Fantasy: A Novel

by Matilde Serao

II.

For a whole week after the scene in the English Garden, their love had been so calm that it needed no expression; it was self-concentrated and subjective. They exchanged stolen glances without any agitation, they neither blushed nor turned pale, nor did they tremble at the touch of each other’s hands. Lucia had an absorbed air, as if she were immersed in the contemplation of her own mind; neither the outer world nor her lover could distract her from their state of contemplation. Andrea’s demeanour was that of a man who is secure of himself and of the future. When their eyes met for a moment it was as much as to say: “I love you, you love me; all is well.”

The fact was that the day passed in the English Garden had been too passionate not to have exhausted, at least for a time, the savage impulse of their repressed love. To the acute stage, a period of repose had succeeded—a sort of Eastern dream in the certainty of their mutual love, a kind of annihilation that to the sweets of memory unites those of hope.

It did not last long. Suddenly they awoke to passionate misery. One morning Andrea arose troubled with a mad longing to see Lucia. It was too early, she was sleeping. He paced the drawing-room like a prisoner, looking at his watch from time to time. Caterina, who had already risen, carried his coffee into the drawing-room, and sat down beside him to talk over household bills, and to remind him that he had to drive to Caserta to pay the taxes. He listened while he soaked his rusk in the coffee, without understanding what she was saying to him. He was devoured by impatience. What could Lucia be doing in her own room, at that hour? How came it that she was not conscious of his longing to see her, of his waiting for her? It must be the fault of that miserable Alberto, who was never ready to get up—who clung, shivering and grumbling, to the warm sheets; an odious, wretched creature, who saddened poor Lucia’s existence. The idea, that Alberto kept her there and prevented her from coming, was insufferable. He started to his feet, as if in protestation, as if to go to her....

“Will the tax-collector be there?” said Caterina, brushing away the crumbs with one finger, with her instinctive love of order.

“Where?”

“At Caserta?”

“Who knows?”

“We can inquire of lawyer Marini, who does the legal part of the business; he is sure to know. Shall I send Giulietta!”

“Send Giulietta.”

She left the room, without noticing that anything was wrong. Andrea became calmer, knowing that Lucia must soon appear; it was unreasonable to expect her before half-past nine. He still longed for her presence, but with a gentler longing. He drummed a march on the window-pane, recalling the moment when she had entreated him not to embrace her “for her love’s sake,” and he, obedient as a child, had desisted. Lucia, his Lucia, should be loved in so many ways; with passion, but with the utmost tenderness; with youthful ardour, but with reverence. Oh! all these things were in his heart. He would wait patiently for her coming, without any perilous, fiery outbursts. Lucia might be late, he who loved her would refrain from breaking in doors and damaging china or furniture.

Enter Caterina.

“Lawyer Marini says that the tax-collector will be there between nine and twelve to-day.”

“What does that prove?”

“You are in time to go there and back before breakfast. It will take you an hour to go there and back.”

“No, I shan’t go ...” said Andrea, after some hesitation.

Caterina was silent. She thought he was always right, and never contradicted him.

“I will go there after breakfast,” he added, as if in explanation of his conduct.

“As you will,” said Caterina, without remarking that after breakfast the tax-collector would be no longer there.

Andrea was becoming irritable again. Caterina standing like that before him, bored him. She seemed to be waiting for something, as if she meant to question him, to call him to account....

“Listen, Caterina, do fetch me my writing-case from the bedroom; I shall stay here and write some important letters.”

Away she went, with her light, elastic step. Lucia’s door opened, and she entered; Andrea, pale with the pleasure of seeing her, ran to meet her. But a disappointment arrested him. She was followed by Alberto. Andrea’s greeting was cool, his fine project of a prolonged contemplation of her melted away.

“Haven’t you been out of doors this morning?” inquired Alberto, fatuously.

“No.”

“Aren’t you well?”

“I am always well. I am bored and worried.”

Lucia looked at him as if to question him. She was so fascinating that morning, with the dark shadow under her eyes that lent them so much expression, her vivid lips that contrasted with the pallor of her face, and the air of delicious languor of a woman who loves and is beloved. In one sad, passionate glance behind Alberto’s back, they spoke to and understood each other. He was sitting between them, sprawling in an armchair, with no intention of moving. When he realised this, a spirit of contradiction made Andrea long more ardently than ever to tell Lucia what she was to him. Only once to whisper it in her ear, as in the English Garden; once only, and he could have borne to go away. But say it to her he must; the words sprang to his lips, and it seemed as if Lucia read them there; her eyes dilated, and her expression became alternately rapt and troubled. Meanwhile Alberto yawned, stretched out his arms, drew a long breath to find out if there was any obstruction, and coughed slightly to try his breathing capacity. Now Andrea’s only wish was that Alberto should go away for a moment, to the window or back to his room, so that he, Andrea, might tell Lucia that he loved her. Ma che! Her husband continued to sprawl at full length, staring at the ceiling—lolling, with one leg over the other; anything but move. Lucia pretended to read the paper that had come by post, but her hands trembled from nervousness.

“What is there in the newspaper?”

“Nothing.”

“As usual: there never is anything. Does it amuse you?”

“Immensely;” her voice hissed between her teeth.

“Why don’t you talk to us? Here is Andrea, who hasn’t been out. The first day that he stays at home, you are absorbed in the Pungolo.”

“I have forgotten to bring your box of lozenges with me,” she said, pensively.

“Here it is,” said Alberto, drawing it from his pocket.

The commonplace but generally efficacious expedient had failed. The lovers were downcast, low-spirited, and discomfited. Meanwhile Caterina had returned with the writing-case.

“I have been a long time,” she said, “but I could not find it. It was at the bottom of the drawer, under the stamped paper. It is so long since you have written.”

She quietly prepared the necessary writing materials for her husband, and went to sit down by Lucia. Andrea, furious at the double surveillance, began rapidly to write senseless phrases. He wrote nouns and verbs and immensely long adverbs for the mere sake of writing, feeling that he could think of nothing, save that he wanted to tell his dear Lucia, his sweet Lucia, his dear love, that he loved her. Lucia, with her head thrown back, her face livid from irritation, her lips so puckered that they appeared to be drawn on an invisible thread, was looking at him from between half-closed lids, behind the paper. He might have risen to tell her that he loved her, but Alberto and Caterina were placidly chatting with her, saying that the rain had cooled the atmosphere, and that at last it was possible to walk, even when the sun was shining. Caterina had her look of serene repose, and Alberto continued to twirl his thumbs, like a worthy bourgeois immersed in the delightful consciousness of his own insignificance.

“There is nothing for it but to grin and bear it,” muttered Andrea.

“What are you saying?” asked Caterina, whose ear was always on the alert.

“That we shall never get our breakfast. It is nearly half-past eleven. I am fit to die of hunger.”

“I will run and hasten it,” she said, perturbed by the savageness of his accent.

“I will come too, Signora Caterina,” said Alberto.

The other two exchanged a rapid glance, so eager that it already seemed to bring them together. But on rising Alberto thought he felt a stitch in his chest; he began to prod himself all over, feeling for his ribs, in prompt alarm. Caterina had disappeared.

“I feel as if I had a pain here,” he complained.

“I always have it,” said she, gloomily, without looking at him.

“Do you speak seriously—at the base of the lungs?”

“Yes, and at the top of them too. I have pains all over.”

“But why don’t you say so? Why not see a doctor? Will you bring upon me the sorrow of seeing you fall ill? I, who love you so!”

The little table at which Andrea sat writing creaked as if his whole weight had fallen upon it. Alberto, on his knees before his wife, continued his inquiries as to her pains. Were they in the bones, or were they stitches? Forgetful of his own suffering, he entreated her, in adoration before that hard-set, sphinx-like face that allowed itself to be questioned, but vouchsafed no answer. Caterina found them in this attitude and smilingly designated them to her husband, who replied by an ironic laugh, quite at variance with his frank, good-natured face. But his wife’s penetration did not permit her to distinguish between a simple smile and a sarcastic grin. Breakfast commenced in painful but short-lived silence. Lucia soon began to chatter with nervous volubility, playing with her knife and capriciously choosing to pour out Andrea’s wine for him. She ate nothing, but drank great glasses of iced water, her favourite beverage. While Caterina watched the service, with her eye upon Giulietta, whom she addressed in an undertone, and her hand on the electric bell, Alberto cut all the fat and gristle away from his meat, reducing it to its smallest compass, and Andrea stared absently at a ray of light playing on a glass of water. Lucia continued to keep the conversation from flagging, by saying the most eccentric things, exciting herself, doubling up her fingers, as was her wont when her convulsive attacks were coming on. The usual question cropped up.

“Any one going out to-day?” asked Andrea.

“Not I,” said Alberto.

“Nor I,” said Lucia.

“Nor I,” added Caterina.

“And what do you intend to do at home?” asked Andrea.

“I shall play at patience, with cards,” said Alberto. “But perhaps I shan’t, after all. As to me, when Lucia stays indoors....”

“I shall work at my embroidery,” said she, suddenly sobered.

“And I shall sew,” said Caterina.

“How you will amuse yourselves!” said Andrea, rising from his seat. “Come out driving, let’s have the daumont.”

“No,” said Lucia. He understood her. What would be the good of that drive? They would still be four people together. He would have no chance of telling Lucia that he loved her.

“I am half inclined to stay here to count your yawns,” he growled, savagely.

“If you stay with me, then I’ll say you’re a good fellow,” said Alberto.

He stayed with them: he hoped, he kept on hoping. But when he saw Alberto seated at the little table with his pack of cards, Caterina near the window with her basket of linen, Lucia on the sofa with the interminable canvas between her fingers, drawing her thread slowly, without raising her eyes, he thought it would never, never be; and gloom and disappointment overwhelmed him. Those two obstacles, pacific, well-meaning and motionless, who smilingly let drop an occasional remark, were insurmountable. Never, no, never, would he be able to speak to Lucia. He gave it up. He had neither the energy to go, nor the patience to stay in that close room.

“I am going away to sleep,” he said, as if he were about to accomplish a meritorious action.

“What are you embroidering to-day?” inquired Alberto of Lucia.

“A heart, pierced by a dagger.”

Once in his room, Andrea closed the shutters and threw himself on his bed, in a state of fatigue of which he had had no experience till now. He had been mastered in the struggle with circumstances. His impetuous nature, alien to compromise, was incapable of endurance: he could neither wait nor calculate. “Nevermore, nevermore,” he kept repeating to himself, with his face buried in the pillows.

Twice Caterina came in on tiptoe and leant over him, holding her breath lest he should be sleeping. He feigned sleep, repressing a shrug of annoyance. Was he not free to shut himself up in his room, and vent his feelings by punching a mattress? Need he submit to all this wearisome business? But Lucia, dominant and imperious, once more occupied his thoughts; Lucia, whose name, did he but murmur it, filled him with tenderness; Lucia, his dear love, a love as immense and unfathomable as the sun. He turned over and over on his bed, in a fever of nervousness, he who had never suffered from nerves before; it seemed to him that he had lain for a century, burning between those cool sheets. Two or three times he fell into an uneasy slumber and dreamt that he saw Lucia, with flaming wide-open eyes, tendering her lips to his kisses. When with wild longing he approached her, some one dragged her away from him, and he was bereft of the power of moving from the spot to which he felt nailed: he tried to utter a cry, but his voice failed him. Then, starting and quivering, he awoke. “Lucia, Lucia,” he kept repeating in his torpor, trying to recall his dream, to see her again, to kiss her. And in his dream he found her again, he on the balcony, she in the street, whence she held out her arms to him; and slowly he threw himself off the balcony—slowly, slowly, never ceasing to fall, experiencing unutterable anguish. There was an incubus on his chest during that oppressed, restless slumber. When he really awoke his eyes were heavy, his body ached, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. That eternal afternoon must be over, he thought. He opened the window, the sun was still high. It was five o’clock, two more hours till dinner-time. But in that pleasant light he awakened to fresh hope. Ecco! he would write to Lucia, on a scrap of paper, that he loved her. Not another word; that was sufficient, and should suffice him.

Diamine! couldn’t he have given her that scrap of paper? It was surely easy enough; yes, yes, it was a splendid idea. He entered the drawing-room, pleased with his discovery. The first disillusion that befell him was to find no one there but Caterina and Alberto. Lucia was missing; where was she? He did not venture to ask. Alberto was smoking a medicated cigarette, recommended for delicate lungs, and attentively watching the smoke, with his right leg crossed over his left; Caterina had put a band on a petticoat, and was running a tape in it. Lucia was missing; whom could he ask about her?

“Have you slept well?”

“Yes, Caterina, very well; have you worked the whole time?”

“No; the Signora Marini came to pay us a visit.”

“I hope you had her shown into the drawing-room?”

“Yes; she stayed too long.”

Not a word of Lucia. Whom could he ask? Who would tell him what Lucia was doing?

“... And then Lucia, who is bored by stupid people,” added Alberto, “felt ill and went to her room; just now I went to see what she was doing.... Andrea, guess what she was doing?”

“How can I tell?”

“Guess, guess....”

“You are like a child.”

“As you cannot guess, I will tell you. She was kneeling on the cushion of the prie-dieu, and praying.”

“Lucia stays too long on her knees, it will injure her health,” observed Caterina.

“It can’t be helped; on religious subjects she is not amenable. Indeed, she reproaches me for having forgotten the Ave Maria and the Paternoster. If I happen to cough, she prays for an hour longer,” Alberto said.

Andrea had gone to the writing-table, and having cut a scrap of paper had written all over it, backwards and forwards, in every direction, in minute characters, “I love you,” at least thirty times. This he did while Caterina and Alberto were still talking of her.... he felt as if he had done a deed of the greatest daring in writing those words under their very eyes. Before he had finished, Lucia re-entered the room. She was more nervous than usual; she went up to him and jested on his “middle-aged,” provincial habit of “siesta.” All he needed to make him perfect was a game of “tresette” in the evening, a snuff-box filled with “rape,” and a red-and-black-checked cotton handkerchief. Would he play at “scopa” with her after dinner? And while her voice rang shrill and the others laughed, she put her hand in her pocket, as if to draw out her handkerchief; a scrap of paper peeped out. Then he, in great agitation, put a finger in his waistcoat-pocket and showed the corner of his note. Caterina or Alberto, or both, were always in the room. When one went away, the other returned; they were never alone for a moment. Andrea had folded his note in two, in four, in eight; he had rolled it into a microscopic ball, which he held in his hand to have it ready. Lucia dropped a ball of wool, Alberto picked it up. Andrea asked Lucia for her fan, but Caterina was the intermediary who handed it to him. It was impossible. Those two were frankly and ingenuously looking on, without a shade of suspicion; therefore the more to be feared. Andrea trembled for Lucia, not for himself; he was ready to risk everything. From time to time a queer daring idea flitted through his brain; to say aloud to Lucia: “I have written something for you on paper, but only you may read it.” Who could tell, perhaps Alberto and Caterina would not have guessed anything, and his venture would be crowned with success. But suppose that in jest they asked to see it? Fear for Lucia conquered him; he ended by replacing the little ball in his pocket. As for Lucia, her anger was so nervous and concentrated, that it made her eyes dull and her nose look as thin as if a hand had altered the lines of her face. She moved to and fro without her customary rhythm, touching everything in absence of mind, arranging her tie, lifting the plaits from her neck, inspecting Caterina’s work, taking a puff from Alberto’s cigarette, filling the room with movement, chatter, and sound. It was impossible to exchange the notes. Lucia put hers in her handkerchief, and dropped the handkerchief on the sofa; but to reach the sofa, Andrea would have had to pass Alberto’s intervening body. After five minutes, Lucia again took up her handkerchief and carried it to her lips, as if she were biting it. Then they exposed themselves to a real danger. Andrea opened a volume of Balzac that was lying on a bracket and replaced it, leaving his note between its leaves.

“Hand me that book, Andrea.”

“Nonsense,” cried Alberto; “would you begin to read now? It is dinner-time, sai.”

“I shall just read one page.”

“One page, indeed! I hate your wordy, doleful Balzac. I confiscate the book.” And he stretched out his hand for it. Andrea drew it towards him, thinking, naturally enough, that all was lost. Lucia closed her eyes as if she were dying. Nothing happened. Alberto did not insist on having the book. After all, what did he care for Eugénie Grandet, so that his wife chattered on instead of reading? Andrea drew a long breath, and took his note back, no longer caring to give it to her; his anxiety had been ineffable. Lucia, with her marvellous faculty of passing from one impression to another, soon recovered her spirits. The note episode was over and done for; they were very merry at dinner. Curiously enough, a bright flush suffused Lucia’s cheeks, ending in a red line like a scratch, towards her chin. She felt the heat and fanned herself, joking with her husband and Caterina. She had never been so animated before; now and then her mouth twitched nervously, but that might have passed for a smile. Andrea drank deep, in absence of mind. Lucia leant towards him, smiling; she spoke very close to his ear, showing her teeth, almost as if she were offering her clove-scented lips to him. Then Andrea, what with the heat of the dining-room, its heavy atmosphere, laden with the odours of viands, preserved fruits, and the strong vinegar used in the preparation of the game, the warm rays reflected from the crystal on to the tablecloth, and Lucia’s flushed face—the lace tie showing her white throat—so near to his, Andrea was seized with a mad longing to kiss her; one kiss, only one, on the lips. Every now and then he drew nearer to her, hoping that the others would think him drunk; anything might be forgiven to a drunken man. He drew nearer to her to kiss her, tortured by his desire. He shrank back in dismay, before his wife’s pale, calm face, and the bony, birdlike profile of Alberto. Suddenly Lucia saw what was passing in his mind, and turned as pale as wax. She saw that he was looking at her lips, and hid them with her hand. But that made no difference; he could see them, bright, moist, bleeding, with the savour of fresh blood, that had gone to his head in the English Garden. He would taste them for an infinitesimal fraction of time. And with fixed gaze and a scowl that wrinkled his eyebrows, his clenched fist on the tablecloth, he turned this resolution over in his mind, while the others continued to talk of Naples and the approaching winter festivities. They partook of coffee in the drawing-room. He tried to lead Lucia behind the piano, so that he might give her that kiss; which was absurd, because the piano was too low. The candles were lighted, Caterina took her seat at the piano, and played her usual pieces; easy ones, executed with a certain taste; some of Schubert’s reveries, the Prelude to the fourth act of the Traviata, and Beethoven’s March of the Ruins of Athens. Lucia was lying with her head far back in the American armchair, and her little feet hidden under the folds of her train, dreaming. Alberto, sitting opposite to her, was turning over the leaves of the Franco-Prussian war album, and discovering that Moltke was not in the least like Crispi, and that all Prussians have a certain family likeness. Andrea took several turns in the room, joining Caterina at the piano sometimes asking her to change her piece, or to alter her time. But he was haunted by Lucia’s lips; he saw them everywhere, like an open pomegranate flower, a brightness of coral; he could see their curves and fluctuations; he followed, caught them, they disappeared. For a moment he would be free: then in a mirror, in a bronze candelabrum, in a wooden jardinière, he would fancy they appeared to him, at first pale, then glowing, as if they grew more living. Never to get to them! He went out on the balcony and exposed his burning head to the air, hoping that the evening dew would calm his delirium. Caterina begged Lucia to play, but she refused, alleging that she had no strength, she felt exhausted. Alberto drowsed. The two friends conversed in whispers for a long time, bending over the black and white keys, while Andrea watched from the window: now Lucia’s lips played him the horrible trick of approaching Caterina’s cheek. Oh! if Caterina would but move away from the piano; but no, there she sat, glued to her place, listening to what Lucia was murmuring.

Thus slowly passed the dreary hours, bringing no change to the aspect of that room. At midnight they all wished each other good-night; Andrea worn out with a nervous tremor, she hardly able to drag herself along. Their good-night was spoken in the broken accents of those who have lost all hope. And, alone in the darkness, he lived over again the torment of that day in which he longed for a look and had not had it, for a word and had been unable to say or hear it, for a note that he had neither been able to read nor to deliver, for a kiss that he had not given; his strength exhausted in that day of misery that had been lost for love. Yes, it must be, it would be thus for evermore. Death was surely preferable.