Chapter XI: Part IV: I (2)

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

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

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

“Poor Lucia!” repeated Andrea, mechanically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it good?” she inquired, gravely.

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

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

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

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

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

“Now we will stop and wait for them.”

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

“Are you enjoying yourselves?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, make haste about it then.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I love you.”

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

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

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

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

“I shall drop the reins and kiss you.”

“No; they are watching us.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am not laughing, I am smiling.”

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

“Afraid of what?”

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

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

“And I say it again.”

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

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

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

“I cannot smile,” said Lucia, harshly.

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

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

Andrea instinctively pulled at his reins; the pace slackened.

“Oh! Lucia, you are a witch.”

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

“We are evil-doers.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Give me a kiss,” said Andrea.

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

“Give me a kiss.”

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

V.

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

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

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

“Andrea _mio_, I love you.”

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

“Love, my love, my witch--I love you!”

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

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

“I love you.”

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

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

“Go away.”

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

“Take care: I shall strangle you.”

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

“What is the matter with thee?”

“Nothing.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you love me?”

“No.”

“Then I had better go away.”

“Go.”

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

“Lucia _mia_, is there anything you want?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“To die.”

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

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

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

“Yesterday you said that you loved them.”

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

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

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

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

“What horrible convulsions!”

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

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

“I will sit up.”

“That wouldn’t do, _sai_.”

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

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

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

“Take me away,” she said.

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

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

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

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

“Far, far away, my heart....”

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

“Here is Caterina.”

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

“She hasn’t moved?”

“No.”

“I have made you your orangeade.”

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“_Addio_, Andrea,” she said.

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

[2] “Nè di Venerdì, nè di Marte, nè si sposa, nè si parte.”