THE MORNING AFTER.
A woman's anxiety is always awake, always asking. She entreats to know
in direct proportion to her dread of the coming knowledge. How could
it well be otherwise, while her life is one frail tissue of delicate
probabilities, in the midst of which she waits, like a spider in its
net, for the possible gifts of fate? And the web may glisten as it
will in the sunlight; it makes but a poor shield against a blow.
As Catarina busied herself about her ordinary household work that next
morning there were faint new lines of care about her close shut mouth,
and the orbits of her eyes were darkened as if with sleeplessness and
long watching. But, whatever had troubled her, she made no direct
mention of it to Dino,--setting his belated breakfast before him
carefully but in silence. It was not until he pushed aside his plate
and stood up, reaching mechanically for his hat, ready to go out, that
she admitted to herself that if she wanted an explanation she must ask
for it; or seemed to notice his movements, and even then it was only to
say indifferently,
'Shall you be home to dinner? Or do you mean to stay at Drea's? is
that a part of your new arrangements?'
'Nay, but, mother, I am sorry to have given you so much more trouble.
The fact is I--I over-slept myself this morning. When I came in last
night I was more tired than I knew,' said Dino cheerfully.
'Ay, when you came in! When you did come! It was after ten o'clock
when you brought home that blessed child, so worn out with the wind and
what not that she fell asleep on my knee, bless her little heart!
before I had fairly time to get her clothes off. And after that I sat
up for three hours in that chair, Dino. It was striking one by the
Duomo clock before I went to bed.'
She turned to the dresser by the wall and began reaching down plate
after plate, and looking at each one as she wiped it. 'I had this
china before you were born; the signora Marchesa took me with her to
choose it--and it was my wedding present from the Villa--sent down by
one of the footmen the day after I was married. I was sitting by that
window when it was brought in--a great heavy basket that the man could
hardly lift upon the table--only your father helped him. And there was
never a piece of it broken until you knocked down the saucer the day I
asked you to help me with the cups. But it's ungrateful work taking
care o' things that just end by being used by others who don't see any
difference. There's a plenty o' people in the world have got brighter
eyes for looking at their sweethearts with than for looking after their
husband's house. Palmira tells me that my boy, my young master, is at
home again, Dino?'
'Ay, signor Gasparo's here.'
'And went to see Sor Drea on his very first evening! He used to come
to me. _Guarda questa_! But young men will be young men. And 'tis
true that Andrea has sense enough to look after that girl of his.
She's given _you_ enough encouragement----'
'Mother!' said Dino in his severest voice; a voice which secretly awed
her.
He faced around suddenly, and stood looking at her as she moved to and
fro.
'Mother! it is not generous, it is not kind, to speak of Italia in that
fashion. And you know it hurts me. I love her,' he said, his voice
changing. 'Of course I love her. I don't care who knows that I love
her. But encouragement! I don't know what you mean. Encouragement
from Italia! She has never thought of such a thing; she would not know
what you meant----'
'Eh, don't tell me, lad. I've been a girl myself. 'Tis a poor dog
that doesn't know when he's wagging his own tail,' cried Catarina
bitterly, stooping to wipe the dust off the leg of a chair with the
corner of her apron. She made a busy pretence of it for a moment or
two, and then her hands dropped helplessly; she stood up and looked at
her tall son. 'An' so you love her;--you love that little girl! You
never told me of it before, lad.'
'But, mother dear, you never asked me. I always thought you knew it.
It was plain enough. And how was I to guess you wanted to be told? I
have never even told--her,' the young man said.
'And _she_ was to come first? Nay, 'tis but natural. The young birds
build new nests. Ah, but, Dino! Dino! I've lost you. I've lost my
own boy----'
Her voice broke: she turned abruptly away, and hid her gray head upon
her clasped hands.
'But, mother dear,--dearest mother!'
He stood with one hand on her shoulder, looking down at her bowed head
with a curiously-blended feeling of distress over her grief and
impatience at its unreasonableness: 'Mother! After all, you must have
expected it sooner or later: it is but natural----'
'Yes, lad. I know. 'Tis as you say: 'tis natural,' Catarina said
meekly; and then she turned her face away again with a sob and a
feeling of utter inevitable loneliness. How could the lad understand?
He was young, and she was growing old; and to him what was natural was
easy, and to her it was hard. That was all the difference.
She swallowed something in her throat, a lump which seemed to choke
her, and stood up. '_Poverino_! I won't tease you any more: don't be
vexed with me, lad,' she said soothingly, looking into his perplexed
face with a quivering smile. She put up her hand to brush off an
imaginary speck of dust from his coat. 'Nay, 'tis no wonder if people
love you. Go, my Dino, go to--her,' she said; and as Dino bent his
head and kissed her, 'It's because I am sending him away,' she thought,
bitterly enough.
'And how about Monte Nero, mother? The pilgrimage, you know. Italia
was asking about it last night,' he said cheerfully, glad to see her
beginning to accept things more placidly.
'Ay, lad, I'll think of it; but go now, go. I will not--I cannot--I
mean, do as you please. Make all your plans, and I will help you carry
them out. It's what I'm good for now, I suppose. I must learn not to
stand in your way--and hers.'
'Mother!'
'I-- Don't mind me, my Dino. Don't be angry with your old mother, my
own boy. It was only a--a surprise. I shall be all right when you
come back; for you will come back to dinner, my Dino? I am good for
that much: I can take care of you still.'
She followed him to the door, and then went and stood by the open
window, shading her eyes from the bright March sun, to watch him as he
passed down the street. Perhaps he would turn his head and look up.
But no. From that height she could not distinguish his face; she felt
a pang of idle regret at the thought; he seemed to get so soon beyond
her reach. After a while she went into her son's room, and opened all
his drawers, and began to turn over his possessions. She folded an old
coat which she found on the back of a chair: she folded it carefully.
I am not sure that she did not kiss it. Everything belonging to him
with which she had anything to do was kept in the most scrupulous
order, and she wanted to find something to mend, some work which she
could do for him.
There was a small faded photograph, a portrait of his father, hanging
over the young man's bed. She went and looked at it as it hung against
the wall, then took it down and stood with it in her hand. It was the
likeness of a man who had been in every way a disappointment in her
life; but she was not thinking of that now. The faded face looked at
her out of the past with its easy confident smile. She only remembered
the first year or two after her marriage, and her young husband's
kindness to her, and his first pride and pleasure in their boy. 'If
_he_ had not gone there would have been some one left to understand,'
she thought. Her own personal life seemed ended: she gazed with the
strangest pang of regret and companionship at this fading likeness of
the dead face she had loved in her youth. What if afterwards he had
neglected her? At least he had come to her once of his own accord, for
her own sake--and they had been young together.
She felt herself quite alone, this austere and self-contained
woman--alone in a world which could never change for the better now; in
which each new morning would only bring new deprivations in place of
fresh joys.
* * * * *
Dino had dressed himself in workman's clothes that morning. Drea did
not expect him yet, but it was just possible there might be something
which wanted doing in the boat. It was such a bright fresh morning
after the storm; a morning to make young hearts beat lightly and young
blood run fast with a quick sense and joy of dear life. But as he
turned mechanically down the busy Via Grande he saw nothing of all
this. His mother's words, the way in which she had taken it for
granted that if he loved Italia, Italia must love him, and how there
could be but one possible solution to their lives, all that would have
been so natural, so full of hope and radiant happiness last month, last
week--last week? only yesterday, only one day ago! And now; oh, the
bitter irony of fate! it was he himself who had forged the chain which
bound him. He cursed his own folly. Why could he not have been
contented? was he not deeply enough involved before then? why could he
not have let that last crowning piece of madness alone?
The look of the commonplace crowd around him, the presence of those
scores of hurrying, interested, contented, busy men, the very look of
the shop windows, all things seemed to conspire together to discredit
and ridicule the devoted side, the dramatic side, the only possible
side, of his situation. In a world like this--a world of common-sense
and convenience and keen enjoyments, a world of sunlight and youth and
possibilities, to choose deliberately, at four-and-twenty, to throw
away all one's future, all one's love, all one's life in doing--_that_.
Damn it! Even to himself he would never mention that accursed plan, he
would never think of it.
He thrust his hands deeper into the great pockets of his rough jacket,
and threw up his head defiantly, as he glanced about him. And each
house he passed, each soldier, each policeman, each lamp-post
even--every visible sign of peace and law and order--seemed a tangible
ironical comment on his folly. And why, in God's name, had he done
this thing? He remembered so well that evening--it was after their
demonstration had been dispersed by the police, and he was hot with a
sense of battle, and wild with excitement, with bitter baffled
indignation. It had seemed so easy a thing then to pledge away his
future. He had done it without consulting Valdez--suddenly, madly, on
the desperate impulse of the moment. He had done it in a moment of
mental crisis; because he was imaginative, because he believed in the
cause, heart and soul, because he had been a fool. And as he said that
to himself some old words of Pietro Valdez came back to him with sudden
force out of some old forgotten talk of theirs. 'How can any one
believe in your highest emotions?' he heard the familiar voice asking
him, 'how can you expect any one to believe in your highest emotions if
you question them yourself?'
The softest wind blew in his face and he did not feel it, the sunlight
rested on him, the sky was blue and white; but he had ceased to look
even at the passers-by. He felt like a man awakened from a dream, when
a hand touched him, and a voice spoke in his ear, and he looked up and
recognised the Marchese Gasparo.
'Hallo, old boy, are you asleep? are you dreaming? what the devil is
the matter with you?'
They had met in front of the Giappone, the fashionable restaurant of
Leghorn, where Gasparo had been breakfasting with a couple of his
friends. The two other men strolled off a few paces and waited,
smoking their long thin cigars, and eyeing Dino with a languid
curiosity. Gasparo, too, looked at his altered dress with some
exclamation of surprise.
'What is the meaning of that new toggery?' he demanded. 'I had to look
twice to make sure it was you. What are you up to now, old fellow, eh?
Is all that to oblige our good Andrea?' And then, without waiting for
an answer: 'See here, Dino, you're the very man I want. But stop a
moment. First of all, are you going anywhere in particular?'
'I am going to Drea's,' Dino said.
'To wish our pretty little friend good morning, eh, my Dino? Jove, how
pretty that girl looked in the firelight singing! But never mind that.
You can do something for me before you go there, can't you? Women are
never the worse for being kept waiting; in fact, it does them good, and
their hearts get softer with time, just as a peach softens when you
leave it for a bit to ripen on the tree. I say, Dino, be a good
obliging fellow for once. You are not really in a hurry?'
'No, sir.'
'_Benissimo_! Then you can go and do an errand for me. I want----
Look here; it's a letter I want carried. Rather an important letter.
It's--it's a love-letter, in fact,' said Gasparo, beginning to laugh,
'and I want it taken to the woman with the most beautiful eyes in
Leghorn--the most beautiful? well, at least I thought so until
yesterday. She is--her name is written on the envelope. But it is not
to be taken to her house, you understand? She is at Pancaldi's this
morning, at the Stabilimento. Go straight in to the platform where the
baths are in summer; you'll find her there, looking at the waves.' He
laughed, brushing up his moustache. 'So there you are; and now right
about face--march! Why, man, what are you staring at? There's the
letter; and I say, Dino, mind you give it to her quietly; just slip it
into her hand, you know, as if it were the answer to some commission.
Faith! they _are_ pretty eyes, if they're not so bright as Italia's.'
Dino turned red; he drew his shoulder away from the Marchese's careless
touch.
'I---- You must excuse me, sir,' he said roughly. 'Get some one else
to carry your letter. I won't go.'
'Hullo!' The Marchese threw back his head. 'Then--oh, go to the
devil!' he said, and turned lightly on his heel.
He walked off for a pace or two and stopped, irresolute. It was really
very awkward about that letter. He wanted it taken; he could not carry
it himself, and to find another trustworthy messenger at a moment's
notice---- He turned back.
'I say, old fellow, don't you think this is treating me rather badly?
It is not every one whom I'd ask to do this thing for me, but you--why,
we've been boys together, you and I.' A smile lighted up his handsome
face. 'I'd do as much for you any day, old Dino; for you and your
sweetheart.'
Among all the men of his time, the young Marchese, Gasparo Balbi, was
one of the most personally attractive. He was the most popular man in
his regiment; he fascinated the very orderly who cleaned his boots, and
all women and all children loved him. Wherever he went--in a ballroom,
or in the streets,--people turned in the same way to look at him. His
mere presence was an irresistible argument. When he talked it is
possible that what he said was neither particularly fresh nor
particularly new, but that did not matter; his silence and his speech
were alike persuasive. He had all the qualities of a ruler and leader
of men,--strong animal magnetism, an irresistible audacity, an
implacable will. He was like one of the English Stuarts in his
wonderful faculty of awakening passionate loyalty and enthusiasm in all
who came into personal relations with him; perhaps he was still more
like them in his power of using his friends, his capacity for charming
and--forgetting.
He stood there now smiling in the sunlight, like a young prince whose
good pleasure it is to explain when he need only command.
'Come, my Dino; I know you better than you know yourself. Surely you
are not going to refuse to do this for me?' he said.
He smiled again as De Rossi went off with the letter. If the Contessa
did not like it--well? He thought of her pleasantly, holding, as he
did, the easy Italian creed that, if money is the root of all evil,
women are at least its flower. Still, if the Contessa did not like it,
if by any chance she cared to make herself disagreeable--she _could_
get into a rage; that was certain--well? He adjusted his sword belt a
little and strolled back to his friends, whistling softly in an
undertone.
'Been giving that young fellow a rating, eh, Gasparo? He looked at you
at one moment as if he would not be sorry to measure the length of his
knife against your ribs,' remarked one of the men who had been waiting
for him.
'I was only giving him a commission. He's my foster-brother, by the
way, that chap, and would go through fire and water to serve me. So
much for your powers of discrimination, my Nello,' said Gasparo
carelessly.
He linked his arm in that of his friend, and they lounged slowly away
together through the crowded street.
Dino meanwhile was walking down the empty parade, on the farther side
of that straggling, weather-beaten row of trees which stands between
the Passeggiata and the low sea-wall. It was the same ground which he
had trodden the night before in his despair, and now he was being sent
over it again to carry a note at Gasparo's bidding. It was as if Fate
had determined to ridicule each turn of his fortunes. He was tasting
that experience which is common to all people who get into the way of
considering their lives from the outside,--dramatically, as it
were--the experience of those who, having many gifts, yet lack
simplicity. He contemplated and criticised any mental crisis in which
he found himself involved until it lost all sense of reality and became
a _situation_. He was, if possible, too clever, too sensitive. He
frittered his attention away on the by-play of life. As he walked
along in the sunshine of that morning, beside the blue and placid sea,
it was still very much of an open question with Dino what real _role_
he was to enact in life; it would depend so much upon whom he met; upon
association and circumstance; perhaps chiefly upon some secret pressure
of influence; the gift or the curse of some unconscious soul.
He walked slowly, but it was not far to the entrance of the
Stabilimento. Two men were lounging in the gateway. One of them
looked hard at Dino, at his preoccupied face, and the careless
workman's dress.
'Here! Give me your letter and I'll take it in for you, _giovane mio_,
he said good-naturedly.
Dino threw back his head with an involuntary expression of annoyance.
'I carry my own messages,' he answered shortly.
'A thousand pardons! Evidently the Signor--the Signor Carpenter, shall
I say? or the Signor _Facchino_?--evidently he wishes to pay for his
entrance, then? For let me tell you that Pancaldi's is like the gate
of Paradise; you don't go in without a proper _lasciapassare_.'
'Nay, can't you let the fellow alone, Beppi? Can't you see that he is
carrying a message? Let him in, you idiot, else we shall have the
Padrone himself down upon us,' the other man added in a voice like an
intermittent growl. He moved back a step or two, making room for Dino
to pass. 'Come in, come in, _bel giovane_. You need never mind my
comrade here; you cannot quarrel with a dog for barking at his own
gate. _Via_,' he said, with a wave of his hand, 'put up your purse, my
lad. Save the money to buy your sweetheart a fairing. Nay, if you
won't believe me, you can read, I suppose? and there it is written up
on the board in front of you, _Children and servants, admittance free_.
And so put up your money, I tell you.'
'And pray who the devil told you that I was a servant?' demanded Dino,
thrusting his hand into his pocket and drawing out a crumpled bit of
paper. It was the last five-franc note he had in the world; he tossed
it contemptuously across the wooden ledge in front of him. 'Pay
yourself, and try to know a gentleman the next time you see one, will
you?'
'Ah, a fine gentleman, truly,' said the man called Beppi, picking up
the note and contemplating it with a sneer.
'_Perdio_,' added his companion, 'a man with money is a man in the
right. So put that in your pipe, _amico mio_, and smoke it. Ay,
money, it's like one's other blood; a man with empty pockets, 'tis but
a dead man walking.'
'Oh, that's all very fine, but _I_ like consistency. A gentleman's a
gentleman, _I_ say. It never was so much of a world to boast of at the
best, and when it comes to a new tax upon the wine, and not so much as
the prospect of half a day's holiday just to make a feast for the
blessed Madonna of Monte Nero,--and common workmen who go about
throwing five-franc notes in your face, as if the world had gone mad.
_I_ like consistency, that's what I say,' retorted Beppi, in a voice
which grew gradually lower as he looked from the note between his
finger and thumb at Dino's receding figure.
It was scarcely more than a moment before De Rossi had come upon the
object of his search. He recognised her immediately; indeed he had
often before seen her passing in her carriage, a beautiful impassive
figure, wrapped in her costly Russian furs. She was alone now, leaning
over the balustrade with her eyes fixed vaguely upon the changing
ripples of the sea. At any other moment Dino might have felt a certain
timidity in approaching her; but the irritation of that challenge at
the gate was still strong upon him. This woman here was only another
of those aristocrats whose privileged existences made life intolerable.
Was it intolerable by conviction of its injustice, or only by force of
contrast?
But he troubled himself with no such inquiry as he went up to her. He
lifted his hat: 'Pardon my disturbing you; but I bring a message--a
letter--from the Signor Marchese Gasparo Balbi,' he said.
She was a tall young woman, nearly as tall as himself; that was the
first thing he noticed. He saw her gloved hand start and shut more
closely over the railing of the balcony at the first sound of his
voice. But that was the only sign of surprise which she gave. There
was not a quiver of perceptible emotion on the pale inscrutable face
which she turned so slowly towards him.
'_Bene_. You may give me the letter. Thanks.'
She held out her gauntleted hand with a gesture of superb indifference,
and then, as her dark glance rested for the first time upon Dino, she
raised her perfect eyebrows with a slight expression of wonder. She
had expected to see Gasparo's soldier servant. She turned her face
away from him.
'Madame Helwige!'
A little old woman dressed in black, who had been quietly seated in a
sunny corner, reading a Tauchnitz novel under the shade of a large
parasol, rose quickly and came forward at this call.
'The Signora Contessa desires----'
'My purse. Yes. I want some money,' the young woman said impatiently.
She made no secret of the letter she had received, holding it by one
corner, and tapping the top railing with it to the measure of an
inaudible tune.
'Then, if I can do nothing more for you, I will go. I have the honour
of wishing you good morning,' added Dino quietly, turning away.
'Stop a moment. This lady will give you something for your trouble.
Or--stop! Who are you? What is your name?'
'Bernardino de Rossi.'
'Ah. The Marchese Gasparo's foster-brother. That explains. I have
heard him mention you: he says you are one of the discontented
people,--a radical, a red republican, _que sais je, moi_? Is it true?'
she asked calmly, fixing her large disdainful eyes upon the young man's
face.
He bowed gravely. 'Since the Signora Contessa does me the honour to
inquire. I am a radical; that is my belief.'
'Really? And you think we are all equal? We are all equally
discontented, 'tis true enough; _mais apres_?' She struck the
balustrade lightly with her letter. 'Do you see the water beating
against that wall of rock, Signor de' Rossi? Twice a day the tide
comes in, and before the waves can climb half-way up the cliff, twice a
day the tide goes out. 'Tis the same way with the people's anger--ebb
and flow. And the greatest storm can only wet the rocks; it can't
uproot them. What do you Italians know about such things? But I, I am
a Russian, and I know.' She looked out to sea again. 'When the waves
beat too fiercely against the shore the rock breaks them,' she said.
Then she looked at Dino tranquilly. 'I have heard the Marchese Gasparo
speak of you; he takes an interest in you. It would be a pity if you
should disappoint him,' she added, and moved away slowly with a
careless bend of her head.
Dino stood as she had left him for a long moment, holding his hat in
his hand, the wind just ruffling the thick hair on his forehead, gazing
fixedly out to sea. He stood like a man under the influence of some
spell. Then, as he looked up and caught the curious glance of the
Countess' companion fixed full upon him, he hastily replaced his hat
and turned away.
Just outside the gate he came upon Valdez with a roll of music in his
hand, going about his work. Dino nodded to him; he would not stop to
speak. The older man slackened his pace, looking at him rather sadly,
as if he were sorry for something, then passed on. Afterwards it
struck Dino that they had never happened to pass one another in this
silent way before. He stopped, looking down the long street at the old
familiar figure. But what had they to say to each other now, even if
he should turn and overtake him? Dino was like a man under sentence of
death; all the minor obligations of life seemed annulled and suspended;
where they clung still it was by force of habit, like the withering
tendrils of a vine cut down at the root.
A great impatience of trouble had fallen upon him: he wanted no more
emotion, no more effort. There was a clear fortnight, perhaps three
weeks, before--before he would be sent to Rome. Well! he wanted that
time to himself, and he intended to have it, he intended to be happy.
The first great shock of the surprise was over: his nature had already
re-adjusted itself to these new conditions with the supple strength of
youth. And in this fixed interval of quiet--this interval, which
seemed all the longer by very reason of its being fixed,--all the
light, joy-loving instincts of his age were alert within him, making
music in his heart, like the rapturous song of birds between two
storms. The habit of life, its careless young incredulity of the end,
had never been more strong upon him; he had never felt more
irresponsible; had never looked, perhaps had never been more like his
father, than on that morning, as he turned down from the broad sunny
Passeggiata towards old Drea's house on the quay.