BIANCA MARIA'S VISION
Both the gamblers went upstairs very quietly, like evil-doers or
timid young fellows who have disobeyed their father's orders; each
carried a latchkey, and shut the door without any noise. On going
into his apartments and his own room, Cesare Fragalà, taking a
fit of penitence, shook like a child; only his sleeping wife's
placid breathing calmed him a little. He was afraid of awakening
her, in case she questioned him, and guessed the truth with that
extraordinary alarming intuition women have. He undressed by the
slender light of a lamp before St. Agnes, and got into bed with the
greatest caution, trembling--yes, trembling--lest he should wake his
wife; and in his humble, contrite, desolate heart he swore not to
stake another sou. Only this oath and his healthy constitution freed
him from sleeplessness, which sits at the bedhead of all gamblers.
Sleeplessness had visited Formosa's pillows. He had vainly tried to
read Rutilio Benincasa's mathematical table, to calm his wandering
thoughts; the figures danced in a ring before his eyes. He vainly
tried to say the rosary, to fix his mind on prayer, to humiliate his
heart before the Eternal Will; prayer came coldly and haltingly from
his lips. A strong fever of fancy held him, and put his nerves on
the rack; it made him start up in his bed, quivering like a violin
string: a madness took hold of him, and, from the black darkness and
solitude, made itself all-powerful over his thoughts and feelings. He
could not stay in bed; in spite of the cold, he got up and dressed,
and began to walk about in his freezing room. He did not feel cold;
his hands and head were warm; the candle-flame seemed a great blaze
to him. All was silent in the house; he never allowed anyone to wait
up for him. The two poor old servants--Giovanni and Margherita--whom
he had despoiled of their money got on loan, to keep Bianca Maria
alive, were sleeping in the closet--tired and sorrowful, perhaps.
Bianca Maria was asleep in her cold room many hours ago certainly.
But the Marquis di Formosa, devoured by his gambling folly, hoping
and despairing of winning from one moment to another, implored God,
the Virgin, the saints, the souls of his dead, his guardian angel,
Fortune, all the powers of heaven and earth, to help him to win, to
get the victory; he forgot his fears as a man and a Christian so far
as to ask it from evil spirits, even. Formosa, burning with such
madness, could not bear that all in the house should sleep quietly,
placidly, while he was torn with anguish and hope. Ah no! he was not
afraid of solitude and night, little noises from old furniture, old
creaking ceilings, or noisy doors; he was afraid of nothing in that
icy house where his wife died of languor and sorrow, where her meek
shade still seemed to linger. Fear! He asked, he implored a voice,
a revelation, a vision; he would have been pleased, happy, and not
frightened, if he had seen something. But his soul was too stained
with sin, his heart was unclean from earthly desires; a white soul, a
virginal heart, was needed to get this heavenly grace, by which one
_saw_ what other human eyes were not allowed to see. Bianca Maria
was sleeping; she slept, cold creature! though so near to Grace,
and still refused to satisfy her father's wishes. He left his room,
crossed the passage in front of the drawing-room, and stopped at his
daughter's closed door. He listened--no sound. She was sleeping,
cold-hearted girl! She had no pity for her father's tortures, and
would not pray God and the Virgin for a vision. A dull rage mingled
with his Friday madness; he went up and down the passage more than
once, trying to go away from his daughter's room; but he could not
manage it: his curiosity was so strong to know from her the spirit's
revelation that she certainly must have had that night; it could not
have failed to come. Don Pasqualino, the medium, after a three days'
voluntary fast, after two nights' flagellation on his shoulders and
bare, thin breast, had heard from the spirit who helped him that
Bianca Maria would get the revelation. The spirit does not lie. Then
involuntarily, as if pushed by a force he must obey, he took hold of
the door-handle; it creaked, the door opened. But a sharp cry from
inside answered to the noise--a girl's cry, whose light, watchful
sleep had been disturbed. She rose up in bed, in her white nightgown,
her black hair loose on her shoulders, eyes wide open, and hands
clutching the coverlet.
'It is I, Bianca--it is I,' the Marquis di Formosa murmured, coming
forward.
'Who--who is it?' she asked, shaking with fear, not daring to move.
'I--it is I, Bianca,' he repeated, getting impatient.
She sighed deeply without saying anything, but her breathing was
still alarmed. The Marquis had got to his daughter's bed, guided by
the faint light of a lamp before a small image of the Virgin.
The girl fell back on the pillows and looked at the ceiling. The
Marquis sat down by her bed, and his nervous fingers played with the
white fringe of the coverlid.
'Why were you so frightened?' he asked, after a long silence.
'I don't know; it is stronger than I am.'
'When one is in the Lord's grace there is no need for fear,' he
remarked sententiously and severely. 'Have you some mortal sin on
your conscience?'
'No ... I don't think so, at least,' she said, hesitating.
They kept silence. The Marquis di Formosa looked into the shadows.
'Has the spirit come?' he asked afterwards, in a whispered,
mysterious tone.
'Oh, do not speak of that,' she said, sighing again, shutting her
eyes, and hiding her face in her hands.
'Has it come?' he insisted; a gambler's cruelty was raging in him now.
'For mercy's sake, if you love me, don't speak of that!' she said,
taking his hand and kissing it, so as to move him more.
'Tell me, has it come?' he again repeated implacably.
She, feeling she could not escape that persecution, looked
despairingly towards the Virgin, then hid her face in the pillows.
'Tell me, tell me, if it has come!' he cried out, bending over the
pillows, as if to breathe his magnetic curiosity into his daughter's
face.
'No, it has not,' she said, in a thread of a voice.
'You are lying.'
'I am not.'
'You are lying. The spirit has been here, I feel it.'
'Be good to me; say no more about this,' she said, trembling
dreadfully.
'How did you see it? Awake? dozing? sleeping? It was a white figure,
was it not, with lowered eyelids, but smiling?... What did it say to
you? A very weak voice, wasn't it? Something you alone could have
heard?'
'Father, you want to kill me,' she uttered desolately.
These are womanly fears,' said he disdainfully. 'Who ever died
through a communication from on high? The meeting of soul and spirit
is a spring of life. Bianca Maria, don't be ungrateful, don't be
cruel; tell me all.'
'You are trying to kill me,' she repeated, desperately and resignedly.
'You are a fool! Do you wish me, your father, to pray to you? Well, I
will; there is nothing else to be done. Children are ungrateful and
wicked; they give back cruelty for our love. I pray to you, Bianca, I
beg of you, as if you were my patron saint, to tell me all.'
'I will die of this, father,' she murmured, her voice choked in the
pillows that helped her to curb her crying and sobs.
'Listen, Bianca,' he went on coldly, keeping in his anger; 'you must
believe me. I am a man, I am sane, I am in my senses, I can reason.
Well, it is an article of faith with me, as clear as the light,
as the sun, that you have had to-night, or will have, a spirit's
apparition. It will come to bless our family; it will tell you words
of happiness. If it has come, so much the better; your duty as an
obedient, loving daughter of the House of Cavalcanti is to tell me
all, at once.'
'I know nothing,' she said dryly.
'Do you swear it?'
'I swear that I know nothing.'
'Then this vision will come in the succeeding hours of the night. I
am going into the chapel, to pray. I am a sinner, but sinners, too,
can ask for grace. I will pray that you may see and feel the spirit.'
'No, don't go away!' she cried out, getting up in her bed and
catching hold of his arm with a despairing clutch.
'Why should I not?'
'Don't go away, for the love of God! If you have any affection for
me, stay here.'
'I must go and pray, Bianca,' he exclaimed, carried away by
excitement, not understanding his daughter's convulsive state.
'No, no--stay; I can't be left alone here, or I'll die of fright.'
She spoke restlessly, quite pallid, her trembling hands still
clutching her father's arm. She dared not look round. With her head
down on her breast, she shut her eyes and bit her lips; while he, in
his mad obstinacy, looked fixedly at his daughter, thinking he saw
in her that spiritual disorder that must, by a fatality, go with the
great miracles that have to do with the soul.
'How do you feel?' he questioned, very deeply and intensely, as if he
wished to tear the truth from her soul.
'Stay here, stay here,' said she, her teeth chattering with terror.
'You see something?' he asked suggestively, with an intensity in his
voice and will that was bound to influence that fragile feminine
frame, broken as it was by the nervous shock.
'I am afraid to see--I am afraid!' she said, very low, leaning her
forehead on her father's arm.
'Don't be afraid, dear; don't fear,' he whispered tenderly,
paternally caressing her black hair.
'Be silent; keep silence,' said she, with a quick shiver. She
continued to lean on his shoulder, hiding her face, shrinking all
over. The Marquis put his arm round her waist, to keep up her
quivering, feeble body; she hid more, clinging to her father as to a
raft of safety. He sometimes felt her quiver all through her nerves.
'What is the matter?' he asked then.
'No, no!' she said, more by gesture than voice.
'Look, look--don't be frightened,' suggested the deluded man.
'Be silent!' she answered, shuddering. He held her up, waiting with
a madman's patience that would wait for hours, days, months, years,
provided the truth of his delusion were proved.
'Bianca darling,' the Marquis murmured, sometimes encouraging
her tenderly. She answered with a sigh, that seemed a lamenting,
suffering child's sob. Holding her against his breast, Formosa
felt the strong rigidity of that young sickly frame shaken by long
shivers. When she trembled all over, he felt the rebound. It seemed
to him the implored revelation was imminent. He again said to her,
obstinately, pitilessly, 'How do you feel?' She waved her hand, in an
alarmed way, as if she wished to chase away a frightful thought or a
dreadful vision. What did the agony of that young breast matter to
him, the fatal want of balance in the nerves? In that chilly virginal
room, a circle of light on the ceiling from the Virgin's lamp alone
breaking the shadow, with the quivering form in his arms, the soul
trembling before Divine mysteries, he felt it a solemn moment;
time and space were not. He, Formosa, was facing at last the great
mystery. From his innocent daughter's lips he would know his life's
secret, his future: the fatal ciphers that contained his fortune--the
spirit would tell Bianca Maria everything, and she would tell him.
'Bianca, Bianca, implore _him_ to come and tell you whether we are to
live or die. Pray to him, because _he_, the spirit, comes forth from
the Divine, to tell you the divine word; pray to him, if he is here
near you, or in you, if he is before your eyes or your fancy; pray to
him, Bianca, pray to him. Our life is at stake. Save us, Bianca, save
us!'...
He went on speaking, incoherently, invoking the spirit's presence,
addressing the wildest, saddest prayers to her and to him. The girl,
trembling, shivering, her teeth chattering with terror, clung on her
father's neck, like a suffering child, fastened like a vice. She
said no more, but it was evident the hour, the surroundings, and her
father's voice increased her nervousness. A stifled sob came from her
breast, and a very faint, constant lament, like a dying child's, from
her lips. He spoke to her all the time, but when he got more urgent,
almost wrathful in his sorrow, he felt her arms twitching with
despair. Then gradually a change came. To begin with, Bianca's hands
and forehead were, as usual, icy cold; she was so bloodless, she had
lost her vital heat. Indeed, in that spasm the deluded old man had
felt that her whole body was frozen. Suddenly, at intervals, when
her teeth stopped chattering and her arms relaxed through debility,
he felt a slight heat rising under the skin on her hands and up to
her forehead. It seemed a current of heat spreading all through her
young body, which filled her impoverished veins with warm blood, and
made her forehead and hands burn. He beard her breathing get more
distressed; sometimes her breast rose with a long sigh, as if she
needed air. Twice he tried to put her head down on the pillow, but
she gave a frightened shiver.
'Don't leave me alone, for the love of God!' she stammered, like a
baby.
'I won't leave you. Tell me what you see,' he repeated, indomitable
and implacable.
'It is dreadful, dreadful!' Bianca stammered, going on trembling,
trembling as if she had the body of an old woman of seventy.
'What is dreadful? Speak, Bianca, tell me everything; tell me what
you have seen.'
'Oh!' lamented she despondingly.
Now the teeth had given up chattering, her short breathing came from
her throat faintly, she burnt all over, and her quick respiration
scorched her father's neck where her head leant; besides this, her
temples and pulse beat rapidly, but her father, possessed altogether
by his madness, in the mysterious half-light of that chilly night,
close to the poor drowsy soul in the tortured body, lost all sense of
realities. His sick fancy keenly enjoyed the hour's drama, without
taking in how cruel it was. He was quivering with joy, indeed, as he
believed the great moment of the spirit's revelation had come; the
fortunes of the House of Cavalcanti were to be decided that moment.
His daughter's uneasiness, terror, spasms, broken words, were easily
explained; it was the Favour drawing near. So much time, so long had
gone by in unhappiness and wretchedness; now all was to be changed.
To-morrow he and his daughter would be rich--have millions! Oppressed
and uneasy, Bianca Maria had slid down from her father's breast on to
the pillows; her whistling breath was very audible, her eyes shone
curiously. Nailed to the spot by his unhealthy curiosity, the Marquis
stood by the bed, watching his daughter's every movement by the
lamp-light, struck down as she was on that bed of sorrow. Suddenly,
as if by an electric shock, her hands clutched the coverlet wildly; a
hoarse cry came from her throat.
'What is it?' the Marquis cried out, shaken also.
'It is the spirit--the spirit!' she stammered, her voice changed to a
deep cavernous tone.
'Where is it?' the father said in a whisper.
'In the doorway! Look at it; it is there!' she said firmly and
forcibly, staring at the door.
'I see nothing--nothing! I am a poor sinner!' Formosa cried out
despairingly.
'The spirit is there,' she whispered, as if she heard nothing.
'How is it clad? What is it doing? What does it say? Bianca, Bianca,
pray to it!'
'It is clad in white ... it does not move ... it says nothing ...'
she murmured in a dreamy way.
'Implore him--implore him to speak to you. You are free from sin,
Bianca.'
'It does not speak ... it will not speak!'
'Bianca, pray in God's name, by His strength and power.'
They kept silence. The Marquis di Formosa kept his whole attention on
the door where his daughter alone saw the spirit, his whole soul in
prayer. She lay still more restless; her burning hands clutched the
folds of the sheet between her fingers.
'What does it say?'
'It says nothing.'
'But why will it not speak? Why has it come if it will not speak?'
'It does not answer me,' she replied, still in the same voice that
seemed to come from a distance.
'But what is it doing?'
'It looks at me ... looks at me steadily ... the eyes are so sad, so
sad. It looks pityingly at me, just as if I were dead. Am I dead,
then?'
'Now it will go away without telling you anything!' Formosa shouted
out. 'Ask him what numbers come out to-morrow.'
She gave an agonized moan.
'I think it is weeping now, as if I were dead; it looks so to me.
Tears fall down its cheeks.'
'Tears, sixty-five,' Formosa said to himself, as if he feared someone
would hear him.
'It raises its hand to greet me....'
'Look how many fingers it lifts--look well; make no mistake.'
'Three fingers. It bows to me; it wants to go away....'
'Tell him to come back; pray him to--pray....'
'He signs "yes,"' Bianca Maria went on after a pause. 'It is going
away--it has gone; it has disappeared....'
'Let us praise God!' Formosa cried out, kneeling at the foot of the
bed. 'The fingers three, the hand five, tears sixty-five; we must
find out the number for the dead girl. Let us thank God!'
'Yes, yes,' the girl murmured in a queer tone; 'we must find out the
number for the dead girl--we must find out....'
'We will find out,' exclaimed Formosa, laughing like a madman.
He thought no more about his daughter, who was now in a state of
high fever with the violence of the _effimere_, that carries off
a life in twenty-four hours. She panted, drinking in the air with
her open mouth, like a dying bird. The blood beat so wildly in her
veins it seemed it would burst them; her whole slender form burned
like red-hot iron. But the Marquis di Formosa only felt a youthful
impatience; he had gone twice to the window to see if day was
breaking. No; he had still some hours to wait before he could play
the spirit's numbers. It occurred to him he had no more money. How
could he play? Not a franc. It was a cruel thing, this continual
thirst nothing could satisfy. But he would find the money, if he had
to sell the last of his furniture and pawn himself. He would get it,
by Gad! now he had got the revelation--now the ministering spirit had
deigned to enter his house. His fortune was in his hands; he would
put everything on the spirit's numbers.
'Oh, Ecce Homo! Ecce Homo of Cavalcanti House! it was you did us
this favour. A new chapel must be added for you, and four lamps of
massive silver, always kept lit, in remembrance of what you have done
for us.' The Ecce Homo would help him to get the money too. Good and
powerful Ecce Homo, the family protector, give money--money to gamble
with!
Overmastered by his fervent, passionate thoughts, the Marquis di
Formosa spoke aloud, gesticulating with his hands through his hair,
wandering about the room like a madman.
Bianca Maria went on raving in a whisper, because her breath was
failing, softly, vaguely speaking of Maria degli Angioli, or with
deep melancholy of a fresh, laughing, green country place she would
like to live in, down there far, far off. But the old man, carried
away by his thoughts, no longer listened to her, and as the cold dawn
of March burst forth, two deliriums were confused together in that
room--father's and daughter's tragically.
* * * * *
In the livid cold light of dawn the Marquis di Formosa wandered in a
shaky way, with wild-looking eyes and pallid face, through his flat,
searching his empty drawers and sparse furniture for something to
sell or pawn. He found nothing. He opened the drawers with trembling
hands again, and groped in them, shaking them hard, then he looked
around with madness in his gaze, thinking he would like to sell or
pawn the bare walls of the house that had once been his. Nothing,
nothing! Little by little, eaten up by the lottery, valuable jewels
had disappeared, heavy antique and modern silver plate, pictures by
great masters, precious books, artistic rarities in bronze, ivory,
carved wood--the house was stripped, only the furniture that it would
have been disgraceful to part with was left. Alas! nothing could be
found to turn into money so as to play the spirit's number. He wrung
his hands despairingly; he had left Bianca Maria in a feverish,
oppressed stupor, a few confused words still came from her lips,
and the servants were still sleeping. He even went into the chapel,
wildly; but the lamps burning there were brass. He had bought the
altar vases himself when he sold the real silver ones, and had got
imitation silver instead. He thought a moment of taking the silver
crown from the Virgin's head, and the seven swords in her heart that
represent the great agonized Mother's sorrows, but a mysterious dread
restrained him.
He went out without being able to say a prayer even, the night's
delusion and Saturday morning's feverish haste held him so strongly
that dawn. He thought who he could borrow money from, but could
not find anyone; he held his beating temples to keep his thoughts
together, so as to get what he wanted. All friends of his own
rank and his great relations kept away from him after his wife's
death; but only after he had laid them all under contribution for
his gambling. His present friends? They were all gamblers, all
making desperate attempts that morning to go on staking; they would
certainly not lend money--each one thought of himself, looked out for
himself. New friends? That passion prevented him from finding any,
except that morbid set of madmen, damned like himself. A great deal
of money was needed, as the spirit had deigned to reveal himself; a
fortune must be made that day or never. Suddenly a flash of light
struck him: a name came to his mind. He could give him the money;
he was a man of honour; he had a lot of money; he would not refuse
a Formosa a small loan. While he wrote to Dr. Antonio Amati at his
desk, on a leaf torn from a book full of ciphers, he thought he need
not feel ashamed to ask a loan from a stranger, for he would give it
back that very evening. After he had written, one thought made him
tremble: if Amati said 'No'? He was a mere acquaintance, a stranger;
money hardens all hearts.
'Take this letter to Dr. Amati, and bring the answer back,' he said
to Giovanni, who came in, hardly awake, on being rung for.
'He will be asleep....'
'Take it!' Formosa ordered. He bit his lips, certain now that Amati
would refuse; he felt a blush of shame come to his cheek. But he
must have money--he must, at whatever cost! He flung himself in the
easy-chair, looking at the ciphers on bits of paper scattered on the
desk without seeing them; he felt overcome by that irrepressible rage
of his ruling passion, at war with realities.
'When he awakes he will give the answer,' said Giovanni, coming in,
silently waiting his master's orders.
'Giovanni, give me the rest of the money you have,' said Formosa
sullenly.
'I haven't got any, sir,' the other answered, shaking all over.
'Don't tell lies; you have other fifty francs. Give me them at
once....'
'My lord, I took the loan of it from a money-lender. I must give it
back at so much a week; don't take it from me....'
'That does not matter to me,' Formosa said haughtily.
'Don't take it from me, my lord. If you knew what it was needed
for....'
'It does not matter to me' the Marquis said fiercely. 'Give me the
fifty francs....'
'They are for getting food for her ladyship....'
'That does not matter to me!' Formosa yelled.
'As that is so, I obey,' said the old servant despairingly, and he
took out the other fifty-franc note. The Marquis snatched at it like
a thief, and put it quickly in his pocket.
'Your wife has money, too; get it from her,' Formosa went on again
coldly.
'Where could my wife get it?'
'She has some. Make her give it to you, and bring it here. Spare me
a scene. If your wife denies it, you can leave the house at once,
both of you.'
'No, my lord--no; I am going at once,' said the servant humbly.
But a scene followed in there; there was long, agitated talk between
the husband and wife. The woman did not wish to let her money be
carried off; she cried, wept, and sobbed. Silence at last, and then a
moaning.
Giovanni came in again, with his old face distorted, and bent more,
as if struck by paralysis. As he put another fifty francs down on
the desk, silently, his eyes red with the rare, burning tears of old
age, the Marquis was so struck by his appearance that he suddenly
relented, and said good-naturedly:
'It is three hundred francs, between yesterday evening and to-day.
This evening you will get it all.'
'How am I to get to-day's dinner?'
'I will see about it--at _four o'clock_,' the Marquis said vaguely.
'Her ladyship is ill; she will want a little soup this evening,' the
servant muttered.
Then, searching his pockets, with a miserly grimace, the Marquis di
Formosa gave three francs to the man, following them with a greedy
look.
There was a knock. Formosa started. It was Dr. Amati's answer. It
did not matter now if he said 'No.' But as he got the envelope in
his hands, he knew by touch that the money he wanted was there,
and, red with delight, he put the envelope in his pocket without
opening it. He went out now, at eight in the morning, as if carried
by an irresistible breath of wind; he went without turning back to
look at his sick child, his bare house, his weeping servants, who
had given him everything, the neighbour whose visits he had not
paid for, and yet dared to ask a loan of money from--he went off,
taking three hundred and fifty francs with him, to put it all on the
spirit's numbers, while he had left his poor old servants fasting,
and had haggled over a little soup for Bianca Maria. No one in the
house saw him again till mid-day. His daughter lay in bed, in a
burning fever, breathing with difficulty, often asking for something
to drink--nothing else. Margherita sat down by the bed, saying the
Rosary over to herself to pass the time. She often put her hand
on the invalid's forehead, alarmed at its being so hot. The sick
girl said nothing; she was sleeping, breathing uneasily. Suddenly,
opening her eyes, she said distinctly to Margherita:
'Call the doctor to me.'
'He won't be at home now.'
'When he comes back, then.' And she shut her eyes again.
The doctor only came at half-past four. He stood at the door of the
little room, scenting the feverish air.
'You might have called me before,' he said to Margherita roughly.
'Oh, sir, if I could tell you----'
He told her to hold her tongue. The invalid was looking at him, her
lovely, gentle eyes wide open, her hand held out to him. The strong
man, with the massive head, the good-natured, ugly face, got a look
of great tenderness before the fragile creature Affection welled up
from his heart. He felt at once that the fever would soon be over: it
was falling already, with the suddenness of malaria; but the thorn of
that miserable existence, trembling between life and death, victim
of a disease he could not find out the meaning of, would stay in his
heart.
'Now I am going to order a medicine for you,' he said gently to the
sick girl, holding her hand in his.
'No, do not,' she said softly.
'Don't you want any?'
'Listen, listen!' she said, pulling him to her to let him hear
better--'take me away!' She trembled as she said this, and Antonio,
paling suddenly, struck by an indescribable emotion, could not even
answer. 'Take me away!' she added humbly, as if imploring him.
'Yes, dear--dear,' he stammered; 'wherever you like--at once.'
'To the country--far off,' the poor thing whispered, 'where one
sees no ghosts in fever, where there are no shadows nor frightful
spectres.'
'What do you say?' said he, surprised.
'Nothing; take me away to the country, to greenness and peace with
your mother ... before God.'
'Oh dear, dear!' He could say nothing else, this great man, in the
supreme emotion, the sweetness of the idyll.
'Far away take me,' she still whispered, looking at him with great,
good eyes.
Alone, very sweetly and modestly, they spoke of love without using
words.