TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores
(_italics_) and small capitals are represented in upper case as in SMALL
CAPS.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated
variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used
has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
The original cover art has been modified by the transcriber and is
granted to the public domain.
* * * * *
LEILA
LEILA
BY
ANTONIO FOGAZZARO
AUTHOR OF "THE SAINT"
TRANSLATED BY
MARY PRICHARD AGNETTI
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK
_Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton_
_Printed in 1911_
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
A MYSTIC PRELUDE 2
CHAPTER II
DISTAFFS AND THREADS 39
CHAPTER III
THE WOOF 94
CHAPTER IV
SHEARS 128
CHAPTER V
THE SHADOW OF SIGNOR DA CAMIN 192
CHAPTER VI
IN THE TOWER OF PRIDE 199
CHAPTER VII
FROM THE HEIGHTS TO THE DEPTHS 227
CHAPTER VIII
HOLY ALLIANCES 251
CHAPTER IX
THE VILLINO OF THORNS 272
CHAPTER X
THE GAME BEGINS 286
CHAPTER XI
AWAY FROM LOVE AND THE WORLD 301
CHAPTER XII
CONCERNING A SOUL 316
CHAPTER XIII
"AVEU" 336
CHAPTER XIV
A DROP OF THE PATERNAL BLOOD 351
CHAPTER XV
OH! POOR ME! 374
CHAPTER XVI
NIGHT AND FLAMES 396
CHAPTER XVII
THE WHITE LADY OF THE ROSES 427
CHAPTER I
A MYSTIC PRELUDE
I
"Signorina!" called Giovanni the footman, entering the dining-room
breathlessly, after looking for her in the garden, in the drawing-room,
and in her own chamber. It was nine o'clock, and his master and
Signorina Leila had finished dinner before eight. The master had
withdrawn to his study almost immediately; the Signorina had gone into
the garden. But now she was in the dining-room again by the window.
Her eyes were fixed on the grove of chestnuts to the east, over beyond
the ravine, where a brawling stream makes its way from a small lake
hidden behind the green shoulders of the lofty peak of Priaforà. But
she was straining her ear to catch a far-away sound that rose and
fell--the rumbling of a distant train speeding towards the Val d'Astico
above which the villa is situated. She turned suddenly at the servant's
call, crushing a letter in her hands.
"What is the matter?"
"The master is unwell."
Leila uttered an exclamation.
The fellow gazed stupidly at her. She started forward, then, pausing,
spoke again to the slow-witted footman.
"Where is he?"
"In the study, I think."
Leila ran towards the salon and met the maid Teresina coming towards
her with outstretched hands.
"It is nothing--nothing," Teresina said quietly, diverting Leila's
attention to a locket that had fallen open from her belt. The girl
chafed with impatience while the maid carefully closed it for her.
Nevertheless, the action calmed her.
"Giovanni, go and prepare the guests' room," said Teresina, addressing
the footman, who stood listening, half dazed, half curious.
Leila trembled. "Is there something Giovanni must not know?" she asked.
"No, Signorina, no!" said Teresina, speaking with the accent of her
native Trent.
But it struck Leila that the maid was deliberately delaying her
explanation.
"Why don't you speak?" she burst out.
Teresina cast a quick glance towards the study door. She was anxious
to spare the Signorina, who was delicate and nervous, and so easily
excited.
"If he should come out," she whispered, "and find us here talking, he
might suspect something. We had better go away."
Followed by Teresina, Leila hurried across the salon and entered the
dining-room. Anxious though she was to hear the maid's story, she
listened a moment to the whistle of the train, wondering whether it was
signalling from San Giorgio or from the station of Seghe. Then....
"Tell me!" she demanded.
Well, as usual, Teresina had carried the master's letters to him in
his study. From the threshold she had seen him bend his head first
backwards and then towards his left shoulder, close his eyes, open them
with a wild stare, and again close them, only to strain them wide once
more, so that the balls showed white. She had sprinkled some water upon
his face and had sent the footman in search of the Signorina, for,
to tell the truth, she had really felt somewhat startled at first.
Meanwhile the master had sighed deeply and had muttered something about
a sudden drowsiness. Then he had opened his letters and papers, and
seeing that she was hesitating whether to leave the room or to remain,
he had dismissed her. Outside she had listened, but had heard only the
rustle of papers. So....
A bell sounded twice.
"The master!" Teresina exclaimed, and hurried away.
Leila followed her a few steps, but stopped in the drawing-room,
watching the maid's retreating figure, watching the billiard-room door,
that closed softly behind her, listening, and waiting for Teresina to
come back.
Meanwhile the train was whistling beneath the heights of Santa Maria,
just before running into the terminus station of Arsiero. From the
station it was a walk of some ten minutes to "La Montanina," the villa,
so called because, with its gabled roofs and its back to the hill,
among groves and fields that stretch downwards to the deep Posina, it
is so like one of those peasant women who come wearily down from the
steeps of Priaforà, and pause to rest awhile upon the bundle of wood
they have gathered in the forests. In this villa lived Leila and Signor
Marcello Trento.
* * * * *
Teresina, as devoted to Signor Marcello as she had been for twenty
years to his wife, who had now been dead two years, knocked at the
study door, trembling lest her master might have been seized again
with illness. Encouraged by the sound of his "Come in!" she entered,
smiling, that he might not notice any signs of her recent fright.
The door opened on the left of the easy-chair in which Signor Marcello
was seated at a table littered with papers, and in the light of an
antique Florentine brass lamp, which had shone upon his father's grey
head, and now shed its glow upon his own, in which the grey and auburn
were mingled. His hair was wild and rough and of that coarse texture
perhaps characteristic of virile natures. As Teresina entered he turned
towards her a face showing a moustache and tuft upon the chin that
were lighter in tone than his hair, and, beneath a low and wrinkled
brow, eyes that were terrible in anger but most gentle in moments of
tenderness. Just now it was the face of the unrelenting inquisitor, and
the woman was conscious of a blush that flamed to the roots of her hair.
"How is it," he demanded, "that I am all wet?"
"I don't know," she answered.
"You don't know, indeed? Who poured water upon my hair? Don't you
understand me?"
Teresina felt that further denial would only make matters worse.
"You fell asleep," she began, "and I thought you had fainted, so I
sprinkled a little water over you. I beg your pardon!"
"How stupid you are!" Signor Marcello exclaimed. "At first I could not
understand, but then I guessed it must have happened in that way. But
it was stupid of you."
"Yes, sir, I fear it was."
Teresina was greatly relieved. She could hardly have hoped for anything
better than that her master should believe he had been asleep. She was
about to withdraw when Signor Marcello stopped her with a wave of his
hand.
"I want to know whether the train from Schio has arrived."
"I don't know--non so no," Teresina stammered, and then quickly begged
him to excuse a phrase savouring of the dialect of Trent, which never
failed to irritate Signor Marcello. She passed slowly in front of her
master and took up the snuffers, intending to mend one of the wicks of
the Florentine lamp, which had begun to smoke.
"Let it alone!" he growled. "Do you suppose I cannot snuff a wick
better than you can?"
Again the servant asked his pardon and left the room, walking on tiptoe
lest the noise of her steps should cause him further irritation. She
had hardly begun to tell Leila about her master, when she was once more
summoned by the double ring.
"What does he want now?" Teresina wondered anxiously.
She saw at once that Signor Marcello's face had changed--that it was
now all gentleness.
"Forgive me," he said kindly. "Perhaps, after all, it is I who am
stupid. Were my eyes open or closed when I was asleep?"
"They were closed."
"Did I not open them at all? Did you not see the white of my eyeballs?"
Teresina's blood ran cold, and she hesitated an instant before
answering in the negative. Her master was scrutinising her with that
inquisitorial glance that always made her shiver. She became confused,
and instead of insisting in her denial, declared she really could not
remember.
"And where did you get the water?" Signor Marcello asked quietly.
Teresina had filled a glass at the washstand in his bedroom beyond
the study. She saw that by confessing this she would be admitting
that the questionable nap had lasted a certain length of time. She
failed, however, to find a fitting lie on the spur of the moment, and
so answered truthfully, but with the hesitation of one who confesses
reluctantly.
Signor Marcello gazed searchingly at her a little longer, and then said
gently:
"You can go now, my dear. Let me know when Signor Alberti arrives."
Teresina left the room, alarmed, she knew not why, by his extreme
gentleness. It was the third time in two-and-twenty years that he had
addressed her as "my dear." He had pronounced the words carelessly
enough the first time, when she had presented herself to him on
entering his service. He had uttered them a second time, impelled by
profound emotion, upon the death of his only son, Andrea, when he had
thanked her for her part in the nursing which she had shared with
himself, the mother being incapacitated by the disease that killed her
a year and a half later. The quiet tenderness of this third _cara_ was
something quite new.
* * * * *
Alone once more, Signor Marcello rose slowly to his feet. His face
was colourless. Turning to the broad window, he joined his hands
as in prayer, gazing with reverent eyes at the dark sky above the
Torraro and the army of mighty chestnuts extending from the slope
of Lago di Velo to the ravine of the Posina. He was close upon his
seventy-second year--his father's age on that night when a similar
attack of arteriosclerosis had overcome him, and the doctor's verdict
had prepared the family for the old man's death five months afterwards.
The silent flame of the lamp that had been found burning by his dead
father's side seemed a living symbol of that tragedy. But to Signor
Marcello the moment was not tragic; it was the solemn warning of the
coming of a welcome day, the happiest that God could now grant him, of
departure and eternal reunion with beloved ones. His heart was full
of tenderness, and yet fear of the God of love who is also the God of
justice swayed him. His soul glowed and quivered, but was speechless,
like the wavering flame of the lamp.
Teresina suspected that her master had been thinking of his father's
death. She said nothing of this, however, to the Signorina, who was
probably ignorant of those circumstances. She determined only to inform
the doctor of what had happened and, for to-night at least, to spare
Signor Marcello an interview with young Alberti, who had been his poor
Andrea's dearest friend. Alberti was really coming to Velo to visit the
curate of Sant' Ubaldo, but the priest, being unable to put him up, had
begged the hospitability of the Montanina for his friend.
"And of course he must needs arrive on this particular evening!"
grumbled Teresina.
Leila thought she heard steps in the garden.
"It is surely he," said the maid. "The train whistled long ago."
Leila started. "Don't call me!" she ordered, and ran out by the door
to the servants' stairway, which she ascended very slowly, pausing
at intervals to listen. In her own room she crossed to the window.
There was no sound of steps, nor could she hear voices. Impatient with
herself, she thought: "After all, what is it to me?" and turning from
the window, she once more read the crumpled letter. She read it with
knitted brow, from time to time raising her eyes--strange eyes of an
indefinable colour--letting their stern glance follow some thought from
the letter seemingly into space. Again her hand crushed the sheet, and
she flung it on the floor.
At that moment the sound of distant voices floated through the open
window. Leila started and raised her head to listen. The voices came
from lower down, from the foot of the garden by the entrance, close
to the tiny church of Santa Maria ad Montes. Her light eyebrows
contracted quickly once more, and her small, whimsical face assumed
an indescribable expression of fierce pride. She rose, picked up the
letter, and closed the window. What was this Alberti to her?
She was neither the daughter nor a relation of Signor Marcello. She
was a pure flower that had blossomed amidst foulness upon an evil stem.
The only son of the house of Trento, poor Andrea, had loved her when
she was still little more than a child, and had wished to make her his
wife. When he died his parents, who had always strenuously opposed this
marriage, had taken Leila into their home, buying her, as it were, with
gold, that this maiden who had been so dear to him might be preserved
from the corruption of this world, and prompted also perhaps by a sense
of affectionate remorse for the grief they had caused their beloved.
From her earliest girlhood Leila had had no illusions about her
parents, especially her mother, whom she judged with precocious insight
that sprang from the early recognition of certain tendencies within
herself, when the experiences of her own home seemed to tell her
that life held no further secrets. These tendencies she despised and
hated with all the strength of her proud spirit, as in her heart she
despised her mother, her contempt at times breaking through her rigid
self-imposed restraint. From the age of twelve to fifteen she went to
the convent school of the Sacred Heart, where she was distinguished for
her talents, her love of study, and her pronounced musical ability.
At sixteen she became engaged to Andrea, who was then about eighteen,
and was studying mathematics at Padua, her native town. Her parents,
Signor Girolamo Camin and his wife Chiara, had appropriated the "da,"
denoting noble origin, and were known as _da_ Camin. Signor Girolamo
was a vulgar intriguer, who had more than once been declared insolvent,
and also dabbled in politics.
Signora Chiara, who had seen much and not inglorious service in the
ranks of gallantry, left her husband unceremoniously at about the
time the student Andrea Trento was beginning to fall in love with her
daughter. Although already middle-aged, she settled in Milan in the
company of an elderly Austrian, who died almost immediately, and left
her a comfortable fortune. She then gave herself up to a life of piety,
and opened her house to priests, friars, and nuns, who were easily led
to believe her a widow. Girolamo, on his part, employed a vulgar woman
as his housekeeper, carefully concealing his weakness for her, but
showing himself too tolerant of the airs of a mistress which the coarse
creature was quick to assume.
Motives of gratitude and a girlish sense of vanity at being admired
and desired, rather than love, had prompted Leila to accept Andrea. He
was too young for her, too light-hearted, too immature to understand
the moral conflict that was stirring in the depths of her soul.
Handsome, intelligent, and generous, Andrea Trento was humble of mind,
underrating his own talents but quick to admire those of others.
Of all his friends Massimo Alberti of Milan was his favourite. The ties
that bound them were rather those resulting from a long friendship
between the two families than any that had sprung from their university
life together. Massimo Alberti, who was several years older than
Andrea, was at Padua finishing the medical course he had begun in
Rome when Andrea entered the university. His friend's talents, his
broad culture, and the sobriety of his mode of life filled Andrea with
admiration. Leila he also looked upon as vastly superior to himself,
and often talked to her of Alberti, whom she had never seen. On one
occasion he even told her, in a transport of love and humility, that
Alberti was much more worthy than himself to become her husband. Leila,
who was far from meek, and whose habit it was to follow any assertion
to its ultimate consequences, had reflected that such language was
doubtless virtuous, but most unpleasant and inopportune. This was not
her idea of love. On one pretext and another she had always managed to
avoid meeting her lover's friend.
Andrea's death grieved her so deeply that she formed an exaggerated
estimate of her affection for him, confusing it with her compassion.
When her father whiningly informed her that he had been asked to make
a great sacrifice for her benefit, that Andrea's parents wished her to
live with them as their daughter in memory of the son they had lost,
and that, although his heart might bleed, he was prepared to accept a
proposal so advantageous to her, she immediately guessed the nature of
the bargain he was hiding from her, and flung out an indignant refusal
in a transport of offended pride, vindicating, for the moment, her
right to maintain the family honour, so ill defended by this despicable
father of hers. But afterwards, since her rage against him was so
great and her loathing of the filth he had dared to drag to the very
hearthstone was so intense, she withdrew her refusal, her thoughts
dwelling the while on the poor lad who was dead.
She accepted the Trentos' offer, but the act of entering their house
as a thing paid for was a severe trial. She soon perceived that one
of the conditions of the bargain was that her father should not enter
the precincts of the Montanina, and this condition was a source of
relief and yet of sorrow to her. Her attitude towards the Trentos was
at first cold. She seemed to be trying to show them silently that she
felt no gratitude; that she was aware they had desired her only as a
sort of relic of their dead son; that, after all, they were the persons
benefited, and that she had consented to become their benefactress only
in memory of him, and not from motives of affection towards themselves.
Under these conditions Signor Marcello's fiery temper made a rupture
probable, and, after his first most affectionate welcome, many storms
did indeed arise between them. But Signora Trento's gentleness and
Leila's musical accomplishments combined to save the situation. The
husband softened under the influence of his wife's gentle virtues
and at sight of the suffering which soon brought her to the grave.
Music did the rest. Signor Marcello, who was a fair pianist, found in
music a mystic expression of his deepest grief, hope, vague memories,
and regrets. He and Leila both brought to the piano the same intense
passion and the same tastes. Secret antagonism might indeed long dwell
within the hearts of both, but their sympathy in music facilitated a
mutual recognition--albeit measured and intermittent--of the beauty
that lay in the nature of each, and a mutual tolerance, also measured
and intermittent, of what in one was displeasing to the other.
Signora Trento's death brought about a crisis in their relations to
each other. Little by little Leila had allowed herself to be won
over by the lady's gentle ways; and her care of the poor invalid had
softened Signor Marcello's heart. His attitude towards Leila grew
day by day more tender and paternal; day by day he failed somewhat
both in look and bearing and grew more indifferent to the things of
this world, except music and, to a certain extent, flowers, becoming
ever more absorbed in thoughts of the things of eternity; and thus
at last the girl came to feel a filial reverence for him, and the
feelings she had experienced on entering his house for the first time
no longer ruled her. This recent loss of consciousness, which Signor
Marcello had failed to realise, and Teresina's face, more than her
words, stirred Leila deeply, despite the fact that her mind was so full
of the expected arrival of Massimo Alberti. Three years had passed
since Andrea's death, and since his friend's funeral Alberti had not
visited the Montanina; but he never allowed New Year's Day and certain
other anniversaries to pass without sending some word of greeting to
Signor Marcello. The old man appreciated these attentions, and would
often speak of them to Leila, sometimes expressing regret that he had
not again had the pleasure of meeting Alberti. Leila always let the
subject drop as soon as possible. Poor Andrea's unpleasant words had
never faded from her memory; the tenacity of this recollection annoyed
her, and she despised herself for dwelling upon it. Whenever Signor
Marcello mentioned Alberti's name she invariably experienced a sense of
persecution and irritation, for he rarely did so without adding some
word of praise and of affection. This real sense of repulsion increased
rather than diminished with time. She could not help associating it
in her thoughts with a fading memory of Andrea and with other dim
emotions of her soul--a nameless gloom, flashes of inexplicable gaiety,
which she found it difficult to check, tears provoked by music, and a
sense of brief but almost fearful intoxication imparted by the life
of Nature, by flowering fields, and woods in the vigorous freshness
of June. The meaning of these vague feelings did not entirely escape
her. The idea that she was yearning towards love, that blind instincts
inherited from her parents were dragging her towards it, was bound up
with the dread that one passion might develop within her heart and
take firm root there. Thus she explained to herself her aversion to
Alberti's name and personality, and her clear analysis of her own mind
only increased her irritation with herself. She felt that it was her
duty never to love again, her duty towards Andrea's memory and towards
Signor Marcello, which she had tacitly acknowledged by accepting the
part of living relic of the dead; but, above all, she felt it was her
duty towards herself, for she would never stoop to the life of most
women, she to whom, in spite of dishonoured parents and tainted blood,
destiny had offered the opportunity of a life of glorious purity. In
such a state of mind the very act of considering that lurking memory
in which a germ of passion might be concealed sent the blood rushing
to that particular nerve-cell, and something was indeed generated by
the plastic power of the blood itself. Signor Marcello's delighted
announcement that Massimo Alberti was to be a guest at the Montanina
made her shudder, but a quick revulsion of feeling brought anger that
was akin to remorse. Nevertheless, when she cried out, "What is this
Alberti to me?" Leila was conscious, alas! that she was insincere.
Before going to bed she kissed Andrea's likeness, which she wore in the
medallion, and a little ring he had once given her as a peace-offering
after a sharp quarrel. Then, having put out the light, she turned her
face to the wall, drew the sheet over her head, and burst into tears.
II
As he wended his way upwards from the station of Arsiero to the
Montanina, Massimo Alberti, who had arrived from Milan after a journey
of nearly eight hours, amidst dust, smoke, and noise, in all the heat
of burning June, thought he must be dreaming. The moonless sky was
cloudy, folds of white mist lay around the brow of Priaforà and the
cliffs of Summano, which point up into the sky like the teeth of a
saw lying above softly wooded heights; the light mountain breeze was
flinging wild odours across the uplands, and the many voices of small
waters, falling into the hollows of the ravines, sounded in his ears;
but nowhere was there a note of human life. The road gave out the scent
of wet earth, which was pleasant after so much dust. Where it turns,
entering a ravine, and revealing, higher up, a clump of chestnuts
crescent-shaped below a black diadem, formed by the points of towering
pines beyond, the peasant from Lago di Velo, Simone, commonly called
_Cioci_, who was going on ahead carrying Massimo's luggage, waited to
inquire if the Signore were going to Velo, to Sant' Ubaldo, or to the
Montanina.
"What do you mean?" Massimo exclaimed in amazement. "I am going to Don
Aurelio's, at Sant' Ubaldo."
Whereupon his quick-witted guide, who at the station had contented
himself with proffering Don Aurelio's excuses, saying he had remained
at Velo to attend to a sick old man, now answered quietly:
"Because the priest has no room for you, you know."
Massimo was astonished. No room? Had his friend not written that there
was a room ready for him? Cioci explained the case after his own
fashion.
"It is because of Carnesecca, you see."
This explanation only added to Massimo's bewilderment. _Carnesecca?_
What was _Carnesecca_?
"Because he has taken him into his house, you see."
Massimo gave up trying to understand. Then where was Don Aurelio
sending him, as he could not have him himself? With some difficulty he
drew from his guide the information that Don Aurelio had ordered him to
take the stranger to the Montanina. Why, then, good heavens! had he not
said so at once?
"I thought you would ask in time," said Cioci.
Massimo ordered him to lead on to the Montanina. He was annoyed, and
he reflected that priests, even the best and dearest of them, are
sometimes just a little wanting in tact. He had the greatest respect
for Signor Marcello, but he was unwilling to grasp hospitality that
had not been offered. He was annoyed also at the thought of meeting
other guests at the Montanina, of not being able to enjoy that freedom
and quiet for which he so longed, and which he had promised himself
on leaving Milan. He was, moreover, displeased at not having been
informed of this change in time. He might easily have postponed his
arrival. When they had gone another hundred yards honest Cioci stopped,
and once more turned to address Massimo.
The priest had sent word that Signor Marcello was very grateful to him
for going to his house.
At the last turn, where the road to the Montanina branches off from
that leading to Velo, Cioci made a final pause and shot out a final
message--the priest had said that if the gentleman had luggage in the
van he was to tell the station-master, and they would send for it next
morning with a cart.
Massimo could not suppress a smile. No, he had nothing in the van. This
time Cioci laughed also.
"Cossa vóla, sior! What would you, sir! There were so many of them!"
To the Montanina, then. The annoyance Massimo had at first experienced
gave way to other thoughts. His heart ached as he recalled his friend,
who had died so young, who had been so good, so dear, so frank and
full of spirits; who had told him with so much enthusiasm of Velo
d'Astico and of the Montanina, of his faith in his mother's gentle
kindness, which would soon lead her to consent, and would then obtain
his father's consent as well, to the union for which he yearned. Andrea
had also described to his friend the little apartments which would be
the scene of his future bliss--three rooms and a terrace on the west
side of the villa. And now, where were the joy and the sweetness of all
those hopes? where was that fair head, that beautiful face sparkling
with life and spirits, that warm and honest heart? Beneath the sod;
while the woods, the hills, the voices of deep-flowing Posina and the
murmurings of small and plaintive waters all went on as before. Here
was the old chestnut-tree with its trunk split like a three-branched
candelabrum; here, at the turn of the road, the strange little church
loomed in dim whiteness; and now, farther up, the villa showing
palely, and the dark brow of great, pensive Priaforà.
A year before Andrea's death he and Massimo had talked together,
beneath this chestnut-tree, of the Camin family, and of the necessity
of keeping them all, even her father, away from Leila after her
marriage. Andrea was convinced of this necessity, and said that the
girl wished it as much as he did. He had been enthusiastic in his
praise of her high-mindedness and the precocious maturity of her
intellect. At this point he had confessed that he had not been quite
honest with his parents concerning Leila's age. The girl was about
sixteen, and he had said she was eighteen.
Instinctively Massimo paused and placed his hand upon the trunk of
the chestnut, this surviving witness; and he thought of the lad with
God. It seemed to him that the tree, the modest little church, and the
frowning mountain were sharing the thought with him.
"Are you tired, sir?" asked Cioci, who had also stopped. Massimo roused
himself.
"No, no. Let us be getting on," said he; and, to free himself from his
sad thoughts, he began talking with Cioci of the priest. The people of
Sant' Ubaldo must be well pleased with their priest.
"Ah, cossa vóla! What would you!" Cioci exclaimed. The expression was a
panegyric; it was as if he had said: "How can I be expected to express
the inexpressible?" And he added, "A great head, I tell you!"
As they were passing the little church of Santa Maria ad Montes a
woman's voice called from above:
"Cioci! This way, Cioci!"
"Signora!" Cioci answered, pausing.
The Signora was Teresina, who soon appeared at the gate to the footpath
beside the church. She admitted Cioci, and sent him on towards the
house with his load, while she detained Alberti.
He remembered her as the maid who had bandaged a sprain he had managed
to get coming down from Colletto Grande with Andrea. She was eager to
tell him that her master, Signor Marcello, was delighted to be able to
entertain him, but that his health was none too good, and that this
meeting would surely move him deeply. She therefore took the liberty of
begging Massimo to pretend he was greatly fatigued after his journey,
and to withdraw early, so that the master might follow his example.
This was the Signorina's wish as well.
The Signorina? Of course--Massimo had not thought of her. Signorina da
Camin now lived at the Montanina. Massimo, accepting Andrea's word, as
Andrea himself had accepted that of Signor Girolamo, had always called
her thus instead of by her true name, Camin, and Leila herself believed
in her right to the "da." Massimo had seen her but once, and that in
the street and at a distance. He had, however, seen two photographs of
her, which his friend had shown him, and he distinctly recalled the two
entirely different impressions they had conveyed. He remembered the
dainty head of a girl of sixteen, with hair carefully dressed, somewhat
irregular features, and smiling eyes that seemed to be gazing into the
object-glass and inquiring, "Is that right?"
He remembered another dainty head with somewhat disordered hair, a
head drooping slightly forward and looking down, so that the eyes were
hidden. He had paid but little attention to the first, but the second
had struck him. This face might have been that of a being conscious of
deep guilt or of an unhappy fate; it might have been a face upon which
love was gazing, and which was striving to conceal love; it might have
been simply the face of a young girl lost in thought. Compared with the
other it was the more youthful face of a deeper soul; it was the face
of a child of fifteen who, both morally and intellectually, was as
mature as any woman of thirty. The very idea of having her photograph
taken in that position pointed to something strange and strong in the
mind of the poser. Massimo had been fascinated by the picture, but
upon restoring it to his friend had refrained from confiding to him
his doubt as to whether this tempting creature, with her air of a
grieving and thoughtful sphinx, would fit his nature and be capable
of forming his happiness. He remembered now that for many days the
face of the girl-sphinx had haunted him with troubling insistence. As
he followed Teresina, the image of the two small, fair heads, that
were so distinct, once more flashed across his mind. In his thoughts
the question which one of the two he would find was already forming
itself, but he dismissed the thought as an unfitting one. Nor did
Teresina succeed in distracting his thoughts by her account of how,
since early morning, Signor Marcello had been eagerly looking forward
to his arrival. He had invented an excuse for getting herself and the
footman out of the way, yes, and the Signorina also (who, however, had
seen through his stratagem), that no one might see him enter the room
prepared for his guest. First he had gone into the garden and gathered
some roses with his own hands. These he had taken to the room in all
secrecy. Not that he expected his action would remain unobserved,
for, of course, the servants would have to go into the room before
the guest's arrival to put fresh water at the last moment and to see
if everything was in order. It was that he did not wish to be under
observation whilst going in and while he remained there, probably
because he felt that he would be exposing his inmost emotions to a
witness, and this was a thing he abhorred.
Before reaching the villa Teresina and Massimo met Cioci, who, freed
from his burden, and desiring, for no very unperceivable reason, to
pay his respects to the stranger, had chosen this far less easy way
to Lago, instead of going straight there through the upper part of the
garden.
"Well, sir, good-night to you," he said, taking off his cap.
Having received what he was waiting for and having thanked the generous
traveller, he told Teresina that her master was close behind him on his
way down.
"There!" cried the woman, "it is just as I thought!"
They met Signor Marcello near the level space on which the villa
stands. It was dark, and he was advancing with stooping shoulders
and unsteady tread. Massimo hurried upwards to join him, and was
immediately clasped in a close and silent embrace. He began at once to
offer his excuses for thus intruding, laying the blame at Don Aurelio's
door, the old man repeating the while, in a voice that betrayed his
feelings:
"You do not know, you do not know what a joy it is to me to see you, to
embrace you once more!" And again he strained Alberti to his breast.
They crossed the level space, and passing through the dining-room,
entered the salon, Signor Marcello leaning upon Massimo's arm. He
expressed the wish that his guest should be conducted to his room
without delay, saying they would have a talk together afterwards.
Massimo would have preferred to remain with him at present for a little
time, so that Signor Marcello might soon be free to go to bed. But
Signor Marcello would not hear of this, and Teresina, who knew well
how many childish whims her old master's heart contained, divined how
anxious and impatient he was that his guest should see how he had
prepared his room. She therefore added a gentle invitation to her
master's, thus conveying to Massimo that it would be wiser to yield.
As he was leaving the room Signor Marcello remarked that he would wait
for him there, and that they would have coffee together.
Teresina accompanied the visitor to the very apartment in which, in his
dreams of the future, poor Andrea had pictured himself with Leila. She
ushered him into the small room that opened upon the west terrace. The
light revealed to her all her master's preparations, and she exclaimed
softly:
"Poor, poor Signor Marcello!" Then, amidst many excuses, she advised
Massimo to let his host understand that he had observed everything,
without speaking openly of all the arrangements. Thereupon she withdrew.
On the marble top of the chest of drawers a beautiful white rose bent
its head from a tall crystal cup, above a photograph of Andrea. Upon
the bedside table rested a handsomely-bound copy of the "Imitation
of Christ," and a small packet of letters tied together with a black
ribbon. This packet Massimo opened, not without curiosity. They
were his own letters to Andrea. He then proceeded to examine the
"Imitation," expecting that this also was a souvenir, and found written
within its cover the words:
"To dear Andrea, on the day of his first Communion. Rachele Alberti
Vittuoni."
It was his mother's name, and she, too, had long been dead. He pressed
his lips to the writing. Through the open window the deep voice of
Posina and the soft murmur of the Riderella, that hurries through the
garden close by the villa, alone broke the silence. Amidst the hush
and the repose of Nature, in the majesty of the night, the small room
with its many memories seemed a sanctuary. Still praying silently, he
put out the light and left the room. Teresina was waiting for him in
the corridor. The master, she said, seemed somewhat excited, and she
was anxious that he should retire early. As a matter of fact he had
complained of Leila's absence, and was upset at her having withdrawn,
but this the maid refrained from mentioning.
Massimo did not find Signor Marcello in the drawing-room, but in the
garden, where he was seated upon one of the benches on the west side of
the villa, having preferred that their talk should take place there in
the dark. Alberti would have kissed the old man's hand, but this Signor
Marcello would not allow, and making Alberti sit beside him, he put his
arm around his shoulder.
They sat silent for some time in the chill breath of black, overhanging
Priaforà, Signor Marcello staring into the shadows with unseeing
eyes, while Massimo listened to the voices of Posina and of the
Riderella, which led him back to the chamber of memories, and watched
almost unconsciously the lights of Arsiero, scattered like a swarm
of fireflies amidst the gloom, lower down on the right, beyond the
Valley of Posina, in the hollow below the heights of San Rocco and
the sky-piercing peaks of Caviogio. Presently Massimo referred to the
lateness of the hour, but Signor Marcello drew the young man towards
him with an impetuous movement.
"No, no!" he cried, and began to question Massimo eagerly concerning
himself and Don Aurelio. Massimo had to tell him, in as few words as
possible, how, when a medical student in Rome, he had met the present
priest of Lago; how Don Aurelio and he had had a mutual friend, a man
of whom much had been said, both in praise and in condemnation--a
species of lay apostle. Massimo was sure Don Aurelio must have spoken
of him, and was greatly astonished to find that the name of Piero
Maironi, as well as that of Benedetto, was quite unknown to Signor
Marcello. Feeling that this was not the moment for enlarging upon a
subject that would have led to lengthy discussion, Massimo contented
himself with stating that Don Aurelio, having no fixed occupation in
Rome, had, through the kind offices of a member of the clergy, been
received by the Bishop of Vicenza into his diocese and appointed to
the cure of Lago di Velo. He pronounced him a godly man, devoted to
his ministry, full of charity and Divine love, and averse to religious
strife. Signor Marcello seconded this praise in a voice hoarse with
emotion, and the deep sighs accompanying his words told clearly that it
was an emotion of longing that the Church might be blessed with many
such priests as Don Aurelio.
Teresina's voice reached them out of the darkness.
"Master, I am sure Signor Alberti must be tired."
"Let us alone!" said Signor Marcello, but quietly enough. "I know quite
well what you want. I am not tiring myself!"
"Gèsu!" sighed the poor woman anxiously under her breath, but she did
not venture to insist.
Massimo had now to tell of himself, of his reluctance to practise his
profession, although his studies and time of probation were over; and
he talked of the things that had distracted him from it. Once more
he took for granted that Don Aurelio had spoken of this, that Signor
Marcello knew about his lectures, his writings of a theo-philosophical
character, and the sharp opposition and disapproval from different
sources that these had brought, about his weariness of soul and the
longing for peace that had brought him to the mountain solitudes of
Velo d'Astico.
But Signor Marcello knew nothing of all this, and showed himself deeply
affected by the account of it. Once more he drew the young man's head
towards his shoulder.
"Yes, yes," said he, "stay here and let philosophy alone. Those little
lights shining down there amidst the gloom are like philosophy. Who
goes about at night with a light no longer sees the stars. Ah, the
stars, the stars!"
Massimo pointed out, with a smile, that, light or no light, there were
no stars to be seen on this particular night.
"Ah, but I see them!" his companion exclaimed fervently. "Only this
very evening I saw a precious message written among them for me! I saw
it there--just there!"
He pointed to the grey clouds above black Torraro. During their entire
conversation this remark and the gesture that accompanied it were the
only signs of a slight mental agitation which Massimo noted in the old
man. But, taking them together with what the maid had said, they were
sufficient to alarm him. Rising resolutely, he declared he was very
tired, and asked permission to retire.
"But we have not had our coffee," said Signor Marcello.
Massimo said he was not in the habit of taking coffee in the evening.
The old man begged him at least to bear him company while he took
his own, and Massimo was casting about for a mode of escape, fearing
to be drawn again into lengthy conversation, when Teresina, who was
keeping guard in the verandah of the villa in the near vicinity of the
benches, came forward, telling her master she had taken his coffee to
his bedroom. Before his astonishment would allow him to protest she was
on her way to the kitchen to turn her untruth into a sort of prophecy.
And thus, at last, she carried her point. Massimo went up the double
stairway of wood leading from the drawing-room to the floor above,
while Signor Marcello retired to his bedroom on the ground floor, which
adjoined the study and looked out on the near slopes of Priaforà.
III
The house had been dark for some time and most of its inmates were
asleep when Signor Marcello left his room, a tall, stooping figure,
the Florentine lamp swinging from his left hand, while with the other
he held a closed portfolio against his breast. He passed slowly through
study and billiard-room, and entering the salon, placed the lamp above
the piano that stood crosswise, almost directly beneath one branch
of the stairway, the light suddenly bringing out of the shadows his
deeply-lined face, now radiant with tenderness and love. Placing the
portfolio on the music-rest, he opened it with great deliberation, and
with trembling hands drew from it a portrait of his son and gazed long
at it. His lips were trembling also, and his eyes were full of tears.
The little brass lamp, so much dearer to him than those rich ones
hanging from the ceiling, seemed to shed a happy light upon the lad's
handsome face, mysteriously alive with new and tender meaning. The
father pressed a long kiss upon the boy's forehead; then very slowly
and very reverently placing it upon the rest once more, he dropped
his large, thin hands upon the keyboard and began to play, with face
upturned and closed eyes.
He was not an accomplished pianist, but his soul understood music. His
deep religious faith, his affections, his keen sense of beauty led him
naturally towards musical expression. He reverenced Beethoven no less
than Dante and hardly less than St. John the Apostle; Haydn, Mozart,
and Bach were to him no less than Giambellino and Mark, Matthew, and
Luke; and, as he read the Gospels, so he daily studied some one of
the four evangelists of music. Often the evening hour of memories and
fancies would find him at the piano rapt in ecstasy, touching pathetic
chords, absorbed in the effort to express in music his own innermost
feelings, oblivious to things of the present and to the passage of
time. With upturned face and closed eyes he was now touching the
keyboard tentatively with those long, thin hands of his, as a blind
man feels the air. He was searching for that last song by Pergolese:
"Quando corpus morietur
Fac ut animæ donetur
Paradisi gloria."
He sought it in vain, and strove eagerly for a like harmony of
increasing depth and solemnity that should tell of the slow dissolution
of mortality, of the end of tired day, then of uprising tones pressing
close upon each other, breathless and frenzied, towards visions of
delight. At this point he ceased to follow Pergolese and poured into
his music a full and enraptured idea of the words "Paradisi gloria,"
tears coursing down his cheeks the while. He was meeting Andrea,
his dear one, in another world of infinite love, of all light, and,
perhaps, all music, and his earthly music trembled with desire for its
Divine ideal. Presently other memories pressed upon him--memories of
his sins, of his human frailties, starting up together out of the dark
places in memory, quick with fearful life, like innumerable, forgotten
foes, rushing out of ambush, each shouting his evil name. The glories
of Paradise and of his communion with the beloved dead, despite his
strong faith in God and his firmly-rooted conviction of approaching
death, were devoid of distinct form, luminous, obscured by the mists of
their own brilliance. It was easy for him to speak and think of them in
music. But it was not so with the biting memories of sin. His wrists
bent weakly, his hands hung motionless from the keyboard, his head fell
forward on his breast.
It was but for a brief instant, however. His humility, a stranger to
that bitterness of pride upon a moral fall, naturally moved him to
look for Divine mercy. He raised his head once more and his hands, and
poured his soul into the music of a _Miserere_, passionate indeed, but
full also of the sense of generous absolution; a prayer abounding in
gratefulness and delight, almost as if the penitent rejoiced that his
heavenly Father should be more loving and forgiving towards him than
any human father. His hands were moving in a melody of grief and love,
born from some subconscious memory, of Bellini:
"Vieni, dicea, concedi
Ch'io mi ti prostri ai piedi."
Surely in all his life Marcello had never made his piano speak so
wonderfully. He realised this and took momentary pleasure in it, and
with his emotion there mingled a feeling of tenderness for the old,
worn-out instrument itself, despised by Leila and fast nearing its end.
He played on, with never a thought that others might be listening.
Teresina, who, for that night, had wisely prepared a bed for herself
in a room on the ground-floor, heard the piano, and hastening to find
out what was happening, caught sight of her master. Bewildered and
frightened, she hurried upstairs to tell Leila, who occupied an east
room on the first floor, and to consult her. Was the master in his
right mind, or was this the beginning of some mental disorder? Would it
not be wise to descend and persuade him to go to bed? And should she do
this--or the Signorina? She helped Leila to dress quickly, murmuring
under her breath the while, "Gèsu, Gèsu!" Leila was silent, determined
first to see and hear for herself. The two women went on tiptoe into
the gallery to the head of the stairway, from whence there was a view
of the drawing-room, through the stair opening, and also between the
short wooden columns on either side. But not even by peering between
the columns could the piano be seen. Signor Marcello being slightly
deaf, the two women ventured to descend the right arm of the stairway
far enough to enable them to see the musician's back, dimly lit by the
lamp that stood upon the piano. Those stooping shoulders and massive
head, swaying with the rhythm of the music, seemed instinct with
passion.
"Gèsu, Signorina!" the maid whispered, "I _must_ go down."
Leila grasped her arm and frowned. Teresina, looking at her in
astonishment, saw her place her finger upon her lips. She could not
know that Leila, who was an exquisite musician, recognised in those
notes the outpourings of a mind, not indeed confused by delirium, but
rapt in ecstasy. She was aware only that she must not move.
A few solemn chords ended Marcello's improvisation, that mystic prelude
to the future. He closed the portfolio, and, crossing his arms, pressed
his forehead against it.
"Gèsu, Signore!" the servant exclaimed, starting forward, but again
Leila held her back, and whispering, "I will go," descended the stairs.
She went down slowly, careless of the creaking wooden steps, her hand
resting upon the banister, her eyes fixed upon Marcello. She was not
troubled concerning him, seeing in his attitude merely the effect of an
emotion which, but now, had vibrated in his music, and due evidently
to the meeting with poor Andrea's friend. She was going down simply
in order to persuade him to retire, without alarming him, as Teresina
might have done. She had descended barely halfway when Marcello heard
her, and raising his head, demanded sharply:
"Who is there?"
"I, Papa," said she, and hastening forward, was beside him in an
instant.
"You here? Not in bed yet?"
Marcello seemed both pleased and astonished.
Leila smiled.
"Not in bed yet, as you see!" she answered, adding with a quaint little
accent she had picked up at school from a Roman girl, and which she
sometimes used: "You keep us all awake!"
Suddenly she remembered that on first coming to live with the Trentos
she had one day happened to say the same words to Signor Marcello
with the same accent, to express a necessity to which one must
perforce submit. Signor Marcello had been amused at first, but she had
thoughtlessly told him that poor Andrea had also delighted in that
quaint inflection, whereupon he had become silent and depressed. And
now, hardly had she uttered the words, "You keep us all awake!" before
the memory of that unhappy silence overcame her, and, thinking that his
face showed that he also remembered, she dropped her eyes in intense
confusion. Marcello gazed tenderly upon her, raised his hands to the
keyboard, his eyes still watching her, and struck the first notes of a
melody by Schumann that poor Andrea had often hummed and which Leila
sometimes played to the old man in the dark, never speaking of it
either beforehand or afterwards:
"O lass im Traume mich sterben,
Gewieget an seiner Brust...."
Leila trembled. It seemed to her that Signor Marcello was saying in
those sweet notes: "Do not fear to speak to me of him." He turned his
eyes away from her and glanced upwards as if seeking the notes in his
memory, his hands following with sudden passion the melody:
"Den seligen Tod mich schlürfen
In Thränen unendlicher Lust...."
She grew alarmed, and resting her hand on his shoulder, murmured very
softly:
"Enough, Papa! You are exciting yourself. It is late and you had really
better go to bed."
Marcello stopped playing, took the hand she was withdrawing from his
shoulder, and held it affectionately between his own cold ones.
"I am all right, Leila," he said. "I am perfectly well."
During the last two months of his life, after a slight quarrel, Andrea
had taken to calling her "Leila." For Marcello, who had heard of
this from his wife, to address her as "Leila" was almost like saying
"Andrea," almost like pronouncing that name he could not utter without
suffering, that name he was always repeating in his heart, but which
his lips formed only in the secrecy of his own room.
"Leila, yes, Leila!" he repeated, smiling at her bewilderment, for she
was asking herself what could be taking place within that mind whose
hitherto most jealously guarded depths were being revealed.
"Yes, Papa. But please do not tire yourself any more. Go to bed and
rest."
She could find no fitting words with which to persuade him. She was
anxious not to appear indifferent to his tenderness or startled by
his unusual language; and she felt a strange desire to press close to
Andrea's father in spirit for protection and refuge.
He rose from the piano, but neither took up the lamp nor prepared to
withdraw. Knitting his brows, as was his wont when about to introduce
some serious subject, he invited Leila to follow him on to the small
terrace beyond the drawing-room. Leila, who had not the courage to
refuse, obeyed in great agitation. Surely Signor Marcello was going
to talk of poor Andrea. And Teresina was still watching up there, and
might appear upon the scene at the wrong moment! Although she had
little hope of its being seen, Leila flung a rapid gesture in the
maid's direction that said she should go. Then she hastened forward to
join Marcello, who was leaning against the railing of the terrace.
"It is raining," she said, making a last attempt to escape.
Mist enveloped the rocky peaks of Barco and of Caviogio, and a moist
breeze blew from Val di Posina, but it was not raining.
"No," said Marcello. "Come out."
As she had come to him, drawn almost providentially by his music, he
felt bound to take this opportunity of speaking, but it was difficult
to begin.
"If ever you should wish to do away with those artificial rocks that
you dislike so much, down there by the bridge and along the banks of
the Riderella," he said at last, "you need not hesitate to do so. I
might have had them removed myself, but since ... I have let everything
go."
Even the little word "since," that stood for so much misfortune and so
many years of bitterness, was uttered calmly.
Leila grasped the true intent of his remark, and a shudder ran through
her as she exclaimed:
"I?"
She refrained from adding anything more in order not to provoke words
that she did not wish to hear. The conviction that Signor Marcello
intended to make her his heir had long been fixed in her mind like a
poisonous thorn. She knew that this was generally believed, as Signor
Marcello was known to have no near relations, and she was looked upon
as his daughter by adoption, although no legal action had taken place,
nor was any such possible. But she was determined not to touch the
Trento fortune, which, although not large, reached, nevertheless, a
very comfortable figure. Her father had sold her indeed, but she would
not sell herself. Having given herself to Andrea's parents, in memory
of him, she would gladly accept gratitude from them, but no other
recompense. Was it not possible that Signor Marcello did possess a
distant relative? If not, he was extremely charitable, and he might
leave his money to the poor. The bare idea of being looked upon as a
schemer, an adventuress, filled her with horror. But she had a second
reason for dreading this heritage. What a disgusting struggle with her
father would follow upon the rejection of such an inheritance! He was
always pleading poverty and writing her shameless letters demanding
money. She had received such a letter this very evening. She could see
him already descending upon the Montanina in the event of the old man's
death, fastening upon it and tainting it with his presence. She had
faith in her own energy and did not fear her father, but she loathed
him.
All this she was feeling and thinking as she uttered the one word "I?".
Marcello took her hand and pressed it, hoping that his touch might
speak for him.
"Yes, dear," he said calmly, "you."
A whisper, a scarcely perceptible breath brought the answer:
"No, Papa!"
Marcello smiled, mistaking the motive of her words.
"I am old," he said, "and not, I think, very strong. I may live many
years yet, but, on the other hand, the Lord may call me very soon. Do
you really think I shall be sorry to go?"
For answer Leila stooped and kissed the hand that still held hers.
"Well, then," Marcello went on, "it is right that we should discuss
certain matters. The Montanina was dear to him, and, indeed, I did much
to make it so! I hope it will be dear to you also. I wanted to tell you
about those rocks, and I also wanted to say that, should the occasion
offer to purchase those chestnuts over beyond the road, you must be
sure to do so. You will have ample means."
A passionate sound like a suppressed groan interrupted him.
"No, Papa! No, no, Papa! Do not talk of these things!"
Marcello remained in astonished silence, and she felt impelled to
explain herself.
"Do not think of me as your heir. I cannot, indeed I cannot be your
heir!"
He was offended, and began to be excited.
"And why not?" he asked sharply.
"No, dear Papa! I cannot, I cannot! Do not let us talk of these things!
Please go to bed and rest!"
"But why not?" Marcello insisted. "Tell me."
Leila took his arm, imploring him not to say anything more--at least,
not that night.
"But you must explain!" he cried, his haggard face growing ever more
angry.
At this point Teresina, who was still watching, hearing her master
raise his voice, turned on the light in the gallery where she stood,
and called to Leila, saying she had sought her in vain in her own room.
She wanted certain keys for to-morrow morning, to get out something for
the guest's breakfast. Timidly Leila murmured: "Papa ... good-night
..." as if entreating him to allow her to go. Signor Marcello did not
speak, but, turning slowly indoors with bent shoulders, he took the
lamp from the piano and left her without a word of good-night.
He closed the door of his room behind him, and undressed himself
slowly, full of discontent, like one who, weary and already half
asleep, turns towards his couch only to find it so disordered that he
must spend time and strength in smoothing it. His haggard expression
told of harsh and angry thoughts. He believed he knew the reason of
Leila's repulse. She did not wish to become his heir because she did
not feel strong enough to keep her parents at a distance, and she
realised that their presence at the Montanina would be a mortal insult
to his memory. The thought of those two was sufficiently embittering.
For a moment fancy showed them to him, triumphant, playing the masters
in his house. Ah, no, that should never be! If that hot-headed girl
had only listened a while! He had intended to bring the conversation
precisely to that point. He had racked his brain to find a means of
preventing his heir's parents from setting foot in the Montanina. A
clause to be inserted in his will suggested itself, but he knew Leila
would never accept a condition thus publicly imposed, and, too, one
enforced by a penalty. She would simply refuse the inheritance. The
only way would be to talk the matter over with her beforehand, and
obtain some promise from her. It was a difficult question to handle,
but precisely the one he had intended to introduce. He must resume the
conversation on the morrow. It was the only way.
When he was in bed he clasped his hands behind his neck, rested his
head against the head-board, and reflected. Supposing Leila had made
up her mind to marry, and was refusing on this account? It was a
contingency he had foreseen, and one he and his dead wife had discussed.
His wife, who was a woman of practical views, was convinced that this
attractive and clever girl would be much sought after, and that, sooner
or later, she would marry. She thought that Marcello should content
himself with assigning her an annuity, which she might enjoy until her
marriage. Marcello, however, was not satisfied with this arrangement.
The poet in him delighted in the ideal of a sacrifice which he should
seem to share with his son, whose soul, freed from all earthly fetters,
still loved, but with an affection that was purged of all egotism,
desiring only and rejoicing in the happiness of his beloved. He wished
Leila to possess the wealth poor Andrea had offered her. It was,
indeed, sweet to him to think of her as remaining faithful to Andrea,
but he desired that, though she might yield to a second passion, she
should still have reason to bless her first love. He wished for her
happiness, and in appointing her his heir he did so unconditionally.
Would it be best for him to speak openly to her now, and let her know
how he felt?
He sighed deeply at the thought that, should he die that night, his
home would fall into the hands of Girolamo Camin, or, in the event of
Leila refusing the heritage, into those of a young and distant cousin
of his, who had led a gambling and a dissolute life. The thought that
his wife's rooms and Andrea's might one day harbour such inmates
stabbed him to the heart. As he lay thinking, this same sense of
gnawing anxiety convinced him that he was more strongly attached to
life and earthly things than a few hours before he would have believed
possible. He reproached himself for this, and fell to thinking of the
words his grandfather, who had built the Montanina, had inscribed
upon the sun-dial: _Terrestres horæ, fugiens umbra_. He resolved to
go to confession at Lago di Velo on the morrow, and taking up his
cherished à Kempis which lay always upon his bedside table, he read
the fifty-second chapter of the third book, with feelings of deep
repentance. Upon raising the snuffers that hung by a small chain from
one arm of the lamp, he remembered that his father had been overtaken
by death before putting out the light, and without knowing why, he
remained for a moment with his hand raised. Presently he smiled,
put out the lamp, and by the dim light that fell through the broad
window gazed for a time upon the neighbouring mountain, so sublimely
untroubled and reposeful. Then he fell asleep like a little child, his
arms folded upon his breast.
IV
Upon reaching his room Massimo proceeded to unpack his portmanteaux,
although, in his disappointment at not being Don Aurelio's guest,
he had at first determined to take out only what was necessary for
the night. He already regretted his impulse of selfish discontent, so
deeply had he been moved by Signor Marcello's marked affection, present
even here in this little room that had been dear to Andrea; in the
pathetic souvenirs, in the white rose arranged so that its dying beauty
should overhang that other blossom of bygone days, so soon cut off.
Having put out the light, he went to the window, and resting his elbows
upon its broad sill, gazed upon those clouds amongst which Signor
Marcello had seen a message writ in stars. Beneath those clouds the
delicately arched brow of Torraro divided the space that yawned between
Priaforà and Caviogio, whose black and mighty outlines swept downwards
majestically, like the flowing robes of giant monarchs. His thirsting
soul found comfort in the brooding peace of the scene.
It was an immense relief to have escaped from Milan for a few weeks,
to have left behind him the foulness and the cowardice of the
free-thinking crowd who cried shame upon him for a weakling, because he
professed the loyalty of a soldier to the Church, and of the Pharisaic
masses who cried shame upon him for a heretic, because he thought,
spoke, and wrote like a man of his times! It was an immense relief
to have shaken off that idle society, ever claiming his reluctant
participation in its eternal comedy; which made him feel, now by a
smile, now by sarcastic praise, now by neglect, its contempt for a
young man who turned his back upon those pleasures it discreetly
offered him, pleasures which it cherished and shielded as its one
purpose in life, a purpose indeed not always avowable. Oh to forget,
if only for a few days, those weary and inglorious mental struggles,
so often sustained in the tragic endeavour to hide the eclipse of
hope, and also, not infrequently, of faith itself! Once more there
came the strong, persistent temptation to withdraw from the field of
religious action which he had entered with that Master who had died in
Rome; whereon he and others had pressed still farther than the Master,
gaining nought but wounds, disappointments, and humiliations in the
service of a cause possibly lost from the outset, and of a religion
that was perhaps fated to perish. Might he not relinquish the struggle,
and live for all the beauty there is in the world, for the subtle and
harmonious delights of intellectual activity?
Such thoughts as these were rather the outpouring of pent-up bitterness
than real temptation. The attitude Massimo had publicly assumed towards
certain theo-philosophical questions, through essays in reviews,
lectures, and controversial articles, had secured him a moral position
which, while it upheld and dignified him, proved itself at certain
times, nevertheless, a veritable prison-house. He realised this, and
reflecting on it, was seeking interruption of his thoughts, raising
himself from the window-sill, when he heard voices in the road that
leads downwards following the wire fence encircling the grounds of the
Montanina. He thought he distinguished Don Aurelio's voice and that of
a woman speaking to a third person in the grounds. They seemed to be
giving him some orders. Presently, indeed, a figure appeared upon the
bridge over the Riderella, and, in the dim starlight that was beginning
to pierce the clouds, Massimo thought he saw two other figures, one
black, the other white, beyond the bridge. The first figure left the
bridge, then stopped, seeming perplexed, gazed at the villa, walked
around it, paused for an instant on the side where the kitchen is,
reappeared, and finally went towards the bridge again, where Massimo
heard him telling the others that the household were asleep. Thereupon
the two withdrew in the direction of the gate. Presently Massimo
thought he distinguished the white figure standing with the individual
who had made the tour of the villa, in the road between the group of
birches beside the gate and the clump of poplars further down.
Don Aurelio, if indeed it were he, must have gone on towards Lago. The
young man concluded that the woman must be a certain Signora Vayla
di Brea, of whom Don Aurelio had spoken in his letters as a lady
remarkable both for her talents and for her noble qualities. And then
once more all was silence.
Presently from within the villa came the sound of a piano. Massimo
cautiously opened the door and listened. Yes, it was a piano, and a
very poor instrument too. Who could be playing? Certainly not Signor
Marcello, for he had gone to bed. Then he remembered that Andrea had
often spoken admiringly of Leila's talent as a pianist. At one moment
he thought he recognised the pathetic and passionate composition, but
presently he lost the thread of the melody. At first it was Pergolese's
"Stabat Mater," and then suddenly it turned to something else. Very
softly he stepped into the corridor that he might hear better. The
music came from below, from the left, surely from the drawing-room
where he had noticed a piano. What strange playing, what strength of
expression in the touch, what passion, and what disorder!
Doubtless the performer was improvising. What a fiery soul she must
possess, this Leila, if indeed she were the musician! Once more that
small, enigmatical head, with its disordered hair and downcast eyes,
pictured itself in Massimo's mind. This music did not speak of a
grief-encompassed soul, of a soul expecting more from life. It spoke
of sorrow indeed, but of a thirst for love and joy as well. The music
paused; there were steps and whispering near at hand, and he retreated
to the door of his room. Again the music sounded. Now it was the sweet
and solemn notes of grief and supplication, and then passion once more,
tender, ardent passion. Ah!, "Norma."
"Vieni, dicea, concedi
Ch'io mi ti prostri ai piedi...."
This music seemed a confession! What followed was no longer "Norma,"
but a fancy of the player's. But why had she chosen the dead of night
for this musical outpouring? He recalled the lovely, sphinx-like face
and the eyelids lowered like veils covering a mystery. But was Leila
really the player? On one hand it seemed too strange an action for her,
on the other the quality of the music and the hour were in keeping with
the strangeness of the small face. And if it were not Leila, who could
it be? Perhaps some companion of hers of whose existence Massimo was
ignorant, or a fellow-guest he had not seen. Ah! but it must be she--a
creature painfully eager to love and be loved, who, perhaps, loved
already.
The music came to an end and he withdrew to his room, closing the door
behind him and returning to the window, where he remained standing,
picturing almost mechanically a love that was aflame and oblivious
to the world, amidst these silent hills, whereon passions might be
enthroned, confronting and challenging one another. He shook himself,
sighed deeply, and closed the window, reproaching himself for all these
vain fancies. For some time he studied Andrea's photograph. The poor
lad's handsome face wore a bright and happy expression, like a ray of
sunshine. How dearly he had loved him! Without knowing why he felt a
painful longing to clasp his hands and bow his head before that placid
brow. Upon going to bed he fancied that the music he had heard would
prevent his sleeping, but he fell asleep almost immediately. It was
Leila who lay all night with staring eyes.