Chapter VIII: Hours of Bitterness (2)

She was silent. She had been trying in vain to resume her work, but her hands trembled.

And now this terrible question! Should she answer or not? By answering, by revealing for the first time things that lay buried at the bottom of her heart, she would only be widening the painful gap between them; but could she be dishonest? She was silent so long that at last Franco said: "You will not speak?" Then she mustered all her strength and spoke.

"It is true, my soul has never been wholly yours." She trembled as she spoke the words, and Franco held his breath.

"I have always felt myself different from you, separated from you," Luisa continued, "in that sentiment which should govern all others. You hold the religious views my mother held. Religion was to my mother, as it is to you, a union of certain beliefs, ceremonies, and precepts, inspired and governed by the love of God. I have always shrunk from this conception of religion; no matter how hard I may have tried, I have never been able to feel this love of an invisible and incomprehensible Being; I have never been able to understand what good could come of forcing my reason to accept things I do not understand. Nevertheless I felt an ardent longing to direct my life towards what was good, according to a disinterested ideal. Moreover, by her words and example my mother had embued me with such a strong sense of my duty towards God and the Church, that my doubts caused me great pain, and I struggled hard against them. My mother was a saint. Every act of her life was in harmony with her faith. This also influenced me strongly. And then I knew that the greatest sorrow of her life had been my father's unbelief. I met you, loved you, married you, and I was strengthened in my resolve to become as you are in matters of religion, because I believed you were as my mother was. Then, little by little, I discovered you are not like my mother. Shall I go on?"

"Yes, to the end!"

"I discovered you were kindness itself, that you had the warmest, most generous heart in the world, but that your faith and your religious practices rendered these treasures almost useless. You did not strive! You were satisfied to love me, the child, Italy, your flowers, your music, the beauty of the lake and the mountains. In this you followed your heart. As to a higher ideal, it was sufficient for you to believe and to pray. Without this faith and without these prayers you would have given the fire that is in your soul to that which is surely true, which is surely just in this world, you would have felt the same need to be doing that I feel. You are well aware, are you not, what I could have wished you to be in certain things? For example, who feels patriotism more keenly than you do? Surely no one. Well, I could have wished to see you endeavour to serve your country seriously, and according to your strength. Now you are indeed going to Piedmont, but your principal reason for doing so is that we have hardly anything left to live upon."

Franco, frowning angrily, made an impatient gesture of protest. "If you wish it I will stop," Luisa said humbly.

"No, no. Go on! Let us have the whole of it! It will be better!"

He spoke so excitedly, so angrily, that Luisa was silent, and it was only after a second, "Go on!" that she continued.

"Without going to Piedmont there would have been enough to do here in Valsolda, in Val Porlezza, in Vall' Intelvi; what V. does on the Lake of Como, communicating with different people, keeping the right spirit alive, preparing all that must be prepared against the coming of war, if, indeed, it ever comes. I used to tell you so, but you would not be convinced, you saw so many difficulties in the way. This sluggishness fostered my repugnance to your conception of religion, and my tendency towards another conception. For I also felt myself intensely religious. The conception of religion which was gradually shaping itself clearly in my mind was, in substance, as follows: God really exists, and is powerful and wise as you believe, but He is perfectly indifferent to our adoration of Him, and prayers to Him. What He demands of us is what we may learn from the heart he has formed for each one of us, from the conscience He has given us, from the surroundings in which He has placed us. He wishes us to love all that is good, to hate all that is evil, to labour with all our strength, according to this love and this hatred, and to occupy ourselves exclusively with the things of this world, with things we can comprehend, that can be felt! Now you will understand what my idea really is of my duty, of our duty, in the face of all injustice, all tyranny!"

The further she went in this definition, this exposure of her own views, the greater was the relief she experienced in so doing, in being perfectly sincere at last, in frankly taking her stand on her own firm ground, and gradually all indignation against her husband died down within her, and in her heart there arose a tender pity for him.

"Indeed," she added, "if it had been only this trouble about your grandmother, do you think I would not rather have sacrificed my own opinion a thousand times, rather than grieve you? There was something else underlying that. Now you know all. Now I have laid my bare soul in your hands."

She read dull pain and hostile coldness on her husband's brow. She rose and moved towards him very slowly, with clasped hands, gazing at him, seeking his eyes, which avoided hers, and then halted on the way, repulsed by some higher power, for he had neither spoken nor made a gesture.

"Franco!" she entreated, "can you no longer love me?"

He did not answer.

"Franco! Franco!" she cried, stretching out her clasped hands. Then she started to move forward. He drew back with a rapid movement. Thus they stood in silence, face to face, for half a minute that seemed an eternity.

Franco's lips were pressed tight together, and she could hear his quick breathing. It was he who broke the silence.

"What you have said is exactly what you feel?"

"Yes!"

His hands were clutching the back of a chair. He shook it violently, saying bitterly: "Enough!" Luisa looked at him with inexpressible sadness, and murmured: "Enough?" He answered angrily, "Enough, enough, enough!" After a moment's silence he went on harshly: "I may be indolent, sluggish, selfish, anything you like, but I am not a boy to be soothed by a couple of caresses after all you have said to me. Enough, I tell you!"

"Oh, Franco! I know I have hurt you, but it has cost me so much, having to hurt you! Can't you take me kindly?"

"Ah, take you kindly, indeed! You wish to be free to inflict any wound, and then expect to be taken kindly! You are superior to every one else! You judge, you pass sentence, you alone understand what God wishes and what He does not wish? But this at least I will not have! Say whatever you like about me, but let those things you do not understand alone. You had better be working on your boot!"

He was determined to see only pride in his wife, while his own anger was born almost wholly of pride, of outraged self-esteem; it was an impure anger which darkened his brain and his heart. Both husband and wife would have acknowledged the justice of any other accusation sooner than that of pride.

She silently resumed her seat and tried to resume her work as well, but she handled the tools nervously without really knowing what she was doing. Franco went into the hall, banging the door behind him.

It was very cold in the darkness of the hall which had been unoccupied since five o'clock, but Franco did not notice this. He threw himself upon the sofa, giving himself up entirely to his grief, to his anger, to an easy and violent mental defence of himself against his wife. As Luisa had rebelled against God and against himself--though indeed she had made a distinction--he now found it convenient to make common cause in his heart with that other mute and terrible One whom she had offended. At first astonishment, bitterness, rage, good reasons and bad, formed a whirling tempest in his brain. Then he found relief for his feelings in imagining Luisa's repentance, her prayers for forgiveness, and his own magnanimous answers.

Suddenly he heard Maria screaming and crying. He rose to go and see what had happened, but he was without a light. He waited a moment thinking Luisa would go out, but he did not hear her move, and the child was screaming louder than ever. Very softly he went towards the parlour, and looked in through the glass door.

Luisa had hidden her face in her arms, which were crossed on the table, and the light of the candle revealed only her beautiful dark hair. Franco felt his anger cooling, he opened the door, and called softly, his tone still gently severe: "Luisa, Maria is crying." Luisa raised her face, which was very pale, took the candle and went out without a word. Her husband followed her. They found the child sitting up in bed bathed in tears; a dream had frightened her. When she saw her father she stretched out her arms to him. "Not go away, papa, not go away!" she entreated, her voice big with tears. Franco pressed her in his arms, covered her with kisses, soothed her, and then put her back into her little bed. But she clung tightly to one of her father's hands, and could not be prevailed upon to let it go.

Luisa took another candle from the table and tried to light it, but her hands shook so she did not succeed. "Are you not coming to bed?" Franco asked. "No," she said, trembling more violently than ever. Franco thought he divined a supposition, a fear in her, and was offended. "Oh, you can come!" he said angrily. Luisa lighted her candle and said, more calmly, that she must work on the little shoes. She went out, and only on the threshold did she murmur: "Good-night." "Good-night," Franco answered coldly. For a moment he thought he would undress, but he presently relinquished his intention because his wife was still up, and at work. He spread back the coverlet and lay down in his clothes, on the side of the bed next to the child, that he might hold Maria's little hand--she had not yet gone to sleep--and put out the light.

What sweetness in the touch of that dear, tiny hand! Franco felt her the little child she was, his daughter, the innocent, loving baby, and then he imagined her a woman, her heart all his, united to him in every thought, every sentiment, and he fancied the little hand that pressed his was striving to compensate him for all that Luisa had made him suffer, and was saying: "Papa, you and I are united for ever!" Good God! he shuddered at the thought that Luisa might wish to bring her up in her own way of thinking, and that he, being far away, would be powerless to prevent this. He prayed to God, to the Virgin Mary, to the saintly grandmother Teresa, to his own mother, who, he was well aware, had been so pure and so pious. "Watch over my Maria, watch over her!" he murmured. He offered to sacrifice his whole being, his earthly happiness, his health, even life itself, that Maria might be saved from error.

"Papa," said the child, "a kiss."

He leaned out of bed, and, bending down, sought the dear little face in the dark, and told her to be quiet, to go to sleep. She was silent for a moment, and then called--

"Papa!"

"What is it?"

"I haven't got the mule under my pillow, you know, papa."

"No, no, dear, but now go to sleep."

"Yes, papa, I am going to sleep."

Once more she was silent for a moment and then said--

"Is mamma in bed, papa?"

"No, dear."

"Why not?"

"Because she is making little shoes for you."

"Shall I wear shoes in heaven also, like great grandfather?"

"Hush! Go to sleep."

"Tell me a story, papa."

He tried, but he had neither Luisa's imagination nor her skill, and soon came to a stand-still. "Oh, papa!" said Maria, in a compassionate tone, "you don't know how to tell stories."

This was humiliating. "Listen, listen!" he answered, and began reciting a ballad by Carrer, always going back to the beginning after the first four lines, which were all he knew of it, his expression becoming ever more mysterious, his voice ever fainter, until it was only an inarticulate murmur, and thus at last Signorina Missipipi, lulled by the rhythm of the lines, passed with them into the world of dreams. When he heard her sleeping peacefully it seemed to him he was so cruel to leave her, he felt himself such a traitor, that he wavered in his resolve. He at once controlled himself, however.

The sweet dialogue with the child had greatly soothed him and raised his spirits. He began to be conscious of an imperative duty towards his wife which would henceforth be incumbent upon him. He must show himself a man, both in will and in deed, and this at the cost of any sacrifice. He must defend his faith against her by his works, by leaving home, by labour and suffering; and then--and then--if Almighty God should see fit to allow the cannon to roar for Italy, he must push ever to the front; and let the Austrian ball come, if it but teach her to weep and pray at last!

He remembered that he had not said his evening prayers. Poor Franco, he had never been able to say them in bed without dropping off to sleep before they were half finished. Feeling comparatively calm, and reflecting that it might perhaps be some time before Luisa came to bed, he feared he should go to sleep, and what would she say if she found him sleeping? He rose very softly and said his prayers; then he lighted the candle and sat down at the writing-desk, intending to read, but presently he fell asleep in his chair.

* * * * *

He was aroused by the beat of Veronica's wooden shoes on the stairs. Luisa was not yet come. Soon, however, she entered the room, and expressed no surprise at seeing Franco already up.

"It is four o'clock," she said. "If you intend to start, you have only half an hour's time." He must leave home at half-past four, to be sure of reaching Menaggio in time for the first boat coming from Colico. Instead of going to Como and thence to Milan as had been officially announced, Franco was to leave the steamer at Argegno and go up to S. Fedele, coming down into Switzerland by Val Mara or by Orimento and Monte Generoso.

Franco signed to his wife to be quiet, that she might not disturb Maria. Then with another silent gesture he called her to him.

"I am going," he said. "Last night I was harsh with you. I beg you to forgive me. I should have answered you differently, even though I was in the right. You know my temperament. Forgive me! At least, do not let us part in anger."

"For my part I feel none," Luisa answered gently, as one who finds it easy to condescend, because he feels himself superior.

The final preparations were made in silence; breakfast was eaten in silence. Franco went to embrace the uncle to whom he had not said good-bye the night before; then he returned to the alcove-room alone, and kneeling beside the little bed, touched with his lips a tiny hand that was hanging over the edge. Upon returning to the parlour he found Luisa in shawl and hat, and asked if she were going to Porlezza also. Yes, she was going. Everything was ready. Luisa had the handbag, the valise was in the boat, and Ismaele was waiting on the stairs of the boathouse, one foot on the step, the other on the prow of the boat.

Veronica accompanied the travellers with a light, and wished her master a pleasant journey, with a crestfallen expression, for she had an inkling of the quarrel.

Two minutes later and the heavy boat, pushed forward by Ismaele's slow and steady "travelling strokes," was passing beneath the wall of the kitchen-garden. Franco put his head out of the little window. The rose-bushes, the caper-bushes, and the aloes hanging from the wall, passed slowly in the pale light of this starry but moonless night; then the orange-trees, the medlar, and the pine slipped by. Good-bye! Good-bye! They passed the cemetery, the _Zocca di Maine_, the narrow lane where he had so often walked with Maria, the Tavorell. Franco no longer watched. The light that usually burned in the little cabin was not there to-night, and he could not see his wife, who was silent.

"Are you going to Porlezza about those papers of the notary's, or simply to accompany me?" he said.

"This too!" Luisa murmured sadly. "I tried to be strictly honest with you, and you took offence. You ask my forgiveness, and now you say such things as this to me. I see that one cannot be faithful to truth without great, great suffering. But patience! I have chosen that path now. You will know soon whether I really came on your account or not. Do not humble me by making me say so now."

"_Do not humble me!_" Franco exclaimed. "I do not understand. We are indeed different in so many ways. My God, how different we are! You are always so completely mistress of yourself, you can always express your thoughts so exactly, they are always so clear, so cool."

Luisa murmured: "Yes, we are different."

Neither spoke again until they reached Cressogno. When they were near the Marchesa's villa Luisa began to talk, and tried to keep the conversation alive until they should have left the villa behind. She asked him to repeat to her the itinerary that had been arranged for his journey, and suggested that he take only his handbag with him, for the valise would be a burden from Argegno on. She had already spoken to Ismaele about it, and he had promised to carry it to Lugano and send it on to Turin from that place. Meanwhile they had passed his grandmother's villa.

Now the sanctuary of Caravina came in sight. Twice during their courtship Franco and Luisa had met under those olive-trees, at the _festa_ of Caravina, on the eighth of September. And now the dear little church in its grove of olives, beneath the awful rocks of the peak of Cressogno, was left behind also. Farewell, little church. Farewell to the past!

"Remember," Franco said, almost harshly, "that Maria is to say her prayers every morning and evening. It is an order I give you."

"I should have made her do so without this order," Luisa answered. "I know Maria does not belong to me alone."

Then they were silent all the way to Porlezza. Coming forth from the tranquil bay of Valsolda, seeing other valleys, other horizons, the lake just rippled by the first breath of dawn, the two travellers were drawn towards other thoughts, were led to think, without knowing why, of the uncertain future, which must bring great events, of which prophetic whisperings already circulated mysteriously through the heavy Austrian silence. Some one called out from the shore at Porlezza, and Ismaele began to row rapidly. It was the driver, Toni Pollin, who was shouting to them to make haste if they wished to catch the steamer at Menaggio.

The last moments had come. Franco let down the window in the little door, and looked at the man as if he were most anxious not to lose a word.

When they touched the shore he turned to his wife. "Are you going to get out also?" "If you wish it," she said. They alighted. A cabriolet stood ready on the shore. "By the way," said Luisa, "you will find some lunch in your bag." They embraced, exchanging a cold and rapid kiss in the presence of three or four curious bystanders "Try and make Maria forgive me for leaving her thus," said Franco, and they were his last words, for Toni Pollin was hurrying them: "Quick, quick!" The horse started off at a brisk trot, and the cabriolet rattled noisily, with a great snapping of the whip, through the dark and narrow street of Porlezza.

* * * * *

Franco was on board the _Falcon_ between Campo and Argegno when he thought of his lunch. He opened the bag, and his heart gave a bound as he perceived a letter bearing as an address the words "For You" in his wife's hand. He tore it open eagerly, and read as follows--

"If you only knew what I am experiencing in my soul, how I am suffering, how sorely I am tempted to lay aside the little shoes--in the making of which I am far less skilful than you think--and to go to you, taking back all I have said, you would not be so harsh with me. I must have sinned deeply against truth, that the first steps I now take in following her are so difficult, so bitter.

"You think me proud, and I believed myself very sensitive, but now I feel that your humiliating words alone could not have kept me from hastening to you. What holds me back is a Voice within me, a Voice stronger than I am, which commands me to sacrifice everything save my consciousness of truth.

"Ah! I hope this sacrifice may bring its reward! I hope that one day there may be a perfect union between our two souls.

"I am going into the garden to gather for you that brave little rose we admired together the other day, the little rose that has challenged and conquered January. Do you remember how many obstacles lay between us the first time I received a flower from your hand? I was not yet in love with you, but you already dreamt of winning me. Now it is I who hope to win you!"

Franco came near letting the steamer pass Argegno without moving from his seat.