XXXIX.From that day began the last and vertiginous period of the lucid madness which was to lead me to the crime. From that day commenced the premeditation of the easiest and surest means of causing the Innocent's death.It was a cold, ingenious, incessant premeditation, that absorbed all my inner faculties. The fixed idea possessed me absolutely with inconceivable power and tenacity. All my being labored in a supreme crisis; and the fixed, clear, rigid idea directed me, without deviation, toward the goal as if I were gliding along over steel rails. My perspicacity seemed to be trebled. Nothing escaped me, within me or about me. There was not a single minute of relaxation in my circumspection. I said nothing, I did nothing, that could awaken suspicion or cause surprise. I simulated, I dissimulated, ceaselessly, and not only with my mother, my brother, and all the others who knew nothing, but even with Juliana.With Juliana I affected resignation, appeasement, at times even a sort of forgetfulness. I studied to avoid the slightest allusions to the intruder. I sought by every means to encourage her, to inspire her with confidence, to cause her to observe the directions that must bring her back to health. I multiplied my zealous endeavors. I wanted to feel for her a tenderness so profound, so forgetful of the past, that it would permit her to again find the freshest and purest savor in life. I felt again the sensation that my being was becoming transfused into the body of the invalid, that I was communicating to her some of my strength, that I imparted an impulse to her exhausted heart. It was I, it seemed, who, from day to day, forced her to live and breathed into her an artificial vigor, while waiting the tragic and liberating hour. I repeated to myself: "To-morrow!" and to-morrow came, passed, disappeared, without the hour having sounded. I again repeated: "To-morrow!"I was convinced that the mother's health depended on the child's death. I was convinced that, after the suppression of the intruder, she would be cured. I thought: "It would be impossible for her not to get well. She would resuscitate gradually, be regenerated with new blood. She would appear a new creature, freed from all impurity. We would both feel purified, worthy of each other, after so long and so painful an expiation. The illness, the convalescence, would relegate the sad memories to an indefinite distance. And I would try to efface from her soul even the shadow of the recollection; I would try to cause her perfect oblivion in love. After this great trial, every other human love would seem frivolous by comparison with ours." The vision of the future burned me with impatience; the incertitude became intolerable to me; the crime appeared to me exempt from horror. I bitterly reproached myself for the perplexities which an excess of prudence kept me in; but no light had yet illumined my brain. I had not succeeded in finding asure means.Raymond must appear to have died a natural death. The doctor himself must not have a glimmer of suspicion. Of the various methods I examined, not one seemed to me satisfactory, practicable. And yet, while I awaited the revealing flash, the divine inspiration, I felt myself attracted by a strange fascination toward the victim.Frequently I unexpectedly entered the nurse's room with so strong a palpitation that I feared she would hear my heart-beats. Her name was Anna. She was a woman from Montegorgo Pausula, of a grand race of robust mountaineers. She was dressed after the fashion of her country—a red petticoat with a thousand straight and symmetrical folds, a black corsage embroidered with gold, with two long sleeves through which her arms were rarely passed. Her head arose bistre-like above her very white chemise; but the whiteness of her eyes and teeth exceeded in intensity the snowy whiteness of the fabric. Her eyes, brilliant like enamel, remained almost always motionless, without revery, without thought. The mouth was large, half-open, taciturn, illuminated by a row of even and well-set teeth. The hair, so black that it seemed to have a violet reflection, was parted on a low forehead, and terminated in two tresses that were rolled up behind the ears like the horns of a ram. She was almost constantly seated, with the nursing child in her arms, in a sculptured attitude, neither sad nor joyous.I entered. Usually the room was dark. I saw the white spot made by Raymond's dresses on the arm of that bronzed and powerful woman, who fixed on me her eyes like those of an inanimate idol, without a word and without a smile.Sometimes I stopped and watched the nursing infant sucking at the rounded breast, which was of a singularly light tone in comparison with the face, and crossed by blue veins. He sucked, sometimes gently, sometimes vigorously, sometimes without appetite, sometimes with sudden avidity. The soft cheek followed the movement of the lips, the throat palpitated with every aspiration, the nose almost disappeared beneath the pressure of the swollen breast. I imagined seeing the good spread through that tender body with that inflow of fresh, healthy, and substantial milk. I imagined that at every new swallow the vitality of the intruder became more tenacious, more resistant, more malefic. I felt a dull chagrin at noticing that he was growing and bore no indication of weakness, except those whitish crusts, light and inoffensive. I thought: "Have not all the agitations, all the sufferings of the mother, while she was bearing him, done him some harm? Or has he really some organic vice that is not yet manifest, but which, in the end, could develop and cause his death?"One day, when I found him undressed in his cradle, I surmounted my repugnance; I felt him, I examined him from head to foot, I applied my ear to his chest to listen to his heart beat. He drew up his little limbs, then forcibly extended them; he waved his hands, all covered with dimples and folds; he buried in his mouth his fingers terminated by minute nails. Folds of flesh accumulated around the wrists, at the ankles, behind the knees, on the thighs, at the groins, on the lower abdomen.Several times also I watched him while he slept. I looked at him for a long time, thinking and re-thinking of the means, made absent-minded by the inner vision of the little corpse in swaddling-clothes stretched in the coffin, amidst the wreaths of white chrysanthemums, between four lighted candles. He slept very peacefully; he lay on his back, his fist closed over his thumb. At times his moist lips made a movement as of sucking. If the innocence of that slumber went to my heart, if the unconscious act of those lips softened me, I said to myself, as if to make my resolution firm: "Hemustdie!" And I represented to myself the sufferings already endured for him—the recent sufferings, those that were preparing—and how much affection he usurped to the detriment of my own children, and Juliana's agony, and all the menaces that the mysterious tempest suspended over our heads concealed. In that way I rekindled my homicidal will, I confirmed the sentence of the sleeper. In a corner, in the dark, the guardian was seated, the woman from Montegorgo, taciturn, motionless, like an idol; and the whiteness of her eyes, the whiteness of her teeth, rivalled in brilliancy the large golden circles in her ears.XL.One evening—it was the 14th of December—I was returning to the Badiola with Federico, when we perceived before us, in the avenue, a man whom we recognized to be Giovanni di Scordio."Giovanni!" cried my brother.The old man stopped. We approached."Good evening, Giovanni. What brings you here?"The old man smiled, timid, embarrassed, as if we had detected him doing wrong."I came," he stammered, "I came to ask about my godson."He was very much ashamed. One would have thought that he was asking pardon for his temerity."You wish to see him?" asked Federico, in a low voice, certain of having understood the sweet and sad sentiment which stirred the heart of the deserted grandfather."No, no—I only came to ask——""Don't you wish to see him?""No—yes— It would perhaps be too much trouble—just now.""Come," said Federico, taking him by the hand like a child. "Come and see him."We entered. We went up to the nursery.My mother was there. She smiled kindly at Giovanni, and cautioned us to make no noise."He is asleep," she said.And, turning toward me, she added with uneasiness:"He coughed a little to-day."The news agitated me, and my agitation was so manifest that my mother thought she reassured me by adding:"Only very little, you know—a mere nothing."Already Federico and the old man had approached the cradle, and by the light of the lamp they looked at the little sleeper. The old man had bent over, and around him there was no whiteness as pure as the whiteness of his hair."Kiss him," whispered Federico.He rose, looked at my mother and at me with an indefinite look; then he passed his hand over his mouth, over his chin, which had not been freshly shaven.And in a low tone he said to my brother, with whom he was less ceremonious:"If I kiss him my beard will prick him, and certainly awaken him."My brother, who saw that the poor, forsaken old man was dying with desire to kiss the child, encouraged him with a gesture. And then that great hoary head bent over the cradle, softly, softly, softly.XLI.When my mother and I were alone in the room, in front of the cradle in which Raymond still slept with the kiss on his forehead, she said to me, very much moved:"Poor old man! Do you know that he comes here almost every evening? He hides himself in the garden. I heard it from Pietro, who has seen him wandering around the house. The day of the baptism he had the window of this room pointed out to him, doubtless so that he might come and look at it. Poor old man! How sorry I am for him!"I listened to Raymond's breathing. It did not seem to me to be changed. His slumber was tranquil.I said: "So he coughed to-day?""Yes, a little, Tullio. But do not let that worry you.""Perhaps he has taken cold?""It seems impossible that he should have taken cold, with so many precautions."A flash passed through my brain. A great internal trembling assailed me suddenly. All at once my mother's presence became insupportable. I was agitated, I was discountenanced, I feared I would betray myself. The inner idea threw out such flashes that fear overtook me: "Something must show on my face." This fear was vain; but I could not command myself. I made a step forward and bent over the cradle.My mother perceived something; but she interpreted it in my favor, for she added:"How frightened you are! Don't you hear how calm his breathing is? Don't you see how peaceful his sleep is?"But, in spite of the words she spoke, there was anxiety in her voice, and she did not succeed in hiding her apprehension from me."You are right, it is nothing," I answered, doing myself violence. "Do you remain here?""Yes, until Anna returns."I left the room. I went to Juliana. She expected me. All was ready for her dinner, which I habitually took with her so that the invalid's meal should be less sad and that my example and my pleading should persuade her to eat. In my acts, in my words, I showed myself unusually exalted. I was a prey to a strange superexcitation of which I had an exact consciousness; but, although capable of watching myself, I was not able to moderate it. Contrary to my habit, I drank two or three glasses of the wine prescribed for Juliana. I also wished her to take more than usual."You feel a little better, do you not?""Yes.""If you are good I promise you that you shall get up for Christmas—in ten days more. You can regain your strength in ten days, if you want to. Drink a little more, Juliana."She looked at me with surprise mingled with curiosity, making an effort to give me her entire attention. Perhaps she was already tired, perhaps her eyelids began to feel heavy. The raised position was again beginning to cause in her the symptoms of cerebral anemia. She moistened her lips with the wine that I handed her."Tell me," I continued, "where would you like to pass your convalescence?"She smiled feebly."At the seaside? Shall I write to Aric to find us a villa? If only the Ginosa villa were free! Do you remember it?"She smiled feebly again."You are tired? Perhaps my voice tires you?"I perceived that she was on the point of losing consciousness. I supported her, I removed the pillows that raised her, and put her at her ease by lowering her head; helped her with the usual remedies. Very soon she seemed to come to, for she murmured, as if in a dream:"Yes, yes, let us go."XLII.A strange anxiety harassed me. Sometimes it was like a sort of keen pleasure, a kind of confused joy; sometimes it was like an exasperating impatience and unbearable frenzy; sometimes it was a desire to see some one, to search for some one, to speak, to unbosom myself. At times it was a desire for solitude, a desire to run and shut myself up in some place where I would be alone with myself, where I could look into my soul clearly, where I could follow the development of my idea, examine and study the details of the approaching event, make my preparations. These divers and extraordinary impulses, and still other impulses, innumerable, indefinable, inexplicable, succeeded each other impetuously in my soul with an extraordinary acceleration of my inner life.The flash that had traversed my brain, that ray of sinister light, seemed all at once to have illuminated a pre-existent state of consciousness, seemed to have awakened a deep layer of my memory. I felt that it was arecollection. But, despite several efforts that I made, I could not recover the origin of this recollection or discover its nature. Without doubtI remembered. Was it the remembrance of something read long ago? Had I found in some book the description of a similar case? Or had some one told me the particulars as having occurred in actual life? Or was that sensation ofremembranceillusory; was it only the effect of a mysterious association of ideas? What is certain is, that the means, it seemed to me, had been suggested to me by some strange person. It seemed to me that, all at once, some one had relieved me of all my perplexities by saying: "This is how it must be done—what the other did in your place." Who wasthat other? I must certainly have known him in some manner. But, in spite of all my efforts, I could not separate him from myself, render him objective. It is impossible for me to define with exactness the singular state of consciousness in which I found myself. I had the complete notion of a fact in all the circumstances of its development; in other words, I had the notion of a series of acts by which a man had succeeded in putting a certain project in execution. But that man, my predecessor, was unknown to me, and I could not associate with that notion the images relative thereto without putting myself in that man's place. It was therefore I whom I saw accomplishing the special acts already accomplished by another, imitating the conduct assumed by another in a case similar to mine. The feeling of the initial spontaneity was lacking.When I left Juliana's room, I passed a few minutes in uncertitude, wandering aimlessly along the corridors. I met no one. I walked toward the nursery; I listened at the door; I heard my mother speaking in a low voice; I went away.Perhaps she had not left the cradle? Had the infant had a more serious attack of coughing? I well knew the bronchial catarrh to which new-born babes are subject, that terrible malady, with its insidious progress. I remembered the danger that Maria had run in her third month; I remembered all the symptoms. At the beginning Maria had sneezed several times, coughed lightly; she had shown a strong tendency to sleep. "Who knows?" I thought. "The good Godmay perhaps intervene in time, and I may be saved." I retraced my steps; I listened again; I heard my mother's voice again; I entered."Well, how is Raymond?" I asked, without dissimulating my emotion."He is doing well. He is quiet; he has not coughed again; his breathing is regular and temperature normal. Look! he has taken the breast."In fact, my mother seemed to be reassured, tranquillized.Anna, seated on the bed, was nursing the infant, who drank eagerly, and, at times, during the aspiration, his lips made a slight noise. Anna's face was bent down, her eyes fixed on the carpet, motionless as bronze.The little flickering lamp-flame threw reflections and shadows on her red petticoat."Is it not too warm here?" I said, because I felt a slight suffocation.The room really was very hot. In a corner, over a red-hot fire, some swaddling-clothes had been placed to warm. The hissing of boiling water could also be heard. From time to time the windows were rattled by the whistling, howling wind."Do you hear how furious the wind is?" murmured my mother.I became inattentive to all other sounds. I listened to the wind with anxious interest. Several shudders ran through my bones, as if a stream of cold had penetrated me. I walked toward the window. On opening the inner shutters my fingers trembled. I leaned my forehead against the icy glass and looked out, but the mist suddenly produced by my breath prevented my seeing anything. I raised my eyes, and saw through the upper window the scintillation of the starry sky."It is a clear night," I said, leaving the window.Within me I had a vision of the homicidal night, clear as a diamond, while my eyes wandered toward Raymond, who was still feeding."Has Juliana eaten anything this evening?" asked my mother of me in an affectionate tone."Yes," I answered rather harshly.And I thought:"This whole evening you have not found a minute's time to go and see her! It is not the first time that you neglect her. You have given your heart to Raymond."XLIII.The following morning Dr. Jemma examined the child and declared that he was perfectly healthy. He attached no importance whatever to the cough noticed by my mother. Then, smiling at the excess of cares and anxiety, he recommended caution during the very cold days, advised extreme prudence in washing and bathing.I was present while he spoke of those things before Juliana, and two or three times my eyes met hers, in fugitive flashes.So, then,Providencewould not come to my aid. I must act; I must profit by an opportune moment, hasten the event. I made up my mind. I waited for the evening to commit the crime resolved upon.I gathered together all that yet remained of my energy; I sharpened my perspicacity; I studied all my words, all my acts. I said nothing, I did nothing that could awaken suspicion, provoke surprise. My circumspection did not relax for a second. Not for a moment did I feel a sentimental weakness. My inner sensibility was compressed, suffocated, and my mind concentrated every useful faculty to prepare the way for the solution of a material problem that was expressed as follows: to succeed at evening, to remain alone with the intruder for several minutes, under certain precise conditions of security.In the course of the day I entered the nursery several times. Anna was always at her post, an impassable guardian. If I addressed a few questions to her, she answered in monosyllables. Her voice was guttural, of singular quality. Her silence and inertia irritated me.As a rule, she did not go out except at meal-time; and then, as a rule, she was replaced by my mother or by Miss Edith, or by Cristina, or by some other of the maid-servants. In the last case I could easily rid myself of the witness by giving an order. But there always remained the danger that some one would unexpectedly come at the critical moment. Moreover, I was at the mercy of chance, since I was not able to select the substitute myself. That evening, as on several evenings past, it would probably be my mother. However, it seemed to me impossible to indefinitely prolong my espionage and anguish, to keep watch endlessly, to live in this continual expectation of the fatal hour.While I was in this perplexity Miss Edith entered with Maria and Natalia: two little graces animated by a run in the open air, enveloped in their sable fur mantles, with their hoods over their heads, gloved hands, and cheeks rosy from the cold. When they perceived me, they came rushing towards me joyously, and for several minutes the room was full of their chatter."The mountaineers have come," cried Maria. "The nine days' prayers begin this evening in the chapel. If you saw the manger that Pietro has made! You know, grandmother has promised us a Christmas-tree. Didn't she, Miss Edith? We must put it in mamma's room. Mamma will be well by Christmas, won't she? Oh! do try and make her well!"Natalia had stopped to look at Raymond, and, from time to time, she laughingly made a face at the infant, who ceaselessly moved his limbs as if to free himself from his bandages. A caprice seized her:"I want to take him in my arms!"She noisily insisted on having him. She put forth all her strength to carry her burden, and her face grew serious as if she were playing at being mother with her doll."My turn now!" cried Maria.The odious little brother passed from one to the other without crying. But suddenly, while Maria walked around with him under the watchful eyes of Miss Edith, he lost his equilibrium and was about to slip from the hands that held him. Edith caught him, took him, gave him back to the nurse, who seemed profoundly absorbed, far from all persons and surrounding things.Following my secret thought, I said:"So it's to-night that the nine days' prayers begin?""Yes, to-night."I looked at Anna, who seemed startled out of her torpor, and paid unusual attention to the conversation."How many mountaineers came?""Five," answered Maria, who appeared to be minutely informed about everything. "Two bagpipes, two flageolets, and one fife.""They come from the mountains," I said, turning toward Anna. "Perhaps one of them is from Montegorgo."The nurse's eyes had lost their enamel-like hardness, had become animated, had acquired a humid and sad lustre. Her entire face visibly expressed extraordinary emotion. Then I understood that she was suffering, and that her malady was homesickness.XLIV.Evening approached. I went down to the chapel, and saw the preparations for the nine days' prayers: the manger, the flowers, the candles of virgin wax. I went out without knowing why; I looked up at the window of Raymond's room. I walked up and down the lawn with rapid steps in the hope of overcoming my convulsive trembling, the acute chill that penetrated my bones, the spasm that contracted my empty stomach.It was a freezingly cold evening. A greenish lividity spread over the distant horizon, and at the bottom of the valley, where flowed the tortuous Assoro. The river glistened, solitary.A sudden fright seized me. I thought: "Am I afraid?"It seemed to me that an invisible witness was watching my soul. I felt the same uneasiness that is caused at times by a fixed and magnetic look. I thought: "Am I afraid? Of what? Of accomplishing the act, or of being discovered?"I was frightened by the great trees, by the immensity of the sky, at the reflections of the Assoro, at all the confused voices of the fields. The Angelus sounded. I re-entered, or, rather, I rushed in, as if some one were at my heels.I met my mother in the corridor, which had not yet been lighted."Where were you, Tullio?""I was out. I took a walk.""Juliana is waiting for you.""When do the nine days' prayers begin?""At six o'clock."It was a quarter-past five. I had before me three-quarters of an hour. I must pay attention."I will go to her, mother."After a few steps I called her back."Has not Federico returned?""No."I went up to Juliana's room. She was waiting for me. Cristina was laying the small table."Where have you been so long?" asked the poor invalid, with a shade of reproach in her voice."I was downstairs with Maria and Natalia. I went to the chapel.""Yes, to-night the nine days' prayers begin," she murmured sadly, with a discouraged air."Perhaps you will hear the music here?"She remained pensive for several minutes. I thought she looked very sad, one of those languishing sadnesses which indicate that the heart is swollen with tears, that the eyes desire to weep."Of what are you thinking?" I asked."I am thinking of my first Christmas at the Badiola. Do you remember it?"She was full of affection; and she solicited my tenderness, abandoned herself to me to be caressed, that I might soothe her heart and drink her tears. But I thought anxiously: "I must take care not to favor this disposition and permit myself to be circumvented. Time passes. If I give way, I shall not be able to leave her. If she cries, I shall not be able to go away. I must control myself. Time is passing. Who will stay with Raymond? Surely it will not be my mother. It will be the nurse, no doubt. All the others will be in the chapel. I will keep Cristina here. There will not be the slightest danger. The occasion is as favorable as it can be. In twenty minutes I must be free."I avoided exciting the invalid; I feigned not to understand her; I did not reply to her effusions; I sought to turn her attention to material things. I acted in such a manner that Cristina did not leave us alone as on other evenings. I busied myself with the dinner with excessive zeal."Why don't you dine with me this evening?" she asked me."I can't eat anything just now; I don't feel very well. You eat a little, please."In spite of my efforts, I could not succeed in entirely dissimulating the anxiety that devoured me. Several times she looked at me, with the manifest intention of penetrating my thoughts. Then, all at once, she became gloomy, taciturn. She scarcely touched anything, scarcely moistened her lips. Then I summoned all my courage, in order to withdraw. I feigned having heard the roll of a carriage. I listened. I said:"No doubt Federico has returned. I must see him at once. You will excuse me if I go downstairs a moment? Cristina will stay with you."I saw her face change, as if she was about to burst into sobs. But without waiting for her consent, I left hastily; and I took care to order Cristina to remain until my return.Once outside, I was compelled to stop to conquer the suffocation of anguish. I thought: "If I cannot manage to control my nervousness all is lost." I listened intently, but heard nothing except the murmur of my arteries. I walked along the corridor as far as the stairway without meeting any one. The house was silent. I thought: "They are all in the chapel already, even the servants. There is nothing to fear." I waited another two or three minutes, to recover myself. Vague ideas passed through my head, insignificant, foreign to the deed I was about to perform. I mechanically counted the rails of the banister."It is surely Anna who is with him. Raymond's room is not far from the chapel. The music will proclaim the beginning of the nine days' prayer."I walked toward the door. As I reached it I heard the prelude of the bagpipes. I entered without hesitation. I had guessed correctly.Anna was standing near her chair, in so eager an attitude that I immediately guessed that she had sprung to her feet on hearing the bagpipes of her mountains, the prelude of the ancient pastoral."Is he asleep?" I asked.She nodded her head.The sounds continued, muffled by the distance, soft as in a dream, rather shrill, sustained, prolonged. The clear tones of the flageolets modulated the simple and unforgettable melody to the accompaniment of the pipes."You may go, too," I said to her. "I will stay here. When did he fall asleep?""Just now.""You can go."Her eyes sparkled."I can go?""Yes, I will stay."I opened the door for her myself and closed it behind her. I ran toward the cradle on tiptoe; I bent over to have a better view. The Innocent was asleep in his swaddling-clothes, his little fists closed over his thumbs. Through the tissue of his eyelids the iris of his gray eyes was visible. But I felt no blind burst of hate or anger rise from the depth of my soul. My aversion toward him was less impetuous than in the past. I no longer felt that impulse which more than once had run through me to the tips of my hands, and made them ready for any criminal violence, no matter what. I solely obeyed the impulse of a cold and lucid will; I had a perfect consciousness of my actions.I returned to the door, I opened it, assured myself that the corridor was deserted. I ran to the window. I recalled what I had heard my mother say; the suspicion crossed my mind that Giovanni di Scordio might be below on the lawn. I opened the window with infinite precautions. A blast of icy air came in. I bent over the sill. I saw no one; I heard only the musical undulations of the nine days' prayers. I drew back, approached the cradle; I conquered my repugnance by a violent effort, repressed my anguish. I took the infant up very gently; I held him away from my heart, that beat tumultuously; I bore him to the window; I exposed him to the air that was to make him perish.I did not for a moment lose my presence of mind; not one of my senses was dulled. I saw the stars of the sky, scintillating as if, in the superior regions, a blast of wind had shaken them; I saw the movements, illusory but terrifying, which the flickering lamp-light threw among the folds of the curtains; I distinctly heard the refrain of the pastorale, the distant barking of a dog. A shudder on the part of the infant made me start. He awoke.I thought: "Now he is going to cry. How long a time has passed? A minute, perhaps, or not even a minute. Will so short an impression suffice to cause his death? Has he received his death-blow?" The infant waved his arms, twisted his mouth, opened it. It was a little time before he began to wail, which seemed to me changed, more pitiful, more quivering; but it was perhaps because it did not resound in the same medium as usual, and because I had always heard him in a closed place. That pitiful, quivering wail filled me with fright, caused me a sudden fright. I ran to the cradle, in which I replaced the child. I returned to close the window, but before closing it I bent over the sill and peered out into the dark. I saw nothing but the stars. I closed the window. Seized as I was by terror, I avoided making any noise. Behind me, the infant cried, cried louder. "Am I saved?" I ran to the door, I looked into the corridor, I listened. The corridor was deserted; all that could be heard was the slow undulation of the music."So I am saved. Who could have seen me?" Then I thought again of Giovanni di Scordio, and, looking at the window, I again felt anxiety. "But no, there was no one below. I looked twice." I went back to the cradle, arranged the infant's body, covered him carefully, assured myself that everything was in its place. Contact with him made me feel an unconquerable repugnance. He cried, cried. What could I do to quiet him? I waited.But the continual wailing in that large, solitary room, that inarticulate plaint of the ignorant victim, rent me so atrociously that, incapable of longer resistance, I arose in order to relieve my torture. I walked out into the corridor; I half-closed the door behind me; I remained outside on the watch. The child's voice barely reached me, mingling with the slow undulation of the music. The sounds continued, muffled by the distance, soft as in a dream, somewhat shrill, sustained, prolonged. The clear tones of the flageolets modulated the simple melody to the accompaniment of the pipes. The pastorale filled the large, peaceful house, reached perhaps even the most distant rooms. Did Juliana hear it? What did Juliana think, what did she feel? Was she crying?I knew not why, but there entered into my soul this certitude: "She is crying." And the certitude gave birth to an intense vision that engendered a real and profound sensation. The thoughts and visions that passed through my brain were incoherent, fragmentary, absurd. The fear of madness invaded me. I asked myself: "How much time has passed?" And I noticed that I had entirely lost all notion of time.The music ceased. I thought: "The prayers are over. Anna will come upstairs. My mother will come perhaps. Raymond is no longer crying!" I re-entered the room; I looked about me to assure myself that there remained no trace of my crime. I approached the cradle, not without a vague fear of finding the child lifeless. He was sleeping, lying on his back, his little fists closed over his thumbs. "He is asleep! It is unbelievable. One would think nothing had happened." What I had done began to acquire the unreality of a dream. I experienced a sudden blank of thoughts, an empty interval during those moments of waiting. When I heard the nurse's heavy step in the corridor, I went forward to meet her. My mother was not with her. I said to her, without looking in her face:"He is still asleep."And I rapidly withdrew. I was saved!XLV.From that moment my mind was dazed by a sort of stupid inertia, perhaps because I was exhausted, incapable of a new effort. My consciousness lost its terrible lucidity, my attention became relaxed, my curiosity was no longer equal to the importance of the events that were developing. In fact, my recollections were confused, scarce, composed of indistinct images.In the evening I returned to the alcove. I saw Juliana again; I remained for some time at her bedside. I felt too fatigued to speak. Looking straight into her eyes, I asked her:"Have you been crying?"She answered:"No."But she was sadder than before. She had become white as her night-dress. I asked her:"What ails you?"She answered:"Nothing. And you?""I do not feel well. I have a headache!"An immense lassitude overwhelmed me; every limb weighed me down. I leaned my head on a corner of the pillow; I remained several minutes in that position, beneath the weight of an indefinable sorrow. I felt a shock on hearing Juliana's voice saying:"You are hiding something from me.""No, no. Why?""Because Ifeelthat you are hiding something from me.""No, no; you are mistaken.""I am mistaken."She relapsed into silence. I leaned my head again on the corner of the pillow. Several minutes later she said to me suddenly:"You go and seehimoften."I rose to look at her, seized by fear."You go to see him voluntarily," she added. "I know it. To-day...""Well?""That frightens me and makes me anxious. I know you. You torment yourself; you go there to torment yourself, to rack your heart. I know you. I am afraid. No, no, you are not resigned; you cannot be resigned. Do not deceive me, Tullio. This evening, just now, you were there....""How do you know?""I know it; Ifeelit."My blood froze."Do you want my mother to suspect? Do you want her to notice my aversion?"We spoke in low tones. She, too, had an absent-minded air. And I thought: "There is my mother; she is coming, all upset, crying: 'Raymond is dying!'"It was Maria and Natalia who entered with Miss Edith. The alcove was enlivened by their chatter. They spoke of the chapel, of the manger, of the candles, the bagpipes, giving a thousand details.I left Juliana to go back to my room, under the pretext of a headache.When I was on my bed fatigue overcame me almost immediately. I slept profoundly for hours.Daylight found me calm, in a state of strange indifference, inexplicable indifference. Nobody had come to interrupt my sleep; consequently nothing extraordinary had happened. The events of the evening before appeared to me unreal and very distant. I felt an enormous blank between my actual and my former being, between what I was and what I had been. There was a discontinuity between the past and present periods of my psychical life.And I did not make the slightest effort to recover myself, to understand the strange phenomenon. I felt a repugnance for every kind of activity; I sought to keep myself in that sort of factitious apathy which covered the obscure development of all my preceding agitations; I avoided examining myself, in order not to awaken things that appeared dead, that seemed no longer to belong to my actual existence. I resembled those invalids who, having lost all sensibility in half of their body, imagine they have a corpse beside them.But Federico came and knocked at my door. What news did he bring? His presence gave me a shock."We did not see one another yesterday evening," he said. "I came back rather late. How do you feel?""Neither well nor ill.""You had a headache, they told me?""Yes, that is why I went to bed early.""Ah! when shall we see the end of all our anxieties? You are not well, Juliana is still confined to her bed, and now mother is very much frightened because Raymond coughed during the night.""He coughed?""Yes. No doubt it is only a slight cold; but mother exaggerates, as usual.""Has the doctor been?""Not yet. But you seem more disturbed than mother.""You know where infants are concerned fear is justifiable. A trifle suffices..."He looked at me with his limpid, blue eyes, and I feared to meet them.When he had gone I leaped from my bed. "So, the effects commence," I thought. "So, there is no more doubt about it. How much longer has he to live? Perhaps he will not die ... not die! Oh! no, that is impossible. The air was icy, cut short his respiration." And again I saw the infant breathing, again I saw his little mouth half-closed, the dimple in his throat.
XXXIX.
From that day began the last and vertiginous period of the lucid madness which was to lead me to the crime. From that day commenced the premeditation of the easiest and surest means of causing the Innocent's death.
It was a cold, ingenious, incessant premeditation, that absorbed all my inner faculties. The fixed idea possessed me absolutely with inconceivable power and tenacity. All my being labored in a supreme crisis; and the fixed, clear, rigid idea directed me, without deviation, toward the goal as if I were gliding along over steel rails. My perspicacity seemed to be trebled. Nothing escaped me, within me or about me. There was not a single minute of relaxation in my circumspection. I said nothing, I did nothing, that could awaken suspicion or cause surprise. I simulated, I dissimulated, ceaselessly, and not only with my mother, my brother, and all the others who knew nothing, but even with Juliana.
With Juliana I affected resignation, appeasement, at times even a sort of forgetfulness. I studied to avoid the slightest allusions to the intruder. I sought by every means to encourage her, to inspire her with confidence, to cause her to observe the directions that must bring her back to health. I multiplied my zealous endeavors. I wanted to feel for her a tenderness so profound, so forgetful of the past, that it would permit her to again find the freshest and purest savor in life. I felt again the sensation that my being was becoming transfused into the body of the invalid, that I was communicating to her some of my strength, that I imparted an impulse to her exhausted heart. It was I, it seemed, who, from day to day, forced her to live and breathed into her an artificial vigor, while waiting the tragic and liberating hour. I repeated to myself: "To-morrow!" and to-morrow came, passed, disappeared, without the hour having sounded. I again repeated: "To-morrow!"
I was convinced that the mother's health depended on the child's death. I was convinced that, after the suppression of the intruder, she would be cured. I thought: "It would be impossible for her not to get well. She would resuscitate gradually, be regenerated with new blood. She would appear a new creature, freed from all impurity. We would both feel purified, worthy of each other, after so long and so painful an expiation. The illness, the convalescence, would relegate the sad memories to an indefinite distance. And I would try to efface from her soul even the shadow of the recollection; I would try to cause her perfect oblivion in love. After this great trial, every other human love would seem frivolous by comparison with ours." The vision of the future burned me with impatience; the incertitude became intolerable to me; the crime appeared to me exempt from horror. I bitterly reproached myself for the perplexities which an excess of prudence kept me in; but no light had yet illumined my brain. I had not succeeded in finding asure means.
Raymond must appear to have died a natural death. The doctor himself must not have a glimmer of suspicion. Of the various methods I examined, not one seemed to me satisfactory, practicable. And yet, while I awaited the revealing flash, the divine inspiration, I felt myself attracted by a strange fascination toward the victim.
Frequently I unexpectedly entered the nurse's room with so strong a palpitation that I feared she would hear my heart-beats. Her name was Anna. She was a woman from Montegorgo Pausula, of a grand race of robust mountaineers. She was dressed after the fashion of her country—a red petticoat with a thousand straight and symmetrical folds, a black corsage embroidered with gold, with two long sleeves through which her arms were rarely passed. Her head arose bistre-like above her very white chemise; but the whiteness of her eyes and teeth exceeded in intensity the snowy whiteness of the fabric. Her eyes, brilliant like enamel, remained almost always motionless, without revery, without thought. The mouth was large, half-open, taciturn, illuminated by a row of even and well-set teeth. The hair, so black that it seemed to have a violet reflection, was parted on a low forehead, and terminated in two tresses that were rolled up behind the ears like the horns of a ram. She was almost constantly seated, with the nursing child in her arms, in a sculptured attitude, neither sad nor joyous.
I entered. Usually the room was dark. I saw the white spot made by Raymond's dresses on the arm of that bronzed and powerful woman, who fixed on me her eyes like those of an inanimate idol, without a word and without a smile.
Sometimes I stopped and watched the nursing infant sucking at the rounded breast, which was of a singularly light tone in comparison with the face, and crossed by blue veins. He sucked, sometimes gently, sometimes vigorously, sometimes without appetite, sometimes with sudden avidity. The soft cheek followed the movement of the lips, the throat palpitated with every aspiration, the nose almost disappeared beneath the pressure of the swollen breast. I imagined seeing the good spread through that tender body with that inflow of fresh, healthy, and substantial milk. I imagined that at every new swallow the vitality of the intruder became more tenacious, more resistant, more malefic. I felt a dull chagrin at noticing that he was growing and bore no indication of weakness, except those whitish crusts, light and inoffensive. I thought: "Have not all the agitations, all the sufferings of the mother, while she was bearing him, done him some harm? Or has he really some organic vice that is not yet manifest, but which, in the end, could develop and cause his death?"
One day, when I found him undressed in his cradle, I surmounted my repugnance; I felt him, I examined him from head to foot, I applied my ear to his chest to listen to his heart beat. He drew up his little limbs, then forcibly extended them; he waved his hands, all covered with dimples and folds; he buried in his mouth his fingers terminated by minute nails. Folds of flesh accumulated around the wrists, at the ankles, behind the knees, on the thighs, at the groins, on the lower abdomen.
Several times also I watched him while he slept. I looked at him for a long time, thinking and re-thinking of the means, made absent-minded by the inner vision of the little corpse in swaddling-clothes stretched in the coffin, amidst the wreaths of white chrysanthemums, between four lighted candles. He slept very peacefully; he lay on his back, his fist closed over his thumb. At times his moist lips made a movement as of sucking. If the innocence of that slumber went to my heart, if the unconscious act of those lips softened me, I said to myself, as if to make my resolution firm: "Hemustdie!" And I represented to myself the sufferings already endured for him—the recent sufferings, those that were preparing—and how much affection he usurped to the detriment of my own children, and Juliana's agony, and all the menaces that the mysterious tempest suspended over our heads concealed. In that way I rekindled my homicidal will, I confirmed the sentence of the sleeper. In a corner, in the dark, the guardian was seated, the woman from Montegorgo, taciturn, motionless, like an idol; and the whiteness of her eyes, the whiteness of her teeth, rivalled in brilliancy the large golden circles in her ears.
XL.
One evening—it was the 14th of December—I was returning to the Badiola with Federico, when we perceived before us, in the avenue, a man whom we recognized to be Giovanni di Scordio.
"Giovanni!" cried my brother.
The old man stopped. We approached.
"Good evening, Giovanni. What brings you here?"
The old man smiled, timid, embarrassed, as if we had detected him doing wrong.
"I came," he stammered, "I came to ask about my godson."
He was very much ashamed. One would have thought that he was asking pardon for his temerity.
"You wish to see him?" asked Federico, in a low voice, certain of having understood the sweet and sad sentiment which stirred the heart of the deserted grandfather.
"No, no—I only came to ask——"
"Don't you wish to see him?"
"No—yes— It would perhaps be too much trouble—just now."
"Come," said Federico, taking him by the hand like a child. "Come and see him."
We entered. We went up to the nursery.
My mother was there. She smiled kindly at Giovanni, and cautioned us to make no noise.
"He is asleep," she said.
And, turning toward me, she added with uneasiness:
"He coughed a little to-day."
The news agitated me, and my agitation was so manifest that my mother thought she reassured me by adding:
"Only very little, you know—a mere nothing."
Already Federico and the old man had approached the cradle, and by the light of the lamp they looked at the little sleeper. The old man had bent over, and around him there was no whiteness as pure as the whiteness of his hair.
"Kiss him," whispered Federico.
He rose, looked at my mother and at me with an indefinite look; then he passed his hand over his mouth, over his chin, which had not been freshly shaven.
And in a low tone he said to my brother, with whom he was less ceremonious:
"If I kiss him my beard will prick him, and certainly awaken him."
My brother, who saw that the poor, forsaken old man was dying with desire to kiss the child, encouraged him with a gesture. And then that great hoary head bent over the cradle, softly, softly, softly.
XLI.
When my mother and I were alone in the room, in front of the cradle in which Raymond still slept with the kiss on his forehead, she said to me, very much moved:
"Poor old man! Do you know that he comes here almost every evening? He hides himself in the garden. I heard it from Pietro, who has seen him wandering around the house. The day of the baptism he had the window of this room pointed out to him, doubtless so that he might come and look at it. Poor old man! How sorry I am for him!"
I listened to Raymond's breathing. It did not seem to me to be changed. His slumber was tranquil.
I said: "So he coughed to-day?"
"Yes, a little, Tullio. But do not let that worry you."
"Perhaps he has taken cold?"
"It seems impossible that he should have taken cold, with so many precautions."
A flash passed through my brain. A great internal trembling assailed me suddenly. All at once my mother's presence became insupportable. I was agitated, I was discountenanced, I feared I would betray myself. The inner idea threw out such flashes that fear overtook me: "Something must show on my face." This fear was vain; but I could not command myself. I made a step forward and bent over the cradle.
My mother perceived something; but she interpreted it in my favor, for she added:
"How frightened you are! Don't you hear how calm his breathing is? Don't you see how peaceful his sleep is?"
But, in spite of the words she spoke, there was anxiety in her voice, and she did not succeed in hiding her apprehension from me.
"You are right, it is nothing," I answered, doing myself violence. "Do you remain here?"
"Yes, until Anna returns."
I left the room. I went to Juliana. She expected me. All was ready for her dinner, which I habitually took with her so that the invalid's meal should be less sad and that my example and my pleading should persuade her to eat. In my acts, in my words, I showed myself unusually exalted. I was a prey to a strange superexcitation of which I had an exact consciousness; but, although capable of watching myself, I was not able to moderate it. Contrary to my habit, I drank two or three glasses of the wine prescribed for Juliana. I also wished her to take more than usual.
"You feel a little better, do you not?"
"Yes."
"If you are good I promise you that you shall get up for Christmas—in ten days more. You can regain your strength in ten days, if you want to. Drink a little more, Juliana."
She looked at me with surprise mingled with curiosity, making an effort to give me her entire attention. Perhaps she was already tired, perhaps her eyelids began to feel heavy. The raised position was again beginning to cause in her the symptoms of cerebral anemia. She moistened her lips with the wine that I handed her.
"Tell me," I continued, "where would you like to pass your convalescence?"
She smiled feebly.
"At the seaside? Shall I write to Aric to find us a villa? If only the Ginosa villa were free! Do you remember it?"
She smiled feebly again.
"You are tired? Perhaps my voice tires you?"
I perceived that she was on the point of losing consciousness. I supported her, I removed the pillows that raised her, and put her at her ease by lowering her head; helped her with the usual remedies. Very soon she seemed to come to, for she murmured, as if in a dream:
"Yes, yes, let us go."
XLII.
A strange anxiety harassed me. Sometimes it was like a sort of keen pleasure, a kind of confused joy; sometimes it was like an exasperating impatience and unbearable frenzy; sometimes it was a desire to see some one, to search for some one, to speak, to unbosom myself. At times it was a desire for solitude, a desire to run and shut myself up in some place where I would be alone with myself, where I could look into my soul clearly, where I could follow the development of my idea, examine and study the details of the approaching event, make my preparations. These divers and extraordinary impulses, and still other impulses, innumerable, indefinable, inexplicable, succeeded each other impetuously in my soul with an extraordinary acceleration of my inner life.
The flash that had traversed my brain, that ray of sinister light, seemed all at once to have illuminated a pre-existent state of consciousness, seemed to have awakened a deep layer of my memory. I felt that it was arecollection. But, despite several efforts that I made, I could not recover the origin of this recollection or discover its nature. Without doubtI remembered. Was it the remembrance of something read long ago? Had I found in some book the description of a similar case? Or had some one told me the particulars as having occurred in actual life? Or was that sensation ofremembranceillusory; was it only the effect of a mysterious association of ideas? What is certain is, that the means, it seemed to me, had been suggested to me by some strange person. It seemed to me that, all at once, some one had relieved me of all my perplexities by saying: "This is how it must be done—what the other did in your place." Who wasthat other? I must certainly have known him in some manner. But, in spite of all my efforts, I could not separate him from myself, render him objective. It is impossible for me to define with exactness the singular state of consciousness in which I found myself. I had the complete notion of a fact in all the circumstances of its development; in other words, I had the notion of a series of acts by which a man had succeeded in putting a certain project in execution. But that man, my predecessor, was unknown to me, and I could not associate with that notion the images relative thereto without putting myself in that man's place. It was therefore I whom I saw accomplishing the special acts already accomplished by another, imitating the conduct assumed by another in a case similar to mine. The feeling of the initial spontaneity was lacking.
When I left Juliana's room, I passed a few minutes in uncertitude, wandering aimlessly along the corridors. I met no one. I walked toward the nursery; I listened at the door; I heard my mother speaking in a low voice; I went away.
Perhaps she had not left the cradle? Had the infant had a more serious attack of coughing? I well knew the bronchial catarrh to which new-born babes are subject, that terrible malady, with its insidious progress. I remembered the danger that Maria had run in her third month; I remembered all the symptoms. At the beginning Maria had sneezed several times, coughed lightly; she had shown a strong tendency to sleep. "Who knows?" I thought. "The good Godmay perhaps intervene in time, and I may be saved." I retraced my steps; I listened again; I heard my mother's voice again; I entered.
"Well, how is Raymond?" I asked, without dissimulating my emotion.
"He is doing well. He is quiet; he has not coughed again; his breathing is regular and temperature normal. Look! he has taken the breast."
In fact, my mother seemed to be reassured, tranquillized.
Anna, seated on the bed, was nursing the infant, who drank eagerly, and, at times, during the aspiration, his lips made a slight noise. Anna's face was bent down, her eyes fixed on the carpet, motionless as bronze.
The little flickering lamp-flame threw reflections and shadows on her red petticoat.
"Is it not too warm here?" I said, because I felt a slight suffocation.
The room really was very hot. In a corner, over a red-hot fire, some swaddling-clothes had been placed to warm. The hissing of boiling water could also be heard. From time to time the windows were rattled by the whistling, howling wind.
"Do you hear how furious the wind is?" murmured my mother.
I became inattentive to all other sounds. I listened to the wind with anxious interest. Several shudders ran through my bones, as if a stream of cold had penetrated me. I walked toward the window. On opening the inner shutters my fingers trembled. I leaned my forehead against the icy glass and looked out, but the mist suddenly produced by my breath prevented my seeing anything. I raised my eyes, and saw through the upper window the scintillation of the starry sky.
"It is a clear night," I said, leaving the window.
Within me I had a vision of the homicidal night, clear as a diamond, while my eyes wandered toward Raymond, who was still feeding.
"Has Juliana eaten anything this evening?" asked my mother of me in an affectionate tone.
"Yes," I answered rather harshly.
And I thought:
"This whole evening you have not found a minute's time to go and see her! It is not the first time that you neglect her. You have given your heart to Raymond."
XLIII.
The following morning Dr. Jemma examined the child and declared that he was perfectly healthy. He attached no importance whatever to the cough noticed by my mother. Then, smiling at the excess of cares and anxiety, he recommended caution during the very cold days, advised extreme prudence in washing and bathing.
I was present while he spoke of those things before Juliana, and two or three times my eyes met hers, in fugitive flashes.
So, then,Providencewould not come to my aid. I must act; I must profit by an opportune moment, hasten the event. I made up my mind. I waited for the evening to commit the crime resolved upon.
I gathered together all that yet remained of my energy; I sharpened my perspicacity; I studied all my words, all my acts. I said nothing, I did nothing that could awaken suspicion, provoke surprise. My circumspection did not relax for a second. Not for a moment did I feel a sentimental weakness. My inner sensibility was compressed, suffocated, and my mind concentrated every useful faculty to prepare the way for the solution of a material problem that was expressed as follows: to succeed at evening, to remain alone with the intruder for several minutes, under certain precise conditions of security.
In the course of the day I entered the nursery several times. Anna was always at her post, an impassable guardian. If I addressed a few questions to her, she answered in monosyllables. Her voice was guttural, of singular quality. Her silence and inertia irritated me.
As a rule, she did not go out except at meal-time; and then, as a rule, she was replaced by my mother or by Miss Edith, or by Cristina, or by some other of the maid-servants. In the last case I could easily rid myself of the witness by giving an order. But there always remained the danger that some one would unexpectedly come at the critical moment. Moreover, I was at the mercy of chance, since I was not able to select the substitute myself. That evening, as on several evenings past, it would probably be my mother. However, it seemed to me impossible to indefinitely prolong my espionage and anguish, to keep watch endlessly, to live in this continual expectation of the fatal hour.
While I was in this perplexity Miss Edith entered with Maria and Natalia: two little graces animated by a run in the open air, enveloped in their sable fur mantles, with their hoods over their heads, gloved hands, and cheeks rosy from the cold. When they perceived me, they came rushing towards me joyously, and for several minutes the room was full of their chatter.
"The mountaineers have come," cried Maria. "The nine days' prayers begin this evening in the chapel. If you saw the manger that Pietro has made! You know, grandmother has promised us a Christmas-tree. Didn't she, Miss Edith? We must put it in mamma's room. Mamma will be well by Christmas, won't she? Oh! do try and make her well!"
Natalia had stopped to look at Raymond, and, from time to time, she laughingly made a face at the infant, who ceaselessly moved his limbs as if to free himself from his bandages. A caprice seized her:
"I want to take him in my arms!"
She noisily insisted on having him. She put forth all her strength to carry her burden, and her face grew serious as if she were playing at being mother with her doll.
"My turn now!" cried Maria.
The odious little brother passed from one to the other without crying. But suddenly, while Maria walked around with him under the watchful eyes of Miss Edith, he lost his equilibrium and was about to slip from the hands that held him. Edith caught him, took him, gave him back to the nurse, who seemed profoundly absorbed, far from all persons and surrounding things.
Following my secret thought, I said:
"So it's to-night that the nine days' prayers begin?"
"Yes, to-night."
I looked at Anna, who seemed startled out of her torpor, and paid unusual attention to the conversation.
"How many mountaineers came?"
"Five," answered Maria, who appeared to be minutely informed about everything. "Two bagpipes, two flageolets, and one fife."
"They come from the mountains," I said, turning toward Anna. "Perhaps one of them is from Montegorgo."
The nurse's eyes had lost their enamel-like hardness, had become animated, had acquired a humid and sad lustre. Her entire face visibly expressed extraordinary emotion. Then I understood that she was suffering, and that her malady was homesickness.
XLIV.
Evening approached. I went down to the chapel, and saw the preparations for the nine days' prayers: the manger, the flowers, the candles of virgin wax. I went out without knowing why; I looked up at the window of Raymond's room. I walked up and down the lawn with rapid steps in the hope of overcoming my convulsive trembling, the acute chill that penetrated my bones, the spasm that contracted my empty stomach.
It was a freezingly cold evening. A greenish lividity spread over the distant horizon, and at the bottom of the valley, where flowed the tortuous Assoro. The river glistened, solitary.
A sudden fright seized me. I thought: "Am I afraid?"
It seemed to me that an invisible witness was watching my soul. I felt the same uneasiness that is caused at times by a fixed and magnetic look. I thought: "Am I afraid? Of what? Of accomplishing the act, or of being discovered?"
I was frightened by the great trees, by the immensity of the sky, at the reflections of the Assoro, at all the confused voices of the fields. The Angelus sounded. I re-entered, or, rather, I rushed in, as if some one were at my heels.
I met my mother in the corridor, which had not yet been lighted.
"Where were you, Tullio?"
"I was out. I took a walk."
"Juliana is waiting for you."
"When do the nine days' prayers begin?"
"At six o'clock."
It was a quarter-past five. I had before me three-quarters of an hour. I must pay attention.
"I will go to her, mother."
After a few steps I called her back.
"Has not Federico returned?"
"No."
I went up to Juliana's room. She was waiting for me. Cristina was laying the small table.
"Where have you been so long?" asked the poor invalid, with a shade of reproach in her voice.
"I was downstairs with Maria and Natalia. I went to the chapel."
"Yes, to-night the nine days' prayers begin," she murmured sadly, with a discouraged air.
"Perhaps you will hear the music here?"
She remained pensive for several minutes. I thought she looked very sad, one of those languishing sadnesses which indicate that the heart is swollen with tears, that the eyes desire to weep.
"Of what are you thinking?" I asked.
"I am thinking of my first Christmas at the Badiola. Do you remember it?"
She was full of affection; and she solicited my tenderness, abandoned herself to me to be caressed, that I might soothe her heart and drink her tears. But I thought anxiously: "I must take care not to favor this disposition and permit myself to be circumvented. Time passes. If I give way, I shall not be able to leave her. If she cries, I shall not be able to go away. I must control myself. Time is passing. Who will stay with Raymond? Surely it will not be my mother. It will be the nurse, no doubt. All the others will be in the chapel. I will keep Cristina here. There will not be the slightest danger. The occasion is as favorable as it can be. In twenty minutes I must be free."
I avoided exciting the invalid; I feigned not to understand her; I did not reply to her effusions; I sought to turn her attention to material things. I acted in such a manner that Cristina did not leave us alone as on other evenings. I busied myself with the dinner with excessive zeal.
"Why don't you dine with me this evening?" she asked me.
"I can't eat anything just now; I don't feel very well. You eat a little, please."
In spite of my efforts, I could not succeed in entirely dissimulating the anxiety that devoured me. Several times she looked at me, with the manifest intention of penetrating my thoughts. Then, all at once, she became gloomy, taciturn. She scarcely touched anything, scarcely moistened her lips. Then I summoned all my courage, in order to withdraw. I feigned having heard the roll of a carriage. I listened. I said:
"No doubt Federico has returned. I must see him at once. You will excuse me if I go downstairs a moment? Cristina will stay with you."
I saw her face change, as if she was about to burst into sobs. But without waiting for her consent, I left hastily; and I took care to order Cristina to remain until my return.
Once outside, I was compelled to stop to conquer the suffocation of anguish. I thought: "If I cannot manage to control my nervousness all is lost." I listened intently, but heard nothing except the murmur of my arteries. I walked along the corridor as far as the stairway without meeting any one. The house was silent. I thought: "They are all in the chapel already, even the servants. There is nothing to fear." I waited another two or three minutes, to recover myself. Vague ideas passed through my head, insignificant, foreign to the deed I was about to perform. I mechanically counted the rails of the banister.
"It is surely Anna who is with him. Raymond's room is not far from the chapel. The music will proclaim the beginning of the nine days' prayer."
I walked toward the door. As I reached it I heard the prelude of the bagpipes. I entered without hesitation. I had guessed correctly.
Anna was standing near her chair, in so eager an attitude that I immediately guessed that she had sprung to her feet on hearing the bagpipes of her mountains, the prelude of the ancient pastoral.
"Is he asleep?" I asked.
She nodded her head.
The sounds continued, muffled by the distance, soft as in a dream, rather shrill, sustained, prolonged. The clear tones of the flageolets modulated the simple and unforgettable melody to the accompaniment of the pipes.
"You may go, too," I said to her. "I will stay here. When did he fall asleep?"
"Just now."
"You can go."
Her eyes sparkled.
"I can go?"
"Yes, I will stay."
I opened the door for her myself and closed it behind her. I ran toward the cradle on tiptoe; I bent over to have a better view. The Innocent was asleep in his swaddling-clothes, his little fists closed over his thumbs. Through the tissue of his eyelids the iris of his gray eyes was visible. But I felt no blind burst of hate or anger rise from the depth of my soul. My aversion toward him was less impetuous than in the past. I no longer felt that impulse which more than once had run through me to the tips of my hands, and made them ready for any criminal violence, no matter what. I solely obeyed the impulse of a cold and lucid will; I had a perfect consciousness of my actions.
I returned to the door, I opened it, assured myself that the corridor was deserted. I ran to the window. I recalled what I had heard my mother say; the suspicion crossed my mind that Giovanni di Scordio might be below on the lawn. I opened the window with infinite precautions. A blast of icy air came in. I bent over the sill. I saw no one; I heard only the musical undulations of the nine days' prayers. I drew back, approached the cradle; I conquered my repugnance by a violent effort, repressed my anguish. I took the infant up very gently; I held him away from my heart, that beat tumultuously; I bore him to the window; I exposed him to the air that was to make him perish.
I did not for a moment lose my presence of mind; not one of my senses was dulled. I saw the stars of the sky, scintillating as if, in the superior regions, a blast of wind had shaken them; I saw the movements, illusory but terrifying, which the flickering lamp-light threw among the folds of the curtains; I distinctly heard the refrain of the pastorale, the distant barking of a dog. A shudder on the part of the infant made me start. He awoke.
I thought: "Now he is going to cry. How long a time has passed? A minute, perhaps, or not even a minute. Will so short an impression suffice to cause his death? Has he received his death-blow?" The infant waved his arms, twisted his mouth, opened it. It was a little time before he began to wail, which seemed to me changed, more pitiful, more quivering; but it was perhaps because it did not resound in the same medium as usual, and because I had always heard him in a closed place. That pitiful, quivering wail filled me with fright, caused me a sudden fright. I ran to the cradle, in which I replaced the child. I returned to close the window, but before closing it I bent over the sill and peered out into the dark. I saw nothing but the stars. I closed the window. Seized as I was by terror, I avoided making any noise. Behind me, the infant cried, cried louder. "Am I saved?" I ran to the door, I looked into the corridor, I listened. The corridor was deserted; all that could be heard was the slow undulation of the music.
"So I am saved. Who could have seen me?" Then I thought again of Giovanni di Scordio, and, looking at the window, I again felt anxiety. "But no, there was no one below. I looked twice." I went back to the cradle, arranged the infant's body, covered him carefully, assured myself that everything was in its place. Contact with him made me feel an unconquerable repugnance. He cried, cried. What could I do to quiet him? I waited.
But the continual wailing in that large, solitary room, that inarticulate plaint of the ignorant victim, rent me so atrociously that, incapable of longer resistance, I arose in order to relieve my torture. I walked out into the corridor; I half-closed the door behind me; I remained outside on the watch. The child's voice barely reached me, mingling with the slow undulation of the music. The sounds continued, muffled by the distance, soft as in a dream, somewhat shrill, sustained, prolonged. The clear tones of the flageolets modulated the simple melody to the accompaniment of the pipes. The pastorale filled the large, peaceful house, reached perhaps even the most distant rooms. Did Juliana hear it? What did Juliana think, what did she feel? Was she crying?
I knew not why, but there entered into my soul this certitude: "She is crying." And the certitude gave birth to an intense vision that engendered a real and profound sensation. The thoughts and visions that passed through my brain were incoherent, fragmentary, absurd. The fear of madness invaded me. I asked myself: "How much time has passed?" And I noticed that I had entirely lost all notion of time.
The music ceased. I thought: "The prayers are over. Anna will come upstairs. My mother will come perhaps. Raymond is no longer crying!" I re-entered the room; I looked about me to assure myself that there remained no trace of my crime. I approached the cradle, not without a vague fear of finding the child lifeless. He was sleeping, lying on his back, his little fists closed over his thumbs. "He is asleep! It is unbelievable. One would think nothing had happened." What I had done began to acquire the unreality of a dream. I experienced a sudden blank of thoughts, an empty interval during those moments of waiting. When I heard the nurse's heavy step in the corridor, I went forward to meet her. My mother was not with her. I said to her, without looking in her face:
"He is still asleep."
And I rapidly withdrew. I was saved!
XLV.
From that moment my mind was dazed by a sort of stupid inertia, perhaps because I was exhausted, incapable of a new effort. My consciousness lost its terrible lucidity, my attention became relaxed, my curiosity was no longer equal to the importance of the events that were developing. In fact, my recollections were confused, scarce, composed of indistinct images.
In the evening I returned to the alcove. I saw Juliana again; I remained for some time at her bedside. I felt too fatigued to speak. Looking straight into her eyes, I asked her:
"Have you been crying?"
She answered:
"No."
But she was sadder than before. She had become white as her night-dress. I asked her:
"What ails you?"
She answered:
"Nothing. And you?"
"I do not feel well. I have a headache!"
An immense lassitude overwhelmed me; every limb weighed me down. I leaned my head on a corner of the pillow; I remained several minutes in that position, beneath the weight of an indefinable sorrow. I felt a shock on hearing Juliana's voice saying:
"You are hiding something from me."
"No, no. Why?"
"Because Ifeelthat you are hiding something from me."
"No, no; you are mistaken."
"I am mistaken."
She relapsed into silence. I leaned my head again on the corner of the pillow. Several minutes later she said to me suddenly:
"You go and seehimoften."
I rose to look at her, seized by fear.
"You go to see him voluntarily," she added. "I know it. To-day..."
"Well?"
"That frightens me and makes me anxious. I know you. You torment yourself; you go there to torment yourself, to rack your heart. I know you. I am afraid. No, no, you are not resigned; you cannot be resigned. Do not deceive me, Tullio. This evening, just now, you were there...."
"How do you know?"
"I know it; Ifeelit."
My blood froze.
"Do you want my mother to suspect? Do you want her to notice my aversion?"
We spoke in low tones. She, too, had an absent-minded air. And I thought: "There is my mother; she is coming, all upset, crying: 'Raymond is dying!'"
It was Maria and Natalia who entered with Miss Edith. The alcove was enlivened by their chatter. They spoke of the chapel, of the manger, of the candles, the bagpipes, giving a thousand details.
I left Juliana to go back to my room, under the pretext of a headache.
When I was on my bed fatigue overcame me almost immediately. I slept profoundly for hours.
Daylight found me calm, in a state of strange indifference, inexplicable indifference. Nobody had come to interrupt my sleep; consequently nothing extraordinary had happened. The events of the evening before appeared to me unreal and very distant. I felt an enormous blank between my actual and my former being, between what I was and what I had been. There was a discontinuity between the past and present periods of my psychical life.
And I did not make the slightest effort to recover myself, to understand the strange phenomenon. I felt a repugnance for every kind of activity; I sought to keep myself in that sort of factitious apathy which covered the obscure development of all my preceding agitations; I avoided examining myself, in order not to awaken things that appeared dead, that seemed no longer to belong to my actual existence. I resembled those invalids who, having lost all sensibility in half of their body, imagine they have a corpse beside them.
But Federico came and knocked at my door. What news did he bring? His presence gave me a shock.
"We did not see one another yesterday evening," he said. "I came back rather late. How do you feel?"
"Neither well nor ill."
"You had a headache, they told me?"
"Yes, that is why I went to bed early."
"Ah! when shall we see the end of all our anxieties? You are not well, Juliana is still confined to her bed, and now mother is very much frightened because Raymond coughed during the night."
"He coughed?"
"Yes. No doubt it is only a slight cold; but mother exaggerates, as usual."
"Has the doctor been?"
"Not yet. But you seem more disturbed than mother."
"You know where infants are concerned fear is justifiable. A trifle suffices..."
He looked at me with his limpid, blue eyes, and I feared to meet them.
When he had gone I leaped from my bed. "So, the effects commence," I thought. "So, there is no more doubt about it. How much longer has he to live? Perhaps he will not die ... not die! Oh! no, that is impossible. The air was icy, cut short his respiration." And again I saw the infant breathing, again I saw his little mouth half-closed, the dimple in his throat.