She told him all with brief, quiet words. She spoke softly, her eyes,
her fingers, resting on the embroidery of her dress. She seemed the
guilty one, but dignified in her error, ready to be punished. She
told of her doubts, how they had swelled and flamed. She repeated
the reproaches she had made to herself, described her visions, her
delirious cruelty, her suspicions, the dream, the presentiment, her
intention of pardon.
Meanwhile the sun went down. The golden serpent withdrew to the
shore, following the sparkling veil of victorious water. The river
was divided into two zones--one of tender violet under the pale
heaven of the east, the other blood-stained beneath the burning west.
But in water and sky the conflict was ended between the colours and
the lights. All was unified and confounded into one supreme harmony
of peace. The light had re-entered into the shadow; the shadow still
sought the light. The pale water floated into the luminous zone, and
the glowing waves retreated slowly towards a mysterious distance,
beyond the horizon, whither the human gaze could not follow.
The crowd of grey flowers slept on, motionless on the declivity. The
leaves were silent; everything had become drowsy, lulled by the
simple song of the trickle in the depth of the miniature abyss.
And in all this harmonious silence, Regina, as she ended her tale,
_felt_ the solemn indifference of nature for man and for his paltry
fortunes.
"We are alone," she concluded, taking suggestion from this impression
of solitude and abandonment; "alone in the world of our sins, if
there is really such a thing as sin. Let us pity, each in our
turn, and renew our existence. If we are at war, who will help us?
Our relations, our friends, might die for us without their death
bringing our suffering one moment of relief. I once read of a husband
who wished to kill his wife. At the moment he tried to wound her
she--bewildered--flung herself on his breast, instinctively seeking
his protection against the murderer. How often have not I, in those
days of doubt, while--to my shame--I was spying upon you, while I
was wrestling with the idea of turning to strangers that I might
know--_know_--how often have I not felt the impulse to come to you,
to pray you to speak, to save, to protect me! See! Nature herself is
indifferent to us at this moment, while, perhaps, our whole future is
being decided. Every atom, every sparkle, every wave, runs to its own
destiny without attending to us. We are alone; alone and lost. If we
separate, where shall we go? and, moreover, if we did wrong, was it
not precisely that we might not be separated?"
"But," said Antonio, with one last attempt at defence, "you once
wished----"
And Regina felt a final touch of impatience. She was speaking as he
ought to have spoken, and was he still resisting? What did he want?
"There's no good in beginning all over again!" she cried. "This is
enough. It seems to me that already I am reasoning too much for you
to understand that between you and me there is no longer room for
reproaches."
"Yes, Regina," he sighed; "you reason too much, and that is what
terrifies me!"
His eyes sank. He looked at his hand, raised it, and let it fall
heavily on Regina's, which he had retained all this while on his knee.
"Why do I reason too much? Why are you terrified?"
"Because if you really believed in my guilt you would not speak as
you are speaking. You speak like this because you do not believe
it--yet----"
She felt her heart beat. He was right! But she summoned her forces
and overcame herself.
"Look at me!" she commanded.
Antonio looked at her. His eyes were veiled in tears.
* * * * *
Then it was true.
Regina had never seen her husband weep, nor had she ever imagined he
could weep.
At that moment, when everything darkened within her, not in swift
passing eclipse, but in unending twilight, a confused recollection
came to her of something far off--so far off that for years and years
it had not returned to her mind. She saw again a man seated before a
burning hearth. This man crouched, his elbows on his knees, his face
on his hands, and he wept; while a woman bent over him, her hand laid
on his bald head.
The man was her father, the spendthrift; the woman her patient mother.
Was it a dream? or a reality of her unconscious infancy, far away,
forgotten? She did not know; but at that moment in the shadow of her
soul a light appeared, rose-red like the reflection of the burning
hearth in that distant picture of human error and of human pity.
She did not think of laying her hand on her husband's head as her
mother had laid hers on the head of that father who, perhaps, had
been more guilty than Antonio; but she remembered the serene and
beautiful life of that woman who had fulfilled her cycle as all
good women must fulfil theirs, mid the love of her children and for
their sake. Never had the widow made those sad memories to weigh
upon her children. If they suffered, as by law of nature all born of
woman must suffer, the memory of her did not add to their grief, but
softened it.
"And I, too," thought Regina, "must fulfil my cycle. Our child must
never know that we have suffered and have erred."
So she must pardon; more than ever she must pardon! Like the waters
of the river, she must pass silently towards the light of an horizon
beyond the earth, towards the sea of infinite charity, where the
greatest of human errors is no more than the remembrance of an
extinguished spark.
* * * * *
They came home in the carriage left by the five foreigners. A tender
and transparent twilight had fallen around and within them. Resigned
to the Nostalgia of a light lost for ever, not joyous nor very sad,
like husband and wife re-united after a long separation, they clasped
each other by the hand, silently promising to help each other as one
helps the blind.
Thus they returned into the circle of the city and of the past.
It seemed to Regina that a long time, a whole period of life, had
passed since she and her husband had stopped before the wayside
tavern. But, returning, as their driver pulled up at the same place
to light his lamps, she saw the girl in the pink blouse still sitting
by the inside door, and the couple, light-footed and black against
the background of golden glass, were at their dancing still.
THE END
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TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and
non-hyphenated variants. For those words, the variant more frequently
used was retained. The book also contains vernacular conversation in
Italian.
Obvious punctuation errors were fixed.
Other printing errors, which were not detected during the revision of
the printing process of the original book, have been corrected.
A Table of Content was added after the author's preface.