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diff --git a/old/50318-h/50318-h.htm b/old/50318-h/50318-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 6cfee12..0000000 --- a/old/50318-h/50318-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10067 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> - <head> <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> -<title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of After The Pardon, by Mary Anne Berry. -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} - -.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} - -.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} - -.eng {font-family: "Old English Text MT",fantasy,sans-serif;} - -.errata {color:red;text-decoration:underline;} - -.enlargeimage {margin: 0 0 0 0; text-align: center; border: none;} - @media print, handheld -{.enlargeimage - {display: none;} - } - -th {padding:.25em;} - -.hang {text-indent:-2%;margin-left:2%;} - -.letra {font-size:250%;float:left;margin-top:-1%;} - @media print, handheld - { .letra - {font-size:150%;} - } - -.nind {text-indent:0%;} - -.nonvis {display:inline;} - @media print, handheld - {.nonvis - {display: none;} - } - -.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;} - -small {font-size: 70%;} - -big {font-size: 130%;} - - h1 {margin-top:5%;text-align:center;clear:both; -font-family:AR JULIAN, courier, serif;} - -.julian {font-family:AR JULIAN, courier, serif;} - - h2 {margin-top:4%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; - font-size:120%;font-family:AR JULIAN, courier, serif;} - - h3 {margin:4% auto 2% auto;text-align:center;clear:both; -font-family:AR JULIAN, courier, serif;} - - hr {width:90%;margin:2em auto 2em auto;clear:both;color:black;} - - hr.full {width: 50%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} - - table {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;} - - body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#ffffff;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} - - ul {list-style-type:none;text-indent:-1em;} - -.un {text-decoration:underline;} - -a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - - link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} - -a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} - -a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} - -.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:100%;} - - img {border:none;} - -.blockquot {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:2%;} - -.bbox {border:double 6px black;padding:.25em; -margin:auto auto;max-width:17em;font-weight:bold;} - - sup {font-size:75%;vertical-align:top;} - -.caption {font-weight:bold;} - -.figcenter {margin-top:3%;margin-bottom:3%;clear:both; -margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} - @media print, handheld - {.figcenter - {page-break-before: avoid;} - } - -.footnote {width:95%;margin:auto 3% 1% auto;font-size:0.9em;position:relative;} - -.label {position:relative;left:-.5em;top:0;text-align:left;font-size:.8em;} - -.fnanchor {vertical-align:30%;font-size:.8em;} -</style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of After the Pardon, by Matilde Serao - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: After the pardon - -Author: Matilde Serao - -Release Date: October 26, 2015 [EBook #50318] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER THE PARDON *** - - - - -Produced by Shaun Pinder, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="cb">AFTER THE PARDON</p> -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="336" height="500" alt="bookcover" /></a> -</div> - -<div class="bbox"> -<p class="c"><big>Spring Publications</big></p> - -<p class="c">OF</p> - -<p class="c"><big>The Stuyvesant Press</big></p> -<p class="c">———</p> -<p class="hang">A Woman of Uncertain Age</p> - -<p class="r">By MARY ANNE BERRY</p> - -<p class="hang">After The Pardon</p> - -<p class="r">By MATILDE SERAO</p> - -<p class="hang">The Woman Herself</p> - -<p class="r">Anonymous</p> - -<p class="hang">The Isle of Temptation</p> - -<p class="r">By ARTHUR STANLEY COLLETON</p> - -<p class="hang">The Woman, The Man and The Monster</p> - -<p class="r">By CARLETON DAWE</p> - -<p class="hang">The Diary of a Lost One</p> - -<p class="r">Ed. by MARGARETE BÖHME</p> - -<p class="c"><i>All the above, cloth, 12mo</i></p> - -<p class="c"><i>$1.50 each</i><a name="page_1" id="page_1"></a></p> -</div> - -<h1>AFTER THE PARDON</h1> - -<p class="cb"><span class="julian">BY<br /> -MATILDE SERAO<br /> -<br /><br /> -<img src="images/colophon.png" -width="55" -height="57" -alt="colophon" -/><br /> -<br /><br /> -NEW YORK<br /> -THE STUYVESANT PRESS<br /> -1909</span><a name="page_2" id="page_2"></a><br /> -<br /><small> -<span class="smcap">Copyright, 1909, by<br /> -The Stuyvesant Press,<br /> -New York.</span></small></p> - -<p><a name="page_3" id="page_3"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="FOREWARD" id="FOREWARD"></a>FOREWARD</h3> - -<p>In this romance, the author has vividly pictured the ravishing -fierceness of the love which sways the Latins and bends them to its -desires. Graphically she has shown how their passions force them beyond -all laws and duties, beyond all vows. In them the emotional nature and -the finer intelligence are ever at variance. They confuse that rude -instinct which is jealousy, physical and base, with the higher and more -ardent love—the virile affirmation of possession with the fresher, more -vigorous desire of love’s happiness—but this does not make their -passions more trivial nor less consuming.</p> - -<p>The author’s gifts are of rare quality. She delves alike into the souls -of her characters and into their more animal humanity, and contrasts -their weaknesses with their strength in a striking manner.</p> - -<p>The story is of the intensest interest.</p> - -<p class="r"> -F. F.<br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_4" id="page_4"></a></p> - -<p><a name="page_5" id="page_5"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><th colspan="2" class="c"><a href="#PART_I">PART I</a></th></tr> -<tr><td> </td><td><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Solis Occasu</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_7">7</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th colspan="2" class="c"><a href="#PART_II">PART II</a></th></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Pardon</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_81">81</a></td></tr> - -<tr><th colspan="2" class="c"><a href="#PART_III">PART III</a></th></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Usque ad Mortem</span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_245">245</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><a name="page_6" id="page_6"></a> </p> - -<p class="c"> -<i>To that glorious soul<br /> -ELEONORA DUSE</i><br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="page_7" id="page_7"></a> </p> - -<h1>AFTER THE PARDON</h1> - -<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I<br /><br /> -<small>SOLIS OCCASU</small></h2> - -<h3><a name="I-1" id="I-1"></a>I</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti</span>, gracefully stretched on the sofa and -immersed in the many soft cushions of all kinds of fabrics and colours, -was reading alone. A steady light, opalised by the clear transparent -silk of a large shade, was diffused from the tall pedestal at her side, -on which was placed a quaint lamp of chased silver, so that the reader’s -head, with her thick mass of chestnut hair, attired almost in harmony -with its natural lines in broad waves and rich braids, received exactly -the clearness of the light.</p> - -<p>The pale face, slightly rosy beneath the fineness of its complexion, the -large eyes bent over the reading, the little composed mouth, without -smile but without bitterness, were delicately illuminated. The soft, -opaque silk, of a sheenless silver, of her dress of exquisite style, -blended itself with the colour of the cushions, while the soft fleecy -lace<a name="page_8" id="page_8"></a> which adorned the dress seemed a sort of superfluity of the large -sofa. Amidst stuff and lace the feet peeped out in shoes of gold cloth, -slightly peculiar and bright, the caprice of a lady in her own home.</p> - -<p>She was reading alone, and the slow rustling of the pages, which she -turned with a gentle movement, alone broke the silence of the room.</p> - -<p>The tiny clock on a small table at her side tinkled clearly, striking -half-past nine. Donna Maria started slightly, gave a rapid glance at the -clock, and, from a long habit of solitude, said to herself almost -aloud—</p> - -<p>“Always later, always a little later.”</p> - -<p>Suppressing a sigh of impatience, and shrugging her beautiful shoulders, -she resumed her reading. Her fine sense of hearing told her that outside -in the hall the lock of the front door was rattling, and a slight blush -rose to her cheeks and forehead.</p> - -<p>A servant knocked at the door, entered without waiting for a reply, and -silently offered the evening papers on a tray. She took them and placed -them on the small table, scarcely bestowing a glance on him as he -withdrew discreetly. Then, all of a sudden, a kind of spasm of grief, of -anger and of annoyance, contracted her pure countenance, and with a -half-angry, and yet suppressed cry, she exclaimed—</p> - -<p>“How annoying! How annoying!”<a name="page_9" id="page_9"></a></p> - -<p>The book fell down. Donna Maria arose, exposing her tall, lithe figure, -full of noble grace. The harmony of a body not slender but comfortably -covered, added to the pleasing maturity of thirty years, undulated in -the silk dress with a slight rustling as she went to the balcony, and -lifting the heavy lace curtains looked through the clear glass into the -street.</p> - -<p>The majestic piazza of Santa Maria Maggiore stretched before her eyes as -far as the steps of the great basilica with its lofty closed doors, -while the vastness of the piazza and the architectural grandeur of the -temple were bathed on that June night by the soft brightness of the -moon. The passers-by were few and scattered, little black shadows cast -on the roads and footpaths of the square. Then an electric tram, coming -from the via Cavour, crossed the square, desecrating for a moment the -Roman scene, where faith and the Church had placed one of their most -enduring and ancient manifestations, and suddenly disappeared into the -other artery of the via Cavour.</p> - -<p>The woman gazed at that almost deserted space, at the immense solitary -church, rendered cold by the light of the moon, and the solitude of her -desolate spirit and desolate heart became more profound and intense.</p> - -<p>“Maria,” said a voice at her shoulder.</p> - -<p>She turned suddenly. The young man who had called her took her two hands -and kissed them one<a name="page_10" id="page_10"></a> after the other with tender gallantry, and while -she bent her head with a smile he kissed her eyes with a soft caress.</p> - -<p>“It is a little late,” he said, excusing himself.</p> - -<p>“It wants a quarter of an hour to ten,” replied Maria precisely. He -looked at his watch and added—</p> - -<p>“Perhaps your watch is fast?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” she replied, as if to break off the discussion.</p> - -<p>She sat down, and the young man, taking a low chair, his usual seat, -placed himself beside her. Taking her hand loosely he began to play a -little with her fingers, toying distractedly with the rings with which -they were loaded.</p> - -<p>“ ...<i>m’aimes</i>?” said Maria, in an almost childish French fashion, but -in a voice without tone or colour.</p> - -<p>“ ...<i>t’aime</i>,” he replied childishly, and rather perfunctorily. Having, -as it were, accomplished a small preliminary duty of conversation they -were silent.</p> - -<p>She looked at him, and noticed that he was in evening dress, and in his -buttonhole were some carnations which she had given him in the morning. -Marco Fiore’s slightly delicate appearance was aided by these garments -of society. His person gained freedom from a certain thinness more -apparent than real. His face was a little too pallid, with deep-black -hair and moustaches; the lips were<a name="page_11" id="page_11"></a> fresh and strong. The eyes, which -were extremely soft, with a fascinating softness, had every now and then -something feminine in them. But there was nothing feminine in the gleams -of passion which kept crossing them in waves, nor was there anything -feminine in the generality of the lines, where firmness and even -obstinacy were prominent. Two or three times, to break the silence, he -kissed her slender fingers.</p> - -<p>“Are you going out, Marco?” she asked in that decided voice of hers, -which required a precise and direct reply.</p> - -<p>“Yes, for a moment or two.... I am obliged to,” Marco insinuated.</p> - -<p>“Where?”</p> - -<p>“To the English Embassy, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Is there a reception?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, the last of the season,” he explained, as if to clear up his -obligation for going.</p> - -<p>Again there was a silence. Maria sat with her two jewelled hands clasped -over her knees among the silken folds of opaque silver, as if in a -dream.</p> - -<p>“Once upon a time I was a great friend of Lady Clairville.”</p> - -<p>“And now?” Marco asked absent-mindedly.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he repented of the remark. Maria’s large eyes, proud and -ardent, were veiled in tears.</p> - -<p>“Now no longer,” she said, still as if in a dream.<a name="page_12" id="page_12"></a></p> - -<p>“It is you who avoid her,” he said, trying to repair the mischief.</p> - -<p>“It is I, yes,” she said, awakening suddenly, in a clear voice. “I did -not wish her to cut me. The English are faithful, I know. But still she -is an ambassadress and sees lots of people, even bad people.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head melancholily, as if he thought, “What is to be done? -These are fatal matters to discuss.”</p> - -<p>“And you, Marco, why are you going?” Maria questioned, with an increase -of hardness.</p> - -<p>“My mother is going there, so——”</p> - -<p>“But she has your sister-in-law for company?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Beatrice is accompanying her; but both have no escort.”</p> - -<p>“Is your brother Giulio away?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he is at Spello.”</p> - -<p>They remained silent for a while.</p> - -<p>“I am sure,” resumed Maria, “you will meet some one at the English -Embassy.”</p> - -<p>“Whoever, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Vittoria Casalta, your former <i>fiancée</i>, the sister of your -sister-in-law,” and an accent more ironical than disdainful pointed the -sentence.</p> - -<p>“No, Maria,” he said, at once becoming serious.</p> - -<p>“What is this ‘<i>No</i>,’ Marco?” and she smiled more sarcastically; “what -are you denying?”</p> - -<p>“That Vittoria Casalta is going to the English Embassy, Maria.”<a name="page_13" id="page_13"></a></p> - -<p>“Ah, you know that she is not going there!” and she laughed bitterly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t torment yourself, don’t torment me, dear soul!” he said softly, -tenderly drawing her to himself with his conquering sweetness and gentle -grace.</p> - -<p>Donna Maria let herself be drawn to him, no longer smiling, as if -expecting some word or action. But neither action nor word came. After -the tender admonition, as usual, a certain dryness rendered them dumb -and motionless.</p> - -<p>She, as usual, was the first to interrupt this state of mind.</p> - -<p>“And then, Marco, how do you know that the fair Vittoria is not going to -Lady Clairville’s?”</p> - -<p>“Because she no longer goes into society, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Has she taken the veil?” she exclaimed, with a sarcastic smile.</p> - -<p>“Almost. For that matter she never has loved the world.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps she flies from you, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I believe she flies from me.”</p> - -<p>“I tell you Vittoria Casalta still loves you,” Maria murmured slowly as -if she were speaking to herself, as if she were repeating to herself a -thing said many times.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Marco vivaciously.</p> - -<p>“She still loves you,” the woman repeated authoritatively, almost -imperiously.<a name="page_14" id="page_14"></a></p> - -<p>“There is only one woman who loves me, and she is you, Maria—you,” he -replied, as if to finish the discussion.</p> - -<p>She listened attentively from the very first words of the sentence, -attentively as if to find in them a trace or a recollection of past -things, but she did not hear there quite what she wished. The words were -the same, but the voice was no longer the same which pronounced them, -and no longer the same, perhaps, was the man who said them. A sense of -delusion for an instant, only for an instant, was depicted on her face; -an expression, however, which he did not notice.</p> - -<p>“I have never understood, Marco,” she resumed in a grave voice, “if you -loved this Vittoria Casalta seriously.”</p> - -<p>“What does it matter now?” he exclaimed, a little vexed.</p> - -<p>“No, it doesn’t matter, it is true. Still, I should have liked to have -heard it from you.”</p> - -<p>“How many times have you asked this, Maria?” he said, between reproof -and increasing vexation.</p> - -<p>“Also you have asked me pretty often, Marco, if I ever loved my -husband,” she retorted disdainfully.</p> - -<p>At such a reminder the countenance of Marco Fiore became convulsed. -Every slightly feminine trace disappeared from his rather pale and -delicate face, and the firm and obstinate lines of his profile<a name="page_15" id="page_15"></a> and chin -became more accentuated, manly and rough. His lips trembled as he spoke.</p> - -<p>“Why do you name your husband? Why do you name him, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Because he is not dead, Marco; because he exists, because he lives,” -she proclaimed imperiously, her large eyes flashing.</p> - -<p>“I hate him. Don’t speak to me of him!” he exclaimed with agitation, -rising and kicking the chair aside to walk about.</p> - -<p>“But why do you hate him? Why? Tell me, tell me.”</p> - -<p>“Because he is the only man of whom I can be, of whom I ought to be, -jealous, Maria,” he exclaimed, beside himself with exasperation. Then -Maria smiled joyfully, a smile which he did not observe.</p> - -<p>“I renounced him, his name and his fortune for you,” she replied simply.</p> - -<p>“Do you regret it?” he asked, still hot with anger, but somewhat -distractedly.</p> - -<p>“I do not regret it,” she replied, after an imperceptible moment of -hesitation.</p> - -<p>“But, Maria, I am sure he regrets you very much.”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“I am as certain as if he had told me, and I am certain he will get you -back, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he will get you back.”<a name="page_16" id="page_16"></a></p> - -<p>“Covering himself with shame?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, because he loves you.”</p> - -<p>“Covering himself with ridicule.”</p> - -<p>“He loves you, he loves you.”</p> - -<p>“Knowing that I do not love him.”</p> - -<p>“What does that matter? He will take you back to try to make you love -him.”</p> - -<p>“This is madness.”</p> - -<p>“All those who love are mad,” murmured Marco Fiore very sadly.</p> - -<p>Stupefied and suffering, she looked at him. Each looked at the other as -if to recognise themselves. They were the same who, strangely, every day -and every evening, scarcely found themselves together without, after a -few minutes, involuntarily irritating with curious and cruel fingers the -old wounds which seemed to be healing, which their restless and -disturbed minds caused to bleed again.</p> - -<p>Here she was, Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti, graceful and exquisite, she -who had been the object of a thousand desires, repulsed by her serene -austerity and boundless pride, who had suddenly loved Marco Fiore madly -and faithfully for three years. Here she was in that house where she had -come to live alone, after abandoning the conjugal abode for three years, -to live apart in a strange, constant and ardent love, forgetful of every -other thing. Here she was, ever more graceful in the plenitude of her -womanly grace, in the atmosphere of exclusive luxury with which she was<a name="page_17" id="page_17"></a> -surrounded, and in garments which reflected her fascination.</p> - -<p>And the man, Marco Fiore, young, trembling with life, who had come there -that evening, an impassioned lover who had not tolerated sharing the -woman of his love with the husband, <i>he</i> had not fallen at her feet, -infatuated as usual by his mortal infatuation; <i>he</i> had not taken her to -his arms to press her to himself, to kiss her as his own.</p> - -<p>Instead they had given themselves, as for some time, to a sad duel of -words, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes angry, evoking the absent figures -of the two betrayed, of Vittoria Casalta, Marco’s betrothed, of Emilio -Guasco, the husband of Donna Maria.</p> - -<p>Both tried to subdue themselves. She crossed the quiet room, and -adjusted some knick-knacks on the pianoforte, which was covered with a -peculiar flowered fabric, her profile was bent slightly in a pleasing -way beneath the dense shadow of her magnificent hair.</p> - -<p>Marco opened a cigarette case, and asked, with a voice already become -expressionless—</p> - -<p>“May I smoke?”</p> - -<p>“Do smoke.”</p> - -<p>“Would you like a cigarette?”</p> - -<p>“No, Marco.”</p> - -<p>She returned to the sofa, throwing herself down gently, and drawing -under her head a cushion to support her mass of hair. So they remained -for a<a name="page_18" id="page_18"></a> while, he smoking his cigarette slowly, and she looking at a -distant part of the room, her hands stretched along her body.</p> - -<p>“Have you found some place for us, Marco, for August?”</p> - -<p>“I am very uncertain,” he murmured. “In whatever holiday place one goes, -however far away, one meets people.”</p> - -<p>“Far too many,” she added.</p> - -<p>“You don’t wish to meet any one?”</p> - -<p>“That is so; I should like not to.”</p> - -<p>“It is impossible, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“People always make me suffer so.”</p> - -<p>“Why, dear?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>After an instant he resumed quietly—</p> - -<p>“Let us remain in Rome.”</p> - -<p>She trembled, and raised her eyebrows slightly.</p> - -<p>“In Rome? In Rome in August?”</p> - -<p>“If we can’t go anywhere else,” he added, without noticing Maria’s -surprise.</p> - -<p>“You renounce the holiday and travelling which we have had every year, -Marco! Do you renounce them willingly?”</p> - -<p>“Willingly,” he replied, with complete resignation.</p> - -<p>Why did he not look her in the face? He would have seen the lines -discompose under the wave of bitterness which invaded them, and then -suddenly with heroic force recompose themselves. Instead,<a name="page_19" id="page_19"></a> he only heard -a proud, cold voice which accepted the renunciation.</p> - -<p>“Let us remain in Rome.”</p> - -<p>The hard, sharp compact which annulled one of their best dreams, and -destroyed one of their intensest joys, was subscribed without any -further observation.</p> - -<p>He resumed with a little difficulty.</p> - -<p>“Later on, in September, mamma wants me.”</p> - -<p>“Where, then?”</p> - -<p>“At Spello, you know, at our place, where she passes the autumn.”</p> - -<p>“I know. You have gone there every year for some days; last year for ten -days.”</p> - -<p>“This year I ought to stay some days longer.”</p> - -<p>“How many days longer?”</p> - -<p>“Two weeks, perhaps two or three.”</p> - -<p>As usual, on words which he feared would displease her Marco placed a -courteous hesitation. He was never precise. He sought always to render -the conversation more vague with a sweet smile.</p> - -<p>Maria did not fall into the deception, and replied clearly—</p> - -<p>“But three weeks are not the same as two, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“They are not the same, it is true. I will try to shorten them.”</p> - -<p>“Why remain so long?”</p> - -<p>“My mother requires assistance this year; my brother Giulio is unable to -give her any. I don’t<a name="page_20" id="page_20"></a> like to say it, but my mother is getting older. -The business of the house is heavy: there are so many things to regulate -and decide. In fact, I neglect my mother a little.”</p> - -<p>“Stop three weeks then,” she said, lowering her eyelids to hide the -flash of her proud eyes.</p> - -<p>“And you? What will you do in September in Rome alone?”</p> - -<p>“I shall do what I can,” she said, throwing her head back among the -cushions.</p> - -<p>“Poor Maria,” he said slowly.</p> - -<p>There was so much lack of comfort in those two words, so much empty -sorrow; in fact, a pity so sterile, that she broke in—</p> - -<p>“Don’t pity me, Marco; I don’t like you to pity me.”</p> - -<p>“Does everything offend you, then, Maria?” he exclaimed, surprised.</p> - -<p>“Pity above everything offends me—every one’s pity; but your pity -offers me an atrocious offence.”</p> - -<p>“You are very proud, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Very, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“Will nothing ever conquer this fatal pride of yours?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, no one. No one except myself, and not even I myself.”</p> - -<p>“Pride causes weeping, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“It is true; but very seldom have human eyes seen my tears,” she said -conclusively.</p> - -<p>He felt that evening, as on so many others, that<a name="page_21" id="page_21"></a> never more would they -find, if not the flame of passion, even the penetrating sweetness of -loving companionship. The beautiful and beloved woman was near him. They -were together, alone and free, alone and masters of every movement of -the mind and action of the body; but some mysterious obstacle had been -interposed between them, whence all beauty, love, liberty and consent -were in vain.</p> - -<p>Maria had before her the man she loved, with all his attractive -appearance, with all the charms of youth and health, with all his -seductiveness of mind, and this man was there in the name of an -invincible transport, and ought to be and could be hers in every hour of -her life. Yet nothing came of it, just as if a wanton, and deliberately -wanton, hand were destroying this flower and fruit of love.</p> - -<p>Of the two, Marco Fiore seemed to be yielding feebly to this obstacle -which was intruding itself between them: he was passive, a little -morbid, and easily resigned. Maria Guasco, however, proud and combative, -was fighting and endeavouring to conquer the infamous hand which was -plucking in the dark all the roses of their passion. She, on the other -hand, allowed herself to be conquered only at the last.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you go now?” she said anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Do you believe I ought to?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is nearly eleven. If you want to return here afterwards,” she -added, “you will make me wait up rather too long.”<a name="page_22" id="page_22"></a></p> - -<p>He raised his eyebrows as if he experienced some difficulty in breathing -or speaking.</p> - -<p>“Well ... afterwards I should like to return home with Beatrice and -mamma.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed at this blow, without further observation.</p> - -<p>They became silent. He bent his head with that aspect of accustoming -himself to a thing which had to occur, which had been usual with him for -some time. She, instead, raised hers with that ever renascent pride -which scorched her soul, and at last succeeded in smiling.</p> - -<p>“But what will you do afterwards at home, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“I shall go to bed. I am a little tired.”</p> - -<p>“Tired of what?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I don’t know. I have a curious physical weariness.”</p> - -<p>“You should let a doctor examine you.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so? Rest heals everything.”</p> - -<p>“It is true. Do you remember the time when you were unable to go to -sleep without having written me a letter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember,” he said surprised; “but when was that?”</p> - -<p>“It was before—before we lived together,” she replied, with a slight -trembling of the lips.</p> - -<p>“Some time ago,” he said simply, without meaning it.</p> - -<p>He got up to go. He took her two hands in his<a name="page_23" id="page_23"></a> and pressed them with an -infantile caress over his face, minutely kissing their soft and fragrant -palms, and, as she lowered her head, instead of kissing her eyes as when -he came in, his kisses were immersed in the dark and odorous waves of -her hair.</p> - -<p>“To-morrow, then, Marco,” she whispered, raising her head.</p> - -<p>“To-morrow certainly, Maria,” he replied.</p> - -<p>She accompanied him for two or three steps, almost to the door. Then she -stopped for still a look or a word.</p> - -<p>“<i>Toujours?</i>” she asked.</p> - -<p>“<i>Toujours</i>,” he replied.</p> - -<p>Their voices were monotonous and colourless, and their faces -inexpressive as they pronounced the usual words of farewell, now three -years old.<a name="page_24" id="page_24"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="II-1" id="II-1"></a>II</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">All</span> was quiet in Rome when Marco Fiore returned home to the ancient -Palazzo Fiore in the via Bocca di Leone. His mother and sister-in-law -had returned from the reception at the English Embassy before him. Donna -Arduina Fiore and Donna Beatrice Fiore had, in fact, left without -looking for him, supposing that he had returned to the lonely lady in -the silent little villa at Santa Maria Maggiore. Instead, he had allowed -himself to wander here and there among the well-dressed crowd in the -smaller reception-rooms to converse haphazardly with friends, married -women and girls, conversations which, with a smile and a laugh, nearly -always bore an allusion to his condition as a man chained firmly and for -ever, as a man exiled voluntarily from society, and deprived of all -intercourse with light loves and flirtations.</p> - -<p>At a direct allusion to Maria Guasco, the woman who had behaved with -such marvellous audacity in a hypocritical society, he lowered his eyes -with a slight smile and did not reply. If the allusion was too unkind to -the absent one, to her who had thrown everything on the pyre to be able -to love<a name="page_25" id="page_25"></a> him in liberty and beauty, his face became serious. Anyhow, the -conversation languished after such an insinuation or was broken off, and -suddenly he felt himself estranged and far away from that society, which -nevertheless was his own, from the people who belonged to his set and -perhaps to his race. To have lived three years apart from them was -sufficient to break the tie.</p> - -<p>But that evening amidst such profound elegance, among the most beautiful -Roman and foreign women and the most celebrated men, it seemed to him as -if like had found like, and that the other Marco Fiore, he of three -years ago, was living again. When two or three times his friends had -smiled intentionally at his secret marriage, as they called it, a -feeling of annoyance and oppression had tormented him. A moral and -perhaps physical agitation kept showing him the silent room at Santa -Maria Maggiore where the solitary woman was waiting for him, and he no -longer saw Maria Guasco in her proud and passionate beauty, refulgent -with a powerful and charming love, but in her imperious aspect and -indomitable pride, as a soul which had given up everything for ever and -which wished for everything. The weight of his amorous chain crushed his -heart, as he left the imposing rooms of the English Embassy.</p> - -<p>However, when he found himself in his own room, in Palazzo Fiore, one of -those old rooms with lofty ceilings and furniture exclusively old;<a name="page_26" id="page_26"></a> when -among the shadows and bizarre half-shadows he looked distractedly at the -four or five portraits of Maria Guasco, which were mixed among the -beautiful and costly ornaments adorning the table and bookshelves; when -he had noticed one of her by his pillow, dressed simply in a travelling -costume with a little hat on the abundance of flowing hair, a portrait -in which she seemed to walk absorbed and ecstatic towards an ideal -aim—in truth that aim had been love, and the portrait had been taken on -their first journey, in fact during their flight—Marco Fiore trembled -as if under a severe shock, and his heart melted towards her.</p> - -<p>Her image, not from scattered portraits, but from the depth of his soul -where it was impressed, rose to his eyes with all the allurements of -love, and it seemed to him confused in a mortal, incurable sadness. -Tears were rising in the eyes of the ardent, sorrowing image, consumed -by its secret flame, tears which he had so seldom seen in reality. The -fascination of a vision more subjugating than any form of tangible life! -Marco Fiore’s heart began to melt, seeing Maria weeping in his dream, -and an immense regret and remorse overpowered him, because by every -movement and deed of his he had caused her sadness that evening, because -he had not spoken a single word of love to her, because he had not -yielded to her timid and impassioned invitation to return to her after -midnight, as he had always done in the<a name="page_27" id="page_27"></a> past; because she was there in -her room alone with the sorrow of her abandonment and desertion. For a -short time Marco had no peace thinking of his involuntary coldness and -cruelty, and he experienced an irresistible desire to go out, to go to -Maria, to throw himself at her feet.</p> - -<p>“I will go,” he said to himself, starting up.</p> - -<p>But he did not pass the threshold of his room. The flow of bitterness -and repentance ceased and composed itself slowly at the bottom of his -heart, which became all at once mysteriously calm. He meditated on his -sudden appearance at Maria’s house when she was no longer expecting him, -when perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps Maria on that evening had not even -wept as his vision had showed him, or perhaps her tears had been dried -by her pride. How cold and sharp she had been with him! With what -delight she had tortured him, and afterwards had aroused, cleverly and -cruelly, his jealousy! With what calmness and iciness she had accepted -all he had scarcely dared to tell her for fear of crucifying her: the -August without travelling or holiday-making, and the September separated -and far away! How in her pride she had spurned his tender pity!</p> - -<p>Marco Fiore did not leave his room. His good impulse had fallen, his -remorse had dissolved, and his dream of amorous consolation and human -compassion had vanished. A great aridness spread itself over him. He was -without desires,<a name="page_28" id="page_28"></a> without hope or plans. Maria’s portraits around him -spoke no more to him, and before closing his eyes in sleep he looked at -them as strange and unknown figures, as figures indifferent to him.</p> - -<p class="c">* * * * * * * * </p> - -<p>A long absorption of thoughts held the woman who was left alone -stretched among the cushions.</p> - -<p>Twice her little clock struck the hour, but she did not heed it. The -book had fallen on the ground and had not been picked up, the little -chair where Marco had sat had not been moved from beside her, and in the -air the subtle smell of cigarettes remained, while on the ash-tray on -the little table there were some ashes. Amidst so much testimony of a -vanished hour, which had spoken its word of truth, she immersed herself -in the hidden passion of her tumultuous and ecstatic soul. Only the -light step of her maid roused her, a pale and sleepy young woman, who -was trying to keep her eyes open and conceal her weariness.</p> - -<p>“Am I to wait for the master?” she asked in a subdued voice, as if -fearing to wake her mistress.</p> - -<p>“No, go to bed,” replied Donna Maria precisely.</p> - -<p>“If Your Excellency is going to wait, I will wait too.”</p> - -<p>“No, the master will not return.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said the other, lowering her eyes, and after saying good-night she -left.<a name="page_29" id="page_29"></a></p> - -<p>At last Donna Maria arose and rapidly passed into the salotto, another -room where she had placed her books, pictures, and writing-table, and -where she used to pass the morning when she did not go out, and quickly -entered the bedroom. A night-light was burning there subduedly, and a -fresh fragrance impregnated the air. Everything was there in the -familiar and caressing half-light. Like a shadow Donna Maria walked up -and down her room, without stopping or touching anything, as if she were -looking for something and really did not care to look for it.</p> - -<p>She trembled, and sometimes stopped as if at the noise of steps.</p> - -<p>With its counterpane of old flowered brocade, fringed with gold lace and -turned down, the bed was made and glistened whitely with its sheets and -lace.</p> - -<p>All at once she discovered what she wanted. Her expert hands opened the -drawer of a little inlaid cabinet near the bed, and fumbled there till -she found and drew out a small object. It was a little diary, but she -was unable to read the small pages as she turned them over. She came -nearer the night-light and, finding the page, read thereon. Of a sudden -a great cry escaped her breast, and, kneeling by the bed, she embraced -the pillows convulsively.</p> - -<p>“It is ten days ago—ten days!”</p> - -<p>A hundred times with a hundred sighs, in a<a name="page_30" id="page_30"></a> torrent of tears like one -demented, she repeated the words in tones of anger, fear, and lament. -She said the words with a desolation and sadness, and an immense -melancholy. Then she murmured them more softly, and even stammered them. -At last she was silent; her tears ceased. Then she fell, wearied out, -into a heavy, dreamless sleep.<a name="page_31" id="page_31"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="III-1" id="III-1"></a>III</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">As</span> she entered the courtyard of the Baths of Diocletian, where modern -Rome has placed a museum for whatever the Tiber has restored, or -whatever has been excavated in recent years, Maria Guasco closed her -white lace parasol and looked around. The place seemed like the white -and silent cloister of a Christian monastery. Four roomy covered -<i>portici</i> surrounded a garden planted simply with rose-bushes, box -hedges, and some small trees. In the middle rose a stone sundial, and on -the right a well with an ancient pully from whose rope was hanging an -old-fashioned bucket. The <i>portici</i> were quite white, and along their -walls were hanging fragments of marble and pieces of Roman bas-reliefs. -There was an occasional bust on its pedestal, and some wooden benches. -But at the beginning of the summer, at ten in the morning, the place was -without visitors. Donna Maria stopped undecidedly.</p> - -<p>She was dressed in a white soft stuff which waved noiselessly about her, -a large white and very fine veil surrounded her hat, her abundant hair, -and oval face. Youth, primal and fresh, proceeded from all the whiteness -in which she walked,<a name="page_32" id="page_32"></a> like one of those dense, soft, white clouds which -give a sense of spiritual voluptuousness to the eyes. Her beauty was -illuminated by it, and beneath the transparency of her complexion her -blood coursed more lively, rendering more rosy her delicate and -expressive countenance. Only her eyes contained a tinge of disturbance -in their colour, undecided between grey and blue. Something proud and -sad concealed them, sometimes even extinguishing their glance. Donna -Maria’s mouth, too, had not a shadow of a smile. While she stood there -she was so wrapped in her thoughts and sensations, as almost to forget -the reason for which she had come at that unusual hour to the Baths of -Diocletian.</p> - -<p>“Good-morning, Donna Maria,” said a gentleman, coming towards her, -taking off his hat with an extremely correct bow.</p> - -<p>“Good-morning, Provana,” she said, frowning slightly and biting her lip; -“since when have you been a frequenter of museums and a lover of the -ancient statues of Faustina and Britannicus?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t care for them, cara Signora,” he hastened to say with an -ironical smile, “I don’t understand them, and, therefore, I detest -them.”</p> - -<p>“Why, then?”</p> - -<p>“To be able to speak to you alone in a place which is completely -deserted at this hour and season.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you come to my house?” she<a name="page_33" id="page_33"></a> replied, growing more austere; “I -am alone sometimes.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but Marco Fiore can come there any minute, neither can you deny -him entrance,” he replied coldly.</p> - -<p>“Do you hate Marco Fiore so much, Provana?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t hate him, I envy him,” he added, again becoming the gallant.</p> - -<p>“So you hasten to give me a meeting where he must not interfere, to tell -me things he must not hear?” she replied with a sardonic laugh.</p> - -<p>“But you have come to listen,” he observed craftily.</p> - -<p>She bit her lip hard, and extracted from her gold chain-purse a note, -folded in four, which she gave to him.</p> - -<p>“Take back your letter, Provana, and goodbye.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t go, Donna Maria, don’t go. Listen to me since you have come. It -is a serious matter.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Provana,” she replied, almost reaching the main entrance.</p> - -<p>“In Heaven’s name, don’t leave! The matter is really so important;” and -his voice trembled with anxiety.</p> - -<p>Donna Maria looked at him intently. Gianni Provana, whose correct and -gentlemanly face, with its more than forty years, for the most part -pleasing and inexpressive in lines and colouring, seemed genuinely -moved. His monocle had<a name="page_34" id="page_34"></a> fallen from its orbit, and he was a little pale. -He twisted his moustaches nervously, and his mouth, still fresh in spite -of its maturity, seemed to restrain a flow of words with difficulty.</p> - -<p>Donna Maria had never seen him thus; Gianni, the man of moderation in -every gesture and word, so often sceptical, so often cold, but never -agitated, the common type, in fact, of the elegant gentleman who assumes -a correct pose from infancy, who cloaks himself with a studied disdain -for everything, and most especially for the things he is not aiming at, -and the persons he does not understand.</p> - -<p>“Really I can’t think of anything important to listen to from you,” she -murmured, turning back for a step or two.</p> - -<p>“However, it is so, Donna Maria. It is a question of your good which is -immensely dear to me.”</p> - -<p>“Why is it dear to you? How do I concern you?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I esteem you deeply; I love you.”</p> - -<p>“Still I don’t love you, neither do I esteem you,” she replied icily.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you esteem me?”</p> - -<p>“Because you are a dissembler, Provana.”</p> - -<p>“Dissembling is often necessary and most useful in life. It is often an -act of prudence and benevolence.”</p> - -<p>“That is the invention of liars.”</p> - -<p>They walked together, side by side, along one<a name="page_35" id="page_35"></a> of the <i>portici</i>, drawing -further away towards the back of the edifice. Gianni Provana watched her -half curiously and half anxiously; she was distracted, gazing intently -on an unknown point, trailing her parasol.</p> - -<p>“How far has loyalty served you, Donna Maria? You have lost reputation, -position, and family.”</p> - -<p>“I have gained liberty and love,” she replied, raising her head proudly.</p> - -<p>“But not happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Liberty is love,” she answered, with a cry of revolt.</p> - -<p>“You are the prisoner of your horrible condition, Donna Maria, and you -are not sure that Marco Fiore loves you,” he insisted, determined to say -all.</p> - -<p>“It is I who ought to love him.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t love him, Donna Maria. I swear that you don’t love him.”</p> - -<p>“Who makes you say this? Who has told you this?”</p> - -<p>“I say it because I know it. I say it because it is necessary to open -your eyes to yourself and upon Marco Fiore!”</p> - -<p>“Why do you do this? For what obscure motive? For what perfidious -interest?”</p> - -<p>“In your own interest entirely, Donna Maria.”</p> - -<p>“That can’t be. You are a calculator. You have a plan; reveal it at -once. I prefer it. What is the motive of this meeting?”<a name="page_36" id="page_36"></a></p> - -<p>“To persuade you that you do not love Marco Fiore, and that he does not -love you.”</p> - -<p>“Is it he, is it Marco Fiore who sends you?” she exclaimed with a spasm -in her voice.</p> - -<p>Gianni Provana hesitated an instant.</p> - -<p>“No, it is not he. It is I who have guessed all, who know all.”</p> - -<p>She bent her head in thought. In spite of the horror which this colloquy -with a man she had always despised caused her, although she was -listening to words which offended her mortally, she continued to listen -to him as if subjugated. They had now reached a corner of the <i>portici</i> -near a large pillar. Not a shadow of a visitor appeared.</p> - -<p>“Donna Maria, you who are truth herself, how can you endure this life of -lies?”</p> - -<p>“Of lies?”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. You are deceiving Marco Fiore when you tell him that you love -him, and you are deceiving yourself. He is deceiving you. This love is -dead, in fact it has been lived much too long.”</p> - -<p>“According to you, who suppose that you know something about love, how -long does passion last? By the way, perhaps you have got the figures -with you to explain them?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; passion lasts from six months to a year, love from a year to two -years. You have been living a lie for more than a year. O Donna Maria, -break this chain.”</p> - -<p>“Are we meant to slay this love?” she exclaimed<a name="page_37" id="page_37"></a> mockingly, with a -shrill bitterness in her voice.</p> - -<p>“You ought to slay it!”</p> - -<p>“And am I afterwards to burn myself on the pyre like the widows of -Malabar?” she continued, even more mockingly and bitterly.</p> - -<p>“You ought to live and be happy.”</p> - -<p>“With you, eh? With Gianni Provana?”</p> - -<p>“With another,” he said in a low voice, looking at her.</p> - -<p>“With whom?”</p> - -<p>“With Emilio Guasco,” he ventured to say.</p> - -<p>“Don’t repeat the infamy!” she cried, clenching her teeth.</p> - -<p>A terrible silence came upon them. The sun had already invaded half of -the simple garden among the thick box hedges and winter roses. The soft -singing of a little bird issued here and there from the trees.</p> - -<p>“Does he send you, Provana?” she continued, in a voice almost hoarse -with annoyance, so great was the disdain which she was controlling -within her.</p> - -<p>“No, he doesn’t send me, but I am come all the same. Donna Maria, does -it please you to continue to live outside the laws, outside morality, -outside society, when the great cause of it is at an end? Does it please -you still to sacrifice your decorum, your dignity, your name, not to -love but to your fancy? Where are there any more the supreme -compensations for all that you have lost?<a name="page_38" id="page_38"></a> Where are there any more the -rich sentimental and sensual rewards for that which you have thrown away -and abandoned? How does your abnegation profit you any more? You have -given all and are giving all, and meanwhile your life is empty, your -soul is empty.”</p> - -<p>Why did she listen so intently, without interrupting, without rebelling? -Why was no shock given to her pride? And why did she cry out no more in -protest? Gianni Provana so cold, so sceptical in his manner, was -reaching at that time and in that singular place almost to eloquence. -She who suspected him, despised and considered him a liar and a -hypocrite, was listening to him, while her face contracted with -suffering and disdain.</p> - -<p>“Donna Maria, you had the courage to offend and abandon your husband who -had done nothing to you, because you did not care to live in deceit and -treachery: have another courage, worthy of you, that of flying from -Marco Fiore, since you love him no more and he does not love you. Leave -the house where you live in heavy and gloomy silence; re-enter the -world, re-enter society. Be an honoured and respected lady, as you -deserve to be for your beauty and your great soul.”</p> - -<p>“To become what you tell me, Provana,” she replied precisely, in a hard -voice, “I ought to return to my husband.”</p> - -<p>“You ought to return.”</p> - -<p>“And he would take me back?”<a name="page_39" id="page_39"></a></p> - -<p>“He would take you back.”</p> - -<p>“Forgetting all?”</p> - -<p>“Forgiving you everything.”</p> - -<p>“After three years of public scandal, of life together with Marco Fiore -in the same city, under his eyes—my husband would do this?”</p> - -<p>“He would do it because he believes in the law of pardon.”</p> - -<p>“Knowing that I do not love him?”</p> - -<p>“Knowing it quite well.”</p> - -<p>“That I shall never love him?”</p> - -<p>“Who can tell that?”</p> - -<p>“I!” she proclaimed. “I shall never love him, and he knows it.”</p> - -<p>“In spite of that, he desires to pardon you, and to give you back all -that you have lost by your passion.”</p> - -<p>“Why does he do this?”</p> - -<p>“Because he is good.”</p> - -<p>“A great many good people would never do it!”</p> - -<p>“Because he has suffered much and learned much.”</p> - -<p>“What have his sufferings to do with me?”</p> - -<p>“He has pity for your sorrows.”</p> - -<p>“Pity is not enough to do this, Provana.”</p> - -<p>“Because he loves you,” Gianni Provana declared at last.</p> - -<p>“What a poltroon!” she sneered with infinite contempt.</p> - -<p>“Am I to tell Emilio Guasco this?”<a name="page_40" id="page_40"></a></p> - -<p>“Tell him what you please.”</p> - -<p>“His love does not move you?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“His pity does not soften you?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t his pardon seem a sublime act to you? Is he not a hero?”</p> - -<p>“I am a miserable creature made of clay, and I do not understand -sublimity.”</p> - -<p>They were silent. The weather became warmer and slightly heavier, and -the singing of the little birds in the trees grew weaker. Some of the -roses had scattered their leaves on the ground.</p> - -<p>“And with all this what are we going to do with Marco Fiore?” she broke -in with irony.</p> - -<p>“With Marco?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, with him. What will he do when, according to you, I have returned -to my husband? What will become of Marco?”</p> - -<p>“He will be content to marry Vittoria Casalta. The girl has been waiting -for him for three years.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed, in a voice scarcely recognisable.</p> - -<p>Without greeting or looking at him she turned her back, and went quickly -round the corner of the portico.</p> - -<p>Nor did Gianni Provana dare to follow her.<a name="page_41" id="page_41"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="IV-1" id="IV-1"></a>IV</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Maria</span> had searched for Marco Fiore for an hour in all the places she -supposed he might be; at the great door of Palazzo Fiore, in the via -Bocca di Leone, leaving him word scribbled in pencil on a small piece of -paper; at the Hunt Club, which he sometimes looked into towards noon; at -the fencing rooms in the via Muratte, where two or three times a week he -used to undergo a long sword exercise.</p> - -<p>Porters, butlers, servants had seen the beautiful and elegant lady, -dressed in white, hidden behind a white veil, ask with insistence for -the noble Marco Fiore and go away slowly, as if not convinced that he -was not in one of those places. Towards noon, agitated and silent, -consumed by her emotion, she entered the little villa at Santa Maria -Maggiore, and there, at the threshold, was Marco, who had just arrived, -with a slightly languid smile on his lips and the habitual softness in -his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Marco, Marco, I have looked for you everywhere,” she stammered in -confusion, taking him by the hand.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?” he asked, a little surprised, scrutinising her -face.<a name="page_42" id="page_42"></a></p> - -<p>“Come, Marco; come.”</p> - -<p>Still leading him by the hand she made him cross the ante-room, the -drawing-room, the little drawing-room, and the study, and did not stop -till she was with him in the bedroom with its closed green shutters, -whence entered the perfumes from a very tiny conservatory. Once within, -she closed the door with a tired gesture. They were alone. She fixed him -with her eyes right into his, placing her two hands on his shoulders, -dominating him with her height. And to him never had her face seemed so -beautiful and so ardent.</p> - -<p>“Do you love me, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“I love you,” he said with tender sweetness.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t say it so. Better, better. Do you love me?”</p> - -<p>“I love you,” he replied, disturbed.</p> - -<p>“As once upon a time, you must say, <i>as once upon a time</i>.”</p> - -<p>“I love you, Maria,” he replied, still more disturbed.</p> - -<p>“Do you love me as at first? Reply without hesitating, without -thinking—as at first?”</p> - -<p>Regarding him, scorching him with her glance, with the pressure of her -white and firm hands on his shoulders, she subjugated him.</p> - -<p>Already the youthful blood of Marco Fiore coursed in his veins, and the -giddiness of passion, which for some time had not overcome his soul, -mastered him.<a name="page_43" id="page_43"></a></p> - -<p>“As at first,” he murmured, in a subdued voice.</p> - -<p>“It is true you don’t want to lose me. Say it! Say it!”</p> - -<p>“I would prefer to lose my soul.”</p> - -<p>“You have never thought of leaving me?”</p> - -<p>“Never.”</p> - -<p>“Am I always your lady?”</p> - -<p>“My lady, you, and you only.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Marco!” she sighed, letting her face fall on his breast, yielding -to an emotion which was too violent.</p> - -<p>He had become very pale. His eyebrows were knotted in sad thought. He -took her face, covered with tears, and wiped it with his handkerchief, -and asked her with a voice, where already suspicion was pressing, and -where jealousy was hissing insidiously—</p> - -<p>“What is this, Maria? Tell me all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” she said desperately.</p> - -<p>“Tell me all at once,” he rejoined in angry impatience.</p> - -<p>“No, no, Marco, it is nothing. I am mad this morning.”</p> - -<p>“That is impossible. You were calm and serene yesterday evening. There -is something. There is <i>somebody</i>. Whom have you seen this morning?”</p> - -<p>The question was so precise and abrupt that the woman of truth -hesitated, and dared no longer be silent.<a name="page_44" id="page_44"></a></p> - -<p>“I have seen Gianni Provana.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he exclaimed, twisting his moustaches; “did you see him here?”</p> - -<p>“No, elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>“Elsewhere? In the street?”</p> - -<p>“Almost.”</p> - -<p>“You met him by accident?”</p> - -<p>“Not by accident.”</p> - -<p>“Maria, Maria!” he cried; “why have you done this?”</p> - -<p>“I have erred; pardon me, Marco.”</p> - -<p>She humbled herself, taking his hands to kiss them in an act of profound -contrition.</p> - -<p>But releasing himself, he made two or three turns of the room, then -returned to her.</p> - -<p>“And what has <i>that</i> reptile said to you? Repeat to me what that horrid -man said to you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he is so horrid as to make one shudder.”</p> - -<p>“Repeat it; repeat it at once, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“How am I to tell them? They are infamous things.”</p> - -<p>“Against me?”</p> - -<p>“Against us.”</p> - -<p>“But speak, at least speak! Do you wish to make me die of anger and -impatience?”</p> - -<p>“No, Marco. I will tell you all. Come, sit beside me, be tranquil. I -don’t like to see you so. You must be calm, my love, so that I may tell -you all; you must be sweet and loving, and not so disturbed and -wicked.”<a name="page_45" id="page_45"></a></p> - -<p>“Maria, I am waiting,” he said, almost without listening to her, folding -his arms.</p> - -<p>“Listen; it is true I ought not to have gone to the meeting with Gianni -Provana. I have erred greatly, but a secret terror has been too much for -me; I wished to know what he had to tell me. Could it not be perhaps a -secret threat for me, for you?”</p> - -<p>“I fear nothing, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“I, too, nothing; but I went to know. That man is so perverse, and he is -always seeing my husband.”</p> - -<p>“Then he came for Emilio Guasco?” he exclaimed, rising.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said with candour.</p> - -<p>“To tell you what in the name of Emilio Guasco?”</p> - -<p>“To tell me that you no longer love me.”</p> - -<p>“It is false, I swear!” exclaimed Marco Fiore, with vehemence.</p> - -<p>“To suggest to me that I no longer love you.”</p> - -<p>“Swear that it is false.”</p> - -<p>“I swear it,” she replied, with a grave voice.</p> - -<p>“And then? and then?”</p> - -<p>“And then, as our love had been killed, it was necessary and right to -re-enter the lawful, to re-enter the moral, to resume my place in -society, to return esteemed, respected, honoured.”</p> - -<p>“That is to say?”</p> - -<p>“To return to my husband.”<a name="page_46" id="page_46"></a></p> - -<p>“He said this atrocious thing to you?”</p> - -<p>“This atrocious thing.”</p> - -<p>“Of his own initiative?”</p> - -<p>“No, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“So,” he exclaimed in the height of anger, “this husband of yours, this -friend of his, beyond me, above me, and against me, laughing at me, -propose that you should leave me and return to Casa Guasco?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“After all that has happened?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“After three years of a life of love, our only and unique life of love, -you should return to Casa Guasco?”</p> - -<p>“It is so.”</p> - -<p>The physiognomy of Marco Fiore became transfigured. A convulsion of -bitterness, of suffering, of fury shook it continuously; that slightly -morbid insouciance, which composed its poetry together with its youth, -had quite vanished, showing only a face of energy, crossed by sentiments -more unrestrainedly virile.</p> - -<p>“And your husband, whom they say is a man of honour, would he forget the -dishonour?”</p> - -<p>“He is ready to forget it.”</p> - -<p>“Would a gentleman forget an offence so open and so cruel?”</p> - -<p>“He has been ready, he says, for a long time to pardon.”<a name="page_47" id="page_47"></a></p> - -<p>“But why? Is he a rascal perhaps? Is he a saint perhaps? Has he blood in -his impoverished veins? Has he a heart in that money-grubbing breast of -his?”</p> - -<p>“He says that he has suffered; that he is suffering.”</p> - -<p>“But why does he suffer?—through <i>amour propre</i>? through pride? through -envy? through punctiliousness?”</p> - -<p>She was silent. He, as one mad, continued—</p> - -<p>“What has made him suffer?—the injury? the insult? the public shame? -ridicule? Why, after having suffered, does he pardon?”</p> - -<p>Still she was silent.</p> - -<p>“And why does he want you? To shame me? To have his revenge? So that the -world may mock me as it has mocked him? Why does he want you? To adorn -his salons? To expose the jewels he has given you? To decorate his box -at the theatre? Why does he want you?”</p> - -<p>With head bowed and hands joined together on her knees, she remained -silent and pale. He went towards her and forced her to rise and look at -him.</p> - -<p>“You know, Maria, why he forgets, why he pardons you, why he wants you. -You know and you won’t tell me.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head in denial.</p> - -<p>“You know, you know; they have told you; repeat it to me! If you don’t -tell me, I am going away and I am never going to return again.”<a name="page_48" id="page_48"></a></p> - -<p>Maria trembled.</p> - -<p>“I know,” she stammered, “I know, but I did not wish to tell. Provana -says ... that my husband loves me, he forgets because he loves me; he -pardons because he loves me; he wants me because he loves me. That is -all.”</p> - -<p>Violently, brutally, he took her in his arms, and pressed her to -himself.</p> - -<p>“I love you, Maria, I only love you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” she exclaimed, with emotion; “as once upon a time, as once upon a -time?”</p> - -<p>Pressed to him, closed as in a vice in his arms, he kissed her on the -hair, the eyes, the mouth, murmuring—</p> - -<p>“I love you, Maria, as at first, as always, for ever, I love you.”</p> - -<p>Radiant with joy, crying with joy, she threw back her head as if -inebriated.</p> - -<p>“You are mine, Maria, it is true?”</p> - -<p>“Yours, yours, yours.”</p> - -<p>“No one else’s ever?”</p> - -<p>“No one else’s.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never let you be taken by any one, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“No one can take me.”</p> - -<p>“I would kill him first, Maria, then myself.”</p> - -<p>“Marco, Marco, I adore you!”</p> - -<p>For a moment his encircling arms loosened, as he thought for an instant. -A powerful exaltation, proceeding from a powerful instinct, was -compelling<a name="page_49" id="page_49"></a> him. And she was intoxicated with joy of him.</p> - -<p>“Maria, will you do as I wish?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, like a slave.”</p> - -<p>“Good; let us go away together.”</p> - -<p>“Let us go.”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“No, this evening.”</p> - -<p>“This evening? Where?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. Far away. Together. Somewhere where there are not these -infamous persons and horrible annoyances, Maria. Far away, where your -soul and your person may be only mine, without remorse, without -reproach, without remembrances. Together, away from here, far off.”</p> - -<p>“Let us go, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“You follow me with desire, with enthusiasm?”</p> - -<p>“With desire, with enthusiasm.”</p> - -<p>“As if you were leaving for ever, never more to return?”</p> - -<p>“As if I were going to love and to death, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“This evening, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“This evening.”</p> - -<p>“But I am not going to leave you to-day. I can’t leave you. I am -frightened that you may not come. I am frightened that I may lose you, -Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Just as we fled the first time, then,” she murmured, in a mysterious, -dreamy ecstasy.<a name="page_50" id="page_50"></a></p> - -<p>“As the first time, darling.”</p> - -<p>And the old times reappeared to them, just as the voices reappeared, -just as the words reappeared; time was annulled, and everything was as -at first. They asked nothing of their souls, of their hearts, since the -looks, the voices, and the gestures were <i>as at first</i>; in the -unrestrained tumult of resumed passion their souls and their hearts kept -silence, in their profound, singular, and obscure silence.<a name="page_51" id="page_51"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="V-1" id="V-1"></a>V</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Venice</span>, who has consecrated and exalted in her soft and persuasive arms -a thousand powerful loveknots, placed the wonderful peace of her mortal -beauty round the grand flame of Maria Guasco and Marco Fiore; the silent -caress of her glimmering lights, and the tenderness of her melancholy. -The amorous fluid that thousands of lovers gathered wherever they lived, -wherever they moved in Venice—that amorous fluid that emanates from her -quiet waters, from the balconies of her palaces, from the veiled voices -of those who sing in flowering gardens on quiet side canals, that -emanates from the gloomy colour of her gondolas, from the whiteness of -the marble which the water has left intact or obscured, which emanates -from every lineament of the place and from every tint of the sky, -enveloped Marco Fiore and Maria Guasco, and multiplied their flame into -a precipitous tumult of their lives.</p> - -<p>Their love had something mysterious, powerful, and troublous in that -ardent renewal, which engulfed them as in a whirlwind. They seemed blind -and deaf to every other aspect and every other sound of life which was -not their amorous delirium.<a name="page_52" id="page_52"></a> If no idyllic sweetness, if no sentimental -tenderness brightened the passing of the days, the fever which caused -them to palpitate, which singularly always gave them fresh fire, had -aspects unknown to many, unknown even to themselves. A veil was over -their eyes when they turned them away from the adored person; and the -vision of Venice, where their days were slipping away, was like a dream -around them, was like a scene unknown, appearing and vanishing just as -in a dream. Never had Maria Guasco, whose beauty consisted above all in -a lively, tender, and proud expression of countenance, never had she -carried so clearly and openly those signs of amorous happiness which -cause envy and regret to those who have never been in love, or who no -longer love. Never, too, had Marco Fiore experienced a greater passion, -or a larger sense of subjugation to a creature beloved.</p> - -<p>Sometimes, however, passion in its violence seemed odious to him, and he -would gaze at Maria with eyes sad and stern but still passionate, and he -would speak to her shortly and commandingly, while his strong hands -would press her soft hands so roughly as almost to cause her pain.</p> - -<p>Then she would become silent, biting her lips to prevent a cry, and -bowing her head as if conquered and crushed.</p> - -<p>Long indeed were the silences of the lovers, and gladly were their lips -dumb, as if words were useless to their understanding and thoughts -weighed<a name="page_53" id="page_53"></a> heavily on their hearts, or as if they felt it was profoundly -dangerous to give life to their thoughts with a word. They remained side -by side in their room in the Grand Hotel on the Grand Canal, silent and -absorbed. Sometimes they stood together on the small marble balcony -watching the canal winding among the magnificent palaces towards the -<i>Salute</i>, with joined hands and fingers interlaced, and watched for a -long time the bizarre reflections of the water changing colour beneath -the light of the sky, always silent and oppressed. On the occasions when -the gondola carried them in long excursions, left to the choice of the -gondolier, to the more solitary canals and islands, Marco became more -imperious in his lover’s exactions. If Maria drew aside from him even -for a minute, he called her back with a sudden and almost angry gesture; -if she had a bunch of flowers in her belt he snatched them one by one, -kissed them, and threw them into the water, and he would continually -take her handkerchief and gloves and press them to his face and lips.</p> - -<p>They spoke seldom and subduedly, just their names, or a monosyllable -uttered questioningly and repeated with an acquiescent nod and dropping -of the eyes. Their passion, even in its greatest flame, was collected -and gloomy, and just as they were not exuberant in words they were not -exuberant in smiles. No puerile happiness or youthful gaiety enlivened -its intensity. Their passion seemed<a name="page_54" id="page_54"></a> greater than they could endure, -heavy and crushing in its force and vigour, and their souls and heart -were too little to contain it; or its secret violence and immeasurable -power seemed to surprise and dispirit them every instant, as if they -were ignorant of its origin and end. Every now and then Maria, as if she -could no longer endure his intense glances, placed her hands over -Marco’s eyes, as against the light of the sun which vivifies and yet -blinds, and sometimes he returned the gesture, placing his hand on her -ruby mouth, to stop her rare words and continuous kisses, as if his -fibres were relaxing beneath the ideal and sensual caress which was -consuming him. Their memories, too, were wrapped in a veil, or they -would have remembered their first journey; their flight in which in a -thousand forms of joy their cry of liberty had broken out, in which a -thousand smiles carelessly adorned their day, in which the song of the -simplest and purest jollity overflowed their mornings, and the laugh -which closed their day and sent them deliciously to sleep.</p> - -<p>They remembered none of that. This other love, silent, without jests, -without songs, without smiles; this turbid and gloomy love resembled a -spell-bound spiritual imprisonment, a magical slavery of the senses, and -a tyrannous voluptuousness which filled them with madness and deadly -intoxication.</p> - -<p>Their reason for leaving Rome was never mentioned<a name="page_55" id="page_55"></a> by them. Perhaps once -or twice the woman wished to allude to it, but immediately, pale with -anger and jealousy, the man had cried out—“No!”</p> - -<p>And he closed her again to his breast, where his heart beat as -tumultuously as on the day in which he had nearly seen the hand of -Emilio Guasco, her husband, take her hand in the shade and lead her -away. Very often such pallor and such fury passed over Marco’s face as -to give a greater clearness and heat to the flame of love. Often, too, -when she seemed thoughtful and absorbed, and her soul was slipping away -from the place and altar of passion he would lean over her, and, seized -again by the madness of that day, would embrace her fiercely, and his -breath on her forehead seemed as if it wished to devour the thought -which was going towards Rome.</p> - -<p>She understood at once, and exclaimed passionately—</p> - -<p>“No, Marco, no!”</p> - -<p>Then Marco would stammer a question brokenly in a monosyllable.</p> - -<p>“Mine? Mine?”</p> - -<p>“Thine! thine!” she answered, looking at him.</p> - -<p>Nothing more. Nothing more than these two words, so monotonous, intense -and inexorable. Not another demand, not another reply; not a promise, -not an oath. The words of possession: thine and mine. The length of this -delirium and<a name="page_56" id="page_56"></a> the passing of time left no impression on their minds. -Others counted their days by their troubles or pleasures, not so Marco -and Maria.</p> - -<p>Four weeks had fled on a day at the end of July when, one morning, Maria -rising from the old-fashioned chair, approached a table, and, taking a -pen, dipped it in the ink as if to write. Then she trembled at her act, -which drew her back to the fiery circle of her love, and she looked at -Marco. He had seen all without showing surprise. Then she heard his -voice, that voice of other times, a little tired, a little veiled, -letting fall a question almost of politeness, but without any interest -in a reply—</p> - -<p>“Are you going to write, Maria?”</p> - -<p>A fit of trembling caused her to hesitate. He did not notice her -disturbance as his eyes were lowered. She sat down to write. But the -tumult within her was so strong that her hand traced mechanically -meaningless signs. Maria had no one to write to, and did not know what -to write. Her hand fell upon the paper, and she bent her head. Still he -noticed nothing.</p> - -<p>“Marco?” she asked, in the cold clear voice of former times, “Marco, -what is the matter?”</p> - -<p>And truth was evoked from the depth of the man’s soul. Truth said simply -and cruelly: “I am tired.”</p> - -<p>So it was all that memorable day. Maria saw<a name="page_57" id="page_57"></a> in Marco Fiore’s face -nothing but an unspeakable weariness. On the marble balcony above the -silver-grey water which he was looking at, his weariness lent a leaden -colour to his lips and eyes, and a dense pallor to his face. A sad -wrinkle of exhaustion was at each corner of his mouth. Again she asked, -“Are you tired?”</p> - -<p>Again he replied, cruelly and monotonously, “I am tired.”</p> - -<p>She saw him stretch himself on the soft black cushions of the gondola, -as if he wished to stay there for ever. He did not look to see if she -was beside him and shut his eyes as if asleep, but without sleeping, nor -did he issue from that silence and stupor till they landed from the -gondola at the Palazzo Ferro. When at night he retired, after touching -her hair with the lightest of kisses, when later in her soft -night-garments she went to see him asleep, she stopped near the bed. -Horrible sight! Marco was sleeping heavily, with his head buried in the -pillows just as if it was his last sleep, and all his face was -decomposed in its fatigue and pallor, even the lips were white beneath -the moustaches, and his forehead had a crease of weariness and -bitterness. Too long, indeed, did she gaze at that sight, and drink in -its poison with her soul and eyes. She felt her heart like a stone -within her breast, and her soul wound her person like a sharp rock with -a tremendous spasm. She felt, too, the floods of bitterness like<a name="page_58" id="page_58"></a> a -poison diffuse themselves through her being. Falling on the bed in her -white garments she lapsed into the same lead-like lethargy as her lover.</p> - -<p>Of their exhausted forces of desire, of their weary and somnolent -bodies, their spent phantasies and arid souls, of this cessation of -spiritual life, on the following day, they understood the tremendous -truth. They understood how, as in common people, that rude and fierce -instinct, which is jealousy, had plotted against them; a jealousy -physical and base, taking the appearance of a higher and more ardent -love, of a passion larger and more consuming; and how like inexperienced -and weak creatures they had been victims of a trivial deception of the -senses, abandoning themselves to it, as to a renewing flame of love more -youthful and more devouring. The man felt the shame mount to his face -for having mistaken the impulse of a vulgar, fatuous, and virile -affirmation of possession for a fresher and more vigorous desire of -love’s happiness, and he experienced a great repentance for having -surrendered to it their hope in a new future for their love. But more -supreme was the woman’s shame for having fallen into the net of the -senses, she so proud, so modest, and so chaste even in passion. Her -sorrow was the more supreme for having ever believed that love can be -reborn from its ashes.</p> - -<p>For a day they hated and despised themselves<a name="page_59" id="page_59"></a> as never before. For a day -they hated themselves fiercely. Then that shadow, that coldness, and -that boredom ruled over them, whose signs they had piously hidden in -Rome, but which at last in Venice they no longer dared conceal.<a name="page_60" id="page_60"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="VI-1" id="VI-1"></a>VI</h3> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="r"> -“Spello, October....<br /> -</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dearest Maria</span>,</p> - -<p>“Since you as ever appear to me what you are, a creature of truth, -and since you tell me briefly and honestly—and in reading I almost -seem to hear your voice—‘Marco, our dream is over,’ I ought to -elevate my spirit to your moral height where a lie is impossible, -and repeat loyally, ‘Maria, our dream is over.’ It was beautiful. -No meanness disturbed its violent grandeur, no weakness spoiled its -power, no hypocrisy disturbed its purity, and we indeed preferred -to break the social knot rather than loosen it miserably. Moreover, -we preferred to give a single sorrow to others rather than inflict -ridicule and humiliation on them every day, and we preferred to -exile and isolate ourselves than drag deception and fraud from -drawing-room to drawing-room, from home to home. We lived so -impetuously and ardently in a fulness and richness of life, which, -darling Maria, neither of us will ever find again, which ought not -to be found again because certain destinies have but one existence. -Ours is past and the dream is ended. Nothing remains<a name="page_61" id="page_61"></a> for us except -the enduring memory of its beauty and intensity.</p> - -<p>“We believed this dream to be eternal; we believed that it would -have led us hand in hand together, full of desire and hope, even to -the hour of death. Such is the measured small eternity of man! Not -even was this true, not even was this modest cycle of years, modest -compared with Time, just the life of a man and a woman, given to -our dream. The hours, days, and years were limited, not by us, not -by our enthusiasm, not by our anxiety, but by the laws of passion -themselves, those immutable laws, alas! which each believes he can -change, which each hopes to elude, and by which we are all -dominated.</p> - -<p>“Adored Maria, you have had from me all the love which a young man, -impassioned and sincere, can give to an adorable woman such as you -are; but love is a brief matter, with a brevity which frightens all -desolate and tender souls, all faithful hearts and feeling fibres. -He who says that he desires only one woman for all his life, either -deceives or is deceived. We wished to be constant, faithful, and -tenacious of our love, but it escaped us fatally, every day -increasingly, till our devastated and cold hearts felt that that -love had vanished, because thus it must be, since it is the law; -since this brevity is the essential condition of its force and -beauty, and this brevity is the reason of its perfidious -fascination. We have<a name="page_62" id="page_62"></a> loved each other, dearest Maria, for three -years. A cynic would tell you that they are many, that they are too -many—three years. But remember that a cynic always conceals a soul -desolated by the reality of things. I shall tell you that the time -has been just what it had to be, and, in telling you this, how my -heart overflows with an intense bitterness against love’s fall, -against the misery of this sentiment and its fugacity. Otherwise I -had hoped, lady mine, otherwise we had hoped together. We believed, -too, and feared that unhappiness and sorrow would have come to us -from outside, from those whom we had abandoned, from laws which we -had violated, from society which we had offended. Instead, all the -inconsolable sadness of this moment comes from ourselves, from our -dead souls, from our dead hearts and senses, where our love has -lived, but from whence it has disappeared, leaving colourless ashes -which the wind will carry away. Maria, how I should like to rise -against myself, against my mortal weariness and indifference. I -should like to galvanise my spirit, resuscitate this corpse, and I -torture myself in vain, while tears of useless anger course my -cheeks. Maria, I am dying through not loving you, but I cannot live -to love you.</p> - -<p>“O dear Maria, I hope you love me no longer. So it should be. Do -you remember our first meeting, in a box at the theatre, one -evening when<a name="page_63" id="page_63"></a> the music of love and torture was filling the -house—<i>Les Huguenots</i>? Do you remember the first long devouring -glance in that box, and the first expressive pressure of the hands, -as if they could not disentangle themselves? We loved each other at -the same instant. We both abandoned ourselves to the vortex which -was engulfing us, and neither hesitated. Neither dragged the other -into the delirious circle of passion. Together we gave ourselves, -blind, mute, conquered and infatuated. Both, without the one -suggesting it to the other, decided to live alone, free, obscure, -ignored and forgotten, and neither, in flying from everything, -trembled at the mad plan or hesitated. So, Maria, I not only hope -but believe that you do not love me.</p> - -<p>“In your house of love, lady mine, in that house where the -magnificent flower of our passion sprouted and sent forth its -celestial perfumes, in that house, which alone of the dream will -remain uncancellable in our minds as the house of the most -beautiful dream of our lives, I know you are weeping in despair -because you no longer love me. I see you weeping about your barren -heart, about your exhausted soul, your spent desire, about -everything where love is dead. I see sighs swell your throat, and -your head fall convulsively on your pillow.</p> - -<p>“It is the same with me, Maria; just the same. Never was love born -with such consent, never did<a name="page_64" id="page_64"></a> love live in such equality, and never -did love so disappear from two conquered and fettered beings.</p> - -<p>“Oh, if I had to think differently, Maria, I should kill myself! If -I had to believe that this death of love had only struck me, and -that while I no longer had the spark to give light and heat you -were still burning; if I had to see you still in love with a man -who no longer loved you, if this moral inferiority had to strike -me, if I alone had to appear deserted by love, inept to love, inept -to feel through my personal weakness of mind—Maria, Maria, I -should kill myself. How could I live longer, near to you, far from -you, loving you no more while you still loved me, inflicting on the -dearest, best, most beautiful of women, upon her who alone for -three years has seemed a woman to me, my indifference?</p> - -<p>“Maria, write to me, swear to me that you love me no more. I can’t -bear the thought that you may still be burning with love for me; I -can’t bear the thought of grieving you with the dumbness of my -mind. Maria, I owe to you three years of perfect happiness. You -have beautified my existence with every grace and charm of yours. -You have lavished all the treasures of your heart with a generosity -and magnificence which has no equal. You have given me all -yourself, and I have known what exaltation a man can enjoy without -dying of too much joy. And for this, my lady, gentle and proud, for -all this that I owe you I cannot<a name="page_65" id="page_65"></a> give you a sorrow which has not -its equal, that of loving still when one is not loved. Swear that -your desolation is only for the dream which has vanished in you as -in me; that your tears are of an infinite bitterness for love and -not for me; that I am as a brother in sorrow and not a fickle and -forgetful lover; that you can think of me without a shock, but with -sadness for things which are extinct; that nothing glows in you; -that your blood is without fever, and your phantasy is without -visions—<i>that you are like me</i>.</p> - -<p>“And now, Maria, you have my life and your own in your hands, and -not only these two lives: because in the step which you boldly and -nobly took in abandoning the conjugal roof and your husband, in -renouncing your splendid social position, and above all your intact -virtue, you lost much more, and to many you lost all; because -although in this union of passion we have both been happier than -any others in such a union have ever been, you appear as my victim, -and such perhaps you will be according to the judgment of the -world. You, Maria, brave and good, have to decide what is to become -of me, of you, of the others.</p> - -<p>“I am at your feet to obey you blindly, and do you take me by the -hand and show me the road we ought to traverse, either separated or -together. Whatever may be the moral sacrifice you ask of me to save -you, I am ready to make it with enthusiasm. You have to order me to -live or to<a name="page_66" id="page_66"></a> perish, and I shall live as you wish; I shall perish by -the death you choose.</p> - -<p>“So much I ought to do for you, darling Maria, who threw away -everything to love and follow me, who looked not behind and -sacrificed yourself to passion. Show me the way, lead it wherever -it may; it is your task, and always was your task.</p> - -<p>“You know, you only know what is necessary. I have lived so madly -in our dream that I have forgotten everything, and am now in life -like an ignoramus, like a confused and disquieted child unable to -avoid hesitation and to have a will. Be my will, you who are -stronger than I. You have always been the stronger because you -possess a virtue that is lacking in me, which is pride, that lofty -and shining guide, which can be cruel yet is always lofty. You, -Maria, know what is necessary, and you ought to impose it on me, -after having imposed it on yourself. I shall be like matter in your -hands and all will be well, since it will have been willed by you, -and done by you, creature of strength, of goodness and beauty, -sustained by your shining beacon, your pride.</p> - -<p>“Tell me all and show me the way. In following your commandments, -the bitter tears which I shed for our dream will become slower and -rarer, that mortal sadness which falls on those who have lost -somebody or something dear to them will little by little be -conquered. The immense bitterness will grow less because I shall -have done<a name="page_67" id="page_67"></a> my duty towards you who have been my happiness, and -towards the love which has been the reason of my being. Restore to -me, Maria, the consciousness of being a man worth something. Show -me my duty, and cause even this last gratitude towards you to be -born in my spirit. Cause it that I owe you all my good, even this -last of which I am ignorant, though it will be something just and -worthy of you, since it comes from you, Maria, blessed to-day, and -how I shall bless you for ever, even till my death.</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Marco Fiore.</span>”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>This is the reply which reached Marco Fiore at Spello immediately.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="r"> -“Rome, October....<br /> -</p> - -<p>“Marco, I swear that I no longer love you. Come at once, and I will -tell you all that is necessary.</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Maria Guasco.</span>”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p><a name="page_68" id="page_68"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="VII-1" id="VII-1"></a>VII</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">A strong</span>, cold, almost wintry wind was blowing through the streets of -Rome on an afternoon of late October, and a low sky with a mass of -whitish-grey clouds was hanging over the semi-circle of the Esedra di -Termini. Little whirlwinds of dust rolled from the Esquiline and the -Viminal towards ancient Rome, while dead leaves issuing from the gardens -of the suburban villas, gyrating, and small squares, still rolled along.</p> - -<p>Marco, who had just arrived, trembled with cold, as he crossed on foot -the little distance which separated the Stazione di Termini from Santa -Maria Maggiore. In spite of his courage, which he knew had been inspired -by the soul of Maria Guasco, a dumb fear agitated him, a fear of the -present, a fear of the future. He was experiencing the agonising terror -of life, when in certain supreme moments a man seems conquered by all -the hostile forces within and without him. However, he did not hesitate -a moment to enter the villa. He went towards his destiny with a soul in -trepidation but with a firm step. The profound faith which he had in -Maria’s heart, a faith experienced apart from passion and love, alone -sustained<a name="page_69" id="page_69"></a> him, and once again he sought from her the source of his -strength in the hour of sorrow and torment.</p> - -<p>But when she appeared, and he understood that he was seeing her for the -last time, dressed as she was in black, so exquisite, so noble in her -mourning, so disdainfully proud as she looked at him with a glance of -intense sorrow, his heart was tormented with an immense desolation, and -holding and caressing her hands like a child, he wept bigger tears than -he had ever wept. Holding his hands in hers and sitting beside him Maria -wept without sobs, and her tears coursed silently down her face while -she bowed her head in silence, as if unable to pronounce a single word.</p> - -<p>“Everything is finished, Maria, everything,” sighed Marco.</p> - -<p>She was silent. Her tears ceased the first, but her face was composed in -a febrile pallor. He kept lamenting brokenly, “Finished, all is -finished,” like the burden of a death agony. Slowly their embrace -relaxed. For some moments they found nothing to say. But again her pale -worn face agonised his heart.</p> - -<p>“Maria, I have loved you deeply!” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“I know it,” she replied gravely. “Your love has given sun to my life, -and its reflection and warmth will remain with me till death.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never love a woman again like you,<a name="page_70" id="page_70"></a> Maria, who have been all -mine,” he said desolately.</p> - -<p>“None, Marco,” continued Maria, lowering her eyelids to hide the -expression of her eyes, “and so it ought to be.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never forget you, you who have been all my ardour and -sweetness,” he added, still desolately.</p> - -<p>“You ought not to forget me, dear love of mine, you ought not to.”</p> - -<p>“Well then, Maria, why is everything ended?”</p> - -<p>“For this reason,” she replied enigmatically.</p> - -<p>“I want to love you all my life passionately.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t possible, it isn’t possible. Love doesn’t last for life. Life -is so long, love is so short.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, what sadness, Maria! what sadness! I shall never console myself.”</p> - -<p>“I too shall never console myself, Marco, never.”</p> - -<p>Again they were silent, desperate and bowed down beneath their fate, as -if separated by an iron wall and divided in soul, incapable of passing -over or breaking down that wall. They felt as well the weight of time -which was falling on their heads, and the mortal tedium which was -enveloping them in that so far profitless conversation.</p> - -<p>He felt the uselessness of tears and words, and with a renewal of life -said—</p> - -<p>“What shall we do, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Our duty,” she replied severely.<a name="page_71" id="page_71"></a></p> - -<p>“To whom have we a duty to fulfil, Maria? To what?”</p> - -<p>“We have a duty first of all to ourselves, Marco. And that is to live in -truth and liberty of soul. Since our love is ended and our dream of -happiness is <i>over</i>, let us not lie an instant longer, and separate.”</p> - -<p>“For ever, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“For ever, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I never see you again, my friend?”</p> - -<p>“I shall not see you, and you will not seek me. We will fly as far as we -can and ought from each other.”</p> - -<p>“That is very cruel, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is very cruel, but it has to be done.”</p> - -<p>“I shall suffer very much, because, apart from passion and love, you are -very dear to me.”</p> - -<p>“You are very dear to me, my friend,” she added, with a fresh veil of -sorrow in her voice, “but it is necessary.”</p> - -<p>“But what will become of me, Maria? Tell me. What will become of me? -What shall I do? Where shall I go to lie me down? How will my life go -on? Where shall I tie it that the knot does not come undone?”</p> - -<p>She did not reply at once. Her eyes were closed as if to concentrate her -thoughts, and her mouth was firm as if to close her words; her hands, -loaded with jewels, were crossed over her knees in a familiar gesture.<a name="page_72" id="page_72"></a></p> - -<p>“Maria, Maria, I have come purposely to ask you this, because you ought -to tell me, because I do not know and you do. What will become of me -without you? What shall I do with my soul? What shall I do with my days? -Maria, think of me. Succour me, my friend, my sister, source of all my -comfort. Tell me, tell me.”</p> - -<p>A shadow of a smile, a bitter shadow of a smile, traced itself on Maria -Guasco’s lips at the uneasiness of the man’s convulsed conscience.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said, softly and slowly, “after doing our duty towards -ourselves in separating, we have to accomplish it towards others, -Marco.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>She looked him squarely in the eyes, and said—</p> - -<p>“You will marry Vittoria Casalta, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“You will marry her; she loves you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t love her.”</p> - -<p>“What does it matter? Thousands of marriages are made so. She has loved -you for years, and you were betrothed. You have betrayed her. She has -waited, and she is a patient creature. She has waited, and, see, she was -right to wait.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t marry her with a heart devastated by passion, with an -unconsolable regret.”</p> - -<p>“Marco, hearts are healed. Yours will heal. Regrets go to sleep at the -bottom of the soul, and one day you will wake up consoled. You ought to -marry Vittoria Casalta.”<a name="page_73" id="page_73"></a></p> - -<p>“Ought I to?”</p> - -<p>“You ought to. She has suffered for you. She doesn’t deserve to suffer. -She is good, they say; I don’t know. Anyhow, she has suffered. Since -your heart is empty, and your spirit has no goal, since your soul has no -pasture, fill your heart with charity towards a sufferer, give an -affectionate scope to your existence, create a pleasing duty of -reparation, and heal the wounds you have made by marrying Vittoria -Casalta.”</p> - -<p>Maria spoke in a low voice, slowly, but suggestively and persuasively. -Marco’s face grew paler and his lips were white. He recognised that an -immense effort was uplifting her courage to say all that she was saying, -and he regarded her with profound admiration as he touched her hand -lightly to kiss it, which he did almost timorously. A cry escaped his -breast.</p> - -<p>“Maria, I can’t be happy with Vittoria Casalta.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t be; that is true. You have been happy, too happy perhaps. You -can’t be happy again. And what does it matter? Content yourself in -giving happiness to her who has suffered so much for you. That is a -great deal.”</p> - -<p>“That will not suffice for me, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“You want too much from life, Marco,” she said, shaking her head; “you -must give something instead. Vittoria Casalta has suffered secret -torture for three years. You ought to marry her to sweeten her existence -and render her happiness.”<a name="page_74" id="page_74"></a></p> - -<p>He became silent and thoughtful, and she, who was used to reading almost -the ideas of his mind on his forehead, saw the doubt there.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria desires nothing else but to pardon you and open her arms to -you, Marco.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her, but did not reply. An almost definite silence fell -between them. This part of their conversation was concluded. It seemed -as if there was nothing else to be said; that they understood each -other. Marco was the first to express this feeling.</p> - -<p>“And you, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“I, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you. What will you do?”</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders in an act of complete indifference, and did -not reply.</p> - -<p>“Will you return to your husband?”</p> - -<p>“I shall return,” she said coldly.</p> - -<p>“Will you return willingly, Maria?” he exclaimed sorrowfully, but -without a trace of anger in his voice.</p> - -<p>“Not willingly. I am going to return because I ought to.”</p> - -<p>“Won’t you suffer in returning? Tell me, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“I shall suffer, that is true,” she declared precisely, “but I ought to -suffer, it seems. I have been intoxicated with happiness and liberty, my -friend. One pays for such things. Here I am ready to pay.”<a name="page_75" id="page_75"></a></p> - -<p>“How will you live with him?”</p> - -<p>“As I can. I shall do my best, and shall try to do my duty. Emilio, too, -has suffered through my betrayal. In returning to him I must do what I -can to make him forget his suffering.”</p> - -<p>“But you don’t love him.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t love him, and I can’t love him again. I am exhausted. My heart -has lived as much as it can, and it can do no more. But I can, however, -have great pity for him, great sweetness, and great friendship to make -him forget the torture I have inflicted on him.”</p> - -<p>Again, before the force of energy which was exalting her and with which -she was struggling, Marco felt a great emotion invade him, a melancholy -enthusiasm for the moral martyrdom which she was enduring, and forgot -his own immense pain. And anew a lament escaped his lips.</p> - -<p>“Poor Maria!”</p> - -<p>“Ah, pity me, pity me; you are right!” she cried, twisting her hands in -agitation, “I am an unfortunate.”</p> - -<p>“We are two unfortunates!” he exclaimed, taking her to his arms and -kissing her on her hair and eyes.</p> - -<p>She repelled him, and drying her tears composed herself.</p> - -<p>But he, as he felt the moments of their last meeting flying, and the -unsupportable pain of a farewell which was rending his soul, resisted -the more.<a name="page_76" id="page_76"></a></p> - -<p>“Maria, Maria, let us remain together, I implore you.”</p> - -<p>“No, Marco, no.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t live without you, my love.”</p> - -<p>“You deceive yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I see myself dying if I leave you, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“You deceive yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I still want you. I want you always.”</p> - -<p>“You deceive yourself.”</p> - -<p>“I love you, Maria. I swear it; I love you.”</p> - -<p>“You lie!” she cried, with a voice vibrant with anger and with a -heightened complexion.</p> - -<p>“I love you, I love you,” he cried more weakly.</p> - -<p>“You lie! You lie!”</p> - -<p>“I love you,” he murmured, with lowered eyes.</p> - -<p>“Have you understood that you are lying?” she said. “Be silent.”</p> - -<p>So all was ended. Even this last rebellion of Marco’s soul evaporated, -leaving him cold and dumb. His very torment, given its supreme grief, -seemed to quieten into torpor. The large emotions which he had just -experienced left him exhausted with a disgust of himself and life. White -and done up he lay upon the sofa scarcely noticing the woman at his -side. She herself, spent by the long spiritual struggle maintained with -herself and him, lay with closed mouth, her beautiful chestnut hair with -its deep shining waves had fallen about her neck, and her head had -fallen forward listlessly.<a name="page_77" id="page_77"></a> Each was far away, full of thought and -sorrow for the new life so uncertain and doubtful which was presenting -itself to their gaze, and each was trying to read the unknown words of -their new fate.</p> - -<p>Both felt themselves in the great obscurity to be without energy, to -have spent everything, to have lost all in the high crisis of -detachment.</p> - -<p>How long this sad absorption lasted they did not know.</p> - -<p>It was already dusk when Maria started, and desired that everything -should be ended fittingly between them. Silently she rose and giving him -her hand led him into the bedroom, to the room which had been theirs. -Near the bed, upon a background of dark-blue velvet, an old crucifix of -yellowish ivory was hanging, and the face of the Martyr was full of -profound and yet serene sorrow.</p> - -<p>She looked at the Christ who had died for love and duty, for the desire -of the salvation of every suffering soul.</p> - -<p>“Do you remember, Marco, we did not dare to invoke the blessing of -Maria, the most pure, on our love, but before Him who understood all and -pardoned all, who was God, but was also man, who sees all, and who -raised all to heaven, we asked Jesus to consecrate our knot?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Maria,” he murmured, regarding the anguished but tranquil face of -the Son of man.</p> - -<p>“Before Him we united ourselves for life and<a name="page_78" id="page_78"></a> death. I obtained your -promise of love and fidelity, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“I have kept it, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“It is not our fault if the knot is undone, if our eternity has only -lasted three years. That is outside us, Marco. But we were faithful, and -if love has deserted us it means that life is fleeting, and that human -forces are weak. We were as faithful as we could be. I have loved you, -Marco, above everything and everybody.”</p> - -<p>“And so have I loved you, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Well, let us release ourselves to-day before Him, suffering profoundly, -but knowing that we have done what is possible to be worthy of our -passion, having never lied, having never deceived. Let us release -ourselves, suffering like Him, but with the knowledge that this -suffering is not useless, dedicating it as we do to the consolation of -others, to the happiness of others.”</p> - -<p>“Let it be so, Maria,” he said piously.</p> - -<p>They stood a little in silence before the crucifix, as if praying -mentally. A sigh escaped Maria Guasco’s tired bosom.</p> - -<p>“I shall keep all I have of yours, Maria,” he murmured in a weak and -tremulous voice, “I could never separate myself from them.”</p> - -<p>“Nor I, Marco.”</p> - -<p>In truth their anguish had become unbearable, they had cruelly prolonged -their martyrdom.<a name="page_79" id="page_79"></a></p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Marco!” she exclaimed almost inaudibly, bending her head on -his shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Good-bye, Maria,” he said, with a short but almost frenzied embrace.</p> - -<p>“<i>Toujours</i>, <i>toujours</i>, Marco,” she said once again brokenly.</p> - -<p>“<i>Toujours</i>, Maria, <i>toujours</i>,” he replied desperately.</p> - -<p>Then he left.</p> - -<p>She heard nothing. She knew about herself, about the whole world -revolving in its immense concentration around her, but every sense of -persons, of space, and of time was ignored by her for several hours in -that deserted room. When she awoke from this long absence from life, she -found nothing within her but bitterness, such a great bitterness that it -seemed as if her body and soul had been poisoned for ever. Since all -that had seemed lasting to her and alone worthy to be lasting was -dispersed and finished with, since the only lofty outstanding reason of -life—love—was ended, she felt a nauseating disgust of that mediocre -thing, existence, with its false and fugitive sensations.</p> - -<p>Marco went as one mad through the streets of Rome, already gloomy with -falling night, and swept by chilly winds beneath the low nocturnal -clouds. For some time he wandered aimlessly, like a dead leaf detached -from a tree, and felt himself<a name="page_80" id="page_80"></a> dispersed in the shadowy cold and -solitude. He felt it useless to call for aid, since the only thing which -could succour him—love—was dead. He felt that he too was dead, and -that he could never rise again.<a name="page_81" id="page_81"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II<br /><br /> -<small>THE PARDON</small></h2> - -<h3><a name="I-2" id="I-2"></a>I</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Whisperings</span>, now slow now more frequent, filled the top of the church -dedicated to Santa Maria del Popolo, where the guests invited to the -wedding were gathered before the high altar, while the rest of the large -central nave preserved the usual solitude and silence of Roman temples. -Around the high altar were placed large clumps of palms, and white -azaleas with such a wealth of bloom that they seemed as white as snow, -without the shadow of a leaf between flower and flower. Some soft dark -carpets descended from the altar as far as the first row of seats. The -rest of the church, the greater part of it, which it would have been -vain to decorate, kept its cold, marbled, and imposing aspect.</p> - -<p>Now and then the guests, politely restraining their impatience, turned -towards the great door, which was open to the limpid spring sky, to -watch if the couple, already late, had arrived. Compared with the -vastness of the church, and in spite of<a name="page_82" id="page_82"></a> their large numbers, they -seemed a very small group near the high altar in an oasis of plants and -flowers.</p> - -<p>All the relations of Casa Fiore were there, together with the Casalta, -who are not Romans but Neapolitans, of remote Neapolitan origin but -living in Rome for two or three generations. Many had come from the -outskirts of Rome, from Umbria and Campania, to be present at the -marriage of Marco Fiore and Vittoria Casalta, a marriage so resisted by -fate that for a time it had seemed quite broken off, but which had at -last become a reality. There was much whispering over the strange story, -the lateness of the couple, and the great size of the church.</p> - -<p>“How has the bridegroom behaved during this second betrothal?”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly.”</p> - -<p>“Is he very much in love?”</p> - -<p>“Full of affection.”</p> - -<p>“Enamoured?”</p> - -<p>“With ideal delicacy.”</p> - -<p>“How large this church is!”</p> - -<p>“But beautiful.”</p> - -<p>“The church of Lucretia Borgia, is it not?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. You know that Gregorovius has rehabilitated Lucretia?”</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you cold?”</p> - -<p>“Very cold; I would gladly go out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, they’ll come, they’ll come.”<a name="page_83" id="page_83"></a></p> - -<p>“They are thirty-five minutes late.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think that a lot? At the marriage of Giovanella Farnese we had -to wait nearly an hour.”</p> - -<p>“What bad form; don’t you think so?”</p> - -<p>“Is it true that the bride is very happy?”</p> - -<p>“Diamine! Hasn’t she waited four years for the faithless one!”</p> - -<p>“Only patient women are right in this world.”</p> - -<p>“Does she show her happiness? I want to see her face as she comes into -church.”</p> - -<p>“You will gather nothing from it; you know that Vittoria is most -reserved.”</p> - -<p>“Too reserved; she is icy, like this church.”</p> - -<p>“But why not have the marriage in Santa Maria della Vittoria? It is a -small church and beautiful.”</p> - -<p>“It belongs to Casa Colonna, and the Colonna reserve it for their own -marriages.”</p> - -<p>“Hush! Hush! Here they come!”</p> - -<p>Suddenly the whispering ceased; the notes of the organ sounded, heavy -and sonorous, waking all the echoes of the church. It was an organ -placed up above, on the epistle side of the altar, and the organist was -invisible from below. He ought to have been signaled to, for from his -invisible hands on the stops escaped the profound and solemn melody of -Beethoven’s wedding march, so that every one rose to their feet to -honour the bridal pair, who surely had reached the church door<a name="page_84" id="page_84"></a> at that -moment, to be accompanied on their procession to the high altar by -Beethoven’s music, which is a noble greeting and invitation, the -expression of fine desire, and the satisfaction of a strong and calm -affection.</p> - -<p>The well-known notes rolled along among the arches of Santa Maria del -Popolo. The guests stood silent and attentive behind their seats, but -still no one entered. The march continued in its beauty and gravity; the -tones grew less and were extinguished. Silence reigned again. With a -noise somewhat louder and whisperings a little stronger, the guests—the -Ottoboni, Savelli, Farnese, Aldrobrandini, Caracciolo del Sole, -Carafa—reseated themselves. The top of the church took more than ever -the familiar appearance of a drawing-room. Groups were formed and seats -were turned round; there was even a little laughter. In the midst of the -general distraction the couple and their escort quite suddenly passed up -the church and reached the high altar, greeted by none and unaccompanied -by the music.</p> - -<p>“That’s an entry missed!” exclaimed Gianni Provana, with a slight and -amiable grin.</p> - -<p class="c">* * * * * * * * </p> - -<p>In the white cloud of her satin dress and in the fleecy white cloud of -her veil, the bride knelt at a <i>prie-dieu</i> of brown carved wood on which -had been placed a cushion of dark-red velvet. On this cushion she placed -her bouquet of orange-blossoms<a name="page_85" id="page_85"></a> with its long white satin ribbon, and -while the religious rite proceeded read from her Prayer-book, a little -book bound in white and silver brocade; and her blonde head was slightly -bent as she read. The bridegroom was kneeling beside her at another -<i>prie-dieu</i>, also with bent head, thoughtful and collected. The Fiore -have a long reputation for religious piety in the family, and perhaps -conquered by the moment he was praying like a Christian to his God.</p> - -<p>After the function had begun he glanced two or three times at Vittoria -almost questioningly, for according to Italian tradition he had not led -her to the altar. As she had no father alive she had been brought by her -eldest brother, and at the house he had only exchanged a rapid greeting -in the presence of everybody. Marco looked at his bride to read her -thoughts and measure her emotions, but Vittoria’s face, in its -indefinably white and virginal purity, had the virtue of never, or -scarcely ever, revealing the secret which was weighing on the mind. She -kept her eyes bent over the pages of her Prayer-book, and, as she -repeated the words of the prayers, her delicate and sinuous lips, -accustomed to silence and mystery, scarcely seemed to move.</p> - -<p>The special moment arrived. Interrupting the Mass, after the first -Gospel, before the Elevation, the celebrant turned to the couple and -summoned them to him. They rose from their knees, and<a name="page_86" id="page_86"></a> mounted the two -steps of the sanctuary, where they prostrated themselves. Fabrizio -Ottobone, the master of the ceremonies, placed himself beside them, a -tall, thin old man, with flowing whiskers, and in spite of his age a -very good figure. The usual form of marriage rite proceeded very slowly. -Vittoria’s right hand was still gloved, and at a word whispered in her -ear by Fabrizio Ottobone, she tried to take the glove off quickly. Not -succeeding she tore at it and stripped it off her fingers, and at last -the little right hand was stretched on that of Marco Fiore’s. The priest -pronounced the sacred words which demand the assent of the man and the -woman, and when obtained he declared them united in the name of God. The -little hand was closed in Marco’s; he felt it tremble like a leaf. He -pressed it in vain, as if to give it the strength of a promise and the -support of an oath, and yet the little hand trembled incessantly.</p> - -<p>Marco looked at his wife intently. On her pure face, in every beautiful -line, in the fold of the fine taciturn mouth, and in the limpid and -clear eyes he read in a flash such anguish mixed with hope; he read -there anxiety, uncertainty, and fear, so that all his man’s heart filled -with pity for her loving, suffering, and fearing. An immense pity welled -in his heart, and not being able at that moment to speak a single word -to her, he bent his head and prayed with all his might to have the power -to console the woman who loved him.<a name="page_87" id="page_87"></a></p> - -<p>Meanwhile, after completing the nuptial union, the priest stepped back -to the altar to continue the Mass, and the couple, now bound for life, -returned to their places. The organ again played music well known to all -feeling souls. After the first chords from the invisible organist had -sounded a cantor took his place, also invisible, but whose sonorous -voice diffused itself throughout the church, and was listened to with a -sigh of satisfaction by those who recognised the sympathetic timbre of a -well-known tenor. He sang the <i>aria di chiesa</i> of Alessandro Stradella. -It is a prayer offered to a God of clemency and mercy, but it is one of -those musical prayers more vibrant in its mortal sadness than the human -voice in its emotional notes can pour forth. With the complacency of an -artiste, and perhaps with sincerity, the famous singer lent to the -lament of Stradella an emphasis more sorrowful and harrowing than ever. -The listeners were taken and subdued by it. Some turned anxiously to the -organ; several women in particular became pale with emotion, and their -eyes were clouded by tears.</p> - -<p>Behind her soft veil Vittoria Casalta let her tears fall silently one by -one down her cheeks, nor did she make the slightest attempt to dry them, -and only Marco could see that silent weeping. He leant towards her a -little.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria, don’t cry.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply, only a slight movement<a name="page_88" id="page_88"></a> of the hand to ask his -silence, to ask him not to bother about her crying. He became silent. -But up above the unseen, but not unknown, singer kept on singing -passionately the prayer, so singular for a wedding-day, with its -peculiar and painful words: “<i>Pietà, Signore, di me dolente.</i>” Again all -hearts were touched and all souls secretly struck, for there were in -that society, rich and almost scintillating with exterior happiness, and -among those exquisitely dressed women covered with jewels, many who had -suffered, and all such felt the power of the melody, where the soul -cries to her God in waves of agony.</p> - -<p>The bride continued to weep silently.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria, you must not cry!” murmured Marco Fiore softly, but with -virile energy in his low voice. She made a slight nod of obedience; -gradually her tears dried, and her face became composed. Stradella’s air -was finished, the song gave forth its last sobs, and silence reigned -again. But in the silence there was a sigh of bitterness from some -breast still oppressed; among the rest almost a feeling of relief and a -subdued whispering.</p> - -<p>“What a singer, that Varisco!”</p> - -<p>“Divine.”</p> - -<p>“He makes such an impression on me.”</p> - -<p>“That air of Stradella’s is so beautiful.”</p> - -<p>“But what an idea to sing such an air at a marriage!”</p> - -<p>“It is sung everywhere.”<a name="page_89" id="page_89"></a></p> - -<p>“But it is too, too sad.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think matrimony such a gay matter?”</p> - -<p>“Does this seem to you the moment to say such a thing?”</p> - -<p>“Well, why did you cry?”</p> - -<p>“Crying does one good every now and then.”</p> - -<p>“In my time we laughed at weddings.”</p> - -<p>“Now we manage better.”</p> - -<p>“Be quiet, be quiet, it is the Elevation.”</p> - -<p>At a hint which reached him the celebrant hurried the end of the Mass. -It was late; the young couple had delayed so much, and the day had been -completely disorganised thereby. A baritone sang in haste the <i>O -Salutaris Hostia</i>, and was scarcely listened to; the special marriage -prayers before the second Gospel were said with much rapidity. Every one -had the air of wanting to get up and leave even before it was time to do -so, since they had been in church nearly two hours. There was a sound of -chairs being moved, and even some footsteps resounded on the marble -pavement before the end. The procession was again formed at the high -altar. This time the bridegroom gave his arm to the bride, and, after -having kissed their nearest relations, they descended the steps of the -altar together. Marco Fiore’s slightly fragile good looks had for some -time assumed a more virile appearance, his physiognomy, which formerly -was gracious and sweet with something feminine in it, was composed<a name="page_90" id="page_90"></a> and -settled in an expression of thought and peace. The bride beside him, -tall, but not too tall, fairly slender with a white face beneath a -shining wave of golden hair, with clear and lively eyes, over which now -and then a cloud seemed to pass, with her little mouth like a closed -flower, seemed made to be supported and protected by the man. As they -proceeded slowly through the church to gather the congratulations and -greetings, the organ sounded again for the last time to accompany them -out.</p> - -<p>It was another march, the one with which the knights and ladies of -Thuringia accompanied Elsa of Brabant and Lohengrin, the son of -Parsifal, to the nuptial chamber. Involuntarily the procession regulated -its step to the rhythm of Wagner’s music, while after it had passed the -whispering began again.</p> - -<p>“Marco Fiore is always sympathetic.”</p> - -<p>“He doesn’t seem exuberantly happy to me.”</p> - -<p>“Do you want him to start dancing?”</p> - -<p>“How charming the bride is!”</p> - -<p>“Poor thing!”</p> - -<p>“Why do you pity her?”</p> - -<p>“I always pity girls who get married.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she is very pretty, it is true, but I prefer <i>the other</i>.”</p> - -<p>“The other? Which other?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you know quite well! Maria Guasco.”</p> - -<p>“Sst! You might be overheard.”<a name="page_91" id="page_91"></a></p> - -<p>“No, no; I liked the other very much. She was a woman.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t raise your voice.”</p> - -<p>“This one is a figure for a picture; I should place her in a frame and -leave her there.”</p> - -<p>“You are very naughty.”</p> - -<p>“Is everything over, then, between Marco and Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Everything, for six or seven months.”</p> - -<p>“Do you believe in this ending?”</p> - -<p>“I? What does it matter what I believe?”</p> - -<p>“Poor girl!”</p> - -<p>“There! You see I was right to pity her.”</p> - -<p>The music, spreading through the large central nave, still followed the -bridal couple and the long procession of guests with its sonorous and -precise notes. No word passed between them, and they contented -themselves with a handshake to the good wishes which accompanied their -passage; only at a certain point it seemed to Vittoria as if Marco’s -face was troubled by a secret idea crossing his spirit. Suddenly her -little white-gloved hand imperceptibly held his arm on which she was -leaning, as she asked him with a tremor in her voice—</p> - -<p>“Marco, what is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” he replied, seized by his secret and obscure thought.</p> - -<p>Wagner’s music seemed to exhale a powerful and settled joy which rocked -the deep love of Elsa<a name="page_92" id="page_92"></a> and Lohengrin, and spoke to them of a future of -soft and constant passion, even until death. But Marco’s face became -more clouded, as if his secret imaginings had mastered him.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter, Marco?” Vittoria asked again a little anxiously, -holding him back almost at the threshold of the church, as if she was -unwilling to proceed further without an explanation.</p> - -<p>“It is the music!” he exclaimed, sadly turning his head the other way.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed without further comment, becoming exceedingly pale.</p> - -<p>Vittoria had to suppose, with her cruel and devouring internal -suspicion, that the music brought recollections of a former time to her -husband, of other things, of another person. Her fine and tender mouth -closed as if sealed hermetically, and she assumed her aspect of a flower -dead and closed.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile outside the view spread itself beneath the caressing April -sun. The bright, fresh, blue vault of the sky arched itself from the Via -Flaminia to the grandiose Piazza del Popolo, and far away the cypresses -of Monte Mario, from amidst the green of the Farnesina, bathed by the -twisting Tiber, hurled themselves against the almost quivering -firmament, while on the left rose the Pincio, with its groves already in -leaf. The large fountain in the middle of the Piazza del Popolo raised -its monumental marbles which time had obscured<a name="page_93" id="page_93"></a> nobly, while its waters -fell back into the basin in soft spray. In the background the three -roads which lead to Rome spread out like a fan; the Corso in the middle, -the via di Ripetta on the right, and on the left the via del Babuino.</p> - -<p>The morning joy was so complete that the Piazza del Popolo and adjoining -streets, often so austerely solitary, now showed a great animation with -the movement of passers-by and carriages.</p> - -<p>Even the newly-married couple, once outside the large and glacial temple -and in the fresh air beneath the enchanting vault of the sky, felt a -flutter of exaltation raise their hearts, on which life had already left -its traces. That atmosphere of gaiety, so like their flourishing youth, -encompassed them, and the usual magnificent allurement of the spring -drew them and merged them in its gentle and fervid train. Every -recollection vanished, all the wounds seemed healed, and together they -began to believe again in life. Blushing Vittoria heard the people’s -exclamation of admiration as she got into the carriage: her veil thrown -back disclosed the white forehead, and a soft smile appeared on her -lips.</p> - -<p>To the tender pity which Marco Fiore felt for the comely girl he had -married a quarter of an hour ago, by the rite which no human hand can -dissolve till death, there was united a kind of feeling of masculine -pride, a feeling as it were of a great mission to be accomplished worthy -of an<a name="page_94" id="page_94"></a> upright and affectionate heart. Their two hands joined and their -glances spoke of a common hope, of a common faith.</p> - -<p>The carriage entered the Corso and the ample and exultant view vanished, -and only a little narrow strip of cloud appeared between the big austere -palaces. They drove towards the Palazzo Casalta in via della Botteghe -Oscure. They were silent now. The two hands little by little -disentangled themselves naturally from their pressure, nor did they -rejoin. Both looked out of the window. As if she were speaking in a -dream, Vittoria asked—</p> - -<p>“That last wedding music displeased you, Marco?”</p> - -<p>He trembled, and replied suddenly, “Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Will you tell me why, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“Why do you ask so many things, little Vittoria?” he said sweetly; “it -doesn’t do to ask so much.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me, tell me, Marco,” she insisted anxiously.</p> - -<p>“You are like Elsa,” he murmured, shaking his head.</p> - -<p>“What did Elsa do, Marco? She loved Lohengrin passionately.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, little Vittoria, passionately. But she was not content with loving -him without asking anything more. <i>She wanted to know.</i>”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed, growing pale.<a name="page_95" id="page_95"></a></p> - -<p>“Instead of loving she wanted to know who her spouse was.”</p> - -<p>“Wasn’t she right, perhaps?” said Vittoria, trembling a little.</p> - -<p>“She was wrong,” replied Marco gravely; “she had to love—that was -all—blindly and humbly. Wherefore Elsa’s imperfect and incomplete love -led her to deception, to betrayal, and to abandonment.”</p> - -<p>Vittoria bit her little lip silently, as if to restrain a secret sigh.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you ever heard Lohengrin, little Vittoria?” murmured Marco, as -if speaking to an imaginary being; “at a certain point, in the nuptial -chamber, near his loving and faithful wife, the valiant knight discovers -the ambuscade of which Elsa is herself an accomplice. Have you never -heard, Vittoria, Lohengrin’s lament, deceived and betrayed an hour after -the marriage? His dumb cry of delusion and bitterness? The dream of love -was over and had vanished. Vittoria, I never could hear that cry without -feeling my heart break.”</p> - -<p>“That is why, Marco, you suffered when that music accompanied us from -the church?”</p> - -<p>“That is why, Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>“But why was that wedding march played? It is a funeral march, Marco. -Why did they play it?” she asked convulsively, bending over him.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” he replied desolately.<a name="page_96" id="page_96"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="II-2" id="II-2"></a>II</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> descending from the carriage in the noisy station among the crowd -which the train from Florence was pouring forth, Donna Maria hesitated a -moment, and behind her soft black veil her eyes seemed to be looking for -some one. Her maid, carrying shawls and parcels, stood a few steps away -from her. Discovering no one she made a resolute movement and opened a -way for herself through the crowd, when a gentleman approached and -greeted her, taking her hand to kiss it.</p> - -<p>“Welcome, Donna Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Good-evening, Provana,” she replied with cold courtesy, “what are you -doing here?”</p> - -<p>“I have come to meet you,” he said, surprised at the question.</p> - -<p>“Very kind of you,” she replied, thanking him with a bow.</p> - -<p>She approached the exit with him, followed at two or three steps’ -distance by her maid. A servant of Casa Guasco was there; he touched his -hat, and inquired after the luggage. Maria drily directed the man to her -maid.</p> - -<p>“The carriage is here too,” said Gianni fussily.<a name="page_97" id="page_97"></a></p> - -<p>“You are very kind,” she said.</p> - -<p>The great electric lights illuminated the arrival place, and Gianni -looked at her intently. The morbid and slightly proud grace of Maria’s -face seemed unchanged with its faintly rosy complexion, the large eyes -were closed purposely as if absorbed in their interior life. Her -undulating figure, even in its simple travelling costume, preserved its -fascination. Perhaps her glance was less vivid, and the lines of her -face were less decided, nor was the expression of the proud mouth quite -so firm, little changes due to fatigue, which in fact gave her an air of -languor, new and strangely attractive in her.</p> - -<p>She did not speak to Gianni as he accompanied her to the coupé, a new -and elegant carriage. Before entering she hesitated slightly, and turned -to take leave of him. He bowed politely, and asked—</p> - -<p>“Will you allow me to accompany you home?”</p> - -<p>“Do you think it necessary?”</p> - -<p>“To accomplish my duty,” he affirmed, with veiled insistence.</p> - -<p>“If it is a duty, yes,” she consented coldly.</p> - -<p>The door was closed on them. By the brightness of the electric light -Maria discovered a bunch of flowers in the pocket in front of her.</p> - -<p>“Are they yours?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“No, I wouldn’t allow myself,” he murmured, with a smile. “They are -Emilio’s; he has<a name="page_98" id="page_98"></a> thought of everything. For several days he has busied -himself with nothing but your return.”</p> - -<p>“You busy yourselves together, it seems to me,” she said, with a -fleeting tinge of irony.</p> - -<p>“If you like. Emilio considers me, perhaps unworthily, one of the -authors of your return. Is he wrong?”</p> - -<p>“He is wrong,” she replied precisely.</p> - -<p>A silence fell between them. In spite of his wit and scepticism Gianni -Provana always felt the distance at which the woman held him, and the -confused repugnance, a repugnance sometimes cruelly apparent, with which -he inspired her.</p> - -<p>“Because of this false idea of his, then,” resumed Provana, “Emilio -wished to organise your return with me.”</p> - -<p>“And he sent you to the station?”</p> - -<p>“He sent me to the station.”</p> - -<p>“It was useless.”</p> - -<p>“Ought you to have found no one?”</p> - -<p>“I ought to have found Emilio,” she said in a low voice, as if to -herself. There was a heavy moment of silence.</p> - -<p>“Such a meeting, Donna Maria, in public after what has happened! You -understand?” he murmured.</p> - -<p>“I understand; be silent,” she rejoined, with a decisive gesture.</p> - -<p>For some time the carriage proceeded on its way without either speaking. -Perhaps, in spite of his<a name="page_99" id="page_99"></a> tenacity, hidden under an appearance of -graciousness and indifference, the man repented of having been involved -in that <i>histoire intime</i>, and perhaps the perverse conception he had of -life counselled him to be quiet, to be patient, and to wait. It was -Maria who resumed the conversation, as the carriage was drawing near its -destination.</p> - -<p>“Is Emilio in Rome?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Is he at home?”</p> - -<p>“He is waiting for you.”</p> - -<p>“You will leave me at the house door, Provana,” she added coldly.</p> - -<p>“Of course, there is no necessity to order me to do it. I will come -to-morrow to greet you.”</p> - -<p>“No, Provana.”</p> - -<p>“Within a few days, then.”</p> - -<p>“The latest possible, and better never.”</p> - -<p>“Never is a big word, Donna Maria. Why don’t you want to see me any -more?”</p> - -<p>“Do you believe that I am what I am, and what I shall always be, a -creature of truth? Do you believe that I have come this evening to -Emilio Guasco’s home, to my husband’s home, to accomplish a solemn act? -Why, then, do you wish me to become a creature of lies? Why, then, do -you wish to make grotesque, doubly grotesque, my act of humility, and my -husband’s act of pardon.”</p> - -<p>“But why ever do you suppose that, Donna Maria?” he asked, a little -confused.<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a></p> - -<p>“I suppose what is, Provana; that it may please you hugely to be the -lover of your best friend’s wife, that it may please you to preserve a -friendship with the husband and love the wife; that you have a horror of -scandal, of noise, of open and undeniable betrayal; that the miserable -and nauseating betrayal of every day pleases you with all its lies and -transactions; that for a long time you have known that you wished to do -this to Emilio and to me; that no one upset your plan more than he whom -you know—and in fact that you have begun to hope again in its success.”</p> - -<p>“Every one is allowed to hope for what he ardently desires,” replied -Gianni ambiguously.</p> - -<p>“I shall only have had one love in my life,” she said, in a clear low -voice, “and only one lover. Good-bye, Provana.”</p> - -<p>The carriage had driven round the circle of the courtyard of the Guasco -Palazzo, in via de’Prefetti, and stopped before the peristyle. Bowing -deeply Gianni Provana took his leave, while Maria, preceded by the -servants, mounted the stairs very slowly. An inexorable agitation -pressed deeply on the soul of the woman who, after the intense love -rhapsody in which she had thrown all that was good and bad in her -existence as upon a pyre, was retracing her steps and invoking the -pardon of him whom she had fatally and unjustly injured. Ah, she would -never have returned to the honest, faithful man unless she had seen the -magnificent<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> pyre of her passion extinguished, and her life rendered -mute and deserted by love!</p> - -<p>She had preferred to take time to calm her sorrow, to mature in her -conscience the act of remission and humility she had come to accomplish. -She had passed five months away from Rome in a villa near Florence, -without asking or giving news, and her heart and soul were immersed in a -great contrition. They had felt all the weight of the evil done to -others, of suffering inflicted undeservedly on the innocent. The sublime -idea of reparation had become in Maria so lofty and irrevocable that, at -the end of her exile, she was asking to touch the limit of every -personal sacrifice, if only to console, heal, and make Emilio Guasco -happy again.</p> - -<p>In the solitude which she had imposed on herself, in which she had -prepared herself for the great work—the greatest and most beautiful -work the human soul can accomplish—of giving comfort and happiness, the -figure of Emilio Guasco, by his sufferings and the dignity with which he -had borne them, and the magnanimity with which he had recalled her to -himself, stretching his arms to her in pardon, seemed greater than it -had ever been. From the distance Emilio’s love for her seemed -immeasurable, since it had resisted betrayal, abandonment, and -dishonour. It seemed a different love to her—superior, immovable, -eternal, a love which she had never experienced, and, in<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> fact, she felt -herself unworthy of having inspired. Contrition was breaking, -pulverising, volatilising Maria Guasco’s pride, that secret strength, -sin, and virtue of her life.</p> - -<p>Slowly she reached the head of the stairs, her heart beating more -quickly, as she noticed again the well-known place where she had lived, -where again she had to see the well-known face and hear again the -familiar voice. She realised that she was holding in her convulsed hand -two existences.</p> - -<p>Maria had no other feeling as she placed her feet on the threshold of -what had been her home, and was to become so again, except that of the -humility of the repentant sinner. All her being was humility. She was -begging pardon for the sin committed, and for the pardon was offering in -exchange the dedication of a soul, the dedication of a life.</p> - -<p>In the large ante-room, with its dark-carved panels, the two servants -left their mistress, and retired to the other side of the living rooms. -Once alone her trembling increased, and she seemed to be falling. Where, -then, was Emilio, her husband and judge, her husband and her victim, who -had not had the strength to meet her at the station, whom at any rate -she had expected to find at the threshold? With an effort of will she -kept her step firm, and crossed the drawing-room and the little -drawing-room. Both rooms were deserted, and so was her bright boudoir.<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> -Where was Emilio? A singular thought crossed her brain, which she -rejected as soon as she had accepted it, as she perceived him through -the open door of his study, standing by his large writing-table holding -in his hand, but not reading, a newspaper. The room was less illuminated -than the others, and the lamps were shaded in green, but if it had been -inundated with the light of the sun Maria would have noticed nothing, so -veiled were her eyes and scattered her senses. However, she advanced -towards him, where he was waiting silently for the proper word from her. -In spite of her horrible trembling, she turned to him contritely with -the sincerest repentance; bending her head and stretching out her hands -to him. With a very white face, she exclaimed in unspeakable humility—</p> - -<p>“Emilio, I ask your pardon.”</p> - -<p>If her knees were not bent nor the body prostrated, the soul was -prostrated, waiting for the complete pardon, for the word that absolves, -the act that cancels, the gesture that redeems. The woman listened -humbly without looking at him.</p> - -<p>“I pardon you, Maria,” said the man.</p> - -<p>Maria raised her eyes and fixed them on Emilio Guasco, and waited; but -he did not look at her, neither did he move. An immense silence, an -enormous distance seemed to have come between the man and the woman.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="III-2" id="III-2"></a>III</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">After</span> having helped her into a soft white silk robe and laced her shoes, -Chiara, the faithful maid, looked at Donna Maria, expecting orders. It -was late, past eleven, and as they had been travelling weariness was -overwhelming both. After thinking for an instant, Maria said to Chiara—</p> - -<p>“Braid my hair.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Chiara, with the slightest movement of surprise. Chiara -had forgotten the old custom. Formerly, when she had entered the service -of Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti about six months after her marriage, -every evening, whether her young mistress went out or not, sometimes -even after a theatre or a ball, Chiara had to undo the great thick mass -of chestnut hair, taking out the combs and pins, and having combed the -magnificent tresses with an almost caressing movement of the brush and -comb, she had to gather them into a long plait, tieing it at the end -with a white silk ribbon, while a similar ribbon went round the head in -a bow on top. This gave Maria an exceedingly young, almost girlish -appearance. When Maria had fled from Casa Guasco with<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> Marco Fiore, and -had cloistered her life in the little villa at Santa Maria Maggiore, -where Chiara followed her in blind devotion and obedience, the tresses -were no longer unloosed by the girl’s expert hands and bound in a plait. -Such a fashion perhaps no longer pleased Donna Maria, as she remembered -the house she had left, or more likely it did not please her lover, -whose delight it was to plunge his fingers and face in the soft and -odorous waves of her hair.</p> - -<p>“Make me a plait like you used to, Chiara,” Maria murmured, with her -eyes closed.</p> - -<p>With a slight tinkle the small combs and pins fell on the -crystal-covered toilette table, and that well-known sound seemed to -strike the two women as if the old life had begun again. When she had -finished, Chiara searched for a moment among the silver-topped vials and -ivory boxes.</p> - -<p>“Here is the ribbon,” she said softly.</p> - -<p>The white ribbon was there, as if Chiara had left it the evening before -and four years had not passed, or as if a mysterious hand had placed the -things there as in former times, so that the singular resurrection -should seem like a continuation of life. In every particular Maria found -this secret care that every line and tint should produce the quiet and -persuasive impression of an existence which had had no interruptions, -which was pursuing its development without a break, so that to-day was -like yesterday, like a year ago or seven years ago,<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> and to-morrow and -the day after like yesterday and to-day. Not only had none of the old -furniture been moved, not only had the carpets, portières and curtains -preserved their usual aspect, but they had not even grown old. Not only -did the hundred well-known and familiar objects attract the glance with -the sympathetic fidelity of inanimate objects, but they gave more than -ever the sense of unelapsed time, of objects viewed no later than -yesterday, and to-day found again sympathetically in their place. Maria -found again a little antique clock on a small table near her bed, with -the hours marked in blue figures, which she had left on her departure -and missed. It was ticking lightly and pointed to half-past eleven, as -if it had never ceased to go in all the time that had passed. In some -vases there were large bunches of grass, and green leaves without a -flower, such as she always liked to have in her bedroom, seeking out the -grasses most peculiar and delicate in form, and the leaves the most -varied in colour and marking. Formerly she did not care for the perfume -of flowers in her bedroom, fearing its insidious poison; but the green -of gardens and meadows, of fields and mountains, the healthy green of -leaves and grasses pleased her simple open spirit, her sane and -beautiful youth. The ink was fresh in the pen on the writing-table, just -as if her last letter had been written an instant ago, and near by was a -book in a dark-green binding,<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> a book unfinished with the marker in its -place—<i>Salammbo</i>, of Gustave Flaubert.</p> - -<p>Thus Donna Maria had the feeling of the abolition of time.</p> - -<p>“Does Your Excellency want anything else?” asked Chiara, mechanically -uttering the words of formerly which had returned to her memory.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, Chiara; good-night.”</p> - -<p>In greeting her maid Maria’s voice trembled with tenderness. For seven -years she had given all her services to Maria, and little by little had -become a friendly and devoted shadow, almost as if she no longer existed -for her own personality. In every peculiar contingency of these seven -years, without speaking, without murmuring, even without judging or -thinking, Chiara had continued to serve and obey—the shadow of Donna -Maria.</p> - -<p>On this day, profound with diverse and contrary sentiments, she returned -with her mistress silently and humbly, like her with a contrite heart, -to the house from which they had fled together, from which they had been -absent so long, and just as Donna Maria strangely began her life again -where it had been interrupted, and time and her deeds had seemed -abolished, so the poor little shadow of a Chiara returned to that which -had been formerly, naturally and tacitly like a faithful shadow.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="IV-2" id="IV-2"></a>IV</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Chiara had disappeared and Donna Maria’s eyes had followed her with -a little thrill of affection and gratitude for so much altruism in a -service requiring such tact, she settled herself in an arm-chair as of -yore. She resumed the novel on Carthage where she had left off, removed -the marker methodically from the open page, and fixed her eyes on the -printed letters, waiting for Emilio, her husband, to come as he used to.</p> - -<p>“He will come now,” thought Maria, as her eyes read about the curious -refinements of the attiring of Salammbo, as she sets off for the field -of the rebels to seize from Matho the veil of Tanith, which he had -stolen.</p> - -<p>However, her reading was but short. There arose in her soul a dull -agitation, which became stronger there where for a moment it had been -lulled, as it seemed to her that nothing had happened, and that her life -had had no break in its continuity; so much so that she awoke from the -calm and peaceful surroundings, speaking of an uninterrupted serenity -from which she had obtained a lingering caress of contentment, as in a -dream,<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> only to be confronted with a reality. How could she read? -<i>Salammbo</i> slid from her knees to the carpet. She rose to her feet, -crossed the large room, approached the closed door and listened if -Emilio were coming towards her, as formerly, even if differently to -formerly so long as he came to that room which had been theirs for -years; that she may confront his eyes, that their glances may unite and -melt together, that she may seize his hand and clasp it with hers, that -she may remember the gentle way he used to open his arms and close her -tenderly to his bosom.</p> - -<p>“I will weep on his bosom,” she said to herself, “he will weep with me; -nothing is better than weeping when we have to pardon and forget, when -we have been pardoned and are invoking forgetfulness.”</p> - -<p>However, the silence in Casa Guasco was supreme, and Donna Maria heard -no step approaching. The boudoir, which preceded her room, was in -half-darkness, lit by a single lamp. On the other side was her husband’s -study, where they had met an hour ago, and where he had remained silent -without following her. The study door was closed. No noise reached from -there.</p> - -<p>“He is working, perhaps,” she thought. Then suddenly a contradiction -arose. “Working? At what? At this hour?”</p> - -<p>Like a spectre Maria re-entered her room, praying for calm against the -heavy disturbance which<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> was again oppressing her. She sat at her desk, -and pressing her burning forehead in her cool hands, endeavoured to -subdue herself, to conquer herself.</p> - -<p>Again the sentiment of humility, with which she had mortified her proud -heart in the months of solitude and repentance which she had passed at -Florence, inundated her soul with pity, with affection, and with loving -charity. She thought of the state of Emilio’s heart, on that day on -which he had accomplished such a noble and tender deed, pardoning a long -and atrocious offence, in which he had given a beautiful proof of -magnanimity, receiving again into his home the traitress, the truant, -who had broken her sacred promises and vows. She thought of how he must -have suffered for four eternal years in the same land, in the same -society, having no comfort of any kind, having no children and in a -deserted house, and of how he must have cursed his destiny and her name.</p> - -<p>She thought of what the pardon he had offered her must have cost him in -intense moral pain, and in powerful moral sacrifice, which she had only -accepted when it was convenient for her to accept it.</p> - -<p>Again, the figure of her husband opposed to her egoism, opposed to her -love folly, opposed to the delirium of her own passion, seemed to grow -large with goodness, and she felt herself mean and unworthy before him. -She felt the need of seeing him,<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> of telling him of her gratitude and -her admiration, since he alone possessed every virtue and energy of -well-doing, while she was a fragile and fallen creature. Thus in the -silence, in her solitude, she evoked the presence of her husband. She -invoked that presence, in order that she might tell him how a whole life -of devotion would compensate for his heroic pardon.</p> - -<p>With fixed eyes Maria stood at the door, all ardour, to see it open -after the invocation. Her contracted face spoke of a heavy anguish, her -sinuous body in its flowing white gown was alert and rigid with waiting. -From not seeing her husband appear, as she had thought, hoped, and -desired, she suffered the more from the profound silence of the house, -from the desert which the house seemed to have become, from that mortal -solitude, but especially from her mortal delusion. She suffered acutely. -And it was intolerance of such torturing waiting, in all its moments of -repression, that exasperated her; she wished through her imperious will -to force the destiny of that long night to change.</p> - -<p>“I will go and seek him,” she said to herself. Once having decided she -crossed the boudoir, reached the door of the study, where she supposed -her husband was closeted, and stooped to knock, even to open it -violently. But her raised hand did not obey the movement suggested by -her will. Quite apart, her feverish and convulsed brain had<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> inspired -her with a shock, with an immense fear.</p> - -<p>“Suppose he were to think.... Suppose he were to think....” she murmured -to herself almost deliriously.</p> - -<p>With scarcely perceptible motion, taking every care not to make the -slightest noise, holding her breath, she turned back, palpitating and -trembling, yet striving to restrain the palpitation and the trembling. -At last she reached her room.</p> - -<p>Throwing herself on the bed she hid her face in the pillow, even -stopping her mouth with it, so that her sobs of bitterness, of fear, and -terror may not be heard. Hers was all the shame of a woman, who suddenly -was fated to tell herself the hard and cruel truth that she was still a -young and beautiful woman, that the man she had sought was still young -and her husband as well, that, although the night was late, he who loved -her surely, since only he who loves pardons, had not come to look for -her dressed as she was as if for a love tryst; but that she had been on -the point of knocking at his door, as if not to beg merely a colloquy of -sadness, of repentance, of tears—not a colloquy of two bruised souls -which sought spiritual healing for their wounds—but a colloquy of love.</p> - -<p>“No, no, no,” she kept on saying, scarcely breathing, with her mouth -against the fine linen of the pillow, fighting against the unjust -accusation of her conscience.<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a></p> - -<p>Unjust! She felt herself perfectly pure from such a transgression, one -of those miserable and mean transgressions of the inner feminine life -which lower and corrupt a woman even to despising herself. Maria had -only had, as she said, one love and one lover only, Marco Fiore, had -only lived with a complete and intense passion for the three years of -separation from Casa Guasco, and at once, but for ever, her heart and -her senses had become a heap of ashes. As she had never wished to divide -her soul and her person between Emilio Guasco and Marco Fiore at the -time of the height of her amorous delirium, as she had forgotten -everything, thrown everything aside to belong to one only, and had burnt -in a single flame all that life had conceded her of love for Marco -Fiore, so she, on returning home, to live again with her husband, had -not for a moment thought that her person ought to be offered and given -again as a sensible and tangible pledge, as a holocaust to the new -conjugal existence. The idea that her husband hearing her knock at that -door, hearing the handle creak, and seeing her appear in her soft -garment, with her look of former times, late at night when he had not -sought her; the idea that he might have believed it a sensual offering, -had aroused in her a tempestuous crisis of shuddering, of shame, and of -fear. Ah, how the lover was finished, was dead in Maria Guasco, dead -with a love which is measured and short, as short as<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> human existence, -far, far shorter than all short affairs of which life is composed and in -which man, alas, desires to place his eternity! Love was over, the lover -was dead, and Maria Guasco felt every glory of the senses extinguished -within her. If her soul and fibres at Venice and Rome had proved the -immeasurable and inconsolable sorrow of her own sentimental and sensual -impotence for her delightful lover, never more could she have love and a -lover—not even her husband, Emilio Guasco.</p> - -<p>“God has nullified and calmed me,” she thought, soothing the anguish of -her spirit little by little. “I can be faithful to the past since I have -been touched by death, and I have entered into an extreme quiet.”</p> - -<p>But the man who was breathing, moving, living his unknown but powerful -life in a room not far from Maria’s, the man who was the first to clasp -her, his legitimate spouse, who had kept for her, even during the -betrayal, even during the abandonment, all his rights as a husband; the -man of whom Maria knew only this absolute and irrefutable right, was he, -too, finished with love and dead to the senses?</p> - -<p>Had the years which were passed withdrawn him from the inebriating -flatteries of passion? Had they withdrawn him from all the burning -impulses of life in its fulness? Was he dead? And if he was not, if he -was alive, of what was he thinking,<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> what was he desiring, what was he -wishing, what could he wish of Maria at the present moment, now so late?</p> - -<p>“He used to love me—he did love me,” she said to herself, lifting -herself from her pillow, absorbed in the intensity of her thoughts.</p> - -<p>And even now Emilio ought to love her. A feminine instinct told the -thoughtful woman this; a precise and clear presentiment repeated it to -her, and every act in daily reality had confirmed it for her, and his -very magnanimity bore testimony to it.</p> - -<p>“Only he loves who pardons,” she thought, in a secret torture which kept -penetrating her spirit. The singular torture, that is, of all those who -do not love, who are unable to love, who could break their hearts, but -who could not place love there, and who, instead, are loved with -tenderness and enthusiasm; the torture, that is, which life inflicts on -thousands and thousands of miserable men and women, inept to love, who -must endure the love of another, endure it coldly, and measure all its -greatness without participating in it, and, in fact, feel all its -weight, all its annoyance, and all its execration!—an ineffable torture -indeed, which up to a certain point sent a rush of fear through Maria’s -excited and sensible fibres. Rising to her feet and gazing with scared -eyes at the door, she feared lest Emilio should appear there, should -come to her enamoured as of yore, even<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> more enamoured, and burning with -precipitous desire. Maria in all that spiritual fever which flowed -through her acutest feelings, her sharpest sensations, retired to the -door of her room and wrung her hands in desperation, not knowing where -to fly from such a danger. And just as she had evoked and invoked that -presence of a good and honourable man which she had rendered so unhappy, -that presence from which she had desired to hear the voice repeat to her -the words of pardon, to let herself pronounce afresh those words of -humility and contrition, so that presence—not one of a brother, not one -of a friend, not of a suffering soul to be consoled and healed—that -presence of a man, of a husband, strong in his love, strong in his -instincts, strong in his right, seemed to her an abyss of abjection, of -perdition, into which she would have fallen with all her pride and all -her womanly dignity.</p> - -<p>“What shall I do; whatever shall I do?” she exclaimed, as if invoking -succour.</p> - -<p>But the silence of Casa Guasco was so profound and absolute! Conquering -her terror, Maria recrossed the room and mechanically, with the rigid -movements of one who obeys her will rather than dispute with it, she -left the boudoir and turned the knob of the electric light. The shadow -increased in the brightly lit room, and all fell into obscurity. -Entering her own room she closed the door without making any noise, but -dared not<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> turn the key. Clothed as she was, leaving the lamp lit, she -threw herself on the bed, commanding all her exhausted forces to arouse -her, all her tired fibres not to abandon her, so much did she fear to -fall asleep since some one could enter her room, since she had not had -the courage to shut herself in.</p> - -<p>Two or three times, in the torpor by which her mind and limbs were -conquered, she tossed about and then sat up in bed, only to fall again -without having heard or seen anything. Then a deep sleep fell upon her.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="V-2" id="V-2"></a>V</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">On</span> entering the room at the usual hour, Chiara found her mistress asleep -and dressed on the bed with the electric light on, while outside the sun -was high. She turned out the light quietly, half opened the shutters, -and re-arranged the scattered things, knowing that her mistress would be -awakened. Turning round Chiara saw that Maria’s eyes were open and that -she was very pale; she wished her good-morning, and received a feeble -reply. Maria closed her eyes again and buried her head in the pillow, as -if she had need of escaping the spectacle of the living things around -her. A torpor held her on the rumpled bed, a desire to know, to hear, to -see nothing. The young maid entered and left two or three times with her -rhythmical and noiseless step, till at last Maria raised her head, and -asked—</p> - -<p>“Is it late?”</p> - -<p>“Almost nine. Shall I prepare the bath?”</p> - -<p>“Later on,” she replied in a weak voice.</p> - -<p>Chiara looked at her with such tender pity in her eyes that Maria gave -her a reassuring nod.</p> - -<p>“It is nothing. I am all right.” And at the<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> same time she made a -questioning movement which the loving soul understood—</p> - -<p>“The master has gone out.”</p> - -<p>“Gone out; where?”</p> - -<p>“On business to Velletri. He returns this evening.”</p> - -<p>“When did he go?”</p> - -<p>“This morning at seven. Gaspare, the valet, called him very early.”</p> - -<p>“But where did he sleep?” asked Maria, after a little hesitation.</p> - -<p>“In his new room, Excellency.”</p> - -<p>“His new room?”</p> - -<p>“Over there, behind the billiard-room.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence between the two women.</p> - -<p>“How long has your master occupied this room?”</p> - -<p>“For some time,” said the girl, lowering her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Tell me how long, Chiara,” insisted Maria.</p> - -<p>“Since Your Excellency left.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” replied Donna Maria without further observation, letting her head -fall on the pillow. Chiara stood waiting for orders.</p> - -<p>“Are there any letters for me?” resumed Maria in a feeble voice.</p> - -<p>“No, Excellency.”</p> - -<p>“Has your master left a note for me?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, Excellency. It seems, though, that he has been awake all the -night.”<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a></p> - -<p>“Who told you that?”</p> - -<p>“Gaspare.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!”</p> - -<p>Not another word passed between the two women.</p> - -<p>Beginning her first day after the pardon, Maria read in her mind these -clear and indelible words: “He has pardoned me, but he avoids me; he has -pardoned me, but he hates me; he has pardoned me, but he despises me.” -And all sense of life was lost within her.<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="VI-2" id="VI-2"></a>VI</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Vittoria Fiore</span> was alone in her room at the Hôtel de la Paix, dressed -ready to go out. She went to and fro from the balcony to the door, -waiting for her husband who was nearly an hour late, and every time she -withdrew from the balcony overlooking the white Lungarno and the river, -and went towards the door to peep into the corridor, to see if Marco -were coming, a sorrowful impatience contracted her youthful figure. -Passing before a large mirror, two or three times she threw a rapid -glance at herself, then shook her head sadly. On the face of the newly -made bride there was not shining that smile of gentle delight, of mutual -love which trusts in a long future of serene joy. She was thoughtful, -agitated, and sometimes completely tormented, as if her inmost soul -could find no peace.</p> - -<p>But Marco did not return. Where was he then? For an instant the spasm of -impatience was so strong that her pale face became livid, and she placed -her hand to her heart, as if she felt it stopping. A step sounded in the -corridor. In an instant the lines of her face composed themselves,<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> a -light wave of blood mounted to her cheeks. The expression of her face -became so tranquil and serene that it would have deceived the most -expert eye. To complete the deception she pretended to be buttoning her -glove.</p> - -<p>Marco entered with a great bunch of white lilies and red velvety roses, -which shed their delicate fragrance in the room.</p> - -<p>“I had to wait a little, Vittoria,” he said; “but in compensation I have -brought you these flowers.”</p> - -<p>“I have waited a little, but I didn’t notice it,” she replied -untruthfully.</p> - -<p>“I had something to do,” he added vaguely, without offering further -information; “don’t you like the flowers?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I like them,” she replied quickly, without any enthusiasm. “Thank -you, Marco, they are beautiful flowers.” And she immersed her face in -them.</p> - -<p>He had thrown himself into a chair as if tired from a long walk or -fastidiousness, as if he had forgotten that he had come to take her out. -Vittoria herself, who had remained standing near the table, where she -had placed the flowers, now sat down and placed her purse, and parasol -there.</p> - -<p>“What magnificent flowers Florence has,” added Marco, with an abstracted -smile, “every time I return here I am seized with a madness to have such -a lot of them, in fact, all if it were possible in my arms and my -room.”<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a></p> - -<p>“You have been several times to Florence?” she asked coldly, almost -imperiously.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied, without heeding either the question or its tone; “not -all understand this country, and so not all can love it. It is a country -of love and poesy,” he ended in saying, almost to himself, with a -far-away expression of recollection.</p> - -<p>Silent and serene Vittoria seemed to have heard nothing, and, as Marco -was not getting up from his seat, nor expressing a wish to go out, she -drew off her gloves slowly, stretched them one after the other, and -placed them on the table beside the purse and the parasol.</p> - -<p>“You have never seen it in the evening and at night, Vittoria, but I -assure you it is a dreamland. Shall we go this evening, would you like -to?”</p> - -<p>“We will go,” she replied tranquilly, slightly distractedly, while she -raised her long white hands to draw the two large pearl-headed pins from -her hat.</p> - -<p>“We must go if the evening is beautiful,” he continued, absorbed in his -plan. “Is there a moon, Vittoria?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think so,” she replied, lifting the flowers of her hat with her -white fingers, and not appearing to give much attention to her husband’s -discourse.</p> - -<p>“Very well, if there is a moon, and it rises late, we must go to the -Loggia di Orcagna. Do you<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> remember you saw the Loggia di Orcagna -yesterday?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I saw it yesterday,” she replied, folding her white veil -accurately.</p> - -<p>“At that hour there are no people in the streets of Florence, and it is -a city recollected and a little melancholy. Then we must sit on the -steps of the Loggia di Orcagna, beneath the statue of Judith, holding in -her hand the head of Holofernes, and look around the Piazza della -Signoria, and all the visions come to him who knows how to dream.”</p> - -<p>“What visions? What dreams?” she demanded coldly, playing with the -charms on her gold chain.</p> - -<p>Marco looked at her, marvelling a little.</p> - -<p>“Do you never dream, little Vittoria?” he asked, with some irony.</p> - -<p>“Never,” she replied drily.</p> - -<p>“Not even of me when I am not there?” and the tone became still more -ironical.</p> - -<p>“When you are not there I wait for you; that is all,” she murmured, -without further observation.</p> - -<p>“That is not a great deal; but still it doesn’t matter!” and he broke -into a laugh.</p> - -<p>She lowered her eyelids, as she always did to hide the trouble of her -eyes, and closed her lips to repress her words; but these actions were -so imperceptible that the man hardly ever noticed them.<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a></p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to put your flowers in water? don’t you like them?”</p> - -<p>“I am just going to,” she replied.</p> - -<p>Then very slowly she took the flowers and untied them, almost without -looking at them, separating them on the table with a mechanical working -of the hands.</p> - -<p>“It is eleven,” he said, looking at his watch. “I should like to lie -down a little; I am so tired. It is the spring perhaps.”</p> - -<p>“Go and sleep; you have an hour and a half before lunch,” Vittoria -replied, without turning.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you tired?”</p> - -<p>“No, I haven’t been out.”</p> - -<p>“That is true. Doesn’t the spring tire you?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“I feel exhausted,” he added vaguely, “I am going to sleep. What are you -going to do?”</p> - -<p>“I am going to write home.”</p> - -<p>“Brava! Write for me too; tell them everything, little Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t written to any one, Marco,” she observed.</p> - -<p>“I am a poor letter-writer, little Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>“Have you always been?” and the question seemed conventional and polite.</p> - -<p>“Not always,” he replied, falling into the trap; “au revoir, Vittoria; -occupy yourself with the flowers, and this evening we will go under the -Loggia di Orcagna.”<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a></p> - -<p>He disappeared into the other room. For several minutes she continued to -gather together the branches of odorous lilies and fragrant roses. Then -she went on tip-toe to the bedroom door, looked in, and listened. Marco -was asleep, and his face was wasted with weariness. Then she returned to -the table, threw herself into a chair, and buried her face in her hands, -completely unstrung.</p> - -<p>“O my God! my God!” she cried, through her clenched teeth, so as not to -be heard. But the fresh flowers, the lilies and rich red roses, which -were beneath her face and hands, repelled her as something horrid, fell -to the ground, and lay there while she sobbed and invoked Heaven -desperately in a stifled voice.<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="VII-2" id="VII-2"></a>VII</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Decide</span>, little Vittoria,” said Marco, spreading a small map on the -marble table, “you must decide. Here we are in Milan; we have seen the -Cathedral, the Brera Gallery, and the Sforza Castle. There is nothing -else to see; decide.”</p> - -<p>“I decide to leave because you don’t wish to remain,” Vittoria replied, -with her usual reserve.</p> - -<p>“But by which route shall we go to Paris? Right through from here by the -Gothard? Or shall we step off at Turin and go by Mont Cenis? Look at the -map carefully and decide.”</p> - -<p>Ever since they had started on their travels, he had kept up this -amiable and slightly teasing tone, that of a travelling companion, a -little bored, who has seen everything, but is good-natured enough to -lend himself as the cicerone of a tyro. All his concern and care was -protecting. He had the expression of a person who spends for the -diversion and happiness of another without participating himself in the -diversion or the happiness. It was impossible to conceal this -expression, and Vittoria, with her common-sense, had understood his -peculiar behaviour. Of Florence, Pisa, Siena,<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> Bologna, nothing mattered -to Marco Fiore, nor did it concern him to be in one hotel more than -another, nor did it matter to him whether he left by this or that -<i>train-de-luxe</i>—but that his little Vittoria should see and appreciate -everything, should pass a happy day without being too tired, that all -the Palace Hotels should give her hospitality, and that all the -<i>wagon-lits</i> should make the journey less heavy and tiresome for her, -was his care and occupation. Certainly he was indifferent to all the -sights and changes, to the arrivals and departures, like one who has -seen everything and could see nothing more.</p> - -<p>“Decide, then, Vittoria, for the Gothard or the Cenis?”</p> - -<p>Was he not treating her like a child, of whom he was the affectionate -tutor? Vittoria looked at the map without the least understanding it, -and, raising her eyes, said to him—</p> - -<p>“You, Marco, by which route would you go?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I?” he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders, “I have been so often -one way or the other.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” she said, “then it is quite indifferent to you.”</p> - -<p>“To me, yes; though the Gothard route is the more beautiful.”</p> - -<p>“Let us take the other then,” she added.</p> - -<p>“Would you always be a spirit of contradiction, Vittorietta? Why do you -prefer the less beautiful?”<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a></p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> - -<p>He frowned. Sometimes her cold replies surprised him, freezing all the -gentle concern he had in seeing her content and happy. When that -pleasant face grew fixed and the lips closed, she seemed like a little -unopened flower which no ray of the sun could open, and he experienced a -sense of delusion and melancholy. The control he exerted over himself -was very great. To be so abundantly affectionate he required so much -moral and sentimental effort, and she understood nothing of it. With a -word or a gesture she cut off all his tender good-will.</p> - -<p>But to accomplish his sentimental existence of a mission, of a duty -which should fill the immense empty place of his dead love, was not -Marco bound to Vittoria’s good and happiness? Was it not his concern, -little by little, by daily sympathy and affection, by loving tenderness, -to heal the heart wounded by a long and cruel abandonment and betrayal? -Should he not make her forget all she had suffered for him? And if that -jealous and offended soul was not completely reassured, if that -disdainful soul martyred by waiting did not expand and tremble with joy, -she was right perhaps. He must be patient and sweet with her, as with an -invalid who has scarcely reached convalescence, and has still the horror -of the disease in the mind.</p> - -<p>“Now, little Vittoria, melt all the ice which surrounds your soul, have -a desire and a will, my<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> lady,” he resumed, in the half-mocking, -half-affectionate tone he liked to take with her. The poor cold soul who -only felt the affection of courteous words and the brilliant glance of -the clear eyes, asked—</p> - -<p>“What do you wish, then, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“That you express an idea, expound a plan for the continuance of our -journey. Don’t you know; can’t you decide? I will help you, little -Vittoria. Do you wish to go to Paris?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“At once?”</p> - -<p>“This very evening.”</p> - -<p>“Very good; this evening, then, by the Cenis. You won’t see the best -part of the journey, but that doesn’t matter. How long would you like to -stay in Paris?”</p> - -<p>“As long as seems necessary to you,” she replied, with a little -uncertain smile.</p> - -<p>“Well, ten days or a fortnight. To which hotel would you like to go?”</p> - -<p>She started at this question, and lowered her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Is it all the same to you perhaps? If it is——”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t all the same to me,” she murmured, with an evident control of -her will. “I should like to go to a new hotel where you have never -been.”</p> - -<p>Her face grew pale for having once dared to tell her secret thought; -then she blushed, and tears came to her eyes.<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a></p> - -<p>“If it is only that,” said Marco slowly, moved, “if it is only that, it -is easy. We will go to the Elysèe Palace.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” she replied, “thanks.”</p> - -<p>She dared not press his hand because they were in the large hall of the -Hôtel Milan, among a crowd of travellers coming and going, where every -one gave a glance to the handsome couple, above all to the blonde, with -her pale complexion and attractive beauty.</p> - -<p>“And at Paris, what life do you intend to lead, Vittorietta?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, that I don’t know,” she added serenely; “I have always heard from -my childhood of this fascinating and terrible place; but no one ever -told me anything exactly about it. You know they leave us girls very -ignorant in Rome, and you must find me so stupid sometimes, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“Well, in a few sentences I am going to tell how to live in two ways in -Paris for ten days or a fortnight. You know that we have relations and -friends there, and quite well that our marriage has been announced in -the <i>Figaro</i> and <i>Gaulois</i>, in fact that every one knows that we are -coming to Paris. Bear in mind the gravity of what I am telling you, -Vittoria,” he interrupted in emphatic tones.</p> - -<p>“I understand deeply,” she replied smilingly, backing him up.</p> - -<p>“There is more. At Paris there is my Great<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> Aunt, the Aunt of all the -Fiore, the Great Aunt of the family, whom we have respected and -venerated ever since we were born, the Duchess of Altomonte, the -legitimist, who has been exiled from Italy for forty years; a <i>femme -terrible</i>, with whom they used to frighten us at night, when we were -small and could not sleep.”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” exclaimed Vittoria, smiling.</p> - -<p>“Very well, dear Vittoria, also flower of flowers, as the poet of Spello -said at our wedding, there is the first method of life at Paris. It is -that of arriving officially, of making a request to the Duchess of -Altomonte to be permitted to kiss her hand, if not her foot; to warn all -the other minor aunts, cousins, and friends; to accept all the -invitations to lunch, dinner and tea, to the theatre and to supper; -every day to have three luncheons and two dinners, three theatres and -two suppers; to have no more peace or liberty, not to be able to speak -to each other for a minute, falling asleep at night, and the next minute -it is morning with the oppression of all the worldly fatigues of the -day.</p> - -<p>“Naturally you will put on all your best dresses, for the theatre, for -the garden party, or a ball, all your jewels en <i>grande toilette</i>, and -the little time which will remain at your disposal you will use to -change your costume, your hat, or your gloves—five times a day.”</p> - -<p>“Does all that seem amusing to you?” she asked expressionlessly.<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a></p> - -<p>“Does it seem amusing to you?”</p> - -<p>“Tell me the other way, Marco, to enable me to judge.”</p> - -<p>“To enable you to choose, dear Minerva, the other way is: to arrive and -remain perfectly incognito; to let the proud and ferocious Duchess of -Altomonte go, let all the relations and friends go; not to place, and -prevent it from being placed, any notice of our arrival in the papers; -to live in perfect obscurity and liberty, only going where we wish, only -frequenting the places where we wish to amuse ourselves freely, going -for excursions in the neighbourhood of Paris, especially those of -beauty, poetry, and freshness, from Fontainebleau to Saint Germain, from -Chantilly to Enghien—true idylls, Vittoria. Otherwise than the Imperial -salon, dry and hard as the Duchess of Altomonte, who has been infesting -it for the last forty years! In fact a life gay and sympathetic, -especially free, without a single boring or heavy duty.”</p> - -<p>Vittoria lowered her eyes wrapped in thought, then she asked—</p> - -<p>“I suppose you have always, or nearly always, visited Paris in the -second way?”</p> - -<p>“Not nearly always—always.”</p> - -<p>“Well then, Marco,” she replied coldly and drily, “I choose the first -way. It seems more proper to me.”</p> - -<p>“You are right, Minerva; let it be so!” he exclaimed, even more coldly.<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="VIII-2" id="VIII-2"></a>VIII</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Seated</span> in an arm-chair of the most upright Empire style, a carved curial -chair of darkest mahogany, with bronze bosses and ornaments, cushioned -in a myrtle pattern, Vittoria sat upright before her Great Aunt and kept -respectful silence. The bride in this third and last visit to the -Duchess of Altomonte, a visit of thanks and farewell, wore a rich dress -of pleated silver, gay with handsome embroidery; in her little ears she -wore solitaires, a large hat with a silver-grey feather on her blond -tresses, and amid the lace of her corsage an antique necklace of -diamonds and emeralds. She was dressed so luxuriously because, on the -first visit made to the proud and austere Bourbon <i>grande dame</i>, the -Duchess had suddenly observed to her nephew that his wife was dressed -too humbly, and not suitably to her position and the visit she had come -to make.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria is very simple in her toilette,” Marco had replied -philosophically.</p> - -<p>“It is one of the mistakes of society in modern times, this affectation -of simplicity,” the Duchess had replied immediately.<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a></p> - -<p>So at the state dinner, which the Duchess had given to the young couple, -to which had been asked all the old gentlemen and ladies who had -remained faithful to the King of the Two Sicilies, and had followed him -in exile to Paris, Vittoria had not only put on her most expensive -evening dress, but wore in her hair the diadem given her by her -mother-in-law, Donna Arduina, and round her neck a necklace, a gift from -Marco.</p> - -<p>Under the weight of the glittering jewels, in that respectable but -melancholy society, the pretty bride had not pronounced a single word.</p> - -<p>Now, a day before their departure, she had come to present her -compliments to her Great Aunt, and intimidated by her surroundings, but -especially by the Duchess of Altomonte, Vittoria sat on her Empire -chair, with closed mouth and drooping eyes waiting for her great new -relation to condescend a word and speak to her.</p> - -<p>The Duchess of Altomonte, Donna Guilia de’ Masi, born of the family of -Castropignano, had completed eighty years. Her abundant hair, which she -preserved to that age, was of the finest shining white, and dressed in -old-fashioned style, framing a face which in youth and maturity must -have reflected a majestic and imperious beauty. Of the past it was true -there remained only an expression of power in the still bright eyes, and -the proud smile, wonderful in its energy at that age. Certainly the -shoulders were bent and the step a little slow, but,<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> even in this -decadence of years and the signs of dissolution, the Duchess had known -how to impress and be imposing. The great Empire chair, where she liked -to sit for hours together, with a big embroidered cushion in the fashion -of the period beneath her feet shod in black velvet, resembled a throne, -and the very black ebony stick with the curved silver handle, on which -she leaned her tottering steps, resembled a sceptre. Her whole person -gave a sense of immense respect, of silent devotion, of a past of honour -and fidelity to all promises and oaths, of a past of lofty sacrifice -accomplished in silence without a request for compensation, of a life -entirely rigid and firm, where perhaps there was wanting a sense of -kindness and indulgence, but where all the other virtues had triumphed.</p> - -<p>The Duchess had little by little seen her kindred disappear, some -carried away by death, others by destiny, some far away returning now -and again, some far away for ever. Her legitimate King was dead, buried -in a lonely church in a lonely part of Austria, and every year she went -to visit her Queen, a Queen full of sorrow supported with a most brave -and admirable mind. The interview between them was usually short, sad, -and austere. So everything of the past and present added grandeur to the -figure of Guilia de’ Masi, Duchess of Altomonte.<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a></p> - -<p>“Marco!” she cried, in a still clear voice, in which there was always a -tone of command.</p> - -<p>“Yes, aunt,” he replied at once.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you something to see about for your departure? Go and see to -it; leave me your wife and return for her.”</p> - -<p>Without saying a word he bowed in obedience, and kissed the Duchess’s -hand covered with large emerald and topaz rings. He kissed, too, lightly -Vittoria’s little gloved hand, who shot him a beseeching glance -secretly, and left.</p> - -<p>“My daughter,” said the Duchess coldly, playing with her gold -watch-chain, “I wanted to speak to you about something alone, so I sent -Marco away.”</p> - -<p>Without replying Vittoria Fiore kept her eyes fixed on the majestic -lady, waiting for her words, not without secret emotion.</p> - -<p>“I am very pleased that you have married my nephew, Marco Fiore. Even -when your engagement was announced three or four years ago I approved, -because I had heard much good of you and your virtues. The Fiore are -certainly a greater house than your own, and your dowry hasn’t been so -much; but that doesn’t matter. In marrying you Marco has turned his back -on a past of folly, and has begun a new life.”</p> - -<p>A profound expression of suffering was depicted on the bride’s face, but -she kept silent.<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a></p> - -<p>“By the way, don’t delude yourself: you haven’t caused this miracle,” -continued the imperious lady icily, “he was bound to have enough of <i>the -other</i>. You will know later on how men tire of their most impassioned -loves. Maria—er—Guasco—I think I am right—was a most beautiful and -fascinating woman, and Marco raved about her. He is cured now.”</p> - -<p>And her inquisitorial eyes, which had read into a thousand faces and a -thousand souls and hearts, read on Vittoria’s face the deep, tormenting -and incurable doubt. The old lady raised her eyebrows slightly, on -discovering this hidden and torturing truth, and shook her head.</p> - -<p>“You don’t believe in this recovery? You are torturing yourself with the -fear of the past, my daughter? Your first matrimonial joys have been -poisoned by it?”</p> - -<p>Seeing that she was understood even to the innermost recess of her soul, -Vittoria relaxed her face, and closed her eyes, as if about to faint.</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” the Duchess said, in a stronger and harder voice, “why are -you ashamed to confess your sufferings to me? Are you perchance a timid -person? Have you, maybe, a jealous and reserved heart?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” Vittoria murmured, with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“Then you are preparing a sad existence for yourself. Timid characters -and reserved and jealous hearts are destined to languish in pain and<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> -perish in suffering without the world being aware of it. Make a brave -effort over yourself, conquer yourself, and tell your thoughts if they -are worthy of being heard and understood; pour forth your feeling if it -has truth in it.”</p> - -<p>The great lady acquired an even more solemn aspect, and seemed the -expression of virtue and nobility of life.</p> - -<p>“Ah, I can’t, I can’t!” exclaimed Vittoria, placing her handkerchief to -her mouth to repress herself.</p> - -<p>“Why can’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Because I love him,” she proclaimed.</p> - -<p>“He loves you too, I suppose,” replied the Duchess, becoming glacial -again.</p> - -<p>What uncertain and sorrowful eyes Vittoria raised!</p> - -<p>“You think he doesn’t love you?” the Duchess insisted.</p> - -<p>The bride humbly and weakly replied, opening her arms—</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“You deceive yourself,” resumed the great lady slowly, “Marco is fond of -you.”</p> - -<p>A great disillusion showed itself on Vittoria’s face, a disillusion -mixed with fear and sadness.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it enough for you, my daughter, that he is fond of you? What do -you want more? What are you desiring? What are you seeking?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, aunt, aunt,” she ventured to cry in the<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> sudden familiarity of -suffering, “I want him to love me, to love me with ardour and passion.”</p> - -<p>“As <i>the other</i>, in fact.”</p> - -<p>“As <i>the other</i>,” the unhappy woman ventured to cry.</p> - -<p>“That is impossible,” stated the Duchess.</p> - -<p>“Impossible, impossible?” and she placed her two little hands together -convulsively.</p> - -<p>“It is so. Marco can’t have for you, and you can’t ask it of him, a true -and intense passion.”</p> - -<p>“But why? But why? Am I not young? Am I not beautiful? Am I not his? -Don’t I adore him?”</p> - -<p>“All that is of no avail. Learn, my daughter, that one doesn’t have two -passions one after the other, that there are entire existences which -scarcely arrive at feeling one, that there are other existences, many -others, which never feel one, not even the pretence of passion, not even -its shadow. Passion is an exceptional thing, it is outside life.”</p> - -<p>Terrified and pale the wretched bride listened to the voice which seemed -that of her destiny, a grave voice and free from any interest which was -not true, a voice which seemed cruel, but whose cruelty contained a -lofty common-sense.</p> - -<p>“For that matter don’t complain. You will know later on, when you are -calm and wise, how rarely a man marries with passion in his heart and -feelings for his bride. Men marry nearly always to be quiet, for -security from all amorous<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> tempests. Hasn’t Marco done this? I add, to -reassure you, that in the rare cases in which marriage has taken place -in obedience to passion it has always ended in unhappiness.”</p> - -<p>Vittoria listened nervelessly.</p> - -<p>“Thus God wills it,” the Duchess pronounced with a voice more profound -and touching. “Christian marriage, which faith and the Church consecrate -for life and death, ought not, and can not, serve for the satisfaction -of the voracious flame of our senses. And if it be so it is a state of -sin. We don’t marry, Vittoria, for the intoxication of a short time. It -isn’t for this that the Lord calls us and chooses us in marriage blessed -by Himself. If we reduce this sacrament to a profane pleasure, we -violate a divine law.”</p> - -<p>“It is horrible, it is horrible,” cried Vittoria, as if she felt herself -suffocated.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t so horrible,” cried the Duchess. “Be more Christian than woman -in matrimony and more woman than sweetheart. Don’t commit the ugly sin -and grave mistake of being your husband’s mistress! Vittoria, Vittoria, -don’t degrade yourself in wishing to be like <i>the other</i>! After a little -you would be betrayed and despised. Thousands of women have tried to be -their husband’s mistresses, falling into a sentimental trap, and other -thousands will try it after you, and all, my daughter, all have had, and -will have, the same fate—they will be betrayed and despised.”<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a></p> - -<p>“But has the world always been so? Will it always be so? But you, you, -my aunt,” Vittoria ventured to cry, “weren’t you ardently loved by your -husband? You who shone with every virtue, rich, of a great family. -Didn’t you love your husband, the Duke of Altomonte, ardently? That is -what is known; tell me if it is true.”</p> - -<p>The Duchess of Altomonte moved her hand vaguely and slowly, and for the -first time a slight smile appeared on her lips.</p> - -<p>“All that is so long, long ago!” and emotion rendered her dominating -voice less firm, “from the day on which he knew me till that of his -death, the Duke of Altomonte had a peaceful and equal tenderness for me, -a strong moral sympathy, a tranquil and secure attachment.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing more? Nothing more?”</p> - -<p>“It was enough for me. I was quite content, and I thanked God for it -every day, and even now it still forms the sweetest and pleasantest -recollection of my life, now too long.”</p> - -<p>“And you, and you, how did you love him?”</p> - -<p>“As a Christian, Vittoria. I loved him with respect, devotion, and -fidelity.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing more? Nothing more?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing more.”</p> - -<p>“Did it satisfy your husband?”</p> - -<p>“He never asked anything else from me. I always saw him serene; he died -peacefully with his hand in mine.”<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a></p> - -<p>The blond bride, with her beautiful pale face, was silent for a moment, -then she raised her eyes resolutely and desperately.</p> - -<p>“I shall never have the strength for this renunciation—never, never.”</p> - -<p>“Ask for strength, and you will have it.”</p> - -<p>“Who will give it to me?”</p> - -<p>“Pray, and you will have it.”</p> - -<p>“Bless me, aunt,” murmured the unhappy woman, kneeling before the -venerable figure and bowing her head.</p> - -<p>The face of the Duchess seemed to shine with purest light. She touched -Vittoria’s forehead lightly with her hand, and raising her eyes to -Heaven, “Bless, O Lord, this my daughter. Give her strength, and she -shall have peace.”</p> - -<p>Vittoria arose, but neither the prayer nor the blessing had given -consolation to her anguish.<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="IX-2" id="IX-2"></a>IX</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Modane!</span> <span class="smcap">Modane</span>!” was cried from all sides as the <i>train-de-luxe</i>, -arriving from Paris, rumbled heavily into the station.</p> - -<p>“At last we re-enter our fatherland,” cried Marco Fiore, with a sigh of -relief; and, without waiting for a reply from Vittoria, he placed his -grey travelling cap on his head and left the compartment.</p> - -<p>“Ought I to come too?” Vittoria asked, as she rejoined him in the -corridor.</p> - -<p>“If you want a stroll, yes. If not, it isn’t necessary. The station is -very grey and gloomy.”</p> - -<p>“Very gloomy,” repeated the woman in a low voice.</p> - -<p>“But our country is so beautiful. Aren’t you content to return home?”</p> - -<p>“I am glad,” she replied, without further observation. He looked at her -as he did now and then with a scrutinising eye, but the pure face -assumed that cold and closed aspect against which every glance failed.</p> - -<p>“I am going for a small stroll,” he said, shrugging his shoulders -lightly, “the luggage will be examined later on in the train.”<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> - -<p>He disappeared along the corridor, and a little later Vittoria saw him -walking up and down in the gloomy station, which not even the late May -sun managed to lighten. Then she rose and placed herself before the -window on the other side of the compartment, watching another train stop -on its way to France. Her eyes were fixed on the train. She tried to -discover the faces of those who were travelling within, to question if -possible their physiognomies, and read there what was passing.</p> - -<p>She heaved a deep sigh, and felt jealous of those who were leaving Italy -perhaps for ever, and were travelling to France or England, or further, -perhaps, never to return. She would have liked to have been one of those -unknown travellers, to turn her back for ever on her country, to take -away with her the man she adored, far, far away to unknown countries, -losing at last the recollection of her own country, of her own people.</p> - -<p>“Oh, this returning, this returning!” she thought to herself so -desperately that she almost said it aloud.</p> - -<p>She fell back on her seat and searched among the flowers and books in -front of her for something to distract herself, a volume or a -time-table. Then she leaned her head against the arm of the seat, and -closed her eyes in an endeavour not to think, to suppress the subtle and -voracious work of the jealousy which caused her to think.<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> - -<p>“We are off at last,” said Marco, entering the compartment.</p> - -<p>Heavily the train started, leaving the shadow of the gloomy station, and -began to run among the green meadows completely covered with flowers, -which stretched beneath the mountains around Mont Cenis.</p> - -<p>“We are returning home, little Vittoria; we are returning to our own -house, to our own bed, where no one else has slept the night before, and -where no stranger will sleep the night after. Home, home; no more -hotels, no more restaurants where the cooking is of an unknown provision -and quantity. I assure you, my dear, that at Casa Fiore there is an -excellent cook, whose kitchen presents no mysteries. What a pleasure to -dine and sleep in the house of the Fiore in via Bocca di Leone!”</p> - -<p>Vittoria listened attentively to Marco’s tirade, with its forced gaiety, -where a little irritation was pressing.</p> - -<p>“This journey has tired you, Marco?” she asked, as if she had noticed -something of no importance.</p> - -<p>“Physically, perhaps,” he replied quickly; “I am not so young as I was.”</p> - -<p>“You are thirty-two.”</p> - -<p>“But I have lived far more than my years,” he replied, with candour.<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a></p> - -<p>“That is true,” she replied calmly; “instead of travelling we could have -gone to Spello.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Spello isn’t very amusing, dear. You will see it this summer. -Besides, oughtn’t you to have a nice honeymoon.”</p> - -<p>“I?” she exclaimed, trembling.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you, Vittoria. I had to give you, my beauty, a nice, amusing, -pleasing honeymoon. You deserved it; I hope I behaved well?”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” she replied ambiguously.</p> - -<p>“Have I been a good travelling companion—intelligent, zealous, -amiable?”</p> - -<p>“You have been all that, Marco,” she replied coldly.</p> - -<p>“Have I, then, accomplished that part of my mission? Have I accomplished -it as I ought to?”</p> - -<p>“Have you, Marco, a mission? And what is it?” she asked, not without -some harshness.</p> - -<p>“That which the priest told me in Santa Maria del Popolo; that which the -mayor told us at Campidoglio; that which I have given myself.”</p> - -<p>“That is?” she replied, still coldly.</p> - -<p>“To make you happy, darling,” he concluded somewhat caressingly, to -alleviate the solemnity of the words.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed, without further observation.</p> - -<p>“Then you give me my first certificate, my wife? Have you been happy or -not on your<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> travels? Have I done everything to make you happy?”</p> - -<p>“You have done as much as you could,” she replied, without emphasising -the words.</p> - -<p>“That is <i>all</i>?” he insisted, looking at her.</p> - -<p>“All you could.”</p> - -<p>He frowned, and was silent. She, too, was silent, turning her head away. -An instant afterwards, with a fastidious accent, he added—</p> - -<p>“Now I am a little tired, and am glad to return home.”</p> - -<p>The train ran on through the country that leads to Susa, and from Susa -to Turin.</p> - -<p>“Have you written to your mother and sister that we are returning?” he -asked absently.</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“When do you count on doing it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I was thinking of counter orders, of a prolonging of the -journey, of delay. I don’t know,” she said, confused.</p> - -<p>“We will telegraph, then, from Turin; we stop two hours there,” he added -somewhat drily.</p> - -<p>“Are we going straight on to Rome?” she asked a little timidly.</p> - -<p>“Naturally, naturally. We arrive at Rome at ten to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Ah.”</p> - -<p>In spite of her intense power of dissimulation, she did not succeed in -hiding an expression of fear.<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a></p> - -<p>“It seems to me, Vittoria,” said Marco, who had become very -bad-tempered, “that you view with little pleasure our returning to -Rome.”</p> - -<p>“You are mistaken.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I am not mistaken. All other wives feel a real need of their -homes; you, it seems, scarcely experience this need.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t true; it isn’t true,” she stammered.</p> - -<p>“Do me the honour not to take me for an idiot,” he retorted quickly; -“Casa Fiore doesn’t seem good enough for your presence!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Marco!” she protested, with a voice full of tears.</p> - -<p>“Rome seems a capital too small for you? The place where your mother and -my mother live seems mean and empty to you, perhaps?”</p> - -<p>“Marco! Marco!” she begged.</p> - -<p>But her husband was now exasperated. The first angry, violent conjugal -dispute had broken out, and she tried in vain to calm it. Trembling -prevented her from pronouncing a word. She felt suffocated.</p> - -<p>“Can you deny it?” he replied, in a voice where anger and irony hissed. -“Do you deny that you don’t share my consolation in returning to Rome?”</p> - -<p>Without speaking she clasped her hands as if to implore him to torture -her no more.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry to tell you, dear Vittoria,” he continued implacably, “that -sometimes you lie.”<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a></p> - -<p>“Oh! oh!” she exclaimed, with a movement of horror, hiding her face in -her hands.</p> - -<p>“Or you dissimulate, which amounts to the same thing.”</p> - -<p>Although he saw that she was growing pale, he was unable to restrain his -indignation.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria!” he exclaimed loudly, as if to startle her, “will you answer -me?”</p> - -<p>Terrified, she looked at him with wide-open eyes.</p> - -<p>“I have always been used to truthful women; will you tell me the truth?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she declared, as if this reminder had offended her mortally, -restoring all her strength to her.</p> - -<p>“Why aren’t you glad to return home? Why don’t you rejoice to embrace -your people again? Why aren’t you happy to find yourself in Rome again -to-morrow, to begin your new life? Reply, conceal nothing, and don’t -dissimulate. Tell me the truth as it has always been told to me.”</p> - -<p>“I hate Rome!” she exclaimed, offended, and making a supreme effort to -tell her secret.</p> - -<p>“You hate Rome! Why?”</p> - -<p>“You know the reason; don’t oblige me to tell it,” she added, with -dignity and supplication.</p> - -<p>Immediately all the man’s anger evaporated. Again human charity and -fraternal pity moved him.<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a></p> - -<p>“You are ill, Vittoria,” he said. “You must get well.”</p> - -<p>She made a vague gesture of denial and of impossibility, and said -nothing more. Nor did he attempt to break the heavy silence.<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="X-2" id="X-2"></a>X</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Emilio Guasco</span> is forty. He is tall, thin, dried up, and appears robust. -His face is brown, with shining black moustaches. His hair is black, -though white at the temples, which brightens and sweetens the -swarthiness of his complexion. His eyes are exceedingly black, of an -opaque blackness when their glance is tired or in repose, but sometimes -a secret force animates them, giving an ardent and gloomy character to -his face. The forehead is ample and well-defined, the nose aquiline, the -chin long, showing an obstinate will. The profile is somewhat hard and -sharp, scarcely tempered by a mouth still fresh and youthful, in which -an acute eye can sometimes notice indulgence and good nature.</p> - -<p>But in general Emilio’s face is austere, sometimes gloomy, while its -lines, if not exactly correct, are at least harmonious. In spite of all -this Emilio’s appearance is striking and attractive, with the attraction -of all men whose appearance speaks of spirit and energy. A portion of -the men he associated with, a small portion certainly, came to him with -that species of secure instinct, which human sympathy has for<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> souls -which contain a really personal secret of life. Another portion, a -larger one, regarded him with a certain respect mixed with repulsion, -considering him a dramatic character in a laughable comedy. A last -portion, and this the greatest and most frivolous, avoided him as a -great bore, who prevented others from amusing themselves and taking life -as a farce.</p> - -<p>Emilio Guasco belongs to the old Roman bourgeois, and to the old bank -which for over a hundred years has been allied with the Roman -aristocracy and later to the great Italian society, which has taken up -its abode in Rome around the rule of the Quirinal. His ancestors, as -well as his father and uncles, have always belonged to the smart set, -mixing with it intimately, while in business they had dealings with -other important sets of the capital. Frequently they have been the -saviours of noble fortunes in danger, and of secret aid to Italian -politics, so often in the early days in need of pecuniary assistance.</p> - -<p>Emilio is the only son. His father is dead, and he is in partnership -with his uncles and cousins in the bank of Guasco and Co. But in spite -of the fact that from childhood, boyhood, and youth he has always been -in the midst of affairs, and that, during the last ten years, after a -violent economic crisis, affairs in Rome are waking up again, he is a -very mediocre man of business and banker. He never likes this -intellectual<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> work, which is sometimes not without its excitement and -poetry, so he works at the Guasco Bank moderately, methodically, aridly, -without a gleam of geniality or passion. Thus he continues his father’s -work, which had been fervid, efficacious and fortunate; he continues it -as a heavy duty, which he limits to the narrowest and most external -mechanical participation.</p> - -<p>Sometimes he believes that he would gladly leave the bank, leaving the -bulk of his capital there but renouncing its management: sometimes he -himself has vaguely hinted that he wished to hear nothing more of it. -However, his cousin, Robert Guasco, forced him to stay so as not to give -the appearance of weakening the bank. Robert, luckily, is a very -intelligent banker, capable and laborious, and his mind, strength, and -enormous activity compensate for Emilio’s cold inertia.</p> - -<p>“Whatever do you want with an idiot and a business nonentity like me? -Let me go,” Emilio often said to his cousin, with a wan smile.</p> - -<p>“Remain, remain,” Robert would say, without taking any notice of the -protest.</p> - -<p>So Emilio Guasco remains at his work. Sometimes he even asks himself -what he would do if he were to leave the firm and had to spend his -considerable income alone, and how he would dedicate his time so tiring -and boresome. From youth he has always felt the natural sadness of his -temperament. He has tried to counteract and drive away<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> this sadness by -giving himself to the sports held in honour in Rome for years, and to -the new games introduced there recently by the foreign element. Emilio -is an expert and daring rider, and few have a better seat. Every year he -is a faithful rider to hounds. But to this brilliant and rather -fashionable sport he prefers that other hunting, solitary and -melancholy, among the large regions about Palidoro, Maccarese, and -Pontegalera, where one goes dressed in thick fustian, exchanging a few -words with the cow-boys to be met with on horseback, wrapped in brown -mantles with a lining of green serge. Sometimes he is absent two or -three days at these hunts, so much in keeping with his thoughtful and -sad character, sleeping in a buffalo tent as in Africa. His friends tell -him of the example of Prospero Ludovisi, a keen hunter, who took a most -pernicious fever at Maccarese and died suddenly of it in thirty-six -hours. The malaria is especially deadly in that vast and deserted -region. Emilio only smiles. Among modern sports he prefers of all the -English games, on foot or horse, by sea or land, Golf—Golf, which is -the adoration of all spirits fond of the open air, of solitude and -silence,—Golf which is the true symbol of the solitary man. At his club -he seldom mixes with the many players of poker, but he is a silent and -unwearying devotee of bridge.</p> - -<p>Emilio Guasco, in his early youth, has had his love affairs. He has not, -however, committed any<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> of the follies of the pleasure-seekers, which in -public opinion has classed him among the coldest of men to whom women -have little or nothing to say. Some, the more spiteful, have accused him -of avarice, since love in general, and under certain conditions, implies -generosity of spirit and of purse.</p> - -<p>He has never compromised any one, and his adventures have been discreet -and somewhat mediocre. The heart which he brought when married to the -lovely and fascinating Maria Simonetti was one very sane, without -perversion and corruption, a sincere heart which gave itself not in mad -transports but with seriousness and faith. If not exceedingly in love -during his engagement, he was in love.</p> - -<p>One could say that he married for love of the enchanting girl who -brought him only a good name, but not a <i>soldo</i> of dowry. Nor was his -love a smothered flame which alters in marriage, bursting forth as a -conflagration of passion. He loved Maria moderately, with a just -affection which afterwards had no diminution, but no increase. He had -esteemed his <i>fiancée</i> deeply, and afterwards his wife, for her -character and mettle, her pride and truth; he had even felt a little of -her fascination, but not all of it. Especially, he had not experienced -in the first year of his marriage that joy of life which causes the -hearts of the newly married to vibrate, exalts their souls, and later on -seems to make them accept an existence less joyful<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> and less happy -through the unforgettable beauty of their first recollections. Emilio -did not recognise till later, much later, the immense delusion he had -been as a husband to the passionate heart of Maria Simonetti; he became -aware of it when there was no longer time and all was lost.</p> - -<p>For a long time he believed he had done all he could for his lady, being -fond of her, respecting, honouring, and never being false to her, but -nothing more. He had not understood that Maria Simonetti’s life and -happiness were in his two hands. Not having understood that, he had let -Maria’s life languish in sentimental and moral misery; so that she -sought elsewhere the way of magnifying all her faculties and sensations. -When he understood it was too late: that was <i>afterwards</i>. It was -<i>afterwards</i> that, intolerant of lies, inept at deception, Maria Guasco -Simonetti had left her husband’s house and had fled with Marco Fiore.</p> - -<p>Then Emilio Guasco had seen all the error of his existence, of his -indifference, his want of any abandonment, of any enthusiasm. Alone, in -a suddenly deserted house and dishonoured, he discovered his original -sin, aridity, that grave sin which separates us from everything -beautiful and everybody beloved; which makes those flee from us fatally -whom we do not know how to love. The tragedy which that day had brought -him in the flight of his wife with her lover had still more<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> paralysed -Emilio’s mind, which was incapable of efficacious fury, incapable of -sustained impulse, and capable only of sorrow and a slow and pointless -sadness.</p> - -<p>He had not acted and rushed after Maria and Marco; but had remained at -home to suffer in silence. A part of the society in which he lived -called it an immense disgrace, because to all of them he was what is -termed a perfect husband; a smaller part, more intelligent and original, -had proclaimed that he deserved no better treatment, since he had not -known how to love Maria worthily, and that, in fact, he had annoyed and -exasperated her. Secretly, in the long examinations of conscience which -every man makes with himself in the hours of moral crisis, Emilio -thought those right who had indicted him as the first author of his -wife’s funereal act. He saw, on one of his sleepless nights, with the -eyes of his soul all that he ought to have been and had not been. -Certain deep truths of the spirit and the heart, hitherto unknown to -him, appeared to him in vivid light. As in all great revolutions which -transform and remake the inner life of a being, many new habits were -formed by him in the three years of solitude and abandonment, singular -habits different and contradictory to each other.</p> - -<p>While Maria’s flight with Marco had given him acute anguish, the moral -figure of his wife appeared prouder and bolder in its act of liberation, -and if<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> the husband still carried with him all the pain of the offence, -so as to feel the impression of a bleeding wound for three years, the -man had admired in Maria her lofty contempt of every minor good to -obtain the one supreme good. While Maria was far away, as if lost in the -vast world, Emilio saw her again near him palpitating with beauty and -life, and he began to love her in solitary silence, vainly and -uselessly. He surprised himself into desiring and wanting her more than -ever, and in his empty love and desire he ended by knowing that powerful -and terrible instinct of love—jealousy.</p> - -<p>He had always marvelled when he saw in others the interior torturing -lashes of jealousy, and its external manifestations. Now he is a victim -to this gloomy and fascinating force which comes from the lowest -elements of the human system, but which dominates a man entirely. -Sometimes he would give his blood to snatch his wife away from the arms -of Marco Fiore, at other times he was seized by an exasperation which -almost led him to a crime. Then he had to leave Rome and go far away -where only memory could follow him. On his return, through the natural -power of his equilibrium, he was always calm, patient, and sad.</p> - -<p>At last, at the end of three years, so long to a heart which had never -known how to love, which perhaps had still not learned to love better -but was not inept to suffer, Emilio, with concealed<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> curiosity and -anxiety, had learnt that the amorous folly of Marco and Maria had begun -to languish, had become a folly’s shadow, and was lapsing into a pale -usage. From this knowledge which reached him from reliable sources, from -secret inquiries which he had made with extreme caution, knowing how -every day that love shadow was vanishing more and more, a unique -sentiment, derived from so many opposite sentiments at war with each -other, had raised his heart almost to heroism. This was the sentiment of -human and Christian pity for a miserable woman who had wanted and still -wanted to give her life to her dream, who instead saw all her dream -vanish before her in a time which seemed as short as a flash of -lightning. Anger long repressed, sorrow long concealed, the offence -which wounds without ever a wound appearing, love rendered more supreme -and consuming in jealousy itself,—all in Emilio Guasco was sunk in this -tender compassion for Maria. He felt within himself all the evangelical -virtue of charity, perhaps stronger than any other sentimental impulse. -He was the good Samaritan who rescues the dying man on the road-side, -doctors his cruel wounds, and pours out the balsam that heals.</p> - -<p>Thus the pardon had been offered by Emilio Guasco to the wife who had -betrayed and left him. When he had sent her word he had thought nothing -more of the past or the future; he had<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> thought only of healing the poor -creature’s wounds, struck by passion’s cruel and implacable weapons; he -felt within himself a new soul greater, more generous, and superior to -sophisms and the world’s axioms. There seemed to be something heroic in -his heart, which raised and exalted him as at no other time in his life. -The immense tenderness he felt for her reacted on him; he pitied and -admired himself like the heroic person in a romance whose story he -sometimes read. The nearer the day of her return approached, the more -his emotion increased, the more the noble and sublime thing, which is -pardon, the law which Christ has given as the most supreme, seemed to -find in him a pure interpreter. So on that April evening in the presence -of the woman, pale and trembling as he had never seen her before and -would never see her again, he had pronounced those Christian words which -cancel, absolve, and redeem—</p> - -<p>“I pardon you, Maria.”</p> - -<p>But suddenly afterwards, in a flash, he felt this unique and noble -sentiment, this Christian pity, destroyed within him, as if it could -only give him one supreme moment of heroism. He felt all the old -sentiments rise again in his mind, contending among themselves—anger, -suffering, love and jealousy, and he was seized again in their power -without guide or will.<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="XI-2" id="XI-2"></a>XI</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Maria Guasco</span> was proceeding minutely to the completion of her toilette. -That morning she was wearing a cloth dress of maroon colour, cut in the -English fashion, through the jacket of which a blouse of white Irish -lace was to be seen; the full skirt in big pleats discovered the neat -feet shod in black kid. A large straw hat, with a circlet of red roses -and a thin veil, was placed over the chestnut hair, affording a glimpse -of its waves over the forehead, temple and neck. In her simple dress -without ornaments, and in its exact lines, she looked enchantingly -young. She said to Chiara, who was hovering round offering her gloves, -parasol, and purse—</p> - -<p>“Let your master know that I am ready and waiting for him here.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile she buttoned her yellow deerskin gloves and verified the -contents of her purse.</p> - -<p>“The master begs Your Excellency to oblige him with your presence in the -study,” said Chiara on returning in a low voice.</p> - -<p>Maria frowned slightly, and for an instant the colour left her cheeks. -Then, as if her will predominated immediately, she proceeded towards -her<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> husband’s study, and not a shadow of her recent emotion appeared on -her recomposed face.</p> - -<p>Seated behind his desk Emilio was writing a letter and smoking a -cigarette. He did not raise his head.</p> - -<p>“Well, Emilio,” asked his wife in a soothing voice, standing in the -middle of the room, “aren’t you dressed for the meet?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he replied, raising his head from his letter absently, “I am not -dressed.”</p> - -<p>“Wasn’t this the hour?” she continued gently; “ten o’clock, I think.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, ten o’clock,” and he lowered his head, resuming his writing.</p> - -<p>Maria’s gloved hand nervously clutched the onyx knob of her parasol.</p> - -<p>“Well, well,” she asked again, with a certain insistency. Emilio let his -pen fall, throwing it on the table, pushed the letter aside, and leaning -back in his chair regarded his wife for a long time earnestly without -speaking.</p> - -<p>“I have decided not to go to this last meet.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” said Maria only.</p> - -<p>Then, as if it annoyed her to remain standing before her husband’s desk, -her eyes sought a chair. She found one a little bit away and sat down, -still holding her parasol and purse, in the attitude of a lady paying a -visit.</p> - -<p>Both were silent; though, as ever since her return, he fixed his eyes on -his wife’s face and<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> person with a curiosity half thoughtful and half -observant, with an attitude of acute investigation which sometimes -embarrassed Maria.</p> - -<p>“Still, Emilio,” she said in a low voice, to break the silence, “you are -so fond of fox-hunting.”</p> - -<p>“I like it very much, it is true,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“And it will be a year before you can begin again.”</p> - -<p>“That is true.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you decide yesterday evening to go?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I did decide to go; but a night has passed on it.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t sleep at night and think of the meet at Cecilia Metella?” she -asked, trying to joke.</p> - -<p>“Eh, one doesn’t always sleep,” he replied, with an irritable gesture of -annoyance.</p> - -<p>She was silent. Then she raised her head resolutely.</p> - -<p>“Since I should have accompanied you, may I consider myself free?” she -asked, with some impatience.</p> - -<p>“You have other plans?” he murmured, looking at her again fixedly.</p> - -<p>“I have had no others from the moment that it was arranged that we -should go out together,” she replied quickly.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon for having made you dress; you have lost a -<i>toilette</i>.”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shrugging her<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> shoulders, and she began -to trace the arabesque designs of the carpet with her parasol.</p> - -<p>“Emilio?” she said suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Maria!”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you go alone to Cecilia Metella? Go and put on your pink; the -victoria is ready, and will take you to where Francesco is waiting with -the horses. Go now.”</p> - -<p>Her tone was quiet, indifferent, and persuasive.</p> - -<p>“No!” he exclaimed, with an angry gesture; “I don’t want to.”</p> - -<p>“Emilio,” she continued, in a voice still more persuasive, “I know that -it is on my account that you are not going to Cecilia Metella. I beg you -not to renounce this pleasure.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you; I shall not go,” he said drily.</p> - -<p>Maria got up suddenly, as if she had nothing further to say.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going?” he exclaimed, rising from his seat and following -her for a few steps.</p> - -<p>“To my room,” she replied, a little surprised; “then I shall go out.”</p> - -<p>“To go where?” he asked again harshly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I shall go for a walk somewhere,” she said, still more -surprised.</p> - -<p>“Where?” and anger trembled in the demand.</p> - -<p>“Emilio!” she exclaimed in sweet reproach; “Emilio!”</p> - -<p>He changed colour.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Maria, I beg your pardon.”<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a></p> - -<p>He threw himself on a large sofa, without taking the hand she offered -him. The woman remained standing, and looked at him.</p> - -<p>“Shall we go out together, Emilio?” she asked patiently.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Let us go outside the city where there is nobody.”</p> - -<p>“No, no.”</p> - -<p>“In the carriage to Villa Pamphily? It is such a beautiful morning, and -the air is so soft. Come, do.”</p> - -<p>“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, without looking at her.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, what ought I to do?” she asked patiently.</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“What do you wish to do?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Do you wish me to remain? Do you wish me to go?” and the tone was one -of sublime patience.</p> - -<p>He understood it and melted.</p> - -<p>“Maria, you are treating me like a child. Do you think I am ill? I have -white hair, but I am not infirm.”</p> - -<p>She noticed all the signs of anger and suffering.</p> - -<p>“At times we are ill without knowing it, and we mustn’t repulse an -affectionate hand.”</p> - -<p>“What charity!” he exclaimed, with irony.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a></p> - -<p>“What are you irritated about, Emilio? Because of the sentiment or the -person?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“For the two things,” he replied, with asperity.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she said, and her hand, trembling a little, found the handle of -her parasol. Again she made as if to go away without greeting him, -without turning round.</p> - -<p>“Are you offended?” he cried to her back; “you will end by hating me.”</p> - -<p>“I am not offended,” she replied, stopping with lowered eyes and -speaking slowly; “I have tamed my pride, Emilio, in the contact of life, -and I am not offended. I can hate no one.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her peculiarly and gloomily, with the strange insistence of -a man who wished to extract a tremendous secret from a glance. But she -did not see it. The question which was trembling on Emilio’s lips -disappeared. He lapsed again into confusion and silence.</p> - -<p>“Are you going to your bank?” she asked, to say something.</p> - -<p>“Yes, for a moment,” he replied absently.</p> - -<p>“Shall you come home to lunch?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, at the usual hour.”</p> - -<p>“What are you going to do afterwards?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“I am going to stay at home just now, and later——” she continued -monotonously.</p> - -<p>“Later?” he asked, with a start.</p> - -<p>“I have a meeting.”<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a></p> - -<p>“Ah!” he replied, looking at her.</p> - -<p>“With Flaminia Colonna; a work of charity,” she explained, somewhat -coldly.</p> - -<p>“Flaminia has always continued to love you.”</p> - -<p>“She has continued to,” she answered bitterly, biting her lip, growing a -little pale, “like any other friend.”</p> - -<p>“Do you go out together?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she replied, still paler; “are you surprised?” and the question -was put harshly.</p> - -<p>“No,” he said, speaking with difficulty, so great was his emotion; -“Flaminia Colonna is a woman and a friend ... while I——”</p> - -<p>“While you?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“I am a man, a husband.”</p> - -<p>There was a deep silence between them.</p> - -<p>“Is that the reason why you didn’t go to Cecilia Metella with me?” she -resumed.</p> - -<p>“That is the reason,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“What were you fearing?” in a voice still deeper.</p> - -<p>“Ridicule. Every one would have laughed at me, seeing me with you.”</p> - -<p>She fell back. Her eyes grew clouded, but she had the strength not to -open her mouth, to walk away without turning, leaving the man who had -told his secret stretched on the sofa like a miserable weakling.<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="XII-2" id="XII-2"></a>XII</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> ices were being served and the dinner was drawing to a close. All of -a sudden, in the midst of the slightly laboured and frivolous -conversation which occasionally gave place to the species of pompous -gravity, Francesco Serlupi, a young man celebrated for his blunders, -which assumed either a grotesque or dramatic aspect, again committed one -of them.</p> - -<p>“Do you know that the Fiore couple have returned home from their -honeymoon? It seems that things are not going too well.”</p> - -<p>A glacial silence fell on all.</p> - -<p>Maria Guasco, behind the huge mass of white lilies and red roses, which -almost hid her, had not even moved an eyelid; Emilio, taciturn as ever, -had lowered his eyes. The other guests, Flaminia Colonna, Gianni -Provana, and the Senator, Fabio Guasco, seemed distracted.</p> - -<p>“It seems that the Costanzi is to be closed for a week,” remarked Gianni -Provana, in an attempt to change the conversation.</p> - -<p>But Francesco Serlupi stuck to his gaucherie, and proclaimed -obstinately—</p> - -<p>“However, it is as I have said, Marco Fiore<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> returned to the club -yesterday, the day following his return, and yesterday he was at the -races without Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>Again a heavy silence. Maria, with a fervid glance, invoked the aid of -Flaminia. She promptly, with her penetrating voice, which was the -complement of her dark and proud figure, and of her beauty full of grace -and expression, said—</p> - -<p>“I am not surprised at it. As a matter of fact Marco Fiore has always -liked a club life; his mother, Donna Arduina, had always complained to -me about it. Besides, Vittoria has such a reserved and timid character.” -She emphasised her slow and tactful remark, fixing her sweet grey eyes -on Francesco, to make him understand that he must say no more on the -subject. He, as usual, understood too late the mischief he had done, and -became silent, keeping his head bent over his plate, not daring to look -at his hosts, anxious to escape, as he always did, when he discovered he -had committed an enormous indiscretion.</p> - -<p>“Are these delicious early peaches from Lama, Emilio?” asked Mario -Colonna, to divert the conversation better, alluding to the great -property of Casa Guasco near Terni.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied his host immediately, glad to be able to open his mouth -and speak of something else; “my gardens there work miracles, and also -my gardeners. Every day new flowers and fruit arrive.”<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a></p> - -<p>“Oh, you must be very happy about it, Maria,” observed Flaminia, with a -good-natured smile on her lips.</p> - -<p>“Oh, most happy,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>“You ought to love La Lama, Donna Maria,” remarked Francesco Serlupi, in -an endeavour to mend matters; “it is some time since you were there?”</p> - -<p>But the question was put in a low voice, besides, the dinner was -finished, so his hostess rose suddenly without replying to this latest -piece of stupidity, and leaning on the arm of Senator Fabio Guasco the -other guests followed her, Flaminia Colonna on the arm of Emilio, Gianni -Provana, Francesco Serlupi, and Mario Colonna in a group.</p> - -<p>“However did it come into your head?” said Gianni Provana to Serlupi, -keeping him back a little with Mario Colonna. “No one will ask you to -dinner, my dear friend, if you start breaking the dishes in your host’s -face at dessert.”</p> - -<p>“You are right; I am a proper stupid,” Serlupi declared, as they crossed -the two or three rooms before the drawing-room, “I shall go away at -once; I can’t stop here.”</p> - -<p>“Worse and worse,” observed Colonna; “stop a moment or two longer.”</p> - -<p>“You are going away with Donna Flaminia, aren’t you?”<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p> - -<p>“Yes, we can’t possibly stay. We are going to Madame Takuhira’s last -reception at the Japanese Legation.”</p> - -<p>“Do me a charity and take me away with you,” begged Serlupi.</p> - -<p>“Very well, very well,” said Colonna, laughing, “we will save you even -to the last indiscretion.”</p> - -<p>A circle was formed in the large drawing-room, all gathering in a corner -of it where Maria had formed a little room from the larger with screens, -large plants, and furniture, which cut off the space. However, the -conversation proceeded languidly, the sort of coldness which had been -there since the beginning of dinner had become accentuated after -Francesco Serlupi’s escapade. It was the first dinner Emilio and Maria -had given after her return home, thus resuming their old custom of -giving, during the chief Roman season from December to the end of May, -two dinners a week, one to intimates, another of ceremony, the -traditional hospitality in Casa Guasco and high Roman society. It had -been Flaminia Colonna who had urged her friend to resume the habits of -life where they had been relaxed; it had been Flaminia, too, who had -said affectionately to Emilio Guasco, with a sweet smile, “Give us a -dinner like you used to.”</p> - -<p>With a feeling of concealed timidity, Emilio had only dared to invite -persons of whom he was sure; his uncle, Fabio Guasco, the Colonna -couple, and<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> finally that silly Francesco Serlupi, who was a gracious -youth incapable of an incivility, but more capable of committing a -disaster with a remark, the importance of which he did not understand -till later, much later. Maria, as hostess, had endeavoured to give an -air of continuity to this resumption of worldly life, decorating her -dining-room as formerly, receiving her friends as formerly in that -bright and flowery corner of the drawing-room, adorning her person with -that studied elegance which distinguished her, and with which she -satisfied her æsthetic tendencies, producing that impression of sympathy -and fascination on her surroundings which was so appreciated. That -evening she was dressed in black voile, affording a glimpse of neck and -bosom, white in their perfect lines. A cluster of fresh red roses was -placed at the opening, nestling on the whiteness of the skin, and -rendering it more intense. A tall, stiff collar of small pearls in ten -rows, with a clasp in front of rubies and diamonds, surrounded her neck; -the bodice of the dress had half-sleeves embroidered with black wavy -tulle, which did not reach to the elbow, and showed her magnificent -white round arms with their delicate wrists. Her hands were loaded with -rings, all in the ancient style, and in her hair, amidst its waves and -dark abundance, were two little bright red roses. A quite interior -exaltation had rendered more splendid her bright eyes, so often closed -and disturbed.<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> That evening she had experienced a sudden pride of -energy and beauty.</p> - -<p>But in spite of this a subtle sense of embarrassment and pain weighed on -the dinner, and all the ordered luxury of the table, the exquisiteness -of the viands, the richness of the surroundings, the serenity of the -hostess, and the solicitous courtesy of the host had not caused this -impression to be removed from the mind of their guests. This impression -after Francesco Serlupi’s imprudent words became stronger; every one -felt oppressed, and sought a decent and amiable excuse for leaving. -Donna Maria allowed smoking in her room after dinner; but the men -discreetly retired to a far corner, so, as they said, not to fumigate -the two ladies. For some minutes Maria and Flaminia Colonna remained -alone.</p> - -<p>“What a bad experiment, eh, Flaminia, this dinner?” said Maria, with a -sneer and a bitter smile.</p> - -<p>“One wants much patience, immense patience,” replied the friend, shaking -her expressive and gracious Roman head.</p> - -<p>“Oh, not for me,” added Maria; “for myself I am ready to endure any -pain. It displeases me on Emilio’s account.”</p> - -<p>“He suffers, doesn’t he?” asked Flaminia, in a subdued voice.</p> - -<p>“He suffers too much,” Maria assented sadly. Then she got up suddenly to -serve the coffee and<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> liqueurs, which had been placed before her. Her -tall, undulating person possessed a great charm, as she lightly crossed -the room, carrying a cup in her hands, while she offered it with a smile -on her beautiful mouth to the men. She could see the admiration in all -their eyes, and she seemed to see it mixed with confusion in her -husband’s. She looked at him rather long, and between them, in those -glances exchanged, it seemed as if a whole world of thoughts and -sentiments had passed. With her rhythmical step Maria returned to her -friend.</p> - -<p>“Is it true what has been said?” she asked, sitting down.</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“That ... Marco and Vittoria already make a couple of doubtful -happiness.”</p> - -<p>“What does it matter to you?” replied Flaminia, looking at her with -suspicion.</p> - -<p>“It matters to me,” replied the other seriously; “I wished for their -happiness.”</p> - -<p>“But what do you desire?” said Flaminia a little diffidently.</p> - -<p>“I desire with all my soul that they may be happy,” said Maria.</p> - -<p>The friend believed her, because she recognised her as a creature -incapable of lies or falseness.</p> - -<p>“I believe that your desire of good for them cannot be a reality.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know it then?”<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a></p> - -<p>“I know it.”</p> - -<p>Maria sighed.</p> - -<p>“Later on, with time,” concluded Donna Flaminia, with her sense of -justice and equilibrium.</p> - -<p>“One wants such patience, immense patience,” rejoined Maria Guasco -dreamily.</p> - -<p>The company began to break up. Flaminia and Mario Colonna had to go to -the Japanese Legation. Francesco Serlupi, silently occupied with his -flight, followed them, almost holding on to their shoulders, as if to -hide himself. When the Senator Fabio Guasco took his leave as well, -accustomed to early hours, he kissed his niece’s hand, bowing with much -gallantry as he begged her not to forget her old uncle in her -invitations. Emilio Guasco, who had not said a single word since dinner, -announced that he was going to accompany him. So only Gianni Provana -remained, immovable, always tranquil, with his monocle fixed in its -orbit. Quietly and tactfully Maria made her way to her husband, and -asked him in a low voice—</p> - -<p>“Are you going out?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied quietly.</p> - -<p>“Why are you going?”</p> - -<p>“To accompany uncle.”</p> - -<p>“Are you returning soon?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“Take away Gianni Provana too,” she suggested.<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a></p> - -<p>“But why?” he asked, with a little irony; “I don’t want you to remain -alone.”</p> - -<p>“Take him away; take him away,” she murmured, troubled and nervously.</p> - -<p>“Are you afraid of him?” the husband asked mockingly.</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied proudly, “I am not afraid of any one.”</p> - -<p>She turned her back on him, greeting and kissing her friend, giving her -hand to the men to kiss, and to her husband as well. Did not his lips -seem to linger a little longer on her hand?</p> - -<p>Gianni Provana remained as usual, the quiet and tenacious man, who -allows nothing to disturb the plan he has formed for his existence. -Without glancing at him, Maria threw herself into her favourite -arm-chair, took a book with uncut leaves from a table, looked for a -paper-knife, and, having found it, with the peculiar noise of cut paper, -occupied her beautiful hands.</p> - -<p>“I don’t bore you, Donna Maria?”</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied, without raising her head.</p> - -<p>“You would have preferred me to go with the others?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps,” she replied absently.</p> - -<p>“You can’t bear me, isn’t it so?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“You are mistaken, Provana.”</p> - -<p>“Am I very antipathetic to you?”</p> - -<p>“You are not antipathetic to me.”</p> - -<p>“At any rate I am not sympathetic?”<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> - -<p>“Certainly not,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“Then indifferent,” and he bit his lip.</p> - -<p>“Exactly; indifferent,” she concluded in a monotonous voice.</p> - -<p>He got up quickly.</p> - -<p>“Are you going?” she asked, rather surprised.</p> - -<p>“For what am I to remain here? To hear this from you? The worst you -could have told me you have told.”</p> - -<p>The face of the worldling and pleasure-lover expressed at that moment -true suffering.</p> - -<p>She looked at him.</p> - -<p>“Why are you obstinate, Provana,” she asked coldly and courteously, “in -bothering about me, of what I think, of what I say, of what I do?”</p> - -<p>“Because I am a fool,” he confessed, taking his monocle out of its orbit -and looking at her, a familiar trick of his.</p> - -<p>“You are not a fool,” she replied, with a little smile; “you are eagerly -anxious to get something that seems necessary to you, which would -instead be useless and dangerous to you, and which, through your good -fortune, you will never obtain.”</p> - -<p>“Everything has been said,” he murmured, offering her his hand, -“good-night, Donna Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Good-night, Provana.”</p> - -<p>She offered her hand. He took it and kissed it, holding it a little in -his own. In spite of his<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> worldly composure, in spite of his mask of -good form, he showed that he was moved.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you really manage, Donna Maria, to consider me a man worthy of -some attention and curiosity?” he asked, with some anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know you well!” she replied, shaking her head.</p> - -<p>“You could be wrong.”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t be wrong. For several years you have been attempting the -conquest of my—attention—let us call it attention—a question of -self-love. You have possessed other women more beautiful, more elegant -than I. You are accustomed to succeed, so you are irritated and sad -because you can’t with me. You have begun to suffer because you can’t -succeed with me, and so you have got as far as believing that you are -really in love.”</p> - -<p>“Alas, it is no supposition!” he replied melancholily, but with an -accent of truth.</p> - -<p>“Let us not speak of love,” she declared; “I oughtn’t to listen any more -to such talk. My greedy ears are satiated with it, they are tired of it, -and have become deaf to it for ever and ever.”</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless, some one loves you here, Donna Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Whoever?”</p> - -<p>“Emilio!”</p> - -<p>“You are mistaken,” she said gravely; “Emilio no longer loves me.”<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a></p> - -<p>“Really?” he asked anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Really.”</p> - -<p>“Is he not an impassioned lover, an enamoured husband, and a tender -friend?”</p> - -<p>“None of these things, Provana.”</p> - -<p>“What is he, then?”</p> - -<p>“An enemy perhaps,” she replied softly.</p> - -<p>“But hasn’t he pardoned you?”</p> - -<p>“He has pardoned me, yes. He has pardoned me, but nothing more.”</p> - -<p>“I never would have believed it,” he said thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“Nor I.”</p> - -<p>“But perhaps,” he resumed, questioning her with his glance, “you have -frightened him and kept him at a distance with your contempt.”</p> - -<p>“I have done all that is possible; I am doing all that is possible,” she -said vaguely, as if speaking to herself.</p> - -<p>“You don’t love him; he will have understood.”</p> - -<p>“I am humiliated and humiliate myself every day!” Maria exclaimed in a -sorrowful voice; “and I break my pride every instant before him. But I -can’t tell him to love me; neither does he ask it of me. He asks me -nothing.”</p> - -<p>“And if he were to ask it?” he said.</p> - -<p>“He won’t; he won’t. He has understood I can’t lie.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Emilio!” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Do you pity him? Even I pity him. He has<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> had pity on me, and I return -it to him. But beyond this he can do nothing for me, and I can do -nothing for him.”</p> - -<p>The conversation had suddenly become austere. The worldling appeared -preoccupied, the woman with her beautiful hands crossed on her knees was -telling her tale as if in a dream. Gianni Provana looked two or three -times at her. She was so young still, so flourishing in beauty, with -every womanly grace, and he said to her—</p> - -<p>“Is it possible that Emilio has no eyes, no heart, no feelings, that he -doesn’t experience near you that invincible attraction which has made me -ridiculous for years?”</p> - -<p>“Who knows! Who knows!” she exclaimed wearily.</p> - -<p>“What, in fact, do you think about your life?”</p> - -<p>“I think nothing, Provana. I live my life as I do as a duty neither -pleasant nor sad. I was hoping, and still hope, to give consolation for -the undeserving sorrow I have sown. Now I don’t seem to be walking -towards my goal. I don’t seem to be moving.”</p> - -<p>“And how if your heart is elsewhere?” he said harshly; “you still love -Marco Fiore.”</p> - -<p>“If I loved him still I shouldn’t have returned,” she rejoined -immediately, firmly. “I often think of him with tenderness and -sweetness, but without love.”<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a></p> - -<p>“Have you heard? He isn’t happy,” he continued tartly.</p> - -<p>“The fault isn’t mine, nor is it his. It is impossible that either he or -I could ever be happy again. We knew it when we separated.”</p> - -<p>“But Vittoria, it seems, is unhappy!” exclaimed Provana.</p> - -<p>“Ah, that is very, very sad,” she said thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“Like your husband, for that matter,” added Provana.</p> - -<p>“It is all immensely sad,” she concluded bitterly.</p> - -<p>“The fault is neither yours nor Marco’s,” said Provana, with a sneer.</p> - -<p>“You can only smile or laugh at all this,” and she glanced at him with -disdain.</p> - -<p>“Better to smile or laugh, Donna Maria. I am an optimist in my cynicism. -Everything will gradually and slowly settle down.”</p> - -<p>“How?” she asked, not without anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria and Marco will end by adapting themselves to each other. He -will have a son—perhaps two or three—and she will not bother any more -about her husband. Marco will be older, and a monotonous frequenter of -the club, the races, and other noble pursuits. Perhaps he will have a -mistress or two whom he will not love, since he who has loved cannot -love another woman with passion.”</p> - -<p>“And here?” she asked, with a mocking laugh.<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a></p> - -<p>“Here, too, time will do its work. Emilio’s pardon will be, shall we -say—active. He will love you tranquilly and faithfully as formerly, and -you will again be an exemplary couple. Remorse will have ceased to bite -yours and Marco’s heart; you may yet be two beautiful great souls. The -years will be passed, and the four of you will even be able to see each -other tranquilly.”</p> - -<p>A strident and sardonic laugh punctuated the discourse, while he -replaced his monocle in its orbit elegantly.</p> - -<p>“And you, Provana?” asked the woman, laughing, too, ironically.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I!” he exclaimed, with false <i>bonhommie</i>; “I am the man who waits. -<i>Vice versâ</i> in waiting will come old age and death. So I shall pass to -my ancestors with a beautiful and ridiculous epitaph: that of having -loved Donna Maria Guasco uselessly.”</p> - -<p>“It is even a big something to be able to love,” she remarked -thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“That is what they say in novels and dramas; in life it is rather -boring. Above everything the man who loves alone is the greatest bore of -all. Good-night, Donna Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Good-night,” she said, without detaining him.</p> - -<p>An uncertain, melancholy, bitter dream settled on Maria’s soul.</p> - -<p class="c">* * * * * * * * </p> - -<p>A voice awoke her from this dream.<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a></p> - -<p>“Good-evening, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Good-evening, Emilio.”</p> - -<p>Her husband had entered without her noticing his step. He sat on the -seat which Provana had left. It seemed to Maria that his face had become -grave and thoughtful. She put down her book, and leaned her head, as if -it were too heavy for her, on her beautiful hands. In the harmony of her -movements, her womanly grace and fascination, in the silence of the -moment, had something penetrating about it.</p> - -<p>“Are you alone?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Provana went away a minute ago.”</p> - -<p>“I met him near here, but he didn’t see me. What fine tales has he been -telling you?” he resumed, with a disingenuous accent.</p> - -<p>“Nothing very fine,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“However, you must have listened to him with interest.”</p> - -<p>“What makes you think that?” she said, trembling.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it. The conversation has not been short, nor have you cut it -short,” he added a little bitterly.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed; “ought I to show the door to your Provana?”</p> - -<p>“Mine? Mine? Isn’t he your friend?” he interrupted with agitation.</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied precisely, “he is not my friend.”<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a></p> - -<p>“He makes love to you, however,” observed Emilio.</p> - -<p>The tone was intended to appear indifferent, but if Maria had listened -carefully and had regarded her husband’s face better, she would have -understood that it was a question, and asked with anxiety. Instead, she -shrugged her shoulders, and let it go without a reply. He repeated it.</p> - -<p>“He makes love to you, doesn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, perhaps; I believe so,” she murmured, letting her reply fall -indifferently.</p> - -<p>“He has always made love to you, hasn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he seems to have always done so,” she replied, with the same -indifference and distraction.</p> - -<p>“And you?” he said, in a sharp, hard voice which hurt her. Was he really -Emilio who was questioning her so haughtily like a judge? Up to then the -conversation had seemed to Maria one of those usual monotonous -conversations in which every one speaks and thinks quite differently to -what he says, and the lips pronounce empty words mechanically. Instead, -she was suddenly aware that her husband wished imperiously to know the -truth of her heart.</p> - -<p>“I?” she replied, at once becoming sad and proud.</p> - -<p>“You, you,” he replied, without changing his tone.</p> - -<p>“What do you want to know from me?”<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a></p> - -<p>“If Gianni Provana’s suit pleases you, if it has ever pleased you, if it -will ever please you?” he said coldly and cuttingly, drawing near to -her, and looking at her with eyes full of anger.</p> - -<p>She stepped back a little, certainly not in fright, but to measure this -new sentiment of Emilio’s.</p> - -<p>“What does it matter to you?” she asked slowly.</p> - -<p>“It matters to me,” he replied, without changing either his accent or -the expression of his face.</p> - -<p>“Gianni Provana’s suit has never pleased me, does not please me, and -never will please me.”</p> - -<p>She pronounced the words slowly, letting them fall one by one, fixing -her husband with her eyes. She saw his face change distinctly, the anger -vanish which had transfigured him, and she heard his voice assume a -lower tone, veiled with unfamiliar emotion.</p> - -<p>“Why?” he asked; “why?”</p> - -<p>“Because I despise him,” she concluded honestly, retiring again into a -definite silence, as if she had nothing else to say, or wished to say, -on that subject.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Maria,” he whispered, drawing near her, his voice -saddened and a little disturbed.</p> - -<p>She glanced at him.</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t matter,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“I am certain I have offended you,” he insisted, still troubled.<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a></p> - -<p>“Yes, a little, but it doesn’t matter,” she added, with some pride.</p> - -<p>“I must have seemed a little bit brutal to you, Maria,” he exclaimed -remorsefully.</p> - -<p>“A little,” she replied less proudly; “but it doesn’t matter.”</p> - -<p>“Does nothing matter to you, then?” he asked, exasperated and sad.</p> - -<p>She was silent and lowered her eyes, playing with her rings in a way -that Emilio remembered.</p> - -<p>“Will you give me your hand in token of peace?” he asked, with a false -accent of easiness and frivolity.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she replied, giving him her hand.</p> - -<p>“You bear me no rancour, Maria?” he continued with the same studied -disingenuousness.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“So be it,” he said, and he kissed the hand, and afterwards tried to -keep it in his. She did not raise her eyes to his, and remained immobile -and silent.</p> - -<p>“Otherwise,” he resumed, as if continuing a discourse, “I find it quite -reasonable that Gianni Provana should press his suit on you. Don’t get -angry again,” he said, pressing the hand which she tried to withdraw, -“his name annoys you; I won’t pronounce it again. I say finally that he -is right to press his suit on you.”</p> - -<p>She listened to him silently.<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a></p> - -<p>“Why are you so seducing?” he exclaimed weakly.</p> - -<p>Was it the deception of the light, or did a slight flush diffuse itself -over his face? But why did she say nothing to the man who was drawing -his face nearer to hers and speaking so softly? What thought was -restraining her? What sentiment was conquering her? The man was still -bending, as if to snatch her from her silence, to snatch a word from -her, which would not issue from the tightly closed lips.</p> - -<p>“You are not yet thirty, Maria?” he asked, with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“I am twenty-eight,” she replied softly.</p> - -<p>“And I am old now,” he murmured melancholily, pressing her still hand, -“I am so old for you. Youth is a beautiful thing.”</p> - -<p>“Youth is a magnificent thing,” she replied, raising her voice with -flashing eyes.</p> - -<p>The incantation was broken. Violently Emilio let go of her hand. Getting -up and withdrawing apart he strode through the room two or three times -gloomily, almost blindly striking against the furniture. Sadly she -looked at him, seeing him a prey to a sudden access of fury, and before -this mystery her woman’s heart quailed anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Emilio!” she called two or three times without his hearing.</p> - -<p>“Maria,” he replied at last, in a kind of growl, without stopping.<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> - -<p>“What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” he replied, between his teeth.</p> - -<p>Very gradually his violent perambulations amongst the furniture grew -calmer. He stopped near a table at a little distance away and sat there. -Leaning his elbows on it, he hid his head in his hands, immersed in deep -and terrible thoughts. Thus the time passed, while Maria herself seemed -wrapped in thought. At last she seemed to make a decision. She rose, -crossed the room, and bending over her husband, without touching him, -called him again: “Emilio.”</p> - -<p>He only started, but said nothing.</p> - -<p>“Emilio, my friend, reply,” she said softly and insinuatingly.</p> - -<p>“What do you want?” was the gloomy reply.</p> - -<p>“I want to know what is disturbing you.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing is disturbing me.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you lie? You are very troubled; tell me what is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“You would laugh at me.”</p> - -<p>“I have never laughed at any one,” she replied patiently.</p> - -<p>“Who knows?” he said, looking at her in mad anger, and with the open -intention of offending her.</p> - -<p>She stopped, and grew pale. But her moral energy was too great.</p> - -<p>“He who laughs at the sufferings of another is a knave and a fool; you -would not consider me perverse or stupid, Emilio?”<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a></p> - -<p>“I am not suffering,” he replied gloomily, rising.</p> - -<p>“You are mistaken, my friend. You want to deceive me or yourself. You -have some ill in your soul; tell me what it is.”</p> - -<p>“I have nothing, and I am not suffering,” he replied gloomily.</p> - -<p>She shook her head sadly.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I could give you some consolation, Emilio?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Every human being who has a feeling heart, and soul, can give comfort.”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Am I not your friend, Emilio? Have you no faith in your friend?”</p> - -<p>He sneered horribly.</p> - -<p>“Friend? friend? You my friend? You, you? I should have faith in you?”</p> - -<p>His laughter caused her to shudder.</p> - -<p>“How you must be suffering, Emilio, to speak thus,” she said pityingly, -pressing her hands to her breast. The man’s heart at such words, and at -such a manifestation of pity, melted. He fell again into his seat and a -sigh escaped him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how I suffer!”</p> - -<p>An immense compassion transfigured the woman. She bent over him and -lightly touched his shoulders with her fingers. He trembled and raised -his face, and fixed her with eyes so full of immense,<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> measureless -sorrow that he seemed to Maria like the living image itself of anguish.</p> - -<p>“Tell me why you suffer, Emilio?” she demanded, with such emotion that -his spasms seemed to increase.</p> - -<p>“I can’t!” he said desperately.</p> - -<p>“Whatever it is you can tell me; I can bear it. Speak, speak, Emilio; -don’t be afraid of offending me; don’t be afraid of saddening me. -Speak,” she said to him affectionately, at the height of her pity.</p> - -<p>“I can’t, I can’t,” he said, in cold desperation.</p> - -<p>“My friend, don’t be severe with yourself. Don’t be so implacable with -your wounded heart; don’t maltreat your wounded soul. Be more humane, -more tender, more compassionate with yourself, my friend, or those -bleeding wounds will never close, and you will never feel them heal. You -will then sigh away all your best blood, Emilio.”</p> - -<p>“It is true,” he murmured, as if to himself.</p> - -<p>“Friend, conquer your pride and your <i>amour propre</i>. All of us, all of -us, no one is excluded, have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer. -It is not a shame or a reproach to suffer. Those who hide their pain -proudly are not men, are not Christians, and do not feel the human -comfort of weeping.”</p> - -<p>“That is true,” he murmured.</p> - -<p>“Friend, I know the words that caress sorrow,<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> that rock it and finally -send it to sleep. Later on, when it awakes in us, it is more tender and -weaker; it is a much duller torment.”</p> - -<p>Like a suffering child, he looked at her anxiously.</p> - -<p>“My friend, why do you suffer?” she asked, leaning over him with a face -transfigured with the grandeur of her loving charity, taking his hand -and caressing it like that of a sick child in pain. “You oughtn’t to -suffer. You have been an upright and just man. Your life has no -remorses; it was guided by a moral conscience, tranquil and firm. You -have not sinned—that I know; you have caused sorrow to none. Yours is a -life without remorse, and so beautiful that suffering ought not to touch -it.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her ardently, almost drinking in her words like some divine -liquor.</p> - -<p>“You ought not to suffer. You are no longer alone in life; your friend -is near you, near your heart, desiring one thing only, that you may not -suffer, that you may no longer feel lonely, that you may possess a soul -near you and for you——”</p> - -<p>He looked at her passionately, and every one of her words seemed to -intoxicate him. She, too, seemed exhilarated with compassion, -tenderness, and devotion.</p> - -<p>“Emilio, it is your Maria who is here,” she said solemnly.</p> - -<p>Then like a madman he took her in his arms, pressed her madly to his -breast in a frenzied<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> embrace, and kissed her long, while she, trembling -and lost, closed her eyes as before a mortal peril. But immediately, as -if the contact of her person had scorched him, as if the lips which had -not given him a kiss had scorched him, he pushed Maria brutally aside, -crying out at her—</p> - -<p>“You cause me horror!”</p> - -<p>“Emilio!” she exclaimed, in complete amazement.</p> - -<p>“Go away, go away. You cause me horror!” he yelled in her face like a -madman.</p> - -<p>She drew back, stupefied and terrified.</p> - -<p>“You have pardoned me!” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“It is true, it is true,” he yelled, “but I can’t forget. Go away, go -away; I can’t forget.”</p> - -<p>So she went, bent, defeated, and broken by the incomparable weight of -the truth.<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="XIII-2" id="XIII-2"></a>XIII</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> one of the large reception-rooms of Casa Nerola, near a bank formed -of an enormous group of Hortense roses, two young girls stand talking -and smiling discreetly, slowly moving their little white fans. The one, -Theresa Santacroce, is dressed in light blue, with a silver belt, her -hair arranged high with a circlet of silver ivy leaves. The other, -Stefania Farnese, is dressed in ivory silk, and two large red roses in -her chestnut hair give her a Spanish appearance, although her beauty is -delicate.</p> - -<p>“We thought we were going to be late with mamma.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we dined at seven on purpose.”</p> - -<p>“That is why you haven’t been to the tea-room?”</p> - -<p>“Of course. Here it is the same as at Court, one has to come before the -sovereigns arrive.”</p> - -<p>“The most beautiful spectacle is, naturally, the entry of the Emperor.”</p> - -<p>“Is it true that all the women are in love with him?”</p> - -<p>“So they say. As for me I don’t like Germans.”</p> - -<p>“O Stefania, let us be grateful to him. If<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> he hadn’t come to Rome in -December we shouldn’t have had the first ball now.”</p> - -<p>“Long live the Kaiser, then! Since without him we should have had to -wait till the end of February.”</p> - -<p>“You are expecting Giovanni Altieri, aren’t you, Stefania?”</p> - -<p>“Giovanni Altieri! I don’t want to hear him mentioned. No one is more -voluble or frivolous.”</p> - -<p>“Really!”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. Just think, he has been in love this summer three or four -times with foreigners—American, Russian, English. And now the wretch -does nothing but speak badly of Italian girls.”</p> - -<p>“How all our sweethearts take away these foreign women!”</p> - -<p>“Let us give them an exchange. Let us go abroad with our mammas and -marry Russian princes, English dukes and American millionaires.”</p> - -<p>“A good idea; but our Italians are so sympathetic. Look at Marco Fiore -over there; what a handsome youth! I would have married him very -gladly.”</p> - -<p>“And you would have done very badly.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Why ... do you know nothing? you are too simple.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me why; tell me.”</p> - -<p>“Another time. How late it is, and the ball can’t be opened till the -Emperor comes!”<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a></p> - -<p>“Shall we see a state quadrille danced?”</p> - -<p>“They say he dances beautifully.”</p> - -<p>“Will he dance with the Principessa di Nerola?”</p> - -<p>“Naturally. You know she is German, and a mediatised princess. That is -why she is giving the ball and the Emperor is coming.”</p> - -<p>“Are you engaged for the first waltz?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, with De Goertz, of the Austrian Embassy.”</p> - -<p>“Have you begun, then, with the foreigners?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly; and you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am dancing with my cousin Roffredo.”</p> - -<p class="c">* * * * * * * * </p> - -<p>Two old ladies are seated on a sofa of antique brocade in another of the -rooms. Their age prohibits them from dancing. Their hair is white, their -faces are furrowed with wrinkles, and their bodies bent with senility, -so they seldom leave their patriarchal homes except on occasions of -great state. They are the Princess of Anticoli and the Duchess of Sutri. -Both are dressed in sumptuous dresses, trimmed with valuable lace; the -most precious family jewels adorn their white hairs, giving them a -certain majesty. Their necks, thin with age, wear scintillating diamond -necklaces, and emeralds of old-fashioned style.</p> - -<p>The Duchess of Sutri has magnificent eyes, black and vivid, which form a -singular contrast to<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> the old age depicted in her face and person. Both -their fans are closed in their hands, now so tired of moving them after -so many years of balls and festivities. They are talking together -slowly, watching with wandering eyes the elegant crowd which is coming -and going.</p> - -<p>“It wanted an Emperor, Lavinia, to make me leave my home at night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, in other times I wouldn’t have come here at any cost; isn’t he a -Lutheran? But all that is changed. My Fabrizio has absolutely stated his -wish to enter the Italian army. How was I, a widow, to contradict him? -You understand me.”</p> - -<p>“You have done well, my poor Lavinia. In fact, perhaps our sons and -nephews are more right to accustom themselves to the new state of things -than we are to protest. Now I am tired and sorry even of the discussion. -I look and smile; sometimes I even laugh.”</p> - -<p>“As for me, on the other hand, so many things happen and cause my pity, -Livia. But to whom am I to say it? I should offend people by remarking -on certain misfortunes and losses.”</p> - -<p>“What magnificence, do you remember, in our times?”</p> - -<p>“We were all much richer then, Livia.”</p> - -<p>“What a lot of us have fallen into the most terrible poverty; it is a -real shame.”</p> - -<p>“Giovanna della Marsiliana.”<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a></p> - -<p>“Poor, poor thing! She lives on her little property near Perugia, just a -small house and a garden, I think.”</p> - -<p>“Does she stay there summer and winter?”</p> - -<p>“Always now.”</p> - -<p>“It is a real exile then.”</p> - -<p>“But her daughter-in-law, Carolina della Marsiliana, is here. I see her -over there.”</p> - -<p>“Look, look, she is wearing the Marsiliana pearls!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, she has rescued them from the moneylender, Labanchi, for a large -sum.”</p> - -<p>“Naturally, her father has so many millions.”</p> - -<p>“A wholesale boot-manufacturer!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it seems he wants to repurchase the whole of the Marsiliana -properties.”</p> - -<p>“Carolina is speaking with Arduina Fiore.”</p> - -<p>“Why isn’t Arduina wearing her diadem or necklace?”</p> - -<p>“She has given them to her two daughters-in-law, Beatrice and Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>“They are fortunate, those Casalta girls.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so? This evening they are wearing the jewels of Casa -Fiore. Do you notice the two daughters-in-law are following their -mother-in-law side by side?”</p> - -<p>“Beatrice is very charming.”</p> - -<p>“The other is insignificant.”</p> - -<p>“A little pale and supercilious. She doesn<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a>’t like society, I suppose. -How long are you staying, Lavinia?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know we can’t go away till this Emperor leaves?”</p> - -<p>“I knew his grandfather very well at Berlin.”</p> - -<p>“And I his father in London, when he came to fetch his bride, Victoria.”</p> - -<p>“It is useless to remind him of that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh dear, yes.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Two gentlemen have withdrawn from the flow of people to an embrasure of -a window. One is Carlo Savelli, of the great house of Savelli, tall, -strong and nervous, looking as if he had dismounted from one of the -well-limbed horses of the Campagna, and had changed his large round -cow-boy cloak for the evening dress of society. The other is Guglielmo -Morici, pale and delicate, of the best Roman bourgeoisie, but allied by -business and relationship to the nobility. In the conversation of each -the Roman accent is very marked.</p> - -<p>“When is the meeting fixed for?”</p> - -<p>“For Saturday evening, Guglielmo. You are going to take part if you can -get off?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I can get off for two or three days, for the Monday or even till -Tuesday morning.”</p> - -<p>“Good; we must pray Heaven that it doesn’t rain!”<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a></p> - -<p>“I don’t mind a little rain when one is out shooting, a little, but not -too much.”</p> - -<p>“You are right. We train to Velletri, thence we drive for three hours to -Campiglione.”</p> - -<p>“Do we get there at midnight?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and go to bed at once. At six o’clock we are off. Breakfast is at -a place called L’Æqua Morta, and at night we sleep at Fattino.”</p> - -<p>“How I love these shooting trips, dear Carlo! For three days through -fields and woods, eating here and there, sleeping here and there. One -could believe oneself far away in Africa or Asia.”</p> - -<p>“I swear to you, Guglielmo, that everything else is indifferent to me; I -rave about the chase. At first it was a hobby, but now it is a passion.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I have had it since a boy.”</p> - -<p>“People who do not understand it laugh at us.”</p> - -<p>“Let them laugh. Who is coming with us?”</p> - -<p>“The usual lot; Mario Colonna, Giovanni Santacroce, and Emilio Guasco.”</p> - -<p>“Splendid; have you fixed up everything?”</p> - -<p>“This evening we must all meet here to arrange the time-table.”</p> - -<p>“Is Emilio coming here too this evening?”</p> - -<p>“I believe he is coming with his wife.”</p> - -<p>“A beautiful woman!”</p> - -<p>“I have always liked her.”<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a></p> - -<p>“You are not the only one who has liked her.”</p> - -<p>“What are we to do? It is a misfortune for us husbands.”</p> - -<p>“However, they are together again now—man and wife!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Emilio is a splendid fellow.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t have done it.”</p> - -<p>“So one says. But then one has to find oneself in certain predicaments. -Watch if you can see them arriving.”</p> - -<p>“I see him; Mario Colonna is there.”</p> - -<p>“Beckon to him to look for us after the Emperor has entered.”</p> - -<p>“He has winked ‘yes.’ Now I see Emilio Guasco.”</p> - -<p>“Is he with his wife?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes. She is more beautiful than ever this evening. Do you know -that even I think in looking at her that he was right to have pardoned -her.”</p> - -<p>“Have you nodded to him?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but I suppose he hasn’t seen me.”</p> - -<p>“We will find him as soon as the Emperor has passed. At that moment -every one will flock into the ball-room.”</p> - -<p>“Is there to be much dancing afterwards?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, on account of the festivities the ladies have been -enthusiastic about the Kaiser. My daughter, Maria, will stop late.”<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a></p> - -<p>“I think my wife must be very late. She was still dressing when I went -out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, these ladies and their <i>toilette</i>!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I leave mine every liberty of being late by setting out first. Thus -there is no quarrelling.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>A telephone message from the German Embassy has warned the Principe di -Nerola that the Emperor of Germany with his suite has started for the -Palazzo di Nerola. It is half-past ten. Court ceremonial ordains that -the host honoured by a royal visit, receives His Majesty in the -courtyard of his palace, at the foot of the grand staircase. The -December evening is very cold. A slight frost covers the roads. The -Prince of Nerola is already seventy, and the waiting in the cutting -night air worries him secretly, in spite of the high honour which is -coming to him from the Imperial visit.</p> - -<p>The Roman patrician descends the stairs of his majestic palace wrapped -in a fur coat, with his hat on his head. His three sons, Don -Marcontonio, Don Camillo, and Don Clemente follow him at a little -distance. On every step of the staircase, on right and left, are valets -of Casa Nerola in grand livery. At the foot of the staircase footmen, -with large lighted candelabra, form a circle round the group formed by -the Prince and his sons.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a></p> - -<p>The Nerola palace, in the via Santi Apostoli, is imposing and solemn in -its exterior architecture. The courtyard is immense, with a fountain in -the middle with a green tiled circle round it. A portico opens on the -four sides of the courtyard. The internal architecture resembles the -Palazzo Borghese.</p> - -<p>Paolo, fifteenth Prince of Nerola, is tall and thin, with flowing white -beard. His sons, between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age, all -resemble him, but their appearance is less aristocratic and proud than -his. Some minutes pass in silence, and suddenly the janitor of Casa -Nerola, a Colossus clothed in a livery resplendent with gold, strikes -the asphalt three times with his great gold-headed baton, while a dull -noise of carriage-wheels reaches from the street.</p> - -<p>At once, with youthful agility, Don Paolo frees himself from his cape, -and remains in evening dress, his breast covered with decorations. The -first imperial carriage enters, containing the aides-de-camp, and stops -in front of the grand staircase. The imperial master of ceremonies and -three officials in German uniform descend. Salutes are exchanged, and -all four group themselves behind the Prince, in waiting. The second -carriage enters more slowly, the Prince advances to the door. The -Emperor alights, and uncovers at once before the Roman patrician, who -bows profoundly and thanks<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> His Imperial Majesty for the honour he is -doing to Casa Nerola. The Emperor smiles beneath his light moustaches, -curled up proudly, and the procession is formed.</p> - -<p>The footmen go slowly in front, holding the magnificent silver -candelabra, lit with sweet-scented candles. Behind, at a certain -distance, the Emperor. On his left the Prince walks a little apart, and -a little behind him a group is formed by the Prince’s sons and the -imperial suite. The procession mounts the stairs almost in silence, and -with great solemnity. The sovereign is very calm, and talks to his host -in German, looking around at the noble beauty of the house he is -entering. Above, in the last ante-room, at the entrance to the suite of -reception-rooms, the Princess of Nerola is waiting, born Princess Tekla -di Salm-Salm. Dressed in white brocade, she wears the closed crown of a -mediatised German princess; on her bodice is pinned a German order, -which is only given to German ladies of high lineage. Her hair, which -had been of the palest flaxen colour, is now quite white. She has that -opaque whiteness of colouring, and the rosy cheeks of the descendants of -Arminius. Though massive and big-boned, she looks quite the great lady. -Immediately her Emperor appears at the door she goes towards him, and -almost prostrates herself in profound reverence. Calmly, and almost -jokingly,<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> the Emperor takes her hand, kisses it gallantly, and gives -her at once her title: “Your Serene Highness.”</p> - -<p>The orchestra in the ante-room at once broke into the German National -Anthem, in which all the ardent and mysterious power of the German soul -is manifested. The procession is again formed, and William, King and -Emperor, tall and erect in his uniform of a colonel of the Garde du -Corps, gives his arm to the Princess to cross the rooms, glittering with -light and magnificently decorated with plants and flowers, showing in -all their refulgence the ancient beauty of their sculptural and -pictorial decoration, in all the richness of their artistic furniture, -an historic luxury, so calm and powerful. Behind the Emperor and the -Princess come the Prince, his sons, and the suite. All walk slowly, -regulating their step to his. He goes slowly, for he knows the secret of -these appearances, and speaks smilingly to the Princess, looking around -to right and left at the two lines of men and women who bow profoundly -to him, and lower their eyes, if he fixes them with his clear, flashing -eyes. It is a double hedge of women especially, in coloured and -brilliant gowns, in white and soft gowns, with bare shoulders and arms. -It is a double hedge of heads—blondes, brunettes, chestnuts, golden, -white—on which feathers flap, on which jewelled stars and shining -crescents<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> tremble, on which strange flowers almost open: heads bowed -beneath the weight of their thickly dressed hair, little heads almost -childish beneath the wavy aureole of golden locks, heads which bow in a -salute of reverence, of admiration, of mute feminine sympathy, for this -Emperor of legend, of poesy, of ever-renewing self-will. He admires and -greets the women with a slightly haughty smile, continuing his way. -There is not a word or a whisper as he passes, nothing except the -rustling of silk and velvet, or the jingling of the sabres of the suite. -In this silence the passing of the Emperor-King acquires a more -impressive and imposing character.</p> - -<p>Crowded one against the other, dame and damsel had not spoken while he -appeared and while he was passing, and indifferent to their surroundings -had only thought of seeing him and being seen, of greeting him and -receiving his greeting. Mixed among them are old men and young, also -intent on bowing to the sovereign. In the famous tapestry-room of Casa -Nerola, the room before the ball-room, in the great space cleared in the -middle of it to allow the Emperor-King to pass, opposite but far off, -divided by the big space and many people, a man and a woman have -recognised each other with their eyes, and have remained immobile and -silent to gaze at each other.</p> - -<p>They are Maria Guasco Simonetti and Marco Fiore.<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a></p> - -<p>Since that sad autumn afternoon a year ago, when they had wept their -last tears together without either being able to console the other, -taking leave of each other for ever, and burying their dead dream of -love, they had never seen each other. It is a year ago since, -courageously and with broken hearts, they had separated, thinking in -that terrible moment that they would never see each other again till -death or old age; but so many singular circumstances had happened around -them during this time, the change of events has been great, and their -fate has changed all its course and aspect. Suddenly and unexpectedly on -that December evening, amidst sumptuous and splendid surroundings, -amidst flowers, women, jewels, music, and perfumes, the two who had -lived their passion of love together, and had placed it desolately in -its sepulchre, are face to face, divided by the crowd; but their -glances, greedily and intensely attracted, seem as if they never could -separate. For a long moment Maria Guasco and Marco Fiore gaze at each -other. In their eyes there is only one beautiful, simple, strong -expression, sadness free from every ardour, sadness free of every -desire; sadness without remorse or hope; a sadness which neither invokes -nor offers help. It is an incomparable and immeasurable sadness, which -can only be supported by lofty human strength in its humility and -innocence. Thus they look at each other and are<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> only sad for that which -was and is no more, for that which can never return to them, since -nothing which is dead in the soul rises again.</p> - -<p>Proud and smiling the Emperor passes, and a flock of people crowd behind -the suite and increases near the door, to get near him and surround him. -Marco and Maria are separated by the great crowd. But they do not seek -each other. Everything has been said in one long glance, in one long -moment of intimate understanding.<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="XIV-2" id="XIV-2"></a>XIV</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">As</span> Emilio Guasco helped his wife into her opera-cloak, she felt on her -bare shoulders the sensation of something scorching. It was her -husband’s hands that had touched her. She turned round quickly, never -having seen him so pale. They were alone in the armoury of Casa Nerola, -used as a cloak-room. No one is leaving, no one ought to be leaving at -the moment when the festival is at its brightest, since the Emperor is -dancing in the state quadrille. But Emilio had said to her, coming up -unexpectedly, in a decided voice—</p> - -<p>“Let us go.”</p> - -<p>She obeyed at once. Two valets hastened to help her, but Emilio took the -cloak and shawl. How hot the man’s hands felt on the woman’s cold white -shoulders. Descending the staircase, with a silent bow he offered his -arm to his wife, and, almost as if he feared to see her fall, he pressed -hers against his as in a vice. They said not a word, nor did they look -at each other. At the bottom of the stairs they waited while the porter -called their carriage.<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a></p> - -<p>Slightly bending her beautiful head Maria entered the coupé drawn by a -pair of grey horses, and the door closed behind Emilio with a dull -sound. Emilio sat silently in his corner. Twice his wife looked at him -in the half-light, and noticed that he was paler than she had ever seen -him; his troubled eyes were brightly fixed on her.</p> - -<p>She lowered her head. Suddenly he sought her gloved hand in the large -velvet and lace sleeve of her mantle, and pressed it so hard that she -gave a cry of pain.</p> - -<p>“Emilio, you are hurting me!”</p> - -<p>He threw the hand aside brutally and laughed loudly. They had reached -Casa Guasco. She mounted the stairs rapidly, a prey to a singular -trouble caused by an unknown fear, of an unknown shame and sorrow. She -did not turn round, but she heard her husband following through the -different rooms to the boudoir which preceded her own room, the room -whose threshold Emilio had never crossed since she had returned home. In -that little room they usually said good-night before separating. She -stopped, turned round, and offered her hand to her husband.</p> - -<p>“Good-night,” she said, in a feeble voice.</p> - -<p>He did not reply, but looked at her strangely, and preceded her into the -bedroom. At the threshold before entering she hesitated, and a feminine -trembling caused her to vacillate. However, her pride and her courage -came to her aid as she<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> entered the room. The man and the woman stood -near to each other, looking into each other’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, Emilio,” she said firmly.</p> - -<p>“I want to speak to you,” he managed to say with difficulty, in a hoarse -voice.</p> - -<p>“Very good,” she replied firmly.</p> - -<p>She allowed the shawl, mantle, gloves, and purse to be taken away by -Chiara’s deft fingers, who was in the room in attendance on her, almost -feeling the gloomy hour which was waiting for them. All these operations -are done calmly and dexterously. Quietly Maria removed from her head the -grand diadem of diamonds, the pearl collar and necklace, the bracelets -from her arms, and poured them into Chiara’s hands, saying quietly—</p> - -<p>“You may go.”</p> - -<p>“Am I to wait?” whispered the faithful creature, with a timid glance.</p> - -<p>“No,” exclaimed Emilio suddenly.</p> - -<p>“No,” replied Maria quietly.</p> - -<p>With a light step Chiara disappeared. Maria sat down in an arm-chair in -her white ball dress, and waited patiently. Her husband stood before her -in evening dress, with a flower in his buttonhole, but like a corpse in -the face, except that his eyes were shining with an evil flame.</p> - -<p>“Maria,” he broke out, “have you decided to make me commit a crime?”</p> - -<p>For half-an-hour she had understood that a breath of madness was -crossing her husband<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a>’s senses, and she believed and hoped she could -conquer this madness by calmness and coldness.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand you; will you explain?” she asked in a harmonious -voice.</p> - -<p>“Don’t lie!” he cried, “don’t lie, as you always do! You know quite well -what I am saying. You pretend and dissimulate. You lie, that’s it; and I -shall kill some one to make you content.”</p> - -<p>“Emilio, Emilio,” she murmured sweetly, “you are wronging me; but I can -stand the wrong since I see you are very excited. Calm yourself, I beg -of you. Make an effort over your impetuousness; conquer yourself and be -tranquil.”</p> - -<p>He replied with a horrible laugh.</p> - -<p>“Make an end of it, Maria, make an end of this nauseating cataplasm of -your pity! Your compassion exasperates me. Go and use it in some -hospital. I am sure you understand; and I am going to kill some one. I -am going to kill <i>him</i>.”</p> - -<p>She shook her head. Her sweetness disappeared with his laughter, and she -became thoughtful and sad. He had risen, and was walking up and down the -room like a madman talking to himself.</p> - -<p>“It shall not be allowed for a miserable woman, yes, for a miserable -woman, without honour and without heart, to make a poor gentleman -unhappy and ridiculous. An honourable man should not allow her.”</p> - -<p>“Are you speaking of me?” she asked, getting<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> up at once proud and erect -before him, and forcing him to stop his mad perambulations.</p> - -<p>“Exactly; I am speaking of you, dishonour of my life, misfortune of my -life!” Emilio cried in her face.</p> - -<p>She bent a little under the new injury, but still gathered all her -strength not to retaliate or rebel, to dominate her pride, and to use -only her goodness and her tenderness.</p> - -<p>“Emilio, Emilio, you are raving!” she exclaimed, with immense sadness.</p> - -<p>Again he burst into a harsh laugh, false and stridulous.</p> - -<p>“So I am a madman, am I? And what are you, Maria? You who lost your head -for three years for that waxen-faced doll, for that languishing idiot, -for that perverse and mischievous-souled Marco Fiore? Oh yes, call me -mad—you, you, who had neither shame nor honour for three years? You who -are a spectacle for the laughter and contempt of the whole of Rome for -your madness; and dare you tell me that I am raving?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Emilio, Emilio!” she exclaimed, trembling.</p> - -<p>“Do you deny it? Do you deny it?” he yelled, almost stammering, so great -was his fury.</p> - -<p>She looked at her husband. The great danger she was in only made her a -little paler and her lips a little drier. She kept silent.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you loved him?” he yelled, coming<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> nearer to her, taking her -two hands and squeezing them as in a vice.</p> - -<p>She closed her eyes, as if face to face with death. Then she opened them -wide, and replied simply—</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you run away from home for him, with him?”</p> - -<p>She tried to free her hands, which were closed in his, but he did not -let go. Again with simplicity, with loyalty, she had the courage to -reply to the furious man—</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“There! there! Didn’t you adore him for three years?”</p> - -<p>She tightened her lips, and bit them to conquer the pain of her tortured -hands, and without a cry still replied—</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And you still love him; you’ll always love him!” he cried, and in his -anger this time there was mixed deep suffering.</p> - -<p>He let go her hands. She fell back exhausted, but replied in a clear, -precise voice—</p> - -<p>“I do not love him.”</p> - -<p>“It is false, it is false; you still love him.”</p> - -<p>“If we had still loved each other we should not have left each other,” -she declared without hesitation.<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a></p> - -<p>“When you returned to this house to laugh at me, to make a fool of your -tortured husband, you were in love with Marco Fiore, and Marco Fiore was -in love with you.”</p> - -<p>“I should not have placed a foot in your house, understand, if I had -still loved Marco,” she proclaimed, proudly and coldly.</p> - -<p>“Cursed be that evening! Cursed be that hour!” the man exclaimed, mad -with jealousy and suffering.</p> - -<p>“You called me here,” she stated.</p> - -<p>“If not, wouldn’t you have come? Wouldn’t you have come, eh, woman -without soul or heart?”</p> - -<p>“I should never have come,” she declared.</p> - -<p>“You are a monster of pride and aridness!” he cried; but in his voice -sorrow conquered anger.</p> - -<p>“I have tamed my pride before you, Emilio, don’t forget it,” she -replied.</p> - -<p>“When? How? You humiliate yourself? You?”</p> - -<p>“When I accepted the pardon you offered me. I could have refused it, but -I conquered my pride. I bowed and almost prostrated myself before you, -and you pardoned me. Remember that; remember that.”</p> - -<p>“Cursed be those words; cursed the lips that pronounced them.”</p> - -<p>Maria stretched out her hand involuntarily, as if to stop her husband -from a mortal fall.<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> - -<p>“Weren’t you sincere at that moment?” she asked in a dull voice.</p> - -<p>“I was sincere,” he replied, with a gulp.</p> - -<p>“Did that pardon come from the bottom of your heart?”</p> - -<p>“From the bottom, from the very depths of my heart.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you then curse that moment, those words and that sentiment?”</p> - -<p>“Because you still love Marco Fiore.”</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied.</p> - -<p>“You keep his letters.”</p> - -<p>“That is true; but I don’t love him. His letters are sacred, like those -of one dead, like those of one dear to me.”</p> - -<p>“You love him; you love him!” exclaimed Emilio, in a monotony of -desperation; “you keep every gift of his.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t love him; but what I have is dear to me as a funereal memory.”</p> - -<p>“You love him, and he loves you. The house at Santa Maria Maggiore has -remained as it was. It belongs to him and you.”</p> - -<p>“But I have never been there again,” she replied disdainfully.</p> - -<p>“I know, I know. I know where you go. But you will go there to-morrow -perhaps, and he will come to-morrow. Oh, this evening, if I had never -seen this evening!”<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a></p> - -<p>He turned, wringing his hands under a pain he could no longer resist.</p> - -<p>“I saw your eyes, Maria; I saw his when you met at Casa Nerola. I saw -all. And Vittoria Fiore, the poor unfortunate, saw you. She was as pale -as death. This time, understand, I can’t endure the insult; I shall kill -you and him. But endure this shame again—never, never!”</p> - -<p>She made a supreme effort of courage, subduing her indignation, -repressing it at the back of her atrociously offended mind. She -remembered that she had returned home to be good, to be sweet, to -restore peace and serenity there, to give back happiness to her husband, -who had a right to it, to perform works of tenderness, even to the -silence and death of her own heart.</p> - -<p>“Emilio, Emilio,” she said softly, “tell me what I am to do to soften -your mind and pacify your heart. You don’t believe me to-day, you must -to-morrow. Tell me all. Shall we leave Rome together for ever?”</p> - -<p>“No,” he replied gloomily; “I should think that you wanted to fly from -Marco Fiore.”</p> - -<p>“Shall we go for a long voyage together?”</p> - -<p>“No; you have been everywhere together, that I know.”</p> - -<p>“Do you want me to shut myself up at home, to see no one, as if I were -dead?”<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a></p> - -<p>“No; I should think you were absorbed in memories of him.”</p> - -<p>“Well, would you like us to lead a society life together, wild and full -of pleasure?”</p> - -<p>“No, no. We should meet him every day, every evening, and I should -commit a crime, Maria,” and the fixed idea returned to him.</p> - -<p>She felt lost for a moment.</p> - -<p>“Then what am I to do?”</p> - -<p>“There is one only means,” he replied, drawing much nearer to her, -speaking with his hot breath in her face.</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“To love me as you loved him.”</p> - -<p>The woman frowned two or three times without replying.</p> - -<p>“I want to be loved passionately by you, do you understand? You must -love me with passion as you loved Marco, as I love you. Have you -understood? No more of this pale and flaccid affection, this loving -friendship, which I despise and which exasperates me to frenzy. It must -be passion. Have you perfectly understood me?”</p> - -<p>She stood cold and rigid with staring eyes; but made no reply.</p> - -<p>“You want to love me, don’t you? I am your husband, who spoke the first -words of love to you, who gave you the first kiss. Remember, remember, -you who want to love me. You must love me as I have loved you. Speak; -reply.”<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p> - -<p>She closed her eyes, and replied in a choking and desperate voice—</p> - -<p>“I will try; I will try.”</p> - -<p>“When?” and the question is like a dull roar.</p> - -<p>“Later on, later on,” she said, feeling herself lost, but unable to lie.</p> - -<p>“No, no,” he roared. “No, this evening, this very evening, in which you -have seen him again, in which you have looked at and understood each -other.”</p> - -<p class="c">* * * * * * * * </p> - -<p>It is late in the night, Maria is alone, stretched in her easy-chair, -with dishevelled hair, which covers her face. Her hands hang limply with -fingers apart, and her eyes are wide open, almost deprived of their -glance. With a supreme effort of will she raised her hand and touched -the bell. Her head fell back exhausted. The silence around was intense. -No one came, and she had no strength left. But a little step draws near, -a familiar face bends over her.</p> - -<p>“I am dying,” she cries to the faithful girl.</p> - -<p>Chiara suddenly becomes strong, lifts her in her arms, holds her up, and -begins to take off her ball dress, while Maria every moment seems to be -fainting.</p> - -<p>“I am dying,” she repeats.</p> - -<p>At last she is free of her gay garments, and the faithful girl tries to -make her rise, with infinite<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> patience and tact. At last she stands up, -tall, rigid and pale as a ghost.</p> - -<p>“I am dying!” she cries.</p> - -<p>She grips Chiara with her hands for aid, totters, sways, and falls -exhausted in the gloom and silence, as if dead.<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="XV-2" id="XV-2"></a>XV</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Donna Arduina</span> stopped in the centre of the large hall of Palazzo Fiore, -with its dark carved wood, and red tapestry bearing the Fiore arms. In -spite of her years and life’s troubles she still preserved her noble -appearance. Marco bent and kissed her hand tenderly, while she kissed -him on the forehead affectionately.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“Good-night, mamma.”</p> - -<p>Vittoria had stopped two or three paces behind, wrapped in a white -mantle, trimmed with gold, the large chinchilla collar of which suited -the delicacy of her face and slender figure. She had placed no shawl on -her hair, whose wavy gold was almost oppressed by the weight of the -diadem, which shone brightly in the gloom of the hall. Her white and -tranquil face is without expression, and her eyes have a distant and -dull glance. In her hands she held her shawl, and waited patiently.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, Vittoria,” said Donna Arduina, approaching her -daughter-in-law.</p> - -<p>“Good-night, mother,” she replied, stooping to kiss her hand. Then she -drew herself up naturally<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> and avoided the kiss on her forehead which -Donna Arduina intended to give her.</p> - -<p>Donna Arduina hesitated a moment as if she wished to say something, -then, turning her back, she walked slowly and imposingly towards her own -apartments. Marco had already started towards his, and his wife followed -him without saying a word. As they crossed the various rooms, Marco -looked two or three times at Vittoria as if he wished to question her -silent, reserved face. She appeared, however, not to notice his -questioning glance. Thus they reached their immense bedroom, the room -occupied by the eldest sons of Casa Fiore and their wives for more than -three hundred years, which modern taste and modern furniture had changed -very little, leaving the solemnity and austerity of the old Roman -patrician houses. In the majesty of her surroundings, the fragile woman -seemed but a fantastic shadow. She sat down, but did not take off her -cloak, opening it a little as if she felt warm.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to call your maid?” Marco asked, taking the gardenia -out of his buttonhole, as if about to undress.</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied, “a little later. I must say something to you, Marco.”</p> - -<p>He raised his eyebrows slightly, and jokingly sought to change the tone -of the conversation.</p> - -<p>“We will talk in bed if you like, dear. It is an excellent place for -conversation, and I will listen<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> to you with deep attention without -going to sleep.”</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied dryly, “we must talk as we are.”</p> - -<p>“As we are, dressed for society! As we were in Casa Nerola? Very well, -dear, but I find the Emperor is missing. We can telephone to him, if you -like, to assist at this colloquy?”</p> - -<p>And he laughed mischievously. However, Vittoria paid no attention.</p> - -<p>“I want to make a request of you, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?”</p> - -<p>“I want ten days’ freedom.”</p> - -<p>“You, Vittoria?”</p> - -<p>“I, yes.”</p> - -<p>“To do what?”</p> - -<p>“I want to make a retreat at Bambino Gesù now that Christmas is drawing -near,” she concluded, in a low voice.</p> - -<p>“A novena!” he exclaimed, internally relieved, but not showing it; “and -what prevents you from doing it here?”</p> - -<p>“It is impossible, Marco. It isn’t a question of prayer only. One must -retire for nine whole days to a convent.”</p> - -<p>“To a convent? Are you going to become a nun like Ophelia?”</p> - -<p>“Why Ophelia? What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, nothing. Go then to your convent; which one?”<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a></p> - -<p>“That of the white nuns of Gesù Bambino in via Merulana.”</p> - -<p>“Who put such a strange idea into your head, Vittoria? Doesn’t it seem a -little ridiculous to you?”</p> - -<p>“It is neither ridiculous nor strange,” she added, shaking her head; -“other ladies go there to retire and pray.”</p> - -<p>“Old ladies, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“No,” she insisted coldly; “young ladies, and beautiful too; young -married women especially.”</p> - -<p>“Who are perhaps in mortal sin. Are you in mortal sin, though I didn’t -know it, Vittoria?” he laughed loudly, looking at her.</p> - -<p>“I hope not,” she replied, lowering her eyes to hide a sudden flash; -“but so many people can be in mortal sin, prayers are necessary for us -and them.”</p> - -<p>“Even for me, dear nun!” he exclaimed mischievously.</p> - -<p>“For you also,” she replied expressionlessly.</p> - -<p>“When must you enter?”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow evening at eight. To-morrow is the fifteenth of December.”</p> - -<p>“When do you come out?”</p> - -<p>“On the evening of the twenty-fourth.”</p> - -<p>“Have you told mamma this?”</p> - -<p>“No; please tell her yourself to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps mamma will not approve.”</p> - -<p>“She knows what it is a question of,” murmured<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> Vittoria; “all Roman -ladies know of this retreat in the monastery of Gesù Bambino. Get her to -tell you.”</p> - -<p>She blushed slightly. He looked at her, and proceeded more gently with -the conversation.</p> - -<p>“Are there special prayers in this convent, Vittoria? Are special graces -asked for?”</p> - -<p>“One grace only,” she replied, with downcast eyes; “one grace only of -the Divine Son, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he replied without further remark, understanding.</p> - -<p>“Do you so very much want to have a son, Vittoria?” he asked in a -peculiar tone.</p> - -<p>There was a deep silence between them.</p> - -<p>“I desire it ardently,” she broke out suddenly, with an impetuous -accent, immediately recovering herself, “I desire nothing else now.”</p> - -<p>“Also I want one for you,” he said, vaguely and absently.</p> - -<p>“Not for yourself?” was the sharp question. But he did not heed the -intense expression.</p> - -<p>“As for myself, you understand, my brother Giulio has three sons. The -house of Fiore has descendants.”</p> - -<p>“Beatrice has been fortunate,” she murmured, with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“There, there; you, too, will be fortunate,” he resumed jokingly and -laughingly; “you will have a quiverful of sons, too many, I tell you, -dear<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> Vittoria, for many sons will give you much worry. Don’t doubt; you -are not sterile.”</p> - -<p>“Who knows,” she said, with a sorrowful shudder.</p> - -<p>“Go to your convent, dear, since you are set on it,” he said, laughing; -“the Bambino Gesù will content you, and when you return home He will -send you the little one.”</p> - -<p>He drew near her to kiss and embrace her. With a cold gesture she -repulsed him.</p> - -<p>“Hoighty, toighty! Hoighty toighty!” he exclaimed; “why all this -rudeness to your lawful husband, Don Marco Fiore?” He tried again to -draw her to himself and kiss her. Again still more coldly and hostilely -she kept him at a distance.</p> - -<p>“What do you want?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“We must live from to-day in prayer and mortification,” she replied in -glacial tones.</p> - -<p>“Therefore?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“You resume from to-night your bachelor bedroom.”</p> - -<p>“Ah; and am I to keep it for ten days?” he said drily.</p> - -<p>“Yes, for ten days, till my return.”</p> - -<p>“Brava! Brava! And if I am bored in there all alone?” he continued, with -signs of annoyance.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you won’t bore yourself there!” she replied, with a slightly bitter -smile.</p> - -<p>He remembered that in that room everything<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> had remained untouched since -he had married, that it was full of portraits, big and small, of Maria -Guasco, with recollections of their dead dream, their dead love. He -understood more than ever the depth of his wife’s thoughts and feelings; -he realised her intense pain. So he tried again in pity and tenderness -to make her speak, to make her weep.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria, Vittoria!” he exclaimed in sad reproach, “you as usual are -dissimulating and lying, and that makes you suffer and becomes unfair to -me. I don’t want to be angry, and you should not suffer.”</p> - -<p>“You are mistaken,” she replied coldly, “neither do I suffer nor need -you be angry. My confessor has told me that the scope of matrimony is -not love but children, that one must ask Heaven for children, and pray -very much. I am going to pray.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” he said, suddenly becoming cold, “you are convinced that the scope -of matrimony is not love?”</p> - -<p>“Quite convinced,” she answered harshly.</p> - -<p>“All the worse,” he exclaimed in a bad temper; “all the worse; and when -did you decide to enter the convent for the novena?”</p> - -<p>The question was direct and sharp. She hesitated to reply.</p> - -<p>“When, Vittoria? Think and tell the truth.”</p> - -<p>“This evening,” she replied, with an effort.<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a></p> - -<p>“This evening? At the ball?” he insisted, still more sharply.</p> - -<p>“This evening at the ball,” she assented, growing very pale.</p> - -<p>But pity, sentiment without strength, was already extinguished in -Marco’s heart, and there was substituted, as in every heart unjustly -suspected, a dull and cruel indignation. He shrugged his shoulders, took -his fur coat and hat, and left with a dry, “Good-night, Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>She had no strength to reply. With difficulty she closed the door of her -big room where she was alone, desperately alone. She dared not weep, for -fear that he might return and find her weeping, for fear that, not being -very far away, he might hear her weeping.<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="XVI-2" id="XVI-2"></a>XVI</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">Maria Guasco</span> wrote thus to Marco Fiore—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Marco, this sudden and unexpected letter will not surprise you. -You know already that it is not a love letter, because our souls -united and understood themselves too intimately in that past which -can never return, and they were too much agreed in feeling the -irremediable end of their love for a sentimental misunderstanding -ever again to happen between us. If anybody else, a stranger, were -to lean over my shoulder, and read the first word written, he would -at once have no other thought but this: ‘<i>See, it was natural, she -is writing to her lover, she has never ceased to love him.</i>’ Let it -be so. Not a short time has passed since we separated freely and -voluntarily, overcome by anguish, but stronger than anguish itself, -since the reason for our ardent and free union was at an end. Since -it is now May it is nearly two years ago. It is a year since you -married Vittoria, when, placing her little hand in yours, she will -certainly have pardoned your long infidelity and desertion. Well, -my friend, no one about me believes that I have ceased loving you -with passion, not even<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> those who know me well, such, for instance, -as a faithful friend like Flaminia Colonna, not even a would-be -lover like Gianni Provana, to give another instance. No one, and -especially my husband, Emilio Guasco; he does not believe, can’t -believe, never will believe that I have ceased to love you -passionately.</p> - -<p>“This is the cross that I have been carrying for a year, at first -with energy and Christian courage, sustained by a burning desire -for expiation, by a burning desire to repair the horrible suffering -inflicted on others, to heal all the deep evil inflicted on others, -and in fact with the great and lofty hope of giving all the -happiness possible to the man who deserved it. Marco, how happily I -embraced my cross at first, and how I suffered with humility and -simplicity, like a child that feels it deserves all its punishment, -or some self-effacing creature who performs every deep act of -contrition! You know my pride, Marco; you know that it has always -been my weapon of defence and attack in this war of life; you know -that my pride has taken the place of many virtues and that, as it -was perhaps too great and imperious, it formed also the source of -all my sorrows. Well, Marco, I swear it, and I know you believe me, -that I have every day thrown this pride at my husband’s feet, and -my heart has been prostrated in an almost continual prayer for -pardon. To accomplish what I had set myself for you, to accomplish -all my vow of reparation<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> I suffered so joyfully, but so bravely. -At every fresh sting I did not bind the bleeding point, and from -every new wound I let my blood gush forth, glad to suffer, glad to -expiate, glad to be able by my secret and open sufferings to unfold -and complete all my expiation, rejoicing to reach the goal of being -a consolation to Emilio, of being, as of yore, the giver of his -happiness. I have been intoxicated with the sacrifice, Marco, but -now my intoxication has vanished. Alas, my friend, I see and know -that it has been useless! My repentance has been in vain, and so -have been all my acts of contrition, and the lowering of my pride. -In vain, too, has been my desire to do good. Emilio is unhappier -than ever, and I alone am the cause of his unhappiness. It is -impossible for me, I swear, to make him happy even if I lived a -hundred years, even if I died to-morrow. In life or death I can do -nothing more for him—nothing, nothing.</p> - -<p>“Listen, Marco, and see if it be not all irreparable. I didn’t -understand at once, because I was infatuated with my fine hopes and -desires of doing good; but now I know that all is irreparable. Do -you know how long my husband’s pardon lasted? The fraction of an -April evening in which he pronounced the sacred words which should -absolve, cancel, and redeem. Immediately afterwards he despised -himself and me, and the act of pardon seemed to him one of -hypocrisy and lying humiliation. Later, when in one of our more -furious<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> crises, on reminding him that a Christian pardon is an act -of renewed esteem, that Christian pardon should destroy the sin and -purify the sinner, and that such an one should be loved as a new -soul, he replied brutally: ‘Exactly; but Jesus who founded pardon -was not married to an adulteress.’ What am I to say to him, Marco? -The man loves me, longs for me, but at the same time he hates me. -Never for an instant, understand, can he forget that I betrayed and -abandoned him, and that for three years I was <i>yours</i>. He spies on -me and makes me spy. He scrutinises every glance, he watches every -action of mine. If I speak to him he doesn’t believe me; if I am -kind he refuses my kindness. If my pity breaks out he understands -at once, like all morbid hearts, that it is a question of pity and -not of love, and he rejects my pity. He wrongs me and you with -vituperation, and asks me to love him with passion as I loved you. -But I can’t lie; I can’t, I can’t. I have never lied, and if I were -to do so for a minute to save him and myself he wouldn’t believe -me. What am I to say; what am I to do, Marco? I have said all; I -have endured everything, and I don’t want to—I can’t—add anything -else, my friend. I can’t write everything; my mind refuses to raise -certain veils of shame. Let us leave it, let us leave it. My cross -is so heavy on my shoulders that I am on the ground and breathless. -What shall I say? What shall I do? Hasn’t all my repentance been<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> -useless? Hasn’t all my dedication been useless? And useless every -abnegation? Whatever shall I do to-night? Whatever to-morrow? The -man whom I have returned to comfort is, as far as I am concerned, -in a state of sorrow and implacable agitation; this man whom I -imagined so ingenuously and sweetly to make happy again, in spite -of my sufferings, is still, and always will be, unhappy. After a -terrible year, Marco, after a year of every experiment and attempt, -in which I have consumed my will and weakened my energy, after a -year in which I have seen all the good which was accumulated in my -generous mind miserably dispersed, and day by day the sacred trust -of doing good dissipated, I cry to you in my sadness and impotence, -in my weariness and discouragement. I ask you whatever I shall do, -Marco, with myself and my life, since it is of no further use but -for evil? What shall I do with myself, inept for good, inept to -give joy, and so involuntarily and fatally capable of evil?</p> - -<p>“I am so lonely, Marco. When he is here he regards me with desire -and anger. Both sentiments crucify and torture me, but I daren’t -repress or combat either sentiment. I have become what I never was, -a creature without will or object, a passive and resigned -creature—I! I! think, Maria Guasco, a creature of resignation! -Often he avoids me for days together, and I don’t know what to do -with my dried-up and deserted existence.<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> I do nothing, never, -because I fear that all may be for the worse, even when he ignores -me—<i>ignores me!</i> Sometimes he leaves Rome and goes away for two or -three days, for a week. I don’t know where—in his distrust he -won’t say. I don’t know when he returns, as he doesn’t wish it to -be known. He enters suddenly and looks for me, as if he must always -find me in sin, and I am always paralysed just as if my nerves had -been cut, just as if a single gesture of mine may be an offence, or -the pretext of an offence to him.</p> - -<p>“I am so lonely, so lonely.</p> - -<p>“In this Casa Guasco, in this Rome, in this world, Marco, I am more -lonely than ever woman was, and I cry to you, not as a lover, not -even as a friend, but as a soul which was once mine while mine was -yours, I cry out my impotence, anguish, and mortal solitude.</p> - -<p>“Marco, I am afraid of myself: I know myself. If the hand even of -an enemy is stretched towards me with the impetus of unexpected -sympathy, my soul at once trembles with emotion and opens its -inviolate doors, and abandons itself with tenderness and -enthusiasm. If a person who loves me ill-treats me or offends me it -is impossible for me not to rebel; all my pride invests me -wonderfully and magically with a steel cuirass, and I feel I love -no longer, and I disdain the love of the other one who knows not -how to love. I am capable of breaking a heart, two hearts, my own -and the other’s, with<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> a violence which nothing can stop. You know -me. You conquered me with your youthful grace, with your sincere -passion mixed with gentle languor, which conquers the proudest and -most reserved souls. Never once did you offend me, never once, -perfect friend and perfect lover, pleasant and sweet to dream of -and remember. In those three years, passed together, my simple and -impetuous character, so sincere and yet inflammable, found every -sentimental delight. Our short life was beautiful, beautiful with -unspeakable harmony, and we could separate full of sorrow, but -still without anger or a single bitter thought of each other.</p> - -<p>“Marco, this unfortunate man for whom I returned a year ago, to -heal of all the poison he had absorbed on my account, not only is -he more poisoned than at first, but he vents all his revenge on me -by a love composed of suspicion, contempt, sensuality, and -jealousy. This man who seemed to me a hero, and was one for a -single moment when he pronounced the words of pardon, this hero -whom I had poetised proudly in my mind, and who deserved the lofty -place of poesy for a brief moment, when he pronounced the words of -pardon, is no longer a betrayed lover who must be made to forget -the betrayal by lavished caresses, is no longer an offended husband -whose pardon is asked and given, with whom a new, loyal, and -lasting peace is re-established. No, he is now an enemy,<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> who now -loves and now hates, who now wants you and now spurns you, who -adores you by day and execrates you by night, who would keep you -eternally pressed to himself and who flies from you, who thinks you -capable of every black action, and makes you understand his -suspicions, and declares them. Emilio Guasco is an enemy to me, -Maria, an enemy whose name I bear, whose fortune I share; an enemy -in whose love I live, an enemy who now keeps me <i>because I have -returned</i>, an enemy who doesn’t wish to see me dead because he -would kill himself on my tomb, who wants me to be alive with him -and for him, to torture me and himself.</p> - -<p>“O Marco, Marco, how terrified I have been lest all the good with -which my heart is filled be at an end! how deeply I feel that my -kindness which is not superhuman, since I am a woman and not an -angel, will dissolve like a cloud, and I may become a naked rock, -sharp and fierce of aspect—a rock!</p> - -<p>“Marco, if he doesn’t calm himself and stop, if he doesn’t become -more humane, kinder, more generous; if he doesn’t become the man of -pardon and not him of <i>after the pardon</i>, that is sad and -contemptuous for having pardoned, how shall I pour the balsam over -him which ought to restore him to health, the jar of which is -perhaps already empty and wobbling in my hand? Marco, if he doesn’t -restore to me his esteem, his trust and his<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> friendship, unless he -is affectionate and magnanimous with me, how shall I be able to -improve and exalt his life? What shall I do here if he continues to -be an enemy who loves me? O Marco, I tremble to the very roots of -my soul, even to the most mysterious essence of my spirit, lest all -my mission of peace, beauty, and affection, can never be -accomplished, and lest all my rebellious heart may revolt against -the enemy who loves me. Marco, what will become of me to-morrow, a -week hence, a year hence?</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Maria.</span>”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>At the same time Marco wrote to Maria—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Maria, my delight, do you know that there has not been a single -day since that fatal and tragic one on which we left each other, -that I have ceased to think of you, far away or near, deeply -separated from me by the depth of our divine dream of love, -separated for ever since we wished it to be so, but always present -to my spirit, which reflects itself in you as in the coolest and -most crystal mountain stream? I have thought of you, Maria, as a -dear mother, as a sister, as a friend, as a womanly creature who -has been and is most dear to me, wherever I have found myself, -whatever the idle words which left my mouth, whatever my careless -deeds, however intense my silence and immobility. I thought of you -then, soul of beauty, without<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> ardour or desire, because that flame -which was so devouring is extinguished in me as in you, but I have -thought of you with sweet and melancholy moral sympathy, without -jealousy, without bitterness, without gall, without any of the -dregs which passion leaves in the heart, but with a measured and -calm recollection, as for a memory which will be ever dear. I have -never sought you; I have never thought of seeking you: I have never -avoided you or wished to avoid you, nor have I written to you. Only -your place has been, and is within me, high, unshakable, strong, -and you are like a mother, a sister, a friend, the inspirer of my -thoughts and sentiments. From the high extinguished pyre a slender -warmth of life prevents my heart from getting cold; a thin light, -that which they say remains after a star is dead in the firmament, -seems to guide me in my unstable and uncertain way.</p> - -<p>“But at last, after such a long silence, Maria, on the anniversary -of my marriage, since you are always a source of warmth and light -to me, and since you can still give me light and tell me <i>what is -necessary</i>, I am writing to you and am breaking this division of -time, of place, of persons which seemed inseparable between us, and -I have come to implore help as formerly, as yesterday, as -to-morrow, as always. I come to ask moral help of you, because you -were always my conscience, even when we broke together the ties of -society and<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> laws, since you taught me nobly the way of liberty and -truth, even in that which the world calls a mistake and the Faith a -mortal sin, but which we called, and shall call, by a single -word—Love—whatever it may be, from wherever it may come to us, -wherever it may drag us. Maria, you who in the supreme hour of -farewell, when I wept upon your hand the most burning tears of my -life, you who showed me what to do with my existence; you who -reminded me of a great duty to be accomplished; you who spoke no -more to me of happiness, no longer possible for me from the moment -that our love was ended, but of that which I could still give to a -human creature; you who exalted for me this duty even to making it -appear adorned with every attraction: Maria, to-day you must tell -me, if you know, if you will, <i>what is necessary</i>, since I no -longer know.</p> - -<p>“Maria, the bridal veil which the young woman wore a year ago in -the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, when she knelt near me and -the priest pronounced over our heads and joined hands the words -which bind us till death, that soft veil which should be raised -after the wedding to show me openly and loyally the face of my -lady, where may be mirrored all her soul, which perhaps possesses -concealed the most precious spiritual and sentimental -treasures—but however light it was, neither my hands nor my kisses -succeeded in rarefying its aërial woof—Vittoria has never once -desired to<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> liberate her face from it. I have always felt this -veil, between me and her, no longer a bridal veil but a veil of -life, in which she enveloped herself in the first vivid days of our -marriage; and as time passed—and sometimes its course seemed very -slow to me—it became closer and denser even to hiding my lady -completely, and as time still went on its course more slowly than -ever, I felt that this veil had become a seamless, opaque texture, -in which she is enclosed for ever. Maria, Maria, all the solemn -words of that last hour in which you enjoined me to assign this -deep and great object to my life, this of offering happiness -without equal to a woman who had suffered for me, I never forget, -when I am with Vittoria, for an instant; and in spite of the -unspeakable weariness of my soul, in spite of that mortal aridness -which succeeds to great passion, in spite of my hidden distrust of -myself, in spite of the fact that I doubted deeply of my success, I -have always endeavoured that Vittoria, my wife, should be happy. -Dear, dear Maria, if only you knew how often I have invoked you as -light, and heat, and guide, so as not to lose myself or falter on -the way! How often I have called on you, my conscience, to continue -my duty! Well, Maria, you and I have been deceived. Or perhaps you -were deceived, beautiful and magnificent soul, in thinking that -<i>that</i> was the necessary thing, or very likely it is Vittoria who -has deceived you, me, and all of us.<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a></p> - -<p>“This creature is unable to be happy on my account, perhaps she is -unable to be happy on any account. She is a soul incapable of -happiness. Such souls, Maria, are to be met with. Heaven has sent -them thus on the earth to live a peculiar, cold, sad existence, -without joy, without hope and without desires; they are souls -incapable of reaching that extreme joy, even for a second, which is -called happiness; and probably the others only have it for a single -minute, but they do reach it and possess it, and through it feel -themselves children of God, near to Him, near to His throne of -splendour and glory. This moment you and I have possessed, Maria; -but we were born to possess it. Vittoria, my wife, is unable to -touch this height. Her hands are as white as her face and garments, -they are as cold as her forehead and her heart. Her life, too, is -white, cold, and immobile.</p> - -<p>“O my conscience, secure and firm, do you know I have managed to -extract from Vittoria her secret. Do you know that her secret is -terror of you, terror of what you have been in my life, which has -been painted fantastically for her—simple, innocent girl—as -something horrible and tremendous. Her childish secret as -betrothed, bride, and wife, was this ferocious terror that I might -belong to you as a lover for ever, that through the mysterious -reasons of passion you would always keep me, and that from one day -to another I could again belong to you through the impetuous and -imperious<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> reasons of desire. By pressing her cold white hands I -communicated a flame of life to her, by fixing my eyes on hers I -placed a gleam in those two bright eyes, and then I learnt her -secret. Hers is a soul sick with this terror. On your account, my -lofty pure conscience, on my own, since I am pledged to follow -every wish of yours, I have word for word, act for act, tried to -destroy in her this morbid terror of you; and believe me, believe -me in everything, any other woman would be convinced that her -terror was in vain, would have given me all her heart and soul for -recognition, affection, love. But the more I demonstrated to her -that the bonds of passion were undone through your will and mine, -the denser became the veil which surrounded her. Whatever was she -wanting, whatever was she asking, for her existence as a woman and -a wife; whatever was existence able to give her; more than the -affectionate and tender companionship of a man like me, dedicated -entirely to her, who desired nothing more than to see her smile in -her juvenile happiness, and himself to be the only origin of that -smile and that joy? Maria, my wife has smiled five or six times in -one year of matrimony, and hasn’t laughed once. Ah, I have tried to -tear the closely knit and invisible texture in which she is clothed -even because of this, and I have asked her whatever she could wish -from me beyond this certainty that I am no longer yours, whatever -else she could expect from a man,<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> a companion and a husband beyond -this great and absolute dedication to her happiness which should be -sufficient for any woman. She lowered her eyelids, closed her -little mouth as usual, all her face became as marble. Oh, if only -once to see that white marble face flesh!—and she replied—</p> - -<p>“I expect nothing and I wish nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Maria, the limpid truth is that Vittoria can’t, won’t, and doesn’t -know how to become happy with me, because of her sentimental -ineptitude, and it has all been a generous mistake of ours. With -her I am sad, tired, and bored. Oh, how I bore myself, I can’t tell -you, Maria! On some days a mad rage comes over me against this -immense boredom. Why did I marry the girl? Why did I give myself -this duty of a husband and companion, which I have tried and am -trying to accomplish—so badly it seems, both for her and me? Why -did I swear to Heaven to make this woman happy, when I am not able -to keep the oath, though I want to? Perhaps she would have been -happy with another. Why did I bring her my wasted heart? Why have I -offered her a life where love’s harvest is gathered, and the earth -which had produced too violently has been left fruitless? Why have -I given her a soul which has done with love? Maria, Maria, we made -a mistake on that last day; our souls did not understand the truth -which is within us and not without. We have seen and understood -nothing beyond ourselves. Vittoria<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> did not ask for a husband but a -lover, a lover like Maria Guasco had; she did not ask for happiness -but passion. You knew, Maria, that that was impossible, and I knew -it. Now I really begin to fear that I have torn the veil for ever -which encloses Vittoria’s soul and person, and that I know all -about her, and that I can do nothing now—never, never.</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Marco.</span>”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>In reply to her letter Maria received this from Marco—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Maria, good and brave, make an appeal to all your goodness and -strength. They are great, immense; you can’t measure them, but I -can. With your goodness and strength strive to conquer Emilio, the -enemy who loves you. Make a friend of him. That is the best way: do -it.</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Marco.</span>”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>In reply to his letter Marco received this from Maria—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Marco, try to love Vittoria. That is all. Try to love her.</p> - -<p class="r"> -“<span class="smcap">Maria.</span>”<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>For a long time neither heard from the other.<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a></p> - -<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III<br /><br /> -<small>USQUE AD MORTEM</small></h2> - -<h3><a name="I-3" id="I-3"></a>I</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> <i>Fragolata</i><a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> was the last festivity of the season, and, on account -of the originality and grace of the occasion and the charm of the late -Roman April, many strangers had delayed their departure after even a -very late Holy Week. Since the middle of March, in the first languors of -a spring laden with delicate perfumes, there had been daily gaieties in -gardens and the shady majestic parks, which still surround the Roman -villas. The poesy of such re-unions, in the soft, clear afternoon hours -in the avenues, when light steps have a seducing rustle; in the broad -meadows, covered in emerald green, which slope towards the wooded -distance, when the ladies’ bright dresses in the background make them -appear like nymphs;—this penetrating poesy tempts every soul, even the -most barren of feeling, and the least susceptible to visions of beauty.</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Strawberry feast.</p></div> - -<p>In various ways Roman society, by fancy-dress balls, theatricals, -<i>kermesses</i>, had called on public<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> charity, Italian and foreign, to help -in works of well-doing for so much of the suffering which society sees, -feels, and, grieving for and seeing, tries every fashionable and crafty -means to alleviate. In short, the idea had been hit on to close the -season with a <i>fragolata</i> at the Villa Borghese on behalf of the -foundlings. The suggestion ran swiftly from the Court to the embassies, -from the tea-rooms to the big hotels, from the most select patrician -clubs to the sport clubs; and people, tired of balls in over-heated -rooms, of shutting themselves up in theatres, people fond of new -sensations, learnt at first with a curiosity and later with impatience -that a <i>fragolata</i> was being arranged at Villa Borghese, and that the -most fascinating dames and damsels would sell the strawberries. Later, -it was known that, as well as baskets of strawberries, there would be -sold roses, since April was entering into May, and lovers of -strawberries are lovers of roses. So the discussion was great at the -last receptions and teas. The young men shrugged their shoulders with a -pretence at being bored at another charity festivity. Some declared that -they could not stand strawberries, some hated roses, and some declared -that they were leaving before the <i>fragolata</i>, while others added -maliciously that they would procure a false telegram to absent -themselves. But the ladies laughed, shaking their heads, knowing that -all their friends and lovers would come that afternoon under the -majestic<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> trees of the Villa Borghese to take from their white hands a -leaf-full of strawberries or a bunch of fragrant roses. They only were -afraid of bad weather—the protectors of abandoned infancy—but not of -the hardness and indifference of the human heart before everything that -was attractive and pleasant; strawberries, roses, women, at a beautiful -time in lovely surroundings.</p> - -<p>Nor was the sun’s smile wanting on that day for the <i>fragolata</i>; a sun -not too hot, a light not too strong, a sky not of an intense, but a -light blue, occasionally traversed and rendered whiter by a slow soft -cloud, melting towards an unknown horizon where all clouds go one never -sees again. On that day the Villa Borghese was not open to the public, -and on its broad, undulating paths, around its thick woods and spreading -lawns, around its fountains spouting and singing their lively and -crystalline measure, around its temples and little <i>casine</i>, with all -the windows closed as if no one had lived there for years, one heard no -more the dull and irritating rumbling of a hundred hired carriages, -which passed there five times a week, full of unknown faces where often -one reads idiocy and perversion, or often one wants to read it, in the -profound irritation of seeing the Villa Borghese, the sanctuary of -beauty and poesy, violated by strangers.</p> - -<p>Towards four o’clock the carriages kept on increasing. The troop of -ladies dressed in white, in<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> stuffs of spring-like softness, of young -girls in summerish muslin, in straw hats covered with flowers, became -thicker, and at that moment the <i>fragolata</i> presented an enchanting -appearance. Under the wooded plateau of the Piazza di Siena, amidst -thick groups of tall trees, with their shining, almost metallic, -verdure, and yet transparent with the softness of May, a large counter -had been placed, on whose white cloth bunches of roses and baskets of -strawberries, most graceful rustic baskets, covered with favours and -ribbons of soft colours, and all sorts of strawberries, big and small, -were placed on broad fresh leaves. Behind the stall were five or six -ladies, Donna Flaminia Colonna, Margherita Savelli, the Princess della -Marsiliana, Countess Maria Santacroce, and Maria Guasco, whose care was -the sale of the baskets.</p> - -<p>Other ladies, especially the young ladies, carried around baskets of the -early strawberries come from the mountain and the garden, offering them -to the groups which kept forming little by little in increasing numbers. -These amateur saleswomen are nearly all beautiful. There are Donna -Teresa Santacroce, the liveliest and most seductive of Roman society -girls; Miss Jenkins, an English girl, who seemed to have escaped from -one of Lawrence’s pictures; Mademoiselle de Klapken, an irresistible -Hungarian, and Stefania Farnese, with her white complexion, chestnut -hair, smiling eyes<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> and mouth, dressed in white like a Grecian Erigone.</p> - -<p>Amidst the trees, scattered everywhere, are little tables covered with -the whitest cloths, sprinkled with rose-leaves, and seats for the people -to sit and taste the strawberries, while ladies offer milk, cream, and -sugar. Little conversations take place politely without hurry or bustle, -just as at a promenade or a dance, and the groups round the stall and -the charming assistants around the little tables, which are gradually -filled, form a phantasmagoria of colours which is renewed every moment, -and assumes the most unexpected and delightful aspects for appreciative -eyes.</p> - -<p>The little tables are now all taken, and the luscious fruit bathed in -cream and covered with sugar moisten beautiful lips. The men even yield -to the seductions of the fine, fresh food. Everywhere baskets are -offered and taken, and the fruit is poured into the plates and saucers. -The girls offer roses, and roses are in every lady’s hands and in every -lady’s waist. Bunches of roses are on every table, and every man has a -rose in his buttonhole. Several foreign ladies, lovers of flowers, have -their arms laden with them. One Frenchwoman has filled her parasol with -them; an English girl of eighteen has placed a cluster of the freshest -white roses under the rim of her straw hat and is the picture of happy -youth.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Maria Guasco, at her place as<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> patroness behind the stall, -bends her head of magnificent waving hair, beneath a large white hat -with white feathers, and her thoughtful face over a large bundle of red -roses, of intoxicating fragrance, which Stefania Farnese, the gay -Erigone, had just given her. Her face is hidden among the red roses -whose perfume she has always loved; that perfume, rich with every -memory, gives her a silent emotion which fills her eyes for a moment -with tears.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?” said Flaminia to Maria.</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” she said, biting a rose-leaf.</p> - -<p>“You are tired?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, a little.”</p> - -<p>“To-morrow you will rest.”</p> - -<p>“And what shall I do after I have rested?” Maria asked, anxiously and -sadly.</p> - -<p>Flaminia did not reply, and an expression of pain was diffused over her -beautiful, good-natured face. But again people throng round the -<i>fragolata</i> stall and buy strawberries, and Donna Margherita Savelli, -quite blonde beneath her hat of white marguerites, gathers the money -into a purse of antique cloth of peculiar make, now quite full, whose -silver strings she cannot tie.</p> - -<p>“See, see, Flaminia, what a lot of money!” she cried joyfully.</p> - -<p>Gianni Provana, who had been walking round for about an hour and had -approached all the little tables a little superciliously and proudly, -without<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> sitting by any one, came and leaned over the stall, exchanging -a word first with one and then with another of the lady patronesses, -always cold and composed, with his monocle in its place and a slightly -mocking smile on his mouth. He had no rose in his buttonhole, and his -eyes every now and then settled on those which Maria was smelling long -and silently.</p> - -<p>“Well, Provana,” said Flaminia Colonna, “haven’t you tasted the -strawberries?”</p> - -<p>“Not one, I assure you. I don’t want to ruin my health.”</p> - -<p>“What a wretch you are! Don’t you like strawberries?”</p> - -<p>“They don’t agree with me, Donna Flaminia. I am getting old, and my -digestion isn’t so good.”</p> - -<p>“Are you in a bad temper, Provana?” Maria asked indifferently.</p> - -<p>“Very, Donna Maria, and you too, I think?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I!” she said, with a nonchalant gesture.</p> - -<p>“Still,” resumed Flaminia, to change the conversation, “you haven’t -given a penny, heartless man, to abandoned infancy.”</p> - -<p>“Not a penny. I don’t like babies.”</p> - -<p>“What a wretch! Heaven will punish you. You will die tyrannised over by -your housekeeper.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, Donna Flaminia. But I have still something to do before -dying,” he added enigmatically, looking at Maria.<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a></p> - -<p>“What?” asked Flaminia.</p> - -<p>“Not to buy your strawberries, which ruin every one’s skin, but to pay -for a basket to please you.”</p> - -<p>He extracts from his purse a note for a hundred francs, giving it to the -beautiful treasurer, Margherita Savelli, who gives a cry of joy.</p> - -<p>“O Flaminia, how kind this sham knave Provana is!”</p> - -<p>“Most kind,” Flaminia replied, and she gives him her hand, which he -touches with his lips gallantly.</p> - -<p>Other people crowd round the stall, and Provana talks softly with Maria -Guasco. She replies without looking at him, as if wrapt in her own deep, -dominating thoughts, which are marked from eyebrow to eyebrow.</p> - -<p>“Are you, too, interested in foundlings, Donna Maria?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, very,” she replied vaguely.</p> - -<p>“Well, will you give me one of those red roses, only one?”</p> - -<p>The request is made with seeming disingenuousness, but she understood -that the man was waiting for the reply attentively. The woman was -silent, and smelled her roses.</p> - -<p>“I will pay whatever price you like—for the foundlings,” he murmured -suggestively.</p> - -<p>“Why do you value it so?” she asked, looking at him.</p> - -<p>“Because it is yours; because it has been in your<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> hands, because you -have put it near your face, and have placed it to your lips.”</p> - -<p>The voice is lower and the expression more ardent. The woman had never -heard the like from him before. She looked at him with melancholy -curiosity, but free from anger.</p> - -<p>“Maria, give me the rose,” and he attempted to take it gently from the -bunch.</p> - -<p>Maria drew back and looked at him, protecting her flowers.</p> - -<p>“For whom, then, do you wish to keep the roses, Donna Maria?” he asked, -half bitterly and ironically.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I don’t know,” she replied, trembling.</p> - -<p>“If you don’t give me one, to whom will you, Donna Maria?”</p> - -<p>She let the roses fall and scatter on the table, all her face was -disturbed with sudden pallor. Gianni Provana quietly took a rose which -she had not given him—which he had gained in spite of her; but, instead -of placing it in his buttonhole, he placed it with care in the inside -pocket of his coat.</p> - -<p>“Next to the heart,” he whispered.</p> - -<p>A short, strident laugh was Maria’s only reply.</p> - -<p>“How badly you laugh, Donna Maria!” he exclaimed, a little irritated.</p> - -<p>“Like you,” she replied quietly.</p> - -<p>“Come from behind the stall and let us take a walk together?” he asked.<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a></p> - -<p>His tone remained simple and disingenuous, but within there was a dull -agitation, which the man restrained with difficulty.</p> - -<p>“No,” she refused drily.</p> - -<p>“And why? Aren’t you bored there? Don’t you see that every one is -walking?”</p> - -<p>“Yes: sweethearts with their lovers; girls with their flirts; wantons -with their courtiers. We belong to none of these classes.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Hélas!</i>” he exclaimed in French, to hide his bitterness, and took out -his eye-glass and looked at her.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you come then? The avenues are most beautiful, and it is a lovely -sunset.”</p> - -<p>She laughed again, with a mocking, malicious laugh.</p> - -<p>He looked at her.</p> - -<p>“I will return later on,” he said, softly withdrawing.</p> - -<p>When he had gone she lent her head against the arm of her rustic chair, -and shut her eyes as if mortally tired.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?” asked Flaminia.</p> - -<p>There was no reply.</p> - -<p>“Are you feeling ill, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“No; I am sad and I am bored.”</p> - -<p>“Are you very bored?”</p> - -<p>“Immensely. I am bored and sad as no one has ever been bored and sad in -this world.”</p> - -<p>“What should one do to distract you, to make<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> you cheerful?” she said, -with sincere anxiety and pain.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, dear, nothing,” replied Maria in a weak and monotonous voice; -“love me a little; there is no need for anything else. That will console -me.”</p> - -<p>“However, that won’t amuse you,” said Flaminia frankly.</p> - -<p>“But it helps me to live,” replied Maria sadly.</p> - -<p>“Do you need help so much, dear?”</p> - -<p>“So much, so much, to go on living!” the miserable woman replied -desperately.</p> - -<p>But the lugubrious conversation was interrupted by people coming and -going. In the west the light took gentle sunset tints, and the whiteness -and brightness of the ladies’ dresses seemed almost vaporous and -transparent, while the beauty of their faces assumed a more indefinite -and mysterious aspect. A languor fell from the sky, which kept growing -whiter, and the voices became softer and slower.</p> - -<p>“Come for a little walk,” said Gianni Provana, who had returned, waiting -with infinite patience.</p> - -<p>“Do go,” said Flaminia to her friend. “Provana, tell her something brisk -and witty. Maria is so mortally bored.”</p> - -<p>“Donna Maria, I will force myself to be full of wit!” he exclaimed, with -a bow.</p> - -<p>The woman made a movement of fastidiousness and nonchalance. Then she -rose slowly from her<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> place and replaced her cloak on her shoulders, and -taking her white parasol where she had introduced some roses, without -seeing if Provana was near or following her, started, after giving -Flaminia a little tender embrace, telling her to wait for her till she -should return.</p> - -<p>Gianni Provana rejoined her and walked beside her. They went through the -long avenue on the left, which leads from the top of the wood of the -Piazza di Siena towards the back of the Villa Borghese. Others were -walking near and far off in couples and groups, some talking softly, -others joking and laughing, stopping to chatter better and laugh and -joke; others were silent. The sunset rendered the avenue more -melancholy, in spite of gay voices and peals of laughter.</p> - -<p>Maria and Gianni Provana did not speak. She walked slowly, as if very -tired.</p> - -<p>“I am incapable of any wit near you, Donna Maria,” said Provana, after a -little time.</p> - -<p>“Don’t give yourself any trouble; it is useless.”</p> - -<p>“Is it true that you are so mortally bored?”</p> - -<p>“You know it, it seems,” she replied indifferently, far away.</p> - -<p>“Once you told me that you found the strength to live in yourself, and -only in yourself. Those were your words, I think. I didn’t understand -them very well, but I remember them.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I said them once,” she murmured<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> thoughtfully. “And it was true -then; but now it is no longer true.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“I have nothing more within me,” she replied desolately.</p> - -<p>But she seemed to say it to herself more than to him.</p> - -<p>“Try to interest yourself in something outside yourself,” he suggested -insinuatingly and quietly, hiding the intense interest which agitated -him.</p> - -<p>“I have tried various things; and I haven’t succeeded in binding myself -to anybody or anything.”</p> - -<p>“How is that?”</p> - -<p>“I have nothing to do with my life, that is all,” she concluded, coldly -and gloomily, looking at the gnarled trunk of a very old tree.</p> - -<p>He was silent and troubled.</p> - -<p>“Still, two years ago in returning to your home——” he resumed.</p> - -<p>“That tragic and grotesque farce has ended with my husband as the -travesty of a hero, and with me as a travesty of a penitent!” she -exclaimed with a sneer.</p> - -<p>“O Donna Maria!” he exclaimed, shocked.</p> - -<p>“You already know that Emilio hates and despises me,” she continued, -with an increasingly mordant irony. “He must have told you. Among men -you discuss these things.”<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a></p> - -<p>Provana was silent, but he had an air of agreeing.</p> - -<p>“All this for having wished to pardon me, dear Provana. Pardon wasn’t in -him, neither was it in me.”</p> - -<p>“And why?”</p> - -<p>“Because pardon is a great thing, when the soul remains great that -accords it—a pardon complete and absolute; but in the other case what a -miserable, humiliating, and insulting thing a pardon is!”</p> - -<p>“In the other case?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Emilio is a poor creature!” she said, with a profound accent of -disdain, shrugging her shoulders, and adding nothing further, as if she -had said the last word about him.</p> - -<p>“And you, and you, Donna Maria?”</p> - -<p>“I? I owe to one of my usual exaltations having inflicted on my lively -being one of the most unsupportable humiliations feminine pride can ever -endure.”</p> - -<p>She stopped, troubled and proudly pale, with eyes veiled in tears of -indignation.</p> - -<p>“You understand, I asked his pardon humbly. I prayed humbly for him to -pronounce it with loyalty, to accord it fully and generously, I, Maria -Guasco; and I wept, yes wept, before him, and endured his pardon; which -was, instead of an absolution, an accusation, an inquiry, a daily -condemnation.”<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a></p> - -<p>Fortunately, the two were far away from the others, and the violet tints -of the sunset became deeper beneath the trees. The woman stopped, and -made a supreme effort to stifle her sighs, to repress her tears, and -compose her face.</p> - -<p>“Please forget what I have told you,” she said imperiously to Provana, -putting a hand on his arm.</p> - -<p>“Why, then, why?” he exclaimed, becoming suddenly heated; “why do you -like to treat me always as a man without a heart or a soul? Who gives -you the right to treat me thus? Why must I always be considered by you -as an enemy? Don’t you believe that I have fibre and feelings, like -other human beings? Am I a monster? Why don’t you believe that I can -understand you and follow you to the depths and speak a word of -consolation, even I? Am I unfit, then, to be your friend?”</p> - -<p>She was stupefied at this cry of sorrow, new and unthought of.</p> - -<p>“Oh, let me be, Maria, let me be your friend. Do let me, that together -our two souls may be healed, mine from cynicism and yours from -discomfort and desolation. I ask you to let me be your friend, nothing -else. I have been ill for so many years, from every mortal illness, and -I thirst for good. You, too, Maria, have been so ill; let us seek some -pleasure together.”</p> - -<p>She felt that he was sincere at that moment,<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a> sincere as he had never -been, as he never would be again. But she knew that there are no -pleasures in life unless accompanied by devouring poisons. She knew that -there are no succours and comforts between man and woman without mortal -danger, and without fatal and mortal error. The truth, impetuous and -brutal, rose in the woman’s words.</p> - -<p>“Are you asking me to be your lover?”</p> - -<p>He at once became cold, and replied—</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t wish to be,” she replied, turning her back, and replacing her -cloak on her shoulders to resume their walk.</p> - -<p>Gianni Provana did not frown nor change countenance.</p> - -<p>“Still, it will be so.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” exclaimed Maria disdainfully.</p> - -<p>“Because now there is nothing else to be done,” he concluded composedly.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she interrupted; and she would have said more but kept silent, -becoming absorbed and gloomy.</p> - -<p>“You already know that your husband will not change his behaviour to -you; your disagreement can’t help becoming intenser and deeper every -day.”</p> - -<p>She assented with a nod, becoming gloomier.</p> - -<p>“You already know, you will have been told, that Marco Fiore has become -enamoured of an<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> actress, an actress with red hair, Gemma Dombrowska, -and that perhaps he will go off with her as with you ... as with you.”</p> - -<p>Bitterness, sarcasm, anger vibrate in every word of Gianni Provana as he -follows the woman, persuading and persecuting her.</p> - -<p>She bent her head in assent, because she knew.</p> - -<p>“You see quite well!” he exclaimed in a hissing voice, “that there is -nothing else for you in life, but to become my lover.”</p> - -<p>A sense of fatality seemed to weigh on the woman’s life, which oppressed -and squashed her. Evening had fallen in the avenues and it seemed like -night. All the ladies who had still remained in the wooded lawns and -avenues covered themselves with their cloaks and hurried their steps, -accompanied by their cavaliers.</p> - -<p>Farewells are exchanged, light laughter, and small cries, while the -waiters denude the last tables, and the great stall of the <i>fragolata</i> -is covered with squashed strawberries and withered leaves. Every one -hurries to the gate in a kind of flight, leaving the wood behind filled -with night, fearful in its solitude, where it seemed to be peopled with -unknown phantoms.</p> - -<p>Near the great gate Flaminia Colonna, Maria Guasco and Gianni Provana -meet face to face Donna Vittoria Fiore, accompanied by her sister -Beatrice. Marco Fiore’s wife had been at the <i>fragolata</i> all the -afternoon, but as usual had kept<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> herself in some far-off corner in the -shadow of her sister, and had not approached the patronesses’ stall, nor -had she participated at any of the little strawberry tables. She was -there, at the threshold of Villa Borghese, behind her sister, who had -advanced to call the carriage of Casa Fiore. She was there, with her -little white closed face and eyelids lowered over eyes too clear and -limpid, with the lower half of her face hidden in the feathers of her -white boa. But at a certain moment her eyes are raised and meet those of -Maria Guasco, pregnant with sadness and pride. Vittoria’s glance flashed -as never before in unspeakable hate. Maria Guasco smiled and laughed, as -bending towards Gianni Provana she said—</p> - -<p>“Not so bad! not so bad! She at any rate has not pardoned me.”<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="II-3" id="II-3"></a>II</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Your Excellency</span>, dinner is served,” announced the butler at the door of -the <i>salotto</i>, bowing to Donna Arduina Fiore.</p> - -<p>Donna Arduina put down her knitting of dark wool, a petticoat destined -for some poor woman dying of cold in the winter. She asked—</p> - -<p>“Has Don Marco returned?”</p> - -<p>“No, Excellency, but his man Francesco has returned with a letter for -Your Excellency,” and he advanced with a note on a silver tray. In the -increasing gloom of the room, Donna Arduina raised her eyes to Heaven -with a fleeting act of resignation, as she took her son’s letter. She -had received many others in the far-off times, which it seemed to her -ought never to have returned again with their habits, and now at the -day’s fall Marco again writes to her as formerly. She read—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Dear Mamma, excuse me, pardon me, but I am detained by friends for -dinner at the club. If I can return early I will come and kiss your -hand, if not, to-morrow. Bless me.—<span class="smcap">Marco.</span>”</p></div> - -<p><a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a></p> - -<p>The tender mother sighed, blessing as usual in her heart her favourite -son, even if absent and drawn away elsewhere by others. In her deep -maternal egoism she is content that nobody and nothing have the power to -make her son forget his mother entirely. Still she sighed, and said to -the butler—</p> - -<p>“Please inform Donna Vittoria that dinner is served, and that I am -waiting for her in the dining-room.” It is not very long since Donna -Arduina made common table with her children, Marco and Vittoria. In the -early days of their marriage she said that she did not wish to change -her usual time-table, little suitable for the young couple; but it was -really an affectionate excuse to leave them in liberty. Little by -little, however, she learnt that they not only desired her presence at -the family table, but felt an intimate need of it, as if to prevent -embarrassment, so great and frequent had become the coldness and silence -between Marco and Vittoria. Once, with a boyish caress, which he knew -how to give his mother, winning her as he had always won her from a -little one, Marco had said to her—</p> - -<p>“Mamma dear, don’t abandon us in the hour of our dinner as in that of -our death!”</p> - -<p>“Why? Why?”</p> - -<p>“You know Vittoria more than ever at that hour seeks the solution of a -philosophical problem, which has fatigued the mind of many -philosophers.<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> Hence I dare not disturb her. At least you have the habit -of opening your mouth, mamma bella, and pronouncing a few words.”</p> - -<p>Thus the new custom was assumed without Vittoria asking the reason. At -table, to solve the question of places, the two ladies of the house were -seated one opposite the other, the two places of honour separated by -some distance. Marco’s place was on the right of his mother, but much -nearer to her, in fact quite far from his wife. So Donna Vittoria Fiore -seemed isolated down there in the place of honour on her high-backed -chair with a carved coronet, which topped the ornamentation and stood -out above the little head with its aureola of golden hair; but she -seemed serene and tranquil. Mother and son often, when she was there, -forgot her, and during dinner a conversation took place between the two -without either directing a word to Vittoria, and as Vittoria never -questioned either, neither replied. Sometimes as they talked they looked -at her, as if to make her take part in the conversation, but, without -opening her mouth, she would content herself with nodding her head to -what they said, almost automatically. For two or three months now, with -a plausible excuse but with increasing regularity, Marco was missing at -the family meal. Sometimes he announced the fact the day before, -sometimes he said so at luncheon, and at last, at the close of the -season, he more often sent a little note to his mother to<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> say that he -was not returning to dinner: but always to his mother, never to -Vittoria.</p> - -<p>“But why don’t you write a word to her?” she asked, a little, but not -very, shocked.</p> - -<p>“Because Your Excellency is mistress of the house!” he proclaimed, -embracing her like a child, and smiling and laughing.</p> - -<p>“Still, she could be hurt about it,” observed the good woman.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria? Never.”</p> - -<p>When his absences became more frequent, she made some firm remonstrances -to him.</p> - -<p>“Why do you abandon us, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“Do I, mamma?” he said, with an uncertain smile.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria may be displeased by it.”</p> - -<p>“You, mamma, you; not Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>“Are you sure?”</p> - -<p>“Ask her. Try and ask her. You will cut a poor figure, madre bella, -since Vittoria will reply that it matters nothing to her.”</p> - -<p>“Pretending?”</p> - -<p>“Pretending? Who knows! For that matter I can’t endure people who -pretend.”</p> - -<p>“Even those who are hiding their sorrow?”</p> - -<p>“Even them. A hidden sorrow doesn’t exist for me.</p> - -<p>“You are cruel, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“There, there, mamma, sweet as honey, you mustn’t think me cruel!”<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a></p> - -<p>The mother, a little thoughtful, was silent, but not convinced. This -evening the absence of her son had worried her more than ever. She -entered slowly the immense, solemn, gloomy dining-room of Casa Fiore -just as Vittoria entered from the other side. The young woman read the -pain on the good-natured old face.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t Marco coming to dinner, mamma?” she asked indifferently, sitting -down.</p> - -<p>“No, dear. He has been kept at the club by friends.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! and is he returning late?” and there was even greater indifference -in this second remark.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps yes, perhaps no,” added Donna Arduina, looking closely at her -daughter-in-law.</p> - -<p>Vittoria appeared not to have heeded her mother-in-law’s reply. The -dinner proceeded in silence, slowly and peacefully, served by servants -who made no noise in crossing the imposing space, where a single -candelabra concentrated its light on the table, leaving the rest of the -room obscure.</p> - -<p>Donna Arduina Fiore had always had a holy terror of installing the -electric light in the old palace full of carving, precious pictures, and -objects of art. So the old aristocratic methods of illumination -prevailed, large oil lamps and huge candelabra with wax candles.</p> - -<p>“Where are you going this evening, Vittoria?” said Donna Arduina, -interrupting the heavy silence.<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a></p> - -<p>“Nowhere, mother.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you were going with Beatrice to the last performance of the -<i>Walkyrie</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Beatrice is going there. I said I wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Does it bore you?”</p> - -<p>“It bores me.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you like the theatre?”</p> - -<p>“So-so, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Still, any way you prefer music?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I prefer music; but even that doesn’t make me enthuse.”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me, Vittoria, that you enthuse for very few things in the -world;” and she tempered the observation with a quiet smile.</p> - -<p>“I enthuse over nothing, mamma; really over nothing,” replied Vittoria -emphatically.</p> - -<p>“But why, daughter? Why? There is good in enthusiasm.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t enthuse, mother, by temperament, also by character: I am made -so. I have been made very badly,” the young woman declared, with an -expression of bitterness.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you tried to change yourself?—to interest yourself deeply in -something?—to like something keenly? Have you tried?”</p> - -<p>“I have tried and failed.”</p> - -<p>“Still you must have thought and felt that something in the world -deserves all our heart?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother, I have thought and felt it,” the daughter-in-law replied -firmly.<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a></p> - -<p>“What, my daughter?”</p> - -<p>“Love, mother,” she replied firmly.</p> - -<p>“Love?” repeated Donna Arduina, surprised.</p> - -<p>“Exactly, my mother. School stories, follies of youth. Old stories!”</p> - -<p>With a vague bow she seemed to greet these dreams and follies so old and -far away, so dead and scattered. The mother-in-law was silent, wrapped -in the ideas and sentiments suggested by her daughter-in-law, which -crowded her mind. The dinner finished, Donna Arduina rose to take leave -of Vittoria.</p> - -<p>“Will you let me keep you company, mother?” Vittoria asked.</p> - -<p>“Certainly, dear; do come.”</p> - -<p>Presently both were seated in Donna Arduina’s ancient room, under the -large oil lamp covered with a shade.</p> - -<p>While the old lady persevered with her woollen petticoat for some poor -woman, Vittoria resumed work on a bodice, also destined to clothe some -poor unfortunate in winter. They remained a little without raising their -eyes from the brown bundles of wool, which kept increasing under their -hands.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria!” cried Donna Arduina suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Mother?”</p> - -<p>“Are you displeased that Marco didn’t return to dinner this evening?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Really; doesn’t it displease you?”<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a></p> - -<p>“Really!”</p> - -<p>“In fact it matters nothing to you that Marco doesn’t put in an -appearance at dinner?”</p> - -<p>“Why do you ask me?”</p> - -<p>“Tell me if it is true.”</p> - -<p>“And who told you?”</p> - -<p>“My son, your husband. He maintains that it matters nothing to you if he -goes or comes, returns or doesn’t return.”</p> - -<p>“He is right,” replied Vittoria, after a pause.</p> - -<p>“Have you told him that, my daughter?”</p> - -<p>“I have told him that.”</p> - -<p>“Why? You have committed an imprudence. We must never show men that we -do not value them.”</p> - -<p>“Value or not value, show it or not show it, mother, what does it -matter?” exclaimed the young woman, leaving off her work, with an accent -of weariness and fastidiousness. “All that won’t change mine and Marco’s -fate.”</p> - -<p>“Christians don’t believe in fate, Vittoria!” murmured Donna Arduina.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I’m a bad Christian as well,” she replied, with a feeble smile; -“but I know my fate and Marco’s now, as if I were a gipsy, a sorceress, -a witch.”</p> - -<p>“Vittoria!”</p> - -<p>“Take no notice, mother, I was joking,” concluded the daughter-in-law, -lowering her eyes on her work.<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a></p> - -<p>But the mother-in-law did not wish to be silent; it seemed to her that -the hour ought not to pass without a more intimate and intense -explanation.</p> - -<p>“Do you, then, know everything, Vittoria?” she asked slowly.</p> - -<p>“How is one not to know it? Even living as a creature abandoned in a -corner of a palace, as an insignificant creature in a corner of a -drawing-room, there is always somebody to tell you everything, mother,” -replied Vittoria bitterly and coldly.</p> - -<p>“Some one has told you?”</p> - -<p>“Some one? Several; many, in fact. My friends have hurried to let me -know that Marco has taken a violent fancy for an actress. I know every -particular, mother. The actress is a Milanese, has magnificent red hair, -and is tall. She is called Gemma Dombrowska, a Russian name, not her -own, but assumed from some great family over there.”</p> - -<p>The coldest bitterness was in Vittoria’s voice, and she continued -mechanically to knit her bodice.</p> - -<p>“And what do you say, Vittoria? What are you going to do?”</p> - -<p>“I? I am going to say and do nothing, mother!” she exclaimed harshly.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to help yourself? defend yourself?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t help myself, and nothing can defend me;” and she turned her -head away, perhaps so<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> that the mother of her husband might read nothing -there.</p> - -<p>“But at least you love your husband?” the mother-in-law cried.</p> - -<p>“I love him,” proclaimed the young woman, with unexpected ardour in her -accent. “I love him. It is he who doesn’t love me. So you see all is -useless.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you think he doesn’t love you? How do you know? How are you -convinced of it?”</p> - -<p>“Mother, mother, you are convinced of it, you have always been convinced -of it,” replied the young woman with dignity.</p> - -<p>Donna Arduina rose from her place, and stretched out a hand to touch -Vittoria’s, with a sad, consoling caress.</p> - -<p>“Poor Vittoria!” she murmured.</p> - -<p>And she thought that the young woman ought to fall in her arms and break -into tears and sobs. No. The blonde’s youthful mouth contracted like a -flower which closes while the colours grow pale, but she did not move -nor cry.</p> - -<p>“Do you pity me, mother?” she asked strangely.</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear, yes!”</p> - -<p>“Like your son, then. It is a family habit,” replied Vittoria mockingly.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria! Vittoria!”</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, mother. My horrible destiny is caused from this horrible -thing, pity.”<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a></p> - -<p>“What are you saying? What are you saying?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, mother mine; I’ll say no more. I don’t want to say anything -more. Pardon me. I oughtn’t to have spoken. You asked me; in obedience I -spoke. Let me be quite silent.”</p> - -<p>“Oh daughter, daughter, what a difficult character is yours!” replied -the elder lady, with a deep sigh.</p> - -<p>“Difficult? Very bad, mother, a shocking character! I shall die, and no -one will understand it.”</p> - -<p>“You must live; you must begin your life again, Vittoria, and try to -lead my son. He must love you.”</p> - -<p>“He can’t.”</p> - -<p>“He can’t?”</p> - -<p>“No. He can’t love me.”</p> - -<p>“But why?”</p> - -<p>“Because he loved <i>the other</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t one love two women, one after the other?”</p> - -<p>“It seems not.”</p> - -<p>“Still he has always liked you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he has liked me; but not loved me.”</p> - -<p>“He has married you.”</p> - -<p>“Through tenderness and pity—not through love.”</p> - -<p>“He has continued to give you every proof of his affection.”<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a></p> - -<p>“Affection, certainly; no love.”</p> - -<p>“What did you expect? What are you expecting?”</p> - -<p>“An impossible thing, mother! To be loved with passion, with vehemence, -like <i>the other</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my daughter, it is impossible.”</p> - -<p>“I have told you; it is impossible.”</p> - -<p>“And did you marry Marco with that desire?”</p> - -<p>“With that desire. If not, I shouldn’t have married him; if not, I -shouldn’t have forgiven his betrayal.”</p> - -<p>“You pardoned, then, conditionally? With selfish intent? With a selfish -desire? Not as a Christian?”</p> - -<p>“No, mother, not as a Christian. I pardoned him as a woman, as a woman -in love; that is, imperfectly, badly.”</p> - -<p>“Then the sin is yours, Vittoria.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is mine. If I question my heart it seems I am right, if I -question my conscience I am wrong and the sin is mine. Don’t you see? I -am childless. God has punished me; I shall never be a mother, never, -never.”</p> - -<p>“What will you do, Vittoria? What do you want to do?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, mother. I have nothing to do on this earth, neither for myself -nor others. I go on living here because suicide is a great sin. I shall -go on living here, forgotten, in a corner as usual, like everybody who -hasn’t known how to do right<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> in life. I am wrong, mother, I am wrong. -That is why I don’t complain, that is why I mustn’t complain. Why did -you make me speak? Forget all I have told you, and repeat it to nobody. -Don’t expose me again to the pity of anybody: your pity, mother, yes; -but nobody else’s.”</p> - -<p>She looked at her with such an expression of suffering, nobly born, with -such desire of silence and respect for her suffering, that Donna Arduina -was deeply moved.</p> - -<p>“Mother, let me be forgotten in a corner. Promise me you will say -nothing.”</p> - -<p>“I promise you, my daughter, I promise you; still I deeply sympathise -with you,” said Donna Arduina, with a big sigh.</p> - -<p>Donna Vittoria rose, bent her golden head to kiss her hand, and -disappeared silently, she disappeared like a soft shadow to be forgotten -in a corner of the world, in a corner of the house, like a poor, soft, -little shadow which has never been right, which can never, never be -right—which must always be wrong till death and beyond.<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="III-3" id="III-3"></a>III</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Can</span> I come in, Marco?” said a dear and well-known voice at the door.</p> - -<p>“Always, always, mamma bella,” he cried vivaciously from his bed.</p> - -<p>Donna Arduina entered, with slow and dignified tread, and approached the -bed where her son was smoking a cigarette after his coffee. He threw the -cigarette away at once to embrace her. Instinctively, with maternal -care, she adjusted the pillow, and pulled the counterpane over a little. -The son smiled as he let her do it. She looked at him, studied him, and -found his appearance tired and run down. He leaned again on his pillow, -as if still glad to repose. The mother sat by the bed quietly watching.</p> - -<p>“You came home late yesterday evening?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“A little late, it is true.”</p> - -<p>“I waited for you till midnight, like I used to, Marco mio.”</p> - -<p>“Fifteen years ago, madra mia: how old I am growing!”</p> - -<p>“I want to preach you a sermon now as I used<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a> to. Do you remember? A -sermon on your too jolly and disordered life.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, mother dear,” he protested, with a veil of sadness in the accent.</p> - -<p>“Suppose I were to preach you a sermon this morning?” she added, still -tenderly.</p> - -<p>“I don’t deserve it, mamma; I don’t deserve it.”</p> - -<p>“Marco, you are again leading a too disordered and jolly life.”</p> - -<p>“You are wrong. Few men in the world bore themselves more than I do.”</p> - -<p>“Where do you go, when you don’t dine with us, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“To some place where I can bore myself less than in Casa Fiore, madre -bella. Not on your account, see. You know I adore you.”</p> - -<p>“Is it to fly from poor Vittoria?”</p> - -<p>“Even you, mamma, say <i>poor</i> Vittoria! Even you are moved with -compassion for her! And why aren’t you moved with compassion for your -son, for him whom you have placed in the world? Why don’t you say, <i>poor -Marco</i>? Don’t you see that I am unhappy?” And his exclamations were half -melancholy and ironical, while his face grew disturbed and sad.</p> - -<p>“Alas, my son, what a cross for me to see all this, and to be able to do -nothing! It seems that all are wrong and all are right. What am I to do, -my God, what am I to do?”<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a></p> - -<p>“Pity your son. Love him more than ever; caress him as you used to four -or five years ago; try to make him forget his domestic unhappiness.”</p> - -<p>“But why are you unhappy? Why is Vittoria unhappy? Is it through a -misunderstanding; through a hundred misunderstandings? Is it not so?”</p> - -<p>Marco shook his head, and, without replying, lit another cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Marco, why have you resumed your bachelor room? Why do you sleep here?” -And she threw a glance round the old room, where all around were large -and small portraits of Maria Guasco, with fresh flowers in some vases -before them.</p> - -<p>“I sleep here because Vittoria wishes it,” he said, with a sarcastic -laugh.</p> - -<p>“Vittoria?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Sometimes for one reason, sometimes for another; sometimes for a -novena, sometimes because she is not well, sometimes because of my -departure or my return from hunting. In fact it is she, mamma, who has -given me liberty, so I have taken it, and I am naturally at present most -contented with it.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure that she has suffered, and is suffering about this.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. At any rate she dissimulates perfectly, that -is to say, mother, she lies; I can’t go beyond appearances.”</p> - -<p>“How sad, Marco!”<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a></p> - -<p>“Mamma, I have always been used to truthful women. You are one of them. -Vittoria is a hypocrite.”</p> - -<p>“You are unjust and cruel to her.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. I recognise it. But she has done everything to make me so. -If only you knew, mamma, what I was to her at the beginning! If only you -knew! Suffering, weak and exhausted by an immense passion, I tried to -conquer myself. I searched for strength, for gaiety, for tenderness to -give them to Vittoria. Since it was said to me: <i>render this woman -happy, do this work of repentance and beauty</i>, I have tried to obey, -mamma; but everything has been useless. Vittoria has not understood me.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you have not understood her. She loved you ardently from the -first moment of her engagement; she still loves you so.”</p> - -<p>“No, mamma, no. Either Vittoria does not love me or she does not know -how to love.”</p> - -<p>“So young, so inexperienced, and so ignorant!”</p> - -<p>“Mother, mother, Vittoria knew everything. All my violent and brutal -betrayal has told her that my only and unique love romance has been with -Maria Guasco; the only one, mamma. She dreamed of making another in -matrimony, another romance of passion and madness, as if matrimony were -not a union wise and tender, sweet and profound, not passionate and -frenetic.”</p> - -<p>“She deceived herself. She hoped for too<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a> much. She dared to hope too -much. Don’t punish her for that.”</p> - -<p>“It is she who has punished me for having wished to make her happy. All -my affection has seemed little to her, all my tenderness has seemed mean -to her. But you know, mamma, how she and she only has spurned me. You -know that I have seen all my proofs of affection refused.”</p> - -<p>“O Dio mio!”</p> - -<p>“It is so. From the moment that I could not offer her passion, she did -not wish to know me. A silent drama, understand, a drama of matrimony -developed between us, and I have had ever before me a face as pale and -cold as marble; she is a soul closed, indifferent and scornful; she is a -spirit that is inattentive and bored, and hers is an iciness which -sometimes reaches the point of contempt.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Marco, in spite of that she adored you and does adore you!”</p> - -<p>“It may be, it may be; but she adores me badly. Nevertheless, believe -me, this adoration is composed entirely of egoism, of <i>amour propre</i>, -and jealousy.”</p> - -<p>“Even of jealousy?”</p> - -<p>“Above all. I know it, I know this is so; Vittoria has lived, and lives, -with the incubus of Maria Guasco on her soul and heart. And all this -love of hers is the offended pride of a woman who would overcome her -supposed rival; all her<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a> love is exalted <i>amour propre</i>, is a monstrous -egoism.”</p> - -<p>“O Marco, Marco!”</p> - -<p>“Mother, I am suffering, let me say it, let me unburden myself. To whom -should I say it but to you? Who has placed me before this waxen doll, -this poor little animal of a body with cold blood, this dissembling -soul, all craftiness, all deceit, this heart full of a desire which it -is impossible for it to realise, full of cold anger; in fact this -creature without <i>abandon</i>, without loyalty and without fascination?”</p> - -<p>“O Marco, my son!”</p> - -<p>“Since you have come here this morning you must listen to me. I have, in -short, bound my life to her, I have given my name to her and I would -have given her all my existence, since they told me to give it to her. -Mother, see what she has done with it! Among other things she is -childless. We have no sons; we shall not have any; and this marriage is -another of those immoral and indecent unions between two persons of -opposite temperaments, of opposite character, hostile in fact to one -another, made not to understand each other, made not to fuse, made to -contradict each other, and at last to hate each other. I am perfectly -positive Vittoria hates me.”</p> - -<p>“You are so unjust to her, my son.”</p> - -<p>“She does not hate me to-day; but she will to-morrow. For her I -represent an immense disillusion<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a> of <i>amour propre</i>, a defeat of her -egoism, a real sentimental rout. You will see, you will see how Vittoria -will hate me.”</p> - -<p>“But what should this unfortunate creature have done to please you, to -unite herself to you in spirit, to render to you the happiness you were -giving to her?”</p> - -<p>“Love me, mother!”</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t she love you?”</p> - -<p>“To love me, mother, not for herself; to give all and ask nothing; to be -happy that a man delivered from the fatality of an unlawful passion is -in a haven of peace; to be serenity itself; to be, in short, the -Christian wife, the ideal companion of our hearth whose scope is every -soft desire of ours.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, what a gulf, my son, what a gulf!”</p> - -<p>“Between me and Vittoria? Immense, immeasurable, it is impossible to -bridge it, impossible to surmount it.”</p> - -<p>“What is to be done, what is to be done?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, mother dear. You can do nothing. Let Vittoria execrate me -to-morrow; let her consider me as the cause of all her misfortune; let -me be an object of repulsion to her. It is better so.”</p> - -<p>“But you already have a sweetheart, after two years of married life?”</p> - -<p>“Who, I, a sweetheart? You are joking, mother?”<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a></p> - -<p>“But that woman, that actress.”</p> - -<p>“Who, Gemma? Oh, what a saint you are, my mother! We don’t call those -sweethearts. They are a slight distraction; a home where there is a -different woman who greets you with constant good humour, who lets you -play or joke or sleep as you please; who asks you nothing, who -understands nothing, but who does not ask to be understood.”</p> - -<p>“How awful, Marco!”</p> - -<p>“O Saint Arduina! O sainted mother mine!”</p> - -<p>“Your wife knows of this relation: they have told her of it as being a -great scandal.”</p> - -<p>“You too; and are you scandalised?”</p> - -<p>“I? very much.”</p> - -<p>“If you like I will leave Gemma, mother dear.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t love her, it is true?”</p> - -<p>“If you were not an angel you would know that it is not a question of -love. But if it annoys you so much I will leave Gemma.”</p> - -<p>“Do so, do so, my son.”</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless, I shall soon take another. And after her a third and a -fourth.”</p> - -<p>“You never used to be so, sonny! You have never before said such things -to me.”</p> - -<p>Her tone was so sorrowful, that it smote the son. He half raised himself -in bed, exclaiming—</p> - -<p>“It is true, it is true, mother! But there is nothing left for me to do -but to become a dissolute.”<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a></p> - -<p>“What horror!” and she hid her face in her hands.</p> - -<p>“A horror, is it not? I cause you horror, my sainted mother, my angelic -mother! See to what life has brought me. A great, powerful, and -beautiful love has only lasted a short time with me, and has left my -heart dead to every fresh ardour. Mother, no one will take the place of -Maria Guasco in my existence; she has been all, and that all has -descended into the tomb. Afterwards I tried to attach myself to an idea, -to a sentiment, to a loving duty, but the creature herself for whom I -wished to live, for whom I wished to fight my life, spurned me and fled -from me. What more have I to do? I have no love, I have no affection, I -have no son, and I have no family risen from me. Nothing remains but to -become a vicious and perverse person, to allow all my wicked instincts -to pour from me; to give myself to women and play; to lose my fortune; -to abase my name; to be a trivial pleasure-lover, and to cause you -horror, my mother.”</p> - -<p>Desperately the mother took him in her arms, pressed him to herself and -kissed him, as if to defend him against life itself.</p> - -<p>“You are good, you are noble, you are loyal, and you will not do this.”</p> - -<p>“I used to be that!” cried the son desolately; “and I deserved the love -of Maria Guasco; and I should have deserved that Vittoria Fiore knew<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> -how to love me and become happy with me and in my dedication. But all -has been useless; I have been broken against this subtle, pallid, silent -and cold shadow of a woman. If I want to live I must be perverse and -dissolute.”</p> - -<p>“No, my son, no.”</p> - -<p>“There remains nothing else for me, mamma,” he repeated desolately.<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="IV-3" id="IV-3"></a>IV</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">“Dress</span> me quickly,” said Maria to Chiara distractedly.</p> - -<p>Chiara gave a glance towards the balcony, concealed by the white lace -curtains, but said not a word. The dress for the races at Tor di Quinto -was on the bed, a costume of bright cream voile, trimmed with a sort of -silver lace, with a large belt of silver cloth, and a large black hat -covered with a black feather held by an antique silver buckle, together -with a very fine black veil, which surrounded it like a light cloud. -Chiara accomplished the work of dressing her beloved mistress rapidly, -without talking. Maria seemed wrapped in her thoughts, and mechanically -performed the successive acts by which a lady dresses herself.</p> - -<p>“Give me the turquoise necklace,” she said, still distractedly.</p> - -<p>Chiara went to the cupboard where the jewels were kept, and took a -bizarre necklace, in peculiar twisted gold, embellished with large -turquoises.</p> - -<p>Maria fixed it, still mechanically. Then her eyes, wandering -indifferently and uncertainly, stopped at the balcony. She opened them -wide, as if at an unexpected spectacle, and listened.<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a></p> - -<p>“It is raining in torrents,” she said to Chiara, surprised and gloomily.</p> - -<p>“Dreadfully,” replied Chiara, with a sigh.</p> - -<p>Maria’s hands, which were fixing her hat, fell back as if tired.</p> - -<p>“Then why have I dressed?” she asked, as if to herself, with an accent -of weariness and annoyance.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it will stop raining in a little while,” said the faithful -creature timidly.</p> - -<p>“You’ll see, it will rain the whole day!” exclaimed Maria, discouraged.</p> - -<p>She threw herself into a chair as if a sudden fatigue had mastered her. -Her face had the almost infantile sadness of disillusion, and with the -sadness flowed the sense of a tedium ever greater, while the pattering -rain beat upon the pavement, the marble balcony, and the windows. Chiara -retired discreetly at a call from another part, and in a few minutes -reappeared.</p> - -<p>“The Principessa della Marsiliana is at the telephone, and is asking for -Your Excellency.”</p> - -<p>With a great effort Maria arose and crossed the room to her husband’s -study. The study was deserted and gloomy with its almost black carved -furniture and the dark maroon, green, and red leather of its chairs and -sofas. The telephone was there in a corner.</p> - -<p>“Well, Carolina, well?”</p> - -<p>“No one is going to the races; they have been<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a> postponed. What a pity!” -exclaimed the gentle, and always a little nervous, voice of the -Principessa della Marsiliana.</p> - -<p>“Well, then, what are you going to do?”</p> - -<p>“Since it is raining, later on I shall get rid of a bothering duty. I am -going to the Sacro Cuore at Trinità dei Monti, to visit Guiglia -Strozzi’s daughter, who is ill. Will you come?”</p> - -<p>“No, thank you.”</p> - -<p>“Then what are you going to do?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing; the usual—I shall bore myself. Au revoir, Carolina.”</p> - -<p>“Au revoir. What a pity! I had a beautiful dress.”</p> - -<p>“So had I. It doesn’t matter. Au revoir.”</p> - -<p>The telephone was rung off.</p> - -<p>Maria remained standing in the middle of the study, looking around so -uncertainly and fleetingly that it seemed as if she was almost seeking -help. Her eyes directed themselves to the chair which Emilio used behind -the writing-table, and she almost seemed to be looking for some one. But -suddenly she silently recrossed all the rooms she had first crossed, and -re-entered her room, where Chiara was replacing all the things in the -cupboard.</p> - -<p>“Would you like to take off your dress, Excellency?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“No, it tires me,” replied Maria exhaustedly.</p> - -<p>She only took off her hat, drawing out the two<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> pearl-headed pins, and -consigning them to Chiara. The rain poured incessantly and noisily.</p> - -<p>Once more Maria made a gesture of indecision, looked at her watch, and -shook her head discouragedly.</p> - -<p>It was only two o’clock in the afternoon. On that Sunday, with the rain -falling for nearly an hour, not a sound was to be heard in the streets; -not a step or a shadow came to break the silence or populate the desert -of Casa Guasco.</p> - -<p>“Do you want me any more?” asked Chiara.</p> - -<p>Maria hesitated for a minute, almost as if she wished to ask that human -being, that living creature, who was her servant, to remain with her to -keep her company; but she felt ashamed of her moral wretchedness, and a -motive of pride counselled her to immerse herself in solitude.</p> - -<p>“No, you may go,” she replied.</p> - -<p>Quite alone she passed into her boudoir, which was very light, papered -and furnished in an almost white stuff, with bunches of pale roses and -soft green grasses, with frames of pale gold, and a carpet of light -yellow, with cushions of a very pale colour. With its exquisite taste -toned to the surroundings, in that sunless afternoon and incessant rain, -the room seemed like that of a person dead for a long time, like a room -uninhabited for a long time. Maria sat down in her usual arm-chair, -placed her feet on a buffet, and leaned her head against a cushion, -letting her arms fall and closing<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> her eyes to allow all the mortal -tedium of her soul to expand, to allow all the despair of her heart to -cross the lines of her beautiful and noble countenance.</p> - -<p>Some time passed thus. Occasionally the rain diminished, becoming a dull -noise like steps in the distance, or increased with a pattering as if a -fresh whirlwind were spreading over the streets and houses. Maria in her -absolute silence started twice and raised her head, stretching her hand -towards a table. She took up a book bound in soft chamois leather, with -strange designs, and with troubled and indifferent eyes glanced through -several pages; even the noise of turning leaves in the silence of Casa -Guasco caused her to tremble. The poet whose verses she was slowly -reading was of all the most sorrowful, and amidst the gloomy sadness of -the sky and earth, of that house and her soul, Maria felt the ardent and -powerful words with which Sapho’s soul takes leave of life spreading in -her spirit. Her head sank on her breast, the book remained open on her -knees, and she thought bitterly of the grand lover of Mitylene, to whom -everything was unprofitable from birth till death, save her lofty -genius, which love had not conceded her; she thought of the most -sorrowful poet of all, whose bitterness was joined in that hour to her -own bitterness, of Giacomo Leopardi, to whom genius had not even -conceded love. An obscure anguish closed her heart in the profound<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> -silence and solitude, in that mortally long hour of boredom and sadness. -Her hand almost involuntarily touched a bell concealed behind her chair. -After a moment a servant appeared.</p> - -<p>“Has the post been?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; there is nothing for Your Excellency.”</p> - -<p>“Good; you may go.”</p> - -<p>She was expecting no letters from any one. But every now and then in her -blackest crises of moral abandonment, of ineptitude to live or act, she -began to desire an unknown letter written by an unknown hand, she found -herself desiring an unexpected telegram, where might be contained from -destiny the secret which should help her to do something with her -useless life and useless days. While the time passed with desperate -slowness, while the soft persistent rain continued to fall on Rome and -envelope it in a grey veil of mist and water, she thought that there -were not so many mysterious letters written by far-off mysterious -persons containing powerful aid, that there are no unthought-of -telegrams where a word tells the way for those who have consumed the -forces of passion and goodness.</p> - -<p>With a second familiar gesture she took a large work-bag of heavy -material from a basket, lined with white silk and covered with pretty -little bows of ribbon, and took out an embroidery of an old-fashioned -kind, with slightly archaic colours, of a charming and rather childish -design. Her beautiful<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> hands sought among the tangled skeins of silk the -threads suitable for the continuation of the work, and began to pierce -the piece of silk with calm and regular movement. Two or three times her -hands, as if oppressed with fatigue, dawdled over the embroidery, and -she placed the piece of silk on her knees; two or three times a sigh -full of annoyance and impatience escaped her breast, and her head fell -back on the little cushion in silent exasperation; two or three times -she shot a glance round her of anger and hate, yes, of hate, but -mechanically her hands resumed the embroidery. The afternoon light began -to be obscured, the corners of the room were in shadow; she had to stoop -over her work to continue the embroidery.</p> - -<p>Again a step approached.</p> - -<p>It was the servant with the teapot and kettle. Without speaking he drew -a table near Maria’s chair and placed everything there, and lit the -spirit stove beneath the little kettle. Then, as it was getting darker, -he stretched his hand towards a large pedestal lamp to turn on the -electric light.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Maria.</p> - -<p>The sound of her voice after such an intense and mortal silence -surprised her. The man left. The little flame alone seemed to live and -breathe, a bluish little spirit flame, which licked the bottom of the -silver kettle. Maria, with her hands stretched along her person, kept -her eyes fixed on<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a> that poor form of life, a little passing light which -was consuming itself, a little form of passing heat which was -evaporating. The methodical work of preparing tea she accomplished in -half obscurity, bending over the table, while the slight noise of the -rain, with which the afternoon was lapsing into evening, still reached -her ears. While the warm beverage smoked in the little china cup, she -smiled silently with immense bitterness; for the servant had placed two -cups on the tray.</p> - -<p>She threw herself back in her chair, crossed her two hands behind her -neck, stretched out her feet, closed her eyes and tried hard to sleep, -at least to sleep and forget her useless life; her useless days, her -hours of empty solitude, of savage impatience waiting for the person she -did not know who would never come, waiting for a deed she was ignorant -of which would never happen, for something strange, far off, unknown, -but which should be living and let her live: to sleep, at any rate, -since all this was no more possible when one has lived and loved too -much; to sleep since no one comes again from afar, since nothing happens -again when the heights of good and evil have been touched, and one has -descended into the obscure valley of indifference and aridity.</p> - -<p>A sudden light and a harsh voice aroused her at once from her torpor. -Some one had suddenly turned on the electric light, and was before her -talking harshly. It was her husband.<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a></p> - -<p>“Are you here, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“I am here, as you see,” she replied dully.</p> - -<p>He had returned suddenly as usual, entering the house and crossing all -the rooms to reach her, as if he always wanted to surprise a visit, a -secret colloquy, or the furtive scribbling of a letter. He was still in -hunting costume, with his maroon velvet coat spattered and discoloured, -a big waistcoat with full pockets with bone buttons, and the breeches -stuffed in a pair of dirty riding-boots. Standing there, his face was -more than ever gloomy and distrustful, on his temple his hair was -completely white, which threw into stronger relief the olive darkness of -his face.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing here, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” she replied dully.</p> - -<p>“Were you sleeping?”</p> - -<p>“I have dozed.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you go to the races with Carolina della Marsiliana?”</p> - -<p>“No; it rained. The races have been postponed.”</p> - -<p>“I know. I was told on entering Rome.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! and why did you ask me?”</p> - -<p>“Just,” he replied in a subdued voice, “to learn it from you.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” she exclaimed evenly.</p> - -<p>The soft white hand played nervously with the gilt arm of her chair, but -the woman’s closed lips uttered no protest.<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a></p> - -<p>“Have you had tea?” He resumed his questions in the same cold, -suspicious tone.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Would you like a cup? I can warm it up.”</p> - -<p>“No, thanks. You know I hate tea. Did you have it alone?”</p> - -<p>“Alone!” she replied, with a fleeting smile of bitterness.</p> - -<p>“Hasn’t one of your usual courtiers been?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t many of them, and even those few have abandoned me,” she -murmured, with an accent of weariness.</p> - -<p>“Still you were expecting some one?”</p> - -<p>“I?” she said; “I? No. I never expect any one.”</p> - -<p>There was something grievous in her words which the man, blind, deaf, -and insensible to other impressions which were not his own, did not -notice.</p> - -<p>“I see two cups here,” he pointed, raising his eyebrows.</p> - -<p>“One is clean!” she exclaimed, with a burst of laughter meant to be -jolly, but really gloomy.</p> - -<p>“Yes; but the servant has brought two. He must know something, that -fellow; when I am hunting he brings two cups; he is bound to know -something.”</p> - -<p>“Ask him, Emilio, ask him,” she said gleefully, with an increasingly -mischievous laugh.</p> - -<p>“I shall do it, don’t doubt,” he said harshly; “but all the servants I -pay here adore you far too<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> much. Hence they lie; they lie, the whole -lot of them, and I shall never know all the truth.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, poor Emilio!” she exclaimed, pitying him, but without any -tenderness.</p> - -<p>Emilio Guasco’s eyes blazed with anger; for an instant his face became -almost livid. He advanced with his heavy, dirty boots on the delicate -carpet, and in a vibrant and subdued accent, restraining himself with an -effort, but placing in every word, pronounced almost through his closed -teeth, all the hidden tempest of his tortured spirit—</p> - -<p>“Tell me why you have compassion on me? Why ever you pity me? Do I seem -very ridiculous to you? You laugh at me in your mind, it is true, and in -speaking to me pretend to have pity on me.”</p> - -<p>Maria was silent, with an air of glacial detachment on her face, nor did -she deign to reply to him. He sat on a chair near her, lowered his head, -so that speaking very softly she could hear him well, and continued—</p> - -<p>“It is you, you know it, who are making me ill or mad: you have no right -to laugh at me. I have no right to accept your compassion. You are my -enemy. I am sick of you, of your presence, of your contact. You have -been my scourge. I have always thought everything of being calm and -content, if not happy. You appeared in my life, and my peace has been -destroyed and every joy.”<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a></p> - -<p>She leant her head against the back of the chair, on the little cushion -in the form of a heart, kept her lips closed, and the eyes slightly -contracted, her hands on the arms of the chair, like a person making a -great effort internally to restrain herself, not to reply, not to rebel, -to listen to the last word of what was thrown in her face.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is so,” he added fiercely, but subduedly; “no evil, no -disaster, could devastate my existence worse than you. It would have -been better if I had died on the day I knew you”—and he abandoned -himself on the seat heavily, so that it cracked beneath his weight.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes, and looked at the disturbed brownish face without -any emotion, and that great body on its chair, and asked quietly—</p> - -<p>“Am I then, Emilio, as you say, an enemy of yours?”</p> - -<p>He started, darted a contemptuous glance at her, and replied—</p> - -<p>“Yes, an enemy of mine.”</p> - -<p>“Does my presence exasperate you?”</p> - -<p>“It exasperates me; that’s the word!”</p> - -<p>“My contact causes you horror?”</p> - -<p>“You know it,” he replied, looking peculiarly at her.</p> - -<p>Maria understood in a flash to what Emilio was alluding. She grew pale, -and then blushed violently, her eyes for a minute filled with tears -which offended pride placed there, and which pride<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a>’s flame absorbed at -once. The injurious word, the ferocious word of outrage, which was about -to be disgorged from her lips, the mortal horror she had had of her -husband on the night of suffering and pain, in which he had wished to -possess her only by a cruel instinct of possession, a ferocious instinct -of jealousy, and after fleeing from her like a madman she had nearly -died of shame and sorrow; the word which would have expressed her -womanly horror she had the extreme pity not to pronounce. Then he -understood by that face where her lively expressions were depicted, by -the eyes which had nearly poured out the rare and scorching tears which -her wounded pride snatched from her soul, by the quick breathing in -which she seemed to have repressed her cry of rebellion, he understood -that in evoking that recollection he had made the disagreement between -them deeper and more invincible.</p> - -<p>“I loved you—do love you perhaps,” he murmured, almost speaking to -himself. “I believe it is so. But your contact causes me horror.”</p> - -<p>Every time he repeated the phrase fatal in its truth, insulting in its -brutality, he made a material movement of repulsion. Every time, too, -this expression made the woman’s face colour in an impetus of anger. -Then mastering herself with the singular courage of a strong soul, she -answered him with a proud calmness.</p> - -<p>“Don’t delude yourself, dear Emilio, that you<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> love me; love is quite -another thing. I know that. You do me the honour, like any other man, -even now, of desiring me; that is all. That would be very flattering to -me if this desire of yours—in fact it would be very simple, very common -and quite trivial—were not overcome by the horror with which my desired -and repugnant person inspires you. Would you tell me why, if you don’t -mind—out of simple curiosity, my friend, nothing else—I cause you -horror: now why?”</p> - -<p>Gradually Maria’s tone became more disingenuous and frivolous, as if it -were a question of a fashionable conversation of very relative interest, -yes, although she was hearing words which tortured still more her -throbbing soul.</p> - -<p>Emilio raised his eyebrows. He knew quite well how much more -intelligent, finer, and braver Maria’s character was than his, and how -he had almost struck her by reminding her of that night of violence and -sorrow, after which they had been divided like two enemies. Now he felt -he was in her power, which was loftier for defence, and better adapted -to conquer her own and another’s soul. Not attempting to wrestle with -her, as with truth itself in all its harshness and vulgarity, he replied -in a low voice without looking at her—</p> - -<p>“You cause me horror, because I can’t forget.”</p> - -<p>“What, please?” she asked, toying with her emerald rings.</p> - -<p>“Your betrayal; your flight with Marco Fiore;<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> your three years’ life -with him. It is impossible to forget all this, and this recollection -scorches me like a red-hot iron.”</p> - -<p>“Still,” she said, with some disingenuousness, and the same frivolity in -which she had kept up the conversation politely from the beginning, -“still you desired my return to your house.”</p> - -<p>“I confess it; I ardently desired it.”</p> - -<p>“You condescended, then, to pardon an unfaithful wife,” she concluded, -with a gracious and slight smile, a conventional smile to conclude a -worldly discourse.</p> - -<p>“It is true, I pardoned you,” he replied, still more gloomily: “but I -repented of it at once; I repent it every day.”</p> - -<p>“You think you made a mistake?”</p> - -<p>“Much more than a mistake; far more than a mistake!” he exclaimed, -raising his voice suddenly.</p> - -<p>She motioned to him courteously with her hand, just as if she were -asking him to talk more quietly in a room where music was being played.</p> - -<p>“I committed a cowardice in pardoning you. I was a fool and a coward. -Every one laughs at me; every one. You yourself will laugh at me. There -couldn’t be a bigger fool or coward than I was on that evening.”</p> - -<p>Again she grew pale and blushed, as if the blood were moving in waves -from the heart to the brain, from the brain to the heart.</p> - -<p>“Do you curse that evening?” she asked slowly.<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a></p> - -<p>“I curse it every instant, and despise myself for my mistake, for my -ineptitude, for my weakness. Every one, every one is laughing at me, who -have been dishonoured, who have enjoyed the dishonour, and retaken, as -if it were nothing, the woman who inflicted this incancellable dishonour -on me.”</p> - -<p>“Other men have pardoned like you,” she said slowly, and somewhat -absorbed.</p> - -<p>“Others! others!” he exclaimed, suddenly touched on the bleeding wound -of his heart, “men different, quite different to me. Perhaps they were -perfect cynics: I am not cynic enough, and I suffer for my dishonour, as -if it were yesterday, as it were to-day. Or perhaps they were simple -people. I also am not simple enough; I understand, I know, I measure, -and I remember everything. Perhaps they had children, these men, and it -was necessary at any cost to recompose the family: we have no children. -Or perhaps grave questions of interest came in between; money, you know, -money! <i>That</i> had nothing to do with that stupid cowardly pardon I gave -you that evening; nothing. Certainly, certainly, many men have pardoned -their faithless wives, will pardon, and are pardoning them for so many -reasons and causes; but I should like to question them one by one, as -man to man, alone and with open heart, and you would see the reply would -always be the same from however many of them.”<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a></p> - -<p>“That is——” she said quietly.</p> - -<p>“That it is cowardice to pardon this offence; that one ought not to -pardon betrayal in a mistress, but one <i>never</i> pardons betrayal in a -wife.”</p> - -<p>“Is that your idea?”</p> - -<p>“It is mine.”</p> - -<p>“When you pardoned you didn’t think so. Do you believe that now you can -again change your opinion?” she asked, as she strove in vain to hide a -little anxiety in the question.</p> - -<p>“It is useless,” he replied desolately, “I know myself. I am a -straightforward man. I can’t change the idea which for two years has -caused me to suffer as I have never suffered. I am too straightforward, -and for this I pity you. I can’t change; when one is a man like I am one -can’t pardon dishonour and absolve betrayal.”</p> - -<p>She lowered her eyes and said no more, though she seemed very calm and -indifferent.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he said, questioning her anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she questioned in turn.</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you anything to say to me?”</p> - -<p>“I? No,” she replied simply.</p> - -<p>“What is your idea, then?”</p> - -<p>“I have none,” she added, with the same simplicity.</p> - -<p>“None? Nothing? Does nothing of this matter to you?” he cried, -surprised.</p> - -<p>“It would matter very much to me, if I could bring you a remedy. Your -sufferings once moved<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a> me very much, you know, and I believed I could -cure them. I have not succeeded. You haven’t wished to know me as a -consoler. My mission here has failed completely. Instead of doing you -good I am doing you harm. And in exchange you load me every time you can -with expressions of your loathing and contempt. What is to be done? -There is no remedy.”</p> - -<p>“If you had liked, there could have been,” he replied in a low voice.</p> - -<p>“Exactly, exactly!” she exclaimed, smiling ironically. “I ought to have -had a great passion for you. That was necessary for your jealousy and -<i>amour propre</i>—a great passion;” and the smile became more ironical.</p> - -<p>“And you did not succeed? Is it not so?” he cried, trembling.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t even tried,” she replied, seriously and nobly. “I never -returned for that, I never promised it; I couldn’t give it.”</p> - -<p>“Then it would have been better not to have returned;” and the man’s -fury increased.</p> - -<p>“It would have been better,” replied the woman still more austerely.</p> - -<p>“It would be better, then, for you to go away,” cried the man, blind -with fury.</p> - -<p>“It would certainly be better,” she said austerely and finally.</p> - -<p>She rose from her seat, crossed the room, and disappeared.<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="V-3" id="V-3"></a>V</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> long, strident whistle of the large white steamer, the -<i>Vierwaldstettersee</i>, had already sounded twice in a vain appeal. The -little landing-place at Fluelen was deserted. Every day, from the -beginning of July to the middle of September, a varied crowd had arrived -from Italy by the trains which cross the wonderful Gothard route, and -from Switzerland especially, for familiar excursions to Tellsplatz and -Altdorf, to take their places on the boat to cross to the winding -flowery shores of the lake of the four cantons, to the large and small -summer stations, and to the little villages gleaming white among the -trees with their red roofs. But now no longer. It is October; the last -travellers one by one have returned to their homes, and Fluelen is -deserted. The white steamer, too, has been deserted for a long time, and -performs a journey of obligation on a deserted lake among deserted -shores.</p> - -<p>However, a third call sounded longer, more stridulous and melancholy. A -single traveller left the Hôtel de la Poste, directly opposite the -landing-place, and approached the gangway with leisurely steps. He was -still a young man, tall<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> and slender, dressed not only neatly but -fashionably. Beneath his hat, which was lowered over his eyes, could be -noticed a handsome though slightly delicate physiognomy, a face a little -too pale, with very black hair and moustaches, lips still fresh and -vivid, and extremely soft eyes of a fascinating softness; but in general -the features resulted in firmness and perhaps in obstinacy.</p> - -<p>An expression of indifference, and sometimes even of intense boredom, -passed over his face. A few paces behind, the hall-porter followed, -carrying two large portmanteaux and a travelling-bag. The traveller -crossed the gangway alone, and walked to the stern of the steamer, -where, wet with moisture, the flag of the Swiss Confederation was -hanging. He sat alone on one of the side benches, and slowly lit a -cigarette, while the porter deposited the luggage a little way off.</p> - -<p>“How long to Lucerne?” he asked, tipping the man.</p> - -<p>“Two and a half hours,” replied the man, thanking him.</p> - -<p>The steamer had now left the bank, the pilot was at his wheel with eyes -fixed on the horizon, trying to penetrate the mist which was spreading -and growing thicker. The pilot was a robust little man, firmly planted -on two short legs encased in black oilskins, which seemed saturated with -humidity. His face was broad and rugged beneath a black cap with a peak. -For a little time he was<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a> the traveller’s only companion, who still sat -on the bench, lighting one cigarette after the other, looking at the -country now wrapped in clouds, now manifest through the broken edges of -the mist with black and rugged rocks, with great stretches of snow in -the clefts of the mountains, and in the far-off whiteness of the -glaciers. But the glance which he threw around from time to time gave no -sign either of curiosity or interest, the signs to be discovered were -those of a vague weariness, of a persistent boredom, above all of a -resigned and calm indifference.</p> - -<p>The <i>Vierwaldstettersee</i> threaded its way through the grey waters. The -white foam broke against the paddle-box, and the wake stretched behind -through the mist which seemed to be following the white vessel. Not a -human voice sounded on deck beneath the two large awnings from bow to -stern. The first station came to view with its little houses on the bank -among trees already bare, among little gardens where the flowers were -dead, and where the chairs were bathed in moisture. The houses had their -doors and windows closed, affording a glimpse, behind the tiny panes, of -some little plant drawn in-doors by a provident hand, so as not to let -it perish like the other plants; but not a person, not a voice, issued -from the houses and gardens of the little square before the -landing-place. The Crown Hotel, a little in the background, was -hermetically closed. With a precise and methodical<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> movement a man from -the steamer threw a rope to another man on land, who had suddenly -appeared, and bound it to a large wooden pile. The steamer stopped for -some minutes, while the whistle sounded stridulously and in vain. The -two men exchanged almost empty bags containing the mail. After having -whistled, the <i>Vierwaldstettersee</i> started again amidst the grey mist, -quite covered with moisture on its outerwork, brasses, sails and ropes, -and dripping moisture from all sides. Every quarter of an hour or twenty -minutes the halts were repeated, with the whistling, the throwing of the -rope, and the exchange of mail bags, without ever a traveller coming on -board. Gradually the solitary traveller had sunk at his place, ceasing -from smoking, his gloved hands buried in the pockets of his ulster, his -head fallen on his breast, and he himself, like the sky, the landscape, -like the lake, and the steamer, seemed wrapped in the greyish mist, now -of opaque silver, now transparent.</p> - -<p>When half the voyage was over the steamer whistled twice and much longer -on nearing a station, and another man in uniform appeared on deck from -below, as well as a waiter, both, like everything else, enveloped in -moisture. The traveller seemed to be dozing, since he never turned his -head on seeing the deck populated with these two persons. The station -was Vitznau, that village so crowded and so brilliant and pleasant in -summer.<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a> It is the village whence the Rhigi is climbed, and is well -known to every tourist. Even Vitznau, with its group of denuded trees on -its gloomy bank, its two closed hotels, and its solitary funicular -station, did not seem different to the other stations touched at. Only -while the man threw the rope from the deck, and the other man of that -place mechanically tied it, a woman appeared on the landing-place coming -from the little funicular station. She was tall and elegant, in spite of -the long travelling-cloak which completely covered and enveloped her. -With a quiet step she crossed the gangway, climbed the few steps, -presented her ticket to the man in uniform, and, walking on deck, sat -down on the bench opposite to the other traveller. The man in uniform, -while the steamer was drawing away from Vitznau on its course to -Lucerne, approached her and asked her something, which she refused with -a nod of her head, and after a minute the waiter came up with a -question, and she answered him in the same way. Both the man in uniform -and the waiter disappeared below.</p> - -<p>It was rather difficult to discover the new traveller’s face through her -veil, and for some time she kept her head towards the lake, gazing at -it. Then she turned towards the steamer. Her glance wandered round and -fixed itself on the traveller opposite so intensely, that he seemed to -wake from his dream and shake himself from his torpor. He<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a> looked at the -new traveller, looked at her much, and looked at her long. They were -quite alone on the steamer, which was sailing like a phantom ship upon a -lake of dreams and sadness, amidst the incomparably mournful clouds. The -man got up and crossed the deck decidedly. He bowed deeply, remaining -uncovered before her.</p> - -<p>“Are you alone, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Alone, Marco; and are you alone?”</p> - -<p>“Most alone.”</p> - -<p>Their voices were calm, but so tired.</p> - -<p>“May I sit beside you, Maria?” he asked, almost supplicatingly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, do,” she replied, with a nod.</p> - -<p>He placed himself beside her. Lightly and gently he took her gloved hand -and pressed it between his for a minute, placing it to his lips. She -bent her face just for a minute. The boat went on; the pilot fixed his -eyes still more sharply on the mist, because it was getting late and the -grey of sky and lake was becoming darker and even threatening.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know that you were travelling in these parts,” he said, trying -to discover her face through her veil.</p> - -<p>“Nor I that you were, Marco,” she murmured.</p> - -<p>Each looked at the other at the same moment, as if they were about to -say the same word to express the same idea thought by both, which each -left unpronounced.<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a></p> - -<p>“Have you been travelling for some time, Maria?” he asked, after a few -minutes’ silence.</p> - -<p>“For more than three months, Marco,” she replied wearily.</p> - -<p>“Always alone?”</p> - -<p>“Always.”</p> - -<p>“And where have you been, Maria, always alone? Tell me everything, -please.”</p> - -<p>Marco questioned her with penetrating sweetness, in which, however, -weariness was mixed.</p> - -<p>“I have been everywhere,” she replied, and he seemed to notice a tremor -in her voice, “everywhere. One can go to a good many places in three -months.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true,” he added; “I started before you from Rome, a couple of -months before.”</p> - -<p>“I know, Marco. I was told so. Have you always been alone on your -journey?”</p> - -<p>“Like you, always.”</p> - -<p>“Have you no regret for those you have left behind?” she asked in a -still sadder accent.</p> - -<p>“I have regret,” he confessed, “for one person only, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“For one only?”</p> - -<p>“Always for the same person, for her of former days, for her of -always—for my mother,” and a rush of tenderness and sorrow pulsated in -the words.</p> - -<p>She placed her hand on his arm quickly for a moment without speaking, to -calm him.<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a></p> - -<p>“Still I have left. I am far away, and I don’t want to return!” he -exclaimed impetuously.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you wish to return? Don’t you wish to?” and the accent had -suddenly become spasmodical.</p> - -<p>“I don’t wish to,” he rejoined gloomily, with decision.</p> - -<p>She shook her head sorrowfully, and looked ahead among the fleeting -clouds which were rising from the still waters, as if asking the secret -of the riddle from those waves of vapour which were closing in on the -horizon. The prow of the <i>Vierwaldstettersee</i> was directed to the last -station, towards a little place on the bank, where an occasional tree -was still in foliage, where among woods and meadows the white houses, -with their red roofs and little windows full of flowers, did not seem so -deserted and dead as the others. Two children, dressed in thick woollen -as a protection against the Swiss autumn, were playing outside the inn.</p> - -<p>“Maria, Weggis,” said Marco, almost in her ear.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Weggis,” she replied quietly.</p> - -<p>Slowly she raised her white gauze veil over the rim of her hat, showing -her graceful, melancholy face, enchanting in every line, from the -thoughtful, proud, and yet sweet eyes, to the expressively sorrowful and -fresh mouth; showing the face which love had exalted to an invincible -beauty, which love had deserted, leaving there all the serene sadness<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a> -of things long dead, and all the proud melancholy of a brief, too brief, -passion. Marco looked at the face without its veil, and she looked at -him with her expression of calm sadness, finding in him singularly the -same expression—a death in life, a love dead.</p> - -<p>“Weggis,” he murmured, with melancholy, while the boat drew further away -towards Lucerne.</p> - -<p>“Weggis,” she murmured, with ever greater melancholy.</p> - -<p>The image of the little flower-laden spot, where they had lodged -modestly one very hot summer in passionate solitude, seemed far away -amidst the autumn mists. It grew distant, and disappeared among the -things of the past, of time, and of space, like their love had vanished. -The gloaming was already descending to render the clouds browner and -closer; already a colder and more penetrating breath of air struck the -two travellers and caused them to shudder. A line of lights, lit for the -approaching evening, stretched itself in the background, indicating the -quay-side of Lucerne, and in the twilight the massive and bizarre -buildings of hotels and villas grew whiter. Side by side the two -travellers looked at the lights, and mechanically rose from their place -to leave the <i>Vierwaldstettersee</i>, which had already reached the pier. -The conductor of the omnibus of the Hôtel National took Marco’s luggage, -and after an exchange of words in a low voice threw it on to<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> the -omnibus and drove off with it. The two travellers remained on a bench, -bathed in moisture, silently seized by all that was in their souls. They -were undecided and rather confused. At last Maria exclaimed, making an -attempt to get away, “Good-night, Marco.”</p> - -<p>“Where are you going?” he asked sadly and anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Up there;” and she pointed to a little hill with her finger.</p> - -<p>“Where then?”</p> - -<p>“To Sonnenberg; I have been there for two weeks,” she added.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you stay a little with me?” he begged anxiously.</p> - -<p>“O Marco, don’t ask that!” she exclaimed, turning her head.</p> - -<p>“Maria, Maria, remain a little,” he said in his tender voice. “What does -a little time matter to you, Maria? What does it matter?”</p> - -<p>She recognised that voice of a former time, the voice of moments of -desolation, the voice which formerly asked succour when his soul had -need of comfort; but it was not the voice of love but of sorrow.</p> - -<p>“I am so wretched, and you mustn’t leave me this evening.”</p> - -<p>She consented with a nod. Together in the evening’s shade, through the -cold dampness which arose from the water, through the roads where no<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a> -passer-by made his appearance; over the bridge, dripping in moisture, -under whose arches the doves were sleeping; on the promenade, no longer -shaded by the luxuriant foliage of the trees; among the lights distorted -by the mist, they went towards the large hotel, which also seemed -abandoned for some time with its hundred closed windows, with its -flowerless gardens, with its iron seats on which no one seemed to have -sat for years. The large hall was lit by a single electric lamp. Maria -remained standing, looking through the windows vaguely without seeing -anything, while Marco was discussing with the secretary. In that brief -moment the woman saw Marco again as he used to be, when for months -together they proceeded on their pilgrimage of love, and she marvelled -that, ever since they had met on the deck of the boat, he had been able -to accomplish the same acts; she marvelled that in all their actions -they had been as formerly while their souls were so changed.</p> - -<p>“Come, Maria,” Marco said, approaching her.</p> - -<p>How often she had heard that invitation! She smiled strangely as she -followed him, while they went up in the lift and entered a sitting-room, -which was immediately illuminated. The waiter silently opened a door on -the right and a door on the left, while they appeared not to notice.</p> - -<p>“You would like some tea, wouldn’t you, Maria? it is so cold,” Marco -asked in the gentle<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a> insinuating voice she recognised in all its -modulations.</p> - -<p>Maria smiled in consent. She drew a chair to the table and sat down. She -untied her veil and drew out the pins from her hat, undid the hooks of -her travelling-cloak and appeared in a close-fitting dress of pale -mauve, with the usual string of pearls at the neck, which she never left -off. Marco followed her with his eyes, and recognised again in Maria the -woman he had so often seen make those quiet harmonious gestures. -However, he felt that only the movements and the words were the same, -but not the ideas and sentiments. But he expressed no surprise at it.</p> - -<p>“Give me a cup of tea, dear Maria,” he said, speaking softly. She took -off her gloves, poured out the tea and gave him a cup with a smile.</p> - -<p>“Where is Sonnenberg, Maria?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Over there, Marco, on the hill.”</p> - -<p>“How does one get there?”</p> - -<p>“It is a few minutes by the funicular.”</p> - -<p>“It must be rather a sad place, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is a little sad,” she murmured, raising her hair with her -fingers.</p> - -<p>“Any people there?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; four of five persons besides myself.”</p> - -<p>“Do you bore yourself there, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“A little, as everywhere.”</p> - -<p>“Are you going to stop there?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think I shall stop there.”<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a></p> - -<p>“How long?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know; I know nothing, Marco,” she said, with a slightly pained -expression.</p> - -<p>“When will you return to Rome?” he asked, with a greater anxiety than he -wished to show.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, I don’t know at all,” she replied monotonously.</p> - -<p>“Still, still ... you have somebody there.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Somebody</i>,” she repeated, underlining the word, “prefers my absence to -my presence.”</p> - -<p>“Really; is it really so?” Marco exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she replied, with an expansive gesture of her hands.</p> - -<p>“Have you left, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“I have left. After having commented bitterly and brutally on my -departure, <i>somebody</i> let me go free and alone without asking my -itinerary, without asking me when I was returning. It is true he was -tormented by my flight, but relieved that I had left alone. He was -tortured, I believe, by the idea of not seeing me, of not being able to -injure me, of not being able to throw my past in my face, but in fact -content that I was far away.”</p> - -<p>“And you, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“I?” she exclaimed harshly; “I? Probably I shall never return again. Why -should I return? I have nothing to do there for the good of any one. I -can only do evil there to others and myself. Certainly, Marco, I shall -never return—never.”<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a></p> - -<p>“Emilio will summon you; he will want you,” he said, with agitation.</p> - -<p>“No,” she declared harshly, “he has driven me out.”</p> - -<p>“Driven you out, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Not once, but many times, in moments of violence and coldness he said -it would have been better if I had never returned. Certainly, certainly, -Marco, I shall never return there. I shall go and live alone in a remote -corner of the earth, and I shall die there.”</p> - -<p>She spoke with vehemence and harshness, but still subduedly; he, too, -spoke to her in the same subdued way. Their faces were pale and -strained. An immense silence reigned in the deserted summer town and the -equally deserted huge hotel. The flames flickered in the grate and the -logs crackled.</p> - -<p>“Are you so unhappy, Maria?” he said, taking her hand tenderly.</p> - -<p>“So unhappy, really so unhappy. I dare not kill myself; and why should -I? I should be ridiculous and grotesque. I am ashamed to kill myself. I -have nothing to do with my life, really nothing.”</p> - -<p>“You were a magnificent lover, Maria!” he exclaimed, with infinite -regret.</p> - -<p>“A soul of love like you, Marco, a heart of love,” she replied, with the -same regret.</p> - -<p>“We should have died when our love was over, Maria,” Marco said.</p> - -<p>“That is true; we ought to have died then. We<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> missed a beautiful death, -Marco,” replied Maria gloomily.</p> - -<p>“Now it is too late to die, too late.”</p> - -<p>“It is too late.”</p> - -<p>They were silent, with all the weight of their cold, arid, useless -lives, which was weighing down their souls, with all the enormous weight -of a dead love, dead after having done all the good which had vanished -with it, dead after all the evil which was still living.</p> - -<p>“Are you going to stop at Lucerne?” asked Maria at last dreamily.</p> - -<p>“A day or two; no more,” he replied, as if awakened from a dream.</p> - -<p>“Where shall you go?”</p> - -<p>“To far-off countries. To Holland, and Denmark, always to the countries -furthest off.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you stay in Rome?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Not to debase myself under your eyes, Maria,” he replied seriously. -“There is nothing left but vice for me, and I am ashamed to defile that -which you have loved.”</p> - -<p>“Your wife, Vittoria. What of her?”</p> - -<p>“She is with my mother.”</p> - -<p>“Surely she suffers by your absence?”</p> - -<p>“Possibly; less, however, than she does by my presence.”</p> - -<p>“Why did she suffer?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose she suffered; but she has never told me she did, she never -showed me, and I have<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a> never seen her tears. She always repulsed any -consolation of mine for this supposed suffering of hers.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Vittoria,” murmured Maria.</p> - -<p>“She certainly deserves pity,” replied Marco coldly; “but she repulses -it.”</p> - -<p>“Still she deserved happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly; but she repulsed happiness, because she is not capable of -being happy.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you fly from her?”</p> - -<p>“So as not to hate her, Maria; so as not to curse my marriage day as -that of my slavery.”</p> - -<p>“Are you sure that you have done all your duty as a man, as a friend, as -a companion to Vittoria?”</p> - -<p>“I am sure of it. I have done beyond my duty as a man, a companion, and -a friend. But she didn’t want that, she demanded that I should become -her lover.”</p> - -<p>“And couldn’t you?”</p> - -<p>“No, Maria,” he said seriously, “you know very well, you ought to know -very well, that I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p>“When shall you return to Rome?”</p> - -<p>“I shall never re-enter Rome.”</p> - -<p>“Are you in exile, then?”</p> - -<p>“It is exile without any time limit.”</p> - -<p>“And your mother?”</p> - -<p>“I shall see her at Spello where Vittoria does not go, and she will come -to Florence. It is very sad, but there it is.”<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a></p> - -<p>“And you?”</p> - -<p>“If I were poor I should set to work to do something with my faculties -and time. Unfortunately I am not even poor. A dissolute life, since I -have loved you, fills me with horror.”</p> - -<p>“We are two miserables, Marco,” she concluded gloomily; “far away in -Rome there are two others more miserable than we are, and neither you -nor I can do anything for them.”</p> - -<p>“Neither you nor I can do anything for them,” he replied, like a dull -echo.</p> - -<p>“No one can do anything for any one,” said Maria desperately.</p> - -<p>All that was colossal and indestructible in the fatality of existence, -in its mysterious and rigorous laws, weighed upon them. In their youth, -in their strength and beauty they felt lost and blind, unable to die and -unable to live, groping in the shadows, their breasts full of sighs, and -their ears closed to the cries of the two who were suffering alone and -abandoned in Rome. They felt themselves incapable of being comforted and -giving comfort, and they felt as well that their burning tears were -useless, just as the tears of the two in Rome were as equally useless -and unconsolable.</p> - -<p>The woman rose pale and upright.</p> - -<p>“I am going, Marco,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Can’t I accompany you, Maria?” he begged desolately.</p> - -<p>“No, remain here. Let me go.”<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a></p> - -<p>“Shan’t I see you to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“Why do you wish to see me?” she asked in a tremulous accent.</p> - -<p>“To see the face of a friend, to hear the voice of a friend, not to feel -myself so lonely and lost, to-morrow more than ever.”</p> - -<p>“O Marco, wouldn’t it be better for us not to see each other to-morrow?” -she asked, trembling still more.</p> - -<p>“No, Maria, no. You need to see me, you are so lonely and lost. I will -look for you to-morrow; and do you promise not to fly from me?”</p> - -<p>A trembling seized her, which made her almost hesitate.</p> - -<p>“Maria, promise that you won’t fly from me, only then will I let you -go?”</p> - -<p>“I promise,” she replied weakly.<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a></p> - -<h3><a name="VI-3" id="VI-3"></a>VI</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the morrow a keen and pungent wind had rid the lake of all the -vapours and clouds, which had robbed the hills and mountains of their -lines and colouring. The sky only was covered with a closely fitting -veil of clouds. It was a sky quite white, curving from the zenith to the -horizon behind the mountains in an immovable whiteness. Beneath this -immense inanimate whiteness the ice of the far-away peaks seemed whiter, -and the summits blacker and more rocky. Every now and then a gust of -wind crossed the quiet streets of Lucerne, and passed over the waters of -the lake, causing long, shuddering ripples, while a flight of pigeons -wheeled round the arches of the bridge. At the landing-stage the steamer -was whistling on its departure for Fluelen.</p> - -<p>It was still early when a carriage brought Marco Fiore to Kriens, the -last suburb of Lucerne, at the foot of the Sonnenberg funicular. He had -the appearance of a man who had slept badly. Only one other person took -his place in the carriage, a German or perhaps a Lucernese, who placed -himself in a corner and began to smoke a<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a> short pipe. The conductor rang -his bell and whistled twice in vain; there were no other passengers for -Sonnenberg than Marco and the man with the pipe.</p> - -<p>The large and rather melancholy hotel at Sonnenberg is a few paces away -from the station. Marco directed himself to the porter who was seated in -the empty vestibule, as deserted as the garden he had just passed -through. Donna Maria Guasco had just gone out, the man said, as she -usually did every morning, towards Gutsch, indicating the way with his -hand; then he added in a very German French, that it was a fairly long -walk. Scarcely listening to him, Marco set off through a broad wooded -path. He walked without looking before him with lowered eyes, completely -wrapped in his thoughts, without meeting any one, without looking at the -landscape, almost without seeing where he was going. Every now and then -the wind, which was freshening, caused the trees to rustle with an -almost human sound, beating on Marco’s face, and, passing on, it grew -weaker without disturbing his thoughts. He had lost count of the time he -was on the way. At last at a corner he read on a post, “Gutsch,” -indicated by a white arrow on a blue ground. He took the turning for -some fifty steps, and then stopped silent and surprised.</p> - -<p>He found himself in a strange wood, formed of tall, colossal trees, -whose height the eye could not gauge. The trunks of the trees were -round, thin,<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a> and devoid of branches to a considerable height, like the -stems of bronze candlesticks; then the leafy branches mounted up so -intricately and thickly, hiding the sky, that an invincible gloom -reigned in the wood. The tall, colossal, upright trees, growing so close -together, seemed innumerable, and rose in two lines along a very -straight path in the middle, which lost itself in the calm, sad gloom, -which the rays of the sun seemed unable to penetrate. Never had a wood -seemed so strange and lugubrious to Marco’s wondering eyes, never had he -breathed an air so still and sepulchral, and never had he noticed a -silence so profound and gloomy. On either side of the path the dried -leaves were scattered, of every colour from light yellow to dark red, -but their colour had merged into one in that darkness of the tomb. A -sense of tragic and fatal horror conquered his heart while he advanced -under the ominous trees, like dismal funeral candles, in that wood -without the song of birds, without the perfume of flowers and the sun’s -rays. Terror surrounded him, and he seemed to be walking towards his -strange destiny, towards the wooden seat beneath a bronze tree trunk, -where Maria was seated and looking at him as he approached with sad but -sweet eyes.</p> - -<p>“This wood is horrible, Maria!” he exclaimed a little petulantly, as he -sat down beside her.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is horrible,” she replied, looking around, “but I come here -every day to let myself<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> be taken by its strong, calm horror. I think -that dead people must be here, and nobody knows of it.”</p> - -<p>“Dead of love, or sorrow, or indifference,” he added, looking around, -believing himself a prey to an hallucination.</p> - -<p>“Or perhaps they had enough of life.”</p> - -<p>“Everything could have happened here,” he continued dreamily, “a bloody -duel, a murder ignored by all, a suicide which no one knew of. Doesn’t -it cause you horror, sweet Maria?”</p> - -<p>“Life is more difficult than death,” she replied, shaking her head.</p> - -<p>He took her hand, covered with a white glove, and with a slow, familiar -action took off the glove and kissed her fingers and palm two or three -times.</p> - -<p>“Maria,” he said, “I have thought much during the night. At first I was -seized by a mortal disquietude, and I wanted to get up and leave, to -look for you in the night. Then little by little I entered into a great -peace, because I saw our way.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Our</i> way?” she asked in agitation.</p> - -<p>“Ours, Maria. It is the only way, and there is no choice but for you and -me to follow it.”</p> - -<p>“What are you saying, Marco?” she exclaimed, getting up.</p> - -<p>With a gracious and tender action he made her sit down again.</p> - -<p>“I say that we ought to live together till death,” he declared.<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a></p> - -<p>“Without love, Marco? Without love?” the woman cried, and such an utter -hopeless bitterness was in the cry.</p> - -<p>“Yes, without love,” he continued courageously; “the great light and -flame of our passion is extinguished, it is true, but the tender -reflections can still weakly illuminate the shadows where we have lived; -even the rays of the heat, whose flame no longer exists, can rarefy the -cold which is conquering us.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t love me, Marco!” she cried.</p> - -<p>“I don’t love you with passion, and I ought not to deceive you; neither -of us will ever lie to the other. But you have been the chosen woman of -my heart, the only intense dream of my life. You have been my perfect, -only love. If the tabernacle is closed, if the idol has vanished, the -soul has in its memory the recollection of a unique adoration.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t love you!” she cried, convulsed.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know that you don’t love me with passion. But I know that I have -a beautiful and unforgettable place in your heart. I have been your only -lover.”</p> - -<p>He spoke with a desperate sadness in his eyes and face, in every -expression and gesture.</p> - -<p>“Is it true, that I am dear to you, Maria?”</p> - -<p>“It is true, as you say, you are dear to me,” she replied desolately.</p> - -<p>Marco drew her to himself and kissed her on the<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> lips chastely. She -returned the kiss. But to both the kiss seemed to have the savour of -death.</p> - -<p>“Let us live together till death,” he resumed sadly.</p> - -<p>“Together, Marco, together? To reunite when we no longer have love as -the excuse of our betrayal, nor passion as an excuse for the sorrow we -are inflicting on others! Why? Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because nothing else remains,” he said desolately.</p> - -<p>“Is there really nothing else, Marco?” she cried, wringing her hands.</p> - -<p>“Really, Maria, nothing else.”</p> - -<p>“And that unfortunate at Rome? That unfortunate Emilio? What has he done -to be so disgraced? And why must I bring about his misfortune?” she -cried, with a sob, hiding her face in her hands.</p> - -<p>“Pity him; let us pity him,” said Marco; “he is an unfortunate.”</p> - -<p>“He will curse me.”</p> - -<p>“He will be right to curse you, but he will also be wrong. All are right -and all are wrong confronted with love, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“And Vittoria? Vittoria? the unlucky Vittoria? What will become of her? -What will she say of me? Marco, think, think, what a horrible business!”</p> - -<p>“She will curse us justly,” resumed Marco, with deep sadness; “she will -be right, like Emilio,<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a> to curse us, but confronted with love she will -be wrong.”</p> - -<p>“Who will console Vittoria, Marco?”</p> - -<p>“I have tried to console her, but she despised my consolations. Like all -exigent people who ask too much from life, Vittoria has only gathered -delusion and bitterness.”</p> - -<p>“You promised her everything.”</p> - -<p>“I offered her everything, and she repulsed it. What she demanded was -not in my power, will never be in my power, and I shall never see her -again.”</p> - -<p>“Who will console and comfort Emilio?”</p> - -<p>“He is a man; he will forget you.”</p> - -<p>“And Vittoria?”</p> - -<p>“Religion will be able to do much for her. She will forget me.”</p> - -<p>“But Emilio and Vittoria were not expecting this from us and from -existence.”</p> - -<p>“The fault isn’t mine, and isn’t ours. If we are to blame we did it for -one supreme and invincible reason, which is love.”</p> - -<p>“My God! my God!” she kept on lamenting, sobbing without tears.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing else for us to do, but to live together till death.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing else? Nothing else? Suppose we were to try again? Suppose we -were to return?”</p> - -<p>The voice was as desperate as the proposal.</p> - -<p>“Why do you want to try again, Maria?” he<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a> asked, with infinite -desolation; “do you wish to go to your husband who hates and loves you? -Do you wish to give yourself to him who is horrified at what you did? Do -you wish instead to stop in your home as a stranger and an enemy? Do you -wish to live and give yourself to him, as a courtesan whom he pays and -despises? Do you wish to live, if you refuse yourself to him, in an -inferno? To-morrow he will hate you, and you will be forced either to -fly again ridiculously or become the lover of Gianni Provana, and -afterwards of another Gianni Provana, descending to every abyss to make -something of your life.”</p> - -<p>“No, no!” she cried, at the height of moral nausea.</p> - -<p>“How can I try again with Vittoria? Must I return and fall at the feet -of my wife, simulating a passion I do not feel? Must I play a comedy, I -who despise a lie? Could I ever take my wife in my arms like you? Oh, -she knows, perhaps, and understands; at any rate she would soon -understand, that I was lying and deceiving her. Do you know that I -inspire her with repulsion? Do you know that she neither wants me as a -husband, a companion, or a friend? Do you know that she wants me as a -lover? Can I be the lover of Vittoria, Maria? I can’t, there, I can’t! -If I returned to Rome, if I re-entered Piazzo Fiore, I should only make -Vittoria more unhappy. In desperation I should hurl myself into -conviviality.<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a> You can’t wish the death of your dignity, nor I that of -my honour.”</p> - -<p>“It is true, it is true!” she exclaimed, falling back in the seat as if -about to faint.</p> - -<p>“Courage, courage, Maria,” he said sweetly.</p> - -<p>A great silence, a great shadow, an ineffable solitude was around them -in that funereal wood.</p> - -<p>“But couldn’t we go on as we did up to yesterday, each in our own way?” -she asked in a weak voice.</p> - -<p>“Where, where, Maria?” he asked, with the shadow of a melancholy smile.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know ... anywhere ... everywhere,” she said vaguely, “each our -own way, as up to yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“We met yesterday,” he said sweetly.</p> - -<p>“Let us separate to-day and resume our way.”</p> - -<p>“We should meet to-morrow.” And his voice was very sweet and sad.</p> - -<p>“Do you think so, Marco? Do you think so?”</p> - -<p>“It is fate. Maria, it was fate our meeting yesterday; our fate would be -meeting to-morrow. A will which we are ignorant of, which is outside us, -which acts on us while it is foreign to us, has reunited us yesterday, -and would reunite us to-morrow. Let us accept it, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“But what is this will, Marco?” she said, seized by a sudden fear.</p> - -<p>“Maria,” he said gravely, “you know, you have known, that passion is -outside the usual limits<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a> of life, you have known and seen that it -forces souls and persons beyond all laws and duties, beyond all vows. -You have seen and known that it exalts and multiplies life. Well, Maria, -I believe that when once the ordinary limits of life have been passed -over, it is extremely difficult to turn back. I believe that when duties -are forgotten, vows unloosed, laws broken, it is extremely difficult for -people to re-enter the social orbit, to resume their proper place, and -to repair their conscience. I believe that for a life which has touched -the heights of passion, it is impossible to descend to the great, cold, -silent depths.”</p> - -<p>All that he said was reflected sadly in its truth and irreparableness.</p> - -<p>“Then,” she interrupted, “then whoever has sinned, in punishment for his -sin must continue to sin.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Maria; sin, but without fascination. Sin is a punishment in -itself. I believe, I am sure, that this is punishment.”</p> - -<p>A heavy silence fell upon them. The woman’s head was bowed, and she had -crossed her hands over her knees. There was not a breath of air in that -atmosphere of a cemetery.</p> - -<p>“At home they will say: ‘<i>She always loved him, and always lied in -denying that she loved him</i>.’ ”</p> - -<p>“They will say that,” admitted Marco sadly.</p> - -<p>“Your wife will say so, Marco,” Maria continued<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a> monotonously, “ ‘<i>Marco -never forgot her, and always lied</i>.’ ”</p> - -<p>“Certainly she will say that.”</p> - -<p>“And it will all be false, Marco, because we shall be again without -passion, without love, without rapture.”</p> - -<p>“That is so, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Shall we rehearse our comedy together, Marco,” she asked -mournfully—“the comedy of love? Couldn’t we live like two companions, -like two friends? Say, couldn’t we live so, at least without lying?”</p> - -<p>“No, dear, no,” he resumed, with a weak, sorrowful smile, “it isn’t -possible. You are a woman; I am a man. We are still young. What you say -is impossible.”</p> - -<p>“O Marco, without love?” she murmured, turning her head aside in shame.</p> - -<p>He was silent, feeling that she was right. But he could not deceive her.</p> - -<p>“Even this, dear lady mine, is a punishment.”</p> - -<p>“O Marco, Marco!” she cried, leaning her head on his shoulder, and -hiding her face in his breast.</p> - -<p>He pressed her to himself sweetly, and kissed her on the eyes, which -were red without weeping, and upon her pale face and lips.</p> - -<p>“At last,” he said, “we shall find some sweetness in this expiation. My -arms know you, Maria, and my breast is a haven for you. I know your<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a> -arms, and I know I can sleep peacefully, if not ecstatically, on your -heart.”</p> - -<p>“The days will be long and silent,” she murmured, rising, passing her -arm under Marco’s, as they went down the straight path together.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Maria,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“Our souls will do nothing but secretly regret that which is no more.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is true, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Happy we shall never be again.”</p> - -<p>“Never again, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“And so we shall go on till death, Marco,” she concluded, with an accent -of infinite melancholy.</p> - -<p>“Together, Maria.”</p> - -<p>“Towards death.”</p> - -<p>“Step for step together.”</p> - -<p>They were in the deepest part of the gloomy wood, like an immense tomb, -amidst the thousand bronze candelabra, which seemed to have been lit for -something great that was dead.</p> - -<p class="c">* * * * * * * * </p> - -<p>Marco entered the room where Maria was waiting for him, reading a book. -She lifted her eyes with a slightly melancholy smile.</p> - -<p>“...<i>m’aimes?</i>” he asked in a puerile way, in French.</p> - -<p>“...<i>t’aime</i>,” she replied colourlessly.</p> - -<p>He kissed her, and she returned the kiss.</p> - -<p>“...<i>toujours?</i>” she asked. -<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a> -“...<i>toujours</i>,” he replied.</p> - -<p>Their words and actions were the same as of a former time, which were -born again from the memory of their senses, re-born in an exterior, -strange form to them. Their souls were full of inconsolable regret, -their hearts of inconsolable grief.</p> - -<p class="c"> -THE END<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a><br /> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c"> -<i>THE STUYVESANT PRESS, Publishers,</i><br /> -<i>156 fifth Avenue</i> <i>New York</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="cb"><big>THE<br /> <big>Tree of Knowledge</big></big></p> - -<p class="cb">A DOCUMENT BY A WOMAN</p> - -<p>The woman who dissects her soul in these vibrant pages is, so far as can -be judged, entirely frank.</p> - -<p>This is not her only merit, for her delight in the flexibility of -language lends an exotic charm which, like the scent of orchids, -fatigues and delights the sense.</p> - -<p>Her diary is “not for little people nor for fools.” It is a document to -be studied with scientific curiosity by those whose interest lies in -sounding the hidden depths of human character.</p> - -<p class="c"> -<b>12mo. Cloth.</b> <b>Price $1.50.</b><br /> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="cb"><big><big>Cynthia in the Wilderness</big></big></p> - -<p class="cb">A NOVEL BY</p> - -<p class="cb">HUBERT WALES</p> - -<p>In this story Mr. Wales has taken for his theme another view of the sex -problem.</p> - -<p>Cynthia is a woman of exceptional attractiveness, mentally and -physically. In her married state she finds herself in the delicate -position of an intensely human Venus placed upon a pedestal of marble -deference by a husband of intemperate and decadent proclivities.</p> - -<p>There is a broad realism pervading the story; it is strong and poignant, -yet it is straightforward psychology presented with an undeniable skill.</p> - -<p class="c"> -<b>12mo. 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Cloth.</b> <b>Price $1.50.</b><br /> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="cb"><big><big>Mr. & Mrs. Villiers</big></big></p> - -<p class="cb">A NOVEL BY</p> - -<p class="cb">HUBERT WALES</p> - -<p>Man is naturally the aggressor in the connubial relations. His desires -and passions are more positive than woman’s. Women of unusual mental and -physical charms are often found renitent and lacking in the disposition -which makes for perfect conjugal happiness. Such women have little -difficulty in marrying, although entirely unfitted for the marriage -relation. Mrs. Villiers is a woman of this type.</p> - -<p>The story is a fair and legitimate study of opposite temperaments. It is -intensely realistic, and the difficult problem, which is by no means -rare in real life, has been handled with dignity and with such restraint -as not to offend.</p> - -<p class="c"> -<b>12mo. Cloth.</b> <b>Price $1.50.</b><br /> -</p> - -<p><a name="transcrib" id="transcrib"></a></p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="en" -style="padding:2%;border:3px dotted gray;"> -<tr><th align="center">Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr> -<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">devasted</span> and cold hearts=> devastated and cold hearts {pg 61}</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center"><span class="errata">whe</span> took a most pernicious fever=> who took a most pernicious fever {pg 155}</td></tr> -<tr><td align="center">Carolina della <span class="errata">Marsiliano</span>=> Carolina della Marsiliana {pg 294}</td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of After the Pardon, by Matilde Serao - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTER THE PARDON *** - -***** This file should be named 50318-h.htm or 50318-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/3/1/50318/ - -Produced by Shaun Pinder, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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