III.
Night was closing in; in the December twilight the air had grown more chill. Under the lighted lamp Caterina sat writing to her cousin Giuditta at school, to invite her to spend next Sunday with her. The clock struck six. “Andrea is late,” thought Caterina; “I am glad I made him take his overcoat, the days are getting so cold.” She finished her letter and laid her hand on the bell. Giulietta appeared.
“Have this letter posted, with a halfpenny stamp.”
“Shall I order dinner to be served?”
“Yes; your master will be home in a few minutes.”
But the master kept them waiting till half-past seven. Caterina waited patiently, yet she felt a certain inward spite towards the business that took up so much of Andrea’s time. It struck her that the house in Via Constantinopoli was rather cold, and it needed fireplaces. How long would it take to put in a grate? It would please Andrea.
The bell rang. That must be Andrea ... but it was only Giulietta.
“A letter from Casa Sanna, and one by post.”
“All right; you can go. See that dinner is kept hot.”
Although she was disappointed by Andrea’s non-arrival—it was nearly eight o’clock—Caterina eagerly opened the letter from Casa Sanna.
“Signora Caterina, for pity’s sake, come to me.
“Alberto.”
The handwriting was shaky and blurred, as if the pen had trembled in the writer’s hand. The address was in a different hand. Caterina was alarmed. What could have happened? Nothing to Alberto; no, for then Lucia would have written. Then something must surely be the matter with Lucia. What dreadful accident, what awful trouble, could it mean? She must go at once. She rang.
“The carriage, Giulietta.”
The maid looked at her in astonishment and left the room. All at once Caterina, who was proceeding to put on her bonnet and wrap, stood still. Andrea! Had she forgotten Andrea? If Andrea did not find her at home when he returned he would be angry. What was to be done? She sat down a moment to collect her thoughts; she was not accustomed to rely on herself in any difficulty—she had no will of her own. She decided on writing a line to Andrea, apologising for going out for half an hour, and enclosing Alberto’s note. She would return immediately; he was not to wait dinner for her. She placed the letter, with the letter-weight over it, in full view, on the writing-table. Then she saw the letter that had come by post. “From Giuditta,” she thought.
She opened it, still preoccupied with the thought of what could have happened to Lucia, and read:
“Oh! Caterina, mercy, Caterina; have pity upon me; mercy, mercy, mercy! I am unfortunate. I am leaving with Andrea. I am a miserable creature; you will never see me again. I suffer. I am leaving. I am dying. Have pity!”
“Lucia.”
She read it over again, re-read it, and read it for the fourth time. She sat down by the writing-table, with the letter in her hands. She was stupefied.
“The carriage is at the door,” said Giulietta. Caterina’s head moved as if in reply. Then she rose to her feet, but she felt the floor give way beneath them. “If I move I shall fall,” she thought.
She stood still; her giddiness increased; the furniture turned round her; there was buzzing in her ears and a bright light in her eyes.
“Surely, I am dying,” she thought. But the giddiness began to decrease, the whirl became wider and slower, and then stopped. Then she read the letter over again, replaced it in the envelope, put it in her pocket and kept her hand over it. She passed into her room, took her bonnet and wrap out of the darkness, but did not put them on. She crossed the anteroom with them in her hands.
“Shall you return early, Signora?” said Giulietta.
She looked at her, dazed.
“... Yes, I think so.”
“What shall I say to the master?”
“There is ... yes, there is a note for him.”
She descended the stairs and entered the carriage. The coachman must have had his orders from Giulietta, for without waiting for further instructions he drove off through Via Sebastiano. Caterina, sitting on the edge of the cushion, without leaning back, had placed her bonnet and shawl opposite to her, and still kept her hand on the letter in her pocket. She felt the discomfort of the chill air that came in through the open window. She could not resist the impulse that led her, by the fugitive light of the street-lamps, to read Lucia’s letter over again for the sixth time. What with the movement of the carriage and the sudden shadows that succeeded the flashes of light, the written words jumped up and down; and Caterina felt them jumping in her brain, knocking against her brow and at the back of her head, beating in either temple. It was a tempest of little blows, a beating of the drum under her skull. Every now and then she bent her head, as if to escape it. She folded the paper; the sensation became less intense, died away, and stupefaction once more dulled her brain.
She mounted the stairs slowly, keeping a firm, mechanical hold on her shawl. She found the door wide open. In the anteroom the maid was talking with animation to the man-servant, emphasising her discourse by expressive gestures. When they saw her enter noiselessly, in indoor attire, without either bonnet or gloves, they became silent. Then she forgot where she was, halting in indecision. She no longer knew what she had come for, when the maid whispered to her that:
“The Signore was awaiting her.”
Of whom was she talking? Caterina looked fixedly at the maid, without the quiver of an eyelash.
“The poor Signore had again spat blood at about three o’clock. He noticed it this time. This evening, when he received the Signora’s letter, he turned red and screamed; he got very excited and coughed—and again spat blood, saving your presence.”
“La Signora, blood! what were they talking of?”
“Now I will show you in, Signorina. But bear up, both of you, it was inevitable.”
At these words Caterina trembled all over; a change came over her face. Glued to the spot, she gazed at the maid with eyes full of sorrow.
“What is done, can’t be undone, Signora mia! Let us go to the poor Signore.”
Preceded by the maid, she followed submissively. Lucia’s boudoir was in great disorder. The little armchairs were turned upside down; the music on the piano was torn and dispersed, the empty work-basket was topsy-turvy, the reels rolling about the carpet, the wools entangled, and the coarse canvas at which Lucia used to work was lying like a rag on the ground; the writing-case was opened on the little writing-table, the drawers were empty, the letters littered the ground: a battlefield.
“The Signore made this havoc, he was like a madman,” explained the maid.
Leaving the darkened drawing-room to the right, they entered the bedroom. Within was sufficient light to make darkness visible; a night-lamp under an opaque shade so placed that the bed lay in shadow. Profound silence: solitude. A pungent odour of drugs and the smell peculiar to sick-rooms filled the atmosphere. Instinctively, Caterina strained her eyes and advanced towards the bed. Alberto was lying there, supine, his head and shoulders resting upon a pile of graduated cushions. He was dressed, but his shirt was crushed and torn, and his legs were wrapped in a woman’s shawl. On a night-table by his side stood bottles, phials, glasses, wafers, red pill-boxes and packets of powders. A white handkerchief peeped out from under the pillow. On the side where Lucia slept, between the bed and the wall, the prie-Dieu had been turned upside down. Caterina stooped over the bed. His eyes were closed and his lips half open, the breath that escaped them was short and faint, his chest scarcely heaved. He opened his eyes, and when he saw her they filled with tears. The tears coursed down his spare cheeks and fell on his neck; the maid took a handkerchief out of the pocket of her apron and wiped them away. He signed to her with his hand to thank and dismiss her.
“Will you have another bit of snow?”
“Yes,” in a faint whisper.
The maid took a little from a basin and put it in his mouth.
“The powder; is it not time?”
“No; go away.”
She took a turn round the room and went away as quietly as possible. Caterina, hugging her shawl, had remained standing. Now she realised all that she saw and heard; indeed, sensation had become so acute that the noise of the words hurt her, the light dazzled her, the sick man’s hectic features became visible; she saw the knife-like profile, the thin protruding chin, the skeleton chest, the miserable legs. She saw, felt, and understood too much.
“Come nearer and be seated. I can neither turn nor raise my voice. It might bring on hæmorrhage again.”
She took a chair and sat down, facing the bed, so that she could see Alberto’s face, crossed her hands on her lap, and waited. He made an effort to swallow the bit of snow, then with all the despair of which a hoarse, low voice is capable said to her:
“You’ve heard, eh?”
Her eyelids quivered two or three times, but she found nothing to say to him.
Alberto, who was lying sunk in his pillows, with half-closed eyes and upturned chin, gazed vaguely at the white curtains instead of at her.
“I should never have suspected such treason. Would you have suspected it? No; of course not.”
Her gesture signified, “No.” Her inert will had no power over her nerves, so that she had absolutely no strength wherewith to articulate.
“Lucia appeared to be so fond of me. She was so good, she thought of nothing but me. You saw, you must have seen, how fond she was of me. How could she do this to me?”
Husbanding his breath, he continued his complaint in an undertone, never turning to Caterina, but addressing his lamentations to the bed, the room, the curtains.
“Even this morning she kissed me three times. I ought to have known that she was going away. I ought not to have let her go out.”
A short, harsh cough interrupted him.
“Give me ... give me a little snow.”
She handed the saucer to him; he put a little in his mouth and was silent until he recovered his breath.
“Has she written to you?”
Caterina drew the letter from her pocket and handed it to him. Alberto raised it eagerly to the level of his eyes.
“Not a word as to where they are going, nor at what time they left. But I have found out the hour. They left at half-past two, by the Paris-Turin express. They posted the letters at the station. What has Andrea written to you? What does he say? Why has he done this to me? What does he write?”
“Nothing,” said Caterina, whose head had fallen on her bosom.
“Nothing! But what infamous creatures they both are! They are a couple of assassins. Listen, listen; I tell you, they will certainly be the death of me.”
He had almost risen to a sitting posture, choked by impotent rage, clenching his diminutive fists, opening his mouth to breathe, to utter a cry. She gazed at him with wide-open eyes, struck once more with the stupor that from time to time paralysed her brain.
“Then you have not received anything but that letter; you know nothing of their doings? You know only that they have gone? That is why you are so cool! If you only knew ... only knew ... what infamy ... what infamy...!”
She exerted her will and succeeded in raising her head, drew nearer to him, and questioned him with her eyes.
“I will whisper it to you. The doctor advises me not to waste my breath. When you see me getting excited, stop me. Horrible treason! It has gone on for some time, you know, since our stay at Centurano....”
A wild look passed over the face of his listener, but he did not observe it.
“... but in reality, those infamous assassins were betraying us. Centurano indeed! It began before my marriage. One day that they were alone, in your house, Andrea kissed Lucia, on the neck....”
Caterina wrung the helpless hands that were lying in her lap.
“... afterwards they made love to each other under our very eyes; writing, speaking to each other, making appointments with an impudence.... We never noticed anything. All through that accursed Exhibition! How could I tell that they would have served me like this? Do you know that they kissed....”
He ground his teeth as he told these things, casting savage glances around him, revelling in the ecstasy, the intoxication of his rage when he recalled the voluptuous details of the love-story. On Caterina’s face, which was turned towards him, there was still the same look of grieved surprise.
“... they kissed again, the accursed assassins. He has tasted the ripe red lips of my Lucia, those lips that were mine, and mine only; he took them from me, and scorched and faded them with coarse, brutal kisses. I wish that in those kisses thou hadst sucked arsenic and strychnine, and that their sweetness had poisoned thee, vile thief, deceitful villain! Ah! they were sweet, were they, the kisses of my Lucia? Ah! they pleased you, and so you’ve taken them for yourself and gone off with them, vile thievish clod—brigand!”
A fit of coughing that lasted a long time choked him, his head rebounded on the pillow, and his chest heaved with a hoarse rasping sound. Trembling all over he grasped his handkerchief and expectorated, examining the handkerchief carefully with a hurried, frightened gesture.
“It is white,” he said, with a voice as thin as a thread. He fell back, paler than ever from fright, in his pillows, his chest heaving painfully. After this vehement attack, he was obliged to rest a little. She waited, watching his every movement: when he expectorated, a sense of nausea caused her to turn her head aside.
“Give me the blue bottle, with the spoon by it. It’s codeine.”
Caterina’s hand wandered over the table for some time before she could find what she looked for.... When she gave it him, he swallowed it, thanked her, and looked at her fixedly, perhaps because her trembling silence and her immobility began to strike him....
“It must have made a great impression upon you,” he muttered. “I was already upset, half dead, in fact, for I spat a little blood. I sent for the doctor and for Lucia, at the church of Santa Chiara, at once. The doctor came; Lucia didn’t come. They hadn’t found her at Santa Chiara. I was getting desperate; I went all over the house and turned it upside down. When, lo, and behold, a letter, brought by hand. I opened it, screamed, and fell down. I bit my hand and broke a pane of glass. I knocked the furniture about, all that had belonged to Lucia. If I could have got at her for a minute, ill and weak as I am, I should have strangled her. Then a fit of coughing came on, but I didn’t expectorate. Then a little scraping; it was red, red as flame. They have killed me, they have killed me....”
The fever of his complaint had left him in a stupor until the arrival of Caterina, now it was passing into the acute stage, as the temperature increased and the fever mounted from his chest to his brain. His ideas were becoming incoherent. “What happened afterwards, I don’t know. I sent for you, and the doctor came again. You see I threw the prie-dieu down; I wanted to kick it to pieces, but I couldn’t. She took away the Byzantine Madonna. She was pious, she was religious, she went to confession, she took the Sacrament; how could I tell that with all that she would commit this horrible crime! But ... you know ... they were a couple of lovers awaiting their honeymoon, like bride and bridegroom ... infamous wretches, assassins ... and to-night, to-morrow; while I lie here, dying alone, like a dog....” She shuddered, in terror at sight of the little mannikin wrapped up in a woman’s shawl.
“... I had always loved her,” he said after a pause, speaking in a lower tone. “I married her for love, because she was good and beautiful and clever, and spoke poetically; ... because she was unhappy in her father’s house. I didn’t mind her marriage portion being small. Some of my friends remarked at the time that women always marry from interested motives. I didn’t believe it. She wrote me such beautiful letters! Oh! she was a famous hand at letter-writing. She wrote to Galimberti, who went mad; to me, to you; and she wrote some to Andrea. She gave them to him in books, she put them under the clock, everywhere. I ought to have known that she married me for money. Do you know what she has taken with her besides the Madonna? Her diamonds, the diamonds that I gave her.” And a sneer of irony distorted the invalid’s lips.
“The diamonds, you know! My mother’s ... who was an honest woman ... that I had given her. She will wear them in her ears for him, and he will kiss her throat; she will wear them in her hair, and he will kiss her hair; she will wear them on her bosom, and he will sleep on that bosom. O God! if you exist—cruel God, vile God!—make me die an hour before the time.”
A gloomy silence reigned in the room after that imprecation. She shrank away with outstretched hands, in dread of the delirious sufferer in whose thoughts fever of blood and brain had wrought such terrible havoc, while it lent him a fictitious vigour equal to the strength of a person in rude health.
“... Wherever they were, they betrayed us. At home, at the Exhibition, in the carriage—everywhere, everywhere they made fools of us. In the wood, in the English Garden they were together.... They snatched each other’s hands on the stairs, on the landing; they kissed each other, while we went on before. On the terrace, in the corner, they kissed over again. It’s a horrible, crying shame! I think the servants must have noticed it at Centurano. They must have laughed at us, that canaille must have laughed its fill behind our backs....”
There were two bright red spots on his cheekbones, and he was gasping.
“... And do you know why I call them assassins, why I say that they have killed me? And by God, I am right! The most odious, the most cruel part of it all is, that through their damned love affair I have caught this illness, that might have been spared me. On a chilly night, Lucia stood out on the balcony, the whole night through, and so did Andrea. I slept all night with the window open, with the cold air penetrating my lungs and inflaming them, making me cough for two months, making me so ill! They gazed at each other, called to each other and blew kisses: I caught the cough that has lasted two months, and made me spit this blood to-day.” He looked at her. In her horror, she hid her face in her hands. “You wonder how I know all this? You remember the novel that Lucia was writing? Another lie. It wasn’t a novel, it was a journal. Every day she wrote down all that happened to her, all her thoughts and fancies. The whole love affair is in it, from beginning to end—every look, every kiss, every act. Oh! there are splendid bits of description, beautiful things are narrated therein. It is instructive and interesting reading. You can profit by it, if you like. Read it, it will amuse you.”
Then grinning, like a consumptive Mephistopheles, he drew a bulky manuscript from under the pillow. He threw it into Caterina’s lap; she left it there, sooner than touch it, as if she were afraid of its burning her fingers.
“Yes,” he said, having reached the lowest depth of bitterness, “Lucia wished me to know how it all happened. She took the Madonna, she took the diamonds, but she has had the goodness to forget the journal! Do read it! It is a charming novel, a fine drama.”
He was exhausted, with the fever came a return of the stupor. His eyes were half closed, his feeble hands, with the violet veins standing out in relief, were like yellow wax. In the gloom, Caterina kept turning the pages of the journal, at first without reading, then glancing at a page here and there, grasping an idea, or discovering a fact amid the fantastic divagations in which its pages abounded. At certain parts she shuddered and fell back in her chair. He coughed weakly in his torpor, without unclosing his eyes. Suddenly a violent attack tore his chest, the cough began low, grew louder, died away, seemed to be over, and began again, cruelly, persistently. In the short intervals he groaned feebly, clutching at his ribs, as if he could bear it no longer. Then he expectorated again, and once more made that hurried gesture of examination. He fell back with a faint cry. He had spat blood. She had watched this scene; when she saw the blood, she shuddered and closed her eyes, as if she were about to faint.
“So these medicines are no good to me? The doctor is telling me a parcel of old woman’s tales. Why doesn’t he stop the hæmorrhage? I have swallowed such a lot of snow, I have taken such a lot of syrup of codeine and gallic acid, to stop the blood! Am I to spit all my blood away? Why haven’t they given me something stronger to-night, instead of to-morrow, if it is to do me any good?”
His lamentations, persistent, hoarse, torturing to his listener, filled the room. His voice had the aggrieved intonation that is peculiar to invalids who feel the injustice of not being cured. He continued to grumble at the doctor, the medicines, the syrup that failed to relieve his cough; the snow was useless, for it did not stop the hæmorrhage. Still complaining, he turned to Caterina:
“I beg your pardon; do you mind giving me that little paper of gallic acid, and a wafer?”
With the patience of one to whom these things are habitual, he made a pill and swallowed it, with an air of resignation. She had closed the journal.
“Had enough of it, eh? I have read every word of it, and shall read it again, to learn how these frightful crimes are committed. Well, I couldn’t have done such a thing to Lucia. To me she was the dearest and most beautiful of women. I was in love with her; via, to tell the truth, I was idiotically in love with her. She ought not to have behaved as she has done to me; she knew how ill I am, she might have spared me. She knew that I was alone, how could she abandon me...!”
He considered the deserted room, the prie-dieu lying upside down, the empty space where the Madonna had been, the open drawers, and fresh tears coursed down his cheeks. They were scant tears, that reddened the tight-drawn skin as they fell.
“What do you intend to do, Signora Caterina?”
She started and looked at him, questioningly, surprised.
“I asked you what you were going to do?”
“Nothing,” she said, gravely.
The despairing word rang through the room, accentuating its void.
“Nothing; true. What is there to be done? Those two love each other, have gone off together ... and good-night to them who remain behind. Follow them? It would be useless; useless to catch them. Besides, who is to go? They have killed me. Well, I am so weak, so mean, so vilely ridiculous, that, despite all, I feel that I still care for Lucia.... I care for her still—it’s no use denying it, for all her wickedness, her betrayal, and her perpetual deceit—I care for her, because I love her, ecco! I am so tied to her, so bound up in her, that the loss of her will kill me, if this hæmorrhage doesn’t. Oh! what a woman, what a woman it is! How she takes possession of you, and carries you away, and never loosens her hold on you...!”
His eyelids were wide open, as if he beheld the seductive vision of her; he held up his lips, and stretched out his arms to her, calling on her, in a transport of love, that was part of his delirium.
“Oh! if she could but return, for a moment! If she could but return, even if she went away again! Oh! return, that I might forgive her ... return, return, to see me die! Not to let me die alone, in this icy bed, that my fever does not warm; in this great room, where I am afraid to be alone!”
He was wandering. Presently he felt under the pillow, and drew out a letter and a small packet.
“... listen, she sent me this, with the letter. They are the wedding rings. Here is the one I gave her, here is the one you gave Andrea. Do you think she will ever return?”
“No,” said Caterina, rising to her feet, “they will never return.” She took her own ring and went away, leaving Alberto still wandering.
“If she had but lied a little longer; she might have waited for my death! She would not have had long to wait, miserable....”