Angela lived for weeks in a state of sleepless apathy, so far as her
companion could see. She scarcely spoke, and ate barely enough to keep
herself alive. She seemed not to sleep at all, for two or three times
during every night Madame Bernard got up and came to her room, and she
always found her lying quite motionless on her back, her eyes wide
open and staring at the tasteless little pattern of flowers stencilled
in colours on the ceiling. Once Madame Bernard proposed to take away
the night-light that burned in a cup on the floor, but Angela shook
her head almost energetically. She never opened a book either, nor
occupied herself in any way, but seemed content to sit still all day
and to lie awake all night, never complaining, and never even speaking
unless her friend asked her a direct question. Every morning at
sunrise she put on her hat and went to the ancient church of San
Crisogono, which is served by Trinitarian monks. Sometimes Madame
Bernard went with her, but more often she was accompanied by the one
woman-servant who cooked and did the housework.
The unhappy girl found neither consolation nor hope in the daily
service; she went to it because, somehow, it seemed to be the only
thing she could do for the dead. She knelt down every day on the same
spot, and remained kneeling till after the priest and the acolyte were
gone; she took her missal with her, but never looked at it, and her
lips never moved in prayer; she felt no impulse to go to confession,
nor any devotional craving for the Communion. The mass was a mere form
to her, but she attended it regularly, as if she expected that much of
herself and would not do less than the least that seemed to be her
duty. That was all. Prayer in any form of words frightened her, for it
soon brought her near to that blinding darkness which she had already
met twice and had learned to dread; her present misfortune was
incomparably greater than those that had gone before, and she was sure
that if the outer night rose round her again it would take her soul
down into itself to eternal extinction. If she had been physically
stronger, she might have tried to call this a foolish delusion; weak
as she was, and growing daily weaker, it seemed as certain as that her
body must perish instantly if she walked over a precipice. The past
was distorted, the present had no meaning, and there was no future;
she vaguely understood Dante's idea that the body may be left on
earth, apparently alive, for years after the soul has departed from
it, for the evil Alberigo's spirit told the poet that his own body and
Branca d'Oria's were still animated by demons when their souls were
already in the torment of the eternal ice. But Angela felt rather as
if her living self were a mere senseless shell, uninhabited by any
spirit, bad or good, and moved by the mechanics of nature rather than
by her own will or another's.
Madame Bernard watched her with growing anxiety as the days and weeks
brought no change. The little lodging in Trastevere was very silent,
and Coco sat disconsolately drooping his wings on his perch when his
mistress was out, as she was during more than half the day, giving the
lessons by which she and Angela lived. The girl sometimes did not move
from her chair throughout the long morning any more than if she had
been paralysed, or at most she tried to tend the flowers. The roses
were blooming now, and on fine days, when the windows were open, the
aromatic perfume of the young carnations floated in with the sunbeams.
Angela did not notice the scent, and for all the pleasure the blossoms
gave her they might have been turnips and potatoes. But there was a
feeble underlying thought of duty in plucking off a small withered
leaf here and there, and in picking out the tiny weeds that tried to
grow round the flower-stems. From very far away she heard Madame
Bernard telling her, an age ago, that she could tend the flowers and
take care of the parrot by way of helping in the house.
Coco regarded her efforts with melancholy contempt, and turned his
back on her when she came near him, and even when she changed the
water in his tin cup. As he only drank three or four drops in a day,
it probably seemed to him a work of supererogation. While his mistress
was out he rarely uttered a sound; but when he heard her footstep in
the short passage outside, he gave vent to his feelings and hailed her
return with boisterous shouts and unearthly whistling of old French
military tunes. Even the noise he made did not disturb Angela; she
hardly heard him, for her nerves were not overwrought, but deadened
almost to insensibility.
Madame Bernard consulted a young doctor, a man of talent, who was
taking lessons of her for the sake of his practice among foreigners.
She used to say that between her pupils, and their friends and
relations, she could get the best advice on any matter without paying
a penny for it. The young physician answered that he could not help
her much without seeing the patient, but that the best thing for
Angela would be to eat and sleep well and not to fret.
Some such idea had probably occurred to the little Frenchwoman, for
she laughed gaily in the doctor's face, and he, not being paid to look
serious, joined in her laughter.
'You cannot say it is bad advice,' he said, 'and you wanted me to say
something. Let me see the young lady, and I will tell you honestly
whether I know of anything that will do her good, as I would tell a
colleague.'
They agreed that he should call one evening on pretence of taking an
extra lesson in a leisure hour; he came at the appointed time, and
watched Angela narrowly during the short time she remained in the
room. When she was gone, he gave his opinion without hesitation.
'The best thing for her would be a good illness,' he said. 'You look
surprised! I will try to explain. That young lady is stronger than you
think. It would do her a world of good to shed tears, but she cannot
because her unconscious power of resistance has been exercised till it
has grown rigid. You have heard of Hindu devotees who hold up one arm
till it stiffens in that position, so that they could not move it if
they tried. That is an image of what I mean, unless it is the thing
itself. After learning the terrible news Donna Angela unconsciously
steeled herself against her natural impulse to break down. She has a
strong will, and the result is what you see. The strain of resisting
was so great that it deadened her to all sensation in a few hours. If
she could fall ill, the tension would relax; in my opinion it will do
so when her physical strength is worn out by starvation and lack of
sleep, but a simple specific malady, like the whooping-cough or the
measles, would be better for her. If you cannot break up her present
condition, and if she has any organic weakness of the heart, it may
stop beating one of these days. That is what is called dying of a
broken heart, my dear Madame Bernard. There is no medicine against
that like a broken leg!'
'Fie!' cried Madame Bernard. 'You have no human feeling at all!'
'I am sorry,' answered the physician, with a smile, 'but it is my
business to have a head instead. You asked my opinion and I have given
it, as I would to another doctor. The old-fashioned ones would laugh
at me, the younger ones would understand.'
'If you could only make the poor child sleep a little! Is there
nothing?'
'She is not neurasthenic,' the doctor objected. 'It would be of no use
to give her sleeping medicines, for after a few days they would have
no effect, except to excite her nerves unnaturally.'
'Or something to give her an appetite,' suggested Madame Bernard
vaguely.
'She has an excellent appetite if she only knew it. The reason why she
does not eat is that she does not know she is hungry, though she is
half starved. I served in the African campaign when I was a young
military surgeon. I have seen healthy men faint for want of food when
they had plenty at hand because they could not realise that they were
hungry in their intense preoccupation. Great emotions close the
entrance to the stomach, often for a considerable time. It is well
known, and it is easier than you think to form the habit of living on
next to nothing. It is the first step that counts.'
'As they said of Saint Denis when he carried his head three steps
after it was cut off,' said Madame Bernard thoughtfully, and without a
smile.
'Precisely,' the doctor assented. 'I myself have seen a man sit his
horse at a full gallop, without relaxing his hold, for fifty yards
after he had been shot through the head. The seat of the nerves that
direct automatic motion is not in the brain, but appears to be in the
body, near the spine. When it is not injured, what used to be called
unconscious cerebration may continue for several seconds after death.
Similarly, bodily habits, like feeling hunger or being insensible to
it, appear to have their origin in those ganglions and not in any sort
of thought. Consequently, thought alone, without a strong exercise of
the will, has little effect upon such habits of the body. When a man
does a thing he does not mean to do, and says "I cannot help it," he
is admitting this fact. If you were to ask Donna Angela if she means
to starve herself to death deliberately, she would deny it with
indignation, but would tell you that she really cannot eat, and
meanwhile she is starving. Give her a comparatively harmless illness
like the measles, severe enough to break up the ordinary automatic
habits of the body, and she will eat again, with an excellent
appetite. In all probability I could give her the measles by
artificial means, but unfortunately that sort of treatment is not yet
authorised!'
The young doctor, who was not by any means a dreamer, seemed much
amused at his own conclusion, which looks absurd even on paper, and
Madame Bernard did not believe a word he said. In questions of
medicine women are divided into two great classes, those who will
consult any doctor and try anything, and those who only ask the
doctor's opinion when they are forced to, and who generally do
precisely the opposite of what he suggests. This is a more practical
view and is probably the safer, if they must go to one of the two
extremes. Moreover, doctors are so much inclined to disagree that when
three of them give a unanimous opinion it is apt to be worthless.
The only immediate result of Madame Bernard's consultation with the
doctor was that she disappointed one of her pupils the next day in
order to gain an hour, which she devoted to making a very exquisite
'mousse de volaille' for Angela. The poor girl was much touched, but
could only eat two or three mouthfuls, and the effort she made to
overcome her repugnance was so unmistakable that the good little
Frenchwoman was more anxious for her than hurt at the failure.
She had tried two sciences, she said to herself, but the doctor of
medicine had talked the nonsense of theories to her, and the combined
wisdom of Vatel, Brillat-Savarin, and Carême had proved fruitless. A
person who could not eat Madame Bernard's 'mousse de volaille' could
only be cured by a miracle. Accordingly, she determined to consult a
churchman without delay, and went out early in the afternoon. Angela
did not notice that she was dressed with more than usual care, as if
for a visit of importance.
She had been gone about half-an-hour, and the young girl was sitting
in her accustomed place, listless and apathetic as usual, when the
door-bell rang, and a moment later the woman-servant came in, saying
that a foreign gentleman was on the landing who insisted on seeing
Angela, even though she was alone. After giving a long and not
flattering description of his appearance, the woman held out the card
he had given her. Angela glanced at it and read the name of Filmore
Durand, and above, in pencil, half-a-dozen words: 'I have brought you
a portrait.'
Angela did not understand in the least, though she tried hard to
concentrate her thoughts.
'Ask the gentleman to come in,' she answered at last, hardly knowing
what she said.
She turned her face to the window again, and in the course of thirty
seconds, when she was roused by Durand's voice in the room, she had
almost forgotten that he was in the house. She had not heard English
spoken since she had left his studio on the morning when her father
died, and she started at the sound. For weeks, nothing had made such
an impression on her.
She rose to receive the great painter, who was standing near the table
in the middle of the room, looking at her in surprise and real
anxiety, for she was little more than a shadow of the girl he had
painted six weeks or two months earlier. He himself had brought in a
good-sized picture, wrapped in new brown paper; it stood beside him on
the floor, reaching as high as his waist, and his left hand rested on
the upper edge. He held out the other to Angela, who took it
apathetically.
'You have been very ill,' he said in a tone of concern.
'No,' she answered. 'I am only a little tired. Will you not sit down?'
She sank into her seat again, and one thin hand lay on the cushioned
arm of the chair. Instead of seating himself, Durand lifted the
picture, still wrapped up, and set it upright on the table, so that it
faced her.
'I heard,' he said in a low voice, 'so I did this for you from memory
and a photograph.'
There was a sudden crackling and tearing of the strong paper as he
ripped it off with a single movement, and then there was absolute
silence for some time. Angela seemed not even to breathe, as she
leaned forward with parted lips and unwinking, wondering eyes.
Then, without even a warning breath, a cry broke from her heart.
'He is not dead! You have seen him again! He is alive--they have
cheated me!'
Then she choked and leaned back, pressing her handkerchief to her
mouth.
Instead of answering, the painter bent his head and looked down
sideways at his own astounding handiwork, and for the second time in
that year he was almost satisfied. Presently, as Angela said nothing
more, he was going to move the canvas, to show it in a better light,
but she thought he meant to take it away.
'No!' she cried imperatively. 'Not yet! Let me see it--let me
understand----'
Her words died away and she was silent again, her eyes fixed on the
portrait. At last she rose, came forward, and laid both her thin hands
on the narrow black and gold frame.
'I must have it,' she said. 'You must let me have it, though I cannot
pay for it. But I will some day. I will work till I can earn enough
money, or till I die--and if that comes soon, they will give you back
the picture. You cannot take it away!'
Durand saw that she had not understood.
'It is for you,' he said. 'I painted it to give to you. You see, after
your father died, I kept yours--I never meant them to have it, but it
seemed as if I owed you something for it, and this is to pay my debt.
Do you see?'
'How kind you are!' she cried. 'How very, very kind! I do not quite
follow the idea--my head is always so tired now--but I knew you would
understand how I should feel--if I accepted it without any return!'
So far as arithmetic went, the man of genius and the broken-hearted
girl were equally far from ordinary reckoning. Durand knew that by a
turn of luck he had been able to keep the only portrait he had ever
been sorry to part with when it was finished, and he was intimately
convinced that he owed somebody something for such an unexpected
pleasure; on her side, Angela was quite sure that unless the portrait
of the man she had loved was to be an equivalent for some sort of
obligation she could not be satisfied to keep it all her life unpaid
for.
It filled the little sitting-room with light and colour, as a Titian
might have done; it was as intensely alive as Giovanni Severi had
been--the eyes were full of those quick little coruscations of fire
that had made them so unlike those of other men, the impulsive
nostrils seemed to quiver, the healthy young blood seemed to come and
go in the tanned cheeks, the square shoulders were just ready to make
that quick, impatient little movement that had been so characteristic
of him, so like the sudden tension of every muscle when a thoroughbred
scents sport or danger. No ordinary artist would ever have seen all
there was in the man, even in a dozen sittings, but the twin gifts of
sight and memory had unconsciously absorbed and held the whole, and a
skill that was never outdone in its time had made memory itself
visible on the canvas. Something that was neither a 'harmless illness'
nor a 'miracle' had waked Angela from her torpor.
'How can I thank you?' she asked, after a long pause. 'You do not know
what it is to me to see his living face--you will call it an
illusion--it seems as if----'
She broke off suddenly and pressed her handkerchief to her lips again.
'Only what you call the unreal can last unchanged for a while,' the
painter said, catching at the word she had used, and thinking more of
his art than of her. 'Only an ideal can be eternal, but every honest
attempt to give it shape has a longer life than any living creature.
Nature makes only to destroy, but art creates for the very sake of
preserving the beautiful.'
She heard each sentence, but was too absorbed in the portrait to
follow his meaning closely. Perhaps it would have escaped her if she
had tried.
'Only good and evil are everlasting,' she said, almost unconsciously
repeating words she had heard somewhere when she was a child.
Durand looked at her quickly, but he saw that she was not really
thinking.
'What is "good"?' he asked, as if he were sure that there was no
answer to the question.
It attracted her attention, and she turned to him; she was coming back
to life.
'Whatever helps people is good,' she said.
'The French proverb says "Help thyself and God will help thee,"'
suggested Durand.
'No, it should be "Help others, and God will help you,"' Angela
answered.
The artist fixed his eyes on her as he nodded a silent assent; and
suddenly, though her face was so changed, he knew it was more like his
portrait of her than ever, and that the prophecy of his hand was
coming to fulfilment.
He stayed a moment longer, and asked if he could be of any service to
her or Madame Bernard. She thanked him vaguely, and almost smiled. He
felt instinctively that she was thinking of what she had last said,
and was wishing that some one would tell her how she might do
something for others, rather than that another should do anything for
her.
She went with him to the door at the head of the stairs and let him
out herself.
'Thank you,' she said, 'thank you! You don't know what you have done
for me!'
He looked at her in thoughtful silence for a few seconds, holding her
hand as if they were old friends.
'There is no such thing as death,' he said gravely.
And with this odd speech he left her and went slowly down the narrow
stone steps; and though she watched him till he disappeared at the
next landing, he did not once turn his head.
When she was in the sitting-room she set the framed picture on a
straight chair near the window and sat down before it in her
accustomed seat; and Durand's last words came back to her again and
again, as if they were begging to be remembered and understood. Her
memory brought with them many exhortations and sayings from the sacred
books, but none of them seemed to mean just what she knew that little
speech of his must mean if she could quite understand it.
She had come to life again unexpectedly, and the spell of her dreadful
solitude was broken. She did not think it strange that her eyes were
dry as she gazed at the well-loved face, while the inner voice told
her that there was 'no such thing as death.' The dead man had done his
duty, and he expected her to do hers until the time came for them to
meet for ever.
In the aimless wandering of her thoughts during the past weeks she had
only understood that he was gone. In an uncounted moment, while she
had been turning over the leaves of a book, or idly talking with
Madame Bernard, or plucking a withered leaf from one of the plants
outside the window, he had been fighting for his life and had lost it.
Perhaps she had been quietly asleep just then. She had heard people
say they were sure that if anything happened to those they dearly
loved, some warning would reach them; she had heard tales of persons
appearing at the moment of their death to those dearest to them, and
even to indifferent people. Such stories were but idle talk, for while
she had been reading the news out to Madame Bernard, she had been
expecting to hear that the expedition was advancing successfully on
its way, she had been wondering what chance there was of getting a
letter from the interior, she had been intimately convinced that
Giovanni was safe, well, and making good progress, when he had been
dead a fortnight.
Madame Bernard had read the details, so far as they were known, but
she had wisely said nothing except that the news was fully confirmed.
Angela herself had refused to touch a newspaper since that day; it had
been enough that he was gone--to know how, or even to guess, would be a
suffering she could not face. What had been found of the poor men who
had perished had been brought home; there had been a great military
funeral for them; their names were inscribed for ever on the roll of
honour. In time, when the political situation changed, an effort would
be made to avenge their death, no doubt; for every man who had been
murdered a hundred would be slain, or more, if possible, till even a
Scythian might feel satisfied that their angry spirits were appeased
by blood. Angela knew nothing of all this, for she never left the
house except to go to early mass every day, and Madame Bernard never
spoke of the dead man nor of the lost expedition.
When the governess came home, a little after sunset, Angela was still
sitting before the picture, her chin resting on her hand and her elbow
on her knee as she leaned forward to see better in the failing light.
The girl turned her head with a bright smile, and Madame Bernard
started in surprise when she saw the portrait.
'It is he!' she cried. 'It is he, to the very life!'
'Yes,' Angela answered softly, 'it is Giovanni. He has been telling me
that I must do my part, as he did his. He is waiting for me, but I
cannot go to him till my share is done.'
She was gazing at the face again, while Madame Bernard looked from it
to her in undisguised astonishment.
'I do not understand, my dear,' she said very gently. 'Who has brought
you this wonderful picture?'
She hardly expected an explanation, and she guessed that the portrait
was Durand's work, for few living painters could have made such a
likeness, and none would have painted it in that way, which was
especially his own. To her surprise Angela turned on her chair without
rising, and told her just what had happened, since he had come in
early in the afternoon bringing the picture with him. When she had
finished she turned to it again, as if there were nothing more to be
said, and at that moment Coco began to talk in a tone that made
further conversation impossible. Madame Bernard took him on her hand
and disappeared with him.
When she came back, Angela was standing on a chair holding up the
portrait with both hands and trying to hang it by the inner edge of
the frame on an old nail she had found already driven into the wall.
Madame Bernard at once began to help her, as if not at all surprised
at her sudden energy, though it seemed nothing less than miraculous.
They succeeded at last, and both got down from their chairs and drew
back two steps to judge of the effect.
'It is a little too high,' Angela said thoughtfully. To-morrow I will
get a cord and two rings to screw into the frame at the back, and then
we will hang it just as it should be.'
'Perhaps we could put it in a better light,' Madame Bernard suggested.
'The room is so dark now that one cannot judge of that.'
'He must be where he can see me,' Angela said.
Her friend looked puzzled, and the young girl smiled again, quite
naturally.
'I am not dreaming,' she said, as if answering a question not spoken.
'I do not mean that the picture can really see, any more than I
believe that what they call "miraculous images" of saints are the
saints themselves! But when I see the eyes of the portrait looking
straight at me, I feel that he himself must see me, from where he is;
and he will see me do my part, as he has done his. At least, I hope I
may.'
She went to her own room, and Madame Bernard followed her to light the
little lamp for her as she had always done of late. But to-day Angela
insisted on doing it herself.
'You must not wait on me any more,' said the girl. 'I have been very
idle for weeks, but I did not understand, and you will forgive me,
because you are so good and kind.'
'You are a little angel, my dear!' cried Madame Bernard, much
affected. 'They did right to name you Angela!'
But Angela shook her head, as she put the paper shade over the cheap
lamp, and then went to the window to close the inner shutters before
drawing the chintz curtains.
'I have been a very useless little angel,' she answered, 'and I am
sorry for it. But I mean to do better now, and you will help me, won't
you?'
'That is all I ask! But to tell the truth, I was discouraged to-day,
and I have been to ask the advice of a very good man. There! I have
told you, and I am glad of it, because I hate secrets! He has promised
to come and see you, and talk to you, but now that you are yourself
again----' She stopped, as if embarrassed.
'Who is he?' asked Angela with a shade of distrust. 'A priest?'
'Please do not be angry!' Madame Bernard began to repent of what she
had done. 'I was so much distressed--I felt that you were slipping out
of the world day by day, just dying of a broken heart, so I went to
see him this afternoon.'
'I am not going to die,' Angela said confidently. 'Who is he? I think
I know at last what I must do, without the advice of a priest. But
tell me who he is.'
'He is such a good man, my dear--Monsignor Saracinesca.'
'That is different,' Angela said, changing her tone at once. 'I shall
be very glad to see Monsignor Saracinesca. He is a real saint, if
there is one living.'