Fantasy: A Novel by Matilde Serao - HTML preview

 

PART IV.

I.

One rainy day, the Agrarian Exhibition closed, after a hurried ceremony, in which the prizes had been distributed in the presence of a scanty and discontented audience. Those who had not obtained prizes wrote incendiary articles to the local papers, and sent paid communications to the more important Neapolitan ones. The awards in the Didactic Exhibition had also been very unsatisfactory, for every teacher had expected the gold medal. The private school-teachers were wroth with parish school-teachers, and the latter with the “College” teachers. The ladies Sanna and Lieti had refrained from driving to Caserta on that occasion, on account of the bad weather, and because the fête had no attractions for them.

Caterina, freed from the necessity of wasting whole days in driving backwards and forwards between Centurano and Caserta, enjoyed being able to stay at home. She had so much to arrange, so many shortcomings to atone for, so many household projects to carry out. There were the preserves to make; a great function in which Monzu succeeded admirably, although he needed a certain supervision, so that when the crystal jars were opened during the winter, at Naples, none of their contents turned out mouldy; that was what happened, last year, to two large jars of peaches: they had turned out quite green: such a pity! Then there were the capers, gherkins, capsicums, and parsnips to pickle in strong four-year-old vinegar: they would need a great number of jars, for Andrea was fond of pickles and ate a great deal with lesso and roast meat. Of course Caterina never touched these things while they were being prepared, but her presence and advice were necessary. Monzu had the greatest esteem for his own culinary talents, but he always declared that senza l’occhio della Signora [without the mistress’s eye] he had no pleasure in his work. Her rule was firm but gentle, she did not speak to her servants more than was necessary, neither did she bestow extraordinary mance [presents in money] on them. She preferred giving them left-off clothing; they had food and drink without stint, and clean, comfortable sleeping apartments. She inspired them with a certain affectionate respect, so that they always boasted of their mistress to the servants of the neighbouring villas. Oh! she had so much to think about. There was more linen to be made up; the linen was a never-ending affair. Andrea had declared that the collars of some of his shirts were out of fashion, and that he wouldn’t wear them any more. He had ordered six of Tesorone, the first shirt-maker in Naples, and after that she wished to have two winter wrappers copied from a beautiful pattern of Lucia Sanna’s, although she feared that those flowing, voluminous garments would not suit her little figure. And Lucia Sanna said that she was glad to be able to stay at home with her dear husband. Alberto continued to suffer from a cold, but he was getting better; instead of coughing in the morning, he coughed at night, an effect, he thought, of the coolness of the sheets. Carderelli had told him that his lungs were delicate, but healthy; that he must begin to take cod-liver oil, and continue to take a few drops of Fowler’s arsenic after dinner, and occasionally a spoonful of Eau de goudron on rising. Diet—he must be careful as to diet; milk food, eggs, no salted viands, no pepper, nothing heating, no fries. This was a matter that Alberto was fond of discussing with the Signora Lieti, his good friend and under-nurse. He clung to her skirts while she ordered breakfast and dinner, and Caterina’s patience in discussing the food was inexhaustible, in making suggestions that he vetoed, and in eventually agreeing to whatever he wanted. Alberto really felt very well; had he not ridden Tetillo that morning, and perspired and caught cold, by this time he would have been as strong as anybody. When he said this to Andrea and Lucia, those two exchanged a swift glance of commiseration.

Alberto was more than ever in love with his wife; for ever buzzing round her, glad of the closing of the Exhibition, which did away with so many walks and drives that were wearisome to him; for he took no interest in any thing or person. He liked staying at home, in his bedroom, to be present at Lucia’s toilet, admiring her lithe figure and the undulations of her dark hair under the comb, her pink nails, and all the minute care she lavished on her person. Alberto had the vitiated tastes of a sick child who loves to lie among flounces and furbelows, the scents of toilet-vinegar and veloutine. He went to and fro among them, picking up a pair of stays, sitting on a petticoat, unstopping a bottle, dipping a finger into the dentifrice—languid, indolent, emasculated by physical weakness. He asked stupid questions, often conscious of their stupidity, but choosing to be idiotic with his wife, so that she might pity and protect him the more. Lucia answered him patiently, with a resigned smile on her face which was painful to behold, but which appeared to him the smile of love itself. When she rose, Alberto rose; when she entered the drawing-room, Alberto followed her; when she worked, he continued asking her stupid questions, to which she made answers of amazing eccentricity. More than ever Alberto admired his wife’s singular ideas, wondered at the things she saw and that no one else saw, at her culture, her voice. Less reserved than he had been till now, he sometimes kissed her in the presence of others, hanging about her with singular tenacity. He even forgot his own health, for her. The acute egoism of the poor-blooded, fibreless creature was silenced by his love for Lucia.

Oh! Lucia, she too was delighted to stay at home. That Palazzo Reale had lost its charm, it was too huge, too heavy, too architectural.

As to the park, it was a horror. Nature combed, flounced and powdered, with lakes full of trout and red fish for the delectation of the Philistines; with shaven turf, trimmed with scissors; and that eternal waterfall, an odious motionless white line.

“There is the English Garden,” remarked Caterina one day.

“Have you seen it?” asked Lucia.

“No, never.”

“Is it possible, four months of Centurano every year, and you have never seen the English Garden?”

“There has been no opportunity. I hardly ever enter the park. I will take you there, and we will see it together.”

“I do not care to see it. I hate English gardens.”

The subject dropped. Lucia was fond of staying indoors, but she spent many hours in dressing, continually changing her gowns. Her room was full of boxes and packing-cases; she had written to Naples for new “half-season” dresses, fresh from the milliner’s hands. She possessed every variety of teagown: white, ample, floating ones; short, coquettish, bunched-up Pompadour ones; lacy ethereal ones that you could blow away, and rich silken ones that opened over pleated satin skirts. They all became her as well as nearly everything suits a slight, lithe woman. When Caterina admired her, and told her that she was beautiful, and Andrea bowed ceremoniously before her, she would say with a placid smile:

“I dress for Alberto, not for myself.”

“Of course,” whispered Alberto to Caterina or Andrea, “poor Lucia sacrifices herself completely to me. She shall at least have the satisfaction of being beautiful for my sake.”

After her toilet, Lucia breakfasted and then ensconced herself in her favourite corner in Caterina’s drawing-room. She had begun a long fanciful piece of work on coarse, stout canvas, without any design. On it she embroidered the strangest things in loose stitches of wool and silk: a flower, a lobster, a white star, a cock, a crescent, a window grating, a serpent, a cart-wheel, haphazard from right to left. It was the last Paris fashion to have your drawing-room furniture covered with that coarse, quaintly embroidered canvas. It gave free scope to the imagination of the fair embroideress, and Lucia revelled in the strangest devices. Every one in the house was interested in the great undertaking and curious to know, from day to day, what Lucia would add to it.

“What shall you put in it to-day, Lucia?”

“An onion, Alberto.”

“An onion, an onion: oh! how amusing! yesterday a pansy and to-day an onion! How shall you work it?”

“In flame-coloured silk.”

Next day: “Oh! Lucia, tell me what you are going to put in it?”

“An oaten pipe.”

“O Dio! what an eccentricity! What a mad drawing-room we shall have! People will stand about, trying to find out the meaning of it, without thinking of sitting down.”

They chatted a little when they worked. Caterina cut out at the large table, and Lucia, in whose taste she had the utmost confidence, advised her. Lucia had become more demonstrative in her intercourse with Caterina. She questioned her, and made her confessions that sometimes brought the quick blush to her cheek, but only when they were alone. When they remained indoors, Lucia retired to her room an hour before dinner.

“What can she be doing at this hour?” inquired Andrea of his wife.

“I do not know. Probably she prays.”

“Did she pray much at school?”

“Very much; indeed, too much for her health.”

Lucia reappeared in the same dress for dinner, but with her hair differently arranged. She was always changing the style of her hair. Sometimes she wore it turned up high over a tortoiseshell comb, at others twisted round her head with a fresh rose on one side, or loosely plaited and studded with daisies, or bound, in Grecian fashion, by a thin gold fillet. The evenings on which she wore it like a Creole, with a red silk handkerchief, she was irresistible.

“Wear your red foulard; do wear it,” entreated Alberto.

That was why she was fond of staying at home. But Alberto had confided to Caterina and Andrea that his Lucia was busy on another great work. No one was to know anything about it; so silence, if you please. Lucia had begged him not to tell any one; but they were dear, tried friends. It was no less than a great novel that Lucia was writing, a marvel of creative imagination, that was surely destined to surpass all other novels by Italian authors. Lucia worked at it after midnight. He, Alberto, went to bed; Lucia placed the lamp so that it did not shine in his eyes—the dear soul was full of these delicate attentions—opened her desk, drew out a ream of paper, and sat with her head in her hand, buried in deepest thought. Then she would stoop over her writing, without pausing, for a long time. At times, under the influence of her inspiration, she rose, and paced up and down the room in great agitation, wringing her hands.

“Like a poet, who under the spell of his inspiration cannot light upon a rhyme. When I call her, she starts as if she were falling from the clouds. You see she is in the throes of composition. I have left off speaking to her in these moments, for I know that it disturbs her genius. I generally fall asleep, but Lucia, I believe, does not go to bed till two or three in the morning. They say that authors do not care to show their work before it is finished. I shall read it, when it is finished. I think she will dedicate it to me. It will be an amazing work.”

Even Andrea was glad when the Exhibition closed; through it, he had neglected his own affairs for those of other people. He said that he had a world of care on his shoulders, which that condemned show had obliged him to put off. At last he was free to enjoy the peace of his own home, without the obligation of wasting the best part of the day in that solemn Palazzo Reale, walking ten kilometres up and down the great halls, on those polished red tiles, that are enough to tire the most enduring legs. He rose earlier than usual, and drove a pony down to Caserta, where he superintended the removal of his own exhibits from the show. He returned in time for luncheon and changed his clothes; he no longer wore the white silk tie which used to serve as collar and necktie, but a turned-down collar and black necktie, in honour of the ladies, he said, laughing. At breakfast, he would speak vaguely of his projects for the afternoon.

“Are you going out again?” asked Caterina.

“I don’t know ... there are some things I ought to do. Shall you ladies go out?”

“If Lucia cares to,” said Caterina, timidly showing a wish to stay at home.

“I don’t care to,” said she, raising her languid eyelids. “Will you go out, Alberto?”

“I don’t care to,” repeated the latter.

“I don’t know, perhaps I shan’t go either,” murmured Andrea. But after breakfast, when they met in the drawing-room, his impatience would get the better of him, and he rose to go out. Sometimes he succeeded in dragging Alberto with him in the phaeton; he drove him to Marcianise, to Antifreda, or as far as Santa Maria. They drove up and down the high-roads in the soft, mild autumn weather. Alberto, meagre and undersized, in an overcoat buttoned up to his eyes, with a silk muffler round his throat and a rug over his knees, was a striking contrast to the vigorous young man with the curled moustache at his side, attired in light clothes, and wearing an eagle’s feather in his grey huntsman’s hat. Andrea was a good whip, but he sometimes slackened the reins when they were on the high-road, so that the horses started off at a pace that alarmed Alberto.

One evening he said to his wife: “Andrea has homicidal intentions towards me.”

She looked fixedly at him, as if questioning his jesting tone.

When, during these drives, Alberto was inclined for conversation, he talked of his favourite subjects, his health and his wife ... he vaunted Lucia’s beauty, the depth of her genius, the brightness of her repartee. He would sometimes smilingly add details that irritated Andrea, who had an aversion for the morbid confidences of his enamoured guest. Then he would whip up his horses violently, cracking his whip like a carrier, and indulging in a wild race along the high-road.

“You are as prudish as a vestal,” sneered Alberto, more and more convinced that the muscles of these very robust men are developed to the detriment of their nerves. Strong men are cold, a reflection which consoled Alberto, who was a weak man.

They returned to Centurano at a furious pace. Scarcely had they turned the corner, when they perceived a white handkerchief waving from the balcony; it was Lucia, tall, beautiful, and supremely elegant, saluting them, waiting for them. Sometimes Caterina’s smiling face was visible, behind Lucia. She did not come forward, because she dreaded the remarks of her neighbours, who did not approve of public demonstrations of affection between husband and wife. Then Andrea cried, Hip, hip, to Pulcinella, and the fiery mare tore up the hill at full speed; he bowed rapidly to the balcony, and turning the corner in splendid style, achieved a triumphal entry into the courtyard. Lucia generally descended the stairs to meet them, to inquire how Alberto felt and shake hands with Andrea, whom she complimented on his charioteering. Caterina was never there, she was occupied with the last orders for dinner, for she knew how Andrea disliked waiting.

One of the reasons for which Andrea had longed for the closing of the Exhibition, was that he might have time for shooting. Of this his wife, who had passed five or six dreary days last year alone waiting for him, a prey to a melancholy alien to her well-balanced temperament, was well aware. So that this year she was afraid lest he should absent himself too long and too often; an act her guests might deem discourteous. He had said nothing about it, but from one moment to another she expected to hear him say, “I leave to-morrow.” Yet he said nothing, until, between two yawns, Alberto asked him:

“About shooting, Andrea, shan’t you get any?”

He hesitated, then he replied with decision: “Not this year.”

“Why?”

“I have made a vow.”

“A vow? To Saint Hubert?”

“To Our Lady of Sorrows.”

Neither of the two women raised their eyes; but, for different reasons, they both smiled. Caterina thought of Andrea’s kindness in not going away, out of courtesy to her friend and that poor Alberto. She was always afraid that her guests might bore themselves, and if Andrea had gone shooting, how could she have managed, with her poor store of intellectual resources? Oh! Andrea sacrificed himself without a murmur, without any of those loud outbursts; he never indulged in those fits of anger that used to frighten her. Andrea even attained the supreme politeness of not falling asleep during the hour devoted to digestion.

II.

For a whole week after the scene in the English Garden, their love had been so calm that it needed no expression; it was self-concentrated and subjective. They exchanged stolen glances without any agitation, they neither blushed nor turned pale, nor did they tremble at the touch of each other’s hands. Lucia had an absorbed air, as if she were immersed in the contemplation of her own mind; neither the outer world nor her lover could distract her from their state of contemplation. Andrea’s demeanour was that of a man who is secure of himself and of the future. When their eyes met for a moment it was as much as to say: “I love you, you love me; all is well.”

The fact was that the day passed in the English Garden had been too passionate not to have exhausted, at least for a time, the savage impulse of their repressed love. To the acute stage, a period of repose had succeeded—a sort of Eastern dream in the certainty of their mutual love, a kind of annihilation that to the sweets of memory unites those of hope.

It did not last long. Suddenly they awoke to passionate misery. One morning Andrea arose troubled with a mad longing to see Lucia. It was too early, she was sleeping. He paced the drawing-room like a prisoner, looking at his watch from time to time. Caterina, who had already risen, carried his coffee into the drawing-room, and sat down beside him to talk over household bills, and to remind him that he had to drive to Caserta to pay the taxes. He listened while he soaked his rusk in the coffee, without understanding what she was saying to him. He was devoured by impatience. What could Lucia be doing in her own room, at that hour? How came it that she was not conscious of his longing to see her, of his waiting for her? It must be the fault of that miserable Alberto, who was never ready to get up—who clung, shivering and grumbling, to the warm sheets; an odious, wretched creature, who saddened poor Lucia’s existence. The idea, that Alberto kept her there and prevented her from coming, was insufferable. He started to his feet, as if in protestation, as if to go to her....

“Will the tax-collector be there?” said Caterina, brushing away the crumbs with one finger, with her instinctive love of order.

“Where?”

“At Caserta?”

“Who knows?”

“We can inquire of lawyer Marini, who does the legal part of the business; he is sure to know. Shall I send Giulietta!”

“Send Giulietta.”

She left the room, without noticing that anything was wrong. Andrea became calmer, knowing that Lucia must soon appear; it was unreasonable to expect her before half-past nine. He still longed for her presence, but with a gentler longing. He drummed a march on the window-pane, recalling the moment when she had entreated him not to embrace her “for her love’s sake,” and he, obedient as a child, had desisted. Lucia, his Lucia, should be loved in so many ways; with passion, but with the utmost tenderness; with youthful ardour, but with reverence. Oh! all these things were in his heart. He would wait patiently for her coming, without any perilous, fiery outbursts. Lucia might be late, he who loved her would refrain from breaking in doors and damaging china or furniture.

Enter Caterina.

“Lawyer Marini says that the tax-collector will be there between nine and twelve to-day.”

“What does that prove?”

“You are in time to go there and back before breakfast. It will take you an hour to go there and back.”

“No, I shan’t go ...” said Andrea, after some hesitation.

Caterina was silent. She thought he was always right, and never contradicted him.

“I will go there after breakfast,” he added, as if in explanation of his conduct.

“As you will,” said Caterina, without remarking that after breakfast the tax-collector would be no longer there.

Andrea was becoming irritable again. Caterina standing like that before him, bored him. She seemed to be waiting for something, as if she meant to question him, to call him to account....

“Listen, Caterina, do fetch me my writing-case from the bedroom; I shall stay here and write some important letters.”

Away she went, with her light, elastic step. Lucia’s door opened, and she entered; Andrea, pale with the pleasure of seeing her, ran to meet her. But a disappointment arrested him. She was followed by Alberto. Andrea’s greeting was cool, his fine project of a prolonged contemplation of her melted away.

“Haven’t you been out of doors this morning?” inquired Alberto, fatuously.

“No.”

“Aren’t you well?”

“I am always well. I am bored and worried.”

Lucia looked at him as if to question him. She was so fascinating that morning, with the dark shadow under her eyes that lent them so much expression, her vivid lips that contrasted with the pallor of her face, and the air of delicious languor of a woman who loves and is beloved. In one sad, passionate glance behind Alberto’s back, they spoke to and understood each other. He was sitting between them, sprawling in an armchair, with no intention of moving. When he realised this, a spirit of contradiction made Andrea long more ardently than ever to tell Lucia what she was to him. Only once to whisper it in her ear, as in the English Garden; once only, and he could have borne to go away. But say it to her he must; the words sprang to his lips, and it seemed as if Lucia read them there; her eyes dilated, and her expression became alternately rapt and troubled. Meanwhile Alberto yawned, stretched out his arms, drew a long breath to find out if there was any obstruction, and coughed slightly to try his breathing capacity. Now Andrea’s only wish was that Alberto should go away for a moment, to the window or back to his room, so that he, Andrea, might tell Lucia that he loved her. Ma che! Her husband continued to sprawl at full length, staring at the ceiling—lolling, with one leg over the other; anything but move. Lucia pretended to read the paper that had come by post, but her hands trembled from nervousness.

“What is there in the newspaper?”

“Nothing.”

“As usual: there never is anything. Does it amuse you?”

“Immensely;” her voice hissed between her teeth.

“Why don’t you talk to us? Here is Andrea, who hasn’t been out. The first day that he stays at home, you are absorbed in the Pungolo.”

“I have forgotten to bring your box of lozenges with me,” she said, pensively.

“Here it is,” said Alberto, drawing it from his pocket.

The commonplace but generally efficacious expedient had failed. The lovers were downcast, low-spirited, and discomfited. Meanwhile Caterina had returned with the writing-case.

“I have been a long time,” she said, “but I could not find it. It was at the bottom of the drawer, under the stamped paper. It is so long since you have written.”

She quietly prepared the necessary writing materials for her husband, and went to sit down by Lucia. Andrea, furious at the double surveillance, began rapidly to write senseless phrases. He wrote nouns and verbs and immensely long adverbs for the mere sake of writing, feeling that he could think of nothing, save that he wanted to tell his dear Lucia, his sweet Lucia, his dear love, that he loved her. Lucia, with her head thrown back, her face livid from irritation, her lips so puckered that they appeared to be drawn on an invisible thread, was looking at him from between half-closed lids, behind the paper. He might have risen to tell her that he loved her, but Alberto and Caterina were placidly chatting with her, saying that the rain had cooled the atmosphere, and that at last it was possible to walk, even when the sun was shining. Caterina had her look of serene repose, and Alberto continued to twirl his thumbs, like a worthy bourgeois immersed in the delightful consciousness of his own insignificance.

“There is nothing for it but to grin and bear it,” muttered Andrea.

“What are you saying?” asked Caterina, whose ear was always on the alert.

“That we shall never get our breakfast. It is nearly half-past eleven. I am fit to die of hunger.”

“I will run and hasten it,” she said, perturbed by the savageness of his accent.

“I will come too, Signora Caterina,” said Alberto.

The other two exchanged a rapid glance, so eager that it already seemed to bring them together. But on rising Alberto thought he felt a stitch in his chest; he began to prod himself all over, feeling for his ribs, in prompt alarm. Caterina had disappeared.

“I feel as if I had a pain here,” he complained.

“I always have it,” said she, gloomily, without looking at him.

“Do you speak seriously—at the base of the lungs?”

“Yes, and at the top of them too. I have pains all over.”

“But why don’t you say so? Why not see a doctor? Will you bring upon me the sorrow of seeing you fall ill? I, who love you so!”

The little table at which Andrea sat writing creaked as if his whole weight had fallen upon it. Alberto, on his knees before his wife, continued his inquiries as to her pains. Were they in the bones, or were they stitches? Forgetful of his own suffering, he entreated her, in adoration before that hard-set, sphinx-like face that allowed itself to be questioned, but vouchsafed no answer. Caterina found them in this attitude and smilingly designated them to her husband, who replied by an ironic laugh, quite at variance with his frank, good-natured face. But his wife’s penetration did not permit her to distinguish between a simple smile and a sarcastic grin. Breakfast commenced in painful but short-lived silence. Lucia soon began to chatter with nervous volubility, playing with her knife and capriciously choosing to pour out Andrea’s wine for him. She ate nothing, but drank great glasses of iced water, her favourite beverage. While Caterina watched the service, with her eye upon Giulietta, whom she addressed in an undertone, and her hand on the electric bell, Alberto cut all the fat and gristle away from his meat, reducing it to its smallest compass, and Andrea stared absently at a ray of light playing on a glass of water. Lucia continued to keep the conversation from flagging, by saying the most eccentric things, exciting herself, doubling up her fingers, as was her wont when her convulsive attacks were coming on. The usual question cropped up.

“Any one going out to-day?” asked Andrea.

“Not I,” said Alberto.

“Nor I,” said Lucia.

“Nor I,” added Caterina.

“And what do you intend to do at home?” asked Andrea.

“I shall play at patience, with cards,” said Alberto. “But perhaps I shan’t, after all. As to me, when Lucia stays indoors....”

“I shall work at my embroidery,” said she, suddenly sobered.

“And I shall sew,” said Caterina.

“How you will amuse yourselves!” said Andrea, rising from his seat. “Come out driving, let’s have the daumont.”

“No,” said Lucia. He understood her. What would be the good of that drive? They would still be four people together. He would have no chance of telling Lucia that he loved her.

“I am half inclined to stay here to count your yawns,” he growled, savagely.

“If you stay with me, then I’ll say you’re a good fellow,” said Alberto.

He stayed with them: he hoped, he kept on hoping. But when he saw Alberto seated at the little table with his pack of cards, Caterina near the window with her basket of linen, Lucia on the sofa with the interminable canvas between her fingers, drawing her thread slowly, without raising her eyes, he thought it would never, never be; and gloom and disappointment overwhelmed him. Those two obstacles, pacific, well-meaning and motionless, who smilingly let drop an occasional remark, were insurmountable. Never, no, never, would he be able to speak to Lucia. He gave it up. He had neither the energy to go, nor the patience to stay in that close room.

“I am going away to sleep,” he said, as if he were about to accomplish a meritorious action.

“What are you embroidering to-day?” inquired Alberto of Lucia.

“A heart, pierced by a dagger.”

Once in his room, Andrea closed the shutters and threw himself on his bed, in a state of fatigue of which he had had no experience till now. He had been mastered in the struggle with circumstances. His impetuous nature, alien to compromise, was incapable of endurance: he could neither wait nor calculate. “Nevermore, nevermore,” he kept repeating to himself, with his face buried in the pillows.

Twice Caterina came in on tiptoe and leant over him, holding her breath lest he should be sleeping. He feigned sleep, repressing a shrug of annoyance. Was he not free to shut himself up in his room, and vent his feelings by punching a mattress? Need he submit to all this wearisome business? But Lucia, dominant and imperious, once more occupied his thoughts; Lucia, whose name, did he but murmur it, filled him with tenderness; Lucia, his dear love, a love as immense and unfathomable as the sun. He turned over and over on his bed, in a fever of nervousness, he who had never suffered from nerves before; it seemed to him that he had lain for a century, burning between those cool sheets. Two or three times he fell into an uneasy slumber and dreamt that he saw Lucia, with flaming wide-open eyes, tendering her lips to his kisses. When with wild longing he approached her, some one dragged her away from him, and he was bereft of the power of moving from the spot to which he felt nailed: he tried to utter a cry, but his voice failed him. Then, starting and quivering, he awoke. “Lucia, Lucia,” he kept repeating in his torpor, trying to recall his dream, to see her again, to kiss her. And in his dream he found her again, he on the balcony, she in the street, whence she held out her arms to him; and slowly he threw himself off the balcony—slowly, slowly, never ceasing to fall, experiencing unutterable anguish. There was an incubus on his chest during that oppressed, restless slumber. When he really awoke his eyes were heavy, his body ached, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. That eternal afternoon must be over, he thought. He opened the window, the sun was still high. It was five o’clock, two more hours till dinner-time. But in that pleasant light he awakened to fresh hope. Ecco! he would write to Lucia, on a scrap of paper, that he loved her. Not another word; that was sufficient, and should suffice him.

Diamine! couldn’t he have given her that scrap of paper? It was surely easy enough; yes, yes, it was a splendid idea. He entered the drawing-room, pleased with his discovery. The first disillusion that befell him was to find no one there but Caterina and Alberto. Lucia was missing; where was she? He did not venture to ask. Alberto was smoking a medicated cigarette, recommended for delicate lungs, and attentively watching the smoke, with his right leg crossed over his left; Caterina had put a band on a petticoat, and was running a tape in it. Lucia was missing; whom could he ask about her?

“Have you slept well?”

“Yes, Caterina, very well; have you worked the whole time?”

“No; the Signora Marini came to pay us a visit.”

“I hope you had her shown into the drawing-room?”

“Yes; she stayed too long.”

Not a word of Lucia. Whom could he ask? Who would tell him what Lucia was doing?

“... And then Lucia, who is bored by stupid people,” added Alberto, “felt ill and went to her room; just now I went to see what she was doing.... Andrea, guess what she was doing?”

“How can I tell?”

“Guess, guess....”

“You are like a child.”

“As you cannot guess, I will tell you. She was kneeling on the cushion of the prie-dieu, and praying.”

“Lucia stays too long on her knees, it will injure her health,” observed Caterina.

“It can’t be helped; on religious subjects she is not amenable. Indeed, she reproaches me for having forgotten the Ave Maria and the Paternoster. If I happen to cough, she prays for an hour longer,” Alberto said.

Andrea had gone to the writing-table, and having cut a scrap of paper had written all over it, backwards and forwards, in every direction, in minute characters, “I love you,” at least thirty times. This he did while Caterina and Alberto were still talking of her.... he felt as if he had done a deed of the greatest daring in writing those words under their very eyes. Before he had finished, Lucia re-entered the room. She was more nervous than usual; she went up to him and jested on his “middle-aged,” provincial habit of “siesta.” All he needed to make him perfect was a game of “tresette” in the evening, a snuff-box filled with “rape,” and a red-and-black-checked cotton handkerchief. Would he play at “scopa” with her after dinner? And while her voice rang shrill and the others laughed, she put her hand in her pocket, as if to draw out her handkerchief; a scrap of paper peeped out. Then he, in great agitation, put a finger in his waistcoat-pocket and showed the corner of his note. Caterina or Alberto, or both, were always in the room. When one went away, the other returned; they were never alone for a moment. Andrea had folded his note in two, in four, in eight; he had rolled it into a microscopic ball, which he held in his hand to have it ready. Lucia dropped a ball of wool, Alberto picked it up. Andrea asked Lucia for her fan, but Caterina was the intermediary who handed it to him. It was impossible. Those two were frankly and ingenuously looking on, without a shade of suspicion; therefore the more to be feared. Andrea trembled for Lucia, not for himself; he was ready to risk everything. From time to time a queer daring idea flitted through his brain; to say aloud to Lucia: “I have written something for you on paper, but only you may read it.” Who could tell, perhaps Alberto and Caterina would not have guessed anything, and his venture would be crowned with success. But suppose that in jest they asked to see it? Fear for Lucia conquered him; he ended by replacing the little ball in his pocket. As for Lucia, her anger was so nervous and concentrated, that it made her eyes dull and her nose look as thin as if a hand had altered the lines of her face. She moved to and fro without her customary rhythm, touching everything in absence of mind, arranging her tie, lifting the plaits from her neck, inspecting Caterina’s work, taking a puff from Alberto’s cigarette, filling the room with movement, chatter, and sound. It was impossible to exchange the notes. Lucia put hers in her handkerchief, and dropped the handkerchief on the sofa; but to reach the sofa, Andrea would have had to pass Alberto’s intervening body. After five minutes, Lucia again took up her handkerchief and carried it to her lips, as if she were biting it. Then they exposed themselves to a real danger. Andrea opened a volume of Balzac that was lying on a bracket and replaced it, leaving his note between its leaves.

“Hand me that book, Andrea.”

“Nonsense,” cried Alberto; “would you begin to read now? It is dinner-time, sai.”

“I shall just read one page.”

“One page, indeed! I hate your wordy, doleful Balzac. I confiscate the book.” And he stretched out his hand for it. Andrea drew it towards him, thinking, naturally enough, that all was lost. Lucia closed her eyes as if she were dying. Nothing happened. Alberto did not insist on having the book. After all, what did he care for Eugénie Grandet, so that his wife chattered on instead of reading? Andrea drew a long breath, and took his note back, no longer caring to give it to her; his anxiety had been ineffable. Lucia, with her marvellous faculty of passing from one impression to another, soon recovered her spirits. The note episode was over and done for; they were very merry at dinner. Curiously enough, a bright flush suffused Lucia’s cheeks, ending in a red line like a scratch, towards her chin. She felt the heat and fanned herself, joking with her husband and Caterina. She had never been so animated before; now and then her mouth twitched nervously, but that might have passed for a smile. Andrea drank deep, in absence of mind. Lucia leant towards him, smiling; she spoke very close to his ear, showing her teeth, almost as if she were offering her clove-scented lips to him. Then Andrea, what with the heat of the dining-room, its heavy atmosphere, laden with the odours of viands, preserved fruits, and the strong vinegar used in the preparation of the game, the warm rays reflected from the crystal on to the tablecloth, and Lucia’s flushed face—the lace tie showing her white throat—so near to his, Andrea was seized with a mad longing to kiss her; one kiss, only one, on the lips. Every now and then he drew nearer to her, hoping that the others would think him drunk; anything might be forgiven to a drunken man. He drew nearer to her to kiss her, tortured by his desire. He shrank back in dismay, before his wife’s pale, calm face, and the bony, birdlike profile of Alberto. Suddenly Lucia saw what was passing in his mind, and turned as pale as wax. She saw that he was looking at her lips, and hid them with her hand. But that made no difference; he could see them, bright, moist, bleeding, with the savour of fresh blood, that had gone to his head in the English Garden. He would taste them for an infinitesimal fraction of time. And with fixed gaze and a scowl that wrinkled his eyebrows, his clenched fist on the tablecloth, he turned this resolution over in his mind, while the others continued to talk of Naples and the approaching winter festivities. They partook of coffee in the drawing-room. He tried to lead Lucia behind the piano, so that he might give her that kiss; which was absurd, because the piano was too low. The candles were lighted, Caterina took her seat at the piano, and played her usual pieces; easy ones, executed with a certain taste; some of Schubert’s reveries, the Prelude to the fourth act of the Traviata, and Beethoven’s March of the Ruins of Athens. Lucia was lying with her head far back in the American armchair, and her little feet hidden under the folds of her train, dreaming. Alberto, sitting opposite to her, was turning over the leaves of the Franco-Prussian war album, and discovering that Moltke was not in the least like Crispi, and that all Prussians have a certain family likeness. Andrea took several turns in the room, joining Caterina at the piano sometimes asking her to change her piece, or to alter her time. But he was haunted by Lucia’s lips; he saw them everywhere, like an open pomegranate flower, a brightness of coral; he could see their curves and fluctuations; he followed, caught them, they disappeared. For a moment he would be free: then in a mirror, in a bronze candelabrum, in a wooden jardinière, he would fancy they appeared to him, at first pale, then glowing, as if they grew more living. Never to get to them! He went out on the balcony and exposed his burning head to the air, hoping that the evening dew would calm his delirium. Caterina begged Lucia to play, but she refused, alleging that she had no strength, she felt exhausted. Alberto drowsed. The two friends conversed in whispers for a long time, bending over the black and white keys, while Andrea watched from the window: now Lucia’s lips played him the horrible trick of approaching Caterina’s cheek. Oh! if Caterina would but move away from the piano; but no, there she sat, glued to her place, listening to what Lucia was murmuring.

Thus slowly passed the dreary hours, bringing no change to the aspect of that room. At midnight they all wished each other good-night; Andrea worn out with a nervous tremor, she hardly able to drag herself along. Their good-night was spoken in the broken accents of those who have lost all hope. And, alone in the darkness, he lived over again the torment of that day in which he longed for a look and had not had it, for a word and had been unable to say or hear it, for a note that he had neither been able to read nor to deliver, for a kiss that he had not given; his strength exhausted in that day of misery that had been lost for love. Yes, it must be, it would be thus for evermore. Death was surely preferable.

III.

Andrea, that overgrown child of nature, whose primitive elasticity of temperament enabled him to pass with ease from fury to tenderness, revolted against sorrow and rebelled against anguish. Why would they not let him love Lucia? Who dared to place themselves between him and the woman of his love? When Caterina was in the way, he could have screamed and stamped his foot, and sobbed like a child deprived of its toy; his inward convulsions were like the terrible nervous attacks of those obstinate infants who die in a fit of unsatisfied caprice. Lucia saw his eyes swollen with tears, and his face redden with the effort of repressing them; it made her turn pale with emotion. When the unfortunate Alberto was the obstacle, with his meagre little person, his hoarse voice, and his little fits of coughing, Andrea could hardly resist the impulse which prompted him to take him round the body and throw him down; to walk over him and crush him underfoot. When Lucia saw the breath of madness pass over Andrea’s face, she rushed forward at the first sign of it, to prevent a catastrophe. Then he took up his hat and went out on foot, round the fields, under the broiling sun, with hurried step, clenched teeth, and quivering nerves, bowing mechanically to the people he met, even smiling at them without seeing them. He returned home limp, bathed in perspiration, and fatigued; he slept, the good sleep of old times, for two hours, with clenched fists and head sunk in the pillows. On awaking, he had an instant of supreme felicity, a well-being derived from the rest he had enjoyed, the restored balance of his powers. But suddenly the worm began again to gnaw, and, like a whining child that awakes too early, he thought: “Oh, God! how unhappy I am! Why did I awake if I am to be so unhappy?”

He was in truth a very child in love, a child of no reasoning faculty, incapable of unhealthy sophistry or sensual melancholy. He loved Lucia, and desired her; that was his aim, clear, precise, and well-defined. He looked his own will in the face, straight as a sword-cut that finds its way to the heart. He knew that he did wrong, he knew that he was guilty of treachery; he looked his sin in the face without any mitigating sentimentalism. Not his were the terrors, the languors of an erring conscience, nor the mystifications of a depraved mind. He did wrong, not because he was impelled by faith or wrath divine, but because his imagination was wrought upon, and because he loved. He did not try to justify himself by the discovery of any imaginary defect in Caterina, nor wrongs nor shortcomings which would have made it excusable to bestow his love elsewhere. His conscience could not have endured the pretexts that might serve to lessen the consciousness of wrong-doing in a viler soul. They sinned and betrayed, because they loved elsewhere; that was all. Love is no fatality; love is itself, stronger than aught besides. So he suffered in not being free to love in the light of day, with the loyalty of a brave heart that has the courage of its errors. He could not understand obstacles; they were a physical irritation to him, as a cart across his path would have been. He would have liked to have pushed them aside, or ridden over them; he lamented the injustice of his fate, in that he could not surmount them. Sometimes, when they were all sitting together in the drawing-room, he felt tempted to take Lucia in his arms and carry her away. That was his right, the blind right of violence, suited to his temperament. Did she understand it? When he came too near to her, she shrank away with a slight gesture of repulsion. In proportion as his passion increased in intensity, so did the obstacles become more and more insurmountable. That consumptive creature never left his wife for a moment; drowsing, yawning, reading scraps by fits and starts, sucking tar lozenges, spitting in his handkerchief, grumbling, feeling his own pulse a hundred times a day, complaining of suffocation and cold sweats. Caterina, it is true, went to and fro on household avocations, and sometimes retired to write letters; but when her husband was at home she did her best to get her business done so that she could sit down to sew in the drawing-room. Alberto saw and inspected everything; and with the maudlin curiosity of a sick and indolent person, wanted to touch all that he saw. Caterina was more discreet, less curious, and of silent habit, yet she too saw everything. Impossible to speak to Lucia alone for a minute. Two or three times they had attempted this, almost oblivious of the others’ presence; but having stopped in time, had found each other mute, pale from weariness, their faces drawn by suppressed yawns. Caterina and Alberto had nothing to say to each other. After five minutes they subsided into an inevitable silence. Alberto considered Caterina an excellent woman, a notable housekeeper, but rather stupid, and in every way inferior to his wife. Caterina judged no man, but all that Alberto inspired her with was quiet, unemotional compassion. There was no spiritual sympathy between them, rather a physical repulsion. The impression produced by Caterina on Alberto was the negative one of absence of sex: she was neither beautiful nor ugly in his sight, nor a woman at all. In Caterina the instinct of health which recoils from disease, made him repellent to her. Then came the gloomy hours in which Lucia, in dumb despair, would betake herself to the sofa, where she would lie as rigid as the dead, her feet hidden under her skirts, her train hanging on the ground, with wreathed arms, and hands crossed behind her head, closed eyes and deathly pallor. She scarcely answered except in curt, harsh monosyllables, passing hours in the same attitude, without opening her eyes. Alberto wasted his breath in questioning her, she never made him any reply. Caterina, who since their school-days was accustomed to these acute attacks of melancholy, signed to him to be silent, to wait for the fit to pass over: and they kept silence until the gloom fell upon them all. Andrea started to his feet and prepared to go out, without so much as looking towards the sofa. Caterina was troubled at his manner of absenting himself, for she knew that her husband could not abide these extraordinary scenes. She ran after him to the top of the stairs, calling him back, whispering to him.

“Have patience, Andrea,” she said.

“But what is the matter with her?”

“I don’t know; she has strange ideas that unsettle her brain. She says they are visions, and the doctor calls them hallucinations. She sees things that we do not see.”

“What a singular creature!”

“Poor thing, she suffers a great deal, sai. If I could but tell you what she tells me, when neither of you are there. I fear we were to blame in advising her to marry Alberto....”

“What does she say to you? Tell me.”

“Are you going out?”

“Right you are: I am off. If any one wants me, say I am out on business. One can’t breathe in the drawing-room; it smells like a sick-room.”

“They will soon be leaving us, and then....”

“I don’t mean that; you’ll tell me the rest to-night. Au revoir.”

To make matters worse, sometimes in the evening, when Lucia chose to be most beautiful, she would gaze at him with a look of calm and persistent provocation that was torture to him. And he tortured himself, for he had neither the habit of patience nor the phlegmatic capacity for conquering obstacles. His was the haste of one who is accustomed to live well and quickly—who cares rather for a reality to enjoy day by day than for an ideal to live up to. What was this torment of having Lucia within reach—beautiful, desirable, desired—and yet not his? He would struggle on undaunted, clenching those fists that were ready to knock something down; and then he would fall back, wearied to exhaustion, no longer caring for life, with the eternal refrain in his mind: “that it would always be the same; that there was no way out of it; that life was not worth having.”

At night, it was no longer possible to pass an hour in the balcony. If the bed only creaked, Caterina awoke and inquired:

“Do you need anything?”

“No,” was the curt reply. Sometimes he did not answer at all. Then she fell asleep again, but her sleep was light. He knew that had he gone out on the balcony Caterina would soon have followed him, in her white wrapper—a tiny, faithful, loving shadow, ready to watch with him if he could not sleep. Oh! he knew her well, Caterina. He had taken the measure of the calm, deep, provident, almost maternal affection that welled over in the little heart. At times, when her head rested trustfully against his broad chest, as if it had been a haven of rest, an immense pity, a despairing tenderness for the little woman whom he no longer loved, stole upon him. All that was over. Finis had been written and the volume closed. But from this very pity and tenderness arose more potent his love for Lucia, who slept or watched two rooms away from him. Some nights he could have run his head against the walls to knock them down. He felt a seething in his brain that made him capable of anything. At last he lighted on the desperate remedy of talking to his wife of Lucia whenever they were alone. Caterina, who was desirous of awakening her husband’s interest in her friend, was fond of speaking of her. In a measure, Lucia’s personality modified Caterina’s temperament; her fantasy exercised a certain influence on her. Caterina proved this by her ingenuous employment of metaphor—she with whom it was unusual—when her talk ran on Lucia. To tell the truth, Andrea was rather unskilled in interrogatory, and in veiling a too acute curiosity; but Caterina was no expert in such matters. She talked on, in her quiet way, a gentle, continuous flow of words. It was at night, before going to sleep, that these conversations took place. She told him of Lucia’s mystico-religious mania; how she had turned the whole College topsy-turvy with her penances, her ecstasies, her tears during the sermons, her faintings at the Sacraments; she had even worn a hair-shift, but the Directress had taken it away from her because it made her ill. She told him of her strange answers, and of the fantastic compositions that excited the whole class; of the strange superstitions that tormented her. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, Lucia used to get out of bed and come and sit by hers (Caterina’s), and weep, weep silently.

“Why did she weep?” inquired Andrea, moved.

“Because she suffered. At school some considered her eccentric, some romantic, others fantastic. The doctor said she was ill, and ought to be taken away from there.”

She continued talking of her curious fancies; how “she ate no fruit on Tuesday, for the sake of the souls in Purgatory; and drank no wine on Thursday, because of Christ’s Passion. She ate many sweets and drank great glasses of water.”

“Even now she drinks them,” remarked Andrea, profoundly interested.

By degrees the narrator’s voice fell, the tale dragged, and he did not venture to rouse her. Caterina slept for a few moments, and then, in broken accents, began again. She ended by saying in her sleep, “Poor Lucia!”

“Poor Lucia!” repeated Andrea, mechanically.

Caterina reposed in sleep, but he remained awake, feverish from the tale he had heard, obliged to resist his longing to wake his wife and say to her, “Let us continue to talk of her.”

He had unconsciously adopted the same method with Alberto. When he went out walking with him he ingeniously led up to the subject of his wife. No sooner said than done. Alberto did not care to hear another word. As with Caterina, Lucia was his one idea, his favourite topic. He had so much to tell that Andrea never needed to question him: he sometimes interrupted him by an exclamation to prove that he was an interested listener. Alberto had enough to talk about for a century: how he had fallen in love, how Lucia spoke, what she wrote, how she dressed when she was a girl. He remembered certain phrases: The “Car of Juggernaut,” the “Drama of Life,” the “Love of the Imagination,” the “Silence of the Heart,” and he unconsciously repeated them, enjoying the remembrance of them. He recalled the minutest details—a date, the flower she had worn in her hair on a certain day, the gloves that came up to her elbow, the rustle of a silken shirt under her fur wraps. Alberto had forgotten nothing. One day he had found her in bed with the fever, with a white silk handkerchief, that made her look like a nun, bound round her head. Another day she had made the sign of the cross on his chest—an ascetic gesture—to avert evil from him. Another time she had told him that she was going to die, that she had a presentiment about it, that she had already made her will. She wished to be embalmed, for she dreaded the worms ... wrapped first in a batiste sheet and then in a large piece of black satin, perfumed with musk, pearls twisted in her hair, and a silver crucifix on her bosom.

“Enough to make one weep, Andrea mio” continued Alberto. “I could not keep her silent. She would tell me all, all. We ended by weeping together, in each other’s arms, as if we had been going to die on the spot.”

When Alberto Sanna’s confidences became too expansive, and the unhealthy flush of excitement dyed his cheeks, Andrea suffered the tortures of jealousy. Alberto grew enthusiastic over the delicate beauty of his wife, the sweetness of her kisses, and as he ran on his companion turned pale, bit his cigar, and knew not how he resisted the temptation to throw Alberto into a ditch. That invalid, whose breathing was oppressed even on level, whose breath whistled through his lungs on rising ground, that sickly homunculus discoursed of the joys of love as if he knew anything about them. Andrea looked him up and down, and decided that he was a wooden marionette in that winter overcoat, with the collar drawn up to his ears, and the hat drawn down over his eyes; so his anger was blended with contempt, and he threw his cigar violently against the trunk of a tree. There were no means of reducing Alberto to silence. His impudence was of the passionately shameless kind, so peculiar to those lovers who recount to the whole world how their mistress’s shoulder is turned, and that her limbs are whiter than her face—a placid immodesty that made it possible for him to tell Andrea that Lucia wore blue silk garters embroidered with heartsease, with the motto, “Honi soit qui mal y pense;” and smilingly he inquired:

“What do you think of it?—pretty, eh!”

The consolation turned to torture, the relief to anguish. Andrea grew grave and gloomy.

IV.

One day Lucia appeared in the drawing-room with a resolute and almost defiant look on her face. Her nostrils quivered as if they scented powder, and her whole being was ready for battle. Looking elsewhere, while Andrea handed her a cup of coffee, she calmly gave him a note. He trembled all over without losing his presence of mind. He found a pretext to leave the room, and ran down into the courtyard to read it. They were a few burning words of love written in pencil. “He was her Andrea, her own strong love; she loved him, loved him, loved him; her peace was gone, yet she was happy in that she loved, unhappy in not being permitted to love him. They must put a bold face on it ... Alberto and Caterina, poor, poor betrayed ones ... had no suspicions. He, Andrea, should study her, Lucia, so that he might understand what she said to him with her eyes; she was his inamorata, his mate, and she loved her handsome lord....”

All the gloom had vanished. Andrea felt as if joy must choke him. He began to talk loudly to Matteo, the stable-man; called the hounds, Fox and Diana, who leapt upon him; seized Diana by the scruff of her neck; made Fox jump, telling Matteo that he was in his dotage; that the dogs were worth two of him, but that, vice versâ, he was a good bestia. Two ladies’ heads and the small head of a sort of scalded bird, looked down upon him from a window. He called out to the ladies that he proposed a good sharp drive: the ladies, like two princesses in disguise, in the victoria, he and Alberto in the phaeton.

“And how about luncheon?” grumbled the thin voice of Alberto, buried under a woollen scarf.

“Of course, we will lunch first,” he thundered from the courtyard. And he mounted the stairs, four at a time, singing and shaking his leonine mane. When he got to the top, he took Alberto by the throat, and forced him to turn round the drawing-room, in the mazes of the polka.

Lucia watched this violent ebullition of joy, without stirring an eyelash.

“Since you are so gallant, to-day, Andrea,” she said, coolly, “suppose you offered me your arm, to go into lunch. ’Tis a courtesy you are wanting in.”

“I am a barbarian, Signora Sanna. Will you do me the honour to accept my arm?” he said, bowing profoundly.

The two others laughed, and followed, without imitating them. In the gloom of the corridor, Lucia nestled closer to Andrea; he pressed her arm until it hurt her. When they entered the dining-room, they were so rigidly composed that Alberto teased them. Caterina was happy, for her husband had gained his good temper. At table, Lucia’s elbow came several times in contact with Andrea’s sleeve, when she raised her glass to her lips, looking at him through the crystal. He kept his eyes open, casting oblique looks at Alberto and Caterina, but they neither saw nor suspected anything.

“To repay you for the arm that you did not offer me,” said Lucia, with frigid audacity, “I offer a pear, peeled by myself.”

And she handed it to him on the point of the knife. On one side the witch had bitten it with her small, strong teeth. He closed his eyes while he ate it.

“Is it good?” she inquired, gravely.

“Sorry to say so, for your sake; but it was very bad,” he replied, with a grimace of regret. Alberto was fit to die of laughter. That rogue of a Lucia, who seriously offered a bad pear to Andrea, as if in gratitude, as if she were making him a handsome present! What wit! that Lucia! The ladies rose to dress for the drive. The first to return was Caterina, dressed in black, with a jet bonnet. Lucia was away some time, but, as Alberto afterwards remarked, she was worth waiting for. At last she appeared, looking charming, her height somewhat diminished by a dark plaid costume, with a thread of yellow and red running through it. She wore a blue, mannish, double-breasted jacket, with small gold buttons, a high white collar and a felt hat with a blue veil, covering it and her hair. A bewitching, mock traveller, with a little powder on her cheeks to cool their flush.

The victoria and the phaeton were waiting in the courtyard. The ladies entered their carriage and drew the tiger-skin over their knees: the men sprang into the phaeton and bowed to the ladies, who waved their handkerchiefs. Then the little vehicle, driven by Andrea, started at full speed, the other equipage following more slowly. This lasted some time; every now and then they turned back to look at their wives, who were smiling and chatting with each other. Andrea saluted them by cracking his whip. The wind blew fresh, and Alberto, who caught it in his face, doubled himself up for fear of taking cold.

“Ma che!” exclaimed Andrea, “don’t you feel how warm it is? I wish I could take off my coat and drive in shirtsleeves.”

And he goaded on Tetillo until he broke into a canter.

“We are losing sight of the victoria, Andrea,” pleaded Alberto, who thought that canter inopportune.

“Now we will stop and wait for them.”

They were on the road to San Niccolo, between Caserta, and Santa Maria. Andrea got down and stood awaiting the victoria, which arrived almost immediately. Francesco maintained all the gravity of a Neapolitan coachman, although he had whipped up his Mecklenburg trotters. Andrea and Alberto leant against the side of the little carriage, chatting with its occupants.

“Are you enjoying yourselves?”

“Oh! the speed intoxicates me,” replied Lucia.

“It is a lovely day,” added Caterina, simply.

“Yes, but windy,” mumbled Alberto, stretching himself with the weariness of having sat doubled up.

“Well, shall we drive on?” inquired Andrea, impatiently.

“I want to make a proposal,” said Alberto; “I submit it to the consideration of the ladies.”

“Well, make haste about it then.”

“Have pity on a poor invalid and take him into the victoria; it is sheltered from the wind, and this nice rug keeps one’s legs warm.”

“And leave Andrea alone, in the phaeton?” observed Caterina.

“True,” he said, pondering; “how could we manage it? Take him in here, overload the carriage; and then who would drive the phaeton? Would one of you ladies take my place?”

They looked at each other interrogatively, and said, “Yes.” Andrea took no part in the discussion, he listened patiently while he made a fresh knot in his whip.

“Would you, Signora Caterina?” continued Alberto, who had made up his mind to a seat in the victoria; “but no, that wouldn’t do, we should be husband and wife and wife and husband. It would be absurd; people would take us for brides and bridegrooms! Lucia, are you too nervous to get into the phaeton?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” she said, absently.

“Bé, do me a favour; you go with Andrea. We will ask him to drive slowly, because of your nerves. Will you really do me this favour?”

“Certainly, Alberto mio. I was enjoying being with Caterina, but sooner than you should be exposed to the wind....”

Andrea assisted her to alight; she sprang out lightly, showing a glimpse of a bronze boot. She took leave of Caterina while Alberto ensconced himself well back in the victoria.

“Signora Caterina, you must pardon the exigencies of an invalid. You must fancy yourself a garde-malade.”

She turned her sweet patient smile on him. Andrea and Lucia silently made their way to the phaeton. He helped her up, and then got up himself; then, both turning towards the carriage, waved their hands once more. Then away like the wind.

“Oh! my love, my beautiful love,” murmured Andrea, from whose hands the reins had nearly slipped.

“Run away with me, far away,” she whispered, looking at him with languorous eyes.

“Do not look at me like that, witch,” said Andrea, roughly.

“I love you.”

“And I, and I—you cannot know how I love you.”

“I do, though. Why don’t you write to me?”

“I have written to you, over and over again, and torn the letters up. Oh! Lucia mia, how beautiful you are, and how dear!”

Close to him, in her trim tight-fitting dress, with little crossed feet, with the tender look on her face, shaded by the brim of her hat, she was fascinating. She looked like an enamoured child, with her pink chin, her delicate cheeks, and wind-blown hair.

“I shall drop the reins and kiss you.”

“No; they are watching us.”

“Then why are you so dear? Why is my brain on fire?”

The horse went on at full speed, arching its neck, almost dancing, the other equipage, following at a distance of sixty paces.

“I have suffered the tortures of the damned, these past days.”

“Do not tell it me. I thought I should have died of it. Do you love me?”

“Why do you ask me—you who know so much, you who know all?”

“I know not why,” replied Lucia, in her caressing tones.

“Lucia, you will drive me mad, if you speak in that voice. Shall I run away with you here, on the high-road?”

“Yes, yes, run away with me. That is what I wish, that you should run away with me.” Her eye, her lips, her little foot so close to him, all added to the provocation of her words.

“Have pity on me, my love; you see that I am dying for love of you.”

For a few minutes there was silence. He looked straight before him, biting his lips, for fear of yielding to the temptation. But it was too strong for him, he could not help looking at her. She was smiling at him with a feverish and caressing smile, her teeth gleaming between her lips.

“How dear you are! Why are you laughing?”

“I am not laughing, I am smiling.”

“Sometimes, Lucia, I am afraid of you.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know. I do not know you well. And you, you are so completely mistress of yourself. I am entirely yours; so much your slave, that I tremble.”

“Did not you say that you were ready for anything?”

“And I say it again.”

“’Tis well, keep your courage in readiness.”

She had grown serious again—a great furrow crossed her brow, her eyebrows were puckered, her eye sinister.

“Oh! do not say these things to me, do not be so austere; smile again, smile as before, I entreat you.”

“I cannot smile,” said Lucia, harshly.

“If you will not smile, I will drive this trap into that heap of stones, and we shall be thrown out and killed,” said Andrea, in a rage. She smiled with a strange ferocity, saying tenderly:

“I love you. You are mad and boyish, that is what pleases me.”

Andrea instinctively pulled at his reins; the pace slackened.

“Oh! Lucia, you are a witch.”

“You will never recover, I shall be your disease, your fever, your irreparable mischief.”

“Oh! be my health, my strength, my youth!”

“Fire is better than snow, torture is more exquisite than joy, disease is more poetic than health,” said Lucia in ringing tones, her head erect, her eyes flashing, dominating him. Andrea bowed his head; he was subjugated.

At Santa Maria, on the way home, the two equipages stopped, the victoria had caught up the phaeton. They conversed from one carriage to another. Alberto said he was very comfortable, and that he had made the Signora Caterina explain to him how to make mulberry syrup. It was so good for bronchial complaints. He had described his journey to Paris to her. Caterina nodded acquiescingly; she was never bored. Then they started again, the trap on before, the carriage following. The sun was going down.

“Oh, dio! are we going back? We are going back,” moaned Lucia; “this lovely day is coming to an end. Who knows when we shall have another?”

“What dark thoughts! Do not torment yourself with dreams, Lucia. The reality is that I love you; ’tis a fair reality.”

“We are evil-doers.”

“Lucia, you are striving to poison this hour of happiness.”

“And what man are you, if you cannot bear sorrow? What cowardice is this! Is all your strength in your muscles? I have loved you because I believed in your strength.”

“I am weak in your hands. Your voice alone can either sadden or revive me. You can give me strength or deprive me of it. Do not abuse your power.”

They were on the verge of a sentimental wrangle, whither she had been leading him since the beginning of the drive.

“Love is no merry prank, Andrea; remember, love is a tragedy.”

“Do not look at me like that, Lucia. Smile on me as you did before; we were so happy, just now.”

“We cannot always be happy. Happiness is sin, happiness is dearly bought....” sententiously.

He turned his face away, profoundly saddened. He no longer goaded his horse, and Tetillo had subsided into a slow trot. Turning, Lucia beheld the victoria approaching. “On, on, Andrea,” she said; “faster, faster!” The little trap flew like an arrow. She passed one arm through the arm of the driver, and with head erect, and hair blown about by the breeze, she gave herself up to the pleasure of the race.

“This is the steppe, the steppe,” she murmured, with a sigh.

“Love, love, love!” repeated Andrea, in the excitement of their speed. The phaeton sped on; they no longer looked behind them, nor saw the double row of trees that flew past them, nor the people who met them, nor the cloud of dust from the road. The little carriage flew, assuming a fantastic aspect, like that of a winged car.

“Give me a kiss,” said Andrea.

“No, they are behind us; they can see us.”

“Give me a kiss.”

Then she opened her white linen sunshade, lined with blue, and put it behind her; that dome screened them both and hid their two heads. Before them, no one, no one in the fields; and while the carriage sped along in the broad light of day, they kissed each other lingeringly on the lips.

V.

The audacity of their love increased day by day. Trusting in the quiescence of the other two, they dared all that lovers’ imagination is capable of inventing. They chose seats beside each other, Andrea played with Lucia’s fan or handkerchief, he counted her bangles: if they were apart they talked of their love in a special vocabulary that recalled every incident of the past—an open parasol, a lake, a green shade, a lace scarf, a phrase pronounced by one or the other, then. If Lucia saw Andrea preoccupied, she immediately led the conversation to the subject of the Exhibition, and placidly remarked that the day of the horticultural show had been one of the most delightful in her whole life; and Andrea would find means to drag the word sorceress into his discourse. They understood each other’s every gesture and intonation, even to the movement of an eyelid or a finger. One day, Lucia called across the room to Andrea: “Listen, Andrea, I have something to tell you in your ear; no one else may hear it.”

“Not even I?” said Alberto, in comic wrath.

“Neither you, nor Caterina, who is smiling over there. Come here, Andrea.” He crossed the room and approached her: she laid her hand on his shoulder to draw him towards her, and whispered:

“Andrea mio, I love you.”

He appeared to collect his thoughts for a moment, and then breathed in her ear:

“Love, my love, my witch—I love you!”

Then he returned to his place. But Alberto wanted to know absolutely; if he didn’t, he should die of curiosity. Lucia, pretending to yield, confessed that she had said; “Alberto is as curious as a woman; let us tease him, poor fellow.” This incident amused the lovers immensely, but they did not repeat the experiment. They had other devices: there was the proffer of the arm—indoors, on the terrace, on the stairs, and fugitive clasping and light touches in the corridor. Sometimes, for an instant, the two heads were so close that they might have kissed. When Caterina was not there and Alberto happened to turn his back to them, they exchanged glances as intense as if there had been pain in them. When they spent the evening in the drawing-room, Lucia chose her position with infinite art. She sat in the shade behind Alberto, so that she might gaze her fill on Andrea, without attracting any observation.

Sometimes she opened her fan before her eyes, looking through its sticks. Now and then, when Alberto was away and Caterina bent over her sewing, Lucia’s great eyes flashed in Andrea’s face: the lids dropped immediately. All the evening Lucia maintained her air of melancholy, her tired voice and weary intonation. If for a moment she found herself alone with Andrea, she would rise, quivering with life, and cry, close to his face:

“I love you.”

She fell back exhausted, while he was like one dazed. Now they found a hundred ways of passing letters to each other, running the risk of discovery every time, but succeeding with amazing dexterity; hiding notes in balls of wool, handkerchiefs or books, in packs of cards, at the bottom of the box of dominoes, in a copy of music, under the drawing-room clock; in fact, wherever a scrap of paper could be hidden. Lucia’s eye indicated the place; Andrea watched his opportunity, took a turn round the room; then, when he reached the spot, abstracted the letter with a masterly ease, acquired by habit, and substituted his own for it. Under an assumed hilarity and noisy joking manner, he concealed the most ardent anxiety and a continual uneasiness. Without looking at Lucia, he studied her every movement; he, great lion though he was, acquired the feline habit of certain tiger-like gestures; he, who was frankness personified, became accustomed to profound dissimulation; he grew sagacious, cunning and wily, oblique of glance and of crouching gait. During the night he meditated the plan for the morrow, so that on the morrow he might give Lucia a letter, or grasp her hand. He prepared all the mock questions and departures, all the improvised returns, the business pretexts and fictitious appointments. During the night he rehearsed the lies that were to deceive Alberto and Caterina on the morrow. Continual prevarication gradually degraded his character and drowned the cries of his conscience, to which perfidy and veiled evil were naturally repugnant. He lent a new spirit to the letter of his doctrine, one steeped in mental restrictions and Jesuitical excuses.

But this same spiritual corruption that tainted every characteristic of his frank, loyal nature, these hypocritical concessions, this sentimental cowardice, bound him the more firmly to Lucia. The more he gave himself up to her the more he became penetrated by her influence, the more acutely did he feel the delight of his slavery and the exquisite bitterness of his subjugation. The sacrifice of his honesty, the greatness of all his renunciations, strengthened the fetters that bound him to her who inspired it. Although he was prepared for anything, and ever on the look-out for any new, infernal, love-inspired invention, that Lucia’s brain might devise, she always succeeded in amazing him. One morning they met under a portière, on the threshold of the drawing-room; she dropped the curtain, threw her arms round his neck, and flew past him into the room. He thought he must be dreaming, and could hardly restrain himself from running after her. One evening, while Alberto was half asleep and Caterina playing one of her eternal rêveries, she called him out to her on the balcony, under the pretext of showing him a star, and there in the corner had for a second fallen into his arms. Then she said, imperiously:

“Go away.”

In one of those moments he had murmured, with every feature quivering:

“Take care: I shall strangle you.”

Indeed, he often felt that he could have strangled the woman who maddened him by her presence and her vagaries, and who always eluded him. Even her letters were so incoherent, so mad, so prone to pass from despair to joy, that they added to his perturbation. To-day she would write a sentimental divagation on pure love—she wished him to love her like a sister, like an ideal, impersonal being, for that was the highest, sublimest love; and Andrea, moved, lulled by these abstractions, by the tenderness with which they were expressed, replied that thus did he love her, as she would be loved, as an angel of Paradise. Next day her letter would be full of mysticism; she spoke of God and the Madonna, of a vision that had come to her in the night; she entreated him to have faith, she prayed him to pray—oh! to be saved together, what happiness, what ecstasy to meet in Paradise! And Andrea, who was indifferent in matters of religion, who lived in the utmost apathy, replied—yes, for her sake, he would believe and pray: he preferred to lie than to contradict her; her will was his, he had no other. But in another mood, Lucia would indulge in the most ardent phrases, filling a page with kisses, words of fire and yet more kisses, with languors and savage longing and kisses, kisses, kisses; ending with: “Do you not feel my lips dying on yours?” And Andrea did feel them, and those words, written in minute characters, were to him as kisses, and when his lips touched them a shiver ran through his burning veins: his reply was almost brutal in its violence. Then Lucia, in her alarm, would write that their love was infamy; that their treason would meet with the direst punishment; that she already felt miserable, unhappy, and stricken. Andrea, tortured by the inconstancy of her moods, by her continual blowing hot and cold, by the constant struggle, knowing not how to follow her, despairing of finding arguments that would convince her—replied, entreating her to cease from torturing him, to have pity on him. To which Lucia answered by return: “Thou dost not love me!” He suffered more acutely than ever, despite the daring, the letters, the stolen kisses and the embraces in doorways. Day by day Lucia grew more strange; one morning her face was pale and her voice hoarse and acrid. She neither gave her hand nor said good-day: her elbows looked angular and her shoulders as if they would pierce her gown; she even stooped as if suddenly stricken with age, answering every one—her husband, Caterina, and Andrea—disagreeably, especially Andrea. He held his peace, wondering what he could have done to her. When he could snatch an opportunity of speaking to her, he asked:

“What is the matter with thee?”

“Nothing.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you love me?”

“No.”

“Then I had better go away.”

“Go.”

In a moment like that, Andrea felt he could have beaten her, so wicked did she seem to him. He went away to Caserta to write her a furious letter from the post-office. When he returned she was worse, absorbed in silence, no longer deigning to answer any one. Those about her were so much influenced by her bad temper that they did not speak either. Every now and then, Alberto would ask:

“Lucia mia, is there anything you want?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“To die.”

The newspaper shook in Andrea’s hand; he was pretending to read, while not a word was lost upon him.

“Lucia, shall we go to the wood to-morrow?” ventured Caterina, timidly, to give her something to talk about.

“No, I hate the wood, and the green, and the country....”

“Yesterday you said that you loved them.”

“To-day I hate what I loved yesterday,” said Lucia, in her sententious tone.

At last, one day, when she was shaking hands with Andrea, who was going out, she fell down in the frightful convulsions to which she had been subject from her childhood. Her arms beat the air, and her head rebounded on the floor. Neither Alberto nor Caterina could do much for her; Andrea grasped her wrists, and felt them stiffen like iron in his hands; her teeth chattered as if from ague, and the pupils of her eyes disappeared under her lids. She stammered unintelligible words, and Andrea, in dismay, almost thought he heard her break into sentences that revealed their secret. Then the convulsions appeared to abate, her muscles relaxed, and her bosom heaved long sighs. She opened her eyes, gazed at the persons round her, but closing them again, in a kind of horror, uttered a piercing cry, and fell into fresh convulsions; struggling, and insensible to the vinegar, the water, and the perfumes with which they drenched her face. Caterina called her, Alberto called her; no answer. When Andrea called her, her face became more livid, and the convulsions redoubled in intensity. With her lace tie torn away from her throat, her dress torn at the bosom, with dishevelled hair, and livid marks on her wrists, she inspired love and terror. When she came to herself, she cried as if her heart would break, as if some one had died. They comforted her, but she kept repeating, “No, no, no,” and continued her lamentations. Then, tired, worn out, with aching bones and joints, incapable of moving away, she fell asleep on the sofa, wrapped up in a shawl. Alberto stayed there until, at midnight, Caterina persuaded him to go to bed, and the two men retired. She sat up near a little table to watch, starting up at the slightest sound. Towards two o’clock Andrea stole in quietly; he was dressed, he had not gone to bed, he had been smoking.

“How is she?” he whispered to his wife.

“Better, I think; she never woke up, she has only sighed two or three times, as if she were oppressed.”

“What horrible convulsions!”

“She used to have them at school, but not so badly.” “Why do you not go to bed?”

“I cannot, Andrea; I cannot leave the poor thing alone.”

“I will sit up.”

“That wouldn’t do, sai.”

“You are right, but they haven’t made my orangeade.”

“The oranges and the sugar must be in the bedroom ... but I had better go and see.... Stay here a moment, I will soon return.”

Then he knelt down by the sofa, laying his hand on Lucia’s. She woke up gently and did not seem surprised, but hung on to his neck and kissed him.

“Take me away,” she said.

“Come, love,” he said, attempting to raise her.

“I cannot; I am dying, Andrea.” She again closed her eyes.

“To-morrow,” he said vaguely, for fear the convulsions should come on again.

“Yes, to-morrow, you will take me away, far, far....”

“Far, far away, my heart....”

They were silent; she must have heard an imperceptible sound, for she said:

“Here is Caterina.”

Caterina entered on tiptoe, and found her husband sitting in his place.

“She hasn’t moved?”

“No.”

“I have made you your orangeade.”

“Have you made up your mind to sit up?”

“Yes, I shall stay here; you don’t mind?”

And as they were in the dark, but for the faint light of the lamp, she stood on tiptoe for him to kiss her. He went away as slowly as possible, and Caterina watched until dawn.

Henceforward, all the letters ended with, “Take me away;” all of them were despairing.

Lucia wrote with such tragic concision, that he feared to open her letters. There was nothing in them but crime, malediction, suicide, death, eternal damnation, hellish remorse, teeth chattering, fever, burning fire. She was afraid of God, of man, of her husband, of Caterina, of Andrea himself; she felt degraded, lost, precipitated into a bottomless pit. “To die, only to die!” she exclaimed, in her letters. And she appeared so truly miserable, so really lost, that he accused himself of having ruined a woman’s existence, and craved her forgiveness, as if she had been a victim and a martyr. “I am your assassin; I am your executioner; I am your torment,” wrote Andrea, who had adopted the formulas of her emphatic style, with all its fantastic lyricism.

October was drawing to an end. One Sunday, at table, Lucia calmly announced that they would be leaving on the following Tuesday, despite the popular dictum.[2]

“I thought,” said Caterina gently, “that you would have stayed till Martinmas.”

“The fact is that Alberto’s cough is a little more troublesome, owing to the damp of this rainy October. Our house in Via Bisignano is very dry, and it is quite ready for us.”

“For the matter of that, I am better,” volunteered Alberto; “I am sure that I have gained flesh. I have been obliged to lengthen my braces. I owe my recovery to this country air.”

“I am sorry that Lucia has not been so well,” said Caterina.

“What does it matter?” said the other with supreme indifference. “I am a sickly, unfortunate creature. Yet the time I have spent here at Centurano, Caterina mia, has been the brightest, most harmonious epoch of my life, the highest point in my parabola; after it, there can only come a rapid descent towards eternal silence, eternal darkness, eternal solitude.”

Andrea did not open his lips, but in the evening he wrote, entreating her to stay a few days longer. He could not bear the thought of her departure. At Naples, she would no longer care for him. He would not let her go. She was his Lucia; why did she leave him? If she refused to stay, she must know that he would follow her at once.

It was of no avail. Lucia insisted on leaving. He clashed against an iron will, against a will with a steady aim. In one or two curt notes, Lucia replied so harshly as to fill him with dismay. She wished to leave, why should he detain her, why not let her go in peace? She wished to go, because her sufferings were intolerable, because she was so miserable. She wished to go, to weep elsewhere, to despair elsewhere. She wished to go, and he had no right to detain her, since he had made her so unhappy. She wished to go, so that she might not die at Centurano.

And she did leave; the farewell was heartrending. Lucia, whose departure had been fixed for midday, wept since early morning. Of everything that she looked upon, she said, “I look upon it for the last time.” Of everything that she did she said, “I do this for the last time.” Caterina was pale and with difficulty restrained her tears; Alberto was so much moved by Lucia’s emotion, that he mumbled inaudible nothings. Andrea rambled about the house like a phantom, touching himself as if to make sure of his own existence. Lucia avoided him, and abstained from addressing him; she did but raise her tearful eyes to his. They lunched in silence; no one ate a mouthful. Afterwards Lucia drew Caterina into her room; there she threw her arms round her, and sobbed her thanks for all her goodness.

“Oh! angel, angel! Caterina mia! For what you have done to me, may happiness be yours! May God’s hand be over your house! May love and joy abide within it! May Andrea ever love you more and more; may he adore thee as the Madonna is adored....”

Caterina signed to her to be silent, for the strain was getting too much for her; they kissed each other over and over again. When they entered the drawing-room, Lucia’s eyes were swollen.

“Addio, Andrea,” she said.

“Let me take you to the station,” he murmured.

“No, no, it would be worse. Addio; thank you. May the Lord bless....”

She turned away sobbing, and was gone. The greetings from the balcony and waving of handkerchiefs lasted until the carriage had turned the corner to Caserta. Husband and wife were alone together. Suddenly the house seemed deserted, and the rooms immense. A chill fell upon it. Caterina stooped to pick up a white handkerchief; it was Lucia’s, and Caterina wept over it, like a child who has lost its mother. Andrea sat down by her on the sofa, drew her head towards him, until it rested against his shoulder, and wept with her. Only two tears—burning, scalding, sacrilegious.