Chapter VIII: Part III: I (2)

“There is a little exaggeration in this view of it,” he replied, not daring to contradict her flatly. “For the disease is decreasing, and fatal cases are growing less frequent. Landowners supply quinine gratis to the women who fall ill. Besides, if we think seriously on all things mundane, we shall perceive that human life needs these obscure sacrifices. Progress....”

“You are as odious as you are wicked. I cannot bear you; go away.”

She dropped his arm, as if in horror. Alberto sniggered at Andrea’s sudden discomfiture.

“Oh! poor Andrea, didn’t you know that Lucia was a humanitarian?”

“I did not know it,” he replied, gravely.

“Oh! my heart is full of love for the disinherited of life; for the poor, down-trodden ones; for the pariahs of this cruel world. I love them deeply, warmly; my heart burns with love for them.”

Andrea felt pained. He felt the weakness of Lucia’s argument, but dared not prove it to her: he felt the predominance she usurped in conversation and over those who approached her, and shrank from it as from a danger. When she had leant on his arm he had throbbed, in every vein, with a full and exquisite pleasure. When she had dropped it, he had experienced a strange loneliness, he had felt himself shrink into something poorer and weaker, and was almost tempted to feel his arm, so that he might revive the sensation of the hand that had been withdrawn. Now Alberto was laughing at him, and that irritated him beyond measure.... That little Alberto, a being as stupid as he appeared innocuous, was capable of biting, when the spirit moved him. He could be poisonous, when he chose, the consumptive insect! Why shouldn’t he crush his head against the wall? Andrea took off his light grey hat and fanned his face to disperse the mist of blind rage that clouded his brain. All three pursued their walk in silence, as if isolated by their own thoughts. The embarrassing silence prolonged itself. Alberto had an idea.

“Make peace with Andrea, Lucia.”

“No; he is a bad-hearted egotist.”

“_Via_, make it up. Don’t you see he is sorry?”

“Are you sorry for what you said just now, Signor Andrea?”

“_Mah!_ ...”

“Repent at once, and we will be friends again, and you shall once more be my knight of the Exhibition. You do repent? Here is my pledge of peace.”

She separated a spray of lilies of the valley from the bunch at her waist and gave it to him. He placed it in his button-hole, and, taking her hand in his, tucked it under his arm....

“And you, Alberto, who are the mediator between us, will you have some lilies?”

“What should I do with them? I have no button-hole to this overcoat. You shall give me another pledge--a kiss ... when we get home.”

Andrea squeezed the arm that rested on his, so hard that it was all she could do to suppress a cry.

“Yes, yes,” she stammered, trembling.

“What is the average value of the Wine Show?” inquired Alberto, who possessed vineyards in Puglia which produced the noted Lagarese. This he said with the air of a connoisseur....

“Not much,” replied Andrea, with forced composure. “For the vine-growers have not all sent exhibits. You see, there are the special viticultural expositions. But there’s some good in that too.”

“Is this your wine, that the Prime Minister praised you for?”

“Yes; and there is some more over there.”

“Does this wine intoxicate, Signor Andrea?” inquired Lucia.

“That’s according; I have some of greater strength.”

“Intoxicating?”

“Yes.”

“Wine is an excellent and beneficent gift. It gives intoxication and forgetfulness,” she said, slowly.

“Forgetfulness,” murmured Alberto; “and the Signora Caterina, whom we are forgetting.”

The other two exchanged a rapid glance. They had indeed forgotten Caterina, who had been waiting for them for an hour in the Maria Carolina saloon, whence the other ladies had departed.

* * * * *

At table, between the roast and the salad, Lucia mentioned that she had been, and was, still in low spirits on account of poor Galimberti. The impending misfortune took her appetite away.

“What misfortune?” asked Caterina.

“His sister writes me that he begins to show signs of mental alienation.”

“Oh! poor, poor man!”

“Most unhappy being, victim of blind fate, of cruel destiny. The case is not hopeless, but he has never been quite _all there_. In addition to this, they are poor, and do not like to confess their poverty.”

“Have you sent money?”

“They would be offended. I wrote to them.”

A shiver ran through the circle. When they separated for the night, Andrea was pensive.

“What is the matter with you?” said Caterina, who was plaiting her hair.

“I am thinking of that unfortunate Galimberti. Let us send him something, anonymously.”

“Yes, let us send!”

“All the more ... all the more because his misfortune might befall any of us,” he added, so low that she did not hear him. A sudden terror had blanched his face.

III.

“This morning I feel so well, that I shall go for a ride.”

“It would be imprudent, Alberto,” said his wife, from her sofa.

“No, no; it will do me good. I shall ride Tetillo, a quiet horse that Andrea is having saddled for me. A two hours’ ride on the Naples road....”

“It is too sunny, dear Alberto.”

“The sun will warm my blood. I am recovering my health, Lucia _mia_. I am getting quite fat. What are your plans?”

“I don’t care for anything. Perhaps I shan’t go out. I am bored.”

“Bad day,” murmured Alberto, as, clanking the silver spurs on his polished boots, he took his departure.

Later on Caterina knocked at her door.

“What are you going to do? Are you going to the Exhibition?”

“No; it bores me.”

“You will be more bored, all alone here. Alberto won’t come home till late; Andrea and I are sure to be late. Come!”

“I won’t go; the Exhibition bores me. I can never be with you for a moment there.”

“We can’t help that. I feel it too, but it’s not my fault.”

“And to-day, if I went, I should have to pace up and down those huge rooms alone.”

“Andrea might stay with you,” urged Caterina, timidly, ever conscious of their latent antipathy.

“We should quarrel.”

“Still?” said the other, pained and surprised.

“That’s how it is; we cannot agree.”

Caterina was silent; after a pause, she said:

“But surely, to-day is the flower day?”

“To-day? I think not.... True, it is to-day.”

“Then you cannot avoid going.”

“I can pretend to be ill.”

“It’s a bad pretext.”

“Well, I see I must sacrifice myself, and come.” There was irritation in her voice and manner as she hurriedly proceeded to dress. Caterina felt as humiliated, while she was waiting for her, as if she were to blame for the annoyance. During the drive from Centurano to Caserta, Lucia was silent, with a harsh expression on her face, keeping her eyes closed and her parasol down as if she neither wished to see nor hear.

Caterina congratulated herself on having sent Andrea on before, while Lucia’s insufferable fit of ill temper lasted. They arrived at the Palace at half-past twelve. They separated, without exchanging many words, appointing to meet each other at four. Caterina mounted the stairs leading to the Didactic Exhibition, and Lucia passed through the garden to the flower-show. There were crowds of fashionably attired ladies and gentlemen in those regions. Lucia moved slowly along the gravelled path to the right, under the chestnut-trees, and those whom she met turned to gaze at her. She wore a dress of darkest green brocade, short, close-fitting, and well draped; it showed her little black shoes and open-work, green silk stockings. On her head was an aërial bonnet of palest pink tulle--a cloud, a breath, without feathers or flowers, like a pink froth. Now Caterina had left her, she was smiling at her own thoughts. The smile became more accentuated when, on turning the palisades of the Floral Exhibition to enter the conservatory containing the exotics, she met Andrea.

“My dear Lieti, where are you going to?”

“Nowhere,” he replied, with embarrassment; “I was looking for a friend from Maddaloni.”

“And have you found him?” with an ironical smile.

“No; he hasn’t come. I shall wait for him. And you?”

“Oh! you know all about me. I have come to the flower jury.”

“But it doesn’t meet till two.”

“Really? Oh! what a feather-head! and what shall I do till two? I may not go to the 'Didactics,’ and the 'Agrarians’ bore me.”

“Stay with me,” he entreated.

“Alone?”

“Here....”

“Without doing anything? Every one will notice it.”

“Who do you think is going to gape and watch?”

“Every one, my friend.”

“They will look at you,” he said, bitterly; although the words “my friend” delighted him.

“And if they do, we must provide against it; this is a scurrilous province. It hides its own _bourgeois_ vices and slanders the innocent.”

“Listen,” murmured Andrea, taking her arm in his. “Why don’t you come with me to the English Garden?”

“No....”

“It is so beautiful. The great trees cast their shadows over it, the paths rise, fall, and lose themselves among the roses; under the water-lilies lies the still crystal water; under the reeds, the water murmurs as it flows; there is no one there, and it is so cool....”

“Do not speak to me like that,” she whispered, faintly.

“Come, Lucia, come. That is the frame for your beauty. You are like a rose to-day; come, and take your place among the roses.”

“Do not talk to me like that, for pity’s sake, or you will kill me....” Her teeth chattered as if from ague.

He felt that she was losing consciousness, that she was going to faint. People were passing to and fro; he was seized with a fear of ridicule.

“Fear nothing; I will not say another word. Come to yourself, I beseech you. If you care for me at all, come to yourself. Shall we go to the cattle-show? It is crowded. You will be safe there. Will you come?”

“Lead me where you please,” she replied faintly, while her bosom heaved and her nostrils quivered in the struggle for breath.

They did not exchange a word on the way. They met several persons, who, seeing Andrea with a lady, bowed profoundly to him. Two young men made whispered remarks to each other.

“They take me for your wife.”

“Do not say that to me, I entreat you.”

“You are not brave, Signor Lieti; you are afraid to hear the truth.”

“You have called me your friend....”

“Do you wish to make me repent it?”

“Oh! don’t torment me. Dialectics are your strong point; your thoughts are deep, weird, and often too cruel for me to fathom. I am at your mercy. You invest me, you capture me, and then you torture me. Remember that I am a child, an ignorant child--a child all muscle and no imagination. Spare me.”

He raised his hand to his collar as if he were choking; while he spoke, the tears had gathered in his eyes and voice.

“Forgive me; I will spare you,” she said, sweetly humbling herself in her triumph.

They passed under a great avenue of chestnut-trees where the sun cast little circles of golden light upon the ground. The heat was increasing. Some of the passers-by were fanning their flushed faces with their straw hats; ladies unfurled their fans as they moved languidly along, overcome by the weight of the atmosphere. They spoke but little to each other, looking down like two persons who were a prey to _ennui_. They turned and came to the first section. A walk led all round an immense rectangular meadow, which was enclosed by a stout palisade of medium height, divided into compartments for each animal. There was a little rack with a ring and a cord for each head of cattle; the animals stood stolid and motionless, facing the spectators. The cows had good stupid heads, benevolent eyes, and their ribs showed through their thin flanks.

“Poor beasts,” she whispered. “How ugly they are!”

“Ugly, but useful. They are hardy animals, and all the better for being thin; the milk is all the better for it. They are not so liable to disease, and they yield five hundred per cent, of their value.”

“You are fond of animals?”

“Very; they are strong, useful, and docile. We humans do not always combine the same qualities.”

“But we have intellect.”

“You mean, egoism.”

“Well; love is a species of egoism,” affirmed Lucia, crossly.

They progressed slowly. From behind the palisade the oxen gazed at them with serene eyes that were almost indicative of thought. Some of them bending their necks, under the sun that struck their hides, browsed bunches of grass. Now and again the dull impatient thud of their hoofs struck the scanty down-trodden grass of the meadow. The flies settled on the hard rough hides with their many seams. Sometimes an ox would strike his neck with his tongue and his flank with his tail, to rid himself of them; but the flies returned insolently to the attack, buzzing in the stifling atmosphere. Lucia opened a large Japanese fan, all gold-dust on a black ground, and fanned herself rapidly.

“Do you feel the heat?”

“Very much. And how suffocating it is here!”

“Shall we sit down?”

“No; I am beginning to feel interested in the cattle. Besides, I feel the sun broiling my shoulders. I would rather walk.”

“Here are the buffaloes,” explained Andrea. “You cannot have seen any before. They are of a nobler breed than these cows. Look at them; don’t you see how wild they look? They are shaking those heads with the twisted horns. They are of a powerful, sanguine temperament; their blood is black and smoking. Have you ever drunk blood?”

“No,” she replied, in amazement, yet sucking her lips with a kind of longing. “What is it like?”

“A potent drink that puts strength into your veins. A drink for soldiers, sportsmen, and brave men trained to corporal exercises. A cup of blood expands one’s life.”

By degrees, while he spoke, Lucia’s enthusiasm grew for the plenitude of strength expressed in Andrea’s whole personality for the vigour of his powerful frame and the plastic animalism that found in him its supreme and perfect development. A buffalo, in sudden rage, proceeded to bump its head against the wall. Lucia gazed in growing astonishment at the magnitude of these stalls built in the open air, and at the motley show of sturdy brutes.

“Are these buffaloes savage?” she inquired, timidly.

“Very: the blood goes to their heads, as it might to the brain of a strong man. They are subject to fits of sanguine madness. They loathe red, it sends incendiary fumes to their brain.”

Lucia raised her perfumed handkerchief to her lips and stopped her nose with it. “This smell of cattle is not unhealthy,” said Andrea, naïvely. “Indeed, it is good for the health. Doctors prescribe it for consumptive people. Your perfumes are far more injurious, they deprave the senses and shatter the nerves.”

“Depravity is human.”

“That is why I prefer the beasts, whose instincts are always healthy. We have come to the end of this section. Here the finest of them all.”

It was a bull, a black bull with a white mark on its forehead, between its superb horns; a sturdy, majestic creature, contemptuous of its rack, to whom had been given a long cord and a wide enclosure: he tramped up and down his habitation without taking any notice of the onlookers, who expressed their timid admiration by whispered eulogies.

“Oh! how beautiful, how splendid!” cried Lucia.

“He is magnificent. He belongs to Piccirilli, of Casapulla we shall give him the prize. He is the pure exceptional type, the perfection of the breed. A masterpiece, Lucia ... What is the matter?”

“I feel rather faint, take me down there to the water. The sun is burning my arms, and my brain is on fire.”

They went as far as the little fountain, under a tree, where there was a wooden cup. He dipped a handkerchief in water and applied it to her forehead.

“Thank you, I am better; I felt as though I were dying. Let us return, or rather let us continue walking here, we are too isolated.”

They passed by the horse-boxes, a row of little wooden houses that were closed that day. They could hear the frequent neighings that came from under the semi-obscurity, under the wooden roofs that were grilled by the midday sun, and the restless impatient pawing of many hoofs.

“Those are the stallions, accustomed to free gallops across their native plains. They cannot bear inaction. Some of them can hear the mares neighing in the adjoining boxes. And they answer them by neighing and beating their tails against the walls.”

She turned pale again while he spoke.

“Is it the sun again?” he inquired.

“The heat, the heat....”

Dark flushes dyed her cheeks, leaving them paler than before, with a feverish pallor. She tried to moisten her lips with the wet handkerchief; they were as dry as if the wind had cut them. The arm that rested on Andrea’s weighed heavily.

“Shall we enter that large building, Signor Andrea? At least we shall be out of the sun there. Do you know what I feel? Myriads of pricks under my skin, as close together and as sharp as needle-points. I think the cool shade will stop it.”

They entered a sort of large ground-floor barn with a slanting roof, where every species of domestic animal disported itself in cages or little hutches. The grave white rabbits, with their pink noses and comic, pendant ears, were rolled up like bundles of cotton-wool at the back of their hutches. You could not see them without stooping, and then they edged still farther back in terror at not being able to run away. The fowls had a long compartment to themselves, a large wired pen, divided into many smaller ones. Big, fat, and motionless, their round eyes, watchful, disappeared now and then under the yellowish, flabby membrane that covered them. They butted their heads against the wire and pecked languidly at bran and barley prepared in little troughs for them, pecking at each other under the wing and cackling loudly, as if that cry were the yawn of a much bored fowl. The turkeys wore a more serious aspect; they never stirred, maintaining their dignified composure.

“Look, Lucia; I always think that turkey-hens pipe for their chicks out in the world.”

“I have never seen one before. Are there no doves here?”

“No, only animals for agricultural purposes. Doves are luxuries. Are you fond of them?”

“Yes. I had one, but it died when I was a little girl.”

“I am sorry there are none here.”

A cock awakening from his torpor, and perceiving a ray of sunlight that had filtered through one of the windows, began to crow lustily--cock-a-doodle-doo; then another answered in deeper tones, and a third broke in immediately. And the hens began to perform in high soprano, the turkey-hens in contralto, while the turkeys and their kin gobbled in deep bass. Crescendo, staccato, swelled the discordant symphony; and patient visitors stopped their ears, while nervous ones ran away. Lucia’s grasp tightened on Andrea’s arm; she leant her head against his shoulder to deaden the sound, stunned, coughing, laughing hysterically, struggling in vain for speech, while he smiled his good-tempered, phlegmatic smile at the animal chorus. Then by degrees came a decrescendo; some of the performers suddenly stopped, others waxed fainter; a few solitary ones held on, and, as if run down, stopped all at once. Lucia was still convulsed with laughter.

“Have you never heard this before?”

A fat merino, of the height of a donkey, with abundant, dirty wool, disported himself in solitary state in his pen. Farther on, a greyish pig, with bright pink splotches that looked as if he had scratched them that colour, stood forgotten and unclassed, away from his fellows, like an exceptional and monstrous being that eschews all social intercourse.

“Come away, come away,” said Lucia, whose nerves had been shaken, dragging her companion away; “I won’t look at anything else.” She was seized with cramps and violent stitches, alternating with a stinging sensation which almost paralysed her. All the fire which the sun had transfused into her veins seemed to have concentrated itself at the nape and set her nerves in combustion. Andrea, who knew nothing of atmospheric effects, who could bask in the sun and walk through two rows of animals without discomfort, was unconscious of these painful sensations; he was as sane as Nature herself. They passed out into the garden, past the horse-boxes, where a ray of sun was beginning to broaden. Lucia hastened along with bowed head; now the pain was in the top of her skull, the fluffy bonnet weighed like a leaden helmet; she could scarcely resist a longing to loosen her plaits and throw it off.

“I am burning, burning!” she kept saying to Andrea.

“What’s to be done about the jury?”

“I’ll go there. Oh! this sun will kill me.”

“What can I do for you; dip the handkerchief in water again?”

“Yes, yes; or rather let us hasten on.”

They crossed the enclosure, where the bull was now resting on his haunches, apparently infuriated by the sun, pawing the ground with one of his forefeet. Then came the whole show once more, with the buzzing flies, the glorious sun, and the animals’ sleepy heads bowed under it. Lucia stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth and nostrils until she could hardly breathe. When she reached the cool anteroom next to the conservatory, her face was flushed, her lips blanched, and the brightness gone from her eyes.

“I thought I should have died,” she said, after a while, to Andrea, who stood waiting in dismay and remorse. “Go away now, the ladies are coming.”

* * * * *

The Duchess of San Celso had come to attend the flower jury from her villa. The veteran _mondaine_ was, if that were possible, more painted than usual; her flabby charms draped in a youthful gown, and her dyed hair crowned by a small white bonnet; she passed to and fro with bent back, crooked neck, and a liberal display of feet that were presentable. Three or four ladies of the Neapolitan aristocracy had arrived: the Cantelmo, tall, fair and opulent of form; Fanny Aldemoresco, small, dark and zingaresque, with hooked nose, olive skin, and dazzling eyes, attired in deep crimson; the Della Mara, with her fair cadaverous face, dull, leaden eyes, and pale hair; there was besides a Capuan Countess, with a head like a viper; the fat, insignificant wife of the Prefect, addicted to low curtseys and ceremonious salutations; a general’s widow; and Lucia Altimare-Sanna. These ladies had taken several turns round where the beds were planted, and were inspecting them through the tortoiseshell lorgnettes poised on their noses, with upturned chin and severe judicial eye, turning to discuss them with the young men who followed in their train, and chatting vivaciously with each other. A little expanse of many-hued verbena was admired; Fanny Aldemoresco pronounced it “mignon.” The Altimare-Sanna, with whom she was acquainted, and to whom she addressed herself, replied that she hated verbena. She much preferred those musk-roses that grew so close and sweet-smelling, those large flesh-coloured ones with the curled petals. The Duchess of San Celso was of the same opinion; indeed, she took a rose and placed it in the V-shaped opening of her dress, against her skinny throat. That little animated group of ladies, with waving fans and parasols and floating laces, the bright-coloured group whence came the sound of silvery laughter and little cries like the bickerings of tomtits, was beginning to attract a court around it.

There was the oldest, perhaps the first, lover of the Duchess; he also had dyed hair, rouged cheeks, waxed moustachios of dubious flaxen hue, and flabby hanging cheeks; and her young lover, handsome but very pale, with insolent black eyes, a sensual mouth, and the elegance of a poor young man enriched by her Grace’s bounty. There was Mimi d’Allemagna, who had come for the Cantelmo, and Cicillo Filomarina, her unavowed adorer, who had also come for her sake, and many others, either to keep appointments or for the fête or for fun. The Prefect, in evening dress, was always by the Duchess’s side. These people came and went, to and fro, forming into little groups, yet always keeping together; exhaling an odour of _veloutine_ and a _mondain_ murmur, from under the great horse-chestnut-trees. The judgment of the bedding-out plants was soon over. When questioned as to their votes, the ladies assumed a very serious air.

“We shall see ... we must consider ... we must decide....” said the Aldemoresco, as serious as a politician who declines to be compromised.

They entered the great conservatory, in which cut flowers and bouquets and delicate exotics were exhibited. It had been provided by the Prefect with blue sun-blinds, and as the day wore on a gentle breeze cooled the air. In the centre, under a group of palms, a fountain had been erected for the occasion; stools, wicker-chairs, and benches were hidden in the profusion of flowers that bloomed in every corner. The ladies, as they entered, uttered sighs of satisfaction and relief. Outside, the sun had scorched and the dust had choked them, and bedding-out flowers were of minor interest. Inside, the atmosphere was full of perfume and softened light. Pleasure beamed in their smiles; Lucia shivered and her nostrils dilated. Turning, the better to observe a great bush of heliotrope, she perceived Andrea in the doorway, where he was chatting with Enrico Cantelmo; she affected not to see him, but stooped to inhale a longer draught of its perfume. His eyes followed her absently, while he discussed horses with Cantelmo. Then he had a sudden inspiration: she turned round, and approaching a group of orchids, found herself in close proximity to the door; Andrea understood her. He left Cantelmo, advanced towards her, and held out his hand as if they met for the first time in the course of the day. They conversed with the coolness of ordinary acquaintances.

“How are you?”

“Better, thank you. Why have you returned?”

“... I happened to pass this way. Besides, the place is full of people; there is no reason why I should not pass through it.”

“Stay here, you must be fond of flowers.”

“No; I don’t care for them. This atmosphere is heavy with perfume.”

“Do you think so? I don’t notice it.”

“Oh! it is overpowering. I don’t know how so many ladies can endure it.”

“I will exchange explanations with you, Signor Andrea. I adore these flowers and appreciate them. Look at this jasmin; it is a star-like Spanish flower of strong perfume--a creeper that will cling as tenaciously as humble, constant love.”

“What do you know of love?” said Andrea, ironically.

“What is unknown to others, and what you do not know,” she replied. “Look, look, how beautiful is that large sheaf of white and tea-roses, how light and delicate its colouring!”

“You wore the same flowers at the Casacalenda ball, and at the Inauguration the other day.”

“You have a good memory. Does this inspection weary you?”

“No,” he replied, with an effort, as if his mind had been wandering.

“Lamarra’s exhibits are the best, Signora Sanna,” said the Cantelmo, stopping to talk to her. “We will award the prize to him. Just look at this flower-carpet.”

She passed on. Andrea and Lucia crossed to the extreme end of the great conservatory, where the flower-carpet was. Stretched on the ground was a long rectangular rug, entirely composed of heartsease in varied but funereal shades of velvety violet and yellow, streaked with black; some of them large, with luscious petals, and others no bigger than your nail: no leaves. This funereal carpet was divided down its centre by a large cross formed of snowy gardenias which stood out in bold relief.

“It looks like the covering of a tomb,” she said. “I remember a picture of Morelli’s: 'The Daughter of Jairus.’ The carpet which is stretched on the ground and cuts the picture in two runs across the whole canvas.”

“You take too much delight in sadness,” said he, wearily.

“Because the world is sad. These Neapolitan Lamarras are uneducated people, yet they have a feeling for art; they understand that a flower may express joy, but that it often expresses sorrow. Gardenias are refined flowers; they remind me of double, or rather of glorified, jasmin. The gardenia might almost have a soul, it certainly is not devoid of individuality. Sometimes it is small and insignificant, with tightly curled petals; at others as tall and delicate as an eighteen-year old maiden, and of transparent purity; or it is full and nobly developed and of a passionate whiteness. And when it fades it turns yellow, and when it dies it looks as if it had been consumed by fire.”

She was drawn to her full height before the mortuary carpet when she said this to him, absently and in an undertone, as if telling herself the story of the flowers. She was very pale, but her eyes were suffused with tenderness. A strong perfume rose from the gardenias so pungent that Andrea felt it prick his nostrils, mount to his brain and beat in his temples, where it seemed to him that the blood rushed heavily and swiftly.

“Here,” he said, wishing to get away from the funereal carpet and the sight of the cross that stood out in such dazzling whiteness on its dark background of pansies; “here is a beautiful bouquet.”

“Yes, yes, it is pretty,” said Lucia, approaching to examine it critically, and then moving away the better to observe its effect; “really charming, with a discreet virginal charm of its own. Don’t you think so? It is composed of the most delicate and youthful-looking of exotics: the heart of the bouquet of minute fragrant mignonette; then a broad band of heliotrope, contrasting the pale lilac of its lace-like blossoms with the green of the mignonette, and over all cloud-like sprays of heather which give an effect of distance to the whole. Heather is a northern flower, lacking perfume and brilliancy, but reposeful and grateful.... Here at least is a group of pure and innocuous flowers.”

Yet Andrea felt ill at ease while inhaling the delicate fragrance of mignonette and heliotrope. He felt as if his breath were failing him, with an unwonted oppression and a sensation of fatigue as if he had passed the night at a ball.

“What do you say to Kruepper, Signora Sanna?” said the San Celso, who passed, leaning on the arm of her young adorer, like a ruin about to fall to pieces.

“I haven’t yet seen it, Duchess.”

“Pray look at it: that German has something in him, he is inspired; don’t you think so, Gargiulo?”

“You always express yourself so well and artistically,” replied the latter, with a tender inflexion in his voice, bending to kiss the bare skinny arm and hand which displayed the swollen veins of old age.

They passed on. The crowd increased. The murmur of voices waxed louder; they smiled and jested more freely amid the luxuriant bloom; some of them disappeared amid the shrubs and blossoming plants to chat with their friends, to reappear with flushed faces and laughing behind their fans. The atmosphere grew heavier and more than ever charged with ylang-ylang, opoponax, new-mown hay, and other pungent feminine odours, and the perfume exhaled by silken stuffs, silken tresses, and lace that had lain amid sachets of orris. Those women were so many artificial flowers, with lips and cheeks tinted like their petals, with eyes as dark as the velvet heartsease, and skins as white and fragrant as gardenias. And it seemed as if the vitiated atmosphere suited their morbid brains and lungs, refreshed their sickly blood, and revived their worn-out nerves. Lucia’s face was tinted with pink in patches; her melancholy, leaden eyelids were raised, unveiling the lightning of her glance; pleasure acute as it was intense imprinted the smile on her lips.

Andrea began to see the spectacle as in a dream. He could no longer struggle against the torpor that was numbing his overtaxed brain. He made violent efforts to shake it off, but in vain, for he was mastered by a prostration that seemed to break his joints. As to his legs, they felt like cotton-wool, lifeless and powerless. He could only feel the leaden weight of his head, and he feared that it would fall upon his chest because the throat had ceased to support it. Unconsciously he wiped great beads of perspiration from his forehead, while his listless eyes still followed Lucia.

“Here is Kruepper, of Naples,” said Lucia. “Oh! look, look, Andrea.”

Kruepper, of Naples, exhibited many gradations of vases, wherein a monstrous tropical vegetation of cactus contorted itself with the twists and bends of a venomous green serpent: its pricks might have been fangs, its branches reared themselves or fell back as if their spine had been broken, or turned on one side as if overcome with sleep. These horror-inspiring branches supported a rich cup-like flower of transparent texture and yellow pistils, or a white blossom like a lily: superb flowers that lived with splendour and intensity for twenty-four hours, chalices wherein burned strong incense. Lucia bent over one of them to inspire its perfume, as if she would fain have drawn all its essence from it. When she raised her head, her lips were powdered with fine yellow dust.

“Smell them, Andrea, they are intoxicating.”

“No, it would make me ill,” he said, rubbing his eyes to clear them of the mist that veiled them. The truth was that he would have given anything to sit down and go to sleep, or rather to stretch his full length on a sofa, or throw himself prone on the ground. Sleep was gradually creeping on him while he strove with all his might, but in vain, to keep awake. He kept his eyes open by force and squeezed one hand in the other, trying to think of something to keep himself awake with. But he longed to lay his head somewhere, no matter where, against something, only to sleep for five minutes. Five minutes would have sufficed, he knew it; he was nodding already. The passers-by looked more than ever like phantoms gliding over the ground; there was no noise, only an ever increasing haze, in which the flowers dilated, expanded and contracted, assuming fantastic aspects, strange colours and perfumes. Oh! the perfume. Andrea felt it more acutely than anything else. It burned in his head like a flame, it filtered through the recesses and blended with the phosphorus of his brain. His nerves vibrated until exhaustion supervened, and then somnolence, and that all-compelling catalepsy from which his prisoned will struggled in vain to free itself.

All at once he turned: Lucia had disappeared. His pain at this discovery was so intense, that he would have uttered a loud cry but that his voice failed him. Then some of these female phantoms disappeared silently, as if the earth had swallowed them up. Could he get five minutes’ sleep now, quietly? No; a shade had approached him. Cantelmo was talking of flowers, of Kruepper again, and the warlike sound of the barbarous name annoyed him. What did he think of the hyacinths?

The hyacinths reared their stately heads in a jardinière of golden trellis-work. There were pink hyacinths, lilac ones and white, blending and uniting their voluptuous fragrance. Next to them, in a large Venetian amphora, stood a bunch of ten magnolias, exhaling the strongest perfume of them all.

In the lethargy that was upon him Andrea saw Lucia appear under the doorway. In her dark green dress, with her pink bonnet, she looked like a rose, a woman turned into a flower, a flower-made woman. To that flower Andrea felt all his being drawn--and he longed ... sole, supreme desire, to seize that flower, press it to his lips, and drink in its life with its perfume.

IV.

The fountain Michelangelo Viglia....

... SUL AUGUSTO ESEMPIO
LO DO AD ALTRUIDA ME,

dripped tranquilly into its grey stone basin. The second part of the inscription:

IL PELEGRINO, IL VILLICO,
IL CITTADINO L’AVRA.
VENITE, DISSETATEVI,
FRESCA PER VOI QUI STA....[1]

could not incite any one to accept its invitation. In the silent darkness of the night the solitary fountain repeated its purling cadence, for Centurano was asleep; its grey, white, and yellow houses had all their shutters barred. The first lights to be extinguished had been those of the architect Maranca, who rose earlier than any one else to superintend the repairs of the dome of Caserta. Next to his, those of lawyer Marini, who had to plead a case on the morrow at the Court of Santa Maria; and then those of Judge Scardanaglia, with whom they had been keeping rather late hours to play at _mediatore_, and because on the following day there was no sitting for him in the law courts. The friends of the Member for Santa Maria had driven off towards Caserta after an exchange of salutations from the road to the balcony, in two sleepy carriage-loads--lights, coachmen, and horses. The last lights to go out were those of Casa Lieti, at the corner, overlooking the fountain. The drawing-room had subsided into darkness; lights had appeared in the two sleeping apartments, divided from each other by an intermediate room, each having balconies that overlooked the street. Large and small shadows--tall, thin ones, pygmies, and Colossi--had flitted across the window-panes, defining themselves against the curtains. Then darkness.

A dark night, dark with the profound density of meridional nights. A gleam of stars, a shining dust spread haphazard, hither and thither, with a beating motion, a palpitation of the constellations. Under them, amid the black fields, a whitish line was perceptible; the lane that led to the high road towards Caserta. The lamps were out. Suddenly the first balcony to the left opened; noiselessly, from the narrow opening, a slight white form emerged, remaining motionless on the balcony; it was unrecognisable. It stood still, leaning again the balustrade. Was it gazing at the sky or at the soil? Impossible to tell, nothing could be seen of it except that every now and then the hem of the white garment stirred as if an impatient foot had moved it. Behind that form, which appeared elongated against the dark background of the night, the window remained ajar. It maintained its immobility and its attitude of contemplation. The parish clock struck the quarter, and the calm sound rang out gently on the silent air. Then, with a slight creaking of hinges, the window to the right opened wide. A black mass, that melted into the general darkness, appeared; but nothing was defined. A luminous point glowed, the end of a lighted cigar. At every breath drawn by the person smoking, the lighted end glowed brighter, casting a little light on a heavy moustache, and emitting a light cloud of smoke. Suddenly the glowing ember sped like a star, from the balcony to the road, and the dark mass passed to the extreme end of the balcony to approach the one on the left. The white shadow fluctuated and trembled; it moved towards the right, standing at the corner motionless, then a breath traversed the space between them.

“Lucia.”

The faintest breath made answer: “Andrea.”

That was all, except that the fountain, ever fresh and young, continued singing its eternal song. Above shimmered the Milky Way that overhung Caserta. They, immersed in the profound darkness of the night, gazed at each other athwart its shade, straining their sight to see each other through it. Not a movement, not a word. And so the time passed, and again the parish clock struck the quarter--and they stood shrouded in darkness, without notion of space or time, losing themselves in the gloom, lost in the thought of searching each other’s features. Once or twice the white figure leant over the balustrade, as if overcome by fatigue; once or twice the dark, massive one leant over it as if to measure its height from the ground. But they drew back and fell into their former attitudes. Once or twice the figures hanging over the sides of their respective balconies appeared to stretch out their arms towards each other, but they fell back again, as if discouraged; condemned to inaction, to the torture of unfulfilled desire; parts of that immovable, pitiless balcony, turned into statues of stone and iron. How long did it last, that torture of the minimum of distance, which in the night seemed immeasurable, the torture of not seeing, while knowing each other to be so near? At last a faint breath whispered: “Andrea.” And a passionate one made answer: “Lucia.”

Through the air projected by a trembling hand flew a white object, from one balcony to the other. He caught it on the edge of the balustrade, just as it was about to fall. From a neighbouring ruin, an owl screeched three times; a hoarse cry of terror answered from the left, and the white figure suddenly disappeared: the window closed. On the balcony to the right, the dark mass stood waiting and watching.

When Andrea re-entered his room, he found the lamp lighted and Caterina standing by the bed in slippers, fastening her wrapper.

“What ails you, Andrea?”

“Nothing; that’s to say, I feel the heat.”

“Are you feverish, like last night?”

“No, no; I was getting a little air on the balcony; go back to bed, Caterina.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing; Nini, you have been dreaming.”

“The cold air woke me. And when I felt for you, I found you missing.”

“Were you frightened? Try to go to sleep again.”

She threw the wrapper off; her mind was at rest.

“To-morrow--have you to rise early, Andrea?”

“Yes, early.”

“At seven?”

“Yes.”

“Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Caterina put out the light, crossed herself, and immediately fell asleep, according to her wont. Andrea had waited, throbbing for that moment, to press to his heart the lace scarf, warm from the neck of Lucia, to kiss it, to put his teeth into it, to wind it round his hands and his throat, to cool his temples, and cover his eyes with it, during his long vigil.

* * * * *

Next morning Alberto alarmed the whole household by his sighs and groans. On rising he had coughed three times, and while washing his face he had coughed again. His throat was rough and relaxed, and he complained of an oppression on his chest.

“Where can I have caught cold? Where can I have caught it? I who am so cautious. I always wear a silk handkerchief round my neck, and a flannel shirt. A draught, I suppose.”

He gave vent to his feelings in front of the glass, which reflected a pale face; putting out his tongue, trying to see down his throat, drawing long breaths to discover any possible obstruction. Lucia comforted him sweetly.

“Do you think I am ill? Do I look very seedy?”

“Why, no; don’t indulge in fancies. You have your everyday face. Often, when I’m quite well, I cough on getting out of bed.”

“Even when you wash your face?”

“Oh! always.”

“Oh! really? But I am so delicate....”

“No, indeed, you are much stronger since we came here.”

“True, but I must take care not to get ill. Listen, Lucia; I should like to go to Naples, to-day.”

“What for?”

“For Carderelli to examine my chest thoroughly.”

“And leave me alone?”

“For a short time, dear. _Sai_, just to reassure myself.”

“I shall weary for you, Alberto _mio_. When do you return?”

“To-day, at half-past six, in time for dinner.”

“Without fail, _caro mio_?”

“Why, of course! When I arrive at the station, I shall breakfast; then go home for a moment; then to Carderelli, and back again.”

“Return, Alberto _mio_. I shall not move from this room; I shall await thee here, counting the hours. Listen, my heart; don’t you think you caught this cold riding the day before yesterday?”

“True, true; you are right, I am a fool; you tried to persuade me not to go. I never take your advice, my Lucia. You are my good angel. I will tell Carderelli of my carelessness.”

“Ask him also if we are to stay on here.”

“Why? I like being here. And you?”

“I am well wherever you are.”

Lucia appeared at breakfast with red eyes, and hardly ate anything. Andrea was silent, and so was Caterina; they exchanged looks of pity for the poor thing. Lucia recounted with much sadness the risk Alberto had run in insisting on riding, the cold he had caught by getting overheated, and her sorrow when she heard his harsh cough that morning.

“I felt knives in my own chest,” she concluded, with a fresh fit of weeping.

Nobody ate another morsel. Caterina sat down beside her, trying to comfort her, holding her hands in hers, in memory of their school-days. Andrea stood by her side without finding a word to say to her. She regained her composure later.

Caterina had to go to that never-ending “jury”; luckily it was only to sit for two days longer. Lucia was so cast down that she did not even venture to propose that she should accompany her. Andrea, too, was obliged to go to Caserta, on business. Husband and wife took leave of her, Caterina kissed her cheek, Lucia sobbed and wept. This delayed their departure. Andrea was getting impatient, and Caterina feared that Lucia would perceive it. They bade her good-bye.

“Return soon, my friends; return soon,” she said with intense languor. They turned to go. She called them back. They reappeared in the doorway.

“Whatever happens, you, my friends, will always love me?”

This question was addressed to both of them. They looked at each other: Caterina smiling, Andrea confused.

“Yes, yes, yes; I answer for him and for myself,” cried Caterina.

“You, too, Andrea?”

“Yes,” he replied, curtly.

“Lucia appears ... rather queer to you?” said Caterina, in the carriage, to her husband.

“To me...? No.”

“She is so unhappy.”

“I know....”

“How preoccupied you are!”

“In the Faete vineyards--you know where they are--the vines have gone wrong.”

“Oh, dear! Tell me all about it.”

* * * * *

The custodian of the English Garden bowed low to the pale lady in black, opened the gate for her, and inquired if she needed a guide. She refused, saying that she knew her way. Indeed, she trod the broad level path, whence branched many narrow ones, as deliberately as if she were accustomed to walk there. She had closed her black lace parasol, allowing the sun to warm her arms and shoulders under the slightly transparent gauze of her dress. Her black lace bonnet was fastened on with hammer-headed jet pins, like a veil. She hesitated when she reached the spot where the paths diverged. She turned and looked at the closed gate; through it she could catch a glimpse of the park, before her the enchanting incline of the walks, sloping under green boughs. She turned slowly into one that was bordered by a hedge of green myrtle, treading so lightly that her high heels hardly touched the cool ground. The trees formed a verdant arch, like the walls of a grotto, and far off, at the end of the walk, a hole let in the light. She wandered on through the grey twilight, suffering a stray leaf that dropped from overhead to rest on her garments, standing to watch the lizards at play. Then she resumed her rhythmic walk, while her dress brushed the myrtle hedge, and her gaze wandered through the murmuring solitude.

At the end of the slanting walk there was a little vale where other walks met and crossed; in its midst was a shady valley, shut in by dark hilly ground that was seamed in every direction by the yellow lines of the gravel. All round her stood horse-chestnuts, dwarf oaks, and tall, meagre, dusty eucalypti: complete solitude. She bent her steps towards the field, but all at once stopped midway, frightened and trembling, for Andrea had suddenly appeared before her. Without speaking, they looked into each other’s eyes. He had come from below: she must have appeared to him like a Madonna, descending from the clouds.

They did not speak, but went on side by side, without looking at each other. They went down into the vale; Andrea, aggrieved because she was not hanging on his arm, yet not daring to ask her to do so.

“How is it that you are here?” she asked, suddenly and curtly.

“I can’t tell you. Down there the heat and the boredom were enough to kill one.”

“For no other reason?”

“I ... thought you would come here.”

“And you were right; it is fate.”

She looked tragic under her black veil, in her black gown, with the little silver dagger hanging from her waistband. The violet lines under her eyes gave them a voluptuous and sinister expression.

“If Caterina were to come ...” she said, grinding her teeth.

“She will not come....”

“It would be better that she came; I could kill myself here.”

“Oh, Lucia!”

“Do not call me by my name. I hate you.”

Her tone was so passionate in its anger, her lips so livid, that he turned pale, and took off his hat to pass his hand across his forehead. Then suddenly two big tears burst from his frank, sorrowful eyes, ran down his honest, despairing face, and melted on his hands.

“Oh! Andrea, for pity’s sake do not weep. Oh! I implore you, do not make me so unhappy, so unhappy!”

“_Che!_ I am not weeping,” he said, recovering himself and smiling. “It was a passing impression. It used to happen to me with my mother when I was a boy. Will you take my arm? I will take you all over this place.”

“Where the shadow is deepest, where there is a sound of rushing water, where no one will think of coming,” she murmured, in a melting mood. Leaning on his arm, in a narrow lane where the hedges were high, she gathered sheaves of wild anemones and stuck bunches of them in her waistband, in the lace round her throat, and the ribbons of her parasol.

Those hedges, blooming in the shade, pierced here and there by faint rays of sun, were full of wild anemones. She slipped some into the pockets of his coat and others in his button-hole. Andrea laughed silently, delightedly; happy in the sensation of the touch of those light fingers on the cloth. They said nothing to each other, but because of the narrow path she kept very close to him. A little bird lightly grazed her brow. Lucia uttered a cry, started away from him, and ran on.

“Come, come, Andrea; how enchanting!”

They had reached a platform, a sort of green terrace that looked down over another valley. High up, from the side of the rock, rushed a dancing, foaming torrent, falling straight down like a white, flaky cataract, and forming far below a wide, limpid, but shallow stream, that ran like a nameless river to an unknown sea, between two rows of poplars. From the terrace they could look down on the little northern landscape, the placid stream, and pale verdure: while the fine spray refreshed their faces, and they revelled in the grateful moisture and the soft breeze from the falling water.

“Oh! how beautiful, how beautiful,” said Lucia, absorbed.

“This is better than your drawing-rooms, where one cannot breathe,” he said, with a long breath.

“It is beautiful ...” murmured Lucia. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, and he thrilled at the slight contact. Her hair was turned up high under the black lace, leaving the white nape bare; her arm was bare under the silken gauze, and on the slightest pressure he could feel the rustle of the crisp diaphanous stuff.

“Let us try to get down to the stream, to see where it goes,” said Lucia.

“There is no road down here.”

“Let us find a way, an unknown way.”

“We shall lose ourselves.”

“Let us lose ourselves, for this is Paradise.”

Soon they were making their way along an endless narrow path. They laughed as they hastened along. They came to an interminable avenue of exotic trees, ending in a square with a group of palms in its centre. They turned into a walk without knowing whither it led; she, who had relapsed into her melancholy languor, allowing herself to be dragged.

“You are tired; let us sit on the ground, instead of looking for the stream.”

“Shall we die here?”

“Perhaps some one will pass.”

“No, do not say that any one may pass; you frighten me--how you frighten me! Let us look for the stream.”