PART II.
The green hue of the country disappeared under the heavy November rain. Caserta, down below, shrouded by the falling water as by a veil of mist, seemed but a large grey blot on a background of paler grey. The Tifata hills, that are tinged with so deep a violet during the long autumn twilights, had vanished behind the thick, opaque downpour. The small and aristocratic village of Centurano, entirely composed of lordly villas, separated from each other by narrow lanes and flowering hedges, held its peace.
At the corner of the high road that leads to Caserta, the fountain which Ferdinand of Bourbon had bestowed on Michelangiolo Viglia, his favourite barber, overflowed with rain-water. The long, melancholy, watery day was slowly dying, in a rainy twilight that seemed already evening. No sound was heard. The last lingerers among thevillegantikept within their houses, yawning, dozing, or gazing through closed windows at the drenched, denuded gardens, where the monthly roses hung their dishevelled heads, and the water trickled in little muddy rivulets among wasted flower-beds; while here and there the stalks of stocks and wallflowers showed like the bare bones of so many skeletons. Behind one window were visible the cadaverous old face and red velvet smoking-cap of Cavalier Scardamaglia, judge at the Court of Santa Maria; behind another, the aquiline nose and the long thin cheeks of Signora Magaloni, wife of the architect who was directing the repairs of the royal palace. The children of lawyer Fariniwere running after and shouting at each other on the covered terrace of their villa. Francesca, their nurse, sat in the arch of the window, knitting, without dreaming of scolding them. The water poured along the gutters and filled the pipes to bursting; the butts for the family washing overflowed; the walls were stained as with rust.
From behind her balcony windows, Caterina looked out upon the fountain that overflowed the road. She tried to see farther away, down the highway to Caserta, but in this the rain thwarted her. She looked back again at the fountain, and re-read the two first lines of its fatuous inscription:
DIEMMI DELL’ACQUA GIULIAUN RIVOLETTO IL RE.
But she soon wearied of this contemplation, and again applied herself to her sewing. She was seated on the broad window-sill: before her stood her work-table, covered with reels of cotton, a needle-case, a pincushion, scissors of all sizes, and bundles of tapes; near to her was a large basket of new ready-basted household linen, at which she was sewing. Just now she was hemming a fine Flanders tablecloth; four that she had finished were lying folded on the little table. She sewed deliberately, with a harmonious precision of movement. Whenever she cut her thread with her scissors, she turned to the road for a moment to see if any one was coming. Then she resumed her hem again, patiently and mechanically, passing her pink nail across it to make it even. Once a noise in the street caused her to start: she stopped to listen. It was the little covered cart in which the Avvocata Farini was returning from Nola, whither he had gone on some legal errand. The lawyer, as he alighted, made her a low bow.
Despite her disappointment, she responded with a pretty, gracious smile, and followed him with her eyes, to where his children welcomed him with shouts and outstretched arms. Once more the regular profile bent over the Flanders cloth,and the needle flew under her agile fingers. Caterina appeared to have grown bigger, although she still retained a certain girlish delicacy and a pretty minuteness of feature. The look in her grey eyes was more decided, the contour of her cheek was firmer, the chin had assumed a more energetic character. On the low brow, the bright chestnut hair was slightly waved; its thick plaits were gathered up at the nape by a light tortoiseshell comb. She wore a short indoor dress of ivory-white cashmere—a soft thick material that clung closely to her, especially at the waist—a relic of the coquetry of her school-days. Round her throat was a broad creamy lace tie, with a large bow, wherein the chin seemed to bury itself. It gave value to the delicate pink colouring of her face. There were full lace ruffles around her wrists; no jewels, except a plain gold ring on one finger. Her whole person breathed a serene simplicity, a delightful happy calm.
“Shall I bring the lights?” asked Cecchina, the maid, entering the room.
“What time is it?”
“Nearly six o’clock.”
“Wait a little longer.”
“And master not yet back!”
“He will come in good time.”
“The Lord knows how soaked he’ll be.”
“I hope not. Is his room quite ready?”
“Everything, Signora.”
“Then you needn’t wait.”
Cecchina left the room. Caterina did not return to her sewing, for it was nearly dark, and she wanted to believe that it was still early. Meanwhile, the lamplighter of Centurano was proceeding under cover of his waterproof and his umbrella to light the few petroleum lamps of the tiny village. Caterina folded and refolded her linen in the twilight. Cecchina, who was getting impatient, brought in two lamps.
“The cook says, 'What is he to do?’”
“He’s to wait.”
“Till what hour?”
“Till seven—like yesterday.”
But all at once a faint bark was audible down the lane.
“That is Fox,” said Caterina quietly. “Your master is coming.”
Immediately there was the noise of a great opening and shutting of doors; a rush of sound and movement. After that a lusty voice resounded in the courtyard.
“Here, Fox! Here, poor beast! Here, Diana! She’s as wet as a newly hatched chicken! Caterina, Caterina! Matteo, take care of the gun, it’s full of water! Caterina!”
“Here I am,” she said, leaning over the balustrade.
A big curly head and a green felt hat, then a herculean body, clothed in a velveteen jacket, leather breeches, and top-boots, appeared on the lower steps. With a great sound of clanking spur, and cracking whip, soaked from head to foot, but laughing heartily, Andrea seized his wife by the waist, and raised her like a child in his strong arms, while he kissed her eyes, lips, and throat, roughly and eagerly.
“Nini, Nini!” he cried, between each sounding kiss.
“You’re come ... you’re come!” she murmured, smiling; her hair loosened from its comb, and on her fair skin sundry red imprints left by his caresses.
“Oh! Nini, Nini!” he repeated, burying his big nose in the soft folds of her tie. Then he placed his wife on her feet again, drew a deep breath like a bellows, and stretched himself.
“How wet you are, Andrea!”
“From head to foot. Beastly weather! Yesterday capital sport, but to-day,perdio!this rascally rain! I’m soaked to the bone.”
Leaning out of the landing window, he called in to the courtyard: “Take care of the dogs, Matteo. Rub them down with warm straw.”
“And yourself, Andrea?”
“I will go and change my clothes. But I am not cold. Ihave walked so fast that I am quite warm. Is everything ready for me?”
“Everything.”
“And dinner? I’m dying of hunger.”
“Dinner is ready, Andrea.”
“Macaroni, eh?”
“Macaroni patties.”
“Hurrah!” he shouted, tossing his cap up to the ceiling. “Thou art a golden Nini.”
And he took her once more in his arms, like a small bundle.
“You are drenching me,” she murmured, without looking at all vexed.
“I’m a brute; right you are. Thy pretty white frock! what a lout I am!”
And he delicately shook out its folds. He took his handkerchief, and went down on his knees to dry her gown, while she said: “No, it was nothing, she would not let him tire himself.”
“Let me; do, do let me, I am a brute ... I am a brute!” he persisted. When he had finished, he turned her round and round like a child.
“Now you’re dry, Nini. What a sweet smell you have about you. Is it your lace tie or your skin? I’ll go and dress. Go and see if the macaroni patties will be done in time.”
She went away, but returned immediately to listen at his door, in case he should call her. She could hear him moving to and fro in his dressing-room, puffing and blowing and in the highest spirits. He was throwing his wet boots against the wall, tramping about like a horse, or halting to look at his clothes; singing the while to an air of his own composition:
“Where are the socks ... the socks ... the socks.... Here you are. Now I want a scarf to bind up my inexpressibles. Here’s the scarf.... Now where’s my necktie?”
Then there was silence.
“Have you found the necktie, Andrea? May I come in?” she asked shyly.
“Oh! you are there! And here is the necktie.... I’m ready. Call Cecchina to take away these wet things while we are at dinner.”
He opened the door and came out with a face red from much rubbing. He looked taller and broader in indoor dress. His curly leonine head, with its low forehead, blue eyes, and bushy auburn moustache, was firmly set on a full, massive, and very white throat. Round it he wore a white silk tie and no collar. His broad shoulders expanded under the dark blue cloth of his jacket, his mighty chest swelled under the fine linen of his shirt. The whole figure, ponderous in its strength, was redeemed from awkwardness by a certain high-bred ease and by the minute care of his person, visible in the cut of his hair and the polish of his well-tended nails.
“H’m, Caterina, are we going to dine to-day?”
“Dinner is on the table.”
The dining-room was bright with lighted candles, spotless linen, and shining silver. The centre-piece of fruit—grapes, apples, and pears—shone golden with autumn tints. Through the closed shutters the faintest patter of rain was perceptible. The light fell upon two huge oaken cupboards, whose glass doors revealed within various services of porcelain and crystal, and on the panels of which were carved birds, fish, and fruit. Two high-backed armchairs faced each other. The whole room was pervaded by a sense of peace and order. The macaroni pasty, copper-coloured within its paler crust, was smoking on the table. Andrea ate heartily and in silence; he had helped himself three times. Caterina, who had taken her share with the appetite of a healthy young woman, watched while he ate, with her chin in the air and a little smile on her face.
“Perdio!how good this pie is! Tell the cook, Caterina, to repeat it as often as he likes.”
“I will make a note of it in the household book. Will you have some more?”
“No,basta. Ring, please. Has it rained all day here?”
“Since last night.”
“At Santa Maria, too. Would you believe it? I went as far as Mazzoni, to the Torone, our farm over there.”
“Did you sleep there last night?”
“Yes; a good bed. Coarse but sweet-smelling sheets. But I was furious with the weather. Have some beef, Nini. There is no sport to be had now. Who has been here?”
“Pepe Guardini, one of the Nola tenants. He wants a reduction.”
“I’ve given him three reductions. He is a drunkard and too ready with his knife. He must pay.”
“He says he can’t.”
“He can’t, he can’t!” he roared; “then I’ll turn him out.”
She looked at him fixedly, but smiling. Andrea lowered his voice.
“I don’t know why I lose my temper,” he muttered. “I beg your pardon, Nini, but it annoys me when they come and bother you. What did you say to him?”
“That I would speak to you about it; that we should see.... Have your own way. Give me some wine. By-the-by, Giovanni has been here; the vats are opened; he says the wine promises well.”
“I will look in to-morrow. When that’s over, in a week we’ll leave for Naples. Are you impatient? No fowl! I assure you, it is excellent.”
“Tell the truth, ’tis you who want more.”
“I blush, but I say yes. So you pine for Naples?”
“And you?”
“I, too. Here there’s no sport, and dull neighbours. We are expected there. By-the-by, send for Cecchina and tell her that in the pocket of my shooting-jacket there is a letter for you. I found it at the post-office at Caserta.”
“Whose handwriting?” she queried, with a start.
“The writing of one who sends thee long letters in a scratchy hand, on transparent paper. Of one on whose seal is graven a death’s-head, with the motto, 'Nihil’. Of one whose paper is so heavily scented with musk, that my pocket reeks intolerably of it. Here’s a pear peeled for you, Nini. ’Tis thy lover who writes to thee.”
“It’s Lucia Altimare, is it not?”
“Yes” ... stretching himself with a sigh of satisfaction, as one who has dined well; “the Signorina Lucia Altimare, a skinny, ethereal creature, with pointed elbows,poseuse par excellence.”
“Andrea!”
“Do you mean to say that she is not aposeuse?Indulgent Nini! What is this under the table? Your foot, Nini! I hope I haven’t crushed it. But your friend is repugnant to me, at least she was so the only time I ever saw her.”
“I am so sorry, Andrea. I hope that when you see her again, you will alter your mind.”
“If you’re sorry, I hope I shall alter my mind. But why does she scent her letters so heavily? I recommend you this coffee, Caterina; it ought to be good.”
“Lucia is sickly and unhappy. One is so sorry for her. Do you think five teaspoonfuls of coffee will be sufficient?”
“Put six.... I see; ... to please you I will pity her. But don’t read her letter yet; for, to judge by the weight of it, it must be a very long one. Make the coffee first. If you don’t, I shall say that you care for Lucia more than for me,” murmured Andrea, with the vague tenderness induced by digestion.
“I will read it later.”
He leant back in his chair, breathing slowly and contentedly, with his necktie unfastened and his hands resting on the tablecloth, while he watched her making the coffee—to which she gave all her attention, intent on listening for the hiss of the machine. A calm lithe figure that neither fidgeted nor moved too often, absorbed by her occupation, she bent her whole mind to it.
“It’s ready,” she said, after a time.
“Let’s discuss it in the drawing-room,” he replied. “As a reward I will let you read my rival’s letter.”
A bright wood fire burned on the drawing-room hearth. With another sigh of satisfaction, Andrea sank into a broad, low, leathern armchair that was drawn up before it.
“If it were not for the shooting, I should get too fat. Now don’t begin to sew again, Caterina; sit down here and talk to me. Did you use to dance when you were at school?”
“The dancing-master came twice a week.”
“Did you like dancing?”
“Pretty well; do you?”
“Now, when we are at Naples we can dance as much as we like. We’ve got three invitations already.”
“Giovanna Casacalenda ... that’s one.”
“And my relations the Valgheras ... two.”
“And Passalancias ... three.”
“We’ll dance, Nini. If I didn’t dance I should get too fat. It will be capital exercise for me. Does your melancholy skeleton of a friend dance?”
“Lucia?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t dance much. She liked the lancers and the mazurka, I remember. The waltz tried her strength too much.”
“A woman who is always ill! who faints away in your arms at any moment! What a bore!”
“Oh, Andrea!”
“At least you are always well, Nini.”
“Always.”
“So much the better, come here and give me a kiss! Has thePungoloarrived?”
“Here it is.”
“Caterina, I am going to bury myself in the newspaper. Read your letter. I won’t tease you any more.”
But while he lost himself in the political diatribes that filled thePungolo, Caterina, notwithstanding the permission grantedto her, did not begin to read. She kept the letter in her hand, looking at it and inhaling its scent. It was charged with the violent, luscious perfume of ambergris. Then she glanced shyly at her husband; he was falling gradually asleep, his head sinking towards his shoulder. In five minutes the paper fell from his hands. Caterina picked it up, and gently replaced it on the table. She turned down the lamp, to make a twilight in the room. Then she crept back to her chair, and knelt to read her letter by the light of the fire. For a long time, the only sound within the quiet room was the calm, regular breathing of Andrea, accompanied by the faint rustle of foreign letter-paper as Caterina turned the pages. She read carefully and attentively, as if weighing every word. From time to time an expression of trouble passed across her firelit face. When she had finished reading she looked at her husband; he slept on, like a great child, beautiful and gentle in his strength, an almost infantile sweetness and tenderness on his countenance. He lay there calm and still in the assurance of their mutual love, his tired muscles relaxed and at ease in the peace of his honest soul. She bent her head again towards the flame, and once more read the letter from beginning to end, with the same minute attention. When she had read it through for the second time, Caterina slipped it into her pocket, and leaving her hand half hidden in its depths, rested her head on the back of her low chair. Time passed, the quarter struck, then the half-hour, and another quarter, at the clock in the tower of Centurano: by degrees the fire burned out on the hearth. Andrea awoke with a start.
“Caterina, wake up.”
“I am not asleep, Andrea,” she replied placidly, with wide-open eyes.
“It’s late, Nini, very late; time for by-bye,” said the Colossus, as in loving jest he gathered her up in his arms like a child.
The circular drawing-room had been transformed into a garden of camellias, on whose close, dense, dark-green background of foliage the flowers displayed their insolent waxen beauty, white or red, perfumeless, icily voluptuous, their full buds swelling as if to burst their green chalices. A luxuriant vegetation covered the walls and the very roof, lending them a silent enchantment. In the midst of the shrubbery aMusa paradisiacareared its lofty head, spreading out its vivid green leaves like an umbrella. Round theMusaran a rustic divan roughly wrought in wood. Here and there were low rustic stools. Massive branches of camellia nearly hid the two doors leading to this room. A faint diffuse light shone through its opaque rose-coloured shades.
Three or four times during the evening, in the intervals of the dances, this room had filled with guests. Ladies, young and old, uttered little cries of delight in the rustic effect, in the coolness and the repose of it, as compared with the hard white glare of the ball-room, its oppressive atmosphere and noisy orchestra. They assumed attitudes of graceful languor. The men looked round with an air of suppressed satisfaction, as if they too were far from insensible to the beauties of Nature. A few timidly culled buds were offered as gifts.... A young lady in pale yellow, with a shower of lilies of the valley in her dark hair, recited some verses in a low murmur. Quiet women fanned themselves gently with noiseless, winged fans of soft grey feathers; but hardly had the triumphant appeal of the first notes of a waltz or the plaintive melting strains of the mazurka reached their retreat, when one and all flung themselves into the whirl of the ball and every couple vanished. Once more the shrubbery was silent and deserted, the red camellias again opened their lips. What were they waiting for?
Giovanna Casacalenda, the daughter of the house, entered the shrubbery on the arm of a young man. Taller than herpartner, she seemed to look down upon him from the height of her regal beauty. She was draped in the clinging folds of a long dress of ivory crape, that ended in a soft floating train. Wondrous to behold was the low bodice of crimson satin, fitting without a crease; her arms were bare to the shoulder. One row of pearls round the firm white throat. A wreath of damask roses, worn low on the forehead, crowned her dark hair, drawn up close from the nape of her neck. This audaciously simple costume was worn with the repose of conscious beauty, proof against any weakness on its own account. A smile just parted her curved lips while she listened to her companion, a meagre undersized youth, with a bilious complexion; there were lines about his eyes and the hair was scanty on the temples. He was correct, refined, and finnikin.
“But, Giovanna, I have your promise,” he protested, “thypromise.”
“You need not 'thou’ and 'thee’ me,” she observed.
“Forgive.... I beg your pardon, I am always betraying my feelings,” he murmured; “it’s very clear that you are casting me off, Giovanna....”
“If it is so clear, why trouble to talk about it?”
“Why do I...? That you may contradict me. What have I done to thee?”
“Nothing; treat me toyou, if you please. Now go on, I am in a hurry.”
“Then it has been a dream?”
“Dream, caprice, folly; call it what you will. You must make up your mind to the fact that we cannot marry. You have an income of eight thousand lire; I shall have six thousand. What can one do with fourteen thousand lire a year?”
Smiling, she said these things, without changing her easy attitude; the arm that plied the fan was carefully rounded, and she looked at him with a little air of superiority.
“But if my uncle dies ...” whined her victim.
“Your uncle is not going to die just yet, I have observed him carefully; he’s solid.”
“You are positively malevolent, Giovanna ... remember....”
“What would you have me remember? Do try to be sensible. Let us go back.”
They went away, and those superb camellias that Giovanna so closely resembled told no tales, neither did they murmur among themselves.
“Very fine indeed!” said Andrea Lieti, admiring the general effect, while the divan creaked under his weight. “But give me Centurano.”
“Real country must always surpass in beauty its counterfeit presentment,” mumbled timid Galimberti, Professor of History. “But these Casacalendas have a fine, luxurious taste.”
“Bah! respected Professor, they want to marry their daughter, and they are sure to succeed.”
“Do you really think...?”
“I don’t blame them. So magnificent a creature is not meant to be kept at home. Was she so beautiful when she was at school?”
“Beautiful ... dangerously beautiful, even at school.... I remember ...” passing his hand across his forehead, as if he were talking to himself.
Andrea Lieti opened his big blue eyes in amazement. The Professor remained standing in an awkward attitude, stooping slightly, and ill at ease in his easy attire. His trousers were too long, and bagged at the knees. The collar of his old-fashioned dress-coat was too high. Instead of the regulation shirt, shining like a wall of marble, he wore an embroidered one, with large Roman mosaic studs, a view of the Colosseum, the Column of Trajan, the Piazza di San Pietro. There he stood, with hanging arms, with his hideous, pensive head. The brow appeared to have grown higher andyellower. His eyes had the old oblique look, at once absent and embarrassed.
“These balls must bore you fearfully, Professor,” cried Andrea, as he rose and walked to and fro, conspicuous for his fine proportions and well-bred ease.
“Well ... rather ... I feel somewhat isolated in a crowd like this,” said Galimberti, confusedly.
“And yet you don’t dislike it?”
“A.... Two or three of my pupils are so good as to invite me.... I go out for recreation.... I read too hard.”
Again that weary gesture, as if to ease his brow of its weight of thought, and the wandering glance seeming to seek something that was lost.
“You must come to us, too, Professor,” said Andrea, full of compassion for the wretched little dwarf. “Caterina often speaks of you.”
“She was a good creature ... such a good creature. So good and gentle and sensible. Yours was an excellent choice.”
“I believe you,” said Andrea, laughing heartily. “Is it true that you always reproached her with a lack of imagination?”
“Did she tell you that too? Yes—sometimes ... a certain dryness....”
“Well, Caterina isn’t troubled with sentimental vagaries. But I like her best as she is. Have you seen her to-night? She’s lovely. If she were not my wife, I should be dancing with her.”
“She is ... or was with her friend....”
“With Lucia Altimare, to be sure.”
“With the Signorina Altimare,” repeated the Professor, gulping down something with difficulty.
“There’s another of your pupils! She must have plagued you, no end, with her compositions, to judge from the tiresome fantastic letters she writes to my wife.”
“The Signorina Altimare wrote divinely,” said the Professor, dryly.
“Eh! maybe,” muttered Andrea, choosing a cigarette. “Have one? No? I assure you they are not bad. I was saying”—he resumed his seat on the couch, and blew the smoke upwards—“that she must have bored you to tears.”
“The Signorina Altimare is a suffering, interesting being. She is so very unhappy,” persisted the Professor, with his cravat all awry, in the heat of his defence.
Andrea gazed at him with curiosity; then a faint smile parted his lips.
“She goes to balls, however,” he replied, quietly enjoying the study of the Professor.
“She does. She is obliged to, and it changes the current of her thoughts. You see she never dances.”
“Bah! because nobody insists on her doing so. What do you bet that, if I go and ask her, she won’t dance the waltz with me?”
“Nothing would induce her to dance, she is subject to palpitations. It might make her faint.”
“Che!If I give her a turn, you’ll see how she’ll trot! No woman has ever fainted in my arms....” He stopped short from sheer pity. Galimberti, who had turned from yellow to red, and stood nervously clutching at his hat, looked at Andrea with so marked an expression of pain and anger, that he felt ashamed of tormenting him.
“But she is too thin, too angular; we’ll leave her alone. Or you try it, Professor; you dance with her.” With a friendly gesture he took him by the arm, to lead him away.
“I don’t dance,” mumbled Galimberti, and his big head sank on his breast. “I don’t know how to dance.”
Enter once more Giovanna Casacalenda, leaning this time with a certainabandonon the arm of a cavalry officer. Her arm nestled against his coat, her face was raised to his. He, strutting like a peacock in his new uniform, was smiling through his blonde moustache; an ornamental soldier, who had left his sword in the anteroom.
“Well, Giovanna, has the old boy made up his mind?”
“There is something brewing, but nothing settled,” she replied, wearily. “Indeed, it’s a sorry business.”
“All’s well that ends well. Courage, Giovanna; you are enchanting to-night.”
“Am I?” she murmured, looking in his face.
“More than ever ... when I think that old....”
“Don’t think about it, Roberto.... It must be,” she added seriously.
“I know that it must be; as if I hadn’t advised it! Of course your father would not give you to me: it’s no good thinking of it. Besides, he is a very presentable old fellow.”
“Oh! presentable....”
“Well, with the collar of his order under his coat, his bald head, and his white whiskers, he looks dignified enough for a husband, and....”
“It’s all so far off, Roberto,” she said, looking at him languidly but fixedly, with parted lips and sad eyes.
“Well, get it over; it rests with you....”
“You will never forget me, Roberto, my own Roberto?”
“Forget you, Giovanna, transcendent, fascinating as you are? Do you realise the extent of my sacrifice? I leave you to Gabrielli. Do you realise what I lose?”
“You do not lose all,” murmured Giovanna, with a catch in her breath. He bent down and imprinted a long kiss on her wrist. Her eyelids drooped, but she did not withdraw it; she was ready to fall into his arms, notwithstanding the nearness of the ball-room. The young officer, whose prudence was more than equal to his love, raised his head.
“It would be rash to loiter here,” he said; “the old boy might get jealous.”
“Dio mio, what a bore!Basta, for your sake.”
“Why do you not sing to-night?”
“Mamma won’t let me....” And they passed on.
The two friends were approaching the rustic seat: after carefullyarranging their trains, they sat down together. Lucia Altimare sank as if from sheer fatigue. Her dress was of strange pale sea-green, almost neutral in tint; the skirt hung in plain ample folds, like a peplum. The bodice closely defined her small waist; her arms and shoulders were swathed in a pale veil, like a cloud in colour and texture. Some of her dark tresses were loosened on her shoulders, and, half buried in their waves, was a wreath of natural white flowers, fresh, but just beginning to fade. A bunch of the same flowers was dying in the folds of tulle that covered her bosom. The general effect was that of the fragile body of an Undine, surmounted by the head of a Sappho.
Next to her sat Caterina Lieti, radiantly serene and fresh, in her pretty pink ball-dress, wearing round her throat a dazzlingrivièreof diamonds, and in her hair a diamond aigrette that trembled as she leant over her friend, talking to her the while with animation. Lucia appeared to be lost in thought, or in the absence of it. She said, in her dragging tones, as if her very words weighed too heavily for her, “I knew I should meet you here. Besides, my father is so very youngish—it amuses him, he likes dancing. Why did you not answer my last letter?”
“I was on the eve of returning to Naples ... and so you see....”
“I hope,” said the other, with a somewhat contemptuous pout, “that you do not permit your husband to read my letters.”
Caterina, blushing, denied the impeachment.
“He is a good young man,” admitted Lucia, in an indulgent tone. “I think your husband suits you. You are pretty to-night: too many diamonds, though.”
“They were a present from Andrea,” proudly.
“I hate jewels; I shall never wear them.”
“If you were to marry, Lucia....”
“I marry? You know what I wrote you.”
“But listen; there is that Galimberti, who follows you everywhere;who admires you from a distance; who loves you without daring to tell his love. I am sorry for him.”
“Alas! ’tis no fault of mine, Caterina,sai.”
“You know; perhaps he is poor; perhaps his feelings are hurt in all these rich houses, where he follows you. You are good. Spare him. He looks so unhappy.”
“What can I do? He is, like myself, a victim of fate, of fatality.”
“Of what fatality?”
“He is ill-starred, he deserves to be wealthy and handsome, and that is just what he is not. I ought to have come into the world either as an ignorant peasant or as queen of a people to whose happiness I could have ministered. We console ourselves by a correspondence which gives vent to our souls.”
“But he will fall over head and ears in love.”
“I cannot love any one: it is not given to me to love;” and Lucia fell into a rigid, all but statuesque attitude, like a Greek heroine caught in the act of posing. Caterina neither asked her why nor wherefore. In Lucia’s presence she was under the spell that fantastic divagations sometimes exercise over calm reasonable beings.
“Caterina, I have begun to visit the poor in their homes. It is an interesting humanitarian occupation. It is the source of the sweetest emotion. Will you come with me?”
“I will ask Andrea.”
“Must you needs ask his permission for everything? Have you bartered your liberty so far as that?”
“Sai, a wife!”
“Tell me, Caterina, what is the happiness, the charm of married life?”
“I can’t explain it.”
“Tell me why is marriage the death of love.”
“I don’t know, Lucia.”
“Then marriage is to be the eternal mystery of life?”
“Who tells you these things, Lucia?”
“My own heart, Caterina,” replied the other, rising.
Then, assuming a solemn tone and raising her hand to swing it swordwise through the air—“One thing only exists for certain.”
“What?”
“Passion, it’s the only reality.”
“The favoured mortal is always a young man,” remarked the Commendatore Gabrielli, his mouth twitching with a nervous tic to which he was subject.
“But that is not my ideal,” replied the enchanting voice of Giovanna.... “I have always felt a tacit contempt for those idlers, deficient alike in character and talent, who waste their youth and their fortune on gambling and horses and other less worthy pursuits....” She pretended to blush behind her fan.
“Well, Signora Giovanna, you are perhaps right. But a reformed rake makes a good husband.”
“I do not think so, Commendatore; with all due deference, I am not of your opinion. Think of Angela Toraldo’s husband; what a pearl! I hear that if she weeps or complains he boxes her ears. A horror! These young husbands are brutes. Look at Andrea Lieti! how roughly he must treat that poor little Caterina...! While with a man of mature age....”
“Has this often occurred to you, Signora Giovanna?”
“Always.... A grave man who takes life seriously; who lives up to a political idea....”
“You would know how to grace a political salon,” he murmured, gazing at her.
She shut her fan and shrugged her beautiful shoulders, as if they were about to take leave of their crimson cuirasse. The Commendatore’s catlike eyes blazed behind his gold spectacles. Giovanna again plied her fan; it fluttered caressingly, humbly.
“Oh! I am not worthy such honour.... He would shine; and I should modestly reflect his light. We womenlove to be the secret inspirers of great men. Could you read our hearts....”
And she leant on his arm, against his shoulder, smiling perpetually, smiling to the verge of weariness, while the bald head of the Commendatore shone with a crimson glow.
“What madness,” whispered Lucia Altimare, sinking on the divan. “Perfect madness, for which you are responsible. I ought not to have waltzed....”
“Pray forgive me,” said Andrea, apparently embarrassed, but really bored. He was standing before her in a deferential attitude.
“It is your fault,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. “You are strong and robust, and an odd fancy came into your head. I ought to have refused.... At first it was all right, a delicious waltz.... You bore me along like a feather, then my head began to whirl.... The room swam round, the lights danced in my brain.... I lost my breath....”
“May I get you something to drink?”
“No,” she answered curtly at his interruption of her eloquence.
“A glass of punch? Punch is a capital remedy,” he continued hurriedly; “it warms, and it’s the best possible restorative. I am going to have some. Pray drink something, unless you mean to overwhelm me with remorse. All our ills come from the stomach. Shall I call Caterina to insist on your taking it?”
“Caterina did not see us come in here?”
“I think not, she was dancing with my brother-in-law, Federigo Passalancia. Caterina is looking her loveliest to-night, isn’t she?”
But Lucia Altimare made no answer; she turned extremely pale, breathed heavily, and then slipped off the divan on to the floor, in a dead faint.
Andrea swore inwardly, with more energy than politeness,against all women who waltz, and at the folly of men who waltz with them.
Every morning, Lucia Altimare, draped in the folds of a red, yellow, and blue striped dressing-gown, fastened round her waist and kilted up on one side with gold cord, her sleeves tucked up over bare wrists, an immense white pocket-handkerchief in her hand as a duster, proceeded, after dismissing her maid, to dust her little apartment, a bedroom and a small sitting-room, within whose walls her father allowed her complete liberty. The dainty office, accomplished methodically and always at the same hour, after she had dressed and prayed, was a source of infinite delight to her. It appeared to her that the act of bending her great pride and her little strength to manual labour, was both pious and meritorious. When the moment for dusting the furniture came round, she would tell her maid, with a sense of condescension:
“You may go, Giulietta, I will do it myself.”
“But, Signorina....”
“No, no, let me do it myself.”
And she felt that she was kind and humane to Giulietta, sparing her the trouble of dusting, and at the same time proving that she did not disdain to share her humble labour.
“In God’s sight we are all equal. If my strength permitted, I would make my own bed, but I am so delicate! If I stoop too much, I get palpitations,” she thought, as she tied on her black apron and tucked up the train of her Turkish dressing-gown.
But the greatest pleasure, the pleasure that thrilled her every nerve, to which she owed her most exquisite sensations, was derived from dawdling over each separate object that had become part of her existence. A charm, wherewith to recall the past, to measure the future, to pass from one dream to another, whereon to weave a fantastic web.
The cold frigid aspect of Lucia’s bedroom reminded her of her old dream of becoming a nun, of falling sick of mysticism, of dying in the ecstasy of the Cross. The room was uncarpeted, and the bare floor, with its red tiles, had an icy polish. The bed, whose wrought-iron supports Lucia rubbed so indefatigably, had no curtains. Under its plain cover, with its single, meagre little pillow, it was the typical bed of ascetic maidenhood. Next to the bed, in a frame draped in black crape, hung a Byzantine Madonna and Child, painted on a background of gilded wood. She wore an indigo dress, a red mantle, and her eyes were strangely dilated, while one hand clutched the Infant Jesus: a picture expressive of the first stammerings of the alphabet of art. Lucia always kissed it before she dusted it; the lugubrious drapery made her dream of the mother she had hardly known, and from whom the Madonna came to her. Her lips would seek the traces of maternal kisses on the narrow, diaphanous, waxen-hued hand of the Virgin.
By the side of the bed, under the Madonna, stood a wooden prie-Dieu of mediæval workmanship, which Lucia had bought of a second-hand dealer. The family arms were effaced from its wooden escutcheon. Lucia, instead of replacing them by thealte onde in tempesta, the polar star and the azure field of Casa Altimare, had had it graven with a death’s-head and the motto “Nihil,” which she had adopted for her own seal. She had to kneel down on its red velvet cushion to polish it, and then mechanically she would say another prayer. She could hardly tear herself away from it. When she did so, it was to pass the handkerchief over the tiny chest of drawers that she had taken with her to school. That brought back some of her past life to her, the books hidden in the folds of the linen, the little images from Lourdes mixed up with the ribbons, the sweets that she did not eat. On the top of this chest of drawers were a red silk pincushion, covered with finest lace—which had been given to her by Ginevra Avigliana, the most patient needlewoman of them all—andThomas à Kempis’s “Imitation,” its margin finely annotated in ink red as blood. When she passed the handkerchief over the book, she read a few words in it.
Her mind would run in another channel when she found herself in front of the large mirror in her wardrobe, where she could see herself from head to foot. She looked at herself, perceiving that her gown wrinkled about the bodice, and reflecting that she must have become much thinner lately. She joined her fingers round her narrow waist, remarking inwardly that had she chosen she might have made it as slender as a reed.... Then she posed in profile, with her train pushed on one side, and her head a little inclined towards the right shoulder. She had once seen the fantastic portrait of a thin unknown woman in white, in this attitude.... Lucia liked to imagine that the unknown lady had suffered much, then died; and that afterwards the unknown atom had joined the Great Unknown. The same fancies followed her to the oval mirror on her dressing-table. A thin white covering hung over it from the night before, put there because it is unlucky to look into an uncovered mirror the last thing at night. She threw the large white handkerchief, now no longer white, into a corner and supplied herself with another, with which she slowly rubbed the glass. She was tired, and sat gazing at her image—her forehead, her eyes, and her lips—intently, as if seeking to discover something in them. Every now and then she took up a bottle of musk from the table and sniffed it, looking at herself to mark the intense pallor and the tears induced by the pungent odour. In the drawer there was a little box of rouge and a hare’s foot to lay it on with; but she did not use it. One morning she had slightly tinted one cheek, it had disgusted her. She preferred her pallor, the warm pallor of ivory, that “white heat of passion,” as a rapturous poet, of unrecognised merit, had described it. A butterfly was pinned to the frame of the looking-glass. His wings were expanded, for he was a cotillon butterfly of blue and silver gauze, a memento of the first ball her father had takenher to last year. Every morning a puff of her breath caused his wings to flutter, while his little body stuck fast to the mirror. That motionless, artificial butterfly reminded her of certain artificial lives, full of noble aspirations, but lacking the energy, the power to rise. Then she wondered if she were very interesting or very ugly, when she looked sad; and she postured before the mirror in her most melancholy manner, calculating the effect of the white brow, half hidden beneath the wealth of wavy hair, the depth of sadness in her eyes, the dark colouring of the underlid which accentuated their expression, the straight line of the profile, the angle drawn by the bitter smile that sharpened the curves of her lips. A sigh of satisfaction escaped her. In her sad mood, she might inspire interest, if not love. Love she did not want. What would be the good of it? The capacity for loving was denied her.
Then came the turn of the bottles on the toilet-table. They contained, for the most part, those fantastic remedies which a quasi-romantic science has voted sovereign against the most modern of maladies, mock nevrose. In one bottle, chloral for insomnia, chloral to produce a sleep full of exquisite and painful hallucinations, the very disease of fantasy. In another, digitalis, wherewith to calm palpitations of the heart. In another, a beautiful one, enamelled, with a golden stopper, “English” salts wherewith to recall the fainting spirit. And at last, in one, a white limpid fluid—morphine. “For sleep ... sleep,” murmured Lucia, while she reviewed her little pharmacy.
After the toilet-table, she passed her handkerchief over the second wardrobe, the one containing her linen, and dusted the three chairs. Then having finished, she cast a look round, to assure herself that her cell, as she called it, had assumed the cold, spotless appearance she desired to give it. Her fantasy was assuaged; she addressed herself aloud to her room: “Peace, peace, sleep on, inert and inanimate, until to-night, when my tortured spirit will return to fill thy space with anguish.”
She passed into the sitting-room, her favourite resort, the room where her life was passed. The dark rosewood cabinet, containing five wide deep drawers, was her first stage. Her fancy transformed it into a bier. She delicately dusted the oxidised silver inkstand, representing a tiny boat, sinking in a lake of ink. Then the handkerchief was passed over the portrait frames with their hermetically sealed doors, so that no one might ever steal a glimpse of the portraits hidden within. In reality, they were empty, but the white cardboard backs, the void only known to herself, suggested an unknown lover, a mystic knight, that fair-haired Knight of the Holy Grail whom Elsa had not known how to love; whomshewould have known how to keep by her side. Gently she brushed the dust off a small Egyptian idol with a tiny necklace of blue fragments: it was an upright copy of a mummy of the Cheops dynasty. It served as a talisman, for these Egyptian idols avert the evil of one’s destiny. Lucia touched the Bible, bound in black morocco, on whose fly-page she had inscribed certain memorable dates in her existence, with mysterious signs to denote the events to which they referred. With reverence she took up the diamond edition of Leopardi, on whose crimson binding was inscribed “Lucia,” in letters of silver. She read in both books, every day, kissing the Bible and Leopardi with equal fervour. The ivory penholder, with its gold pen; the sandal-wood paper-knife, on which was inscribed the Spanish wordNada; the agate seal, that bore the same motto as the prie-dieu; the letter-weight, upon which stood a porcelain child in its shift; the half-mourning pen-wiper of black cloth, embroidered in white; all the fantastic playthings she had accumulated on her writing-table, were objects of equal interest to her. She always spent half an hour at the writing-table, with fingers that dallied over their pastime, shoulders bent in contemplation, and an imagination that sped on wings to unknown heights.
Then, after the writing-table, came a photograph in a red frame, suspended against the wall, a portrait of Caterina.Underneath it hung abénitiercontaining fresh flowers, which were changed every morning. Caterina contemplated her friend with kind serene eyes; the portrait had her own air of composure. Every morning, in passing the linen over the glass, Lucia greeted Caterina: “Blessed art thou, that dreamest not, blessed ... that will never dream.” Next came a small group in terra-cotta of Mephistopheles and Margaret. The guilty, enamoured girl was kneeling in a convulsed attitude, with rigid limbs. Her hands clasped the prayer-book that she could not open, her bosom heaved, her throat had sunk into her crouching shoulders, her face was contorted, her lips convulsed with the cry of horror that appeared to escape them. Mephistopheles, tall, meagre, diabolic, with a subtle, jeering smile, his hand in the act of making magnetic passes over her head, stood behind her; a great, splendid, crushing Mephistopheles. Whenever she looked at Margaret she felt herself blush with desire; whenever she looked at Mephistopheles, Lucia paled with fear: with vague indefinite desire of sin; with vague fear of punishment; a mysterious struggle that took place in the very depths of her being. It was Lucia’s hand that had carved in crooked, shaky characters, on the wooden pedestal,Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. When she came to the low table on which the albums stood, she sat down, for her fatigue grew upon her. She turned their leaves; there were a few portraits—girl friends, relations, three or four young men. Among the latter, by way of eccentricity, was a faded photograph of Petröfi Sandor, the Hungarian poet who fell in love with a dead maiden. Lucia never saw that portrait but through a haze of tears, when she pondered over a love so sad, so strange, and so funereal. Then she opened her book of “Confessions.” Its pages were scribbled over by Lucia herself, by the lady who taught her German, by the Professor of History, by Caterina, Giovanna Casacalenda, and others. There were in response to the wildest questions, the most irrelevant, silly, or eccentric answers. Giovanna’s was stupid, Lucia’s mad and fantastic,Caterina’s honest and collected, the Professor’s insane, the German teacher’s sentimental, Alberto Sanna’s fluctuating and uncertain. Lucia lingered here and there to read one of them. Then she put that album aside and opened another, her favourite, the dearest, the handsomest, the best beloved; a faded rose was gummed on the first page, underneath it was a line from Byron. On the next, a little wreath of violets; in their centre, a date and a line of notes of interrogation; farther on, the shadowy profile of a woman, barely sketched in, signed “Clara.” And pell-mell, dried flowers, verses, thoughts, landscapes, sketches, an American postage-stamp, a scarabæus crushed into the paper, two words written with gold ink.
She smiled, revelling in melancholy, as she turned these pages. Then she left the albums, and stroked the head of a bronze lizard that lay beside them on the table. She had a great fondness for lizards, snakes, and toads, thinking them beautiful and unfortunate.
The grand piano, littered with music, was a long business. When she passed the duster over the shining wood, she half closed her eyelids, as if she felt the caressing contact of satin; then she passed it over the keys, drawing from them a sort of formless, discordant music, in whose endless variations she revelled. Lucia neither played well, nor much; but when she met with a philharmonic friend, she would instal her at the piano, and herself in a Viennese rocking-chair, where she would close her eyes, beat time with her head and listen. Voiceless and spell-bound, she was one of the best and most ecstatic of listeners. Most of the music lying on the table was German; she specially affected the sacred harmonies of Bach and Haydn. ButAïdawas always open on the reading-desk. Then there was the embroidery-frame, a stole for the church of the Madonna, her Madonna of the Bleeding Heart. Next to it stood a microscopic work-table, on which lay the beginning of a useless, spidery fabric. The chairs, thepouffs, the little armchairs, were all in different styles and colours, for sheloathed uniformity. Her first prize for literature, a gold medal set in white satin, hung on the wall; underneath it was her first childish essay in writing. A bookshelf contained a few worn school-books, some novels, and the Lives of the Saints. And last of all came a large tea-rose with red marks, like blood-stains, on its petals, gummed into a velvet frame, theRosa mystica. When she had finished, Lucia cast aside her duster, washed her hands, swallowed a few drops of syrup diluted with water to clear her throat of dust, returned to the sitting-room, threw herself down on her sofa, and let her fancies have free play.
Caterina Lieti entered, looking tiny in her furs; with her pink face peeping from under her fur cap.
“Make haste, dear; it’s late.”
“No, dear; it’s no good going to my poor people before four; it’s hardly two o’clock.”
“We are going elsewhere.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere where we shall amuse ourselves.”
“I’m not going, I don’t want to amuse myself; I am more inclined to cry.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.... I feel miserable.”
“Oh! poor, poor thing. Now listen to me, you’d better come with me and try to amuse yourself. You will injure your health by always staying in this dark room, in this perfumed atmosphere.”
“My health is gone, Caterina,” said the other in a comfortless tone; “every day I get thinner.”
“Because you do not eat, dear; you ought to eat; Andrea says so too.”
“What does Andrea say,” said Lucia, in a tone of indifference, which annoyed Caterina.
“That you should eat nutritious food, drink plenty of wine and eat underdone meat.”
“I am not a cannibal. That kind of diet does very well for muscular organisms, but not for fragile nerve-tissues like mine.”
“But Andrea says that nerves are cured by beefsteaks.”
“It’s no good trying; I couldn’t digest them; I can’t digest anything now.”
“Well, do dress, and come with me. The cold is quite reviving.”
“Where to?”
“I won’t tell you. Trust me!”
“I will trust you.... I am tempted by the unknown. I will drag this weary existence about wheresoever you please. Will you wait for me?”
She returned in half an hour, dressed in a short black dress, softened by lace accessories. A black hat, with a broad velvet brim, shaded her brow and eyes.
“Shall we walk?” asked Caterina.
“We will walk; if I get tired we can call a cab.”
They walked, entering the Toledo from Montesanto. The tramontana was blowing hard, but the sun flooded the streets with light. Men, with red noses and hands in their pockets, were walking quickly. Behind their short black veils the ladies’ eyes were full of tears and their lips were chapped by the wind. Caterina drew her furs closer to her.
“Are you cold, Lucia?”
“Strange to say, I am not cold.”
People turned to gaze at the two attractive-looking women, one small and rosy, with clear eyes and an expression of perfect composure, attired like a dainty Russian; the other, tall and slight, with marvellous eyes set in a waxen pallor.
A gentleman who passed them in a hired carriage, bowed profoundly to both.
“Galimberti ...” murmured Lucia, in a weary voice.
“Where can he be going at this hour?”
“I don’t know ... to his lesson ... I suppose.”
“Do you know what Cherubina Friscia told me, a few days ago?”
“Have you seen her again?”
“Yes, I went there, because I heard that the Directress was ill. Friscia told me that they were very dissatisfied with Galimberti. He is always late for his lesson now; he either leaves before the hour is up, or misses it altogether.”
“Does he...?” indifferently.
“Besides, he is not so good a teacher as he used to be. He takes no interest in his class, is careless in correcting the compositions, and has become prolix and hazy as an exponent.... In short, a mere ruin.”
“Poor Galimberti...! I told you that he was an unlucky creature. He’ll end badly.”
“Forgive me if I ask you ... not from curiosity, but for friendship’s sake ... does he still write to you?”
“Yes, every day; he writes me all his troubles.”
“And you to him?”
“I write him a long letter, every day.”
“And is it true that he comes to your house every day, to give you a lesson in history?”
“Yes, every day.”
“And does he stay long?”
“Yes, naturally. We don’t talk only of history, but of sentiment ... of the human affections ... of religion....”
“Of love?”
“Of love too.”
“Forgive me for importuning you. Galimberti is very much in love. Perhaps it is for the sake of going to you that he gets there so late; perhaps when he misses his lessons there altogether, it is because he stays so long with you. You who are so good, think what it means for him.”
“It’s nothing to do with me; if it is his destiny, it is fatal.”
“But does your father approve of these long interviews?”
“My father! He doesn’t care a pin for me, he is a heartless man.”
“Don’t say that, Lucia.”
“A heartless man! If my health is bad, he doesn’t care. He laughs at my piety.... Do you know how he describes me, when he speaks of me at all? 'That interestingposeuse, my daughter.’ You can’t get over that; it sums up my father.” Caterina made no reply. “That Galimberti will end by becoming a nuisance. Were he not so unhappy, I would send him about his business.”
“Sai, Lucia, a girl ought not to receive young men alone ... it is not nice ... it is playing with fire.”
“Nè fiamma d’esto incendio non m’assale,” she quoted.
They had arrived at the Café de l’Europe, where the wind was blowing furiously. Caterina, turning to protect herself against it, saw the cab in which Galimberti sat with the hood drawn up to hide him, following them step by step.
“Dio mio!now he is following us ... Galimberti.... What will people think...? Lucia, what shall we do?”
“Nothing, dear. I can’t prevent it; it is magnetism, you see.”
“Now he is missing his lesson for the sake of following us.”
“It is no good struggling against fate, Caterina.”
Caterina was silent, for she knew not what to say.
It was three o’clock when they entered the Samazzaro Theatre, all lit up by gas, as if for an evening entertainment. Nearly all the boxes were occupied, and a hum of suppressed chitchat arose towards the gilded ceiling. From time to time there was a peal of irrepressible laughter. People who, in groups of threes and fours, invaded the parterre were dazed by the artificial light. The gas was gruesome after the brilliant light of the streets. The ladies were all in dark morning costumes; most of them wore large hats, some were wrapped in furs. There was the click of cups in one box where the Duchess of Castrogiovanni and the Countess Filomarina weredrinking tea, to warm themselves. Little Countess Vanderhoot hid her snub nose in her muff, trying to warm it by blowing as hard as she could. Smart Neapolitans, with their fur coats thrown back to show the gardenia in their button-hole, with dark gloves and light cravats, moved about the parterre and the stalls and began to pay a few visits in the boxes.
“What is going on here?” asked Lucia, as she took her seat in Box 1, first tier.
“You’ll see, you’ll see.”
“But what is that boarding for, which enlarges the stage, and entirely covers the place for the orchestra?”
“There’s a fencing tournament to-day.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Lucia, without much show of interest.
“Andrea is to have three assaults.”
“Ah!” repeated the other, in the same tone.
Themaître d’armesseated himself at the end of the stage, next to a table, laden with foils and jackets. Every one in the parterre immediately resumed his seat, in profound silence. The theatre was crowded.
Themaître d’armeswas a Count Alberti, tall, powerfully built, bald, with bushy grey whiskers and serious mien. He was dressed in black, and wore his overcoat buttoned to the chin. His hand was resting on a foil.
“Look! what a fine type,” said Lucia; “a fine imposing figure.”
The first couple advanced to the front of the stage. They were the fencing-master, Giovanelli, and a Baron Mattei. The latter was tall and finely proportioned. His beard was trimmed to a short point, his cropped hair formed another point in the middle of his forehead; he wore a tight-fitting costume of maroon cloth, with a black scarf. He at once captured the ladies’ favour; there was a slight stir in the boxes.
“A Huguenot cavalier, that’s what he looks like,” murmured Lucia, who was becoming excited.
The fencers, after saluting the ladies and the general company, bowed to each other. Then the match began promptly andbrilliantly. The fencing-master was short and stout, but uncommonly agile; the Baron, slight, cool, and admirable for ease and precision. They did not open their lips. After each thrust, Mattei fell into a sculpturesque attitude, which thrilled the company with admiration. He was touched twice. He touched his adversary four times. Then they shook hands, and laid down their foils. A burst of applause rang throughout the house.
“Do you like it?” whispered Caterina to Lucia.
“Oh, so much!” she answered, quite absorbed by the pleasure of it.
“There is Giovanna Casacalenda.”
“Where?”
“On the second tier, No. 3.”
“Ah! of course. Behind her is the Commendatore Gabrielli. Poor Giovanna.”
“The marriage is officially announced. But she does not look unhappy.”
“She dissembles.”
The second couple—Lieti, amateur, and Galeota, professional—appeared and placed themselves in position. Andrea was dressed in black cloth, with a yellow scarf and shoes, and chamois-leather gloves. His athletic figure showed to its utmost advantage in perfect vigour and harmony of form and line. He smiled up at the box, a second. Caterina had shrunk back a little out of sight, with eyes all but overflowing.
“Your husband is handsome to-day,” said Lucia, gravely. “He looks like a gladiator.”
Caterina nodded her thanks. Galeota, dark, slight and meagre, attacked slowly.
Andrea defended himself phlegmatically; motionless they gazed into each other’s eyes; now and again a cunning thrust, cunningly parried. The audience was absorbed in profound attention.
“Su, su, on, on,” Lucia cried, under her breath, trembling in her eagerness, and crushing her cambric handkerchief with nervous fingers.
The assault went on as calmly and scientifically as a game of chess, ending in two or three master-thrusts, miraculously parried. The two fencers, as they shook hands, smiled at each other. They were worthy antagonists. The applause which followed was wrung from the audience by the perfection of their method.
“Applaud your husband! Are you not proud of him?”
“Yes,” replied Caterina, blushing.
A visitor entered the box, it was Alberto Sanna, a cousin of Lucia’s.
“Good-morning, Signora Lieti. What a triumph for your lord and master!”