XXV.What should I do? Stay longer in Rome until madness seized my brain, in the midst of this furnace, during the heat of the dog-days? Go to the seaside, to the mountains, seek oblivion in society, at the fashionable summer resorts? Reawaken in myself the old-time voluptuousness, go in quest of another Teresa Raffo, any sort of frivolity?Two or three times I dwelt on the remembrance of theBiondissima, although she had entirely passed from my heart, and even, for a long time, from my memory. "Where could she be? Is she still with Eugenio Egano? What would be my sensations on seeing her again?" It was only vain curiosity. I perceived that my sole, profound, unconquerable desire was to go back there, to my house of sorrow, to my torture.I took the necessary measures with the greatest care. I paid a visit to Dr. Vebesti, and wired to the Badiola that I was on the way home.Impatience devoured me; acute anxiety urged me on, as if I were to encounter new and extraordinary things. The journey appeared interminable. Stretched on the cushions, oppressed by the heat, suffocated by the dust that penetrated through the interstices of the railway carriage, I thought of the approaching events, I considered the future possibilities, I essayed to read the great darkness. Thefatherwas mortally tainted. What could be expected of the son?XXVI.There was nothing new at the Badiola. My absence had been very short. They celebrated my return. Juliana's first look expressed infinite gratitude."You have done well to return so quickly," said my mother with a smile. "Juliana could not get any rest. Now, we hope you will not leave us again. Apropos, did you think of that lace? No? What a memory you have!"As soon as I was alone with Juliana, she said:"I did not dare hope you would return so quickly. How grateful I am!"In her attitude, in her voice, there were timidity, humility, tenderness. Never had I been so struck by the contrast between her face and the rest of her person. On that face there was, continually visible to me, a special expression of sorrow that expressed the constant revolt of this woman against the shame that had fallen upon her. That expression never left her under any circumstance; it could be visibly seen through the diversity of other fugitive expressions which, no matter how strong, could not efface it; it was fixed and adherent, and it moved me to pity, and took from me my anger."What did you do while I was away?" I asked her."Waited for you. And you?""Nothing. I wanted to return.""To see me?" she asked, timid and humble."Yes, for your sake."She half-closed her eyes, and the light of a smile trembled on her face. I felt that I had never been loved as at that instant.After a pause, she said, regarding me with humid eyes:"Thank you."The tone, the sentiment expressed, recalled to me another "thank you," that she had said at another time, the morning of her convalescence, the morning of my first crime.XXVII.Thus I recommenced at the Badiola my invariably sad life, unrelieved by any notable incident, the hours dragging along on the sun-dial, and the feeling of desolation aggravated by the heavy monotony of the chirp of the crickets in the elms.Hora est benefaciendi!And, in my mind, there alternated the usual effervescences, the usual inertias, sarcasms, the usual vain aspirations, contradictory crises, abundance and dryness. And, more than once, reflecting on that gray, neutral, ordinary fluid, and omnipotent thing called life, I thought: "Who knows? Man is, above all, an animal who adapts himself. There is neither turpitude nor pain to which, in the end, he does not accustom himself. Perhaps in the long run I shall also become used to it. Who knows?"I sterilized myself by dint of irony. "Who knows if Filippo Arborio's son will not be, so to say,my very picture. Then the arrangement would only be easier." I thought of the cynical laugh that had been provoked in me one day when, in the presence of a married couple, I had heard them refer to a baby who, I knew for a certainty, was the fruit of adultery, as, "It's just like his father!" And in reality the resemblance was striking, from the influence of that mysterious law known to physiologists' as "heredity by influence." Often a woman married a second time, brings into the world, some years after the death of her first husband, sons who have every feature of the dead husband, and who do not resemble at all their real father."It is possible, therefore, that Raymond resemble me, and appear to be a veritable Hermil," I thought. "It might happen that I am warmly congratulated upon having so vigorously impressed upon the heir the seal of my race! And suppose my mother's and brother's expectations are not fulfilled? Suppose Juliana gives birth to a third daughter?"That probability calmed me. It seemed to me I should feel less repulsion for a new daughter, and that, perhaps, I might even succeed in tolerating her. With time she would leave my house, take another name, enter another family.Meantime, the nearer the term approached, the more my irritation increased. I was weary of constantly debating with myself in the same fruitless agitation, amidst the same fears and perplexities. I should have liked events to be precipitated, a catastrophe of some sort to occur. No matter what catastrophe was preferable to this agony.One day my brother asked Juliana:"How long will it be yet?"She answered:"Another month."We were in September. Summer was drawing to a close. We were approaching the autumnal equinox, the most charming period of the year, the season that bears in itself a sort of aerial intoxication emanating from the ripe grapes. The enchantment gradually penetrated me, soothed my soul, at times inspired in me a desire for furious tendernesses or delicate expansions. Maria and Natalia passed long hours with me, alone with me, either in my apartment or out in the surrounding country. I had never loved them before with a love so deep, so anxious. From their eyes, softly impregnated with scarcely conscious thoughts, there at times descended on my soul a ray of peace.XXVIII.One day I was seeking Juliana throughout the Badiola. It was in the early afternoon. As I found her neither in her room nor anywhere else, I entered my mother's room. The doors were open; neither sound nor voice was heard; the light curtains waved at the windows; through the open bay-windows were glimpses of the verdure of the elms. Between the brightly colored walls all breathed of peace and repose.I advanced cautiously toward the sanctuary. I walked softly, in order not to disturb my mother, in case she were dozing. I parted the curtains, and, without crossing the threshold, I leaned forward and looked in. I heard, in fact, the breathing of a person sleeping; I saw my mother, who was sleeping in an arm-chair in a corner of the window; I saw Juliana's hair above the back of another arm-chair. I entered.They were seated facing each other, and between them was a low table bearing a basket full of miniature bonnets. My mother still held between her fingers one of these caps in which glittered a needle. Slumber had overtaken her during the activity of her work. She was sleeping, her chin on her bosom; perhaps she was dreaming. The needle was only half-full of white cotton; but, in her dream, perhaps she was sewing with a more precious thread.Juliana was sleeping also; but her head had fallen back on the chair, and her arms were stretched out on the supports. In the gentleness of her slumber her features were relaxed; but her mouth retained a line of distress, a shadow of affliction; half closed, it permitted a glimpse of her bloodless gums; but at the beginning of the nose, between the eyebrows, there was a small furrow, deepened by great sorrow. And her forehead was moist; a drop of perspiration slowly rolled down her temple. And her hands, whiter than the muslin from under which they extended, seemed, by their position alone, to indicate an immense lassitude. What struck me most was less her moral expression than the appearance of her person. I meditated without considering this expression, and even Juliana herself had no part in my thoughts; and, anew, I felt only the little creature living beside me, as if, at that moment, no other creature existed around me. And, again, this was not an illusory sensation, but a real and profound one. Fear ran through every fibre of my being.I averted my eyes; and I again saw between her fingers the bonnet in which glittered the needle, I again saw all those light laces in the basket, all those rose-colored and blue ribbons that trembled at the breath of the breeze. My heart was so strongly oppressed that I thought I should faint. What tendernesses the hands of my mother, lost in her dream, revealed, those hands placed on the pretty, white thing destined to cover the head of the child who was not my own!I remained there several minutes. This place was the true sanctuary of the house, the Holy of Holies. On one wall hung my father's portrait, whom Federico greatly resembled; on another that of Constance, who resembled Maria a little. The two faces, living in that superior existence in which the recollections of those who have loved them have placed them, had magnetic eyes, eyes that seemed to see everywhere. Other relics of the two dead loved ones sanctified this retreat. In one corner, on a pedestal, closed in between plates of glass and covered with black crape, there was the death mask moulded on the corpse of the man whom my mother had loved with a passion stronger than death. And yet this room had nothing lugubrious about it. There reigned in it a sovereign peace, that, from thence, seemed to propagate through the entire house, as life propagates from the heart, by a rhythmic expansion.XXIX.I recall the walk I made to the Lilacs, with Maria, Natalia, and Miss Edith, on a rather misty morning. And the recollection of it is also rather misty, veiled, indistinct like that of a long dream, torturing yet sweet.The garden no longer had its myriad of bluish grapes nor its exquisite forest of flowers, nor its triple perfume, harmonious as music, nor its gayety, nor the continuous cries of its swallows. It was enlivened only by the voices and gambols of the two innocent girls. Already many of the swallows had departed, and the rest were about to go. We had arrived in time to see the last flock.All the nests were abandoned, deserted, lifeless. Many were broken, and on the clayey debris trembled poor little feathers. The last flock, gathered on the roof, in the gutters, were still waiting for a few dispersed companions. The emigrants stood on a row on the edge of the eaves-board, some presenting the beak and others the back, so that the little forked tails and the white breasts alternated. And while waiting, they filled the silent air with their calls. And, from minute to minute, by twos, by threes, the laggards arrived. The hour of departure was at hand. The calls ceased. The fading sunlight fell on the closed house, on the empty nests. Nothing could be sadder than those poor little dead feathers which, here and there, fluttered, held prisoners in the clay.As if raised up by a sudden gust of wind, by a storm the flock rose up with a great fluttering of wings, ascended into the air like a water-spout, remained for a moment directly above the house; then, without hesitation, as if they had before them a clearly traced path, they took their way in a compact mass, flew off, melted away in the sky, and finally disappeared.Maria and Natalia, mounted on a bench, stood up on tiptoe to watch the fugitives as long as possible, and, stretching out their arms, they cried:"Good-by, good-by, good-by, little swallows!"Of all the rest I retain only an indistinct recollection, like that of a dream.Maria wished to enter the house. I opened the door myself. It was here, on these three steps, that Juliana had followed me, furtively, light as a shadow, and had embraced me, and had whispered: "Go in, go in!" In the vestibule, the nest still hung among the grotesques of the ceiling. "Now I am yours, altogether, entirely!" she had murmured, without releasing my neck; and by a sinuous movement she had thrown herself on my breast and had met my mouth. The vestibule was silent—the staircases were silent; silence reigned throughout the house. It was here that I had heard the low and distant hum, like that retained by certain shells in the depths of their folds. But now, the silence resembled that of a tomb. And this place was the sepulchre of my happiness.Maria and Natalia prattled on without cease, did not stop asking me questions, showed themselves curious about everything, went and opened the drawers of the dressing-table, the closets. Miss Edith followed them, watchful."Look, see what I have found," cried Maria, running toward me.At the bottom of a drawer she had found a bouquet of lavender and a glove. It was one of Juliana's gloves, spotted with black at the finger-tips; on the inside, near the hem, it bore the following still visible inscription: "The Mulberries, January 27, 1880. Souvenir!" Like a flash, my memory represented clearly to me the episode of the mulberries, one of the happiest episodes of our first felicity, a fragment of the idyll."Is it one of mamma's gloves?" asked Maria. "Give it to me, give it to me. I want to take it to her myself."Of all the rest I have but an indistinct recollection, like a dream.Calisto, the old care-taker, came to speak to me. He told me a thousand things, and I understood almost nothing of what he said. Several times he repeated the wish:"A boy, a fine boy, and may God bless him! A fine boy!"When we were outside, Calisto closed the doors."And those nests, those happy nests?" he said, shaking his handsome white head."They must not be touched, Calisto."Every nest was deserted, empty, lifeless. Their last habitants had left them. A languorous kiss from the setting sun touched the closed house, the solitary nests, and there could be nothing sadder than those poor little dead feathers that, here and there, trembled, prisoners in the clay.XXX.The term approached. The first half of October had passed. Doctor Vebesti had been notified.My anxiety increased hourly, became intolerable. I was frequently assailed by attacks of madness similar to that which had seized me on the banks of the Assoro. I fled far from the Badiola, remained long hours on horseback, I compelled Orlando to jump hedges and trenches, I forced him into perilous paths at a gallop. Then the poor animal and I returned, streaming, tired, but always safely.Doctor Vebesti arrived. Everybody at the Badiola breathed a sigh of relief. Confidence and hope reappeared. Juliana alone was unnerved, and more than once I detected in her eyes the passage of a sinister thought, the sombre light of a fixed idea, the horror of a lugubrious presentiment.The pains of childbirth began; they lasted an entire day, with a few periods of suspension, at times stronger, sometimes weaker, at times bearable, and sometimes agonizing. She remained standing, leaning on a table, her back against a closet, clenching her teeth so as not to cry out; or else she sat in an arm-chair and remained in it, almost motionless, her face buried in her hands, uttering at times a suppressed groan; or else she ceaselessly changed her place, going from one corner to another, stopping here and there to convulsively twist between her fingers the first object at hand. The sight of her suffering tortured me. I could not stand it. I left the room, went out for a few minutes; then I returned, almost in spite of myself, as if drawn by a magnetic attraction; and I forced myself to watch her suffering, without power to speak one comforting word to her."Tullio, Tullio! What a horrible thing! Oh! what a horrible thing. I have never suffered so much, never, never!"Night fell. My mother, Miss Edith, and the doctor had gone down to the dining-room. Juliana and I were alone. The lamps had not yet been brought in. October's purplish twilight entered the room; from time to time the wind shook the windows."Help me, Tullio, help me!" she cried, in the bewilderment of the spasm, her arms stretched toward me, looking at me with dilated eyes, whose whites were of an extraordinary whiteness in the darkness that made her face livid."Tell me, tell me, what can I do to help you?" I stammered, distracted, not knowing what to do, caressing the hair on her temples with a gesture in which I would have liked to impart a supernatural power. "Tell me, tell me, what shall I do?"She stopped complaining; she looked at me, listened to me, as if forgetful of her pain, as if seized by surprise, stupefied, no doubt, by the sound of my voice, by the expression of my bewilderment and anguish, by the trembling of my fingers on her hair, by the distressed tenderness of that inefficacious gesture."You love me, don't you?" she said, without ceasing to look at me, as if not to lose the slightest sign of my emotion. "You forgive everything?"And, becoming exalted again, she cried:"You must love me! You must love me very much now, because to-morrow I shall not be here, because I shall die to-night; to-night, perhaps, I shall be dead. And you would be sorry for not having loved me, for not having pardoned me. Oh! yes, you would be sorry."She seemed so sure of dying that a sudden terror froze me."You must love me! Perhaps you do not believe what I told you one night; perhaps you do not believe me yet; but you will surely believe me when I am gone. Then the light will enter your soul, then you will understand the truth; and you will repent not having loved me enough, not having forgiven me."Sobs choked her utterance."Do you know why I'm sorry to die? Because I die without your knowing how much I have loved you, how much I loved youafter, especially— Oh! what a punishment! Do I deserve such an end?"She hid her face in her hands. But immediately uncovered it, and, very pale, looked at me. An idea still more terrible seemed to have crushed her."Suppose I died," she stammered; "and while dyinggave life——""Hush!""You understand——""Be silent, Juliana!"I was more affected than she. Terror had overwhelmed me, and left me without even the power to emit a single word of consolation, to combat these imaginations of death with a single vivifying word. I, too, was sure of the atrocious end. In the violet darkness my eyes met Juliana's; and on that poor drawn face I thought I noticed symptoms of the death agony, symptoms of a dissolution that had already begun and that was inevitable. She could not repress a sort of shriek that resembled nothing human, and she clutched my arm convulsively."Help me, Tullio, help me!"She clasped me hard, very hard, yet not hard enough. I should have liked to feel her nails penetrate my flesh, from a furious desire for physical torture that would put me in touch with her torture. Her forehead pressed against my shoulder, she continued to moan. Its note was that which renders the voice unrecognizable in the excess of corporeal suffering, the note that brings suffering man to the level of the suffering beast—the instinctive lamentation of all flesh in pain, whether animal or human.From time to time she recovered her speech sufficiently to repeat:"Help me!"And she imparted to me the violent shocks of her great pain. A flood of hate mounted from the deepest roots of my being, rose even to my hands in a homicidal impulse. That impulse came before its time; but the vision of the crime already consummated lit up my inner consciousness like a flash. "You shall not live!""Ah! Tullio, Tullio! Suffocate me! Kill me! I cannot stand it, I cannot stand it, you hear; no, I cannot stand it, I do not want to suffer any longer."She cried savagely, looking around her wildly as if seeking something or someone from whom she could obtain the aid I was powerless to render her."Calm yourself, Juliana; calm yourself. Perhaps the time has come! Be brave! Take this chair. Be brave, my dear soul! A little more patience! See, I am near you. Do not be afraid."I ran to the bell. "The doctor! the doctor! Tell him to come immediately."Juliana ceased her lamentations. All at once she seemed to cease suffering, or at least to be unconscious of her condition, in the abstraction of other thoughts. It was evident that she was meditating something. I scarcely had time to remark this instantaneous change."Listen, Tullio. Suppose I become delirious....""What do you mean?""Suppose later, when fever sets in, I become delirious; suppose I die raving——""Well?"Her voice had such accents of terror, her reticences were so sad, that I began to tremble like a leaf, seized by a sort of panic, still without understanding what she meant."Well?""They will be all there; they will be around me.... You understand? You understand? One word would be enough. One never knows what one says when delirious. You should..."At that moment my mother, the doctor, and the midwife arrived."Ah! doctor," sighed Juliana, "I thought I was dying.""Nonsense!" said the doctor in a reassuring voice. "There is no danger. Everything will be all right."And he looked at me."Your husband," he went on, smiling, "looks worse than you do."And he showed me the door, saying:"Go! You can be of no assistance here."I glanced at my mother's eyes. She seemed restless, anxious, compassionate."Yes, Tullio," she said. "It will be better for you to go. Federico is downstairs waiting for you."I looked at Juliana. Without concerning herself with the others present, she fixed on me her large eyes, which were animated with an extraordinary brilliancy. They expressed all the passion of a despairing soul."I will not leave the adjoining room," I declared resolutely, without removing my gaze from Juliana.As I turned to go out I noticed the midwife disposing the pillows on the bed of pain, on the bed of misery, and I shuddered as if from a breath of death.XXXI.It was between four and five o'clock in the morning. The pains had lasted until then, with a few intermissions of relief. I was lying on the lounge in the adjoining room, and about three o'clock sleep had overcome me unexpectedly. Cristina awoke me; she told me that Juliana wished to see me.My eyes still heavy from sleep, I started to my feet."Was I asleep? What has happened?""Do not be alarmed, signor. Nothing has happened. The pains are easier. Come and see her."I entered, and my eyes immediately sought Juliana.She was supported by pillows, pale as her night-dress, almost lifeless. Her eyes at once met mine, because they were turned toward the door, in the expectation of my coming. Her eyes appeared larger, deeper, hollower, surrounded by a wider, dark shadow."You see," she said in an exhausted voice, "it is still the same."Her gaze did not leave me. Her eyes spoke, like those of the Princess Lisa: "I hoped you would help me; but you do not help me, either.""Where is the doctor?" I asked my mother, who seemed sad and preoccupied.She pointed to a door. I opened it, and passed through. I saw the doctor near a table busy with his preparations."Well," I asked him abruptly, "how is it?""Nothing serious so far.""And all these preparations?""To be on the safe side.""But how long will it last?""It is nearly over.""Please speak frankly. Do you expect any complication?""At present there are no serious symptoms. Have confidence in me, and be calm. I have noticed that your presence greatly excites your wife. During the short period of the final pains, she needs all the strength she has. It is absolutely necessary that you go away. Promise me to do this. You may return when I call you."A moan reached us."The pains are beginning again," he said. "The crisis has come. So be calm."He went toward the door. I followed him. We both went up to Juliana. She seized my arm, and her clutch was like a bite. Had she so much strength left?"Be brave! be brave! This is the last. All will be well. Is it not so, doctor?" I stammered."Yes, yes. There is no time to lose. Let your husband leave the room, signora."She looked at the doctor and me with dilated eyes. She released my arm."Courage!" I repeated, choking.I kissed her forehead, moist with perspiration, and turned to leave."Ah! Tullio!" she cried, behind me.That heart-breaking cry signified: "I shall never see you again."I made a movement as if about to return to her."Leave the room!" ordered the doctor imperiously.I obeyed him. Some one shut the door behind me. I remained several minutes outside, listening; but my knees trembled; the beating of my heart dominated every other sound. I threw myself on the sofa, put my handkerchief between my teeth, buried my face in a cushion. I, too, suffered physical torture, similar to what an amputation, slowly and badly done, must be.I could not make a step. Several minutes passed—an incalculable time. Thoughts and images furrowed my brain like sudden flashes. "Is he born? Suppose she is dead? Suppose they are both dead, mother and child? No, no! It is certain that she is dead and that he lives. But I hear no wailing. Why?" I conquered the terror that held me, and sprang to the door. I opened it and entered.I immediately heard the doctor's voice shouting at me roughly:"Do not come in! Do not disturb her! Do you want to kill her?"Juliana looked like a dead woman. She was whiter than her pillow and motionless. My mother bent over her to place a compress in position. The doctor, calmly and methodically, was preparing an internal lotion. His face looked anxious, but his hands did not tremble. A basin of boiling water was steaming in a corner. Cristina was pouring water from a pitcher into a second basin, in which she held a thermometer. Another woman carried into an adjoining room a package of cotton. In the air was an odor of ammonia and of vinegar.The slightest details of that scene, taken in at one glance, were impressed on me indelibly."Fifty degrees, mind," said the doctor, turning toward Cristina.As I heard no wailing I looked about me.Some onewas missing in the room."Where's the baby?" I asked, trembling."He's there, in the other room," replied the doctor. "Go and see him, and stay there."I pointed to Juliana with a gesture of despair."Have no fear. Hand me the water, Cristina."I entered the other room. My ears caught a feeble wail, scarcely perceptible. I saw on a layer of cotton a reddish-looking little body, violet-colored in spots, and whose back and the soles of the feet were being rubbed by the midwife's dry hands."Come here, signor, come and see him," said the midwife, continuing the friction. "Come and see what a fine boy he is. He did not breathe at first, but now all danger is passed. Look at the fine boy!"She turned the baby round, putting him on his back."Look!"She raised the baby and shook him up and down. The wailing became a little stronger.But in my eyes was a strange sparkle that prevented me from seeing well. In all my being I felt some strange obtuse feeling, that removed from me the exact perception of all these real and coarse things."Look!" repeated the midwife again, replacing the wailing child on the cotton.He was crying vigorously now. He breathed, he lived! I bent over that little palpitating body. I stooped to see him better, to examine him, to recognize the odious resemblance. But the little puffed-up face, still somewhat livid, with protruding eyeballs, swollen mouth, wandering chin—that deformed visage had almost nothing human about it, and inspired me with nothing but disgust."He wasn't breathing when he was born, did you say?"I stammered."No, signor. A slight apoplexy."She spoke without any intermission of the cares she was giving the infant."Julia, give me the linen."And, while swathing the infant, she added:"There is nothing to fear on his account. God bless him!"Her expert hands took hold of the little soft head as if to mould it. The infant's wails increased in strength. He cried louder and louder, as if to prove that he was really alive, as if to provoke me and exasperate me."He is living, he is living. But the mother?"Abruptly I re-entered the other room, beside myself."Tullio!"It was Juliana's voice, as feeble as that of a dying woman.XXXII.The patient was now lying on her bed in the alcove. It was broad daylight.I was seated at her bedside. I looked at her silently, sorrowfully. She was not asleep, but extreme weakness prevented all movement, removed all expression of life, made her seem inanimate. I made an instinctive movement to touch her, because I thought she had become cold as ice. But I was restrained by the fear of disturbing her. More than once during my continuous contemplation, beneath the shock of some sudden fear, I made a movement to rise and fetch the doctor. As I meditated I rolled between my fingers a little tuft of cotton which I carefully picked apart, and, from time to time, impelled by an invincible restlessness, I placed it with infinite precautions near Juliana's lips. The waving of the threads showed me the strength of her respiration.She was stretched on her back, and a low pillow supported her head. In the frame formed by her chestnut hair, which was loosely caught up, the lines of her face seemed more refined than usual; showed more perfectly the waxy tones. Her night-dress was fastened at the neck and tight at her wrists, and her hands lay flat on the cover, so white that they were only distinguished from the linen by the azure of their veins. A supernatural goodness emanated from this poor creature, so pallid and motionless—a goodness that penetrated all my being, that filled my heart. And one would have thought that she was still repeating: "What have you done to me?" Her colorless mouth, with its depressed angles, revealing a mortal lassitude; that arid mouth, twisted by so many convulsions, martyrized by so many cries, seemed constantly repeating: "What have you done to me?"I examined the emaciation of her body, that scarcely formed a relief on the surface of the bed. Since the event had taken place, since finally theother lifehad been separated from her life forever, I no longer felt rise in me the least instinctive movement of repulsion, not the least sudden shade of anger, nothing that could affect my tenderness and pity. I no longer felt, on seeing her, anything but an effusion of immense tenderness and pity for the best and most unfortunate of human creatures. All my soul now hung on those poor lips which, from one moment to another, might render up their last sigh. As I looked at her pale face I thought with profound sincerity: "How happy I should be could I transfuse half of my own blood into her veins!"I heard the light ticking of a clock placed on the night-table; I felt that fugitive time was slipping by, and I thought: "He is alive!" The flight of time caused me singular anxiety, very different from that which I had felt on other occasions—indefinable.I thought: "He lives, and has a tenacious hold on life. At the time of his birth he was not breathing. When I saw him he still had the signs of asphyxia all over his body. If the care of the midwife had not saved him he would be now nothing but a little, livid cadaver, a harmless, negligible, and perhaps forgettable thing. I should only have Juliana's cure to think of, and I would not leave this room again. I would be the most assiduous and most gentle of nurses. I would succeed in realizing the transfusion of life, in accomplishing the miracle by the power of love. 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 remembrance; I would try to procure for her perfect oblivion in love. After this great trial, every other human love would seem frivolous by comparison with ours." I exalted myself in the almost mystic splendor of this dream of the future, whilst, beneath my fixed gaze, Juliana's visage took on a sort of immateriality, an expression of supernatural goodness; as if she were already removed from the world; as if the presence of death had left behind in her being only a pure, spiritual essence. The mute question no longer struck me like a wound, no longer seemed terrifying to me: "What have you done to me?" I replied: "Have you not become, through my instrumentality,the sister of Pain? Has not suffering elevated your soul to a vertiginous height, from which it has been given you to see the world in an extraordinary light? Do you not owe to me the revelation of the supreme truth? What matters our errors, our falls, our sins, if we have succeeded in tearing the veil from our eyes, if we have succeeded in setting at liberty what there is lowest in our miserable substance? We will obtain the highest joy to which the elect of earth can aspire—the consciousness of a re-birth."I became exalted. The alcove was silent, the darkness full of mystery. Juliana's face acquired for me a superhuman aspect, and there was a solemnity in my contemplation, for I felt in the air the presence of invisible death. All my soul was suspended on those pallid lips, which, from one moment to another, might render their last breath. And those lips were contracted, emitted a groan. The painful contraction changed the lines of the face, persisted for several moments. The wrinkles in the forehead deepened, the skin of the eyelids trembled lightly, a white line appeared between the lashes.I bent over the invalid. She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them. She did not appear to see me; her eyes showed no sign of recognition. One would have thought she was blind. Had an anemic amaurosis supervened? Had she been suddenly struck by blindness?I heard some one enter the room. God grant it is the doctor. I left the alcove, and saw the doctor, my mother, and the midwife, who had entered quietly. Cristina followed them."Is she quiet?" inquired the doctor in a low voice."She's moaning. Who knows what she is still suffering?""Has she spoken?""No.""She must not be disturbed in the least; remember that.""Just now she opened her eyes for a moment. She did not seem to see anything."The doctor entered the alcove, after having made a sign for us to remain where we were. My mother said to me:"Come. It is time to renew the compresses. Come quickly. Let us go and see little Raymond. Federico is downstairs."She took my hand. I let myself be led."He has fallen asleep," she continued. "He sleeps quietly. The wet-nurse will arrive this evening."However sad and anxious she was when speaking of Juliana, she had a smile in her eyes when speaking of the infant. Her entire face was lit up by tenderness.By the doctor's orders, a room distant from that occupied by the invalid had been selected for Raymond—a large, airy room, containing a thousand souvenirs of our childhood. Directly I entered I saw Federico, Maria, and Natalia grouped around the cradle and attentively contemplating the little sleeper. Federico turned and asked:"How is Juliana?""Bad.""Isn't she resting?""She is suffering."In spite of myself, I answered almost harshly. A sort of aridity had suddenly invaded my soul. My only sensation was an indomitable aversion against the intruder, an impatience of the torture which people inflicted on me without knowing it. In spite of my efforts, I could not feint. Thus, we were all around the cradle—I, my mother, Federico, Maria, and Natalia—contemplating Raymond's slumber.He was bound in the swaddling-clothes, and his head was covered with a cap trimmed with laces and ribbons. His face appeared less swollen, but still red, and the cheeks shone like the skin of a wound recently healed. A little saliva rolled from the corners of the closed mouth; the eyelids, without lashes, puffed up at the edges, covered the projecting eyeballs; the root of the nose, yet formless, was marked by a bruise."Whom does he resemble?" said my mother. "I cannot find any resemblance.""He is too young," said Federico. "We must wait a few days."Two or three times my mother looked at me and then looked at the infant, as if to compare the faces."No," she said. "I think he resembles Juliana most.""At present," I interrupted, "he resembles no one. He is horrible.""Horrible? How can you say so? He is perfectly beautiful. Look at that mass of hair."With her fingers she gently raised the cap, disclosing the still soft skull, on which were seen several brown hairs."Let me touch them, grandmamma," begged Maria, stretching out her hand toward her brother's head."No, no. Do you wish to wake him?"The skull had the appearance of wax somewhat softened by heat, and it seemed as if the slightest touch would leave a mark on it. My mother covered it again, and then bent over to kiss the forehead with infinite gentleness."Me, too, grandmother!" begged Maria."Yes, but gently."The cradle was too high."Lift me," said Maria to Federico.Federico raised her up in his arms, and I saw the beautiful rosy mouth of my daughter get ready to kiss before she succeeded in touching the forehead. I saw her long locks play on the whiteness of the clothes.Federico looked at me. But I did not smile."Me, too! Me, too!"Natalia now clung to the edge of the cradle."Gently!"Federico raised her too. And again I saw the long locks play on the whiteness of the bed linen, in the movement she made in bending over. This spectacle had petrified me, and my look certainly expressed my emotion. These kisses from lips so dear to me had not removed from the intruder his repugnant aspect; they had, on the contrary, rendered him more odious to me. I felt it would be impossible for me to touch that strange flesh, to make any gesture resembling paternal love. My mother observed me with uneasiness."You do not kiss him?" she asked."No, mother, no. He has done too much harm to Juliana. I cannot forgive him...."I recoiled with an instinctive movement, a movement of manifest disgust. My mother remained for a moment stupefied, speechless."What are you saying, Tullio? Is it this poor baby's fault? Be just!"Assuredly my mother had remarked the sincerity of my aversion. I could not succeed in restraining myself. All my nerves rebelled."Impossible now! Impossible! Let me be, mother. It will pass."My tone was resolute. I trembled all over. There was a lump in my throat; the muscles of my face contracted. After so many hours of violent tension my entire being required relaxation. I believe that a great burst of sobs would have done me good, but the lump in my throat was too firm."You grieve me greatly, Tullio," said my mother."So you exact that I kiss him?" I burst out, beside myself.And I approached the cradle, bent over the infant and kissed him.The child awoke. He began to wail, feebly at first, then with increasing fury. I observed that the skin of his face took on a more reddish tint and wrinkled beneath the effort, while his whitish tongue trembled in his wide-open mouth. Although I was at the height of exasperation, I recognized the error committed. I felt the gaze of Federico, Maria, and Natalia fixed upon me."Forgive me, mother," I stammered. "I no longer know what I am doing; I am not in my right senses. Forgive me."She had taken the infant from the cradle, and held it in her arms, without succeeding in quieting it. The wails went through me, overwhelmed me."Let us go out, Federico."I left hastily. Federico followed me."Juliana is very ill. I cannot understand how any one can think of anything else but her now," I said, as if to justify myself. "You have not seen her. She looks as if she were dying."
XXV.
What should I do? Stay longer in Rome until madness seized my brain, in the midst of this furnace, during the heat of the dog-days? Go to the seaside, to the mountains, seek oblivion in society, at the fashionable summer resorts? Reawaken in myself the old-time voluptuousness, go in quest of another Teresa Raffo, any sort of frivolity?
Two or three times I dwelt on the remembrance of theBiondissima, although she had entirely passed from my heart, and even, for a long time, from my memory. "Where could she be? Is she still with Eugenio Egano? What would be my sensations on seeing her again?" It was only vain curiosity. I perceived that my sole, profound, unconquerable desire was to go back there, to my house of sorrow, to my torture.
I took the necessary measures with the greatest care. I paid a visit to Dr. Vebesti, and wired to the Badiola that I was on the way home.
Impatience devoured me; acute anxiety urged me on, as if I were to encounter new and extraordinary things. The journey appeared interminable. Stretched on the cushions, oppressed by the heat, suffocated by the dust that penetrated through the interstices of the railway carriage, I thought of the approaching events, I considered the future possibilities, I essayed to read the great darkness. Thefatherwas mortally tainted. What could be expected of the son?
XXVI.
There was nothing new at the Badiola. My absence had been very short. They celebrated my return. Juliana's first look expressed infinite gratitude.
"You have done well to return so quickly," said my mother with a smile. "Juliana could not get any rest. Now, we hope you will not leave us again. Apropos, did you think of that lace? No? What a memory you have!"
As soon as I was alone with Juliana, she said:
"I did not dare hope you would return so quickly. How grateful I am!"
In her attitude, in her voice, there were timidity, humility, tenderness. Never had I been so struck by the contrast between her face and the rest of her person. On that face there was, continually visible to me, a special expression of sorrow that expressed the constant revolt of this woman against the shame that had fallen upon her. That expression never left her under any circumstance; it could be visibly seen through the diversity of other fugitive expressions which, no matter how strong, could not efface it; it was fixed and adherent, and it moved me to pity, and took from me my anger.
"What did you do while I was away?" I asked her.
"Waited for you. And you?"
"Nothing. I wanted to return."
"To see me?" she asked, timid and humble.
"Yes, for your sake."
She half-closed her eyes, and the light of a smile trembled on her face. I felt that I had never been loved as at that instant.
After a pause, she said, regarding me with humid eyes:
"Thank you."
The tone, the sentiment expressed, recalled to me another "thank you," that she had said at another time, the morning of her convalescence, the morning of my first crime.
XXVII.
Thus I recommenced at the Badiola my invariably sad life, unrelieved by any notable incident, the hours dragging along on the sun-dial, and the feeling of desolation aggravated by the heavy monotony of the chirp of the crickets in the elms.Hora est benefaciendi!
And, in my mind, there alternated the usual effervescences, the usual inertias, sarcasms, the usual vain aspirations, contradictory crises, abundance and dryness. And, more than once, reflecting on that gray, neutral, ordinary fluid, and omnipotent thing called life, I thought: "Who knows? Man is, above all, an animal who adapts himself. There is neither turpitude nor pain to which, in the end, he does not accustom himself. Perhaps in the long run I shall also become used to it. Who knows?"
I sterilized myself by dint of irony. "Who knows if Filippo Arborio's son will not be, so to say,my very picture. Then the arrangement would only be easier." I thought of the cynical laugh that had been provoked in me one day when, in the presence of a married couple, I had heard them refer to a baby who, I knew for a certainty, was the fruit of adultery, as, "It's just like his father!" And in reality the resemblance was striking, from the influence of that mysterious law known to physiologists' as "heredity by influence." Often a woman married a second time, brings into the world, some years after the death of her first husband, sons who have every feature of the dead husband, and who do not resemble at all their real father.
"It is possible, therefore, that Raymond resemble me, and appear to be a veritable Hermil," I thought. "It might happen that I am warmly congratulated upon having so vigorously impressed upon the heir the seal of my race! And suppose my mother's and brother's expectations are not fulfilled? Suppose Juliana gives birth to a third daughter?"
That probability calmed me. It seemed to me I should feel less repulsion for a new daughter, and that, perhaps, I might even succeed in tolerating her. With time she would leave my house, take another name, enter another family.
Meantime, the nearer the term approached, the more my irritation increased. I was weary of constantly debating with myself in the same fruitless agitation, amidst the same fears and perplexities. I should have liked events to be precipitated, a catastrophe of some sort to occur. No matter what catastrophe was preferable to this agony.
One day my brother asked Juliana:
"How long will it be yet?"
She answered:
"Another month."
We were in September. Summer was drawing to a close. We were approaching the autumnal equinox, the most charming period of the year, the season that bears in itself a sort of aerial intoxication emanating from the ripe grapes. The enchantment gradually penetrated me, soothed my soul, at times inspired in me a desire for furious tendernesses or delicate expansions. Maria and Natalia passed long hours with me, alone with me, either in my apartment or out in the surrounding country. I had never loved them before with a love so deep, so anxious. From their eyes, softly impregnated with scarcely conscious thoughts, there at times descended on my soul a ray of peace.
XXVIII.
One day I was seeking Juliana throughout the Badiola. It was in the early afternoon. As I found her neither in her room nor anywhere else, I entered my mother's room. The doors were open; neither sound nor voice was heard; the light curtains waved at the windows; through the open bay-windows were glimpses of the verdure of the elms. Between the brightly colored walls all breathed of peace and repose.
I advanced cautiously toward the sanctuary. I walked softly, in order not to disturb my mother, in case she were dozing. I parted the curtains, and, without crossing the threshold, I leaned forward and looked in. I heard, in fact, the breathing of a person sleeping; I saw my mother, who was sleeping in an arm-chair in a corner of the window; I saw Juliana's hair above the back of another arm-chair. I entered.
They were seated facing each other, and between them was a low table bearing a basket full of miniature bonnets. My mother still held between her fingers one of these caps in which glittered a needle. Slumber had overtaken her during the activity of her work. She was sleeping, her chin on her bosom; perhaps she was dreaming. The needle was only half-full of white cotton; but, in her dream, perhaps she was sewing with a more precious thread.
Juliana was sleeping also; but her head had fallen back on the chair, and her arms were stretched out on the supports. In the gentleness of her slumber her features were relaxed; but her mouth retained a line of distress, a shadow of affliction; half closed, it permitted a glimpse of her bloodless gums; but at the beginning of the nose, between the eyebrows, there was a small furrow, deepened by great sorrow. And her forehead was moist; a drop of perspiration slowly rolled down her temple. And her hands, whiter than the muslin from under which they extended, seemed, by their position alone, to indicate an immense lassitude. What struck me most was less her moral expression than the appearance of her person. I meditated without considering this expression, and even Juliana herself had no part in my thoughts; and, anew, I felt only the little creature living beside me, as if, at that moment, no other creature existed around me. And, again, this was not an illusory sensation, but a real and profound one. Fear ran through every fibre of my being.
I averted my eyes; and I again saw between her fingers the bonnet in which glittered the needle, I again saw all those light laces in the basket, all those rose-colored and blue ribbons that trembled at the breath of the breeze. My heart was so strongly oppressed that I thought I should faint. What tendernesses the hands of my mother, lost in her dream, revealed, those hands placed on the pretty, white thing destined to cover the head of the child who was not my own!
I remained there several minutes. This place was the true sanctuary of the house, the Holy of Holies. On one wall hung my father's portrait, whom Federico greatly resembled; on another that of Constance, who resembled Maria a little. The two faces, living in that superior existence in which the recollections of those who have loved them have placed them, had magnetic eyes, eyes that seemed to see everywhere. Other relics of the two dead loved ones sanctified this retreat. In one corner, on a pedestal, closed in between plates of glass and covered with black crape, there was the death mask moulded on the corpse of the man whom my mother had loved with a passion stronger than death. And yet this room had nothing lugubrious about it. There reigned in it a sovereign peace, that, from thence, seemed to propagate through the entire house, as life propagates from the heart, by a rhythmic expansion.
XXIX.
I recall the walk I made to the Lilacs, with Maria, Natalia, and Miss Edith, on a rather misty morning. And the recollection of it is also rather misty, veiled, indistinct like that of a long dream, torturing yet sweet.
The garden no longer had its myriad of bluish grapes nor its exquisite forest of flowers, nor its triple perfume, harmonious as music, nor its gayety, nor the continuous cries of its swallows. It was enlivened only by the voices and gambols of the two innocent girls. Already many of the swallows had departed, and the rest were about to go. We had arrived in time to see the last flock.
All the nests were abandoned, deserted, lifeless. Many were broken, and on the clayey debris trembled poor little feathers. The last flock, gathered on the roof, in the gutters, were still waiting for a few dispersed companions. The emigrants stood on a row on the edge of the eaves-board, some presenting the beak and others the back, so that the little forked tails and the white breasts alternated. And while waiting, they filled the silent air with their calls. And, from minute to minute, by twos, by threes, the laggards arrived. The hour of departure was at hand. The calls ceased. The fading sunlight fell on the closed house, on the empty nests. Nothing could be sadder than those poor little dead feathers which, here and there, fluttered, held prisoners in the clay.
As if raised up by a sudden gust of wind, by a storm the flock rose up with a great fluttering of wings, ascended into the air like a water-spout, remained for a moment directly above the house; then, without hesitation, as if they had before them a clearly traced path, they took their way in a compact mass, flew off, melted away in the sky, and finally disappeared.
Maria and Natalia, mounted on a bench, stood up on tiptoe to watch the fugitives as long as possible, and, stretching out their arms, they cried:
"Good-by, good-by, good-by, little swallows!"
Of all the rest I retain only an indistinct recollection, like that of a dream.
Maria wished to enter the house. I opened the door myself. It was here, on these three steps, that Juliana had followed me, furtively, light as a shadow, and had embraced me, and had whispered: "Go in, go in!" In the vestibule, the nest still hung among the grotesques of the ceiling. "Now I am yours, altogether, entirely!" she had murmured, without releasing my neck; and by a sinuous movement she had thrown herself on my breast and had met my mouth. The vestibule was silent—the staircases were silent; silence reigned throughout the house. It was here that I had heard the low and distant hum, like that retained by certain shells in the depths of their folds. But now, the silence resembled that of a tomb. And this place was the sepulchre of my happiness.
Maria and Natalia prattled on without cease, did not stop asking me questions, showed themselves curious about everything, went and opened the drawers of the dressing-table, the closets. Miss Edith followed them, watchful.
"Look, see what I have found," cried Maria, running toward me.
At the bottom of a drawer she had found a bouquet of lavender and a glove. It was one of Juliana's gloves, spotted with black at the finger-tips; on the inside, near the hem, it bore the following still visible inscription: "The Mulberries, January 27, 1880. Souvenir!" Like a flash, my memory represented clearly to me the episode of the mulberries, one of the happiest episodes of our first felicity, a fragment of the idyll.
"Is it one of mamma's gloves?" asked Maria. "Give it to me, give it to me. I want to take it to her myself."
Of all the rest I have but an indistinct recollection, like a dream.
Calisto, the old care-taker, came to speak to me. He told me a thousand things, and I understood almost nothing of what he said. Several times he repeated the wish:
"A boy, a fine boy, and may God bless him! A fine boy!"
When we were outside, Calisto closed the doors.
"And those nests, those happy nests?" he said, shaking his handsome white head.
"They must not be touched, Calisto."
Every nest was deserted, empty, lifeless. Their last habitants had left them. A languorous kiss from the setting sun touched the closed house, the solitary nests, and there could be nothing sadder than those poor little dead feathers that, here and there, trembled, prisoners in the clay.
XXX.
The term approached. The first half of October had passed. Doctor Vebesti had been notified.
My anxiety increased hourly, became intolerable. I was frequently assailed by attacks of madness similar to that which had seized me on the banks of the Assoro. I fled far from the Badiola, remained long hours on horseback, I compelled Orlando to jump hedges and trenches, I forced him into perilous paths at a gallop. Then the poor animal and I returned, streaming, tired, but always safely.
Doctor Vebesti arrived. Everybody at the Badiola breathed a sigh of relief. Confidence and hope reappeared. Juliana alone was unnerved, and more than once I detected in her eyes the passage of a sinister thought, the sombre light of a fixed idea, the horror of a lugubrious presentiment.
The pains of childbirth began; they lasted an entire day, with a few periods of suspension, at times stronger, sometimes weaker, at times bearable, and sometimes agonizing. She remained standing, leaning on a table, her back against a closet, clenching her teeth so as not to cry out; or else she sat in an arm-chair and remained in it, almost motionless, her face buried in her hands, uttering at times a suppressed groan; or else she ceaselessly changed her place, going from one corner to another, stopping here and there to convulsively twist between her fingers the first object at hand. The sight of her suffering tortured me. I could not stand it. I left the room, went out for a few minutes; then I returned, almost in spite of myself, as if drawn by a magnetic attraction; and I forced myself to watch her suffering, without power to speak one comforting word to her.
"Tullio, Tullio! What a horrible thing! Oh! what a horrible thing. I have never suffered so much, never, never!"
Night fell. My mother, Miss Edith, and the doctor had gone down to the dining-room. Juliana and I were alone. The lamps had not yet been brought in. October's purplish twilight entered the room; from time to time the wind shook the windows.
"Help me, Tullio, help me!" she cried, in the bewilderment of the spasm, her arms stretched toward me, looking at me with dilated eyes, whose whites were of an extraordinary whiteness in the darkness that made her face livid.
"Tell me, tell me, what can I do to help you?" I stammered, distracted, not knowing what to do, caressing the hair on her temples with a gesture in which I would have liked to impart a supernatural power. "Tell me, tell me, what shall I do?"
She stopped complaining; she looked at me, listened to me, as if forgetful of her pain, as if seized by surprise, stupefied, no doubt, by the sound of my voice, by the expression of my bewilderment and anguish, by the trembling of my fingers on her hair, by the distressed tenderness of that inefficacious gesture.
"You love me, don't you?" she said, without ceasing to look at me, as if not to lose the slightest sign of my emotion. "You forgive everything?"
And, becoming exalted again, she cried:
"You must love me! You must love me very much now, because to-morrow I shall not be here, because I shall die to-night; to-night, perhaps, I shall be dead. And you would be sorry for not having loved me, for not having pardoned me. Oh! yes, you would be sorry."
She seemed so sure of dying that a sudden terror froze me.
"You must love me! Perhaps you do not believe what I told you one night; perhaps you do not believe me yet; but you will surely believe me when I am gone. Then the light will enter your soul, then you will understand the truth; and you will repent not having loved me enough, not having forgiven me."
Sobs choked her utterance.
"Do you know why I'm sorry to die? Because I die without your knowing how much I have loved you, how much I loved youafter, especially— Oh! what a punishment! Do I deserve such an end?"
She hid her face in her hands. But immediately uncovered it, and, very pale, looked at me. An idea still more terrible seemed to have crushed her.
"Suppose I died," she stammered; "and while dyinggave life——"
"Hush!"
"You understand——"
"Be silent, Juliana!"
I was more affected than she. Terror had overwhelmed me, and left me without even the power to emit a single word of consolation, to combat these imaginations of death with a single vivifying word. I, too, was sure of the atrocious end. In the violet darkness my eyes met Juliana's; and on that poor drawn face I thought I noticed symptoms of the death agony, symptoms of a dissolution that had already begun and that was inevitable. She could not repress a sort of shriek that resembled nothing human, and she clutched my arm convulsively.
"Help me, Tullio, help me!"
She clasped me hard, very hard, yet not hard enough. I should have liked to feel her nails penetrate my flesh, from a furious desire for physical torture that would put me in touch with her torture. Her forehead pressed against my shoulder, she continued to moan. Its note was that which renders the voice unrecognizable in the excess of corporeal suffering, the note that brings suffering man to the level of the suffering beast—the instinctive lamentation of all flesh in pain, whether animal or human.
From time to time she recovered her speech sufficiently to repeat:
"Help me!"
And she imparted to me the violent shocks of her great pain. A flood of hate mounted from the deepest roots of my being, rose even to my hands in a homicidal impulse. That impulse came before its time; but the vision of the crime already consummated lit up my inner consciousness like a flash. "You shall not live!"
"Ah! Tullio, Tullio! Suffocate me! Kill me! I cannot stand it, I cannot stand it, you hear; no, I cannot stand it, I do not want to suffer any longer."
She cried savagely, looking around her wildly as if seeking something or someone from whom she could obtain the aid I was powerless to render her.
"Calm yourself, Juliana; calm yourself. Perhaps the time has come! Be brave! Take this chair. Be brave, my dear soul! A little more patience! See, I am near you. Do not be afraid."
I ran to the bell. "The doctor! the doctor! Tell him to come immediately."
Juliana ceased her lamentations. All at once she seemed to cease suffering, or at least to be unconscious of her condition, in the abstraction of other thoughts. It was evident that she was meditating something. I scarcely had time to remark this instantaneous change.
"Listen, Tullio. Suppose I become delirious...."
"What do you mean?"
"Suppose later, when fever sets in, I become delirious; suppose I die raving——"
"Well?"
Her voice had such accents of terror, her reticences were so sad, that I began to tremble like a leaf, seized by a sort of panic, still without understanding what she meant.
"Well?"
"They will be all there; they will be around me.... You understand? You understand? One word would be enough. One never knows what one says when delirious. You should..."
At that moment my mother, the doctor, and the midwife arrived.
"Ah! doctor," sighed Juliana, "I thought I was dying."
"Nonsense!" said the doctor in a reassuring voice. "There is no danger. Everything will be all right."
And he looked at me.
"Your husband," he went on, smiling, "looks worse than you do."
And he showed me the door, saying:
"Go! You can be of no assistance here."
I glanced at my mother's eyes. She seemed restless, anxious, compassionate.
"Yes, Tullio," she said. "It will be better for you to go. Federico is downstairs waiting for you."
I looked at Juliana. Without concerning herself with the others present, she fixed on me her large eyes, which were animated with an extraordinary brilliancy. They expressed all the passion of a despairing soul.
"I will not leave the adjoining room," I declared resolutely, without removing my gaze from Juliana.
As I turned to go out I noticed the midwife disposing the pillows on the bed of pain, on the bed of misery, and I shuddered as if from a breath of death.
XXXI.
It was between four and five o'clock in the morning. The pains had lasted until then, with a few intermissions of relief. I was lying on the lounge in the adjoining room, and about three o'clock sleep had overcome me unexpectedly. Cristina awoke me; she told me that Juliana wished to see me.
My eyes still heavy from sleep, I started to my feet.
"Was I asleep? What has happened?"
"Do not be alarmed, signor. Nothing has happened. The pains are easier. Come and see her."
I entered, and my eyes immediately sought Juliana.
She was supported by pillows, pale as her night-dress, almost lifeless. Her eyes at once met mine, because they were turned toward the door, in the expectation of my coming. Her eyes appeared larger, deeper, hollower, surrounded by a wider, dark shadow.
"You see," she said in an exhausted voice, "it is still the same."
Her gaze did not leave me. Her eyes spoke, like those of the Princess Lisa: "I hoped you would help me; but you do not help me, either."
"Where is the doctor?" I asked my mother, who seemed sad and preoccupied.
She pointed to a door. I opened it, and passed through. I saw the doctor near a table busy with his preparations.
"Well," I asked him abruptly, "how is it?"
"Nothing serious so far."
"And all these preparations?"
"To be on the safe side."
"But how long will it last?"
"It is nearly over."
"Please speak frankly. Do you expect any complication?"
"At present there are no serious symptoms. Have confidence in me, and be calm. I have noticed that your presence greatly excites your wife. During the short period of the final pains, she needs all the strength she has. It is absolutely necessary that you go away. Promise me to do this. You may return when I call you."
A moan reached us.
"The pains are beginning again," he said. "The crisis has come. So be calm."
He went toward the door. I followed him. We both went up to Juliana. She seized my arm, and her clutch was like a bite. Had she so much strength left?
"Be brave! be brave! This is the last. All will be well. Is it not so, doctor?" I stammered.
"Yes, yes. There is no time to lose. Let your husband leave the room, signora."
She looked at the doctor and me with dilated eyes. She released my arm.
"Courage!" I repeated, choking.
I kissed her forehead, moist with perspiration, and turned to leave.
"Ah! Tullio!" she cried, behind me.
That heart-breaking cry signified: "I shall never see you again."
I made a movement as if about to return to her.
"Leave the room!" ordered the doctor imperiously.
I obeyed him. Some one shut the door behind me. I remained several minutes outside, listening; but my knees trembled; the beating of my heart dominated every other sound. I threw myself on the sofa, put my handkerchief between my teeth, buried my face in a cushion. I, too, suffered physical torture, similar to what an amputation, slowly and badly done, must be.
I could not make a step. Several minutes passed—an incalculable time. Thoughts and images furrowed my brain like sudden flashes. "Is he born? Suppose she is dead? Suppose they are both dead, mother and child? No, no! It is certain that she is dead and that he lives. But I hear no wailing. Why?" I conquered the terror that held me, and sprang to the door. I opened it and entered.
I immediately heard the doctor's voice shouting at me roughly:
"Do not come in! Do not disturb her! Do you want to kill her?"
Juliana looked like a dead woman. She was whiter than her pillow and motionless. My mother bent over her to place a compress in position. The doctor, calmly and methodically, was preparing an internal lotion. His face looked anxious, but his hands did not tremble. A basin of boiling water was steaming in a corner. Cristina was pouring water from a pitcher into a second basin, in which she held a thermometer. Another woman carried into an adjoining room a package of cotton. In the air was an odor of ammonia and of vinegar.
The slightest details of that scene, taken in at one glance, were impressed on me indelibly.
"Fifty degrees, mind," said the doctor, turning toward Cristina.
As I heard no wailing I looked about me.Some onewas missing in the room.
"Where's the baby?" I asked, trembling.
"He's there, in the other room," replied the doctor. "Go and see him, and stay there."
I pointed to Juliana with a gesture of despair.
"Have no fear. Hand me the water, Cristina."
I entered the other room. My ears caught a feeble wail, scarcely perceptible. I saw on a layer of cotton a reddish-looking little body, violet-colored in spots, and whose back and the soles of the feet were being rubbed by the midwife's dry hands.
"Come here, signor, come and see him," said the midwife, continuing the friction. "Come and see what a fine boy he is. He did not breathe at first, but now all danger is passed. Look at the fine boy!"
She turned the baby round, putting him on his back.
"Look!"
She raised the baby and shook him up and down. The wailing became a little stronger.
But in my eyes was a strange sparkle that prevented me from seeing well. In all my being I felt some strange obtuse feeling, that removed from me the exact perception of all these real and coarse things.
"Look!" repeated the midwife again, replacing the wailing child on the cotton.
He was crying vigorously now. He breathed, he lived! I bent over that little palpitating body. I stooped to see him better, to examine him, to recognize the odious resemblance. But the little puffed-up face, still somewhat livid, with protruding eyeballs, swollen mouth, wandering chin—that deformed visage had almost nothing human about it, and inspired me with nothing but disgust.
"He wasn't breathing when he was born, did you say?"
I stammered.
"No, signor. A slight apoplexy."
She spoke without any intermission of the cares she was giving the infant.
"Julia, give me the linen."
And, while swathing the infant, she added:
"There is nothing to fear on his account. God bless him!"
Her expert hands took hold of the little soft head as if to mould it. The infant's wails increased in strength. He cried louder and louder, as if to prove that he was really alive, as if to provoke me and exasperate me.
"He is living, he is living. But the mother?"
Abruptly I re-entered the other room, beside myself.
"Tullio!"
It was Juliana's voice, as feeble as that of a dying woman.
XXXII.
The patient was now lying on her bed in the alcove. It was broad daylight.
I was seated at her bedside. I looked at her silently, sorrowfully. She was not asleep, but extreme weakness prevented all movement, removed all expression of life, made her seem inanimate. I made an instinctive movement to touch her, because I thought she had become cold as ice. But I was restrained by the fear of disturbing her. More than once during my continuous contemplation, beneath the shock of some sudden fear, I made a movement to rise and fetch the doctor. As I meditated I rolled between my fingers a little tuft of cotton which I carefully picked apart, and, from time to time, impelled by an invincible restlessness, I placed it with infinite precautions near Juliana's lips. The waving of the threads showed me the strength of her respiration.
She was stretched on her back, and a low pillow supported her head. In the frame formed by her chestnut hair, which was loosely caught up, the lines of her face seemed more refined than usual; showed more perfectly the waxy tones. Her night-dress was fastened at the neck and tight at her wrists, and her hands lay flat on the cover, so white that they were only distinguished from the linen by the azure of their veins. A supernatural goodness emanated from this poor creature, so pallid and motionless—a goodness that penetrated all my being, that filled my heart. And one would have thought that she was still repeating: "What have you done to me?" Her colorless mouth, with its depressed angles, revealing a mortal lassitude; that arid mouth, twisted by so many convulsions, martyrized by so many cries, seemed constantly repeating: "What have you done to me?"
I examined the emaciation of her body, that scarcely formed a relief on the surface of the bed. Since the event had taken place, since finally theother lifehad been separated from her life forever, I no longer felt rise in me the least instinctive movement of repulsion, not the least sudden shade of anger, nothing that could affect my tenderness and pity. I no longer felt, on seeing her, anything but an effusion of immense tenderness and pity for the best and most unfortunate of human creatures. All my soul now hung on those poor lips which, from one moment to another, might render up their last sigh. As I looked at her pale face I thought with profound sincerity: "How happy I should be could I transfuse half of my own blood into her veins!"
I heard the light ticking of a clock placed on the night-table; I felt that fugitive time was slipping by, and I thought: "He is alive!" The flight of time caused me singular anxiety, very different from that which I had felt on other occasions—indefinable.
I thought: "He lives, and has a tenacious hold on life. At the time of his birth he was not breathing. When I saw him he still had the signs of asphyxia all over his body. If the care of the midwife had not saved him he would be now nothing but a little, livid cadaver, a harmless, negligible, and perhaps forgettable thing. I should only have Juliana's cure to think of, and I would not leave this room again. I would be the most assiduous and most gentle of nurses. I would succeed in realizing the transfusion of life, in accomplishing the miracle by the power of love. 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 remembrance; I would try to procure for her perfect oblivion in love. After this great trial, every other human love would seem frivolous by comparison with ours." I exalted myself in the almost mystic splendor of this dream of the future, whilst, beneath my fixed gaze, Juliana's visage took on a sort of immateriality, an expression of supernatural goodness; as if she were already removed from the world; as if the presence of death had left behind in her being only a pure, spiritual essence. The mute question no longer struck me like a wound, no longer seemed terrifying to me: "What have you done to me?" I replied: "Have you not become, through my instrumentality,the sister of Pain? Has not suffering elevated your soul to a vertiginous height, from which it has been given you to see the world in an extraordinary light? Do you not owe to me the revelation of the supreme truth? What matters our errors, our falls, our sins, if we have succeeded in tearing the veil from our eyes, if we have succeeded in setting at liberty what there is lowest in our miserable substance? We will obtain the highest joy to which the elect of earth can aspire—the consciousness of a re-birth."
I became exalted. The alcove was silent, the darkness full of mystery. Juliana's face acquired for me a superhuman aspect, and there was a solemnity in my contemplation, for I felt in the air the presence of invisible death. All my soul was suspended on those pallid lips, which, from one moment to another, might render their last breath. And those lips were contracted, emitted a groan. The painful contraction changed the lines of the face, persisted for several moments. The wrinkles in the forehead deepened, the skin of the eyelids trembled lightly, a white line appeared between the lashes.
I bent over the invalid. She opened her eyes, and immediately closed them. She did not appear to see me; her eyes showed no sign of recognition. One would have thought she was blind. Had an anemic amaurosis supervened? Had she been suddenly struck by blindness?
I heard some one enter the room. God grant it is the doctor. I left the alcove, and saw the doctor, my mother, and the midwife, who had entered quietly. Cristina followed them.
"Is she quiet?" inquired the doctor in a low voice.
"She's moaning. Who knows what she is still suffering?"
"Has she spoken?"
"No."
"She must not be disturbed in the least; remember that."
"Just now she opened her eyes for a moment. She did not seem to see anything."
The doctor entered the alcove, after having made a sign for us to remain where we were. My mother said to me:
"Come. It is time to renew the compresses. Come quickly. Let us go and see little Raymond. Federico is downstairs."
She took my hand. I let myself be led.
"He has fallen asleep," she continued. "He sleeps quietly. The wet-nurse will arrive this evening."
However sad and anxious she was when speaking of Juliana, she had a smile in her eyes when speaking of the infant. Her entire face was lit up by tenderness.
By the doctor's orders, a room distant from that occupied by the invalid had been selected for Raymond—a large, airy room, containing a thousand souvenirs of our childhood. Directly I entered I saw Federico, Maria, and Natalia grouped around the cradle and attentively contemplating the little sleeper. Federico turned and asked:
"How is Juliana?"
"Bad."
"Isn't she resting?"
"She is suffering."
In spite of myself, I answered almost harshly. A sort of aridity had suddenly invaded my soul. My only sensation was an indomitable aversion against the intruder, an impatience of the torture which people inflicted on me without knowing it. In spite of my efforts, I could not feint. Thus, we were all around the cradle—I, my mother, Federico, Maria, and Natalia—contemplating Raymond's slumber.
He was bound in the swaddling-clothes, and his head was covered with a cap trimmed with laces and ribbons. His face appeared less swollen, but still red, and the cheeks shone like the skin of a wound recently healed. A little saliva rolled from the corners of the closed mouth; the eyelids, without lashes, puffed up at the edges, covered the projecting eyeballs; the root of the nose, yet formless, was marked by a bruise.
"Whom does he resemble?" said my mother. "I cannot find any resemblance."
"He is too young," said Federico. "We must wait a few days."
Two or three times my mother looked at me and then looked at the infant, as if to compare the faces.
"No," she said. "I think he resembles Juliana most."
"At present," I interrupted, "he resembles no one. He is horrible."
"Horrible? How can you say so? He is perfectly beautiful. Look at that mass of hair."
With her fingers she gently raised the cap, disclosing the still soft skull, on which were seen several brown hairs.
"Let me touch them, grandmamma," begged Maria, stretching out her hand toward her brother's head.
"No, no. Do you wish to wake him?"
The skull had the appearance of wax somewhat softened by heat, and it seemed as if the slightest touch would leave a mark on it. My mother covered it again, and then bent over to kiss the forehead with infinite gentleness.
"Me, too, grandmother!" begged Maria.
"Yes, but gently."
The cradle was too high.
"Lift me," said Maria to Federico.
Federico raised her up in his arms, and I saw the beautiful rosy mouth of my daughter get ready to kiss before she succeeded in touching the forehead. I saw her long locks play on the whiteness of the clothes.
Federico looked at me. But I did not smile.
"Me, too! Me, too!"
Natalia now clung to the edge of the cradle.
"Gently!"
Federico raised her too. And again I saw the long locks play on the whiteness of the bed linen, in the movement she made in bending over. This spectacle had petrified me, and my look certainly expressed my emotion. These kisses from lips so dear to me had not removed from the intruder his repugnant aspect; they had, on the contrary, rendered him more odious to me. I felt it would be impossible for me to touch that strange flesh, to make any gesture resembling paternal love. My mother observed me with uneasiness.
"You do not kiss him?" she asked.
"No, mother, no. He has done too much harm to Juliana. I cannot forgive him...."
I recoiled with an instinctive movement, a movement of manifest disgust. My mother remained for a moment stupefied, speechless.
"What are you saying, Tullio? Is it this poor baby's fault? Be just!"
Assuredly my mother had remarked the sincerity of my aversion. I could not succeed in restraining myself. All my nerves rebelled.
"Impossible now! Impossible! Let me be, mother. It will pass."
My tone was resolute. I trembled all over. There was a lump in my throat; the muscles of my face contracted. After so many hours of violent tension my entire being required relaxation. I believe that a great burst of sobs would have done me good, but the lump in my throat was too firm.
"You grieve me greatly, Tullio," said my mother.
"So you exact that I kiss him?" I burst out, beside myself.
And I approached the cradle, bent over the infant and kissed him.
The child awoke. He began to wail, feebly at first, then with increasing fury. I observed that the skin of his face took on a more reddish tint and wrinkled beneath the effort, while his whitish tongue trembled in his wide-open mouth. Although I was at the height of exasperation, I recognized the error committed. I felt the gaze of Federico, Maria, and Natalia fixed upon me.
"Forgive me, mother," I stammered. "I no longer know what I am doing; I am not in my right senses. Forgive me."
She had taken the infant from the cradle, and held it in her arms, without succeeding in quieting it. The wails went through me, overwhelmed me.
"Let us go out, Federico."
I left hastily. Federico followed me.
"Juliana is very ill. I cannot understand how any one can think of anything else but her now," I said, as if to justify myself. "You have not seen her. She looks as if she were dying."