It was ten days later. Rossi had surrendered to Parliament, but
Parliament had declined to order his arrest. Then he had called for the
liberation of Roma, but Roma had neither been liberated nor removed. "It
will not be necessary," was the report of the doctor at the Castle to
the officers of the Prefetura. The great liberator and remover was on
his way.
At Rossi's request Dr. Fedi had been called in, and he had diagnosed the
case exactly. Roma was suffering from an internal disease, which was
probably hereditary, but certainly incurable. Strain and anxiety had
developed it earlier in life than usual, but in any case it must have
come.
At first Rossi rebelled with all his soul and strength. To go through
this long and fierce fight with life, and to come out victorious, and
then, when all seemed to promise peace and a kind of tempered happiness,
to be met by Death--the unconquerable, the inevitable--it was terrible,
it was awful!
He called in specialists; talked of a change of air; even brought
himself, when he was far enough away from Roma, to the length of
suggesting an operation. The doctors shook their heads. At last he bowed
his own head. His bride-wife must leave him. He must live on without
her.
Meantime Roma was cheerful, and at moments even gay. Her gaiety was
heart-breaking. Blinding bouts of headache were her besetting trouble,
but only by the moist red eyes did any one know anything about that.
When people asked her how she felt, she told them whatever she thought
they wished to hear. It brought a look of relief to their faces, and
that made her very happy.
With Rossi, during these ten days, she had carried on the fiction that
she was getting better. This was to break the news to him, and he on his
part, to break the news to her, had pretended to believe the story. They
made Elena help the little artifice, and even engaged the doctors in
their mutual deception.
"And how is my darling to-day?"
"Splendid! There's really nothing to do with me. It's true I have
suffered. That's why I look so pale. But I'm better now. Elena will tell
you how well I slept last night. Didn't I sleep well, Elena? Elena....
Poor Elena is going a little deaf and doesn't always speak when she is
spoken to. But I'm all right, David. In fact, I'll feel no pain at all
before long, and then I shall be well."
"Yes, dear, you'll feel no pain at all before long, and then you'll be
well."
It was pitiful. All their words seemed to be laden with double meanings.
They could find none that were not.
But the time had come when Roma resolved she must speak plainly. Rossi
had lifted her into the loggia. He did so every day, carrying her, not
on his arm as a woman carries a child, but against his breast, as a man
carries his wife when he loves her. She always put her arms around his
neck, pretending it was necessary for her safety, and when he had laid
her gently in the bed-chair she pulled down his head and kissed him. The
two little journeys were the delight of the day to Roma, but to Rossi
they were a deepening trouble.
It was the sweetest day of the sweet Roman spring, and Roma wore a light
tea-gown with a coil of white silk about her head such as is seen in the
portraits of Beatrice Cenci. The golden complexion was quite gone, there
was a hard line along the cheek, a deep shadow under the chin, the
nostrils were pinched and the mouth was drawn. But the large eyes,
though heavy with pain, were full of joy. They did not weep any more,
for all their tears were shed, and the light of another world was
reflected in their depths.
Rossi sat by her side, and she took one of his hands and held it on her
lap between both her own. Sometimes she looked at him and then she
smiled. She, who had lost him for a little while, had got him back at
last. It was only just in time. A little break, and they would continue
this--there. Ah, she was very happy!
Rossi's free hand was supporting his head, and he was trying to look
another way. Do what he would to conquer it, the spirit of rebellion was
rising in his heart again. "O God, is this just? Is this right?"
They were alone on the loggia. Above was the cloudless blue sky, below
was the city, hardly seen or heard.
"David," she began, in a faint voice.
"Dearest?"
"I have been so happy in having you with me again that there is
something I have forgotten to tell you."
"What is it, dear?"
"Promise me you will not be shocked or startled."
"What is it, dearest?" he repeated, although he knew too well.
"It is nothing.... Yes, hold my hands tight. So!... Really it's nothing.
And yet it is everything. It is ... it is death."
"Roma!"
Her eyelids trembled, but she tried to laugh.
"Yes, dear. True! Not immediately. Oh, no! not immediately. But signed
and sealed, you know, and not to be put aside that anybody may be happy
much longer."
She was laughing almost gaily. But all the same she was watching him
closely, and now that her word was spoken she suddenly became conscious
of a secret desire which she had not suspected. She wanted him to
contradict her, to tell her she was quite wrong, to convince and defeat
her.
"Poor little me! Pity, isn't it? It would have been so sweet to go on a
little longer--especially after this reconciliation. And when one has
kept one's heart under bolt and bar so long...."