Chapter XVII: The Cyclamen

Magnani ceased to speak, and it did not occur to Michel to question him. But at last the young painter, coming to himself, asked his friend for the rest of his story.

"My story is at an end," replied Magnani. "Ever since that day I have been admitted to the palace as a workman. I have often seen the princess, but I have never spoken to her."

"How does it happen, then, that you love her? for you do not know her? you do not know her real opinions?"

"I thought that I had guessed them. But, during this last week, when she has seemed inclined to emerge suddenly from her tomb, throw open her house, and take part in social life; especially to-day, when she has been going about and conversing familiarly with people of our station, with kindly words and cordial invitations--for I overheard the conversation that you had with her and the Marquis della Serra on the main staircase; I was close at hand,--I no longer know what to think of her. Yes, even recently I thought that I had fathomed her character. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, I have come here with other workmen, I have seen her pass from time to time, walking slowly, with an absent-minded, melancholy, yet perfectly tranquil air. If she sometimes seemed downcast and distressed, the serenity of her glance was not disturbed. She always bowed to us collectively with greater courtesy than persons of her rank ordinarily show to us. Sometimes she would exchange with the master upholsterer or my father a few pleasant words, equally free from pride and from warmth. She seemed to feel an instinctive respect for their years. I was the only young workman admitted to her house, but she never seemed to pay the slightest attention to me. She did not avoid my glances, but met them without seeing them.

"At certain times, however, I noticed that she saw many more things than she seemed to see; and that people who complained, even when she did not seem to hear them, obtained justice or help at once, without knowing whose was the mysterious hand put forth over them. You see, she conceals her boundless charity as other people conceal their shameful selfishness. And you ask me how it happens that I love her! Her virtue arouses my admiration, and the dumb despair which seems to be crushing her inspires in my heart profound and affectionate compassion. To admire and to pity--is not that to adore? The pagans, who have left so many magnificent ruins on our soil, sacrificed to their gods, all radiant with strength and glory and beauty; but they did not love them; and we Christians have felt the light of faith pass from our minds into our hearts, because God was shown to us in the guise of a bleeding, tear-bedewed Christ. Ah! yes, I do love that woman, who has paled, like a flower of the woods, beneath the terrible shadow of paternal tyranny. I do not know the story of her infancy, but I divine the misery of her girlhood. They say that, when she was fourteen, her father, being unable to force her to marry in accordance with the views dictated by his pride and ambition, to which he proposed to sacrifice her, confined her for a long time in a secluded room of yonder palace, and that she suffered there from hunger, thirst, heat, neglect, and despair. Nothing definite has ever been known about it. Another version of the story also gained currency; it was said that she was in a convent; but the terror-stricken air of her servants said plainly enough that her disappearance was a part of some unjust and unnatural punishment.

"When Dionigi died, his heiress reappeared in the palace, with an old aunt who was little better than he, but who allowed her to breathe a little more freely. They say that at that time again she had several brilliant offers of marriage, but that she obstinately refused, thereby much angering the princess, her aunt. Her death put an end at last to her niece's persecutions, and at the age of twenty she found herself alone and free in the house of her fathers. But it was evidently too late for her to rouse from the state of prostration to which so much sorrow had brought her. She had lost the strength and the desire to be happy. She was torpid, a little inclined to be morose, and seemingly incapable of inviting the affection of others. She gained the affection, however, of some persons of her own rank, and it is certain that the Marquis della Serra, whom she refused to marry when he entered the lists several years ago, has never ceased to love her ardently. Everybody says so, and I know it; I will tell you how.

"Although I pride myself, without undue boasting, on being a good workman, I confess that when I am in the palace, I am, in spite of myself, the slowest of the slow. I am excited and perturbed. The ring of the hammers irritates my nerves, as if I were a silly girl; I am overcome by the heat at the slightest exertion with my arms. Every moment of the time I either have a feeling that I am going to faint, or am tempted to creep into dark corners, crouch there out of sight, and allow myself to be left behind. I surprise myself listening, prowling, spying. I no longer dare to go into the princess's oratory or her bedroom alone. Oh! no; although I know the road perfectly well. My respect is stronger now than my insane and restless passion! But if I can breathe the perfume that escapes through the chinks of the door of her boudoir; if I can hear, even at a distance, the sound of her light footsteps, which I know so well--then I am content, I am drunk with joy.

"Thus I have heard, I dare not say involuntarily--for if chance placed me within earshot, my will was not strong enough to prevent me from listening,--more than one interview between the princess and the marquis. How often have I been consumed by frantic jealousy? but I have acquired certain knowledge that he is only her friend, a loyal, respectful, submissive friend.

"One day, among others, they had a conversation, every word of which, I believe, is engraved with fatal distinctness on my memory.

"The princess was saying when I entered the adjoining room:

"'Oh! why question me so persistently? You know, my friend, that I am absurdly impressionable; that the thought of the past freezes my blood, and that, if I could make up my mind to speak of it--I believe, yes, I believe that I should go mad!'

"'Very well, very well,' he cried, 'let us not speak of it, let us be content with our tranquil friendship. Look at that lovely sky and those sweet cyclamens, which seem to smile in your hands.'

"'These flowers do not smile,' she replied, 'you do not understand their language, and I can tell you why I love them. It is because they are in my eyes the emblem of my life and the image of my heart. See how curiously limp they are; they are pure and fresh and fragrant; but is there not something unhealthy and decrepit in the inversion and unnatural upturning of their petals?'

"'It is true,' said the marquis, 'they have a sort of dishevelled look; they grow as a general rule on windswept peaks. One would say that they were trying to fly away from their stalks as if there were nothing to hold them, and that nature had provided them with wings like butterflies.'

"'And yet they do not fly away,' continued the princess; 'they are firmly attached to their stalks. Although apparently fragile, there are no hardier plants, and the most violent winds never strip them of their petals. While the rose succumbs to a hot day, and strews the burning earth with its leaves, the cyclamen is obstinate, and lives many days and nights in retirement, and, as it were, shrunken into itself: it is a flower that has no youth. You probably have never seen it just as it is opening. I have patiently watched that mysterious process; when the bud opens, the petals are rolled tightly together and separate with an effort. The first one that frees itself stretches out like a bird's wing, then throws itself backward and resumes its twisted position. Another follows, and the flower, almost before it is open, is already tremulous and wrinkled, as if it were about to die of old age. That is its way of living, and it lives a long while so. Ah! it is a melancholy flower, and that is why I carry it everywhere.'

"'No, no, it does not resemble you,' said the marquis, 'for its uncovered breast exhales its fragrance freely to all the winds of heaven, whereas your heart is mysteriously closed, even to the most discreet and least exacting affection!'

"They were interrupted; but I knew enough. Ever since that day, I too have loved the cyclamen, and I always cultivate it in my little garden; but I dare not pluck the flowers and smell them. Their odor makes me ill and drives me mad!"

"It is the same with me," said Michel. "Yes, it is a dangerous odor! But I no longer hear the carriages, Magnani. Doubtless the palace will soon be closed. I must go and join my father, for he must be tired out, whatever he may say, and he may need my help."

They walked in the direction of the ball-room. It was deserted; Visconti and his fellow-servants were extinguishing the candles which were still carrying on the struggle against the daylight.

"Why this fête after all?" said Magnani, as he glanced about that immense hall, whose height seemed to be doubled by the darkness overhead, while the bluish rays of dawn crept sadly into the lower portions through the open doors. "The princess might have helped the poor in other ways, and I cannot yet understand why she submitted to make this public demonstration of charity when she had always done good so mysteriously hitherto. What miraculous change has taken place in our reserved benefactress's existence? Instead of rejoicing at it, I, although I would give my life for her, am hurt by it, and cannot think of it without bitterness. I loved her as she was; I cannot understand her when she is cured, consoled, and effusive. Is everybody to know her and to love her now? People will no longer say that she is mad, that she once committed a crime, that she is concealing a horrible secret, that she is ransoming her soul by pious works, although she detests mankind! Madman that I am! I am afraid of being cured myself, and I am jealous of the happiness that she may have recovered! Tell me, Michel, do you suppose that she has made up her mind to love the Marquis della Serra, and that she will invite the court, the city, and the country, to celebrate her betrothal magnificently under her own roof? She gave a royal fête to-day; perhaps she will give a popular fête to-morrow. She is making her peace with everybody; great and small will make merry at her wedding! Ah! there will be dancing there! what fun for us, eh? and how kind the princess is!"

Michel remarked his companion's bitterness and irony; but although he was conscious of a thrill of strange emotion at the idea of Agatha's marriage to the marquis, he put all the more restraint upon himself. He, too, had been struck to the heart, but the shock was too recent for him to dare, or to deign, to give the name of love to his feeling. Magnani's madness served as a warning to him. He pitied him, but there seemed to him to be in that young man's abnormal position something humiliating to which he did not choose to subject himself.

"Come to your senses, my friend," he said. "Such a beautiful fête, at night, has a tendency to excite one, especially when one is only a spectator. But here comes the sun above the horizon, and it should dispel all phantoms and all visions. I feel as if I had just waked from a fantastic dream. Listen! The birds are singing outside; there is nothing here but dust and smoke. I am very sure that your madness is not so absorbing every hour of your life as you fancy at this moment of excitement and unreserve. I will wager that when you have slept two hours you will return to your work feeling like a different man. For my part, I already feel the salutary effect of real life, and I promise you that the next time we see the spectre pass close to us, I will not try to dispute her glance with you."

"Her glance!" cried Magnani, bitterly, "her glance! Ah! you remind me of the glance she bestowed upon you, before the ball opened, the first time she saw your face. My God! what an expression! If it had fallen upon me, just once in my life, I would have killed myself instantly, in order not to live any more upon certainty and cold reason, after such an illusion, such delirious joy. And you, Michel, felt the consuming fire that she communicated to you. You were scorched by it for an instant, and, but for my mockery, you would still gloat over it with rapture. But what does it matter to me now? I see clearly that she has lost her mind; that she has deprived her solitary sorrow of its sanctity; that she loves someone, you or the marquis--what matter which? Why this special display of friendship for your father, whom she hardly knew a year ago? My father has worked for her ever since she was born, and she barely knows his name. Does she propose to cap the climax of her eccentric life by an act of downright insanity? Does she propose to atone for her father's tyranny and unpopularity by marrying a child of the people--a mere boy?"

"You are the one who is mad," said Michel, disturbed and almost angry. "Go and get a breath of fresh air, Magnani, and don't involve me in the vagaries that your excitement suggests to you. Signora Agatha is sleeping peacefully at this moment, remembering neither your name nor mine. If she honored me with a kindly glance, it was because she loves painting and is pleased with my work.--Look, my friend," added the young artist, pointing to the figures of his fresco, upon which a rosy beam of the morning sun shone through the open windows. "There are the only intoxicating realities of my life. Let the lovely princess marry the Marquis della Serra. I shall be very glad; he is a courteous gentleman, and I like his face. I, when I choose, will paint a more perfect and less problematical divinity than the pale-cheeked Agatha."

"You, wretched boy? Never!" exclaimed Magnani, indignantly.

"I agree that she is beautiful," rejoined Michel, with a smile. "I have scrutinized her, and I have profited by that scrutiny. I have obtained from her all that I should never ask her for, the spectacle of her grace and her charms, to reproduce them and idealize them at my pleasure."

"I have always been told that artists had hearts of ice," said Magnani, staring at Michel in blank amazement. "You have seen the storm which drives me wild, and you remain cold--you laugh at me! Ah! I blush to think that I have betrayed my madness to you, and I am going away to hide my head!"

Magnani disappeared, frantic with excitement, and Michel was left alone in the almost deserted ball-room. Visconti was extinguishing the last candles, and Pier-Angelo, before taking his leave, was assisting to restore order temporarily in that structure which was to be entirely removed before evening.

Michel also assisted, but languidly. His own reflections having cooled his excitement, he felt utterly exhausted, mentally and physically.

Magnani's abrupt outbreak disturbed him. He reproached himself because, after undergoing in silence the rebound of the young mechanic's agitation, he had not succeeded better in sympathizing with his trouble, but had allowed him to go away uncomforted. On the other hand, he could not avoid a slight feeling of irritation. It seemed to him that Magnani had carried his effusiveness too far in seeking to convince him that he, Michel, was the object of a sudden passion on the part of the princess. It was so absurd, so improbable, that Michel, who was more self-possessed, more of a man of the world at eighteen than Magnani could ever be, shrugged his shoulders pityingly.

And yet, self-esteem is such a persistent and impertinent adviser that Michel now and again heard a voice within him saying: "Magnani has guessed aright. Jealousy gives him a keenness of vision which you yourself have not. Agatha loves you; she took fire at first sight. And why should she not love you?"

Michel was intoxicated and abashed at once by these flushes of vanity which rose to his cheeks. He was in haste to return home and recover his tranquillity altogether with sleep. And yet he desired to wait for his father, who was still at work, zealous and indefatigable, attending to a thousand minute details, a thousand apparently unnecessary precautions.

"Patience!" said the excellent Pier-Angelo. "I shall have finished in a minute; but I want our dear princess to be able to sleep in peace, and I don't propose that anybody shall come here and make a racket before to-night. Above all things, I don't propose to leave a single candle lighted in any corner. Now is the time when there is most danger of fire! Look! that idiot of a Visconti has left the lamp in the grotto burning; I can see it from here. Go and put it out, Michel, and take care not to spill oil on the couch."

Michel went into the grotto of the naiad; but, before extinguishing the lamp, he could not resist the temptation to gaze for a moment at the beautiful statue, the lovely foliage with which he had decorated it, and the couch whereon he had seen Agatha as in a dream. "How young she looked and how lovely she was!" he thought; "and how that man who loves her gazed at her, with an adoration which betrayed itself in spite of him, and which infected the most immaterial portion of my heart! I noticed others during the ball who stared at her with an insolence born of desire, which made my whole being quiver with indignation! All these great nobles love her, each in his own way, and she loves no one of them!"

And Agatha's glance passed through his memory like a lightning-flash, its dazzling brilliancy putting to flight all reason, all fear of ridicule, all self-distrust.

While musing thus, he had extinguished the lamp, and had sunk upon the cushions of the divan, expecting that his father would call him and that he might enjoy one last moment of comfort before leaving that fascinating grotto.

But fatigue overpowered him. He could contend no longer against the chimeras of his imagination. Half-reclining comfortably on the couch, and alone for the first time in twenty-four hours, he rapidly lost consciousness. For one moment he dreamed with his eyes open. The next moment he was sleeping soundly.