“Still you were expecting some one?”
“I?” she said; “I? No. I never expect any one.”
There was something grievous in her words which the man, blind, deaf, and insensible to other impressions which were not his own, did not notice.
“I see two cups here,” he pointed, raising his eyebrows.
“One is clean!” she exclaimed, with a burst of laughter meant to be jolly, but really gloomy.
“Yes; but the servant has brought two. He must know something, that fellow; when I am hunting he brings two cups; he is bound to know something.”
“Ask him, Emilio, ask him,” she said gleefully, with an increasingly mischievous laugh.
“I shall do it, don’t doubt,” he said harshly; “but all the servants I pay here adore you far toomuch. Hence they lie; they lie, the whole lot of them, and I shall never know all the truth.”
“Oh, poor Emilio!” she exclaimed, pitying him, but without any tenderness.
Emilio Guasco’s eyes blazed with anger; for an instant his face became almost livid. He advanced with his heavy, dirty boots on the delicate carpet, and in a vibrant and subdued accent, restraining himself with an effort, but placing in every word, pronounced almost through his closed teeth, all the hidden tempest of his tortured spirit—
“Tell me why you have compassion on me? Why ever you pity me? Do I seem very ridiculous to you? You laugh at me in your mind, it is true, and in speaking to me pretend to have pity on me.”
Maria was silent, with an air of glacial detachment on her face, nor did she deign to reply to him. He sat on a chair near her, lowered his head, so that speaking very softly she could hear him well, and continued—
“It is you, you know it, who are making me ill or mad: you have no right to laugh at me. I have no right to accept your compassion. You are my enemy. I am sick of you, of your presence, of your contact. You have been my scourge. I have always thought everything of being calm and content, if not happy. You appeared in my life, and my peace has been destroyed and every joy.”
She leant her head against the back of the chair, on the little cushion in the form of a heart, kept her lips closed, and the eyes slightly contracted, her hands on the arms of the chair, like a person making a great effort internally to restrain herself, not to reply, not to rebel, to listen to the last word of what was thrown in her face.
“Yes, it is so,” he added fiercely, but subduedly; “no evil, no disaster, could devastate my existence worse than you. It would have been better if I had died on the day I knew you”—and he abandoned himself on the seat heavily, so that it cracked beneath his weight.
She opened her eyes, and looked at the disturbed brownish face without any emotion, and that great body on its chair, and asked quietly—
“Am I then, Emilio, as you say, an enemy of yours?”
He started, darted a contemptuous glance at her, and replied—
“Yes, an enemy of mine.”
“Does my presence exasperate you?”
“It exasperates me; that’s the word!”
“My contact causes you horror?”
“You know it,” he replied, looking peculiarly at her.
Maria understood in a flash to what Emilio was alluding. She grew pale, and then blushed violently, her eyes for a minute filled with tears which offended pride placed there, and which pride’s flame absorbed at once. The injurious word, the ferocious word of outrage, which was about to be disgorged from her lips, the mortal horror she had had of her husband on the night of suffering and pain, in which he had wished to possess her only by a cruel instinct of possession, a ferocious instinct of jealousy, and after fleeing from her like a madman she had nearly died of shame and sorrow; the word which would have expressed her womanly horror she had the extreme pity not to pronounce. Then he understood by that face where her lively expressions were depicted, by the eyes which had nearly poured out the rare and scorching tears which her wounded pride snatched from her soul, by the quick breathing in which she seemed to have repressed her cry of rebellion, he understood that in evoking that recollection he had made the disagreement between them deeper and more invincible.
“I loved you—do love you perhaps,” he murmured, almost speaking to himself. “I believe it is so. But your contact causes me horror.”
Every time he repeated the phrase fatal in its truth, insulting in its brutality, he made a material movement of repulsion. Every time, too, this expression made the woman’s face colour in an impetus of anger. Then mastering herself with the singular courage of a strong soul, she answered him with a proud calmness.
“Don’t delude yourself, dear Emilio, that youlove me; love is quite another thing. I know that. You do me the honour, like any other man, even now, of desiring me; that is all. That would be very flattering to me if this desire of yours—in fact it would be very simple, very common and quite trivial—were not overcome by the horror with which my desired and repugnant person inspires you. Would you tell me why, if you don’t mind—out of simple curiosity, my friend, nothing else—I cause you horror: now why?”
Gradually Maria’s tone became more disingenuous and frivolous, as if it were a question of a fashionable conversation of very relative interest, yes, although she was hearing words which tortured still more her throbbing soul.
Emilio raised his eyebrows. He knew quite well how much more intelligent, finer, and braver Maria’s character was than his, and how he had almost struck her by reminding her of that night of violence and sorrow, after which they had been divided like two enemies. Now he felt he was in her power, which was loftier for defence, and better adapted to conquer her own and another’s soul. Not attempting to wrestle with her, as with truth itself in all its harshness and vulgarity, he replied in a low voice without looking at her—
“You cause me horror, because I can’t forget.”
“What, please?” she asked, toying with her emerald rings.
“Your betrayal; your flight with Marco Fiore;your three years’ life with him. It is impossible to forget all this, and this recollection scorches me like a red-hot iron.”
“Still,” she said, with some disingenuousness, and the same frivolity in which she had kept up the conversation politely from the beginning, “still you desired my return to your house.”
“I confess it; I ardently desired it.”
“You condescended, then, to pardon an unfaithful wife,” she concluded, with a gracious and slight smile, a conventional smile to conclude a worldly discourse.
“It is true, I pardoned you,” he replied, still more gloomily: “but I repented of it at once; I repent it every day.”
“You think you made a mistake?”
“Much more than a mistake; far more than a mistake!” he exclaimed, raising his voice suddenly.
She motioned to him courteously with her hand, just as if she were asking him to talk more quietly in a room where music was being played.
“I committed a cowardice in pardoning you. I was a fool and a coward. Every one laughs at me; every one. You yourself will laugh at me. There couldn’t be a bigger fool or coward than I was on that evening.”
Again she grew pale and blushed, as if the blood were moving in waves from the heart to the brain, from the brain to the heart.
“Do you curse that evening?” she asked slowly.
“I curse it every instant, and despise myself for my mistake, for my ineptitude, for my weakness. Every one, every one is laughing at me, who have been dishonoured, who have enjoyed the dishonour, and retaken, as if it were nothing, the woman who inflicted this incancellable dishonour on me.”
“Other men have pardoned like you,” she said slowly, and somewhat absorbed.
“Others! others!” he exclaimed, suddenly touched on the bleeding wound of his heart, “men different, quite different to me. Perhaps they were perfect cynics: I am not cynic enough, and I suffer for my dishonour, as if it were yesterday, as it were to-day. Or perhaps they were simple people. I also am not simple enough; I understand, I know, I measure, and I remember everything. Perhaps they had children, these men, and it was necessary at any cost to recompose the family: we have no children. Or perhaps grave questions of interest came in between; money, you know, money!Thathad nothing to do with that stupid cowardly pardon I gave you that evening; nothing. Certainly, certainly, many men have pardoned their faithless wives, will pardon, and are pardoning them for so many reasons and causes; but I should like to question them one by one, as man to man, alone and with open heart, and you would see the reply would always be the same from however many of them.”
“That is——” she said quietly.
“That it is cowardice to pardon this offence; that one ought not to pardon betrayal in a mistress, but oneneverpardons betrayal in a wife.”
“Is that your idea?”
“It is mine.”
“When you pardoned you didn’t think so. Do you believe that now you can again change your opinion?” she asked, as she strove in vain to hide a little anxiety in the question.
“It is useless,” he replied desolately, “I know myself. I am a straightforward man. I can’t change the idea which for two years has caused me to suffer as I have never suffered. I am too straightforward, and for this I pity you. I can’t change; when one is a man like I am one can’t pardon dishonour and absolve betrayal.”
She lowered her eyes and said no more, though she seemed very calm and indifferent.
“Well?” he said, questioning her anxiously.
“Well?” she questioned in turn.
“Haven’t you anything to say to me?”
“I? No,” she replied simply.
“What is your idea, then?”
“I have none,” she added, with the same simplicity.
“None? Nothing? Does nothing of this matter to you?” he cried, surprised.
“It would matter very much to me, if I could bring you a remedy. Your sufferings once movedme very much, you know, and I believed I could cure them. I have not succeeded. You haven’t wished to know me as a consoler. My mission here has failed completely. Instead of doing you good I am doing you harm. And in exchange you load me every time you can with expressions of your loathing and contempt. What is to be done? There is no remedy.”
“If you had liked, there could have been,” he replied in a low voice.
“Exactly, exactly!” she exclaimed, smiling ironically. “I ought to have had a great passion for you. That was necessary for your jealousy andamour propre—a great passion;” and the smile became more ironical.
“And you did not succeed? Is it not so?” he cried, trembling.
“I haven’t even tried,” she replied, seriously and nobly. “I never returned for that, I never promised it; I couldn’t give it.”
“Then it would have been better not to have returned;” and the man’s fury increased.
“It would have been better,” replied the woman still more austerely.
“It would be better, then, for you to go away,” cried the man, blind with fury.
“It would certainly be better,” she said austerely and finally.
She rose from her seat, crossed the room, and disappeared.
Thelong, strident whistle of the large white steamer, theVierwaldstettersee, had already sounded twice in a vain appeal. The little landing-place at Fluelen was deserted. Every day, from the beginning of July to the middle of September, a varied crowd had arrived from Italy by the trains which cross the wonderful Gothard route, and from Switzerland especially, for familiar excursions to Tellsplatz and Altdorf, to take their places on the boat to cross to the winding flowery shores of the lake of the four cantons, to the large and small summer stations, and to the little villages gleaming white among the trees with their red roofs. But now no longer. It is October; the last travellers one by one have returned to their homes, and Fluelen is deserted. The white steamer, too, has been deserted for a long time, and performs a journey of obligation on a deserted lake among deserted shores.
However, a third call sounded longer, more stridulous and melancholy. A single traveller left the Hôtel de la Poste, directly opposite the landing-place, and approached the gangway with leisurely steps. He was still a young man, talland slender, dressed not only neatly but fashionably. Beneath his hat, which was lowered over his eyes, could be noticed a handsome though slightly delicate physiognomy, a face a little too pale, with very black hair and moustaches, lips still fresh and vivid, and extremely soft eyes of a fascinating softness; but in general the features resulted in firmness and perhaps in obstinacy.
An expression of indifference, and sometimes even of intense boredom, passed over his face. A few paces behind, the hall-porter followed, carrying two large portmanteaux and a travelling-bag. The traveller crossed the gangway alone, and walked to the stern of the steamer, where, wet with moisture, the flag of the Swiss Confederation was hanging. He sat alone on one of the side benches, and slowly lit a cigarette, while the porter deposited the luggage a little way off.
“How long to Lucerne?” he asked, tipping the man.
“Two and a half hours,” replied the man, thanking him.
The steamer had now left the bank, the pilot was at his wheel with eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to penetrate the mist which was spreading and growing thicker. The pilot was a robust little man, firmly planted on two short legs encased in black oilskins, which seemed saturated with humidity. His face was broad and rugged beneath a black cap with a peak. For a little time he wasthe traveller’s only companion, who still sat on the bench, lighting one cigarette after the other, looking at the country now wrapped in clouds, now manifest through the broken edges of the mist with black and rugged rocks, with great stretches of snow in the clefts of the mountains, and in the far-off whiteness of the glaciers. But the glance which he threw around from time to time gave no sign either of curiosity or interest, the signs to be discovered were those of a vague weariness, of a persistent boredom, above all of a resigned and calm indifference.
TheVierwaldstetterseethreaded its way through the grey waters. The white foam broke against the paddle-box, and the wake stretched behind through the mist which seemed to be following the white vessel. Not a human voice sounded on deck beneath the two large awnings from bow to stern. The first station came to view with its little houses on the bank among trees already bare, among little gardens where the flowers were dead, and where the chairs were bathed in moisture. The houses had their doors and windows closed, affording a glimpse, behind the tiny panes, of some little plant drawn in-doors by a provident hand, so as not to let it perish like the other plants; but not a person, not a voice, issued from the houses and gardens of the little square before the landing-place. The Crown Hotel, a little in the background, was hermetically closed. With a precise and methodicalmovement a man from the steamer threw a rope to another man on land, who had suddenly appeared, and bound it to a large wooden pile. The steamer stopped for some minutes, while the whistle sounded stridulously and in vain. The two men exchanged almost empty bags containing the mail. After having whistled, theVierwaldstetterseestarted again amidst the grey mist, quite covered with moisture on its outerwork, brasses, sails and ropes, and dripping moisture from all sides. Every quarter of an hour or twenty minutes the halts were repeated, with the whistling, the throwing of the rope, and the exchange of mail bags, without ever a traveller coming on board. Gradually the solitary traveller had sunk at his place, ceasing from smoking, his gloved hands buried in the pockets of his ulster, his head fallen on his breast, and he himself, like the sky, the landscape, like the lake, and the steamer, seemed wrapped in the greyish mist, now of opaque silver, now transparent.
When half the voyage was over the steamer whistled twice and much longer on nearing a station, and another man in uniform appeared on deck from below, as well as a waiter, both, like everything else, enveloped in moisture. The traveller seemed to be dozing, since he never turned his head on seeing the deck populated with these two persons. The station was Vitznau, that village so crowded and so brilliant and pleasant in summer.It is the village whence the Rhigi is climbed, and is well known to every tourist. Even Vitznau, with its group of denuded trees on its gloomy bank, its two closed hotels, and its solitary funicular station, did not seem different to the other stations touched at. Only while the man threw the rope from the deck, and the other man of that place mechanically tied it, a woman appeared on the landing-place coming from the little funicular station. She was tall and elegant, in spite of the long travelling-cloak which completely covered and enveloped her. With a quiet step she crossed the gangway, climbed the few steps, presented her ticket to the man in uniform, and, walking on deck, sat down on the bench opposite to the other traveller. The man in uniform, while the steamer was drawing away from Vitznau on its course to Lucerne, approached her and asked her something, which she refused with a nod of her head, and after a minute the waiter came up with a question, and she answered him in the same way. Both the man in uniform and the waiter disappeared below.
It was rather difficult to discover the new traveller’s face through her veil, and for some time she kept her head towards the lake, gazing at it. Then she turned towards the steamer. Her glance wandered round and fixed itself on the traveller opposite so intensely, that he seemed to wake from his dream and shake himself from his torpor. Helooked at the new traveller, looked at her much, and looked at her long. They were quite alone on the steamer, which was sailing like a phantom ship upon a lake of dreams and sadness, amidst the incomparably mournful clouds. The man got up and crossed the deck decidedly. He bowed deeply, remaining uncovered before her.
“Are you alone, Maria?”
“Alone, Marco; and are you alone?”
“Most alone.”
Their voices were calm, but so tired.
“May I sit beside you, Maria?” he asked, almost supplicatingly.
“Yes, do,” she replied, with a nod.
He placed himself beside her. Lightly and gently he took her gloved hand and pressed it between his for a minute, placing it to his lips. She bent her face just for a minute. The boat went on; the pilot fixed his eyes still more sharply on the mist, because it was getting late and the grey of sky and lake was becoming darker and even threatening.
“I didn’t know that you were travelling in these parts,” he said, trying to discover her face through her veil.
“Nor I that you were, Marco,” she murmured.
Each looked at the other at the same moment, as if they were about to say the same word to express the same idea thought by both, which each left unpronounced.
“Have you been travelling for some time, Maria?” he asked, after a few minutes’ silence.
“For more than three months, Marco,” she replied wearily.
“Always alone?”
“Always.”
“And where have you been, Maria, always alone? Tell me everything, please.”
Marco questioned her with penetrating sweetness, in which, however, weariness was mixed.
“I have been everywhere,” she replied, and he seemed to notice a tremor in her voice, “everywhere. One can go to a good many places in three months.”
“That’s true,” he added; “I started before you from Rome, a couple of months before.”
“I know, Marco. I was told so. Have you always been alone on your journey?”
“Like you, always.”
“Have you no regret for those you have left behind?” she asked in a still sadder accent.
“I have regret,” he confessed, “for one person only, Maria.”
“For one only?”
“Always for the same person, for her of former days, for her of always—for my mother,” and a rush of tenderness and sorrow pulsated in the words.
She placed her hand on his arm quickly for a moment without speaking, to calm him.
“Still I have left. I am far away, and I don’t want to return!” he exclaimed impetuously.
“Don’t you wish to return? Don’t you wish to?” and the accent had suddenly become spasmodical.
“I don’t wish to,” he rejoined gloomily, with decision.
She shook her head sorrowfully, and looked ahead among the fleeting clouds which were rising from the still waters, as if asking the secret of the riddle from those waves of vapour which were closing in on the horizon. The prow of theVierwaldstetterseewas directed to the last station, towards a little place on the bank, where an occasional tree was still in foliage, where among woods and meadows the white houses, with their red roofs and little windows full of flowers, did not seem so deserted and dead as the others. Two children, dressed in thick woollen as a protection against the Swiss autumn, were playing outside the inn.
“Maria, Weggis,” said Marco, almost in her ear.
“Yes, Weggis,” she replied quietly.
Slowly she raised her white gauze veil over the rim of her hat, showing her graceful, melancholy face, enchanting in every line, from the thoughtful, proud, and yet sweet eyes, to the expressively sorrowful and fresh mouth; showing the face which love had exalted to an invincible beauty, which love had deserted, leaving there all the serene sadnessof things long dead, and all the proud melancholy of a brief, too brief, passion. Marco looked at the face without its veil, and she looked at him with her expression of calm sadness, finding in him singularly the same expression—a death in life, a love dead.
“Weggis,” he murmured, with melancholy, while the boat drew further away towards Lucerne.
“Weggis,” she murmured, with ever greater melancholy.
The image of the little flower-laden spot, where they had lodged modestly one very hot summer in passionate solitude, seemed far away amidst the autumn mists. It grew distant, and disappeared among the things of the past, of time, and of space, like their love had vanished. The gloaming was already descending to render the clouds browner and closer; already a colder and more penetrating breath of air struck the two travellers and caused them to shudder. A line of lights, lit for the approaching evening, stretched itself in the background, indicating the quay-side of Lucerne, and in the twilight the massive and bizarre buildings of hotels and villas grew whiter. Side by side the two travellers looked at the lights, and mechanically rose from their place to leave theVierwaldstettersee, which had already reached the pier. The conductor of the omnibus of the Hôtel National took Marco’s luggage, and after an exchange of words in a low voice threw it on tothe omnibus and drove off with it. The two travellers remained on a bench, bathed in moisture, silently seized by all that was in their souls. They were undecided and rather confused. At last Maria exclaimed, making an attempt to get away, “Good-night, Marco.”
“Where are you going?” he asked sadly and anxiously.
“Up there;” and she pointed to a little hill with her finger.
“Where then?”
“To Sonnenberg; I have been there for two weeks,” she added.
“Won’t you stay a little with me?” he begged anxiously.
“O Marco, don’t ask that!” she exclaimed, turning her head.
“Maria, Maria, remain a little,” he said in his tender voice. “What does a little time matter to you, Maria? What does it matter?”
She recognised that voice of a former time, the voice of moments of desolation, the voice which formerly asked succour when his soul had need of comfort; but it was not the voice of love but of sorrow.
“I am so wretched, and you mustn’t leave me this evening.”
She consented with a nod. Together in the evening’s shade, through the cold dampness which arose from the water, through the roads where nopasser-by made his appearance; over the bridge, dripping in moisture, under whose arches the doves were sleeping; on the promenade, no longer shaded by the luxuriant foliage of the trees; among the lights distorted by the mist, they went towards the large hotel, which also seemed abandoned for some time with its hundred closed windows, with its flowerless gardens, with its iron seats on which no one seemed to have sat for years. The large hall was lit by a single electric lamp. Maria remained standing, looking through the windows vaguely without seeing anything, while Marco was discussing with the secretary. In that brief moment the woman saw Marco again as he used to be, when for months together they proceeded on their pilgrimage of love, and she marvelled that, ever since they had met on the deck of the boat, he had been able to accomplish the same acts; she marvelled that in all their actions they had been as formerly while their souls were so changed.
“Come, Maria,” Marco said, approaching her.
How often she had heard that invitation! She smiled strangely as she followed him, while they went up in the lift and entered a sitting-room, which was immediately illuminated. The waiter silently opened a door on the right and a door on the left, while they appeared not to notice.
“You would like some tea, wouldn’t you, Maria? it is so cold,” Marco asked in the gentleinsinuating voice she recognised in all its modulations.
Maria smiled in consent. She drew a chair to the table and sat down. She untied her veil and drew out the pins from her hat, undid the hooks of her travelling-cloak and appeared in a close-fitting dress of pale mauve, with the usual string of pearls at the neck, which she never left off. Marco followed her with his eyes, and recognised again in Maria the woman he had so often seen make those quiet harmonious gestures. However, he felt that only the movements and the words were the same, but not the ideas and sentiments. But he expressed no surprise at it.
“Give me a cup of tea, dear Maria,” he said, speaking softly. She took off her gloves, poured out the tea and gave him a cup with a smile.
“Where is Sonnenberg, Maria?” he said.
“Over there, Marco, on the hill.”
“How does one get there?”
“It is a few minutes by the funicular.”
“It must be rather a sad place, Maria?”
“Yes, it is a little sad,” she murmured, raising her hair with her fingers.
“Any people there?”
“Oh, no; four of five persons besides myself.”
“Do you bore yourself there, Maria?”
“A little, as everywhere.”
“Are you going to stop there?”
“Yes, I think I shall stop there.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know; I know nothing, Marco,” she said, with a slightly pained expression.
“When will you return to Rome?” he asked, with a greater anxiety than he wished to show.
“I don’t know, I don’t know at all,” she replied monotonously.
“Still, still ... you have somebody there.”
“Somebody,” she repeated, underlining the word, “prefers my absence to my presence.”
“Really; is it really so?” Marco exclaimed.
“Yes,” she replied, with an expansive gesture of her hands.
“Have you left, Maria?”
“I have left. After having commented bitterly and brutally on my departure,somebodylet me go free and alone without asking my itinerary, without asking me when I was returning. It is true he was tormented by my flight, but relieved that I had left alone. He was tortured, I believe, by the idea of not seeing me, of not being able to injure me, of not being able to throw my past in my face, but in fact content that I was far away.”
“And you, Maria?”
“I?” she exclaimed harshly; “I? Probably I shall never return again. Why should I return? I have nothing to do there for the good of any one. I can only do evil there to others and myself. Certainly, Marco, I shall never return—never.”
“Emilio will summon you; he will want you,” he said, with agitation.
“No,” she declared harshly, “he has driven me out.”
“Driven you out, Maria?”
“Not once, but many times, in moments of violence and coldness he said it would have been better if I had never returned. Certainly, certainly, Marco, I shall never return there. I shall go and live alone in a remote corner of the earth, and I shall die there.”
She spoke with vehemence and harshness, but still subduedly; he, too, spoke to her in the same subdued way. Their faces were pale and strained. An immense silence reigned in the deserted summer town and the equally deserted huge hotel. The flames flickered in the grate and the logs crackled.
“Are you so unhappy, Maria?” he said, taking her hand tenderly.
“So unhappy, really so unhappy. I dare not kill myself; and why should I? I should be ridiculous and grotesque. I am ashamed to kill myself. I have nothing to do with my life, really nothing.”
“You were a magnificent lover, Maria!” he exclaimed, with infinite regret.
“A soul of love like you, Marco, a heart of love,” she replied, with the same regret.
“We should have died when our love was over, Maria,” Marco said.
“That is true; we ought to have died then. Wemissed a beautiful death, Marco,” replied Maria gloomily.
“Now it is too late to die, too late.”
“It is too late.”
They were silent, with all the weight of their cold, arid, useless lives, which was weighing down their souls, with all the enormous weight of a dead love, dead after having done all the good which had vanished with it, dead after all the evil which was still living.
“Are you going to stop at Lucerne?” asked Maria at last dreamily.
“A day or two; no more,” he replied, as if awakened from a dream.
“Where shall you go?”
“To far-off countries. To Holland, and Denmark, always to the countries furthest off.”
“Why don’t you stay in Rome?” she asked.
“Not to debase myself under your eyes, Maria,” he replied seriously. “There is nothing left but vice for me, and I am ashamed to defile that which you have loved.”
“Your wife, Vittoria. What of her?”
“She is with my mother.”
“Surely she suffers by your absence?”
“Possibly; less, however, than she does by my presence.”
“Why did she suffer?”
“I suppose she suffered; but she has never told me she did, she never showed me, and I havenever seen her tears. She always repulsed any consolation of mine for this supposed suffering of hers.”
“Poor Vittoria,” murmured Maria.
“She certainly deserves pity,” replied Marco coldly; “but she repulses it.”
“Still she deserved happiness.”
“Certainly; but she repulsed happiness, because she is not capable of being happy.”
“Why did you fly from her?”
“So as not to hate her, Maria; so as not to curse my marriage day as that of my slavery.”
“Are you sure that you have done all your duty as a man, as a friend, as a companion to Vittoria?”
“I am sure of it. I have done beyond my duty as a man, a companion, and a friend. But she didn’t want that, she demanded that I should become her lover.”
“And couldn’t you?”
“No, Maria,” he said seriously, “you know very well, you ought to know very well, that I couldn’t.”
“When shall you return to Rome?”
“I shall never re-enter Rome.”
“Are you in exile, then?”
“It is exile without any time limit.”
“And your mother?”
“I shall see her at Spello where Vittoria does not go, and she will come to Florence. It is very sad, but there it is.”
“And you?”
“If I were poor I should set to work to do something with my faculties and time. Unfortunately I am not even poor. A dissolute life, since I have loved you, fills me with horror.”
“We are two miserables, Marco,” she concluded gloomily; “far away in Rome there are two others more miserable than we are, and neither you nor I can do anything for them.”
“Neither you nor I can do anything for them,” he replied, like a dull echo.
“No one can do anything for any one,” said Maria desperately.
All that was colossal and indestructible in the fatality of existence, in its mysterious and rigorous laws, weighed upon them. In their youth, in their strength and beauty they felt lost and blind, unable to die and unable to live, groping in the shadows, their breasts full of sighs, and their ears closed to the cries of the two who were suffering alone and abandoned in Rome. They felt themselves incapable of being comforted and giving comfort, and they felt as well that their burning tears were useless, just as the tears of the two in Rome were as equally useless and unconsolable.
The woman rose pale and upright.
“I am going, Marco,” she said.
“Can’t I accompany you, Maria?” he begged desolately.
“No, remain here. Let me go.”
“Shan’t I see you to-morrow?”
“Why do you wish to see me?” she asked in a tremulous accent.
“To see the face of a friend, to hear the voice of a friend, not to feel myself so lonely and lost, to-morrow more than ever.”
“O Marco, wouldn’t it be better for us not to see each other to-morrow?” she asked, trembling still more.
“No, Maria, no. You need to see me, you are so lonely and lost. I will look for you to-morrow; and do you promise not to fly from me?”
A trembling seized her, which made her almost hesitate.
“Maria, promise that you won’t fly from me, only then will I let you go?”
“I promise,” she replied weakly.
Onthe morrow a keen and pungent wind had rid the lake of all the vapours and clouds, which had robbed the hills and mountains of their lines and colouring. The sky only was covered with a closely fitting veil of clouds. It was a sky quite white, curving from the zenith to the horizon behind the mountains in an immovable whiteness. Beneath this immense inanimate whiteness the ice of the far-away peaks seemed whiter, and the summits blacker and more rocky. Every now and then a gust of wind crossed the quiet streets of Lucerne, and passed over the waters of the lake, causing long, shuddering ripples, while a flight of pigeons wheeled round the arches of the bridge. At the landing-stage the steamer was whistling on its departure for Fluelen.
It was still early when a carriage brought Marco Fiore to Kriens, the last suburb of Lucerne, at the foot of the Sonnenberg funicular. He had the appearance of a man who had slept badly. Only one other person took his place in the carriage, a German or perhaps a Lucernese, who placed himself in a corner and began to smoke ashort pipe. The conductor rang his bell and whistled twice in vain; there were no other passengers for Sonnenberg than Marco and the man with the pipe.
The large and rather melancholy hotel at Sonnenberg is a few paces away from the station. Marco directed himself to the porter who was seated in the empty vestibule, as deserted as the garden he had just passed through. Donna Maria Guasco had just gone out, the man said, as she usually did every morning, towards Gutsch, indicating the way with his hand; then he added in a very German French, that it was a fairly long walk. Scarcely listening to him, Marco set off through a broad wooded path. He walked without looking before him with lowered eyes, completely wrapped in his thoughts, without meeting any one, without looking at the landscape, almost without seeing where he was going. Every now and then the wind, which was freshening, caused the trees to rustle with an almost human sound, beating on Marco’s face, and, passing on, it grew weaker without disturbing his thoughts. He had lost count of the time he was on the way. At last at a corner he read on a post, “Gutsch,” indicated by a white arrow on a blue ground. He took the turning for some fifty steps, and then stopped silent and surprised.
He found himself in a strange wood, formed of tall, colossal trees, whose height the eye could not gauge. The trunks of the trees were round, thin,and devoid of branches to a considerable height, like the stems of bronze candlesticks; then the leafy branches mounted up so intricately and thickly, hiding the sky, that an invincible gloom reigned in the wood. The tall, colossal, upright trees, growing so close together, seemed innumerable, and rose in two lines along a very straight path in the middle, which lost itself in the calm, sad gloom, which the rays of the sun seemed unable to penetrate. Never had a wood seemed so strange and lugubrious to Marco’s wondering eyes, never had he breathed an air so still and sepulchral, and never had he noticed a silence so profound and gloomy. On either side of the path the dried leaves were scattered, of every colour from light yellow to dark red, but their colour had merged into one in that darkness of the tomb. A sense of tragic and fatal horror conquered his heart while he advanced under the ominous trees, like dismal funeral candles, in that wood without the song of birds, without the perfume of flowers and the sun’s rays. Terror surrounded him, and he seemed to be walking towards his strange destiny, towards the wooden seat beneath a bronze tree trunk, where Maria was seated and looking at him as he approached with sad but sweet eyes.
“This wood is horrible, Maria!” he exclaimed a little petulantly, as he sat down beside her.
“Yes, it is horrible,” she replied, looking around, “but I come here every day to let myselfbe taken by its strong, calm horror. I think that dead people must be here, and nobody knows of it.”
“Dead of love, or sorrow, or indifference,” he added, looking around, believing himself a prey to an hallucination.
“Or perhaps they had enough of life.”
“Everything could have happened here,” he continued dreamily, “a bloody duel, a murder ignored by all, a suicide which no one knew of. Doesn’t it cause you horror, sweet Maria?”
“Life is more difficult than death,” she replied, shaking her head.
He took her hand, covered with a white glove, and with a slow, familiar action took off the glove and kissed her fingers and palm two or three times.
“Maria,” he said, “I have thought much during the night. At first I was seized by a mortal disquietude, and I wanted to get up and leave, to look for you in the night. Then little by little I entered into a great peace, because I saw our way.”
“Ourway?” she asked in agitation.
“Ours, Maria. It is the only way, and there is no choice but for you and me to follow it.”
“What are you saying, Marco?” she exclaimed, getting up.
With a gracious and tender action he made her sit down again.
“I say that we ought to live together till death,” he declared.
“Without love, Marco? Without love?” the woman cried, and such an utter hopeless bitterness was in the cry.
“Yes, without love,” he continued courageously; “the great light and flame of our passion is extinguished, it is true, but the tender reflections can still weakly illuminate the shadows where we have lived; even the rays of the heat, whose flame no longer exists, can rarefy the cold which is conquering us.”
“You don’t love me, Marco!” she cried.
“I don’t love you with passion, and I ought not to deceive you; neither of us will ever lie to the other. But you have been the chosen woman of my heart, the only intense dream of my life. You have been my perfect, only love. If the tabernacle is closed, if the idol has vanished, the soul has in its memory the recollection of a unique adoration.”
“But I don’t love you!” she cried, convulsed.
“Yes, I know that you don’t love me with passion. But I know that I have a beautiful and unforgettable place in your heart. I have been your only lover.”
He spoke with a desperate sadness in his eyes and face, in every expression and gesture.
“Is it true, that I am dear to you, Maria?”
“It is true, as you say, you are dear to me,” she replied desolately.
Marco drew her to himself and kissed her on thelips chastely. She returned the kiss. But to both the kiss seemed to have the savour of death.
“Let us live together till death,” he resumed sadly.
“Together, Marco, together? To reunite when we no longer have love as the excuse of our betrayal, nor passion as an excuse for the sorrow we are inflicting on others! Why? Why?”
“Because nothing else remains,” he said desolately.
“Is there really nothing else, Marco?” she cried, wringing her hands.
“Really, Maria, nothing else.”
“And that unfortunate at Rome? That unfortunate Emilio? What has he done to be so disgraced? And why must I bring about his misfortune?” she cried, with a sob, hiding her face in her hands.
“Pity him; let us pity him,” said Marco; “he is an unfortunate.”
“He will curse me.”
“He will be right to curse you, but he will also be wrong. All are right and all are wrong confronted with love, Maria.”
“And Vittoria? Vittoria? the unlucky Vittoria? What will become of her? What will she say of me? Marco, think, think, what a horrible business!”
“She will curse us justly,” resumed Marco, with deep sadness; “she will be right, like Emilio,to curse us, but confronted with love she will be wrong.”
“Who will console Vittoria, Marco?”
“I have tried to console her, but she despised my consolations. Like all exigent people who ask too much from life, Vittoria has only gathered delusion and bitterness.”
“You promised her everything.”
“I offered her everything, and she repulsed it. What she demanded was not in my power, will never be in my power, and I shall never see her again.”
“Who will console and comfort Emilio?”
“He is a man; he will forget you.”
“And Vittoria?”
“Religion will be able to do much for her. She will forget me.”
“But Emilio and Vittoria were not expecting this from us and from existence.”
“The fault isn’t mine, and isn’t ours. If we are to blame we did it for one supreme and invincible reason, which is love.”
“My God! my God!” she kept on lamenting, sobbing without tears.
“There is nothing else for us to do, but to live together till death.”
“Nothing else? Nothing else? Suppose we were to try again? Suppose we were to return?”
The voice was as desperate as the proposal.
“Why do you want to try again, Maria?” heasked, with infinite desolation; “do you wish to go to your husband who hates and loves you? Do you wish to give yourself to him who is horrified at what you did? Do you wish instead to stop in your home as a stranger and an enemy? Do you wish to live and give yourself to him, as a courtesan whom he pays and despises? Do you wish to live, if you refuse yourself to him, in an inferno? To-morrow he will hate you, and you will be forced either to fly again ridiculously or become the lover of Gianni Provana, and afterwards of another Gianni Provana, descending to every abyss to make something of your life.”
“No, no!” she cried, at the height of moral nausea.
“How can I try again with Vittoria? Must I return and fall at the feet of my wife, simulating a passion I do not feel? Must I play a comedy, I who despise a lie? Could I ever take my wife in my arms like you? Oh, she knows, perhaps, and understands; at any rate she would soon understand, that I was lying and deceiving her. Do you know that I inspire her with repulsion? Do you know that she neither wants me as a husband, a companion, or a friend? Do you know that she wants me as a lover? Can I be the lover of Vittoria, Maria? I can’t, there, I can’t! If I returned to Rome, if I re-entered Piazzo Fiore, I should only make Vittoria more unhappy. In desperation I should hurl myself into conviviality.You can’t wish the death of your dignity, nor I that of my honour.”
“It is true, it is true!” she exclaimed, falling back in the seat as if about to faint.
“Courage, courage, Maria,” he said sweetly.
A great silence, a great shadow, an ineffable solitude was around them in that funereal wood.
“But couldn’t we go on as we did up to yesterday, each in our own way?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Where, where, Maria?” he asked, with the shadow of a melancholy smile.
“I don’t know ... anywhere ... everywhere,” she said vaguely, “each our own way, as up to yesterday.”
“We met yesterday,” he said sweetly.
“Let us separate to-day and resume our way.”
“We should meet to-morrow.” And his voice was very sweet and sad.
“Do you think so, Marco? Do you think so?”
“It is fate. Maria, it was fate our meeting yesterday; our fate would be meeting to-morrow. A will which we are ignorant of, which is outside us, which acts on us while it is foreign to us, has reunited us yesterday, and would reunite us to-morrow. Let us accept it, Maria.”
“But what is this will, Marco?” she said, seized by a sudden fear.
“Maria,” he said gravely, “you know, you have known, that passion is outside the usual limitsof life, you have known and seen that it forces souls and persons beyond all laws and duties, beyond all vows. You have seen and known that it exalts and multiplies life. Well, Maria, I believe that when once the ordinary limits of life have been passed over, it is extremely difficult to turn back. I believe that when duties are forgotten, vows unloosed, laws broken, it is extremely difficult for people to re-enter the social orbit, to resume their proper place, and to repair their conscience. I believe that for a life which has touched the heights of passion, it is impossible to descend to the great, cold, silent depths.”
All that he said was reflected sadly in its truth and irreparableness.
“Then,” she interrupted, “then whoever has sinned, in punishment for his sin must continue to sin.”
“Yes, Maria; sin, but without fascination. Sin is a punishment in itself. I believe, I am sure, that this is punishment.”
A heavy silence fell upon them. The woman’s head was bowed, and she had crossed her hands over her knees. There was not a breath of air in that atmosphere of a cemetery.
“At home they will say: ‘She always loved him, and always lied in denying that she loved him.’ ”
“They will say that,” admitted Marco sadly.
“Your wife will say so, Marco,” Maria continuedmonotonously, “ ‘Marco never forgot her, and always lied.’ ”
“Certainly she will say that.”
“And it will all be false, Marco, because we shall be again without passion, without love, without rapture.”
“That is so, Maria.”
“Shall we rehearse our comedy together, Marco,” she asked mournfully—“the comedy of love? Couldn’t we live like two companions, like two friends? Say, couldn’t we live so, at least without lying?”
“No, dear, no,” he resumed, with a weak, sorrowful smile, “it isn’t possible. You are a woman; I am a man. We are still young. What you say is impossible.”
“O Marco, without love?” she murmured, turning her head aside in shame.
He was silent, feeling that she was right. But he could not deceive her.
“Even this, dear lady mine, is a punishment.”
“O Marco, Marco!” she cried, leaning her head on his shoulder, and hiding her face in his breast.
He pressed her to himself sweetly, and kissed her on the eyes, which were red without weeping, and upon her pale face and lips.
“At last,” he said, “we shall find some sweetness in this expiation. My arms know you, Maria, and my breast is a haven for you. I know yourarms, and I know I can sleep peacefully, if not ecstatically, on your heart.”
“The days will be long and silent,” she murmured, rising, passing her arm under Marco’s, as they went down the straight path together.
“Yes, Maria,” he replied.
“Our souls will do nothing but secretly regret that which is no more.”
“Yes, it is true, Maria.”
“Happy we shall never be again.”
“Never again, Maria.”
“And so we shall go on till death, Marco,” she concluded, with an accent of infinite melancholy.
“Together, Maria.”
“Towards death.”
“Step for step together.”
They were in the deepest part of the gloomy wood, like an immense tomb, amidst the thousand bronze candelabra, which seemed to have been lit for something great that was dead.
* * * * * * * *
Marco entered the room where Maria was waiting for him, reading a book. She lifted her eyes with a slightly melancholy smile.
“...m’aimes?” he asked in a puerile way, in French.
“...t’aime,” she replied colourlessly.
He kissed her, and she returned the kiss.
“...toujours?” she asked.“...toujours,” he replied.
Their words and actions were the same as of a former time, which were born again from the memory of their senses, re-born in an exterior, strange form to them. Their souls were full of inconsolable regret, their hearts of inconsolable grief.
THE END
THE STUYVESANT PRESS, Publishers,156 fifth AvenueNew York
THETree of Knowledge
A DOCUMENT BY A WOMAN
The woman who dissects her soul in these vibrant pages is, so far as can be judged, entirely frank.
This is not her only merit, for her delight in the flexibility of language lends an exotic charm which, like the scent of orchids, fatigues and delights the sense.
Her diary is “not for little people nor for fools.” It is a document to be studied with scientific curiosity by those whose interest lies in sounding the hidden depths of human character.
12mo. Cloth.Price $1.50.
Cynthia in the Wilderness
A NOVEL BY
HUBERT WALES
In this story Mr. Wales has taken for his theme another view of the sex problem.
Cynthia is a woman of exceptional attractiveness, mentally and physically. In her married state she finds herself in the delicate position of an intensely human Venus placed upon a pedestal of marble deference by a husband of intemperate and decadent proclivities.
There is a broad realism pervading the story; it is strong and poignant, yet it is straightforward psychology presented with an undeniable skill.
12mo. Cloth.Price $1.50.
THE STUYVESANT PRESS, Publishers156 Fifth AvenueNew York
THE YOKE
A NOVEL BY
HUBERT WALES
This is a story of the delicate problem which confronts the sexes: the moral attitude and welfare of men and women. The author has chosen an infrequently considered phase, and has dared to treat it graphically.
The characters are strong, attractive and always interesting. The problem of which the story treats is vividly and fearlessly laid before the reader. A more subtle insinuation of the question may have been possible, but the author has felt that there can be no indelicacy in a straightforward, serious discussion of an existing evil condition.
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Mr. & Mrs. Villiers
A NOVEL BY
HUBERT WALES
Man is naturally the aggressor in the connubial relations. His desires and passions are more positive than woman’s. Women of unusual mental and physical charms are often found renitent and lacking in the disposition which makes for perfect conjugal happiness. Such women have little difficulty in marrying, although entirely unfitted for the marriage relation. Mrs. Villiers is a woman of this type.
The story is a fair and legitimate study of opposite temperaments. It is intensely realistic, and the difficult problem, which is by no means rare in real life, has been handled with dignity and with such restraint as not to offend.
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