“The discipline for to-morrow is this....” said the preacher, reading from a small card. “You will sacrifice to the Virgin Mary all the sentiments of rancour that you cherish in your hearts, and you will kiss the schoolfellow, the teacher, or the servant whom you think you hate.”
In the twilight of the chapel there was a slight stir among the grown-up girls and teachers; the little ones remained quiet; some of them were asleep, others yawned behind tiny hands, and their small round faces twitched with weariness. The sermon had lasted an hour; and the poor children had not understood a word of it. They were longing for supper and bed. The preacher had now descended from the pulpit, and Cherubina Friscia, the teacher who acted as sacristan, was lighting the candles with a taper. By degrees the chapel became flooded with light. The cheeks of the dazed, sleepy little girls flushed pink under it; their elders stood immovable, with blinking startled eyes, and weary indifferent faces. Some prayed, with bowed heads, while the candle-light played with the thick plaits of their hair, coiled close to the neck, and with certain blonde curls that no comb could restrain. Then, when the whole chapel was lighted for the recital of the Rosary, the group of girl scholars in white muslin frocks, with black aprons and the various coloured ribbons by which the classes were distinguished, assumed a gay aspect, despite the general weariness. A deep sigh escaped Lucia Altimare.
“What ails thee?” queried Caterina Spaccapietra, under her breath.
“I suffer, I suffer,” murmured the other dreamily. “This preacher saddens me. He does not understand, he does not feel, Our Lady.” And the black pupils of her eyes, set in bluish white, dilated as in a vision. Caterina did not reply. The Directress intoned the Rosary in a solemn voice, with a strong Tuscan accent. She read the Mystery alone. Then all the voices in chorus, shrill and low, accompanied her in the Gloria Patri, and in the Pater.
She repeated the Ave Maria as far as the Frutto del tuo ventre; the teachers and pupils taking up the words in unison. The chapel filled with music, the elder pupils singing with a fulness of voice that sounded like the outpouring of their souls: but the little ones made a game of it. While the Directress, standing alone, repeated the verses, they counted the time, so that they might all break in at the end with a burst, and nudging each other, tittered under their breath. Some of them would lean over the backs of the chairs, assuming a devout collectedness, but in reality pulling out the hair of the playfellows in front of them. Some played with their rosaries under their pinafores, with an audible click of the beads. The vigilant eye of the Directress watched over the apparently exemplary elder girls; she saw that Carolina Pentasuglia wore a carnation at the button-hole of her bodice, though no carnations grew in the College gardens; that a little square of paper was perceptible in the bosom of Ginevra Avigliana, beneath the muslin of her gown; that Artemisia Minichini, with the short hair and firm chin, had as usual crossed one leg over the other, in contempt of religion; she saw and noted it all. Lucia Altimare sat leaning forward, with wide open eyes fixed upon a candle, her mouth drawn slightly on one side; from time to time a nervous shock thrilled her. Close to her, Caterina Spaccapietra said her prayers in all tranquillity, her eyes void of sight, as was her face of motion and expression. The Directress said the words of the Ave Maria without thinking of their meaning, absent, preoccupied, getting through her prayers as rapidly as possible.
The restlessness of the little ones increased. They twisted about, and lightly raised themselves on their chairs, whispering to each other, and fidgeting with their rosaries. Virginia Friozzi had a live cricket in her pocket, with a fine silken thread tied round its claw; at first she had covered it with her hand to prevent its moving, then she had allowed it to peep out of the opening of her pocket, then she had taken it out and hidden it under her apron; at last she could not resist showing it to the neighbours on her right and on her left. The news spread, the children became agitated, restraining their laughter with difficulty, and no longer giving the responses in time. Suddenly the cricket dragged at the thread, and hopped off, limping, into the midst of the passage which divided the two rows of chairs. There was a burst of laughter.
“Friozzi will not appear in the parlour to-morrow,” said the Directress severely.
The child turned pale at the harshness of a punishment which would prevent her from seeing her mother.
Cherubina Friscia, the sacristan-teacher, of cadaverous complexion, and worn anæmic face, descended the altar steps, and confiscated the cricket. There was a moment of silence, and then they heard the gasping voice of Lucia Altimare murmuring, “Mary ... Mary ... divine Mary!”
“Pray silently, Altimare,” gently suggested the Directress.
The Rosary began again, this time without interruption. All knelt down, with a great noise of moving chairs, and the Latin words were recited, almost chanted, in chorus. Caterina Spaccapietra rested her head against the back of the chair in front of her. Lucia Altimare had thrown herself down, shuddering, with her head on the straw seat, and arms hanging slack at her side.
“The blood will go to your head, Lucia,” whispered her friend.
“Leave me alone,” said Lucia.
The pupils rose from their knees. One of them, accompanied by a teacher, had mounted the steps leading to the little organ. The teacher played a simple devotional prelude for the Litany to the Virgin. A pure fresh voice, of brilliant quality, rang out, and permeated the chapel, waking its sleeping echoes; a young yearning voice, crying with the ardour of an invocation, “Sancta Maria...!” And from below, all the pupils responded in the minor key, “Ora pro nobis!” The singer stood in the light on the platform of the organ, her face turned towards the altar. She was Giovanna Casacalenda, a tall girl whose white raiment did not conceal her fine proportions; a girl with a massive head, upon which her dark hair was piled heavily, and with eyes so black that they appeared as if painted. She stood there alone, isolated, infusing all the passion of her youth into her full mellow voice, delighting in the pleasure of singing as if she had freed herself, and lived in her song. The pupils turned to look at her, with the joy in music which is inherent in childhood. When the voice of Giovanna came down to them, the chorus rising from below answered, “Ora pro nobis!” She felt her triumph. With head erect, her wondrous black eyes swimming in a humid light, her right hand resting lightly on the wooden balustrade, her white throat throbbing as if for love, she intoned the medium notes, ran up to the highest ones, and came down gently to the lower, giving full expression to her song: “Regina angelorum...!” One moment of silence, in which to enjoy the last notes; then from below, in enthusiastic answer, came childish and youthful voices: “Ora pro nobis!” The singer looked fixedly at the altar, but she seemed to see or hear something beyond it—a vision, or music inaudible to the others. Every now and then a breath passed through her song, lending it warmth, making it passionate; every now and then the voice thinned itself to a golden thread, that sounded like the sweet trill of a bird, while occasionally it sank to a murmur, with a delicious hesitation.
“Giovanna sees heaven,” said Ginevra Avigliana to Artemisia Minichini.
“Or the stage,” rejoined the other, sceptically.
Still, when Giovanna came to the poetic images by which the Virgin is designated—Gate of Heaven, Vase of Election, Tower of David—the girls’ faces flushed in the ecstasy of that wondrous music: only Caterina Spaccapietra, who was absorbed, did not join in, and Lucia Altimare, who wept silently. The tears coursed down her thin cheeks. They rained upon her bosom and her hands; they melted away on her apron; and she did not dry them. Caterina quietly passed her handkerchief to her. But she took no notice of it. The preacher, Father Capece, went up the altar steps for the benediction. The Litany ended with the Agnus Dei. The voice of the singer seemed overpowered by sheer fatigue. Once more all the pupils knelt, and the priest prayed. Giovanna, kneeling at the organ, breathed heavily. After five minutes of silent prayer, the organ pealed out again slowly over the bowed heads, and a thrilling resonant voice seemed to rise from mid-air towards heaven, lending its splendour to the Sacrament in the Tantum Ergo. Giovanna was no longer tired; indeed her song grew in power, triumphant and full of life, with an ebb and flow that were almost voluptuous. The throb of its passion passed over the youthful heads below, and a mystic sensation caused their hearts to flutter. In the intensity of their prayer, in the approach of the benediction, they realised the solemnity of the moment. It dominated and terrified them, until it was followed by a painful and exquisite prostration. Then all was silent. A bell rang three peals; for an instant Artemisia Minichini dared to raise her eyes; she alone; looking at the inert forms upon the chairs, looking boldly at the altar; after which, overcome by childish fear, she dropped them again.
The holy Sacrament, in its sphere of burnished gold, raised high in the priest’s hands, shed its blessing on those assembled in the church.
“I am dying,” gasped Lucia Altimare.
At the door of the chapel, in the long gas-lighted corridor, the teachers were waiting to muster the classes, and lead them to the refectory. The faces were still agitated, but the little ones hopped and skipped about, and prattled together, and pinched each other, in all the joyous exuberance of childhood released from durance vile. As their limbs unstiffened, they jostled each other, laughing the while. The teachers, running after some of them, scolding others, half threatening, half coaxing, tried to range them in a file of two and two. They began with the little ones, then came the elder children, and after them the grown-up girls. The corridor rang with voices, calling:
“The Blues, where are the Blues?” “Here they are, all of them.” “Friozzi is missing.” “Where is Friozzi of the Blues?” “Here!” “In line, and to the left, if you please.” “The Greens, in line the Greens, or no fruit for dinner to-morrow.” “Quick, the refectory bell has rung twice already.” “Federici of the Reds, walk straight!” “Young ladies of the White-and-Greens, the bell is ringing for the third time.” “Are the Tricolors all here?” “All.” “Casacalenda is missing.” “She is coming; she is still at the organ.” “Altimare is missing.” “Where is Altimare?”
“She was here just now, she must have disappeared in the bustle; shall I look for her?”
“Look; and come to the refectory with her.”
Then the corridor emptied, and the refectory filled with light and merriment. With measured, almost rhythmic step, Caterina went to and fro in the deserted passages, seeking her friend Altimare. She descended to the ground-floor, called her twice from the garden; no answer. Then she mounted the stairs again, and entered the dormitory. The white beds formed a line under the crude gaslight; Lucia was not there. A shade of anxiety began to dawn on Caterina’s rosy face. She passed by the chapel twice, without going in. But the third time, finding the door ajar, she made up her mind to enter. It was dark inside. A lamp burning before the Madonna, scarcely relieved the gloom. She passed on, half intimidated, despite her well-balanced nerves, for she was alone in the darkness, in church.
Along one of the altar steps, stretched out on the crimson velvet carpet, a white form was lying, with open arms and pallid face, a spectral figure. It was Lucia Altimare, who had fainted.
The fan of Artemisia Minichini, made of a large sheet of manuscript, waved noisily to and fro.
“Minichini, you disturb the Professor,” said Friscia, the assistant teacher, without raising her eyes from her crochet work.
“Friscia, you don’t feel the heat?” returned Minichini, insolently.
“No.”
“You are lucky to be so insensible.”
In the class room, where the Tricolor young ladies were taking their lesson in Italian history, it was very hot. There were two windows opening upon the garden, a door leading to the corridor, three rows of benches, and twenty-four pupils. On a high raised step stood the table and armchair of the Professor. The fans waved hither and thither, some vivaciously, some languidly. Here and there a head bent over its book as if weighted with drowsiness. Ginevra Avigliana stared at the Professor, nodding as if in approval, though her face expressed entire absence of mind. Minichini had put down her fan, opened her pince-nez, and fixed it impudently upon the Professor’s face. With her nose tip-tilted, and a truant lock of hair curling on her forehead, she laughed her silent laugh that so irritated the teachers. The Professor explained the lesson in a low voice. He was small, spare, and pitiable. He might have been about two-and-thirty, but his emaciated face, whose dark colouring had yellowed with the pallor of some long illness, proclaimed him a convalescent. A big scholarly head surmounting the body of a dwarf, a wild thick mane in which some white hairs were already visible, proud yet shy eyes, a small dirty black beard, thinly planted towards the thin cheeks, completed his sad and pensive ugliness.
He spoke without gesture, his eyes downcast; occasionally his right hand moving so slightly. Its shadow on the wall seemed to belong to a skeleton, it was so thin and crooked. He proceeded slowly, picking his words. These girls intimidated him, some because of their intelligence, others because of their impertinence, others simply because of their sex. His scholastic austerity was perturbed by their shining eyes, by their graceful and youthful forms; their white garments formed a kind of mirage before his eyes. A pungent scent diffused itself throughout the class, although perfumes were prohibited; whence came it? And, at the end of the third bench, Giovanna Casacalenda, who paid not the slightest attention, sat, with half-closed eyes, furiously nibbling a rose. Here in front, Lucia Altimare, with hair falling loose about her neck, one arm hanging carelessly over the bench, resting her brow against her hand and hiding her eyes, looked at the Professor through her fingers; every now and then she pressed her handkerchief to her too crimson lips, as if to mitigate their feverishness. The Professor felt upon him the gaze that filtered through her fingers; while, without looking at her, he could see Giovanna Casacalenda tearing the rose to pieces with her little teeth. He remained apparently imperturbable, still discoursing of Carmagnola and the conspiracy of Fiesco, addressing himself to the tranquil face of Caterina Spaccapietra, who pencilled rapid notes in her copy-book.
“What are you writing, Pentasuglia?” asked the teacher Friscia, who had been observing the latter for some time.
“Nothing,” replied Pentasuglia, reddening.
“Give me that scrap of paper.”
“What for? There is nothing on it.”
“Give me that scrap of paper.”
“It is not a scrap of paper,” said Minichini, audaciously, taking hold of it as if to hand it to her. “It is one, two, three, four, five, twelve useless fragments....”
To save her schoolfellow, she had torn it to shreds. There was silence in the class: they trembled for Minichini. The teacher bent her head, tightened her thin lips, and picked up her crochet again as if nothing had happened. The Professor appeared to take no notice of the incident, as he looked through his papers, but his mind must have been inwardly disturbed. A flush of youthful curiosity made him wonder what those girls were thinking of—what they scribbled in their little notes—for whom their smiles were meant, as they looked at the plaster bust of the King—what they thought when they drew the tricolor scarves round their waists. But the ghastly face and false grey eyes of Cherubina Friscia, the governess, frightened him.
“Avigliana, say the lesson.”
The girl rose and began rapidly to speak of the Viscontis, like a well-trained parrot. When asked to give a few historical comments, she made no reply; she had not understood her own words.
“Minichini, say the lesson.”
“Professor, I don’t know it.”
“And why?”
“Yesterday was Sunday, and we went out, so I could not study.”
The Professor made a note in the register; the young lady shrugged her shoulders.
“Casacalenda?”
This one made no answer. She was gazing with intense earnestness at her white hands, hands that looked as if they were modelled in wax.
“Casacalenda, will you say the lesson?”
Opening her great eyes as if she were dazed, she began, stumbling at every word, puzzled, making one mistake upon another: the Professor prompted, and she repeated, with the winning air of a strong, beautiful, young animal: she neither knew nor understood, nor was ashamed, maintaining her sculpturesque placidity, moistening her savage Diana-like lips, contemplating her pink nails. The Professor bent his head in displeasure, not daring to scold that splendid stupid creature, whose voice had such enchanting modulations.
He made two or three other attempts, but the class, owing to the preceding holiday, had not studied. This was the explanation of the flowers, the perfumes, and the little notes: the twelve hours’ liberty had upset the girls. Their eyes were full of visions, they had seen the world, yesterday. He drew himself together, perplexed; a sense of mingled shame and respect kept every mouth closed. How he loved that science of history! His critical acumen measured its widest horizons; his was a vast ideal, and he suffered in having to offer crumbs of it to those pretty, aristocratic, indolent girls, who would have none of it. Still young, he had grown old and grey in arduous study; and now, behold—gay and careless youth, choosing rather to live than to know, rose in defiance against him. Bitterness welled up to his lips and went out towards those creatures, thrilling with life, and contemptuous of his ideal: bitterness, in that he could not, like them, be beautiful and vigorous, and revel in heedlessness, and be beloved. Anguish rushed through his veins, from his heart, and poisoned his brain, that he should have to humiliate his knowledge before those frivolous, scarcely human girls. But the gathering storm was held back; and nothing of it was perceptible save a slight flush on his meagre cheekbones.
“Since none of you have studied,” he said slowly, in a low voice, “none of you can have done the composition.”
“Altimare and I have done it,” answered Caterina Spaccapietra. “We did not go home,” she added apologetically, to avoid offending her friends.
“Then you read, Spaccapietra; the subject is, I think, Beatrice di Tenda.”
“Yes; Beatrice di Tenda.”
Spaccapietra stood up and read, in her pure, slow voice:—
“Ambition had ever been the ruling passion of the Viscontis of Milan, who shrank from naught that could minister to the maintenance of their sovereign power. Filippo Maria, son of Gian Galeazzo, who had succeeded his brother, Gian Galeazzo, differed in no way from his predecessors. For the love of gain, this Prince espoused Beatrice di Tenda, the widow of a Condottiere, a soldier of fortune, a virtuous and accomplished woman of mature age. She brought her husband in dowry the dominions of Tortona, Novara, Vercelli and Alessandria; but he tired of her as soon as he had satisfied his thirst for wealth. He caused her to be accused of unfaithfulness to her wifely duty, with a certain Michele Orombello, a simple squire. Whether the accusation was false, or made in good faith, whether the witnesses were to be relied upon or not, Beatrice di Tenda was declared guilty, and, with Michele Orombello, mounted the scaffold in the year 1418, which was the forty-eighth of her life, she having been born in 1370.”
Caterina had folded up her paper, and the Professor was still waiting; two minutes elapsed.
“Is there no more?”
“No.”
“Really, is that all?”
“All.”
“It is a very meagre composition, Spaccapietra. It is but the bare narrative of the historical fact, as it stands in the text-book. Does not the hapless fate of Beatrice inspire you with any sympathy?”
“I don’t know....” murmured the young scholar, pale with emotion.
“Yet you are a woman.... It so happens that I had chosen a theme which suggests the manifestation of a noble impulse; say of pity, or contempt for the false accusation. But like this, the story turns to mere chronology. The composition is too meagre. You have no imagination, Spaccapietra.”
“Yes, Professor,” replied the young girl, submissively, as she took her seat again, while tears welled to her eyes.
“Let us hear Altimare.”
Lucia appeared to start out of a lethargy. She sought for some time among her papers, with an ever increasing expression of weariness. Then, in a weak inaudible voice, she began to read, slowly, dragging the syllables, as if overpowered by an invincible lassitude....
“Louder, Altimare.”
“I cannot, Professor.”
And she looked at him with such melancholy eyes that he repented of having made the remark. Again, she touched her parched lips with her handkerchief and continued:—
“... through the evil lust of power. He was Filippo Maria Visconti, of a noble presence, with the eye of a hawk, of powerful build, and ever foremost in the saddle. The maidens who watched him pass, clad in armour under the velvet coat, on the breastpiece of which was broidered the wily, fascinating serpent, the crest of the Lords of Visconti, sighed as they exclaimed: 'How handsome he is!’ But under this attractive exterior, as is ever the case in this melancholy world, where appearance is but part of mise-en-scène of life, he hid a depraved soul. Oh! gentle, loving women, trust not him who flutters round you with courteous manner, and words that charm, and protestations of exquisite sentiment; he deceives you. All is vanity, all is corruption, all is ashes! None learnt this lesson better than the hapless Beatrice di Tenda, whose tale I am about to tell you. This youthful widow was of unblemished character and matchless beauty; fair was her hair of spun gold, soft were her eyes of a blue worthy to reflect the firmament; her skin was as dazzling white as the petals of a lily. Her first marriage with Facino Cane could not have been a happy one. He, a soldier of fortune, fierce, blood-thirsty, trained to the arms, the wine, and the rough speech of martial camps, could scarcely have been a man after Beatrice’s heart. Woe to those marriages, in which one consort neither understands nor appreciates the mind of the other. Woe to those marriages in which the man ignores the mystic poetry, the mysterious sentiments of the feminine heart! These be the unblessed unions, with which alas! our corrupt and suffering modern society teems. Facino Cane died. His widow shed bitter tears over him, but her virgin heart beat quicker when she first met the valorous yet malefic Filippo Maria Visconti. Her face turned as pale as Luna’s when she drags her weary way along the starred empyrean. And she loved him with all the ardour of her stored-up youth, with the chastity of a pious soul loving the Creator in the created, blending divine with human love. Beatrice, pure and beautiful, wedded Filippo Maria for love: Filippo Maria, black soul that he was, wedded Beatrice for greed of money. For a short time the august pair were happy on their ducal throne. But the hymeneal roses were worm-eaten: in the dewy grass lay hidden the perfidious serpent, perfidious emblem of the most perfidious Visconti. No sooner had he obtained possession of the riches of Beatrice, than Filippo Maria wearied of her, as might be expected of a man of so hard a heart and of such depraved manners. He had, besides, formed an infamous connection with a certain Agnese del Maino, one of the most vicious of women; and more than ever he was possessed of the desire to rid himself of his wife. There lived at the Court of the Visconti, a simple squire named Michele Orombello, a young troubadour, a poet, who had dared to raise his eyes to his august mistress. But the noble woman did not reciprocate his passion, although the faithlessness and treachery of Filippo Maria caused her the greatest unhappiness, and almost justified reprisals; she was simply courteous to her unfortunate adorer. When Filippo Maria saw how matters stood, he at once threw Michele Orombello and his chaste consort into prison, accusing them of treason. Torture was applied to Beatrice, who bore it bravely and maintained her innocence. Michele Orombello, being younger and perchance weaker to combat pain, or because he was treacherously advised that he might thereby save Beatrice, made a false confession. The judges, vile slaves of Filippo Maria, and tremblingly submissive to his will, condemned that most ill-starred of women and her miserable lover to die on the scaffold. The saintly woman ascended it with resignation; embracing the crucifix whereon the Redeemer agonised and died for our sins. Then, perceiving the young squire, who, weeping desperately, went with her to death, she cried: 'I forgive thee, Michele Orombello;’ and he made answer: 'I proclaim thee the purest of wives!’ But it availed not; the Prince’s will must needs be carried out; the axe struck off the squire’s dark head. Beatrice cried: 'Gesù Maria;’ and the axe felled the blonde head too. A pitiable spectacle and full of horror for those assembled! Yet none dared to proclaim the infamy of the mighty Filippo Maria Visconti. Thus it ever is in life, virtue is oppressed, and vice triumphs. Only before the Eternal Judge is justice, only before that God of mercy who has said: 'I am the resurrection and the life.’”
A profound silence ensued. The pupils were embarrassed, and looked furtively at each other. Caterina gazed at Lucia with frightened astonished eyes. Lucia remained standing, pale, panting, contemptuous, with twitching lips. The Professor, deep in thought, held his peace.
“The composition is very long, Altimare,” he said at last. “You have too much imagination.”
Then silence once more—and the dry malicious hissing voice of Cherubina Friscia, “Give me that composition, Altimare.”
All trembled, seized by an unknown terror.
They, the Tricolors, the tallest, the handsomest, the proudest girls, had the privilege of sitting together in groups, during the hours set aside for needlework, in a corner of the long work-room. The other pupils sat on benches, behind frames, in rows, separated from each other, in enforced silence. The Tricolors, whose deft fingers produced the prettiest and most costly work, for the annual exhibition, enjoyed a certain freedom. So, in a narrow circle, with their backs turned to the others, they chatted in whispers. Whenever the work-mistress approached them, they turned the conversation, and asking for her advice, would hold up their work for her approval. It was their best hour, almost free of surveillance, delivered from the tyranny of Cherubina Friscia’s boiled fish eyes, with liberty to talk of whatever they chose. The work dragged on; but word and thought flew.
Giovanna Casacalenda—who was embroidering an altar-cover on finest cambric, a cloudy, diaphanous piece of work, a very marvel—had a way of rounding her arms, with certain graceful and studied movements of the fingers, as they drew the thread. Ginevra Avigliana was absorbed in a piece of lace made with bobbins, like Venetian point, to be presented to the Directress at the end of the term; every palma (a measure of six inches) cost five francs in silk. Carolina Pentasuglia was working a red velvet cushion in gold. Giulia Pezzali was making a portfolio-cover in chenille. But little thought they of their work, while the needles clicked and the bobbins flew; especially little on that morning, when they could talk of nothing but the Altimare scandal.
“So they have ordered her to appear before the Directress’s Committee?” inquired Vitali, who was working with beads on perforated cardboard.
“No, not yet. Do you think they will?” asked Spaccapietra, timidly. She did not dare to raise her eyes from the shirt she was sewing.
“Diamine!” exclaimed Avigliana. “Didn’t you hear what ambiguous things there were in the composition! A girl has no right to know anything about them.”
“Altimare is innocent as a new-born babe,” replied Spaccapietra, gravely. No one answered, but all looked towards Altimare. Separated from the rest, far away from them, she sat with bowed head, making lint. It was her latest fancy; to make lint for the hospitals. She had voluntarily withdrawn herself, but appeared to be calm.
“Nonsense, girls, nonsense,” observed Minichini, passing her hand through her hair with a masculine gesture. “Every one knows these things, but no one can speak of them.”
“But to write about a wife’s deceiving her husband, Minichini, what do you think of that?”
“Oh, dear, that’s how it is in society; Signora Ferrari deceives her husband with my cousin,” added Minichini, “I saw them ... behind a door....”
“How, what, what did you see?” asked two or three in concert, while the others opened their eyes.
“The maestra is coming,” said Spaccapietra.
“As usual, Minichini, you are not working,” observed the teacher.
“You know it hurts my eyes.”
“Are these your glasses? You are not so very short-sighted; I think you might work.”
“And why, what for?”
“For your own house, when you return to it....”
“You are perhaps unaware that my mother has three maids,” said the other, turning on her like a viper.
The teacher bent over the work of Avigliana, muttering something about “pride ... insolence,” and then presently withdrew. Minichini shrugged her shoulders. After a moment:
“I say, Minichini, what were the Signora Ferrari and your cousin doing behind the door?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“Well ... they were kissing.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the chorus, alternately blushing and turning pale.
“On the lips, of course?” asked Casacalenda, biting her own to make them redder.
“Yes.”
The girls were silent, absorbed in thought. Minichini always unsettled the work-class with her tales: she would tell the simplest thing with a certain malicious reticence and brusque frankness, that wrought upon their imagination. “I shall work myself a wrapper like this altar-cloth, when I leave this house,” said Casacalenda, “it is so becoming to the skin.”
And she tried it over her hand, a pink and exquisite transparency.
“Dio, when shall I get out of this house!” exclaimed Avigliana.
“Three more months, eight days, and seven hours,” said Pentasuglia.
“Doesn’t Altimare wish she were out of it?” murmured Vitali.
“Goodness knows how they will punish her,” said Spaccapietra.
“If I were she, I should give the Directress a piece of my mind.”
Then all at once they heard: “Hush-sh.” The Vice-Directress had entered the room; quite an event. Altimare raised her eyes, but only for an instant, and her lids quivered. She went on making lint. To avoid a sensation, the Vice-Directress bent over two or three frames, and made a few remarks. At last:
“Altimare, the Directress wishes to see you.”
Altimare stood up, erect and rigid, and passed straight down through two rows of pupils without looking either to right or left. The girls kept silence and worked industriously.
“Holy Mother, do thou help her,” said Caterina Spaccapietra under her breath.
“My married sister told me that Zola’s books are not fit to be read,” said Giovanna Casacalenda.
“That means that they may be read, but that it wouldn’t do to say before gentlemen that one had read them.”
“Oh! what a number of books I have read that no one knows anything about,” exclaimed Avigliana.
“I know of a marriage that never came off,” said Minichini, “because the fiancée let out that she read the Dame aux Camélias.”
“La Dame aux Camélias! how interesting it must be! Who has read it, girls?”
“Not I, nor I, nor I,” in chorus, accompanied by gentle sighs.
“I have read it,” confessed Minichini.
“The maestra is coming,” whispered Vitali, the sentinel.
“What is the matter, that you don’t sew, Spaccapietra?” asked the teacher.
“Nothing,” replied Caterina, casting down her eyes, while her hands trembled.
“Do you feel ill? Would you like to go out into the air?”
“No, thank you, I am well; I prefer to stay here.”
“Are you in trouble about Altimare?” asked Avigliana.
“No, no,” murmured the other, shyly.
“After all, what can they do to her?” said Casacalenda.
“Diamine, they won’t eat her,” said Minichini. “If they do anything to her, we will avenge her.”
“The Directress is cruel,” said Avigliana.
“And the Vice-Directress is a wretch,” added Vitali.
“And as far as malignity goes, Cherubina Friscia is no joke,” observed Pentasuglia.
“Dio mio, may I soon leave this house!” exclaimed Casacalenda.
All heads bent in acquiescence to this prayer. There was a spell of silence. Caterina Spaccapietra, overcome by a great lassitude, dragged slowly at her needle.
“Minichini, darling, tell us about the Dame aux Camélias,” entreated Giovanna Casacalenda, her sweet voice thrilling with the passion of the unknown.
“I cannot, my heart.”
“Why not? is it so dreadful? Tell it, Minichini. Artemisia, sweetest, tell us about that book.” The others did not speak, but curiosity burned in their eyes; desire dried the words on their parched lips. Giovanna pleaded for them, her great eyes brimming over with entreaty, while a languid smile played about her full lips.
“Well, I’ll tell it you. But you will never tell any one, Giovanna?”
“No, dear love.”
“It is too late to finish the tale to-day....”
“Never mind, never mind, go on.”
“Well then, work hard, without looking at me; as if you were not listening to me. I shall turn towards Giovanna, as if I were chatting with her: she must nod approval from time to time, and say a word or two. But, for goodness’ sake, don’t show that you are listening to me:
“Once upon a time, there lived in Paris, a poor little dressmaker, whose name was Marguerite Duplessis....”
“Violetta Valery,” interrupted Pezzali; “I have seen the Traviata.”
“Don’t interrupt; in making the opera, they changed the name.... She was a radiant beauty at fourteen, delicate, svelte, with long blonde chestnut hair, large blue eyes, and an ethereal form. She was very poor; she wore a faded cotton frock, a little black shawl, transparent from age, and shabby shoes, down at heel. Every day she went to the man who sold fried potatoes, and bought herself two sous worth of them. She was known as the Blonde of the fried potatoes. But she was born for beautiful things, for luxury and elegance: she could not bear poverty and misery; she held out for a time, but not for long. One fine day, the pretty dove had a perfumed nest....”
“What had she done?” asked Avigliana, bewildered.
“She had become ... one of those....”
“Here is Altimare,” said Spaccapietra, half rising from he chair.
Every one turned round. Lucia advanced slowly, with uncertain gait, stumbling here and there against the chairs as if she did not see them. Her hands hung down against her dress as if they did not belong to her. Her face was not pale, it was livid, with wild eyes. She sat down, but did not take up her work. Her companions looked at her aghast. The emaciated figure of the ardent ascetic had always intimidated them: now it terrified them. Something very serious must have passed between herself and the Directress. Without saying a word, Caterina Spaccapietra laid down her work, left the charmed circle of the Tricolors, and went and seated herself by Lucia. Altimare took no notice of her, but sat as still as one petrified, with an expression of pain on her face.
“What is the matter, Lucia?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me, Lucia, have they made you suffer much; do you still suffer?”
Not even a sign that she breathed; not a line moved in her face.
“Lucia, sai, I don’t know what to say to comfort you, I don’t know how to say it, I don’t....” Then she was silent. She took one of Lucia’s hands in hers; it was icy cold. The hand lay there, inert and lifeless. Caterina caressed it as if to put warmth into it; indeed, she was trying to think of something to say, but she found nothing. She sat by her side, leaning slightly towards her, endeavouring to make Lucia look at her. The Tricolors watched from a distance. The whole College was watching.
“Why do you not cry, Lucia?” suggested Caterina, timidly.
Nothing, no impression. Caterina felt her own embarrassment and confusion increase. “Tell me, Lucia, tell me what ails you? Be comforted; see, I cannot console you; but speak, cry, give it vent, it will choke you.”
Nothing. All at once Lucia’s hand contracted nervously; she stood up, still petrified, then thrust her hand into her hair and tore it, gave one long, heartrending, horrible cry, and rushed like a whirlwind down the room. The confusion was indescribable. Caterina Spaccapietra was stunned for a moment.
“To the terrace!” cried Minichini, “that’s where the danger is. To the terrace!”
Lucia Altimare fled along the hall with bowed head, the dark plaits of her hair hanging loose over her shoulders, her white gown clinging to her limbs. She fled along the room, and down the corridor, feeling the hot breath of her pursuers close upon her. In the long corridor, she doubled her speed; at the steps leading to the refectory, she cast aside her tricolor scarf.
“Altimare, Altimare, Altimare!” said her panting school-fellows. She did not turn; she bounded up the steps, stumbled, instantly rose to her feet again, drew a long breath and gained the corridor on the upper story that ran parallel with the dormitory. She rushed to the door; but uttered a cry of rage and anguish when she found it closed.
“Altimare, for pity’s sake, Altimare!” called the voices of her pursuers, in a tumult. She ran to another door, pushed it open and entered the dormitory. She made a wild gesture of salutation to the Christ over her bed. At the further end of the long room was a large bay window, which overlooked the terrace. Wherever she went, the whole College pressed within a dozen yards of her footsteps; but she did not hear them. With one supreme bound she reached the window, opened it, and rushed out upon the black asphalt, burning under the July sun. Blinded by the brilliant outdoor light, mad with despair, she dashed forward, wishing, almost believing, that the stone parapet would give way at her desire. But when she got there, and hurriedly made the sign of the cross, two iron arms caught her round the waist.
“Let me go, Caterina, let me throw myself down.”
“No.”
“Loose me, I will die!”
“No.”
And for an instant there was a struggle on the broad, deserted terrace, close to the outer wall, beyond which was the precipice. Caterina held her close, panting, yet never loosening her hold. Lucia struggled with serpentine flexibility; striking, scratching, and biting. Then she gave a scream, and fell down insensible on the asphalt. When the others arrived, when the whole College assembled on that wide terrace, Caterina was fanning Lucia’s face with her handkerchief, and sucking away the blood from the scratches on her own hands.
“But for thee, she would have died,” said Minichini, kissing her. “How did you manage?”
“I came up by the chapel stair,” said Caterina, simply. “Directress, I beg your pardon, but would you mind sending for some vinegar?”
The little ones were doing their gymnastics in the garden, laughing and screaming. Attenuated by the distance, their voices floated up to the terrace, where the big girls were taking their recreation. In the serene violet sunset, the young ladies walked slowly to and fro, in groups of twos, and threes, and fours; white figures, on which the black aprons stood out clearly defined, as they lingered near the terrace wall. Three or four teachers moved about with crochet or tatting in their hands. Their eyes bent on their work, and their faces expressionless, none the less they heard and took heed of everything. That hour of recess was the most longed for and yet the most melancholy of the whole day. The fresh, calm air—the vast horizon opening out before and around the line of houses that appeared to flow like a stream into the sea, from Capo-di-monte, where the College stood—the atmosphere of liberty—all lent a saddening influence to temperaments that were either oppressed by exuberance or impoverished by anæmia. The mystic melancholy, the yearning tenderness, the effusion of anguish, the vague aspirations, all those impulses of tears and sighs, which the dawn of womanhood brings in its train, breathed in that hour.
The fair collegians mounted the terrace steps, longing for the open air, and uttering little cries of joy at their deliverance. Merry words ran from one to the other, and rippling laughter. They chased each other as if they were but ten years old, those great girls of fifteen and eighteen; they all but played at hide-and-seek. Here they could forget the unedifying subjects upon which their precocious minds were prone to dwell. They did not even think of murmuring against the Directress or the teachers, an eternal theme on which to embroider the most malicious variations. Up here they once more became frank, light-hearted children. One day, Artemisia Minichini had in a fit of gaiety forced Cherubina Friscia to waltz round the terrace with her; and it had seemed to every one, natural and amusing.
But after the first quarter of an hour, the excitement abated, until it gradually died out. The laughter was silenced; the voices lowered, as if in fear; the race abandoned for a slow solemn walk; separate groups of twos and threes formed where there had been a compact crowd. And the words came languidly and far between to their lips. All the suppressed sadness of the full young life with which their pulses throbbed, made their heads hang listlessly in that summer sunset. Lucia Altimare, drawn to her full height, stood gazing across at Naples, as if she did not see it. Her slight figure stood out clearly against the paling sky, and in that light the fine lines of her profile acquired the purity and refinement of an antique statue. Indeed, that dark hair coiled up high, looked not unlike a classic helmet. Next to her stood Caterina Spaccapietra, her clear grey eyes bent upon Naples. She seemed absent and dreamy; but the moment Lucia looked down the precipice, she started forward as if to hold her back.
“Don’t be afraid, I won’t throw myself over,” said Lucia Altimare, in her low, weak voice, her face breaking into the shadow of a smile. “Last week, I was mad, but you have made me sane. That is to say, not you, but God. Through your lips, by your hands, has the Lord saved me from eternal perdition.”
She drew her blue rosary from her pocket, and kissed the silver crucifix and the medal of the Madonna. “Yes, Caterina, it was madness. But here”—she bent down to whisper—“no one understands me, no one but you! You are good, and you understand me; oh! if I could but tell you all! They cannot understand me here. That day, the Directress was so cold and cruel to me. She said that I had written things that were unworthy of a gentleman’s daughter, that I appeared to know of things which it is unmaidenly even to think of; that the Professor, the teacher, and my companions were scandalised; that she should be obliged to send the composition to my father, with a severe letter. I held my tongue, Caterina; what could I say? I held my tongue, I did not weep; neither did I entreat her. I returned to the hall in an agony of grief and shame. You spoke to me, but I did not hear you. Death passed like lightning through my soul, and my soul fell in love with it. God ... disappeared.”
She left off speaking, tired in voice and body. Caterina, who had listened spell-bound by her sentimental talk, replied: “Cheer up, Lucia; September will soon be here. We shall leave then.”
“What does that matter?” said the other, shrugging her shoulders. “I shall but exchange one sorrow for another. Do you see a little tower yonder, under the Vomero hill? I was christened in that church. In that little church there is a Madonna, all robed in black; her gown is embroidered with gold. She holds a little white handkerchief in her hand; she can turn her eyes in anguish, and in her divine heart of woman and mother, are seven swords of pain. Caterina, they christened me in the church of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. The Madonna Addolorata is my patron saint; I shall suffer for ever.”
Caterina listened to her with a pained expression on her face.
“You exaggerate; what do you know of life?”
“I know it,” said the other, shaking her head. “I feel as if I had lived enough, suffered enough—I feel as I had grown so old. I feel as if I had found dust and ashes everywhere. I am sick at heart. We are only born to sorrow.”
“That’s Leopardi again, Lucia; you promised me not to read Leopardi again.”
“I will not read him again. But listen; we are blind, miserable beings, destined to pain and death. Do you see beautiful Naples, smiling, voluptuous, nestling between her fruitful hills and her divine sea, in the magic of her radiant colouring? Do you really love Naples?”
“Yes, for I was born there,” said the other in a low voice.
“I hate her, with her odour of flowers, of humanity, of sparkling wines; her starred and seductive nights. I hate her; for she is the embodiment of sin and sorrow. There, where the tall lightning conductors shoot into the air, is the aristocratic quarter; the home of corruption and sorrow. Here below us, where the houses are closer together and look darker, are the people’s dwellings; but here, too, are corruption and sorrow. She is a sinner, like the city of Sodom, like the city of Gomorrah; she is a sinful woman, like the Magdalen. But she writhes in her sin, she inundates her bed with her tears, she weeps in the fatal night of Gethsemane. Oh! triumphant city, accursed and agonising!”
Her gesture cut the air like an anathema; but immediately her excitement calmed down, and the flush died out of her cheeks.
“It is bad for you to stand here, Lucia; shall we walk?”
“No, let me speak; I think too much, and thought ploughs too deep a furrow, when I cannot put it into words. Have I saddened you, Caterina?”
“A little; I fear for your health.”
“I beg your pardon. I ought not to talk to you of these things. You don’t like to hear them.”
“I assure you....”
“You are right, dear. But really, without exaggeration, life is not beautiful. Have you ever thought of the future; of the vague, dread future, that is so close upon us?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you have not feared?”
“I don’t know.”
“The future is all fear, Caterina.... Do you know what you will do with your life?”
“I know.”
“Who has told it you, thoughtless child? Who has read the riddle of the future?”
“My aunt intends me to marry Andrea Lieti.”
“Shall you obey?”
“Yes.”
“Without regret?”
“Without regret.”
“Oh! poor child, poor child! Does this Andrea love you?”
“I think so.”
“Do you love him?”
“I think I do.”
“Love is sorrow; marriage is an abomination, Caterina.”
“I hope not,” replied the other, with clasped hands and bowed head.
“I shall never marry, no, never,” added Lucia, drawing herself up and raising her eyes to heaven, in the pride of her mysticism.
The violet twilight deepened. The collegians stood still in the grounds, near the parapet, looking at some of the windows that reflected the sun’s last rays, at the distant sea that was turning to iron grey, at the swallows that shot like arrows across the roofs with the shrill cry that is their evensong.
Giovanna Casacalenda confessed to Maria Vitali that the hour of twilight made her long to die a sudden death, so that they might embalm her, dress her in a white satin gown, and loosen her long hair under a wreath of roses ... and after a hundred years a poet might fall in love with her. Artemisia Minichini assumed her most lugubrious air, her fists were doubled up in her apron pockets, there was a deep furrow across her forehead, and her lips were pursed up. Carolina Pentasuglia, the blonde, romantic, little sentimentalist, told Ginevra Avigliana that she wished herself far away in Denmark, on the shore of the Northern Sea, on a deserted strand, where the north wind howls through the fir-trees. Even Cherubina Friscia forgot her part of eavesdropper, and with vague eyes and listless hands meditated upon a whole life to be passed within College walls, without friends or relations, a poor old maid, hated by the girls.
“I think,” said Lucia to Caterina, “that my father intends marrying again. He has not dared to before, but human patience is so fragile a thing! My father is worldly, he does not understand me. My presence saddens him. He would like to have a merry, thoughtless girl in the house, who would enliven it. I am not the one for that.”
“But what will you do? Something will have to be done, Lucia.”
“Yes, something I will do, not for myself, but for others. Great undertakings call for great sacrifices. If I were a man, I would go to Africa and explore unknown regions. If I were a man, I would be a monk, a missionary to China or Japan, far, far away. But I am a woman, a weak, useless woman.”
“You could stay with your father, meanwhile.”
“No, his is a tardy youth, and mine a precocious old age. My presence in his house would be a continual reproach. Well, listen, I shall try to come upon a good, noble, holy idea, to which I can consecrate my mind and my energy. I will seek for a plague to lessen, an injustice to remove, a wrong to right, everywhere I will search for the ideal of humanity, to which I may sacrifice my life. I know not what I shall do, as yet I know not. But either as a Sister of the Red Cross on the battlefield, or as a Sister of Charity in the hospitals, or as a visitor in prisons, or as founder and teacher in some orphan asylum, I shall dedicate the strength and the courage of a wasted existence to the alleviation of human suffering.”
Caterina did not answer. Lucia contemplated her friend with the faintest shade of disdain on her lips.
“Will it not be a beautiful life, Caterina?”
“Very beautiful. Will your people give their consent?”
“I should like to know how they could prevent it. It would be cruel tyranny.”
“And your health?”
“I shall struggle against it ... or if I die, death will be the more welcome to me, worn with toil, with the consciousness of accomplished duty.”
“I am not capable of such great things,” murmured Caterina, after a short silence. “Mine is not a great soul.”
“Never mind, dear,” said the other, stroking her hair as if she were a child, “the ideal of humanity is not for every one.”
Evening had closed in, recreation was over, the collegians re-entered the dormitory, passed thence to the corridor, and descending the stair, approached the chapel, for evening prayer. On they went, without looking at each other, in silence, prey to a melancholy so intense that it isolated them. They walked two and two, but not arm in arm. Two of them took each other by the hand, but with so languid a pressure that they scarcely held together. Behind them, the lights of Naples glimmered like evening stars; they entered into the garnered peace of the College, and did not turn to look back. The oppression of that long hour of twilight weighed upon their spirits, and there was something funereal in the long, unsmiling march to the chapel. The window, hastily closed by the last comer, Cherubina Friscia, grated on its rusty hinge with a noise like a laugh of irony.
It was the last lesson. August was dying; the lessons were all coming to an end. After the September and October holidays, the children were to return to school for the Feast of San Carlo. But the Tricolors, maidens of seventeen or eighteen, having finished their education, left in September, to return no more. On that day, at two o’clock, they attended the history lesson the last of all. After that lesson, their course of study was absolutely finished.
That was why there was something so abnormal in the girls themselves, and in the very atmosphere about them. That was why the curly, blonde hair of Carolina Pentasuglia was dressed more like a poodle’s than it had ever been before; a roguish cherub’s head, one mass of curls. Giovanna Casacalenda, divested of her apron, was in pure white, a resplendent whiteness, broken only at the waist by her tricolor scarf. Artemisia Minichini wore a big gold locket on the velvet ribbon round her throat. Ginevra Avigliana had three roses in her waistband, right under her heart. But all of them sat demure and composed in the class-room, that already seemed so deserted: there was not a book on the desks, nor a scrap of paper, nor a pen. The inkstands were closed. A few drawers stood open. In a corner, on the ground, behind the blackboard, was a heap of tattered paper, torn into shreds or rolled up in balls. On a black panel destined to the exhibition of calligraphic achievements, there was chalked a tabulated list which set forth in finest imitation of printed letters, combined with copy-book and old English characters, embellished by countless flourishes, the fact that: “In the scholastic year —— the Signorine ... had completed the studies of the fifth gymnasial course....” And first on the list was Lucia Altimare. It was the clôture, the end of the volume, the word finis.... The young ladies never turned towards that tablet. The eyes of some of them were rather red. Oh! on that day the lesson was a serious and arduous one. They had all studied that period of 1815, with which the historical programme ended. From time to time the Professor made a critical remark, to which the pupils listened attentively. Caterina Spaccapietra, that diligent scribe, took notes on a scrap of paper. On that day the Professor was paler and uglier than ever: he seemed thinner, a pitiable figure in the clothes that set so awkwardly upon him. The most ludicrous item of his attire was a large cameo pin, stuck in a dark red cravat of the worst possible taste. On that day he was more careful than ever to avoid the glances of his pupils. He listened to them with profound attention, his eyes half closed, nodding his approval, murmuring an occasional bene under his breath. Now and again he would make an absent comment, as if he were talking to himself. Then the half-hour struck. As the minutes passed, the voice of the girl who repeated the lesson grew more and more tremulous: then at last the Professor added certain historical anecdotes concerning Napoleon. He spoke slowly, carefully picking his words. When he had ended the third quarter struck. The Professor and his pupils, impressed by a sudden and painful embarrassment, looked at each other. The history lesson was over.
“The class asks permission to read its farewell letter,” said Cherubina Friscia, whose placid face was undisturbed by emotion.
He hesitated, a painful look of indecision passed over his face.
“I should prefer to read it at home. I could give more attention to it ...” he stammered, for want of something better.
“No, no; listen to it here, Professor,” cried two or three eager voices.
“It is customary, Professor,” said Friscia, dryly.
There was a moment’s silence. All the girls’ faces turned pale from emotion. His head was bent in thought; at last: “Read,” he said, and appeared ready to listen in earnest from behind the hand with which he hid his eyes.
Altimare rose, took the letter from an envelope and read it, halting at every word, dividing every syllable, her voice suffused with tenderness:
“Honoured and beloved Professor, fate has indeed been both blind and cruel in choosing me to offer you, most respected Professor, the last farewell of a departing class. I am assuredly too much affected by our common sorrow; so conscious of the solitude in which this separation will leave us, that a nameless pang at the heart will prevent the anguish of our minds from passing into words, in parting from him who has been our master and our guide. Oh, judge not the depth of our feeling for you from what I write.... Words are so pale, so weak and inadequate, and our emotion is so heartfelt. Professor, we are leaving....”
Ginevra Avigliana wept aloud, her face buried in her hands.
“... this college where we have lived the sweetest years of our life, where our childhood and youth have been passed in the companionship of beloved friends and in the salutary occupation of our studies. We are leaving the house where we have laughed and learned, the roof that has overlooked our sports, our strivings for knowledge, our dreams. God is our witness that we feel that the past is slipping from us....”
Silently and with a pressure at her heart, Carolina Pentasuglia wept until she felt faint.
“... that a whirlwind is snatching it from us, that our joyous youth has vanished, and that the weight of the future, heavy with responsibility, is hanging over us. We cannot face the future undaunted, we would fain prolong this last day at school, we would fain cry aloud to our Directress and our teachers—'Why turn us away? we were so happy! oh! keep us, keep us with you...!’”
The reader broke down, her voice was hoarse, sobs checked her utterance, tears blinded her. She dried her eyes and cheeks, and continued:
“... but this is a hard law which governs human beings. They must meet, love and part—part for ever from those with whom one would gladly pass one’s life. Well, on this day, we gather our memories together, we recall the life we have lived and all the benefits we owe to your knowledge, your teaching, and your patient, indulgent affection. For all you have done for us, take our blessing and our thanks. Yours is the tenderest memory that will abide with us, in the battle of life, a guiding star in the darkness that perchance awaits us. If we have failed in aught, forgive us. We entreat you, by this hour of sorrow upon which we enter, prepared for it, and yet shrinking from it, we entreat you, think of us without bitterness....”
The reader fell back on her bench exhausted, sobbing violently. The letter had fallen from her hand. Cherubina Friscia rose, crossed the class, picked up the letter, put it into its envelope and placed it on the Professor’s desk. Nearly all of them wept in the despair of childish sorrow, at the many farewells, at the details of their departure, and in doubt and dread of the world they were about to enter. Artemisia Minichini, in the vain attempt to keep up her reputation of a strong-minded woman, bit her lips and blinked with her eyelids, but the flush on her cheek betrayed the effort it cost her. Little Giulia Pezzali, with her head hanging over her arms, which she had crossed on the back of the bench in front of her, like the child she was, moaned as if some one were hurting her. Even the plump white beauty of Giovanna Casacalenda was dimmed, her surprised black eyes were swollen with tears. Caterina’s were dry and burning, but from time to time a sigh escaped her lips. The Professor did not weep, but he appeared to be more than usually unhappy in the heavy atmosphere that bowed those youthful heads and forced from them such noisy tears.
“Listen,” he said, “do not weep....” Some faces looked up through their tears. “Do not weep. There should be no tears at your age. The time will come for them later—very late, I trust.... To-day you feel unbearable sorrow in departing from this educational institution, where you must needs leave behind you so much of yourselves. To-morrow will bring a joy that will blot out all this sorrow. Life is made up of these alternations. They are not hard to bear, if you have within you faith and courage. I have taught you all I know, hoping that in the history of man’s deeds you might find guidance for your own actions. Why do you thank me? I have done so little. But if you will perforce thank me, I pray you let it be in this wise only: be good, be so in a humane, womanly spirit. Remember one who says these words to you, remember....”
By this time his voice was very faint, and his hands were trembling. The girls had abandoned themselves to a fresh fit of weeping. Motionless he stood for a second on the little platform, looking down at the bowed heads, at the faces buried in pocket-handkerchiefs, at the convulsed forms on the benches; then he noiselessly descended, scribbled a single word in chalk on the blackboard and slipped away, bowing to Friscia as he passed.
On the dingy slate, in big uncertain characters, stood the word “Addio.”
There was only one flickering jet of gas burning at the entrance to the dormitory that contained the little white beds in which the Tricolors passed the last night of their school-days. There had been short dialogues, interrupted by sighs, melancholy reflections and regrets, until a late hour. They would have liked to sit up all night, to indulge in their grief. But fatigue had melted their project away. When they could hold out no longer, sleep mastered those restless beings, weary with weeping. A languid “Good-night” was audible here and there, gradually the irregular breathing had subsided, and the sobs had died out. Complete repose reigned in the dormitory of the Tricolors.
When the great clock struck two after midnight, Lucia Altimare opened her eyes. She had not slept; devoured by impatience, she had watched. Without rising she gently and noiselessly took her clothes from the chair near her bed, and put them on, thrust her bare feet into her slippers, and then crept out of bed. She moved liked a shadow, with infinite precaution, casting, in passing, an oblique glance at the beds where her companions slept. Now and again she looked towards the end of the hall where Cherubina Friscia lay. There was no danger. Lucia passed like a tall white phantom, with burning eyes, through the heavy gloom, to Caterina’s bedside.
Her friend slept quietly, composedly, breathing like a child. She bent down and whispered close to her ear:
“Caterina, Caterina!”
She opened her eyes in alarm; a sign from Lucia froze the cry that rose to her lips. The surprise on her face spoke for her, and questioned her friend.
“If you love me, Caterina, dress and follow me.”
“Where are we going?” the other ventured to ask, hesitating.
“If you love me....”
Caterina no longer questioned her. She dressed herself in silence, looking now and then at Lucia, who stood there like a statue, waiting. When Caterina was ready she took her by the hand to lead her.
“Fear nothing,” breathed Lucia, who could feel the coldness of her hand. They glided down the passage that divided the beds from the rest of the room. Artemisia Minichini was the only one who turned in her bed, and appeared for a moment to have opened her eyes. They closed again, but perhaps she saw through her lids. No other sign of waking. They shrank closer together when they passed the last bed, Friscia’s, and stooped to make themselves smaller. That moment seemed to them like a century. When they got into the corridor, Caterina squeezed Lucia’s hand as if they had passed through a great danger.
“Come, come, come!” murmured the siren voice of Lucia, and suddenly they stopped before a door. Lucia dropped Caterina’s hand and inserted a key into the keyhole; the door creaked as it flew open. A gust of chill air struck the two young girls; a faint diffuse light broke in upon them. A lamp was burning before the image of the Virgin. They were in the chapel. Calmly Lucia knelt before the altar and lighted two candelabra. Then she turned to Caterina, who, dazed by the light, was catching her breath, and once more said, “Come.”
They advanced towards the altar. In the little whitewashed church, with two high windows open on the country, a pleasant dampness tempered the heat of the August night. The faintest perfume of incense still clung to the air. The church was so placid and restful, the candelabra in their places, the tapers extinguished, the Sacrament shut away in its pix, the altar-cloth turned up to cover it. But a quaintly fashioned silver arabesque, behind which Lucia had lighted a taper, projected on the wall the profile of a strange monstrous beast. Caterina stood there in a dream, with her hand still clasped in Lucia’s, whose fever it had caught.... Even at that unusual hour, in the dead of night, she no longer asked herself what strange rite was to be solemnised in that chapel illuminated only for them. She was conscious of a vague tremor, of a weight in the head, and a longing for sleep; she would fain have been back in the dormitory, with her cheek on her pillow.... But like one who dreams of having the well-defined will to do a thing, and yet while the dream lasts has neither the speech to express nor the energy to accomplish it, she was conscious, between sleeping and waking, of the torpor of her own mind. She looked around her as one in a stupor, neither understanding nor caring to understand. From time to time her mouth twitched with an imperceptible yawn. Lucia’s hands were crossed over her bosom, and her eyes fixed on the Madonna. No sound escaped her half-open lips. Caterina leant forward to observe her; in the vague turn of thought that went round and round in her sleepy brain, she asked herself if she were dreaming, and Lucia a phantom.... She passed one hand across her brow either to awake herself or to dispel the hallucination.
“Listen, Caterina, and try and comprehend me better than I know how to express myself. Do you give your whole attention?”
“Yes,” said the other with an effort.
“You alone know how we have loved each other here. After God, the Madonna Addolorata, and my father, I have loved you, Caterina. You have saved my life, I can never forget it. But for you, I should have gone to burn in hell, where suicides must eternally suffer. I thank you, dear heart. You believe in my gratitude?”
“Yes,” said Caterina, opening wide her eyes the better to understand her.
“Now we who so love each other must part. You go to the left, I to the right. You are to be married. I know not what will happen to me. Shall we meet again? I know not. Shall we again come together in the future? Who knows? Do you know?”
“No,” replied Caterina, starting.
“Well, then, I propose to you to conquer time and space, men and circumstances, should they stand in the way of our affection. From afar, howsoever we may be separated, let us love each other as we do to-day, as we did yesterday. Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
“The Madonna hears us, Caterina. Do you promise with a vow, with an oath?”
“With a vow, with an oath,” repeated Caterina, monotonously, like an echo.
“And I too promise, that no one shall ever by word or deed lessen this our steadfast friendship. Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
“And I too promise, that neither shall ever seek to do ill to the other, or willingly cause her sorrow, or ever, ever betray her. Promise—the Madonna hears us.”
“I promise.”
“I swear it—that always, whatever befalls, one shall try to help the other. Say, do you promise?”
“I promise.”
“And I too. Besides, that either will be ever ready to sacrifice her own happiness to that of the other. Swear it, swear!”
Caterina thought for an instant. Was she dreaming a strange dream, or was she binding herself for life? “I swear,” she said, firmly.
“I swear,” reiterated Lucia. “The Madonna has heard. Woe to her who breaks her vow! God will punish her.”
Caterina bowed her assent. Lucia took her rosary from her pocket. It was a string of lapis lazuli bound together by little silver links. From it depended a small silver crucifix, and a little gold medal on which was engraved the image of the Madonna della Saletta. She kissed it.
“We will break this rosary in two equal parts, Caterina. Half of it you shall take with you, the other half I will keep. It will be our keepsake, to remind us of our vow. When I pray at night, I shall remember. You too will remember me in your prayers. The missing half will remind you of your absent friend.”
And taking up the rosary between them, they pulled hard at it from either side.... Lucia kept the half with the crucifix, Caterina the half with the medal. The two girls embraced. Then they heard the clock strike three. When silence reigned once more in the College and in the empty chapel, both knelt down on the steps of the altar, crossed their hands on their bosoms, and with closed eyes repeated in unison—
“Our Father....”