SIGNORA SPERANZA
BY LUIGI PIRANDELLO
Translated by Elise Lathrop. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.
Translated by Elise Lathrop. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.
The family boarding-house of Signora Carolina Pentoni (Big Carolini, or Carolinona, as she was called, because of the excessive flesh which distressed her) was patronized by certain scatterbrains, droll fellows, who were the delight of the well-behaved who frequented the table, not so much because of the good cooking perhaps, but that they might be present at the gratuitous gaiety offered them during the meals.
One of these excellent, well-mannered people, without the least suspicion that he might be included among the so-called amusing types of the pension, had been for some time the butt of the scatterbrains, Biagio Speranza and Dario Scossi, who played all sorts of tricks on him; but he remained calm; so calm and obstinate that they were finally forced to let him alone. “Laughter is healthy. You gentlemen make me laugh, so I shall remain.”
And he did remain, cordially disliked by all. His name was Cedebonis; he was a physician, professor of philosophy in theliceo, and of pedagogy in a normal school for girls; he was a Calabrian, short, thick-set, dark, bald, with an oval-shaped head, with no neck to speak of; mulish, with a leather-colored face,enormous bushy eyebrows, and mustache the color of ebony. As the resigned victim of his many scientific doctrines, both philosophical and pedagogical, he had come to live almost automatically, with a brain like a warehouse, in which his thoughts, precise, well-weighed, and classified, were arranged in perfect order according to their various categories. Possibly his robust and vigorous body would gladly have lent itself to violent exercises, but Cedebonis made himself a storehouse for archives, or so said Scossi, and did not permit himself any expansiveness that was not according to the dictates of science, philosophy, and pedagogy. “To live is not enough; live to do good,” he used to say placidly, in his big, oily voice. And he would ask: “Reason, reason, gentlemen, for what was it given us?”
“That we might be worse than beasts,” once replied scornfully the music teacher Trunfo, who could not endure him.
Separated with much scandal from his wife, always scowling, gloomy, grumbling, and at times explosive, Trunfo passed almost the whole day in the house of Carolinona, in the dining-room there, intent, like a dog who licks the bruises he has received, on correcting and rewriting the most hissed parts of his opera, for the production of which he had half beggared himself. He smoked continually. Biagio Speranza called him “Vesuvius.”
Sometimes Cedebonis would go quietly up behind him, and sit beside him in order to inhale the odor of the tobacco, which he delighted in. Trunfo, grumbling,would squint at him a couple of times, then fuming, fidgeting with annoyance, would draw a cigar from his pocket, and offer it to him rudely: “Pray take it. Smoke, for Heaven’s sake!”
“No, thank you,” Cedebonis would reply, without the least discomfiture. “You must know that nicotine is very injurious. I only like to inhale the smoke, to smell its fragrance.”
“At my expense,” Trunfo would then burst out furiously. “How about the damage tomyhealth? Get out of here, I say! Shame on you! If you want your pleasure you can pay for it!”
“Cedebonis,” said Scossi—who every time he began to speak would shove out the tip of his terrible tongue like an arrow-head—“Cedebonis, with that face of his, like a happy monk, would be quite capable of presenting himself calmly in the house of our dear Martinelli, and, with the pretext that woman, like nicotine, is injurious, ask him to lend him, yes, I say, for a moment—”
“His wife?” asked Biagio Speranza.
“Oh, shocking! Her powder puff.”
“But what has my wife to do with the matter?” exclaims harmless Martino Martinelli, hit when least expecting it, his eyelashes quivering rapidly over his round, owl-like eyes, very close together, separated by an extremely long, thin nose, and which seemed to draw up and leave his upper lip suspended in the air.
“Calm yourself,” replied Scossi; “I merely mentioned her because I know that your excellent wife is in Sicily, Signor Martinelli.” And good Martinellibecame calm, sighed, and shook his head bitterly. Ah, he thought continually of his poor wife, banished to a normal school in Sicily, and he spoke of her always in his own peculiar manner, groping along in his discourse, half helping himself, half covering every pause with a “Yes, I say,” an interjection which they all imitated, without his perceiving it. The poor fellow could not resign himself to the bureaucratic cruelty which, at a blow and without cause, had separated him at sixty-four from his wife, thus destroying his home and family, forcing him to live alone, in a furnished lodging, and to dine there at the boarding-house of Carolinona, whom he alone called Signora Carolina.
King of Romancers was Momo Cariolin, a little dwarf, who seemed like a living joke. To look at him, it seemed impossible that such a tiny frame could conceive such enormous lies, uttered imperturbably, with the air of a diplomat.
“But tell me,” Biagio Speranza once asked him seriously, “have you ever looked in a mirror?” because Momo Cariolin boasted with particular pride of the favor which women showed him. They had been women of his own rank at the very least, or ladies of the nobility; or they were of royal blood or imperial archduchesses (notably Austrian), these victims of Cariolin. And such adventures had befallen him during the various congresses of Orientalists in the capitals of Europe! For Cariolin professed himself, although a dilettante, a profound student of Oriental languages.
“But for Heaven’s sake, look at Martino’s nose!” Biagio Speranza would suddenly cry out, interrupting the marvelous narrations of Cariolin. And good Martinelli, abruptly roused amid the laughter of the others, would begin to smile.
Biagio Speranza’s jokes, Dario Scossi’s sarcasms, Trunfo’s outbursts and sneers did not disturb Martino Martinelli. But another of the boarders frightened him, and this was none other than the poet Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli, who undoubtedly was the most ridiculous type of the house. But the poet had been absent for nearly a month, owing to a serious misfortune which had befallen him. A single one? No. All the misfortunes in the world had befallen the poor poet Cocco Bertolli, who for this reason was given to railings against injustice, both human and divine. What worse misfortune could befall him than this? To defend himself from celestial and terrestrial perfidies he had had only his powerful voice, his tongue of fire, and now he could not even whisper. Everybody knew it; those who had declared they were his friends had even done it purposely; they had teased him, tormented him, that they might utterly ruin him, might actually kill him; he roared, roared, until it seemed as though his enormous bovine eyes would burst out of his congested face. His bile accumulated. “My muse is bile! It was with bile that Shakespeare created Othello, King Lear!”
And he prepared a poem, “Erostratus,” a tremendous poem. Ah, the magnificent temple of Imposture, the temple of so-called Civilization, where infamousHypocrisy was enthroned and adored, he would kindle it with his verses. But as soon as people knew that he was at work on this poem he was attacked on all sides. Though deprived of his professorship at theginnasiobecause of these tragic bestialities, thrown out on the streets, until a short time before, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli had not been cast down. Sleep? Why, for two cents he could sleep at a resort of beggars and of sublime, ragged, louse-covered fellows. Eat? Good Carolinona had given him credit for more than a year already. “And I, Carolina, I will make you immortal,” he would repeat to her. “You only love me, you who beneath a rough exterior conceal a heart of gold, a most noble soul, Carolina!”
“Yes, sir, do not worry,” Carolina would hasten to reply, for she, like good Martinelli, was afraid of those great eyes which opened so widely whenever he began to speak, while his mouth wore so complacent a sneer that one never knew, even when he paid a compliment, but that he was satirizing in his own way.
Signora Pentoni also feared that her other patrons, those who paid, would stay away because of him, would be annoyed or disgusted by his presence at table; and although, whether from good-heartedness or from fear, she could not show him the door, she lovingly advised him to be calm, prudent, sought with all politeness to tame him, and also took care of him and the garments in which he draped himself, mended them, brushed them, and finally even made him cravats out of the ribbons from her discarded hats.
Not understanding why all this care was taken of him, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli finally—and why not?—fell in love with Signora Pentoni. He took to composing odes, sonnets, anacreonic songs, and read them while she sewed buttons on his coat or vest, or brushed them. Carolinona did not comprehend that these verses were addressed to her, and why he read them; but since she thought him mad, she did not ask for a reason, and allowed him to read on.
Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli, violent and bestial in everything else, was most timid in love. Not knowing how to confess directly to Pentoni the passion she had inspired, he poured it out in poetry, hoping to arrive by means of the monstrous flowery paths of his limping metaphors. But seeing that Carolinona remained impassive, he became frenzied, violent.
“And what is the matter with you now?” the poor woman asked him in amazement.
“What?” cried Cocco Bertolli in a trembling voice, folding the paper on which he had scrawled the poetry, and opening his eyes very wide, as usual, and stamping his feet. “You ask me? Nothing! But I know! This is to be my lot! Thus my accursed fate has decreed! I am to be understood by no one! Not even by you!”
“I? Why?”
“She does not even say that she seems to understand!”
“Understand what? The poetry? But good gracious! I understand nothing. You know that. Be good, come now! Why do you act thus?”
“Because—because—” In vain! He could not pour out his heart in a declaration.
For this was needed the impelling force of an odious suspicion that came upon him suddenly, during one of these scenes, while poor Pentoni was urging him to be quiet, at least to speak softly, since nearby was the musician correcting his music.
“Ah, so it is for him?” Cocco Bertolli had thundered forth. “You love him? He is your lover? Confess! Viper, viper, viper—and why, then, have you flattered me until now?”
“I? Leave me!” Pentoni had cried, trembling with fear. “You are mad!”
“Cry; yes, cry out so that he will hear! I wish to see your knight; he too is a viper!”
“But be quiet, hush!” Carolinona had implored him. “Are you speaking seriously, Signor Bertolli? What do you want of me? Let me alone!”
“I can not! I love you. Do you love another? We shall see.”
“But I love no one. Are you trying to make fun of me? At my age? This is the last straw! And pray who would fall in love with me, Signor Bertolli?”
“I! And I have told you so!”
“Pardon me, but this is madness. And not even laughable. Let me be—I am a poor woman.”
The Pentoni knew very well the vile calumnies which had been circulated about her, but she had not even tried to contradict them. What did it matter to her? She was conscious of her virtue, long resignedto discretion because of her sad lot, and that sufficed her. And how could calumnies harm her now? She knew that she was ugly; she was already thirty-five years old, and might have been fifty as far as she was concerned; she had never flattered herself that a man could fall in love with her; she had never even had the time to think that fate might perhaps concede her a different lot, the compensation of some affection in the dark poverty which had always oppressed her, weighed upon her, and against which she had sought courageously to defend herself with every means in her power. Did people believe that in her life there had been some slip from the path of virtue, or even more than one? Very well, let them believe it! At heart this not only no longer offended her, but almost flattered her self-love, her deep-rooted feminine instinct. She closed her eyes. But it was not true. No one had ever cared for her, save this insane Cocco Bertolli. It would have been laughable had the poor fellow not worn such a tragic expression.
“Must I go away then?” he asked.
“Why, no; stay!” she hastened to reply. “But you must think no more of such madness.”
“I can not help it! When an idea has taken root here, it will not leave me, even if my head were to be broken open with Vulcan’s hammer. You know that. And know that my proposals were honest, and always will be. Carolina, will you be my wife?”
She had begun to laugh at such a precipitate proposal, but Cocco Bertolli, furious, checked the laugh on her very lips.
“Do not laugh, do not laugh, by Heaven! At least believe me, you who are a woman of heart. Save me! I have need of some one who loves me and calms me. I will resume my position as professor; you shall be the wife of a great poet, who is now miserably wasting his talent. And if you do not understand the poet, no matter; you shall be the wife of a professor; does that content you? and I will liberate you from all these good-for-nothings who came to play the buffoon at your table. Listen; I will give you the greatest proof of my love, of the seriousness of my proposal. When I leave here I must go to the hospital and submit myself to a terrible operation. The doctors have told me that it may kill me. So be it! But if I recover, I will be yours, Carolina. Leave me this hope. Farewell!” And he rushed away without giving the poor woman time even to try to dissuade him.
At the hospital he had compelled the physicians to risk the terrible operation, declaring: “I neither can nor will go on living thus. It would kill me! Therefore operate on me without fear, without remorse. At the worst I am but anticipating my death by a few days.”
Two days after the operation good Martinelli, to whom Pentoni had weepingly confided this fresh outburst of madness on the part of Bertolli, was despatched to the hospital for news. Poor Signor Martinelli returned with his great nose pale with terror, his eyes round and glassy.
Cocco Bertolli was dying, and had asked him as a favor to persuade “his” Carolina to see him for thelast time. The physician had assured Martinelli that the dying man would not outlive the night. Signora Pentoni, overcome with pity, had gone to the hospital, and there had been obliged to promise, solemnly to swear to the dying man, that if he should escape death she would be his wife.
“But there will be no danger, you will see, there will be no danger!” good Martinelli had said to her, reassuringly, as they were returning from this visit. “Because—yes, I say—”
And he had raised one hand as though to bless the dying man.
All the boarders were at table when Biagio Speranza entered the dining-room, announcing gaily:
“Safe! Sound! I come from the hospital. In about three weeks we shall once more have at our table the magnificent poet. Gentlemen, I invite you to cry: Long live Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli!”
No one echoed this cry. Signor Martinelli bent his long nose over his plate. Trunfo cast a side glance, and went on eating. Signora Pentoni wept.
Cedebonis was the only one who rejoiced at sight of Biagio Speranza, who made him laugh quite as much as hygiene required, and exclaimed: “Oh, bravo! Now you must tell us all about it.”
But Biagio Speranza did not assent. He looked at the mistress of the house.
“In Heaven’s name!” implored Signora Pentoni, “leave me in peace this evening!”
Biagio Speranza glanced round at his friends, and with a gesture asked what had happened.
“Martinelli,” explained Cariolin, “has been to the hospital before you to get news, and Carolinona has learned—”
“And regrets it?” cried Biagio Speranza, feigning surprise. “Ah, excuse me, Carolinona; what ingratitude! I have seen your poet, and by a miracle restrained myself from kissing his brow. What a hero of love! He spoke to me only of you. He asked me—”
Signora Pentoni rose to her feet, convulsed; she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, tried to say “Excuse me,” but a burst of sobs smothered the words in her throat, and she rushed toward the door of her room.
Cariolin, Scossi, ran forward and stopped her; all except Cedebonis and Trunfo rose to their feet and surrounded the weeping woman.
“Rubbish! Absurd!” sneered Trunfo from the table.
But the others, all in chorus, exhorted Carolinona to be of good courage. Was she really afraid that Cocco Bertolli would compel her to marry him? Preposterous, if she did not wish to! Disturbances? But were there not the police to keep him in order? Her promise as he lay at the point of death? What promise? Oh, nonsense! He should be made to understand, willy-nilly, that she had but uttered a pious lie. No? How was that?
“See here!” Biagio Speranza cut short the discussion,becoming fervent. “Be quiet, Carolinona, I will marry you myself.” All burst out laughing.
“What is there to laugh at?” cried Speranza, in earnest. “I am speaking seriously. Are we, or are we not, gentlemen? A hawk, gentlemen, threatens this dove; I will defend her. I shall marry her, I tell you. Who wishes to wager on it?”
“I do; a thousand francs!” suddenly proposed Cariolin. And Biagio Speranza cried as promptly: “Out with your thousand francs!” Then Cedebonis too rose from the table, rubbing his hands with delight: “Excellent! Excellent! Do you wish me to hold the stakes, gentlemen?”
“Out with the thousand francs!” repeated Biagio Speranza more emphatically.
“I have not got them with me,” said Cariolin, feeling in his pockets. “But I give my word. Here is my hand on it. A thousand francs and the wedding breakfast.”
“You will lose!” affirmed Speranza, clasping Cariolin’s hand. “All of you gentlemen are witnesses of the wager: I shall marry Carolinona. Come, come, hush, my betrothed. Dry your tears, smile, look at me! Do you not like me?”
With affectionate violence he drew her fat, puffy hands from her face. Pentoni smiled amid her tears. Applause and cries of “Bravo!” broke forth. Biagio Speranza, growing more and more ardent, embraced his betrothed, who struggled: “In Heaven’s name, let me go! let me go!”
“Let the engaged couple sit side by side!” someof them proposed. “Here, here! at the head of the table!” And Biagio Speranza and Carolinona were escorted in triumph, and made to sit side by side.
Good Martinelli was confounded. His nose seemed to grow visibly. Trunfo continued to sneer. “Rubbish! Rubbish!”
“Are you jealous perhaps?” Biagio cried to him, rising to his feet, and striking his fist on the table. “Will you do me the great favor of stopping that? If you gentlemen believe that at this moment I am jesting, you are mistaken. If you think that I am committing a mad act in marrying Carolinona, I have the honor of telling you that you are crazy yourselves. I, who know my poor clay, am aware that at this moment I am wiser than I have ever been before in my life. I am a poor man, gentlemen, who, as a punishment from God, must fall in love with every beautiful woman I see. In love I at once become capable of the greatest follies. Quite different from Cariolin’s lies. Twice, gentlemen, twice I have been at the point—I shudder to think of it—at the point of really marrying. I must escape as soon as possible, at any cost, from this terrible catastrophe which continually threatens me. I profit by this moment, in which, fortunately, I am not in love, and shall marry Carolinona. A flash of genius, gentlemen. A true inspiration from heaven!”
“It is necessary to see,” objected Scossi, “whether Carolinona consents.”
Biagio Speranza turned toward his betrothed.
“Would you do me such a wrong? To such agood-looking young fellow as me? No, no; you see? My bride laughs, and the world laughs. It is settled, gentlemen!”
At this point Trunfo leaped to his feet, furiously tearing the napkin from his neck.
“Let us make an end to it once for all! This senseless, stupid jest gets on my nerves; this jest on a subject which you do not understand, and which I will tell you about, by Heaven!”
At thought of Trunfo’s matrimonial disaster there was a moment of embarrassment. All the faces became fixed in the act of laughing, then the laughter suddenly ceased.
“Pardon me,” said Biagio Speranza pacifically. “Why do you persist in believing that this is a joke of mine? I know better than you what an enormous folly it is to marry, and repeat that it is to prevent myself from committing such an act that I am marrying Carolinona.”
“The reasoning could not be more logical,” remarked Dario Scossi, again provoking all to mirth. “And I appeal to Cedebonis, professor of logic.”
“Most logical, most logical!” the latter affirmed. “Signor Speranza is, in fact, marrying so to escape the temptation of marrying.”
“Exactly!” replied Biagio Speranza. “And this is no joke. For Carolinona is seriously afraid of the poet Cocco Bertolli, and I am seriously afraid of losing my liberty some day or other. By marrying, we are both saving ourselves; she from that kind of a husband, I from a feared reality of a future wife. Married, weare both of us absolutely free to do whatever we please. She here, and I in my own home. In the eyes of the law, we have but the name in common, which is not properly a name at all, I beg you to observe, gentlemen. Speranza[1], just a common noun; I do not know what to do with it, and I cede it voluntarily. What do you say, Carolinona?”
“As far as I am concerned,” said Pentoni, smiling and shrugging her shoulders, “if you do not regret it—”
New applause, new congratulations, amid bursts of laughter.
The following day the whole city was filled with the amazing news. Biagio Speranza, stroking his fine blond beard with his fat, white hand, laughed with his limpid blue eyes, and from time to time his hand passed quickly, with a gesture habitual with him, from his beard upward and beneath his bold nose. He was most content with the great folly he was about to commit. Folly in the opinion of stupid people, be it understood. He was conscious of acting well. He had thought it over all night long, and had almost died of laughing. “Carolinona, my wife!”
Friends and acquaintances stopped him on the streets. “You are joking, then?”—“No; I mean to marry, really to marry. But as a precaution, you understand? To protect myself from taking a wife, that is all.”—“What! But youaremarrying!”—“Why, yes! I shall stay in my own home; I shall doas I please. I shall only go to her home as I do now, to dine. I shall not give her anything except the price of my meals, as usual. Well?”—“And your name?”—“But if she is willing, why not? It does not seem to me such a serious thing.”
And he left his questioner planted there in the middle of the street.
He had an appointment with Dario Scossi at the pension, to go over Carolinona’s papers together. At the pension besides Scossi, a witness for the groom, he found the timorous Martinelli, a witness for the bride, who had come purposely first of all to dissuade Signora Pentoni from lending herself to this highly scandalous proceeding.
“But do you think so?” she had replied, with a sad smile. “They are merry young fellows, let them alone. They were joking, and by this time think no more of it. I, on the other hand, have not been able to close my eyes all last night, thinking of that other in the hospital.”
But at the arrival of Scossi she had been amazed.
“What is this all about? Really? Again?”
Biagio Speranza found her obstinate in her refusal.
“Oh, do not let us have any nonsense,” said he to her. “Do you wish to make me lose the thousand francs of the wager?”
“What thousand francs? Nonsense, say no more about it, Signor Biagio.”
“What?” said the latter. “Did we not come to an agreement yesterday evening? Have you repented? You are then no longer afraid of Cocco Bertolli? Youwill see that he will seriously wish to marry you then.”
And once more he began to discuss the terms of the bargain, and dilate upon the reciprocal advantages of this marriage, at once serious and burlesque. “We, Carolinona, should not ascribe any importance to this our marriage, is it not so? and therefore for us it is not a serious affair.”
“Now, perhaps not,” remarked Signora Pentoni. “But what if later you repent it?”
“But undoubtedly I shall repent it!” admitted Biagio. “And just when I repent it I shall feel the advantage of it. Do you understand? That is why I am taking this step.”
“You understand then?” said Pentoni in conclusion. “If I offer opposition it certainly is not for myself. What have I to lose by it? I have everything to gain and nothing to lose. While you—”
“Do not think of me,” said Biagio Speranza, cutting short the discussion. “I know what I am doing. Come, let us get on, Scossi, it is getting late. But come then, answer, Carolinona: Name (I know that), paternity—age—place of birth—state; maid, widow, nothing; it is not necessary to tell the truth on this point. But the age, yes, be accurate; I beg of you.”
“Thirty-five,” replied Carolinona.
“There now!” exclaimed Biagio, shrugging his shoulders. “Do not begin at once!”
“Thirty-five, I assure you; I was born in 1865 at Caserta.”
“Good gracious! So you are still young and tender?Oh, my dear! One would never have thought it. And—well, shall we say a maid?”
“Most assuredly, yes, sir!”
“I believe you. Let us then write to Caserta for the birth certificate. Come, Scossi, let us hasten to the City Hall for the announcement.”
There were two reasons for hastening this memorable marriage: first, Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli was leaving the hospital, cured; secondly, Biagio Speranza had as usual fallen in love in the mean time with a seductive woman. During these days, in order to escape temptation, he walked the streets with his eyes on the ground and his nose in the air.
But the Pentoni had wished for time at least to have a new gown made for the ceremony. White? Oh, no indeed. Modest, suitable to her age, but new. Could she go to the City Hall otherwise? “And what do you care about it?” Biagio had asked her.
“Nothing for my own sake, of course. But for you, Signor Speranza. What would people say?”
“Let them talk. What does it matter to me? Dress as you like. I do not want you to throw away money needlessly.”
And what pains the choice of the gown cost her! Although so long subdued and resigned to her lot, she felt her heart oppressed that day by a strange anguish, which brought to her lips an unusual desire to laugh, to her eyes a longing to weep.
Though without wishing to ascribe importance to this buffoonery, yet the mere idea, the word “marriage,” instinctively awoke in her weary frame a certain sense of her real womanhood; not enough to cause her self-love to rebel against the part she was to play, yet enough to make her feel the bitterness, almost scorn, of it: and so she was to be married as a joke! And she laughed at it with the others, and still more than the others. Bah!
When the wedding day arrived, before the little procession started for the City Hall, for they would not perpetrate the joke in church, Biagio Speranza declared that he did not wish to take the thousand francs of the wager: he did not wish it to be said that this marriage had put money in his pocket; Cariolin should, therefore, buy with it a gift for the bride according to the bride’s own taste.
The bride objected to this. She did not wish anything either. But they all protested, Cariolin more loudly than any, for he had lost the thousand francs, and being at a ball, as the saying goes, wished to dance. “No, no, I will attend to it! I have already thought of something; you will see, Signora Speranza, a fine present, and very useful. Let me attend to it!”
He was in full dress, as he had promised, this tiny Cariolin, and wore an elegant black velvet vest. Scossi, too, was in evening dress. Cedebonis remembering at the last moment that he was professor of philosophy and pedagogy, came in a frock coat. The most dismal of all was good Martinelli, with his shinycoat, his light trousers, and his time-yellowed white cravat. Trunfo was the only one absent from the festive group.
Although the dining-room was all decked with flowers, a present from the boarders, and the long table in the middle was splendidly arranged by two hotel waiters hired for the occasion by Cariolin, who was to pay for the wedding repast, the merriment that each one had promised himself for this great day was lacking. Laughter was forced. How could that Carolinona have chosen material of such an incredible shade for her wedding gown! And why was not Biagio Speranza in evening dress? Good gracious! Was he or was he not going to be married? Biagio Speranza felt a sinking in his stomach, listening to Cariolin’s silly jests, who wished—so Biagio fancied—to avenge himself for the money he had lost, by calling Carolinona “Signora Speranza.” He now wished to get through with the ceremony as soon as possible, that he might think no more of it, that he might think of other things.
“Come, come! Let us get through with it all!”
“Wait a moment,” said Carolinona, her hat already on her head; “I want to take a look at the kitchen—”
There was a general exclamation of horror at so commonplace a thought thus ingenuously expressed at such a moment. Cariolin rushed forward ahead of them all, and, with the gracious bow befitting the conqueror of an Austrian archduchess, offered his arm to the bride.
The ceremony over, Cariolin rushed away to purchasethe gift, begging then to wait a little for him before sitting down to the table. He wished to keep the secret absolutely dark.
At table they at last began to be merry. Biagio Speranza, who could now see the end of this carnival, was most gallant to his bride. The dinner was choice, delicious, abundant. With the champagne, toasts began. Toasts of all shades and to every one. Among others, one of Dario Scossi’s to Martinelli’s absent wife was so positively unfortunate that it made Martino, who, contrary to custom, had buried his nose somewhat too deeply in his glass, weep. While they were at table Cariolin’s long-expected gift arrived.
“There’s a couple of porters outside,” one of the hotel waiters announced.—Everybody became interested.—“Porters? So the gift had come in a cart?”—“And what then is the gift?”
They all rose and rushed out into the hall. There stood a magnificent double bed of inlaid wood, with complete furnishings. Biagio Speranza was annoyed.
“What a pity!” cried Carolinona, wringing her hands, sorry that a thousand francs should be so wasted.
But all the others applauded Cariolin’s magnificent idea. Cariolin himself was radiant. “Gentlemen, help me to set up this bed.”
Carolinona interposed, mortified, unhappy: “Where do you wish to put it, Signor Cariolin?”—“Where? In your room?”—“But it would not go in, pardon me. And besides, what do you think I could do with it?”—“Do you ask me?” cried Momo Cariolin.
These last words caused a fresh burst of applause and confused outcries. The pieces of the bed were taken by assault, and carried into Carolinona’s room. Her own bed was quickly pulled apart, and the new one, the nuptial couch, set up in its place.
She laughed, poor thing, at sight of these inexpert men laboring so hard, first at placing the mattress, then the first sheet, the second embroidered one, then putting the pillows in their slips, and finally covering the bed with a splendid silk cover. They were all perspiring. But where was Biagio Speranza? Oh, rascal! He had quietly stolen away.
It was already evening. Carolinona, although tired after the tumultuous day, must spend several hours in putting the house in order. Finally, having dismissed the waiters and cook and sent her own servant to bed, she retired to her room. And the bed? Certainly she was not going to sleep in that new bed. She went and examined it closely, and first passed her hand gently over the pink silk coverlet; but against the soft, delicate, rose-colored material she suddenly noticed how dark her fat hand looked, disfigured by hard work, with short, rough nails, and instinctively she drew it back, murmuring anew: “What a pity!” She stooped down to examine the embroidery of the sheet, but no longer noticed the beauty of the bed; she was thinking of herself, thinking that if she had been pretty this ridiculous marriage would not have occurred; if shehad been pretty she would have been married long ago. And yet, how many of her former friends, certainly not prettier than she, had married, and now had homes of their own, position, while she—as a joke—married, and no wife! “Fate!”
She started, looked around; saw in a corner, rolled up, the mattress of her bed, the iron framework leaning against the wall. She stood for a moment perplexed whether or not to call the servant to help her. What should she do? She moved toward the corner where stood the mattress, but passing before the mirror of her wardrobe, she caught sight of herself and paused. From the attentive examination of herself in the mirror there arose in her a lively dislike for the task of making up her bed. No, she would not do it! She would sleep in the armchair. So much the worse for her that at her age, to amuse others, she had lent herself to such folly, ridicule, mockery.
But immediately the instinctive need for excusing herself called up the reasons that had led her to be persuaded; namely, her fear of being bound to that other crazy man, who wished to become her husband by force; the pitying promise which she had allowed her lips to utter that day in the hospital because of having listened to that fool Martinelli. “Bah!” she thought. “And when that crazy man comes out of the hospital furious, he, my husband, will defend me, recognizing the reason for which I consented to play the buffoon.”
She began to unfasten her gown. Suddenly she stopped; it was useless, since she was to sleep sittingin the chair. Another lie this, unearthed to prevent herself from acknowledging a foolish hope which she knew could not be realized even in a dream. She extinguished the lamp, she seated herself in the armchair. Through the silence that reigned in the street below she listened intently, unconsciously. Where was he at this hour? Perhaps in some café with his friends. And she imagined the room of a café, illuminated, and saw them all, her boarders, seated there at little tables, and he was laughing, laughing, and answering witticisms. Certainly her name was in every one’s mouth, and derided. What did it matter to her? She waited for the noisy reunion to come to an end that she might see him alone. Where would he go? Home? Or would he perhaps—perhaps go elsewhere? At this thought she paused, as before an unexpected abyss, taken aback. Why, yes, yes! Was he not absolutely free?
And she was seated there in the armchair. Oh, fool, oh, madwoman! And she found sleep impossible.
No, Biagio Speranza had not gone to the café, as Carolinona had imagined.
Annoyed by the jokes of his friends, he had gone home, with the firm determination of setting out for Barcelona the next day, and making an end of it.
He had begun preparing what he needed for the journey, when he thought that he had not enough money for this hastened departure. And then, confrontedwith this material obstacle, he agreed that, on the whole, flight was not worthy of him. Yes, yes; he had really done wrong to be annoyed, to sneak away thus. And he must not abandon to the wrath of Cocco Bertolli that poor woman who had nothing to do with these pranks, who would keep to her agreement, and would never annoy or molest him; of that he was sure.
“Poor Carolinona!” he thought with a smile. “With what a look she pronounced that 'yes’ with a glance at the official, as much as to say: 'You see what value that can have! For my part, I do not think that one should jest thus, but these young fellows thought that there was no harm in it, and here I am to satisfy them. What else could I do? I must write too? Sign my name?’”
He went to bed, and was not long in falling asleep. He had bad dreams! Carolinona would not listen to reason; was she or was she not his wife? And she wished to enjoy all her rights—ready, oh, most ready, to take upon herself all her duties. She seized him by the arm and did not intend to let him go. But how about their agreement? It was all a joke! Joke? She had really signed the contract. And therefore he must stay here with her. Infamy, treachery! All the doors closed? Kicks, pinches, blows at each door. In vain! Oh, what grief, what rage, what agony! Behind those closed, bolted doors the friends laughed as though they would split their sides: Cariolin, Scossi, Cedebonis, and even Martinelli. Trunfo sneered. An infamous conspiracy! Did they thenwish his death? No, no, even if it cost him his life, no; he would not be made to sleep in that bed. Ah, they would take him by force? They were binding him? Cowards! So many against one! Softly, softly! There at the throat, no—Ah, they were suffocating him—
He rose late, and in the worst of humors. He would go to the pension as usual that day, and by his manner would make his friends understand that it was time to be done with the whole affair.
That evening all the other boarders, including Trunfo, arrived at the house. Then Biagio Speranza arrived, and was at once assailed with questions.
“Why, of course! Naturally!” he answered with a gay face. “When did I return? Exactly at midnight. The hour of fantasy. The door was closed, and she, the very one who has been denying it, threw me down the key from her window. Why deny it, my wife? We owe this satisfaction to our friends who are so interested in our conjugal felicity. And this evening you will see me remain here at my post, as master of the house; and I hope that this will satisfy you, and that from now on you will allow me to enjoy the pleasures of married life in peace. Is it agreed?”
He seated himself beside Carolinona; during the meal he ostentatiously displayed, amid general merriment, all the attentions, the manners of an enamored monkey which a newly married man should show to his bride, and Carolinona let him have his way, and laughed too.
At a certain point Trunfo gruffly asked Biagio Speranza: “Will you permit me to continue correcting my papers here?”
“No, no!” Biagio hastened to reassure him. “You, dearmaestro, are free to suit your own convenience here by day or night. Am I not right, Carolinona?”
“Themaestro,” said she, somewhat quietly, “has never caused me the least annoyance.”
“Very well then!” concluded Trunfo, rising.
He made a quick, slight bow, with his hands resting on the back of his chair, and left the room, suffocated with bile.
“My friends,” remarked Biagio Speranza, a little later, “in the interest of my wife, I advise you to stop, if you do not wish to make her lose a client. A joke is all very well, but it should not be allowed to injure the pocket—”
“Oh, as for you, joking aside,” declared Cariolin, rising from the table with the others, “keep your promise, and do not take this excuse. We are going, and wish you a pleasant evening.”
“I,” added Scossi, “shall remain with Cedebonis outside the door on guard; and you may be sure that I will not let you escape.”
“You may all be sure that I shall not escape,” replied Biagio Speranza, accompanying his fellow boarders to the door.
Carolinona began to feel uneasy, not knowing what this crazy fellow would do next.
“What fools, eh?” said Biagio, once more enteringthe dining-room. “And they are really capable of waiting outside in the street, do you know it?”
Carolinona tried to smile and look at him, but she lowered her eyes promptly.
“Do you know that our position is actually ridiculous?” resumed Biagio, breaking out into his sonorous laughter. “But we must do this in order to have peace. Otherwise they will never have done. I will wait a half hour before I go; you must have patience.”
“Oh, as for me, of course,” said she, without raising her eyes, and faintly.
Biagio Speranza looked at her. He was very calm himself, and thought that she ought to be so, too. But noting Carolinona’s embarrassment he laughed again. Wounded by this laugh, she raised her eyes, and, trying as best she could to hide the bitterness with a smile, said:
“You are a man, and they all know that you are only doing this to make them laugh. Although, if I am to tell the truth, I do not see that it is a joke any longer, now that it has arrived at this point—They are all laughing at you and me—”
“Let us laugh too!” concluded Biagio. “Why not?”
“Because I can not,” promptly replied Carolinona. “Pardon me, but you must understand that it can not please me that you, to make an end to an annoying joke, are forced to make me play a part that does not suit me—”
“What!” exclaimed Biagio. “The rôle of wife! By heavens, you ought to thank me.”
Carolinona took fire. “Pardon me, and am I tothank you also for the words you said to Trunfo on my account? Your wife for a joke I understand; but since you have committed the folly of giving me your name in the eyes of the law, it seems to me, I do not know, but it seems to me that you ought at least to show that you do not believe certain calumnies, and not make a jest of them. Because they are calumnies I would have you to know! The vilest calumnies! I have always attended to my own business. I am poor, yes, but honest, honest! It is well that you should know it. And you may set your mind at rest on this point—”
Biagio looked at her and let his arms fall. “You alarm me, Carolinona! I did not believe you capable of telling the truth with such insistence and such warmth. I believe you, I believe you—but let me look out of this window and see if those tiresome fellows are gone, and we will make an end to this at once.”
He went to the window and looked out into the street. “No one,” said he, turning away. “I am sorry that the joke has finished really badly. Enough; the thing is done, and we must think no more about it. Good-by, eh?”
He held out his hand; the Pentoni hesitatingly laid her own, fat and black, in it, murmuring: “Good-by.” Then, all vibrating with emotion, she shut herself up in her room, and burst into tears.
Biagio Speranza, having taken a few steps, saw, spying in the shadows of the little square opposite the door, instead of Scossi and Cedebonis, Signor Martinelli,who was rubbing his hands with the cold. The good man was quite robbed of breath at hearing his name called. Then a hand smote him sharply on the shoulder.
“What are you doing here, my fine fellow? Tell me, were you perhaps waiting until I should have gone away to—”
“May Heaven forbid! What are you saying, Signor Speranza?” stammered poor Martinelli, so tremblingly that Biagio could not keep from laughing. “I—I was just going—”
“And meanwhile you are here!” replied Biagio, recovering himself, and pretending to be severe. He took him by the arm, and added as they moved away: “Come, let us go, and explain to me—”
“But, sir—” Martinelli hastened to reply, greatly embarrassed, “I confess—since you, yes, I say—since you suspected me—(May Heaven defend me!) I confess that I remained here, not so much out of curiosity, as because—yes, I say—to congratulate myself that finally you had recognized the—the—the sacredness of the bond, because—”
“And am I really to believe you?” Biagio interrupted him, standing still. “You stood there in the shadow like a vile deceiver; you can not deny it.”
“But pray do not say that even in jest!” cried Signor Martinelli, his eyes turned heavenward, and forcing himself to smile. “Pardon me, but at my age? And then she—a thoroughly virtuous woman, I would swear it—And she has always been so—so good to me, has always confided—yes, I say—confidedso many things to me, poor thing—And I stood there, believe me, congratulating myself—that—”
“You must excuse me! Good-by!” Biagio Speranza hastily interrupted him, withdrew his arm, and hurried after a flashily dressed woman who at that moment emerged from a café.
Martino Martinelli stood there, abandoned in the middle of the street; involuntarily he raised his hand to his hat, then his eyes followed for a time the couple who went away together laughing loudly, perhaps at him, perhaps at the Pentoni; and he shook his head sorrowfully, wounded.
Neither the next evening nor the following ones did Biagio Speranza come to the pension.
Momo Cariolin and Dario Scossi ceased teasing Carolinona after the first evening, and, truth to say, she was somewhat distant with them. Trunfo tried to take his revenge by reminding them how he had warned them not to joke stupidly in a matter that had no joke in it. Cedebonis gave himself no peace, thinking that with this marriage had been celebrated the funeral of mirth, and for several evenings he repeated this phrase, which seemed to him particularly felicitous. He alone, with his Calabrian obstinacy, continued fuming; he fumed because the fire would not once more burst forth with the fine witticisms of former days. But no one paid any attention to him, and he consoled himself after a fashion, thinking that a renewal of this huge joke was inevitable, in one wayor another, as soon as Cocco Bertolli should leave the hospital.
Trunfo, meanwhile, who had resumed his former habits, between one note and another of his hissed opera, instigated Carolinona to avenge herself.
At these vindictive exhortations of his a desire for vengeance flamed in the heart of the Pentoni; but soon after, suffocated, as though the flame had suddenly become smoke—a slow, dense smoke—she buried her face in her hands, and shook her head bitterly.
“Make good your rights,” said Trunfo. “A woman never lacks for means.” But she really recognized no rights of hers, and saw no means. He had made the terms of the agreement plain to her in advance. It was true, they were injurious, even shameful for her, but had she not accepted them? And if there arose in her heart a sentiment she had never before felt, and which she was not capable of explaining to herself, but which tormented her, and which she blushed for without respite, what fault was it of his? He had given her but a single cause for offense; he did not wish to believe in her honesty. What vengeance could she take for that? Possibly, if she felt herself capable of it, she might actually deceive him—But no, never! She inclined rather toward the advice of Martinelli, who counseled her to win him by fair means, to soften him.
“Write to him,” finally advised Martinelli. “Ask him to come as before, to do at least—yes, I say—his duty, now that that other—yes, I say—that example of the wrath of God is about to leave the hospital.”
“Have you news of him?” asked Carolinona.
Yes, Signor Martinelli had news, but he gave it to her with compunction, anxiously. Unfortunately, that “wrath of God” would be discharged in two or three days—the beast! One of the nurses had told him that while he was already convalescent he heard of this marriage and had had a relapse. “A dangerous fellow, dangerous!” finished Signor Martino. “So much so that I would almost advise you to go to the police without further delay.” Poor Pentoni stood pondering for a moment, then smiled.
“Signor Martino, do you know what I have decided? I shall not do anything. I will not move even a finger. Let Bertolli come and beat me. Or perhaps he will wish to kill me? It would really be laughable. Let us leave it to God!”
Now that is all very well; God is great, omnipotent, watches over all, protects the good and the oppressed. Nevertheless, Martinelli thought it well to inform Scossi and Cedebonis of the violent designs with which Cocco Bertolli would leave the hospital. It was therefore decided, after a long confabulation, to send Scossi to the home of Biagio Speranza, whom no one had seen since that day he had disappeared; and if he was not at home, a note was to be left, warning him of the Pentoni’s danger; if he was away, Scossi was to learn his address and telegraph him.
He was neither at home nor out of town. Dario Scossi was obliged to hire a cab and repair to a farm belonging to Speranza’s old landlady, some three kilometers outside of the city gates. Yes, Biagio had been there for four days and was to remain until his departurefor Barcelona; he had warned his landlady not to tell any one where he had taken refuge, and the landlady, as we have seen, had kept her promise. But it really was a question of something serious?
“Most serious! Most serious!” Scossi reassured her.
Having thus forced the citadel, Scossi began to feel the real necessity for believing in the danger that threatened Carolinona, and in the dreadfulness of Cocco Bertolli, so that he might have courage enough to face Biagio Speranza. The cab finally stopped before a rustic gate, consisting of a single bar, supported on posts not less rustic, behind which rose two tall cypress trees. A narrow path led up from the gate, between the vines, to the little knoll, on the summit of which stood the small house, amid trees. What poetry! What a dream! What quietude!
Before ringing the bell, Scossi glanced up the path for a few minutes; suddenly he heard the shrill squawks of geese, then the voice of Biagio Speranza, calling gaily: “Nannetta! Nannetta!”
Oh, wretch; Oh, renegade! A true idyl! He began to regret having come. “Shall I wait?” asked the driver.
“Yes, wait. I will ring.” He rang very softly; the tongue of the bell barely touched the edge, without giving a sound. Suddenly he pulled the chain, and the bell rang furiously. “It is done! Now the deluge! By Jove!”
Up at the end of the path an old peasant shortly afterward presented himself, who, seeing the cab outsidethe gate, hastened to come down. “What do you wish, sir?”
“Speranza.”
“What do you mean? Oh, yes, sir, you mean the young gentleman. He is here.” He opened the gate, and Scossi entered. Again the geese squawked from above, and the old peasant began to laugh, shaking his head. “Biagio!” exclaimed Scossi. “What is he doing?”
“Oh, he does and thinks of a hundred things,” replied the peasant. “Come and see. He has put soldiers’ caps on the poor geese, and drives them thus toward the lady who stands down there by the garden fountain.”
“Nannetta, Nannetta!” once more cried Biagio from above. “Look at Carolinona, who comes at a run! I have made her corporal.”
“Horrible!” cried Dario Scossi, presenting himself on the level stretch of ground.
“Dario!” exclaimed Biagio Speranza, amazed. “What! You here?” And he came toward him. But Scossi drew back a step, and gazed at him severely.
“You give a goose the name of your wife?”
“Oh, be quiet!” replied Biagio, shaking himself. “Have you come even out here to annoy me? How did you know?”
Scossi then explained the reasons for his coming, told him that it was neither just nor fair for him to leave that poor woman yonder in her embarrassment, and that his presence at the pension was urgently requiredfor three or four days at least. Biagio Speranza grew discouraged.
Suddenly there arrived at a run, her face crimson, a straw hat on her beautiful, ruffled, tawny hair, Nannetta, the same woman whom Signor Martinelli had seen coming out the café that evening.
“Well, Biagio? Oh, pardon me, how do you do, sir—”
“Good day, my dear,” replied Scossi, holding out his hand.
But Nannetta held her own in the air.
“I can not. They are dripping wet. If you like, with his permission, you may give me a little kiss here.” And she offered her flaming cheek.
“Do you permit?” asked Scossi, moved to compunction. “Her hands are wet—”
“One only,” replied Biagio gloomily. “There is nothing to be said. I shall have to go.”
“Is your wife sending for you?” asked Nannetta sadly, her cheek still upturned, upon which Scossi was all the while imprinting a series of soft kisses. “Oh, that is enough, sir; one only, I beg of you. Your wife, then?”
“Oh, do not you too annoy me!” cried Biagio, exasperated. “You may thank your God, Scossi, that I have not a stick in my hand. Get out at once. I shall return to the city to-morrow. This evening I am going to make up for it all by staying here. I shall wring the neck of the goose that looks so like her and eat it all for supper, with the appetite of a cannibal. Get out!”
But Nannetta wished to keep Scossi for dinner. At table Biagio explained to him why he had escaped.
“I do not say that she actually loves me; but it is near, do you know? Who would ever have expected it? Of course I understand that I am a very good-looking fellow, agreeable—” Nannetta protested with a laugh.
“And I assure you that she gave me a veritable lecture like a real wife.”
“Poor woman!” cried Nannetta. “If what you say is true, then all of you, especially you, Biagio, have been cruel beyond comparison. Go, make up to her for it now. Believe me, it is the best thing that you can do.”
Biagio Speranza did not open his lips, but opened his eyes very wide, and stared at Nannetta with such an expression that she smiled, and repeated: “Poor woman!”
“Enough, enough, my dear!” interrupted Scossi. “Or you will keep him from ever returning to the city.”
“No, no,” said Biagio seriously. “I have promised, and I will come. To think of it! For the diversion of humanity, Destiny had contrived a truly ideal marriage: Cocco Bertolli and Carolinona. I, fool, stupid, imbecile, go and interfere with her plans. I must pay for it. That great man loved her, his dove, and now I must show him the door. I feel remorseful, I assure you, but I have promised, and I will keep my word.”
The evening of the same day Dario Scossi related to the friend of the pension what he had done, where hehad found Speranza, and in whose company. Cedebonis feigned to be scandalized at such immediate infidelity; but Scossi, who, in relating the affair, had allowed this information to escape him without intending it, replied that Carolinona should not take it amiss in him. Wives were made purposely to be deceived by their husbands, and vice versa, except in the case of the Martinelli couple, of course, who were unique beneath the heavens. Finally he announced that Biagio Speranza would return without fail the evening of the following day. “The sheep will return to the fold.”
Biagio Speranza came somewhat late, saluted the lady of the house and his friends, and seated himself in his usual place. Some embarrassment was felt at first, but gradually conversation became more or less general. Only Martinelli kept his round, owl-like eyes fixed on Speranza as though expecting any moment some explanation of his unworthy manner of acting, some sign of repentance.
Carolinona sat with lowered eyes; but from time to time she would look about her, and if she saw that no one was looking, give a rapid side glance at Speranza, and become greatly moved. She suffered; she felt that she suffered, but still she controlled herself so that no one noticed it. She had given orders to the servant not to open the door without first looking through the peep-hole. If Cocco Bertolli came in the daytime she was to tell him that her mistress was notat home; if in the evening, while the boarders were at table, before opening the front door she was to come into the dining-room and give warning.
At every ring of the bell they all stopped to listen, and the poor woman felt her heart almost burst with agitation until they went on talking.
After an unusually loud ring, Cedebonis remarked: “You will see that that is not he. He certainly will first try to get in by day, and not succeeding in this will return in the evening.” And this would undoubtedly have been the more logical method; but one thing Cedebonis did not take into account; Cocco Bertolli was mad. And so it happened that itwasjust he who rang the bell. The servant rushed into the room in alarm to announce him.
All rose in consternation, save Biagio Speranza. “I beg you,” said he calmly, “to remain seated. I alone must go. You go on chatting here quietly. You will see; two peaceful words, and I shall make him reasonable.”
He rose and moved toward the door; but before leaving the dining-room he turned and added, raising one hand: “I beg you, then.” But the Pentoni, who until then had controlled herself with difficulty, burst into tears. Some surrounded her, trying to comfort her; others went on tiptoe to listen outside the drawing-room door.
Biagio Speranza himself went to open the door, resolutely; but at sight of Cocco Bertolli he stood as though turned to stone. The unfortunate fellow seemed to have scarcely an ounce of flesh on his bones,and his enormous ox-like eyes in his wasted, cadaverous face were positively terrifying. He paused at sight of Biagio Speranza, and twisted his mouth into a ferocious sneer. “Ah, you!” he murmured.
“Pardon me, what do you want?” asked Biagio.
“Now!” Cocco Bertolli clenched his fist, his eyes almost bursting from their sockets, “I merely wish to say two words to the lady in yonder, and to cut off her ears and nose.”
“Good Heavens! You would spoil her forme!” cried Biagio, laughing. “Come, come, my dear poet; you must know that I am now master of this house, and you shall enter it neither now nor at any other time.”
Cocco Bertolli, all of a tremor, drew down his loosely hanging vest, and said: “Very good. We will see about that. I merely wished to remind that good lady of a certain promise.”
“But pardon me, do you not understand,” Speranza tried to persuade him, “that the lady of whom you speak hoped, or rather was sure, that you—pardon me—that you were dying?”
“But I am not dead!” cried Cocco Bertolli, with fierce joy. “And I would have you understand that for her I have defied death!”
“Too bad!” exclaimed Biagio. “Too bad! Come now, if you will permit me to say so, do you really think that was worth while?”
“Ah, do you too know,” sneered Cocco Bertolli, “that your wife is a shameless woman?”
Biagio Speranza spread out his hands. “A stoutwoman, pardon, let us rather say a stout woman, so as not to offend her.”
“But I wish to offend her!” replied Cocco Bertolli, raising his arms, terrible in his wrath. “I wish to offend her before you, her worthy husband. Buffoon!”
Biagio Speranza paled, closed his eyes, then said mildly: “Listen, Cocco. Go away peaceably, or I will kick you out.”
“Me?”
“You. Or rather, see; I shut the door in your face to keep myself from kicking a poor madman, for you are nothing more than that.” And he closed the door.
“Vile clown!” roared Cocco Bertolli outside the door. “But I shall wait in the street for you, do you hear? I will make you pay for this!”
Biagio Speranza returned to the dining-room, still pale and trembling with the effort he had made to control himself. “Well?” asked all anxiously.
“Nothing,” he replied, with a nervous smile. “I have sent him away.”
“And he is waiting outside for you!” added Carolinona, who had heard in the hall the madman’s threat.
“Oh, Heavens!” moaned Carolinona, her face hidden in her handkerchief. “For my sake!” This weeping irritated Biagio Speranza; he felt an aversion for the part he was about to play, and shrugged his shoulders angrily. “Let him wait. I will go and give him what he deserves now!” And he looked for his hat and stick.
Then the Pentoni, as though impelled by a forcestronger than her nature, started to her feet. “I implore you! For pity’s sake! Do not have anything to do with that madman. Let the others go first! Listen to me!”
All save Martinelli, who was shaking like a leaf, and the scornful Trunfo, echoed Carolinona’s words, and offered to go. But Biagio Speranza made way for himself violently, and crying, “Pray, what do you take me for?” he went out. The others followed him. At the foot of the stairs he turned, and again begged them to be good enough to remain behind.
“You make me lose my patience by acting thus,” he called to them. “Do you seriously believe that I will lift my hand against that poor unfortunate who has just left the hospital, unless he actually drives me to the wall? So stay where you are, I beg of you! Do not let him see you, for if he does he will begin haranguing. Do not aggravate the ridiculousness of my position.”
Dario Scossi then made a sign to the others to stop, and let Speranza go on alone. Shortly after they continued downstairs and paused in the hall to spy. Cariolin, who was slightly in advance, put his head a little way out of the front door. Biagio and Cocco Bertolli were talking vigorously, a slight distance apart; but suddenly Cariolin saw Cocco Bertolli raise one hand and solemnly administer a blow upon Speranza. At that they all rushed forward. Carolinona, who was standing at a window, gave a scream and fell back fainting in the trembling arms of Martinelli, while Trunfo, attracted by the cries from the street, rushedto the entrance, repeating scornfully: “This is too much! A fight! Clowns!”
Biagio Speranza, tearful with rage, and struggling to free himself, cried out to the friends who were holding him: “Let me go! Let me go!”
“At your disposal!” roared Cocco Bertolli as they dragged him away, amid the crowd which was flocking from every direction. “At your disposal! The Caffè della Svizzero!”
Dario Scossi, Cedebonis, and Cariolin finally succeeded in leading Biagio Speranza away, while he cried furiously: “I must kill him! I must kill him! Two of you, you, Scossi, and you, Cariolin, go at once to find him. Ridiculous as it is, atrociously ridiculous, a duel with that wretch, because of that woman in yonder, I must fight, for otherwise when I see him I should kill him like a dog. Go, go, I will await you at my home.”
The three friends sought to dissuade him, to persuade him not to attach any importance to what had occurred. After all it was but the onset of a madman. But Biagio Speranza would not listen to reason. “He has struck me, do you understand?” And he sprang into a cab to go home, while Scossi and Cariolin, followed by Cedebonis, serious, placid, and curious, repaired to the Caffè della Svizzero.
They found Cocco Bertolli there, swelling with pride, while he narrated the adventure amid the laughter of the crowd that had followed him.
“At once! At your service!” he called, coming toward them. “Pistols, swords, daggers; what youplease, at your choice! Or even with hands and feet; but at once!”
Scossi made him understand that two more men were needed, with whom they could discuss the details of the meeting.
“I know no one,” protested Cocco Bertolli. “I would like to send Signor Speranza my two friends, Nero and Erostratus, but unfortunately they are both dead. So, pray, find me two living wretches; I do not wish to trouble myself with such paltry details.”
“I would assist in my quality of physician,” said Cedebonis. “But what can I do? I have lessons at theliceo.”
So Dario Scossi and Cariolin, together with Cocco Bertolli, set out in search of two seconds other than Erostratus and Nero.
Biagio Speranza, trembling with impatience, waited in his home for almost an hour. Then the doorbell rang, but instead of Scossi and Cariolin appeared Nannetta, who, having heard at the café about the quarrel, had come for news.
“Why, yes, I have been struck!” said Biagio. “Come in, Nannetta. We weresocomfortable in the country, we two, were we not? I have acted foolishly, but what will you? I must pay for it, as I told you—”
“A duel?” Nannetta asked him, terrified.
“Of course. Struck, I tell you.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
Nannetta kissed his cheek. “Dear, and if they kill you? Have you thought of that?”
“No, really I have not!” said Biagio, shrugging his shoulders, and he continued staring impatiently out of the window.