I.
One rainy day, the Agrarian Exhibition closed, after a hurried ceremony, in which the prizes had been distributed in the presence of a scanty and discontented audience. Those who had not obtained prizes wrote incendiary articles to the local papers, and sent paid communications to the more important Neapolitan ones. The awards in the Didactic Exhibition had also been very unsatisfactory, for every teacher had expected the gold medal. The private school-teachers were wroth with parish school-teachers, and the latter with the “College” teachers. The ladies Sanna and Lieti had refrained from driving to Caserta on that occasion, on account of the bad weather, and because the fête had no attractions for them.
Caterina, freed from the necessity of wasting whole days in driving backwards and forwards between Centurano and Caserta, enjoyed being able to stay at home. She had so much to arrange, so many shortcomings to atone for, so many household projects to carry out. There were the preserves to make; a great function in which Monzu succeeded admirably, although he needed a certain supervision, so that when the crystal jars were opened during the winter, at Naples, none of their contents turned out mouldy; that was what happened, last year, to two large jars of peaches: they had turned out quite green: such a pity! Then there were the capers, gherkins, capsicums, and parsnips to pickle in strong four-year-old vinegar: they would need a great number of jars, for Andrea was fond of pickles and ate a great deal with lesso and roast meat. Of course Caterina never touched these things while they were being prepared, but her presence and advice were necessary. Monzu had the greatest esteem for his own culinary talents, but he always declared that senza l’occhio della Signora [without the mistress’s eye] he had no pleasure in his work. Her rule was firm but gentle, she did not speak to her servants more than was necessary, neither did she bestow extraordinary mance [presents in money] on them. She preferred giving them left-off clothing; they had food and drink without stint, and clean, comfortable sleeping apartments. She inspired them with a certain affectionate respect, so that they always boasted of their mistress to the servants of the neighbouring villas. Oh! she had so much to think about. There was more linen to be made up; the linen was a never-ending affair. Andrea had declared that the collars of some of his shirts were out of fashion, and that he wouldn’t wear them any more. He had ordered six of Tesorone, the first shirt-maker in Naples, and after that she wished to have two winter wrappers copied from a beautiful pattern of Lucia Sanna’s, although she feared that those flowing, voluminous garments would not suit her little figure. And Lucia Sanna said that she was glad to be able to stay at home with her dear husband. Alberto continued to suffer from a cold, but he was getting better; instead of coughing in the morning, he coughed at night, an effect, he thought, of the coolness of the sheets. Carderelli had told him that his lungs were delicate, but healthy; that he must begin to take cod-liver oil, and continue to take a few drops of Fowler’s arsenic after dinner, and occasionally a spoonful of Eau de goudron on rising. Diet—he must be careful as to diet; milk food, eggs, no salted viands, no pepper, nothing heating, no fries. This was a matter that Alberto was fond of discussing with the Signora Lieti, his good friend and under-nurse. He clung to her skirts while she ordered breakfast and dinner, and Caterina’s patience in discussing the food was inexhaustible, in making suggestions that he vetoed, and in eventually agreeing to whatever he wanted. Alberto really felt very well; had he not ridden Tetillo that morning, and perspired and caught cold, by this time he would have been as strong as anybody. When he said this to Andrea and Lucia, those two exchanged a swift glance of commiseration.
Alberto was more than ever in love with his wife; for ever buzzing round her, glad of the closing of the Exhibition, which did away with so many walks and drives that were wearisome to him; for he took no interest in any thing or person. He liked staying at home, in his bedroom, to be present at Lucia’s toilet, admiring her lithe figure and the undulations of her dark hair under the comb, her pink nails, and all the minute care she lavished on her person. Alberto had the vitiated tastes of a sick child who loves to lie among flounces and furbelows, the scents of toilet-vinegar and veloutine. He went to and fro among them, picking up a pair of stays, sitting on a petticoat, unstopping a bottle, dipping a finger into the dentifrice—languid, indolent, emasculated by physical weakness. He asked stupid questions, often conscious of their stupidity, but choosing to be idiotic with his wife, so that she might pity and protect him the more. Lucia answered him patiently, with a resigned smile on her face which was painful to behold, but which appeared to him the smile of love itself. When she rose, Alberto rose; when she entered the drawing-room, Alberto followed her; when she worked, he continued asking her stupid questions, to which she made answers of amazing eccentricity. More than ever Alberto admired his wife’s singular ideas, wondered at the things she saw and that no one else saw, at her culture, her voice. Less reserved than he had been till now, he sometimes kissed her in the presence of others, hanging about her with singular tenacity. He even forgot his own health, for her. The acute egoism of the poor-blooded, fibreless creature was silenced by his love for Lucia.
Oh! Lucia, she too was delighted to stay at home. That Palazzo Reale had lost its charm, it was too huge, too heavy, too architectural.
As to the park, it was a horror. Nature combed, flounced and powdered, with lakes full of trout and red fish for the delectation of the Philistines; with shaven turf, trimmed with scissors; and that eternal waterfall, an odious motionless white line.
“There is the English Garden,” remarked Caterina one day.
“Have you seen it?” asked Lucia.
“No, never.”
“Is it possible, four months of Centurano every year, and you have never seen the English Garden?”
“There has been no opportunity. I hardly ever enter the park. I will take you there, and we will see it together.”
“I do not care to see it. I hate English gardens.”
The subject dropped. Lucia was fond of staying indoors, but she spent many hours in dressing, continually changing her gowns. Her room was full of boxes and packing-cases; she had written to Naples for new “half-season” dresses, fresh from the milliner’s hands. She possessed every variety of teagown: white, ample, floating ones; short, coquettish, bunched-up Pompadour ones; lacy ethereal ones that you could blow away, and rich silken ones that opened over pleated satin skirts. They all became her as well as nearly everything suits a slight, lithe woman. When Caterina admired her, and told her that she was beautiful, and Andrea bowed ceremoniously before her, she would say with a placid smile:
“I dress for Alberto, not for myself.”
“Of course,” whispered Alberto to Caterina or Andrea, “poor Lucia sacrifices herself completely to me. She shall at least have the satisfaction of being beautiful for my sake.”
After her toilet, Lucia breakfasted and then ensconced herself in her favourite corner in Caterina’s drawing-room. She had begun a long fanciful piece of work on coarse, stout canvas, without any design. On it she embroidered the strangest things in loose stitches of wool and silk: a flower, a lobster, a white star, a cock, a crescent, a window grating, a serpent, a cart-wheel, haphazard from right to left. It was the last Paris fashion to have your drawing-room furniture covered with that coarse, quaintly embroidered canvas. It gave free scope to the imagination of the fair embroideress, and Lucia revelled in the strangest devices. Every one in the house was interested in the great undertaking and curious to know, from day to day, what Lucia would add to it.
“What shall you put in it to-day, Lucia?”
“An onion, Alberto.”
“An onion, an onion: oh! how amusing! yesterday a pansy and to-day an onion! How shall you work it?”
“In flame-coloured silk.”
Next day: “Oh! Lucia, tell me what you are going to put in it?”
“An oaten pipe.”
“O Dio! what an eccentricity! What a mad drawing-room we shall have! People will stand about, trying to find out the meaning of it, without thinking of sitting down.”
They chatted a little when they worked. Caterina cut out at the large table, and Lucia, in whose taste she had the utmost confidence, advised her. Lucia had become more demonstrative in her intercourse with Caterina. She questioned her, and made her confessions that sometimes brought the quick blush to her cheek, but only when they were alone. When they remained indoors, Lucia retired to her room an hour before dinner.
“What can she be doing at this hour?” inquired Andrea of his wife.
“I do not know. Probably she prays.”
“Did she pray much at school?”
“Very much; indeed, too much for her health.”
Lucia reappeared in the same dress for dinner, but with her hair differently arranged. She was always changing the style of her hair. Sometimes she wore it turned up high over a tortoiseshell comb, at others twisted round her head with a fresh rose on one side, or loosely plaited and studded with daisies, or bound, in Grecian fashion, by a thin gold fillet. The evenings on which she wore it like a Creole, with a red silk handkerchief, she was irresistible.
“Wear your red foulard; do wear it,” entreated Alberto.
That was why she was fond of staying at home. But Alberto had confided to Caterina and Andrea that his Lucia was busy on another great work. No one was to know anything about it; so silence, if you please. Lucia had begged him not to tell any one; but they were dear, tried friends. It was no less than a great novel that Lucia was writing, a marvel of creative imagination, that was surely destined to surpass all other novels by Italian authors. Lucia worked at it after midnight. He, Alberto, went to bed; Lucia placed the lamp so that it did not shine in his eyes—the dear soul was full of these delicate attentions—opened her desk, drew out a ream of paper, and sat with her head in her hand, buried in deepest thought. Then she would stoop over her writing, without pausing, for a long time. At times, under the influence of her inspiration, she rose, and paced up and down the room in great agitation, wringing her hands.
“Like a poet, who under the spell of his inspiration cannot light upon a rhyme. When I call her, she starts as if she were falling from the clouds. You see she is in the throes of composition. I have left off speaking to her in these moments, for I know that it disturbs her genius. I generally fall asleep, but Lucia, I believe, does not go to bed till two or three in the morning. They say that authors do not care to show their work before it is finished. I shall read it, when it is finished. I think she will dedicate it to me. It will be an amazing work.”
Even Andrea was glad when the Exhibition closed; through it, he had neglected his own affairs for those of other people. He said that he had a world of care on his shoulders, which that condemned show had obliged him to put off. At last he was free to enjoy the peace of his own home, without the obligation of wasting the best part of the day in that solemn Palazzo Reale, walking ten kilometres up and down the great halls, on those polished red tiles, that are enough to tire the most enduring legs. He rose earlier than usual, and drove a pony down to Caserta, where he superintended the removal of his own exhibits from the show. He returned in time for luncheon and changed his clothes; he no longer wore the white silk tie which used to serve as collar and necktie, but a turned-down collar and black necktie, in honour of the ladies, he said, laughing. At breakfast, he would speak vaguely of his projects for the afternoon.
“Are you going out again?” asked Caterina.
“I don’t know ... there are some things I ought to do. Shall you ladies go out?”
“If Lucia cares to,” said Caterina, timidly showing a wish to stay at home.
“I don’t care to,” said she, raising her languid eyelids. “Will you go out, Alberto?”
“I don’t care to,” repeated the latter.
“I don’t know, perhaps I shan’t go either,” murmured Andrea. But after breakfast, when they met in the drawing-room, his impatience would get the better of him, and he rose to go out. Sometimes he succeeded in dragging Alberto with him in the phaeton; he drove him to Marcianise, to Antifreda, or as far as Santa Maria. They drove up and down the high-roads in the soft, mild autumn weather. Alberto, meagre and undersized, in an overcoat buttoned up to his eyes, with a silk muffler round his throat and a rug over his knees, was a striking contrast to the vigorous young man with the curled moustache at his side, attired in light clothes, and wearing an eagle’s feather in his grey huntsman’s hat. Andrea was a good whip, but he sometimes slackened the reins when they were on the high-road, so that the horses started off at a pace that alarmed Alberto.
One evening he said to his wife: “Andrea has homicidal intentions towards me.”
She looked fixedly at him, as if questioning his jesting tone.
When, during these drives, Alberto was inclined for conversation, he talked of his favourite subjects, his health and his wife ... he vaunted Lucia’s beauty, the depth of her genius, the brightness of her repartee. He would sometimes smilingly add details that irritated Andrea, who had an aversion for the morbid confidences of his enamoured guest. Then he would whip up his horses violently, cracking his whip like a carrier, and indulging in a wild race along the high-road.
“You are as prudish as a vestal,” sneered Alberto, more and more convinced that the muscles of these very robust men are developed to the detriment of their nerves. Strong men are cold, a reflection which consoled Alberto, who was a weak man.
They returned to Centurano at a furious pace. Scarcely had they turned the corner, when they perceived a white handkerchief waving from the balcony; it was Lucia, tall, beautiful, and supremely elegant, saluting them, waiting for them. Sometimes Caterina’s smiling face was visible, behind Lucia. She did not come forward, because she dreaded the remarks of her neighbours, who did not approve of public demonstrations of affection between husband and wife. Then Andrea cried, Hip, hip, to Pulcinella, and the fiery mare tore up the hill at full speed; he bowed rapidly to the balcony, and turning the corner in splendid style, achieved a triumphal entry into the courtyard. Lucia generally descended the stairs to meet them, to inquire how Alberto felt and shake hands with Andrea, whom she complimented on his charioteering. Caterina was never there, she was occupied with the last orders for dinner, for she knew how Andrea disliked waiting.
One of the reasons for which Andrea had longed for the closing of the Exhibition, was that he might have time for shooting. Of this his wife, who had passed five or six dreary days last year alone waiting for him, a prey to a melancholy alien to her well-balanced temperament, was well aware. So that this year she was afraid lest he should absent himself too long and too often; an act her guests might deem discourteous. He had said nothing about it, but from one moment to another she expected to hear him say, “I leave to-morrow.” Yet he said nothing, until, between two yawns, Alberto asked him:
“About shooting, Andrea, shan’t you get any?”
He hesitated, then he replied with decision: “Not this year.”
“Why?”
“I have made a vow.”
“A vow? To Saint Hubert?”
“To Our Lady of Sorrows.”
Neither of the two women raised their eyes; but, for different reasons, they both smiled. Caterina thought of Andrea’s kindness in not going away, out of courtesy to her friend and that poor Alberto. She was always afraid that her guests might bore themselves, and if Andrea had gone shooting, how could she have managed, with her poor store of intellectual resources? Oh! Andrea sacrificed himself without a murmur, without any of those loud outbursts; he never indulged in those fits of anger that used to frighten her. Andrea even attained the supreme politeness of not falling asleep during the hour devoted to digestion.