Nannetta followed him, but instead of staring down into the street she began gazing up at the stars, which glowed thickly in the moonless sky. She sighed, and said: “Do you know, Biagio, that I really wish you would not fight this duel?”
Struck by the strange tone of her voice, Biagio asked her with a forced smile: “Are you so fond of me?”
Nannetta shrugged her shoulders, smiling mournfully; she closed her eyes, and replied: “How do I know?—I do not want—”
“Come!” cried Biagio, with a start, “no melancholy! I have here somemarsala; let us drink it! I must have some biscuits too—then you shall help me pack my valises. To-morrow, after giving that dog a good lesson, I shall be off!”
“For always?”
“For always!” He took the bottle ofmarsala, the biscuits, and invited Nannetta to sit down and drink. There was another ring at the door. It was Signor Martino Martinelli, reduced to the very shadow of himself, as though a breath could blow him away like a feather. “Come in, come in, my very dear Signor Martino!” cried Biagio, slapping him on the back. “Who sent you, eh? I bet you I can guess. My wife!” Nannetta burst out laughing at seeing the man with his huge nose standing there, petrified at sight of her.
“Do not laugh, Nannetta,” said Biagio. “Allow meto present to you the prototype of faithful husbands, Signor Martino Martinelli, famed for the biggest nose in the world. Signor Martinelli, tell my esteemed wife that you found me safe and sound, with a good bottle of wine in front of me, and a charming little lady at my side. Do not sneeze! Will you have something to drink?”
“Par—pardon me,” stammered Signor Martinelli thickly and indignantly; “permit me to tell—to tell you that you—yes, sir—that—you—misjudge, yes, I say, unworthily—yes, sir—a heart—a heart of gold, which at this moment beats—yes, I say—beats for you. Good evening.”
The laughter of Biagio and Nannetta followed him to the door. Signor Martinelli felt relieved after this outburst, and, elevated to a sphere of heroism, went away with his nose high in the air, like a war trumpet.
Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli arrived first at the place appointed for the meeting, accompanied by the physician and two artillery officers, friends of Cariolin, who had volunteered to act as seconds. He was most calm. Like a true poet, he praised the mild April morning. “The zephyr returns, bearing with it fair weather—” He praised the trilling of the birds, saluting the sun; inhaled voluptuously the resinous odor which the pine trees gave out, and the cypresses of the handsome villa nearby; recited an ode of Anacreon which he had translated, and finally told the two officers that theywere enjoying the apologue of the geese and the migrating crane. He was the crane; that is to say, according to the geese, a madman. “For I have neither overeaten nor drunk too much, you must know. Since yesterday, gentlemen, food has not entered my disheartened stomach. Water; I have drunk water at the public fountain. Diogenes, gentlemen, had a cup, but when he saw a boy drinking out of his own hand, he broke his own cup and he too drank out of his own hand. I do the same. I do not know whether I shall eat to-day, or where I shall sleep. Perhaps I will present myself to some farmer in the country. I will dig. Then I shall eat; but free from all ties in this absolute, sublime liberty which intoxicates me, and which must naturally seem like madness to the slaves of the law, of necessity, of social conventions. In a short time I shall break the head of the imbecile who has tried to cross my path, and then I shall work on my great poem, 'Erostratus.’”
A little later Biagio Speranza, Dario Scossi, and Momo Cariolin arrived with another physician. Biagio Speranza was very nervous; the thought of fighting with this madman, who had struck him, seemed to degrade him. But he tried to appear hilarious, so as not to lend too much importance to this duel, the grotesque epilogue of a silly prank. His valises and everything for his departure were ready, prepared at home. Now he would either give or receive a scratch, and all would be over. And by Jove, it was time!
The direction of the duel fell by lot to the young officer who acted as first second. But already it appearedthat everything was being arranged most amicably. The ground being chosen and measured, the adversaries were then invited to take their places opposite each other. “If you please,” said the officer to Cocco Bertolli, “you must remove your coat.” Cocco took it off furiously and flung it far from him. At sight of his ragged and soiled shirt, torn at the elbows, all received a most painful impression; repulsion, disgust, and pity, all in one; they looked in each other’s eyes, questioning if this were not a case that should be brought to an end at once. But Cocco Bertolli, who already had his sword in hand, and quivered with impatience, demanded with proud indignation: “Well?”
“On guard!” said the officer.
Immediately Cocco Bertolli leaped forward like a tiger with terrible fury, flourishing his sword, and howling, upon his adversary. Thus attacked, Biagio Speranza, still under that painful impression, started back, parrying the storm of blows as well as he could. He might easily have run Cocco through the body simply by holding his sword stiff, straight out, with a sudden lunge; but he banished the temptation, and continued parrying the attacks. Suddenly, in his fury, the sword fell from Cocco Bertolli’s hand. “Enough!” cried the officer who was directing the encounter.
“What do you mean by enough?” cried Cocco Bertolli, out of breath. “Do you wish to profit by my misfortune? I appeal to my adversary, who surely can not consider such paltry satisfaction 'enough.’”
Biagio Speranza stooped and picked up the fallensword, and offered it courteously to Cocco Bertolli. “Here it is. On guard!” Then he glanced at his friends, as much as to say: “You see to what you have brought me?” And his nervous irritation increased. “If the other evening, after that blow, you had allowed me to give him a sound beating, I should not now have found myself under the hard necessity of killing this poor madman, so forlorn and miserable, or of letting him kill me.”
At the second command for attack, Speranza was resolved to oppose his adversary seriously. But without warning Cocco Bertolli was upon him again with redoubled fury. “Stop!” cried the officer.
But already, in this lightning-like assault, Biagio Speranza had been wounded, for he suddenly fell to the ground, his hands clenched to his breast. A sneer choked in his throat. He looked at the four seconds and the physicians, tried to say: “It is nothing!” but instead of words blood gushed from his mouth, and he sank back, terrified.
Having recovered from their first feeling of horror, the others bent over him, lifted him cautiously, and carried him with the greatest care into the house of the keeper of the villa, where they deposited him on a bed. The doctors thought at first that he had but a few minutes to live; nevertheless, they administered the first remedies, and waited, anxious, terrified. An hour passed, two, and one of the physicians proposed to send some one to the city for a stretcher. So, toward evening, Biagio Speranza was carried home, between life and death. The Pentoni, his old landlady,and Nannetta were waiting for him, all bathed in tears. But the latter, shortly after, when the first confusion was over, was politely sent away by Scossi. “It is not proper for you to stay here, my dear.” She made no reply, but under Carolinona’s very eyes wished to imprint a kiss upon the brow of the wounded man, who lay unconscious, flushed with fever.
“Ah,” she then said weeping to Scossi, “if you had only left us there in the country! Poor Biagio! My heart told me this would happen. But at least take away this unfortunate woman from his side; if he opens his eyes he will die of despair at seeing her beside him.” Then she went away.
While Nannetta was saying this, Carolinona had left the head of his bed, understanding herself that the sight of her in these first moments would not be acceptable to the wounded man. She had desired so ardently that he might return to the pension, but she had not said even a word to that effect, nor taken a single step to urge him to return. It would be most unjust to hold her responsible for the misfortune that had happened; and he should be the first to admit it, he who had forced her, actually forced her, to commit this folly. So he ought not to feel horror at sight of her there by his bed, nor cherish any rancor. But Carolinona at heart felt the positive necessity, almost instinct, to ascribe to others the fault of our own misfortunes; so she drew back into the shadow to watch, to give him the most passionate care, without any flattering hope of recompense. She merely wished, longed, and prayed that he might recover; shewished nothing for herself, not even gratitude, not even that he should know that she had secretly nursed him.
Dario Scossi, Cariolin, and Cedebonis, after the first few days, seeing that the wound began to improve, began to insist that she should take some hours of rest. But they insisted in vain. “It will do me no harm; I am accustomed to it,” Carolinona would reply.
One day Dario Scossi looked at her, and she no longer appeared so ugly to him. Grief and love, both despairing, seemed to have transfigured her. Those eyes, for instance, so intense with passion; she did not know it, but they were actually beautiful at that moment. Seeing herself gazed at kindly, Carolinona smiled faintly at him, while her eyes filled with tears. And to Dario Scossi that smile seemed sublime.
The vigils continued heroically for about a month, during which time Carolinona, like mother and sweetheart in one, watched anxiously at the sick man’s bedside while he slept, ready to retire into shadow as soon as he awoke. She actually lost flesh, but, illuminated from within by the joy of knowing him safe at last, she became beautiful—really beautiful? No, but—in the opinion of all—more than possible as a wife. “And then,” they added, “if she has won out, that is saying very little. Has she not actually restored him to the world? Biagio is her own from now on.”
But she could not believe in her own happiness until one day Biagio, still in bed, but already convalescent, called her to him, and said in a voice trembling with tenderness, gazing into her eyes, and pressing her hand: “My good Carolina!”