THE SILVER CRUCIFIX
BY ANTONIO FOGAZZARO
Translated by Lionel Strachey. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.
Translated by Lionel Strachey. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.
“Your coffee, milady,” said the maid.
The Countess did not reply. But although the curtains were closed, her handsome young face could be dimly discerned on the white pillow. The maid, standing tray in hand at the foot of the bed, repeated more loudly:
“Your coffee, milady.”
The Countess sat up, while she yawned, with eyes still unopened, “Let in some light.”
Her maid went to the window without putting down the tray, and, in turning the handle of the shutters, managed to knock over the empty cup on its saucer.
“Keep quiet!” whispered the mistress in a tone of irritation. “What is the matter with you this morning? Don’t you see you are waking the baby?”
And as a matter of fact the infant was now awake and crying in its crib. The lady turned toward the child’s bed, and peremptorily called out “Hush!”
This silenced her offspring at once, excepting for a few faint moans.
“Now, then, I will have my coffee,” commanded the Countess. “Have you seen your master yet? Why, you are trembling all over! What is the matter with you?”
What, indeed, ailed the girl? Cup, saucer, sugar-bowl and coffee-pot were rattling on the tray. “What is it?” repeated the Countess.
If the maid’s face showed signs of alarm, no less was the mistress disturbed by doubts and fears.
“Nothing,” replied the servant, still trembling.
The Countess hereupon seized her by the arm, shook it roughly, and exclaimed:
“Tell me!”
Meanwhile the pretty little head of a child of four was peering over the edge of the crib.
“It’s a case,” said the maid, half in tears, “it’s a case of cholera.”
Pale as death, the lady started up, and instinctively looked at her listening son. She jumped out of bed; by a single gesture she imposed silence on the girl, while motioning her to go into the next room. Then she darted to her child’s crib.
The little fellow had begun to cry again, but his mother kissed and petted him, played and laughed with him until he forgot his woes, and stopped weeping. She pulled on her dressing-gown in great haste, and joined the servant, shutting the door behind her.
“Oh, my God, my God!” lamented the girl between her sobs, while the other woman too began to shed tears.
“Hush, for Heaven’s sake! On no account must baby be frightened! What about this case—where is it?”
“Here, milady! Rosa, the steward’s wife. She was taken ill at midnight.”
“Heavens! And now—?”
“She is dead. She died half an hour ago.”
The baby was shrilly clamoring for his mother.
“Go,” said the Countess; “go in and play with him. Keep him happy; do anything you like. Be quiet, darling!” she exclaimed. “I shall be back in a moment.” Upon which she rushed to the Count’s room.
The lady was blindly, insanely afraid of the cholera; nothing but her passion for her child could have been more intense than this feeling. At the first rumors of the epidemic she and her husband had fled the city, escaping to their splendid country seat—her marriage portion—in the hope that the disease would not spread thither. The place had been spared in 1836, and had even remained untouched in 1886. And now there it was, in the farmyard attached to the villa.
Disheveled and untidy, she flew into her husband’s room. Before speaking she gave two violent tugs at the bell rope.
“Have you heard?” she said, with flaming eyes.
The Count, who was phlegmatically shaving his beard, turned round, inquiring, with the soapy brush in his hand: “What?”
“Don’t you know about Rosa?”
“Oh, yes, I know,” was his calm response.
If, in the first place, the Count had cherished some vague illusion that his wife was ignorant of Rosa’s death, it now also seemed proper to reassure her by his cool demeanor. Instead, however, her ladyship’s eyes shot fire, and her features were savage with anger.
“What!” she shouted, “you know, and you canthink of nothing better to do than shave? What sort of man are you—what sort of father—what sort of husband?”
“Good Lord!” cried the Count, throwing up his arms.
But before the poor man, soaped up to the eyes, and wrapped round with a towel, could add another word, in came the valet. Her ladyship commanded that not a peasant from the farmyard should be admitted to the house, and that no one should go thence to the farmyard. After this she gave orders for the coachman to be ready within an hour; he must harness to the landau the horses which his lordship would select.
“What are you going to do?” asked the latter, who had recovered himself meanwhile. “Nothing rash, I must insist.”
“Rash—how dare you say that? I am willing to be obedient to you in everything, but when it comes to a question of life and death—my son’s life, you understand—then I will listen to no parley from any one. I wish to leave here at once. Order the horses, please.”
The Count grew annoyed. How could matters have come to such a pass as this? Was there any propriety in running away after such a fashion? And then, what about business affairs? In two days, or one day, or maybe in twelve hours, he would be ready to start. But not before—no. His wife, however, interrupted him violently: “Propriety, indeed, and business! For shame!”
“And clothes?” objected the husband. “We mustcertainly take some with us. You see, we shall really need more time.”
The Countess made some contemptuous answer. She would see to it, she assured him, that the trunks were packed in an hour.
“But where do you expect to go?” persisted the Count.
“To the railway station, first of all, and then wherever you like. Now order the horses.”
“I have had enough of this!” cried the other. “I’ll give such orders as I choose! I’ll let the business affairs go, and everything else! Your clothes, too! The sorrels,” he added, enraged, to the domestic who was standing by impassively.
The Countess dressed and did her hair with the utmost speed, at moments clasping her hands in silent prayer, distributing commands, summoning servants from various parts of the house by frantic pulls at the bell. There was running up and down stairs, banging of doors, shouting, laughing, calling out of names, suppressed swearing. All the windows facing the fatal farmyard were immediately closed. Thus the cries of the unfortunate children who had lost their mother were shut out; besides a disagreeable odor of chlorin had penetrated into the villa, and even into the Countess’s room, smothering the delicate Viennese perfume she habitually used.
“Heavens!” she exclaimed angrily, “now they are doing their best to ruin everything! Pack up quickly, and get those trunks locked! This frightful smell is enough to kill one! Don’t they know that chlorinhas no effect? They ought to burn the things. The steward will be dismissed if any thieving goes on.”
“Some things are being burnt already, milady,” observed one of the maids. “The doctor is having sheets, coverlid, and mattress burnt.”
“That’s not enough!” snapped the Countess.
Here the Count, shaved and dressed, entered his wife’s apartment. He began talking to her aside.
“What shall we do with these servants? We can’t take all of them with us.”
“Anything you please. Send them away. Nothing will be safe in the house if they remain. I don’t want them to get the cholera, and then fumigate the rooms with that vile chlorin, and perhaps burn up some of my best gowns. They have no respect whatever for their masters’ property, and—”
Furious at having yielded, the Count now broke in with:
“A pretty state of things! A shame, I tell you, a scandal, to sneak off like this!”
“That’s it!” retorted the woman. “That’s just how you men always are! To appear strong and courageous is more important to you than the life and safety of your family. You are afraid of becoming unpopular. Well, if you want to keep up your reputation, why don’t you send for the mayor, and present him with a hundred lire for the cholera patients of the place?”
He thereupon suggested that he would stay at the villa alone, and that she should go with the child. Only he had not enough stability to carry out his own idea.
During this conversation the trunks were being filled. The little boy’s playthings, his most expensive apparel, prayer-books, bathing-suits, jewelry, crested note-paper, furs, underlinen, many superfluous and few necessary articles were thrown in helter-skelter, and the lids closed down by sheer force. Then the Countess, followed by her spouse—who made a great show of activity, but really accomplished nothing—hurried through the whole house, opening drawers and cupboards, taking a last look into them, and locking them up with their own hands. The Count stated his opinion that it might be advisable to partake of some refreshment before commencing the journey.
“Yes, yes!” ironically said his consort, “we’ll take some refreshment! I’ll show you what to take!”
And she drew up her husband and all the servants, including those who were going home for a holiday, and dosed each one with ten drops of laudanum. Her son she regaled with some chocolates.
At last the landau stood before the door. Prior to actually departing, her ladyship, who was extremely pious, withdrew to the seclusion of her bedchamber for a final prayer. Kneeling at a chair, in her tight-fitting costume of white flannel, her black, eight-button gloves reaching to the elbows, and her gold and platinum bracelets, she raised her eyes devoutly to heaven—under the overshadowing plume of her black velvet hat—and murmured a feverish supplication. Not a word did she say to God about the poor wretches who had lost their mother; nor did she ask that the cholera might spare the humble workers chained to the richsoil which had given her this house, her jewels, clothes, Viennese perfume, her education, her dignity, her husband and child, her accommodating God. Neither did she ask anything for her own person. She, who already saw herself and her family smitten down with the dread disease on the journey, offered up no prayers excepting for her son. In fact, her lips simply muttered Paters and Aves and Glorias, while her mind was altogether with the child, thinking of the fearful fate which might befall him, of the danger to his health in this precipitate journey, of his possible loss of appetite, sleep, spirits, or color. Oh, if he could but be kept unconscious of any peril or pain assailing others!
Rapidly she crossed herself, donned a long, gray cloak, and shut a window that had remained open. Before the strong morning breeze clouds were chasing across the sky, the grass was bending on the lawn, and the tall poplars were swaying in the avenue leading to the villa. But the Countess, though brought up on family traditions, had no thought for reminiscences of her youth belonging to this country estate. She merely closed the window and went downstairs.
The mayor was conversing with his lordship by the carriage door.
“Have you just come from there?” she asked the official, and, being informed that he had come from his home, she upbraided him for not having kept off the epidemic. He excused himself with polite smiles, to which the lady confusedly replied: “Never mind, then; never mind,” as she hastened her child into the vehicle.
“Did you give him the money?” she whispered to her husband as soon as she was seated beside him. He made a sign in the affirmative.
“I should like to thank her ladyship, too,” began the obsequious mayor, “for the generosity with which—”
“Oh, it was nothing—nothing!” interrupted the Count, scarcely knowing what he said.
Established in the carriage, the Countess made a rapid survey of bags and boxes, coats and shawls, umbrellas and parasols. Her husband in the mean time turned round to see if all the luggage was in its place in the barouche, which had been fastened on behind to the landau. “But,” he suddenly remarked, “what is the matter with that little boy?”
“Yes, who is that crying?” excitedly called out the Countess, leaning far out of the carriage.
“All ready!” exclaimed the peasant who had been assisting the servants with the luggage, and to whose side clung a small, ragged urchin. “Stop, can’t you?” his father bade him, sharply, then repeating the words, “All ready!”
The Count, with his eye on the boy, plunged into one of his pockets. “Don’t give way, my boy; you shall have a soldo all to yourself.”
“Mother is ill,” whined the lad sorrowfully; “mother has the cholera.”
Up jumped the Countess. Her face livid and contorted, she brought down her folded sunshade across the coachman’s back:
“Drive on!” she shrieked; “drive on—quick!”
The menial whipped up the horses. They began to prance, and then went off at a gallop. The mayor barely had time to leap out of the way, and his lordship to fling out a handful of coppers, which scattered on the ground at the peasant’s feet. He stood motionless—while the boy continued weeping—and stared after the flashing wheels of the carriage that rolled swiftly away, whirling up the dust.
“Damn those rich pigs!” he said.
Pretending not to hear, the mayor discreetly departed.
The peasant, a man of middle age and stature, pale, meagre, evil-looking, and as rugged as his offspring, made the youngster pick up the coins. Then they went home together.
They inhabited, in the yard belonging to one of the Countess’s farmhouses, a tumble-down, unplastered brick hovel, situated between a dunghill and a pigsty. Before the door gaped a dark ditch, from which issued an indescribable stench, and which was bridged by a single rough plank. Upon entering, one found one’s self in a dingy, unpaved sort of cavern. There was no flooring, either wood or stone, but there was an irregular brick fireplace, and in front of it the ground had been depressed by poor wretches kneeling to cook their mess of cornmeal. A wooden stair—three steps missing—conducted to the room, foul with dirt and rubbish, where father, mother, and son were wont to pass the night in a single bed. Standing by this article of furniture, one might look down into the kitchen below through the broken boards. The bed occupiedthe only spot not soaked by the rain that dripped from the roof.
Crouching on the floor, her head leaning against the edge of the bed, sat the peasant’s cholera-stricken wife. Although but thirty, she looked old; at twenty she had been a blooming girl, and even now preserved remnants of mild beauty. At the first glance her husband understood; he swallowed an imprecation. The child, frightened by his mother’s discolored face, kept in the doorway.
“For Christ’s sake, send him away,” she moaned feebly. “I have the cholera; send him away. Go to your aunt’s, dear. Take him away, and send me the priest.”
“I’ll go,” said the man to her; and to the boy, motioning toward the farmyard gate, “You go to your aunt’s.”
From the porch of the yard he fetched an armful of straw, carried it into the kitchen, and went upstairs to his wife, who by exerting all her strength had contrived to get on the bed.
“Listen,” said the man, in accents of unusual tenderness; “I am sorry, but if you die in the bed it will have to be burnt. You understand, don’t you? I have brought some straw into the kitchen—a nice lot.”
Too weak to answer, she made a mute signal of assent, and then a faint effort to rise from her couch. But the man took her up in his arms. By a gesture she begged him to reach first for a small silver crucifix hanging on the wall; she pressed it fervidly to herlips while her husband carried her down to the kitchen. Here he made her as comfortable as he could on the straw, before going for the priest.
And now she, too, this poor creature lying alone like a beast in a cage on the already infected straw—she, too, before departing to an unknown world, began to pray. She prayed for the salvation of her soul, convinced that she was guilty of many sins, and tormented by her inability to remember them.
When the timid doctor, sent by the mayor, arrived, he asked in great fright whether there was any rum or marsala in the house. There was neither; so he recommended hot bricks for her stomach, put up a notice of quarantine, and left her. The priest, who knew no fear, carelessly reeled off what he termed “the usual things,” obscuring the divine message with words of his own. Nevertheless, though benighted and ignorant, the dying woman derived comfort and serenity therefrom.
His task done, the priest went. Meanwhile the husband had put a few more handfuls of straw under her back, and lit the fire to heat the bricks. His wife went on praying—less for her child than for the man whom she had pardoned so often, and who was embarked on the road to perdition. Finally, kissing the cross, her mind turned to its giver. She had received it sixteen years back, at her confirmation, from the Countess, the mistress of the splendid manor where it was a joy to live and of the wretched hovel where it was a joy to die. At that time the Countess was a young girl, and had presented the silver crucifix to thelaborer’s daughter at the suggestion of her mother, then mistress of the estate, a kind, gentle lady, long dead, but unforgotten by her humble tenants.
The dying woman acknowledged having thought ill of the new mistress, of having complained sometimes, so thatherhusband had cursed because, despite repeated petition, neither roof, nor flooring, nor staircase had ever been repaired, and because the window frames had not been filled with linen panes. Feeling truly penitent, in her heart she implored forgiveness of his lordship and her ladyship; and she besought the Holy Virgin to bless them both.
At the moment when her husband placed the scorching bricks on her stomach, a spasm ran through her body, and she gave up the ghost. The man flung some straw over her blackening face, wrenched the little cross out of her hand, stuffed it into his pocket with a scowl at its small value, mumbling some customary pious sentiment the while.
But he did not say, for he did not know, and we do not know, how much good this poor woman’s crucifix had done, invoked and kissed by her on so many occasions. Still less can we tell how much benefit may yet spring from that charitable thought of an old lady, descending to an innocent child, and afterward reascending as a prayer from a pure heart to the Throne of Infinite Mercy.
The same evening the servants at the villa, who had been given leave of absence during the journey of the Count and Countess, got drunk in the drawing-room on rum and marsala.