couple of painted gray marble brackets, and
two card-tables, with small bits of carpet before each sofa and
chair, being lost in the immensity, increased the deserted look. The
petroleum-lamp, too, just lit up the table Bianca Maria was sitting
at, and her hands, whiter than the thread, as they moved over the
dark pillow-lace. She stopped sometimes, as if an engrossing thought
occupied her; the hands fell down as if tired; the young, thoughtful
face gave a quiver.
'Good-evening,' said a strong voice at her elbow.
She got up at once, put down the pillow-lace, went up to her father,
and bent down to kiss his hand. The Marquis di Formosa accepted the
homage; then he lightly touched his daughter's forehead with his
hand, half tenderly, half as a blessing. She stood a minute waiting
for him to sit before she did; but seeing he had begun to walk up and
down through the room, as he had a habit of doing, she looked at him
for permission. He gave it with a nod, and went on with his walk. On
sitting down, she took up her work, waiting to be addressed before
speaking.
The Marquis di Formosa's still springy, firm step filled the empty
room with echoes. He was a fine-looking man, in spite of his sixty
years and his snow-white hair. Tall, graceful, dried up rather
than thin, even at that advanced age there was much nobleness and
strength in his head and his whole person, but sudden flushes over
his face gave him a violent look. The gray eyes, strong nose, the
thick white moustache and ample forehead inspired respect. It was
said that when the Marquis di Formosa was young he had made more
than one woman of Ferdinand II.'s Court to sin. He was said to have
been a successful rival to the King himself with a Sicilian dame,
and that in the bloodless strife of gallantry he had got the better
of the greatest gallant in the Bourbon Ministry, the Don Juan of
his day, the celebrated Minister of Police, Marquis del Carretto.
His imperiousness certainly, which had increased with age, gave the
Marquis a hard look, and rather a disagreeable expression sometimes.
But his family's antiquity, that boasted descent from the great Guido
Cavalcanti, his high position and natural haughtiness authorized some
imperiousness. Now the Marquis was growing old: his sparkling glance
was often dulled, his tall majestic figure stooped in spite of his
leanness. Still, he imposed great respect. His daughter Bianca Maria
gave a respectful shiver when she saw him coming, and all her own and
other people's unfavourable judgments on him went out of her mind.
'Were you at the convent to-day?' asked the Marquis on passing near
his daughter.
'Yes, father.'
'Is Maria degli Angioli well?'
'She is quite well. She would like to see you.'
'I have no time now; I have important business--most important,' he
said, with a wave of his hand.
She kept silence, working diligently to keep herself from asking
questions.
'Did Maria degli Angioli complain much of me?' he asked, without
stopping his excited walk.
'No,' she said timidly; 'she would like to see you, as I said.'
'To see me--see me? To recount her woes, and hear all about mine? A
fine way of filling up the time. Well, if she liked, if she chose,
our woes would soon be ended.'
Bianca Maria's trembling hand entangled the thread round the bobbins
and pins of the pattern.
'These holy women,' the Marquis di Formosa went on slowly, as if he
were speaking in a dream--'these holy women, who are always praying,
have pure hearts; they are in God's favour and the saints'; they
enjoy special protection; they see things we poor sinners cannot.
Sister Maria degli Angioli might save us if she liked, but she won't.
She is too saintly, she does not care for earthly things. Now, our
sufferings don't signify to her; she knows nothing about them. She
never will tell me anything; never--never.'
Bianca Maria looked up, let the work fall from her hands, and gazed
at her father, her eyes full of wondering pain.
'You have never asked her for anything, have you, Bianca?' he said,
stopping beside his daughter.
'For what?' she asked, wondering.
'Maria degli Angioli loves you. She knows you are unhappy; she would
have told you everything, to help you. Why did you not ask her?' he
went on in an excited voice, a storm of rage rising in it.
'What should I ask?' she repeated, still more frightened.
'You pretend not to understand!' he shouted, in a fury already.
'These women are all alike, a flock of sheep, silly and egotistical.
What do you speak about by the hour together in the convent parlour?
Whose death do you weep over? Think of the living! Don't you see the
Cavalcanti family is going down to misery, dishonour, and death?'
'May God avert it!' she whispered, crossing herself devoutly.
'Women are selfish fools!' he shouted, enraged at her softness, at
finding no resistance; 'and I who think of nothing else from morning
till night, who kneel before the holy images morning and evening, for
the preservation of the Cavalcanti! And you who, by asking your aunt
the secrets of her dreams, could save me and the name by a word--you
pretend not to understand! Ungrateful and treacherous, like all
women!'
She put down her head and bit her lips, so as not to burst into sobs.
Then, in a trembling voice, she replied:
'I'll ask her at some other time.'
'Ask her to-morrow,' her father retorted imperiously.
'I will do it to-morrow, then.'
Quickly his rage fell, suddenly calmed. He came up to her and touched
her bent forehead, with his usual caress and blessing. Then, as if
she could not help it, feeling her heart bursting, she began to cry
silently.
'Don't cry, Bianca Maria,' he said quietly. 'I have great hopes. We
have been so long unhappy, Providence must be getting ready a great
joy for us. It is not given to us to know the time, naturally, but
it can't be far off. If it is not one week, it will be another. What
are hours, days, months, in comparison to the great fortune getting
ready for us in secret? We will be so rich, all this long past of
privation and obscurity will seem a short dream of agony, an hour of
darkness faded in the light of the sun. Who knows what instrument
Providence will use?--perhaps Maria degli Angioli, who is a good
soul. You will ask her to-morrow, won't you? Perhaps some other good
spirit among my friends who _see_ ... perhaps myself, unworthy sinner
as I am--but I feel Providence will save us. But by what means? If
I could only know!' He had started walking up and down again, still
speaking to himself, as if he was accustomed to think aloud. Only now
and then, in the midst of his excitement, he noticed his daughter,
and took up his obstinate harping on one idea with her again: 'Where
else, Bianca, can rescue come from? Work? I am old; you are a girl.
The Cavalcantis have never known how to work, either in youth or old
age. Business? We are people whose only business was to spend our own
money generously. Only a large fortune, gained in a single day....
You will see, we'll get it. I am sure of it; a thousand dreams and
revelations have told me so. You will see. You will have horses and
carriages again, Bianca Maria: a victoria for the promenade on the
Chiai shore, where you will take your place again; an elegant shut
carriage to go to San Carlo in the evening. You'll see. I want to buy
you a pearl necklace--eight strings joined by a single sapphire--and
a diamond coronet, as all the women of the Cavalcanti family have
had, till your mother.' He stopped as he mentioned her, as if a
sudden emotion seized him; but gazing on his dream of luxury and
splendour quickly distracted him. 'Open house every day. We will
think of the poor and starving--so many want help; we will pour out
alms--so many suffer. I have made a vow, too, to give dowries to
honest poor girls. I have made so many other vows so as to get this
favour.'
He stopped speaking, as if gazing through the room's darkness on
fortune's splendid mirage that excited fancy brought before his eyes.
His daughter got calm and thoughtful again as she listened to him.
Her father's voice in the usual rhapsodies of his overheated soul
sounded in her heart with anguished echoes, like a slow torment.
It is true she did not believe in the visions, but her father's
impetuous, angry, tender phrases frightened her every evening. She
could not get accustomed to these bursts of passion that made her
peace-loving soul start and shiver.
'Signor Marzano,' Giovanni announced.
A little bent old man came in with a rough, pepper-and-salt
moustache, his eyes piercing and at the same time soft. He was very
plainly dressed. On passing near Bianca Maria he greeted her gently,
and silently asked permission to keep his hat on. He held his Indian
cane, too. Falling into step with the Marquis, the two walked up and
down together, speaking in a very low voice. When they passed near
the light, one saw the advocate's eyes sparkling with satisfaction,
and his rather military moustache moving as if he was making mental
calculations. Sometimes Bianca Maria, who busied herself more and
more in her work so as not to hear, caught involuntarily some
cabalistic jargon of her father's or Marzano's.
'The _cadenza_ of seven must win.'
'We might also get the two of _ritorno_.'
'Playing for _situazione_ is too risky.'
'A _bigliettone_ is needed.'
They went on speaking, quite absorbed, their eyes flashing, lost in
these fancies that falsely take the precision and fascination of
mathematics, when Giovanni again came in, to announce, 'Dr. Trifari.'
A man about thirty came in, strong-limbed and stout, with a big head,
too short a neck, a red curly beard that made his face even redder
than it was, swollen lips, and blue, staring, suspicious eyes that
did not inspire confidence. He was roughly dressed: a tight collar
rasped his neck, a big sham diamond pin shone in his black silk tie,
and he still had a provincial air, in spite of his University degree.
He hardly greeted Bianca Maria, put his hat on a side-table, and went
to the Marquis di Formosa's other side. All three marched up and down
more quietly. Sometimes Dr. Trifari said a word, or gesticulated
violently, speaking in a whisper all the same, his squinting glance
questioning his audience and the shades around as if he feared to be
betrayed.
The learned Marquis di Formosa kept up his vivacious look like a
headstrong old man; Marzano persisted in laughing good-naturedly with
his cunning, gentle eyes; whilst Dr. Trifari went about cautiously,
as if he always feared being cheated. When the two old men raised
their voices a little, he quickly signed to them repressively,
pointing at the doors and windows; he went so far as to point to
Bianca Maria. The Marquis waved his hand tolerantly, as if to say she
was an innocent creature, when again Giovanni came in, to announce,
'Professor Colaneri.'
At once on seeing him, one guessed he was an unfrocked priest. A
thick black beard had grown on his shaven cheeks; but the hair cut
short on the forehead, and growing thinly over the tonsure, kept the
ecclesiastical cut. The shape of his hand, where the crooked thumb
seemed joined to the first finger; the way he settled his spectacles
on his nose; his trick of putting two fingers in his collar to widen
it, as if it was the tight priest's collar; his way of making his
glance fall from above--his features and movements altogether were so
clerical, one quickly understood his character.
Formosa received him rather coldly, as usual; the apostate gave
his religious mind a repulsive shudder. Colaneri, too, spoke very
cautiously; four could not walk about without speaking aloud, so they
stood in a dark window recess. It was there Ninetto Costa came to
join them, a dark, handsome fellow, showing the whitest of teeth in
a continuous smile; he was one of the luckiest stockbrokers on the
Naples Exchange.
Last of all, Giovanni announced one man in a whisper, negligently,
'Don Crescenzio,' a type between a clerk and an agent, who slipped
into the room rather timidly; still, he was treated as an equal. The
discussion between the six men grew warm in the window recess, but
they kept their voices low.
Bianca Maria went on working mechanically. She felt dreadfully
embarrassed; she dared not go away without asking her father's
permission, and she felt she was out of place in the room. This
mysterious talk, in an incomprehensible, mad jargon, all so excited
and eager, rolling their eyes about so sternly; a growing madness in
their glances; their faces pale and then flushed from making such
violent gestures, disturbed her at first, and ended by frightening
her. Her father especially seemed lost in the midst of all these
madmen, some of them coldly, others wildly, interested, and all
extremely obstinate. She looked at him sometimes in despair, as if
she saw him drowning, and could not take a step or give a cry to
help him. Just then the six men came slowly filing out of the window
recess, and sat down round another card-table, where there was no
light. They drew in their chairs to get closer together, put their
elbows on the table, leaning their heads on their hands, and all
began talking at once in the half-light, whispering in each other's
faces, breathing out the words, looking each other straight in the
eyes, as if they were using magic and charms.
Bianca Maria could stand it no longer. Making as little noise as
possible, she wrapped up her lace pillow in a strip of black linen,
got up without moving her chair, so as not to make a sound, and went
out of the big room quickly, as if she feared to be called back,
with a frightened feeling as if someone were following her. She was
slightly reassured only as she got into her own room. It was plain
and clean, rather cold-looking, a good, pious girl's room, full of
holy images, rosaries, and Easter candles. Margherita, the servant,
came to join her, having heard her step. With humble affection she
asked if she was going to bed.
'No, no; I am not sleepy. I will wait. I have not said good-night to
my father.'
'The Marquis will sit up till all hours,' the maid muttered. 'You
will get tired waiting here all alone.'
'I will read. I wish to wait.'
The old servant obediently disappeared.
Bianca Maria took from a little shelf a religious novel of Pauline
Craven's, 'Le Mot de l'Énigme,' a pious, consolatory book. But
her mind would not be soothed that evening by the French author's
gentle words. Sometimes the girl listened intently to find out if
her father's friends were going away or if others were coming. There
was nothing--not a sound. The great weekly mysterious conspiracy was
going on, breathed out from face to face as if it was a frightful
piece of witchcraft. This impression grew so on Bianca Maria's mind,
that now even the silence frightened her. She tried again two or
three times to read the charming book, but her eyes rested on the
printed lines without seeing them. The sense of the words she forced
herself to read escaped her. Her whole mind was taken up listening
to the noises in the drawing-room. Silence still, as if not a living
soul was there. She shut the book and called the servant, not feeling
able to bear that solitude full of ghosts.
Margherita hastened in, and silently awaited her young mistress's
orders.
'Let us say the Rosary,' she whispered.
Sometimes, when the hours seemed longest to the lonely scion of
the Cavalcanti, when sleeplessness kept her eyes open, when her
fancies got too lugubrious, she loved to pray aloud with her maid to
cheat time, hours of watching, nervousness. She dreaded speaking to
servants--her natural pride made her avoid it; but praying together
seemed to her only a simple act of Christian humility.
'Let us say the Rosary,' she repeated, seating herself by her white
bed.
Margherita sat near the door, at a respectful distance. Bianca Maria
said the first prayers, the Mystery, and half of the _Pater Noster_;
Margherita said the other part. The same with the _Ave Marias_: the
first part Bianca Maria said; Margherita took it up and finished
it. They prayed in a low tone, but one could easily distinguish the
voices, always taking up their part of the prayer in time. At every
ten _Ave Marias_, or Stations of the Rosary, they piously crossed
themselves, and bent their heads low in reverence to the Holy Ghost
at every _Gloria Patri_.
Thus, between mystical absorption in prayer, the natural emotion
these familiar, but poetical supplications aroused, and the sound
of her own voice, the girl forgot for a little the great drama
developing round her father. The whole Rosary was said thus, slowly,
with the piety of real believers. Before beginning the Litany to the
Virgin she knelt at her chair, with her elbows on the seat, and the
maid knelt in her corner. The girl invoked the Virgin in Latin, with
all the tender names her devotees use, and the servant answered 'Ora
pro nobis.' But from the beginning of the Litany a rising sound of
voices reached from the drawing-room. This noise disturbed Bianca
Maria's prayers. She tried not to listen to it by raising her voice
more; but it was impossible now to abstract herself from that clash
of voices getting excited and angry.
'What can it be?' she said, stopping in her intercessions.
'It is nothing,' said Margherita. 'They are speaking about lottery
numbers.'
'They seem to me to be quarrelling,' Bianca Maria timidly replied.
'They will make friends again on Saturday evening,' Margherita
muttered, with her commonplace philosophy.
'How so?' the girl asked, letting herself be drawn into the
discussion.
'Because none of them will win anything.'
'Let us pray,' said Bianca, raising her eyes to the ceiling, as if
gazing on the starry firmament.
It was impossible now to finish the Litany. The discussion in the
drawing-room had got so warm, they heard it all, the voices coming
near and going off, as if the Cabalists had risen from the table and
were walking up and down again, with the need excited people have of
going backwards and forwards and round about.
'Shall I shut the door?' asked Margherita.
'Shut it; we are praying,' Bianca Maria said resignedly.
The voices did not come in so distinctly. They could follow the
Litany to the end without interruption. But the girl's mind was no
longer in the words she was saying. She was quite distracted, and
hurried through the finishing _Salve Regina_ as if time pressed.
'The Madonna bless your ladyship!' said Margherita, getting up after
crossing herself.
'Thank you,' the young girl answered simply, sitting down again
beside her bed, where she spent so many hours of the day thinking and
reading.
Margherita had left the door open as she went away. Now the voices
burst out angrily. The enraged Cabalists argued furiously with each
other, each one boasting loudly of his own way of getting lottery
numbers, his own researches, his own visions, each one trying to
take the word from the other, interrupting, screaming louder, being
interrupted in turn.
'You don't believe in Cifariello the cobbler's talent?' Marzano the
lawyer shouted with the white fury of very gentle, good-natured
people. 'Perhaps because he is a cobbler, and perhaps because he
writes out his problems with charcoal on a dirty bit of white paper!
Here it is, here it is! Twenty-seven has come out second instead of
fourth, but it came out! Here is eighty-four, that turned round
and became forty-eight, but it did come out! Here is the _ambo_
made up of fourteen and seventy-nine I was so unlucky as to give up
playing; it came out three weeks after I gave it up. These are facts,
gentlemen--facts, not words!'
'They are the sixty francs a month you give him to leave off cobbling
and work out numbers for you!' Dr. Trifari interrupted sharply.
'Cifariello is ignorant, but sincere; he gave me fourteen and
seventy-nine, and I did not go on with it.'
'Father Illuminato gave me fourteen and seventy-nine, too,' Dr.
Trifari retorted, 'but it was the right week.'
'And you won without letting your friends know?' the Marquis di
Formosa asked excitedly.
'I won nothing. I divided it into two different tickets. I did not
understand what a fortune Father Illuminato was giving me. He is the
only one that knows numbers. He holds our fortunes, our future, in
his hands. It is a queer thing. When I felt his pulse to see if he
had fever, I went trembling all over.'
'Father Illuminato is an egotist!' Professor Colaneri hissed out in a
sarcastic, biting voice.
'You say that because he turned you out of his house one day. You
tried to get the numbers out of him by force. He won't give them
to priests who have thrown off the habit. Father Illuminato is a
believer.'
'I see the numbers myself!' Colaneri called out shrilly. 'It is
enough for me to take no supper the night before, when I go to bed,
and to meditate an hour or two before sleeping: then I see them, you
know.'
'But they don't come out right!' shouted the Marquis di Formosa.
'They don't come out right because my mind is clouded by human
interests; because I can't free myself from a longing to win; because
one must have a pure soul, lay aside disturbing passion, raise one's
self into the region of faith, to see clearly. I see them, but often,
almost always, a malignant spirit darkens my sight.'
'Look here,' said Ninetto Costa, the smart, rich stock-broker,
loudly. 'I have done more. I knew that a young woman, a milliner that
lives in Baglivo Uries Lane, had the name of giving good numbers. She
can't play them, as you know; they can't do so without losing the
power. But she gives them. I made up to her, pretended to fall madly
in love with her, gave her presents. I see her morning and evening. I
have even got to promising her marriage.'
'Has she given you any?' the Marquis di Formosa asked anxiously.
'Nothing yet. She changes the subject, when I mention it, timidly;
but she will give them--she will.'
How Bianca Maria wished that the Rosary she had recited so
absent-mindedly was still going on, so as not to hear this mad talk,
that she caught every word of! It made her brain reel, as if her soul
was drawn into a whirlpool. How she would have liked not to hear the
ravings of their disturbed brains so set on one idea! Now the Marquis
di Formosa was speaking resoundingly.
'The cobbler's simple science, Father Illuminato's saintliness, our
friend Colaneri's dazzling visions, are all very well; but what is
the result? What comes of it? We who play our collar-bones every
week, drawing money from stones, all of us, winning in a hundred
years or so a wretched little _ambo_, or, worse still, one single
number. Stronger hands are needed! a higher strength is needed! We
need miracles, gentlemen. We must induce my sister, the nun, to
give lottery numbers. My daughter must get her to do it. We need my
daughter herself, an angel of virtue, kindness, and purity, to pray
to the Supreme Being for numbers!'
A deep silence followed these last words. The entrance-door bell
rang. Bianca Maria, shaking all over, dragged herself to her
door-curtain and saw a wretchedly-dressed man pass, mean-looking,
with pale, red-streaked cheeks, the beard like a hospital
convalescent's. It was a painful, alarming vision. In spite of the
extraordinary man going into the room, the silence was unbroken, as
if the unknown had brought in a mysterious tranquillity.
Bianca Maria strained her ear anxiously, leaning on the door-post.
Perhaps the Cabalists had gone back to their little table, taking the
new arrival with them. The silence lasted a long time. Motionless,
almost rigid, she clutched at the doorposts, not to fall; what she
had heard was so sad and cruel it broke her heart. She was seized
with humiliation and anguish, as if she could feel nothing but this
sorrow. She suffered every way in her natural pride and outraged
maidenly reserve, and from her father throwing her name about in a
mad dispute. She felt ashamed for him and for herself, as if he had
boxed her ears in public. Her anguish nearly suffocated her; it rose
to her brain, and seemed to burn her in its hot embrace. How long
she stood, how long the silence went on in the drawing-room, she
could not tell; only, through her distress, she heard her father's
friends pass behind her curtain and go out cautiously, like so many
conspirators. Then, mechanically, she left her room to look for him.
But the drawing-room was dark, so was the study, where the Marquis di
Formosa sometimes consulted an old book of necromancy. Bianca Maria
searched anxiously for her father. In the end a light guided her. The
Marquis di Formosa had gone into the little chapel, filled up the
lamp before the Virgin, and lighted the lamp before the Ecce Homo,
put out by his orders, also the two wax candles in the candelabra,
and set them before Jesus Christ. Not satisfied with that, he had
carried the big lamp into the little chapel. In that illumination
he had thrown himself down despairingly before Christ, trembling,
shaking, sobbing. Praying aloud, he said to the Redeemer:
'O Lamb of God, forgive me! I am ungrateful and ignorant, a miserable
sinner. Forgive me, forgive! Do not make me suffer for my sins.
Do me this grace for the sake of my languishing, dying daughter.
I am unworthy, but bless me for her sake. O sorrowful Virgin, who
hast suffered so much, understand and help me! Send a vision to
Sister Maria degli Angioli. O blessed spirit, Beatrice Cavalcanti,
my saintly wife, if I caused you sorrow, forgive me! Forgive me if
I shortened your life! Do it for your daughter's sake: save your
family. Appear to your daughter--she is innocent and good; tell her
the words to save us, blessed spirit! blessed spirit!'
The girl, who beard it all, was so frightened she fled with her
eyes shut, holding her head. When she got to her room, she thought
she heard a deep, sad sigh behind her, and felt a light hand on her
shoulder. Mad with terror, she could not cry out; she fell her whole
length on the ground, and lay as if she were dead.