XXXIII.For several days Juliana hovered between life and death. Her weakness was so great that the slightest effort was followed by exhaustion. She was compelled to remain constantly on her back, without the slightest movement. The least attempt to raise herself provoked symptoms of cerebral anemia. Nothing could be found to overcome the nauseas that seized her, to lift the weight that crushed down on her chest, to remove the buzzing that she heard without cease.I remained day and night at her bedside, always on the watch, sustained by an indefatigable energy that surprised even myself. I employed all the strength of my own life in sustaining that life which was threatened with extinction. It seemed to me that, from the other side of the bed, death was watching, ready to profit by an opportune moment to ravish his prey. At times I had the real sensation that I was becoming transfused in the debilitated body of the invalid, that I communicated to her a little of my strength, that I imparted an impulse to her exhausted heart. Never did the miseries of illness inspire in me the least repugnance, the slightest disgust; never did any material object offend the delicacy of my senses. My senses, overexcited, were attentive only in perceiving the least changes in the condition of the invalid. Before she spoke a word, before she made a sign, I divined her desires, her wants, the degree of her suffering. By divination, without the physician having to make any suggestion, I had succeeded in being able to discover new and ingenious means of relieving one of her pains, of calming one of her attacks. I alone could persuade her to eat and to sleep. I resorted to every stratagem, to prayers and caresses to make her swallow her medicine. I pressed her so much that finally, incapable of further resistance, she had to submit to a salutary effort to triumph over the nausea. And there was nothing sweeter to me than the imperceptible smile with which she submitted to my will. Her slightest acts of obedience put my heart into a profound commotion. When she said, in her feeble voice: "Is this right? Am I good?" I felt my throat choke, my eyes become veiled.She often complained of a painful and incessant throbbing at the temples. Then I would pass my finger-tips over her brow to appease the pain. I caressed her hair very softly to lull her to sleep. When I perceived that she was asleep her respiration gave me the illusory sensation that I was solaced, as if the benefit of the slumber were extended even to me. In presence of this slumber I felt a sort of religious emotion. I was invaded by a vague fervor. I felt a desire to believe in the existence of some superior being, omnispective, omnipotent, in order to address my Prayers to him. There arose spontaneously from the depths of my soul the preludes of prayer according to the Christian formula. Sometimes the inner eloquence exalted me even to the summit of the true faith. Within me there awoke all the mystic tendencies transmitted to me by a long line of Catholic ancestors.While my inner orisons were unfolding I contemplated the sleeper. She was still as pale as her night-dress. The transparency of her skin would have enabled me to count the veins on her cheeks, on her chin, on her neck. I watched her as if I had had the hope of seeing the beneficial effects of that repose, the slow diffusion of new blood engendered by the nourishment, the first premonitory signs of cure. I would have liked, by some supernatural faculty, to be present at the mysterious restorative elaboration which was taking place in that enfeebled body. And I persisted in hoping: "When she awakes she will feel stronger."She seemed to feel a great relief when she held my hand in her own icy hands. Sometimes she took my hand and put it on the pillow, pressed her cheek against it with a childlike gesture, and gradually dozed off in that position. So as not to awaken her, I exerted all my strength to keep for a long, long time my arm in this one position, which was torture.Once she said:"Why don't you sleep here with me? You never sleep."And she forced me to lay my head on her pillow."Let us go to sleep!"I pretended I was going to sleep, to set her a good example. But when I opened my eyes I encountered hers wide open and fixed on me."Well!" I cried. "What are you doing?""And you?" she replied.In her eyes there was an expression of such tender goodness that I felt my heart melt. I extended my mouth and kissed her eyelids.She wished to kiss me the same way. Then she repeated:"Let us go to sleep now!"Thus, a veil of oblivion sometimes descended over our misfortune.Often her poor feet were frozen. I felt them beneath the covers, and they seemed to me like marble. She herself said:"They are dead."They were so emaciated and so small that I could almost hold them in my hand. They inspired me with a great pity. I warmed some linen at the fire to put on them, and did not tire of giving them attention. I would have liked to warm them with my breath, to cover them with kisses. With this new pity there mingled the distant recollections of love—recollections of the happy time when, by a habit that almost resembled a vow, I reserved for myself exclusively the privilege of putting on her shoes in the morning and taking them off at night with my own hands, while on my knees before her.One day, after long vigils, I was so fatigued that an irresistible slumber seized me just at the moment when I had my hands beneath the cover holding the little dead feet in the warm cloth. My head sank forward, and I went to sleep in that attitude.When I awoke I saw my mother, my brother, and the doctor, who were smiling. I was embarrassed."Poor boy! He is tired out," said my mother, stroking my hair with one of her most tender gestures.Juliana said:"Take him away, mother! Take him away, Federico!""No, no, I am not tired," I repeated; "I am not tired."The doctor announced his departure. He declared that the invalid was out of danger and on the road to recovery. But it was necessary, by all means possible, to continue to excite the regeneration of blood. His colleague, Jemma de Tussi, with whom he had consulted and found of the same opinion, would continue the same treatment. He had less confidence in remedies than in the rigorous observation of the various hygienic rules and of diet that he had prescribed."In truth," he added, pointing to me, "I could not wish for a more intelligent, more vigilant, or more devoted nurse. He has done miracles, and he will do more. I shall go away perfectly easy."It seemed to me that my heart leaped into my throat and was suffocating me. The unexpected praise of that serious man, in my mother's and brother's presence, caused me profound emotion. It was an extraordinary reward for me.I looked at Juliana, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears. And beneath my look she burst out all at once into sobs. I made a superhuman effort to contain myself, but could not succeed. It seemed to me that my soul was melted. In my bosom I felt all the virtues in the world collected together in that unforgettable hour.XXXIV.Juliana regained strength day by day, but slowly. My assiduity did not wane. I even took advantage of the remarks made by Dr. Vebesti to redouble my vigilance, to permit no one to replace me, to oppose my mother and brother, who advised me to rest. My body from now on became accustomed to the severe discipline, and scarcely ever felt fatigue. My entire life was enclosed between the walls of that room, in the intimacy of that alcove, in the circle where the invalid breathed.As she required absolute quiet, as she was ordered to speak little so as to avoid fatigue, I exercised my ingenuity in keeping from her bedside even the members of her family. The alcove remained therefore isolated from the rest of the house. For hours and hours we—Juliana and I—were alone. And, crushed as she was by her illness, attentive as I was in my pious duty, we were at times able to forget our misfortune, to lose the sense of reality, to retain no other consciousness but that of our immense love. At times it seemed to me that beyond the curtains nothing existed any longer, so great was the concentration of my entire being on the invalid. Nothing occurred to recall the frightful thing to me. I saw before me a suffering sister, and my sole care was to relieve her pain.Too often these veils of forgetfulness were brutally rent asunder. My mother spoke of Raymond. The curtains opened to give passage to the intruder.My mother carried him in her arms. I was present, and I felt that I must have become pale, as all my blood flowed back to my heart. And Juliana, what sensation did she feel?I looked at that reddish face, the size of a man's fist, half hidden by the bonnet trimmings, and with a fierce aversion that annihilated every other emotion in my soul, I thought: "What shall I do to deliver myself of you? Why were you not born dead?" My hate was boundless. It was instinctive, blind, invincible—I might say, carnal; for it seemed to me that it had its seat in my flesh, that it surged through all my fibres, through all my nerves, through all my veins. Nothing could conquer it, nothing could destroy it. It sufficed that the intruder were present, at no matter what hour, no matter under what circumstances, for there to be immediately induced in me a sort of annihilating rage, for me to fall beneath the empire of a single and unique passion: my hate against him.My mother said to Juliana:"Look! How he has already changed in a few days! He resembles you more than Tullio, but he bears very little resemblance to either of you. He is still too little. We shall see later. Do you want to kiss him?"She put the child's forehead to the invalid's lips. What sensation did Juliana feel?The infant began to cry. I had the courage to say to my mother without bitterness:"Take him away, please. Juliana needs quiet, and these shocks do her great harm."My mother left the alcove. The wails died away, but continued to cause me the same sensation of painful laceration, the same desire to run and strangle him so as not to hear them. We heard them for some time while he was being carried away. When they finally ceased, the silence seemed horrible to me; it fell on me like an avalanche, it crushed me. But, instead of dwelling on my pain, I thought immediately that Juliana required assistance."Ah! Tullio, Tullio, it is not possible...""Be silent, Juliana! Be silent, if you love me! I beseech you, be silent!"My voice, my gesture, was supplicating. All the irritation of my hate had fallen. I suffered only on account of her suffering; I feared only the distress caused the invalid, the shock she had received from that fragile life."If you love me you must think of nothing but your cure. Look at me! I think only of you; I suffer only for you. You must not torment yourself. You must abandon yourself entirely to my tenderness, in order to get well..."In her feeble and trembling voice she answered:"But who knows what you secretly feel in your heart? Poor soul!""No, no, Juliana, do not torment yourself! I suffer only for you and because I see you suffer. I forget all when I see you smile. When you feel well, I am happy. You must get well therefore if you love me; you must be quiet, obedient, patient. When you are well, when you are stronger, then ...who knows? God is good."She murmured:"My God! have pity on us!""In what manner?" I thought. "In causing the Intruder to die?" So, then, we both wished his death. The mother herself saw no other alternative than the destruction of her child. Yes, that was the only alternative. And my memory recalled the brief dialogue that, on one now distant evening, we had had beneath the elms; it recalled the painful confession. "But does she still hate him, now he is born? Can she feel a sincere aversion against the flesh of her flesh? Does she pray God sincerely to take from her the fruit of her own entrails?" I again recalled the wild hope that I had conceived, as if in a flash, on the tragic night. "Suppose the idea of crime should occur to her and gradually become strong enough to influence her."And I looked at her hands stretched out on the cloth, so pale that they were distinguishable from the sheets only by the azure of their veins.XXXV.Now that the invalid's condition was improving daily, a strange sorrow oppressed me. At the bottom of my heart, I did not see the sad days of the alcove pass by without a vague regret. Those mornings, those evenings, those nights, however desolate they were, had their grave sweetness. Every day my labor of charity seemed more beautiful. An abundance of love inundated my soul and submerged at times my sombre thoughts, procured for me at times forgetfulness of the frightful thing, awoke in me some consolatory illusion, some indefinite dream. Shut up in that alcove, I felt at times a sensation similar to that felt in the shadows of lonely chapels: I felt as if in a refuge from the violences of life, from opportunities for sinning. At times it seemed to me that the light curtains separated me from an abyss. I was assailed by sudden and unknown fears. Around me, in the night, I heard the silence of the entire house, and with the eyes of my soul I saw, in the corner of a distant room, by the side of a lighted lamp, the cradle in which slept the intruder, my mother's joy—my heir. A great shudder of horror ran through me, and I remained for a long time influenced by fright, under the sinister light of this single thought. The curtains separated me from an abyss.But, now that Juliana's condition improved daily, excuses failed me for prolonging her isolation, and by degrees the routine of domestic life invaded the peaceful room. My mother, my brother, Maria, Natalia, Miss Edith, entered more frequently, remained longer. Raymond imposed himself upon the maternal tenderness. It was no longer possible to avoid it, either for Juliana or for me. We had to be lavish with kisses and smiles. We had to feint and artfully dissimulate, to endure the refined cruelties that chance brought to us, to be tortured by slow fire.Nourished with healthy and substantial milk, surrounded by infinite care, Raymond gradually lost his first repulsive appearance and commenced to grow. He grew whiter, acquired a more clearly defined form, and now kept his gray eyes wide open. But all his movements were odious to me, from the sucking of his lips when applied to the breast to the uncertain movements of his little hands. I could never discover anything attractive in him. I never had a thought of him that was not hateful. When I was obliged to touch him, when my mother brought him to me for a kiss, there ran over my entire skin the same thrill of horror which contact with an unclean animal would have caused me. Every fibre in me revolted, and the violence that I did myself threw me into despair.Every day brought its new torture, and my mother was my grand inquisitor. Once, on unexpectedly entering the room, and parting the curtains of the alcove, I perceived the infant lying on the bed by Juliana's side. Nobody was present. We three were there together without witnesses. The infant slept peacefully, bound up in its swaddling-clothes."It was mother who left him here," stammered Juliana.I fled like a madman.Another time Cristina called me. I followed her into the room containing the cradle. My mother was there, with the baby on her knees.The child was moving its limbs and arms, turning its eyes from one side to the other, burying its fingers in its gaping mouth. At the wrists, at the ankles, behind the knees on the lower abdomen, the flesh swelled out in little cushions and was covered with rice powder. My mother's hands caressed the little members with delight, pointing out to me every detail, expatiating on the skin which a recent bath had polished and made lustrous. The infant seemed to be enjoying it."Feel here, feel how solid he is already!" she said, inviting me to touch him.I was obliged to touch him."See how heavy he is!"I was obliged to lift him, to feel that warm and flaccid little body palpitate between my hands, which were seized by a trembling that was not due to tenderness."The love, the love, the love of his grandmother!" repeated my mother, tickling the chin of the infant, who did not yet know how to laugh.The dear gray head, that had already bent over two blessed cradles before for the same caresses, and much whiter now, bent unconsciously over another's child, over the intruder. I imagined that she had not shown herself as tender toward Maria, toward Natalia, toward the true creatures of my blood.She wished to swathe him herself. She made the sign of the cross on the abdomen."But you are not yet a Christian!"And turning toward me, she said:"The time has come to fix the baptismal day."XXXVI.Dr. Jemma, chevalier of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a handsome, cheerful old man, brought a bouquet of white chrysanthemums as an offering to Juliana."Oh! my favorite flowers!" said Juliana. "Thank you."She took the bouquet, gazed on it for a long time, buried her tapering fingers in it; and there was a sad analogy between her pallor and that of the autumn flowers. They were chrysanthemums as large as full-blown roses, tufted, heavy; they had the color of a sickly, bloodless, almost lifeless skin, the livid whiteness noticeable on the cheeks of beggars benumbed by cold. A few were imperceptibly veined with violet, others were slightly tinged with yellow, with exquisite tones."Take them," she said to me. "Put them in water."It was in the morning; it was in November. We had just passed the anniversary of the fatal day which these flowers recalled."Que ferai-je sans Eurydice?"While I was putting the white chrysanthemums into a vase the air from "Orpheus" sang in my memory. There reappeared in my mind certain fragments of the singular scene that had taken place the year previous, and I saw Juliana again in that warm and golden light, in that suave perfume, in the midst of all those objects bearing the imprint of feminine grace, to which the phantom of the ancient melody seemed to impart the palpitation of a secret life, to spread the shadow of I know not what mystery. Had not these flowers awakened in her also some remembrance?A mortal sorrow weighed on my soul—the sorrow of an inconsolable lover. The Other presented himself before me, and his eyes were as gray as those of the intruder.The doctor said to me from the alcove:"You may open the window. It is well to have the room well aired, to have plenty of sunlight enter.""Oh, yes, yes, open it!" cried the invalid.I opened it. At this moment my mother entered, together with the wet-nurse, who had Raymond in her arms. I remained between the curtains, and leaned against the balustrade and looked out on the landscape. Behind me I heard the familiar voices.We had arrived at the end of November. Already the summer of the Dead had passed. A great vacuous light extended over the humid country, over the noble and peaceful profile of the hillsides. It seemed that through the confused tops of the olive plants a silvery vapor was circulating. Here and there several threads of smoke whitened in the sun. The breeze bore, at intervals, the light rustling of falling leaves. The rest was only peace and silence."Why," I thought, "did she sing that morning? Why, on hearing her, did I feel so agitated?" She seemed to me another woman. Was she then in love with him? To what condition of her soul did that unusual effusion correspond? She sang because she loved. Perhaps I am mistaken. But I shall never know the truth.It was no longer the jealous agitation of the senses, but a more noble affliction that arose from the depths of my soul. I thought: "What remembrance has she retained of him? Has that remembrance often tormented her? The son is a living bond. She finds in Raymond something of the man to whom she has belonged; she will find more precise resemblances. It is impossible that she should forget Raymond's father, and perhaps she has him constantly before her eyes. What would she feel if she knew he were doomed?"And I stopped to imagine the progress of the paralysis, and to form an inner picture of that man's condition based on that furnished me by the recollection of poor Spinelli. I saw him once more seated in his large red leather armchair, of a clayey pallor, with every line of his visage drawn, his mouth distorted and gaping, full of saliva and stammering incomprehensibly. I once more saw the gesture he made every moment to gather in his handkerchief that ever-flowing saliva which rolled down the corners of his mouth."Tullio!"It was my mother's voice. I turned and walked toward the alcove.Juliana lay on her back, dejected and silent."It's all arranged. The baptism takes place the day after to-morrow," said my mother. "The doctor believes that Juliana must remain in bed for some time yet.""How do you think she is, doctor?" I asked."It seems to me that there is a slight pause in her progress," replied he, shaking his fine white head. "I find her very feeble. We must increase the alimentation, force it a little."Juliana interrupted him, looking at me the while with a very wan smile:"He examined my heart.""Well?" I asked, turning abruptly toward the old man.I thought I saw a shadow pass over his forehead."It is a perfectly healthy heart," he hastened to answer. "It only needs blood ... and quiet. Come! Come! Be brave! How is your appetite to-day?"The invalid made a movement of the lips expressive of disgust. Her eyes were fixed on the open window, through which entered the warm sunlight."It is cold to-day, is it not?" she asked timidly, putting her hands beneath the bed-covers.One could see that she was shivering.XXXVII.The following day Federico and I paid a visit to Giovanni di Scordio. It was the last afternoon of November. We went on foot, crossing the tilled fields.We walked along silent and thoughtful. The sun slowly set on the horizon. An impalpable golden dust floated above our heads in the quiet air. The humid earth had a vigorous, brown color, an aspect of tranquil energy, and, so to speak, a peaceful consciousness of its virtue. From the furrows mounted a visible breath, like that exhaled from the nostrils of cattle. Beneath the soft light the white objects took on an extraordinary whiteness, a snowlike purity. A cow in the distance, a plowman's shirt, a stretched sheet, the walls of a farm-house, shone like under the light of the full moon."You are sad," said Federico to me, gently."Yes, I am sad. I have no hope left."There was another long silence. Flocks of birds rose from the bushes with a fluttering of wings. The deadened tinkling of the little bells of a distant troop reached us."Of what are you hopeless?" asked my brother in the same kind way."Of Juliana's health, and also of mine."He remained silent; he did not speak a single word of consolation. Perhaps he was feeling internally the pressure of pain."I have a presentiment," I went on, "that Juliana will never leave her bed."He remained silent. We passed along a path bordered by trees, and the fallen leaves crackled beneath our feet, and at the places where there were no leaves, the soil had a hollow sound, as if mined by subterranean cavities."When she is dead," I added, "what will become of me?"A sudden fear came upon me, a sort of panicky terror; and I looked at my brother, who remained silent, with a frown on his face. I looked about me at the mute desolation of the day. Never before, so clearly as then, had I had the sensation of the frightful emptiness of life."No, no, Tullio," said my brother. "Julianacannot die."It was a vain assertion, without any value in face of the fiat of Destiny. And yet he had pronounced these words with a simplicity that gave me a shock, so extraordinary did they appear to me. Thus, at times, children suddenly say things that go straight to the heart, and as if a prophetic voice spoke through their unconscious lips."Can you read the future?" I asked him, without a shadow of irony."No, but I have that presentiment, and I believe it."Once more my brother had inspired confidence in me; once more, thanks to him, I felt a slight relaxation of the iron band that wounded my heart. But it was only a short respite. During the remainder of our walk he spoke to me of Raymond.When we were near the place inhabited by Giovanni di Scordio, Federico perceived the tall figure of the old man in a field."Look at him! He is sowing. We bring him the invitation at a solemn hour."We approached. My inner trembling was as strong as if I were on the point of committing a profanation. Was I not, in fact, about to profane a beautiful and great thing? Was I not about to solicit the spiritual paternity of that venerable old man for the child of adultery?"See, what a noble figure!" cried Federico, stooping and pointing to the sower. "He has only a man's stature, and yet he looks like a giant."In order to watch him we stopped behind a tree at the edge of the field. Giovanni, attentive to his labor, had not yet perceived us.He walked straight before him in the field, with measured slowness. His head was covered by a green and black woolen cap, with two ear-laps that hung down his cheeks, in the ancient Phrygian fashion. A little white bag, full of seed and attached to his neck by a leather thong, hung before him at the waist. With his left hand he held the bag open, while with his right he took out the seed and scattered it. His gesture was sweeping, vigorous, and sure, cadenced with an equal rhythm. The seed, flying from his hand, flashed an instant in the air with golden scintillations and fell in an equal rain on the humid furrows. The sower advanced slowly, burying his naked feet in the earth, which yielded beneath his steps, his head high in the sanctity of the light. His entire person was simple, sacred, and grand.We entered the field."My respects to you, Giovanni," cried Federico, going forward to meet the old man. "Blessed be your seed! Blessed be your future bread!""My respects to you," I repeated in my turn.The old man left his work and uncovered his head."Giovanni, you must cover yourself, if you wish us to remain covered," said Federico.The old man put on his cap, smiling, confused, almost intimidated. He asked with a modest air:"To what do I owe so much honor?"I answered in a voice which I forced to be firm:"I came to beg you to hold my son at the baptism."The old man looked at me with surprise; then he looked at my brother. His confusion increased. He murmured:"You do me too much honor!""Well, what is your answer?""I am at your orders. May God reward you for the honor you have done me to-day! May God be praised for the joy that he has accorded me in my old age! May the benedictions of heaven descend on your son!""Thank you, Giovanni."I gave him my hand. And I saw his profound and sad eyes become moist from tenderness. My heart swelled with acute anguish.The old man asked me:"What name will you give him?'"Raymond.""The name of your father of sacred memory. He was a man, and you resemble him."My brother said:"Do you sow alone?""Alone, yes. I sow it and I reap it."He showed the harrow, and the pickaxe that glittered on the brown earth. All around could be seen the still uncovered seed, the germs of future grain.My brother said:"Continue. We will leave you to your work. You will come to-morrow morning to the Badiola. Farewell, Giovanni. May God bless your work!"We clasped that unwearied hand, sanctified by the seed it scattered, by the good it had shed. The old man made a movement to accompany us as far as the road; but he stopped and said, not without hesitation:"Grant me one favor, I pray you.""Speak out, Giovanni."He opened the bag suspended from his neck."Take a handful of seed and throw it on my furrows."I plunged my hand first into the wheat, took as much as I could, and scattered it. My brother did the same."And now, heed what I tell you," continued Giovanni di Scordio in an agitated voice, contemplating the seeded ground. "God grant that my godson be as good as the bread raised from this seed! Amen!"XXXVIII.The following morning the baptismal ceremony took place without festivity or pomp, on account of Juliana's condition. My mother, my brother, Maria, Natalia, Miss Edith, the midwife, the wet-nurse, and the Chevalier Jemma were present. I remained by the invalid's bedside.A heavy somnolence weighed upon her. She scarcely breathed through her half-open mouth, as pale as the palest flowers that blossom in the shade. Darkness reigned in the alcove. On looking at her, I thought: "Can I not save her? I have succeeded in banishing death so far; but death seems to be returning. If there is no change quickly, she will certainly die. So long as I succeeded in keeping Raymond away from her, so long as I succeeded by tenderness in causing her a partial illusion and forgetfulness, she seemed desirous of getting well. But when she sees her son, when the torture begins again, she grows worse from day to day, she loses more blood than if the hemorrhage still continued. I witness her agony. She no longer hears me, no longer obeys me as she did before. Who will be the cause of her death?He. It is he, most assuredly, he who will kill her." A flood of hate mounted from the deepest depths of my being, and I felt it even invade my hands with a homicidal impulse. I saw the little malefic being who was growing fat on milk, who prospered in peace, removed from all danger, in the midst of infinite cares. "My mother loves him better than she loves Juliana. My mother is more concerned about him than she is about the poor dying creature. Oh! I will make away with him, at any cost. I must!" And the vision of the crime already consummated passed over me like a flash: the vision of the little dead body in swaddling-clothes, the little innocent corpse in its coffin. "The baptism shall be his viaticum. Giovanni's arms will carry him."A sudden curiosity seized me. The painful spectacle attracted me. Juliana was still slumbering. I cautiously left the alcove; I left the room; I called Cristina and left her on guard; then, with rapid step, I walked toward the gallery, suffocated by anguish.The small door was open. I perceived a man kneeling before the railing; and I recognized Pietro, the faithful old servant who was with us at my birth and was present at my baptism. He arose, not without pain."Stay, stay, Pietro!" I said in a low voice, placing my hand on his shoulder to make him kneel again. And I knelt down near him, and leaned my head against the railing, and looked below into the chapel. I saw everything with perfect clearness; I heard the formulas of the ritual.The ceremony had already begun. I learned from Pietro that the infant had already received the salt. The officiant was the priest of Tussi, Don Gregorio Artese. He was at that moment reciting the Credo with the sponsor, the one in a loud voice, the other repeating in low tones. Giovanni held the infant with his right arm, the arm which the evening before had sowed the wheat. His left hand was laid on the white ribbons and laces. And those bony hands, dry and brown, which seemed as if cast in living bronze—those hands, hardened by the instruments of agriculture, sanctified by the good they had done, by the immense labor that they had accomplished, and now occupied in holding that little child, had such charming delicacy and timidity that I could not remove my gaze from them. Raymond did not cry, but his mouth moved ceaselessly, full of a liquid froth that ran down his chin on to the embroidered bib.After the exorcism the priest wet his finger with saliva and touched the little pink ears, pronouncing the miraculous word:"Ephpheta."Then he touched the nostrils, saying:"In odorem sanctitatis..."Then he dipped his thumb in the oil of the catechumens, and while Giovanni held the child on its back, he administered the unction in form of a cross on the chest; and when Giovanni turned the child on its stomach, he administered the unction between the shoulder blades, in form of a cross, saying:"Ego te linio oleo salutis in Christo Jesu Domino Nostro..."Then, with a small tuft of cotton, he wiped off the unction.Then he removed the violet veil, the color of mourning and of sorrow, and put on the white stole, in token of joy, in order to announce that the original sin was about to be removed. And he addressed Raymond by his name, putting to him the three solemn questions, which the sponsor answered:"Credo, credo, credo."The chapel was singularly sonorous. A ray of sunlight, entering by one of the high oval windows, fell upon the marble paving stones covering the deep sepulchres where several of my ancestors reposed in peace. My mother and brother stood behind Giovanni, side by side. Maria and Natalia stood on tiptoe to catch a view of the child, inquisitive, smiling from time to time, whispering to each other. These whisperings caused Giovanni to turn partially around, with an indulgent gesture indicating all the ineffable tenderness which the old man bore children and that overflowed from his big heart."Raymunde, vis baptizari?" asked the officiant."Volo," responded the sponsor, repeating the word that had been prompted to him.The clerk presented the silver basin, in which shone the baptismal water. My mother removed the infant's hood, while the sponsor extended the child on its stomach in order to receive the ablution. The round head, on which I could distinguish the whitish eruptions of the milk-crust, hung above the basin. And the priest, after having taken some water from a little vase, poured it three times on the child's head, each time making the sign of the cross."Ego te baptize in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."Raymond began to wail violently, and louder still when his head was being dried. And, when Giovanni raised him up, I saw that his face was reddened by the afflux of blood and by his efforts, and winkled by the contractions of the mouth. And, as usual, the wailings caused me the same sensation of painful laceration, the same exasperation of anger. Nothing in him irritated me more than that voice, than that obstinate wailing which for the first time had struck me so cruel a blow on that lugubrious October morning. It was an intolerable shock to my nerves.The priest dipped his thumb into the consecrated oil and anointed the neophyte's forehead, reciting the ritual, which rose above the wailings. Then he put on the white robe, symbol of Innocence."Accipe vestem candidam."Then he handed the blessed taper to the sponsor."Accipe lampadem ardentem."The Innocent became quiet. His eyes were fixed on the little flame that trembled at the tip of the long colored candle. Giovanni di Scordio bore the newly made Christian on his right arm, and with his left hand he held the symbol of the divine fire, in a simple and grave attitude, regarding the priest who recited the litany. He towered above all those present by a full head. All round there was no whiteness as pure as the whiteness of his hair, not even the Innocent's robe."Vade in pace, et Dominus sit tecum.""Amen."My mother took the Innocent from the old man's arms, pressed him against her bosom, and kissed him. My brother kissed him too. All the spectators kissed him in turn.Near me Pietro was still on his knees weeping. Overcome, distracted, I rose abruptly, went out, crossed the corridors rapidly, and entered Juliana's room unannounced.Cristina asked with fear, lowering her voice:"What has happened, signor?""Nothing, nothing. Is she awake?""No, signor. I think she is asleep."I parted the curtains and softly entered the alcove. At first I perceived nothing in the darkness but the whiteness of the pillow. I approached, and bent over. Juliana's eyes were wide open and were gazing at me fixedly. Perhaps she divined all my anguish from my aspect; but she said not a word. She closed her eyes again, as if never to open them.
XXXIII.
For several days Juliana hovered between life and death. Her weakness was so great that the slightest effort was followed by exhaustion. She was compelled to remain constantly on her back, without the slightest movement. The least attempt to raise herself provoked symptoms of cerebral anemia. Nothing could be found to overcome the nauseas that seized her, to lift the weight that crushed down on her chest, to remove the buzzing that she heard without cease.
I remained day and night at her bedside, always on the watch, sustained by an indefatigable energy that surprised even myself. I employed all the strength of my own life in sustaining that life which was threatened with extinction. It seemed to me that, from the other side of the bed, death was watching, ready to profit by an opportune moment to ravish his prey. At times I had the real sensation that I was becoming transfused in the debilitated body of the invalid, that I communicated to her a little of my strength, that I imparted an impulse to her exhausted heart. Never did the miseries of illness inspire in me the least repugnance, the slightest disgust; never did any material object offend the delicacy of my senses. My senses, overexcited, were attentive only in perceiving the least changes in the condition of the invalid. Before she spoke a word, before she made a sign, I divined her desires, her wants, the degree of her suffering. By divination, without the physician having to make any suggestion, I had succeeded in being able to discover new and ingenious means of relieving one of her pains, of calming one of her attacks. I alone could persuade her to eat and to sleep. I resorted to every stratagem, to prayers and caresses to make her swallow her medicine. I pressed her so much that finally, incapable of further resistance, she had to submit to a salutary effort to triumph over the nausea. And there was nothing sweeter to me than the imperceptible smile with which she submitted to my will. Her slightest acts of obedience put my heart into a profound commotion. When she said, in her feeble voice: "Is this right? Am I good?" I felt my throat choke, my eyes become veiled.
She often complained of a painful and incessant throbbing at the temples. Then I would pass my finger-tips over her brow to appease the pain. I caressed her hair very softly to lull her to sleep. When I perceived that she was asleep her respiration gave me the illusory sensation that I was solaced, as if the benefit of the slumber were extended even to me. In presence of this slumber I felt a sort of religious emotion. I was invaded by a vague fervor. I felt a desire to believe in the existence of some superior being, omnispective, omnipotent, in order to address my Prayers to him. There arose spontaneously from the depths of my soul the preludes of prayer according to the Christian formula. Sometimes the inner eloquence exalted me even to the summit of the true faith. Within me there awoke all the mystic tendencies transmitted to me by a long line of Catholic ancestors.
While my inner orisons were unfolding I contemplated the sleeper. She was still as pale as her night-dress. The transparency of her skin would have enabled me to count the veins on her cheeks, on her chin, on her neck. I watched her as if I had had the hope of seeing the beneficial effects of that repose, the slow diffusion of new blood engendered by the nourishment, the first premonitory signs of cure. I would have liked, by some supernatural faculty, to be present at the mysterious restorative elaboration which was taking place in that enfeebled body. And I persisted in hoping: "When she awakes she will feel stronger."
She seemed to feel a great relief when she held my hand in her own icy hands. Sometimes she took my hand and put it on the pillow, pressed her cheek against it with a childlike gesture, and gradually dozed off in that position. So as not to awaken her, I exerted all my strength to keep for a long, long time my arm in this one position, which was torture.
Once she said:
"Why don't you sleep here with me? You never sleep."
And she forced me to lay my head on her pillow.
"Let us go to sleep!"
I pretended I was going to sleep, to set her a good example. But when I opened my eyes I encountered hers wide open and fixed on me.
"Well!" I cried. "What are you doing?"
"And you?" she replied.
In her eyes there was an expression of such tender goodness that I felt my heart melt. I extended my mouth and kissed her eyelids.
She wished to kiss me the same way. Then she repeated:
"Let us go to sleep now!"
Thus, a veil of oblivion sometimes descended over our misfortune.
Often her poor feet were frozen. I felt them beneath the covers, and they seemed to me like marble. She herself said:
"They are dead."
They were so emaciated and so small that I could almost hold them in my hand. They inspired me with a great pity. I warmed some linen at the fire to put on them, and did not tire of giving them attention. I would have liked to warm them with my breath, to cover them with kisses. With this new pity there mingled the distant recollections of love—recollections of the happy time when, by a habit that almost resembled a vow, I reserved for myself exclusively the privilege of putting on her shoes in the morning and taking them off at night with my own hands, while on my knees before her.
One day, after long vigils, I was so fatigued that an irresistible slumber seized me just at the moment when I had my hands beneath the cover holding the little dead feet in the warm cloth. My head sank forward, and I went to sleep in that attitude.
When I awoke I saw my mother, my brother, and the doctor, who were smiling. I was embarrassed.
"Poor boy! He is tired out," said my mother, stroking my hair with one of her most tender gestures.
Juliana said:
"Take him away, mother! Take him away, Federico!"
"No, no, I am not tired," I repeated; "I am not tired."
The doctor announced his departure. He declared that the invalid was out of danger and on the road to recovery. But it was necessary, by all means possible, to continue to excite the regeneration of blood. His colleague, Jemma de Tussi, with whom he had consulted and found of the same opinion, would continue the same treatment. He had less confidence in remedies than in the rigorous observation of the various hygienic rules and of diet that he had prescribed.
"In truth," he added, pointing to me, "I could not wish for a more intelligent, more vigilant, or more devoted nurse. He has done miracles, and he will do more. I shall go away perfectly easy."
It seemed to me that my heart leaped into my throat and was suffocating me. The unexpected praise of that serious man, in my mother's and brother's presence, caused me profound emotion. It was an extraordinary reward for me.
I looked at Juliana, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears. And beneath my look she burst out all at once into sobs. I made a superhuman effort to contain myself, but could not succeed. It seemed to me that my soul was melted. In my bosom I felt all the virtues in the world collected together in that unforgettable hour.
XXXIV.
Juliana regained strength day by day, but slowly. My assiduity did not wane. I even took advantage of the remarks made by Dr. Vebesti to redouble my vigilance, to permit no one to replace me, to oppose my mother and brother, who advised me to rest. My body from now on became accustomed to the severe discipline, and scarcely ever felt fatigue. My entire life was enclosed between the walls of that room, in the intimacy of that alcove, in the circle where the invalid breathed.
As she required absolute quiet, as she was ordered to speak little so as to avoid fatigue, I exercised my ingenuity in keeping from her bedside even the members of her family. The alcove remained therefore isolated from the rest of the house. For hours and hours we—Juliana and I—were alone. And, crushed as she was by her illness, attentive as I was in my pious duty, we were at times able to forget our misfortune, to lose the sense of reality, to retain no other consciousness but that of our immense love. At times it seemed to me that beyond the curtains nothing existed any longer, so great was the concentration of my entire being on the invalid. Nothing occurred to recall the frightful thing to me. I saw before me a suffering sister, and my sole care was to relieve her pain.
Too often these veils of forgetfulness were brutally rent asunder. My mother spoke of Raymond. The curtains opened to give passage to the intruder.
My mother carried him in her arms. I was present, and I felt that I must have become pale, as all my blood flowed back to my heart. And Juliana, what sensation did she feel?
I looked at that reddish face, the size of a man's fist, half hidden by the bonnet trimmings, and with a fierce aversion that annihilated every other emotion in my soul, I thought: "What shall I do to deliver myself of you? Why were you not born dead?" My hate was boundless. It was instinctive, blind, invincible—I might say, carnal; for it seemed to me that it had its seat in my flesh, that it surged through all my fibres, through all my nerves, through all my veins. Nothing could conquer it, nothing could destroy it. It sufficed that the intruder were present, at no matter what hour, no matter under what circumstances, for there to be immediately induced in me a sort of annihilating rage, for me to fall beneath the empire of a single and unique passion: my hate against him.
My mother said to Juliana:
"Look! How he has already changed in a few days! He resembles you more than Tullio, but he bears very little resemblance to either of you. He is still too little. We shall see later. Do you want to kiss him?"
She put the child's forehead to the invalid's lips. What sensation did Juliana feel?
The infant began to cry. I had the courage to say to my mother without bitterness:
"Take him away, please. Juliana needs quiet, and these shocks do her great harm."
My mother left the alcove. The wails died away, but continued to cause me the same sensation of painful laceration, the same desire to run and strangle him so as not to hear them. We heard them for some time while he was being carried away. When they finally ceased, the silence seemed horrible to me; it fell on me like an avalanche, it crushed me. But, instead of dwelling on my pain, I thought immediately that Juliana required assistance.
"Ah! Tullio, Tullio, it is not possible..."
"Be silent, Juliana! Be silent, if you love me! I beseech you, be silent!"
My voice, my gesture, was supplicating. All the irritation of my hate had fallen. I suffered only on account of her suffering; I feared only the distress caused the invalid, the shock she had received from that fragile life.
"If you love me you must think of nothing but your cure. Look at me! I think only of you; I suffer only for you. You must not torment yourself. You must abandon yourself entirely to my tenderness, in order to get well..."
In her feeble and trembling voice she answered:
"But who knows what you secretly feel in your heart? Poor soul!"
"No, no, Juliana, do not torment yourself! I suffer only for you and because I see you suffer. I forget all when I see you smile. When you feel well, I am happy. You must get well therefore if you love me; you must be quiet, obedient, patient. When you are well, when you are stronger, then ...who knows? God is good."
She murmured:
"My God! have pity on us!"
"In what manner?" I thought. "In causing the Intruder to die?" So, then, we both wished his death. The mother herself saw no other alternative than the destruction of her child. Yes, that was the only alternative. And my memory recalled the brief dialogue that, on one now distant evening, we had had beneath the elms; it recalled the painful confession. "But does she still hate him, now he is born? Can she feel a sincere aversion against the flesh of her flesh? Does she pray God sincerely to take from her the fruit of her own entrails?" I again recalled the wild hope that I had conceived, as if in a flash, on the tragic night. "Suppose the idea of crime should occur to her and gradually become strong enough to influence her."
And I looked at her hands stretched out on the cloth, so pale that they were distinguishable from the sheets only by the azure of their veins.
XXXV.
Now that the invalid's condition was improving daily, a strange sorrow oppressed me. At the bottom of my heart, I did not see the sad days of the alcove pass by without a vague regret. Those mornings, those evenings, those nights, however desolate they were, had their grave sweetness. Every day my labor of charity seemed more beautiful. An abundance of love inundated my soul and submerged at times my sombre thoughts, procured for me at times forgetfulness of the frightful thing, awoke in me some consolatory illusion, some indefinite dream. Shut up in that alcove, I felt at times a sensation similar to that felt in the shadows of lonely chapels: I felt as if in a refuge from the violences of life, from opportunities for sinning. At times it seemed to me that the light curtains separated me from an abyss. I was assailed by sudden and unknown fears. Around me, in the night, I heard the silence of the entire house, and with the eyes of my soul I saw, in the corner of a distant room, by the side of a lighted lamp, the cradle in which slept the intruder, my mother's joy—my heir. A great shudder of horror ran through me, and I remained for a long time influenced by fright, under the sinister light of this single thought. The curtains separated me from an abyss.
But, now that Juliana's condition improved daily, excuses failed me for prolonging her isolation, and by degrees the routine of domestic life invaded the peaceful room. My mother, my brother, Maria, Natalia, Miss Edith, entered more frequently, remained longer. Raymond imposed himself upon the maternal tenderness. It was no longer possible to avoid it, either for Juliana or for me. We had to be lavish with kisses and smiles. We had to feint and artfully dissimulate, to endure the refined cruelties that chance brought to us, to be tortured by slow fire.
Nourished with healthy and substantial milk, surrounded by infinite care, Raymond gradually lost his first repulsive appearance and commenced to grow. He grew whiter, acquired a more clearly defined form, and now kept his gray eyes wide open. But all his movements were odious to me, from the sucking of his lips when applied to the breast to the uncertain movements of his little hands. I could never discover anything attractive in him. I never had a thought of him that was not hateful. When I was obliged to touch him, when my mother brought him to me for a kiss, there ran over my entire skin the same thrill of horror which contact with an unclean animal would have caused me. Every fibre in me revolted, and the violence that I did myself threw me into despair.
Every day brought its new torture, and my mother was my grand inquisitor. Once, on unexpectedly entering the room, and parting the curtains of the alcove, I perceived the infant lying on the bed by Juliana's side. Nobody was present. We three were there together without witnesses. The infant slept peacefully, bound up in its swaddling-clothes.
"It was mother who left him here," stammered Juliana.
I fled like a madman.
Another time Cristina called me. I followed her into the room containing the cradle. My mother was there, with the baby on her knees.
The child was moving its limbs and arms, turning its eyes from one side to the other, burying its fingers in its gaping mouth. At the wrists, at the ankles, behind the knees on the lower abdomen, the flesh swelled out in little cushions and was covered with rice powder. My mother's hands caressed the little members with delight, pointing out to me every detail, expatiating on the skin which a recent bath had polished and made lustrous. The infant seemed to be enjoying it.
"Feel here, feel how solid he is already!" she said, inviting me to touch him.
I was obliged to touch him.
"See how heavy he is!"
I was obliged to lift him, to feel that warm and flaccid little body palpitate between my hands, which were seized by a trembling that was not due to tenderness.
"The love, the love, the love of his grandmother!" repeated my mother, tickling the chin of the infant, who did not yet know how to laugh.
The dear gray head, that had already bent over two blessed cradles before for the same caresses, and much whiter now, bent unconsciously over another's child, over the intruder. I imagined that she had not shown herself as tender toward Maria, toward Natalia, toward the true creatures of my blood.
She wished to swathe him herself. She made the sign of the cross on the abdomen.
"But you are not yet a Christian!"
And turning toward me, she said:
"The time has come to fix the baptismal day."
XXXVI.
Dr. Jemma, chevalier of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a handsome, cheerful old man, brought a bouquet of white chrysanthemums as an offering to Juliana.
"Oh! my favorite flowers!" said Juliana. "Thank you."
She took the bouquet, gazed on it for a long time, buried her tapering fingers in it; and there was a sad analogy between her pallor and that of the autumn flowers. They were chrysanthemums as large as full-blown roses, tufted, heavy; they had the color of a sickly, bloodless, almost lifeless skin, the livid whiteness noticeable on the cheeks of beggars benumbed by cold. A few were imperceptibly veined with violet, others were slightly tinged with yellow, with exquisite tones.
"Take them," she said to me. "Put them in water."
It was in the morning; it was in November. We had just passed the anniversary of the fatal day which these flowers recalled.
"Que ferai-je sans Eurydice?"
While I was putting the white chrysanthemums into a vase the air from "Orpheus" sang in my memory. There reappeared in my mind certain fragments of the singular scene that had taken place the year previous, and I saw Juliana again in that warm and golden light, in that suave perfume, in the midst of all those objects bearing the imprint of feminine grace, to which the phantom of the ancient melody seemed to impart the palpitation of a secret life, to spread the shadow of I know not what mystery. Had not these flowers awakened in her also some remembrance?
A mortal sorrow weighed on my soul—the sorrow of an inconsolable lover. The Other presented himself before me, and his eyes were as gray as those of the intruder.
The doctor said to me from the alcove:
"You may open the window. It is well to have the room well aired, to have plenty of sunlight enter."
"Oh, yes, yes, open it!" cried the invalid.
I opened it. At this moment my mother entered, together with the wet-nurse, who had Raymond in her arms. I remained between the curtains, and leaned against the balustrade and looked out on the landscape. Behind me I heard the familiar voices.
We had arrived at the end of November. Already the summer of the Dead had passed. A great vacuous light extended over the humid country, over the noble and peaceful profile of the hillsides. It seemed that through the confused tops of the olive plants a silvery vapor was circulating. Here and there several threads of smoke whitened in the sun. The breeze bore, at intervals, the light rustling of falling leaves. The rest was only peace and silence.
"Why," I thought, "did she sing that morning? Why, on hearing her, did I feel so agitated?" She seemed to me another woman. Was she then in love with him? To what condition of her soul did that unusual effusion correspond? She sang because she loved. Perhaps I am mistaken. But I shall never know the truth.
It was no longer the jealous agitation of the senses, but a more noble affliction that arose from the depths of my soul. I thought: "What remembrance has she retained of him? Has that remembrance often tormented her? The son is a living bond. She finds in Raymond something of the man to whom she has belonged; she will find more precise resemblances. It is impossible that she should forget Raymond's father, and perhaps she has him constantly before her eyes. What would she feel if she knew he were doomed?"
And I stopped to imagine the progress of the paralysis, and to form an inner picture of that man's condition based on that furnished me by the recollection of poor Spinelli. I saw him once more seated in his large red leather armchair, of a clayey pallor, with every line of his visage drawn, his mouth distorted and gaping, full of saliva and stammering incomprehensibly. I once more saw the gesture he made every moment to gather in his handkerchief that ever-flowing saliva which rolled down the corners of his mouth.
"Tullio!"
It was my mother's voice. I turned and walked toward the alcove.
Juliana lay on her back, dejected and silent.
"It's all arranged. The baptism takes place the day after to-morrow," said my mother. "The doctor believes that Juliana must remain in bed for some time yet."
"How do you think she is, doctor?" I asked.
"It seems to me that there is a slight pause in her progress," replied he, shaking his fine white head. "I find her very feeble. We must increase the alimentation, force it a little."
Juliana interrupted him, looking at me the while with a very wan smile:
"He examined my heart."
"Well?" I asked, turning abruptly toward the old man.
I thought I saw a shadow pass over his forehead.
"It is a perfectly healthy heart," he hastened to answer. "It only needs blood ... and quiet. Come! Come! Be brave! How is your appetite to-day?"
The invalid made a movement of the lips expressive of disgust. Her eyes were fixed on the open window, through which entered the warm sunlight.
"It is cold to-day, is it not?" she asked timidly, putting her hands beneath the bed-covers.
One could see that she was shivering.
XXXVII.
The following day Federico and I paid a visit to Giovanni di Scordio. It was the last afternoon of November. We went on foot, crossing the tilled fields.
We walked along silent and thoughtful. The sun slowly set on the horizon. An impalpable golden dust floated above our heads in the quiet air. The humid earth had a vigorous, brown color, an aspect of tranquil energy, and, so to speak, a peaceful consciousness of its virtue. From the furrows mounted a visible breath, like that exhaled from the nostrils of cattle. Beneath the soft light the white objects took on an extraordinary whiteness, a snowlike purity. A cow in the distance, a plowman's shirt, a stretched sheet, the walls of a farm-house, shone like under the light of the full moon.
"You are sad," said Federico to me, gently.
"Yes, I am sad. I have no hope left."
There was another long silence. Flocks of birds rose from the bushes with a fluttering of wings. The deadened tinkling of the little bells of a distant troop reached us.
"Of what are you hopeless?" asked my brother in the same kind way.
"Of Juliana's health, and also of mine."
He remained silent; he did not speak a single word of consolation. Perhaps he was feeling internally the pressure of pain.
"I have a presentiment," I went on, "that Juliana will never leave her bed."
He remained silent. We passed along a path bordered by trees, and the fallen leaves crackled beneath our feet, and at the places where there were no leaves, the soil had a hollow sound, as if mined by subterranean cavities.
"When she is dead," I added, "what will become of me?"
A sudden fear came upon me, a sort of panicky terror; and I looked at my brother, who remained silent, with a frown on his face. I looked about me at the mute desolation of the day. Never before, so clearly as then, had I had the sensation of the frightful emptiness of life.
"No, no, Tullio," said my brother. "Julianacannot die."
It was a vain assertion, without any value in face of the fiat of Destiny. And yet he had pronounced these words with a simplicity that gave me a shock, so extraordinary did they appear to me. Thus, at times, children suddenly say things that go straight to the heart, and as if a prophetic voice spoke through their unconscious lips.
"Can you read the future?" I asked him, without a shadow of irony.
"No, but I have that presentiment, and I believe it."
Once more my brother had inspired confidence in me; once more, thanks to him, I felt a slight relaxation of the iron band that wounded my heart. But it was only a short respite. During the remainder of our walk he spoke to me of Raymond.
When we were near the place inhabited by Giovanni di Scordio, Federico perceived the tall figure of the old man in a field.
"Look at him! He is sowing. We bring him the invitation at a solemn hour."
We approached. My inner trembling was as strong as if I were on the point of committing a profanation. Was I not, in fact, about to profane a beautiful and great thing? Was I not about to solicit the spiritual paternity of that venerable old man for the child of adultery?
"See, what a noble figure!" cried Federico, stooping and pointing to the sower. "He has only a man's stature, and yet he looks like a giant."
In order to watch him we stopped behind a tree at the edge of the field. Giovanni, attentive to his labor, had not yet perceived us.
He walked straight before him in the field, with measured slowness. His head was covered by a green and black woolen cap, with two ear-laps that hung down his cheeks, in the ancient Phrygian fashion. A little white bag, full of seed and attached to his neck by a leather thong, hung before him at the waist. With his left hand he held the bag open, while with his right he took out the seed and scattered it. His gesture was sweeping, vigorous, and sure, cadenced with an equal rhythm. The seed, flying from his hand, flashed an instant in the air with golden scintillations and fell in an equal rain on the humid furrows. The sower advanced slowly, burying his naked feet in the earth, which yielded beneath his steps, his head high in the sanctity of the light. His entire person was simple, sacred, and grand.
We entered the field.
"My respects to you, Giovanni," cried Federico, going forward to meet the old man. "Blessed be your seed! Blessed be your future bread!"
"My respects to you," I repeated in my turn.
The old man left his work and uncovered his head.
"Giovanni, you must cover yourself, if you wish us to remain covered," said Federico.
The old man put on his cap, smiling, confused, almost intimidated. He asked with a modest air:
"To what do I owe so much honor?"
I answered in a voice which I forced to be firm:
"I came to beg you to hold my son at the baptism."
The old man looked at me with surprise; then he looked at my brother. His confusion increased. He murmured:
"You do me too much honor!"
"Well, what is your answer?"
"I am at your orders. May God reward you for the honor you have done me to-day! May God be praised for the joy that he has accorded me in my old age! May the benedictions of heaven descend on your son!"
"Thank you, Giovanni."
I gave him my hand. And I saw his profound and sad eyes become moist from tenderness. My heart swelled with acute anguish.
The old man asked me:
"What name will you give him?'
"Raymond."
"The name of your father of sacred memory. He was a man, and you resemble him."
My brother said:
"Do you sow alone?"
"Alone, yes. I sow it and I reap it."
He showed the harrow, and the pickaxe that glittered on the brown earth. All around could be seen the still uncovered seed, the germs of future grain.
My brother said:
"Continue. We will leave you to your work. You will come to-morrow morning to the Badiola. Farewell, Giovanni. May God bless your work!"
We clasped that unwearied hand, sanctified by the seed it scattered, by the good it had shed. The old man made a movement to accompany us as far as the road; but he stopped and said, not without hesitation:
"Grant me one favor, I pray you."
"Speak out, Giovanni."
He opened the bag suspended from his neck.
"Take a handful of seed and throw it on my furrows."
I plunged my hand first into the wheat, took as much as I could, and scattered it. My brother did the same.
"And now, heed what I tell you," continued Giovanni di Scordio in an agitated voice, contemplating the seeded ground. "God grant that my godson be as good as the bread raised from this seed! Amen!"
XXXVIII.
The following morning the baptismal ceremony took place without festivity or pomp, on account of Juliana's condition. My mother, my brother, Maria, Natalia, Miss Edith, the midwife, the wet-nurse, and the Chevalier Jemma were present. I remained by the invalid's bedside.
A heavy somnolence weighed upon her. She scarcely breathed through her half-open mouth, as pale as the palest flowers that blossom in the shade. Darkness reigned in the alcove. On looking at her, I thought: "Can I not save her? I have succeeded in banishing death so far; but death seems to be returning. If there is no change quickly, she will certainly die. So long as I succeeded in keeping Raymond away from her, so long as I succeeded by tenderness in causing her a partial illusion and forgetfulness, she seemed desirous of getting well. But when she sees her son, when the torture begins again, she grows worse from day to day, she loses more blood than if the hemorrhage still continued. I witness her agony. She no longer hears me, no longer obeys me as she did before. Who will be the cause of her death?He. It is he, most assuredly, he who will kill her." A flood of hate mounted from the deepest depths of my being, and I felt it even invade my hands with a homicidal impulse. I saw the little malefic being who was growing fat on milk, who prospered in peace, removed from all danger, in the midst of infinite cares. "My mother loves him better than she loves Juliana. My mother is more concerned about him than she is about the poor dying creature. Oh! I will make away with him, at any cost. I must!" And the vision of the crime already consummated passed over me like a flash: the vision of the little dead body in swaddling-clothes, the little innocent corpse in its coffin. "The baptism shall be his viaticum. Giovanni's arms will carry him."
A sudden curiosity seized me. The painful spectacle attracted me. Juliana was still slumbering. I cautiously left the alcove; I left the room; I called Cristina and left her on guard; then, with rapid step, I walked toward the gallery, suffocated by anguish.
The small door was open. I perceived a man kneeling before the railing; and I recognized Pietro, the faithful old servant who was with us at my birth and was present at my baptism. He arose, not without pain.
"Stay, stay, Pietro!" I said in a low voice, placing my hand on his shoulder to make him kneel again. And I knelt down near him, and leaned my head against the railing, and looked below into the chapel. I saw everything with perfect clearness; I heard the formulas of the ritual.
The ceremony had already begun. I learned from Pietro that the infant had already received the salt. The officiant was the priest of Tussi, Don Gregorio Artese. He was at that moment reciting the Credo with the sponsor, the one in a loud voice, the other repeating in low tones. Giovanni held the infant with his right arm, the arm which the evening before had sowed the wheat. His left hand was laid on the white ribbons and laces. And those bony hands, dry and brown, which seemed as if cast in living bronze—those hands, hardened by the instruments of agriculture, sanctified by the good they had done, by the immense labor that they had accomplished, and now occupied in holding that little child, had such charming delicacy and timidity that I could not remove my gaze from them. Raymond did not cry, but his mouth moved ceaselessly, full of a liquid froth that ran down his chin on to the embroidered bib.
After the exorcism the priest wet his finger with saliva and touched the little pink ears, pronouncing the miraculous word:
"Ephpheta."
Then he touched the nostrils, saying:
"In odorem sanctitatis..."
Then he dipped his thumb in the oil of the catechumens, and while Giovanni held the child on its back, he administered the unction in form of a cross on the chest; and when Giovanni turned the child on its stomach, he administered the unction between the shoulder blades, in form of a cross, saying:
"Ego te linio oleo salutis in Christo Jesu Domino Nostro..."
Then, with a small tuft of cotton, he wiped off the unction.
Then he removed the violet veil, the color of mourning and of sorrow, and put on the white stole, in token of joy, in order to announce that the original sin was about to be removed. And he addressed Raymond by his name, putting to him the three solemn questions, which the sponsor answered:
"Credo, credo, credo."
The chapel was singularly sonorous. A ray of sunlight, entering by one of the high oval windows, fell upon the marble paving stones covering the deep sepulchres where several of my ancestors reposed in peace. My mother and brother stood behind Giovanni, side by side. Maria and Natalia stood on tiptoe to catch a view of the child, inquisitive, smiling from time to time, whispering to each other. These whisperings caused Giovanni to turn partially around, with an indulgent gesture indicating all the ineffable tenderness which the old man bore children and that overflowed from his big heart.
"Raymunde, vis baptizari?" asked the officiant.
"Volo," responded the sponsor, repeating the word that had been prompted to him.
The clerk presented the silver basin, in which shone the baptismal water. My mother removed the infant's hood, while the sponsor extended the child on its stomach in order to receive the ablution. The round head, on which I could distinguish the whitish eruptions of the milk-crust, hung above the basin. And the priest, after having taken some water from a little vase, poured it three times on the child's head, each time making the sign of the cross.
"Ego te baptize in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."
Raymond began to wail violently, and louder still when his head was being dried. And, when Giovanni raised him up, I saw that his face was reddened by the afflux of blood and by his efforts, and winkled by the contractions of the mouth. And, as usual, the wailings caused me the same sensation of painful laceration, the same exasperation of anger. Nothing in him irritated me more than that voice, than that obstinate wailing which for the first time had struck me so cruel a blow on that lugubrious October morning. It was an intolerable shock to my nerves.
The priest dipped his thumb into the consecrated oil and anointed the neophyte's forehead, reciting the ritual, which rose above the wailings. Then he put on the white robe, symbol of Innocence.
"Accipe vestem candidam."
Then he handed the blessed taper to the sponsor.
"Accipe lampadem ardentem."
The Innocent became quiet. His eyes were fixed on the little flame that trembled at the tip of the long colored candle. Giovanni di Scordio bore the newly made Christian on his right arm, and with his left hand he held the symbol of the divine fire, in a simple and grave attitude, regarding the priest who recited the litany. He towered above all those present by a full head. All round there was no whiteness as pure as the whiteness of his hair, not even the Innocent's robe.
"Vade in pace, et Dominus sit tecum."
"Amen."
My mother took the Innocent from the old man's arms, pressed him against her bosom, and kissed him. My brother kissed him too. All the spectators kissed him in turn.
Near me Pietro was still on his knees weeping. Overcome, distracted, I rose abruptly, went out, crossed the corridors rapidly, and entered Juliana's room unannounced.
Cristina asked with fear, lowering her voice:
"What has happened, signor?"
"Nothing, nothing. Is she awake?"
"No, signor. I think she is asleep."
I parted the curtains and softly entered the alcove. At first I perceived nothing in the darkness but the whiteness of the pillow. I approached, and bent over. Juliana's eyes were wide open and were gazing at me fixedly. Perhaps she divined all my anguish from my aspect; but she said not a word. She closed her eyes again, as if never to open them.