IV.
In the night, in her dark room, seated beside her bed, Caterina pondered. She had returned home without speaking to any one; no one had said anything to her, for they all knew what had happened. The house was in order, composed, cold, and silent; on the table was the note she had written to her husband, to apologise for having gone out alone. She tore it up, and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket. Giulietta, who had crept in after her, to try and proffer a word of consolation, was dismissed as usual with a gentle good-night. The maid told the coachman that the Signora had not shed a tear, but that the expression of her face was “dreadful.” They all pitied her, but they had long foreseen what would happen; they knew of it at Centurano: you’d have to be blind not to have seen it.
Then the conventicle dispersed, and the house was wrapped in profound silence. Caterina had extinguished the light in her own room, but had not undressed. Instinctively she craved for darkness, wherein to hang her head and think. She could distinguish the whiteness of the bed in the gloom, and it frightened her. She sat with one hand over the other, pressing the point of her nails against the third finger of the hand that bore the two marriage rings. Now and again, when she became aware of the contact of that second ring, she started and moaned. Her life, quiet and uniform as it had been, came before her with such distinctness of detail that it seemed as if she lived it over again. She had had a mother until she was seven; a father, until she was nine; and lived with her aunt until she was eleven. A peaceful childhood, except for the formless, shadowy sorrow of those two deaths, a sorrow bereft of cries or tears. She had always been ashamed to cry in the presence of other people; she had wept for her dead at night, in her little bed, with the sheet drawn over her face. Later, at her aunt’s, she had been seriously ill, a very dangerous illness—a combination of every disease that is incidental to childhood. She remembered that the Sacrament had been administered to her in great haste, in the fear that she would die. She had not understood its meaning, and had not been very strongly impressed; since then she had retained a calm religious piety, devoid of mystic enthusiasm, but characterised by the rigorous strictness of observance with which she fulfilled all her duties.
When she recovered, her aunt had put her to school, the best school in Naples, and had undertaken the management of her fortune. She was a cold, trustworthy, childless aunt, who did not incline to demonstrations of affection, but who visited her punctually on Thursdays in the parlour, and drove her out on Sundays, and took her to the theatre. Caterina recalled the first year at school, where she had been happier than at home, where she had given herself to the simple pleasure of being with other children; not playing, but watching them play; not speaking, but hearing them speak. Study she found rather hard; she had been obliged to apply herself to succeed in learning anything; the teachers had always given her the maximum marks for good conduct, but not so many for study. She had never been punished nor reproached that first year, and at the final examination she came out fifteen, among twenty-eight: she had gained a silver medal for good conduct.
The duality of her school-life began with the appearance of Lucia, whom she had met with in the second class. A wonderful pupil, who surpassed all her fellows; a slight, thin girl, whose long black plaits hung down her back, who spent three days in school and three in the infirmary, who was an object of charity to the teachers, the assistants, and her companions. She was a sickly, pensive child, whose great eyes swallowed up her whole face, and who could master anything without opening a book. Many girls desired her friendship, but one day she said to Caterina, in her weak voice:
“They tell me that you have neither mother nor father; my mother is dead too, and that is why I wear a black band round my arm, for mourning. Will you be my friend?” All at once, Caterina remembered that she had begun to love the lithe, melancholy creature with her whole heart, the girl who was as slender as a reed, who never played, and who talked like a maiden of fifteen when she was but a child of eleven. She remembered how this childish love was strengthened by their living together under one roof. In the hours of recreation they had walked up and down the corridors like the others, they had held each other by the hand, but without speaking. During school-hours they sat on the same bench, lending each other a pen, a scrap of paper, or a pencil: at table they sat opposite, looking at each other, and Caterina passed her share of pudding to Lucia, who could eat nothing else. In chapel they prayed together, and in the dormitory they were not far apart. In talent, in beauty, and in stature Lucia had always surpassed Caterina, a fact that Caterina had tacitly acknowledged, and the whole College recognised. In the College the two friends were always designated as, “the one who loved, and the one who submitted to be loved.” The one who permitted herself to be loved was the beauty, the bellezza; the one who loved was the capezza, the ass’s bridle, a patient, humble, devoted, servile thing. The bellezza was entitled to everything, the capezza had no rights, but all the duties. She was permitted to love, that was all. In the Altimare and Spaccapietra bond, Lucia was the bellezza, and Caterina the capezza.
She could remember having been punished several times in her stead, for having been bewitched into following her in an escapade, for having taken her part against the maestra, for having done the sums that were too dry for Lucia’s poetic mind. Lucia wept, was in despair, fainted, when Caterina was punished for a fault of hers; and Caterina ended by consoling her, telling her that it was nothing, praying her to stop crying, because she rather liked punishment. Lucia was a profoundly affectionate creature, expansive to enthusiasm, ever ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of friendship; Caterina, who could never find words to express herself, whose affection was calm and silent, who could never behave enthusiastically, and who had never fainted, was sometimes ashamed of loving so little. In everything Lucia surpassed her. So they passed from class to class. Caterina was always a mediocre scholar, obtaining a bronze medal or honourable mention at the examinations, on which occasions she never came to the fore—an insipid pupil, who was neither appreciated nor bullied by the professors. There was nothing interesting in her character—like, for instance, Artemisia Minichini, who was insolent and sceptical; or Giovanna Casacalenda, who was provoking and coquettish. The Directress did not give herself the trouble of watching her. Her greatest charm, her only distinguishing quality, was her friendship for Lucia—“Where is Altimare?” “Spaccapietra, tell us where Altimare is.” “How is Altimare?” “Spaccapietra, surely thou knowest how Altimare is to-day!”
Lucia, on the contrary, passed a brilliant yearly examination, took the gold medal for composition, and wrote congratulatory addresses on the Directress’s birthday. Her compositions were notable productions: one of them had been read in the presence of three assembled classes. But more remarkable than anything else was the strange disposition which aroused the curiosity of the entire College. Her fits of mysticism, her fits of deep despondency, the tears she shed in shady nooks, about the College; her passion for flowers, her nausea in the refectory, her convulsive nervous attacks, claimed universal attention. When she passed, tall, lithe, with dreamy, pensive eyes, the other scholars turned and pointed her out to each other, and whispered about her.
The Directress watched her. Cherubina Friscia had special instructions with regard to Lucia Altimare; the professors kept their eye on her. In the parlour, the little girls described her to their mothers in undertones as, “Un tipo strano,” an extraordinary type. She knew it, and cast languid glances round her, and indulged in pretty, pathetic movements of the head. She was the incarnate expression of suffering—slow, continual, persistent suffering, that weighed her down for weeks together, and ended in a heartbreaking crisis. Oh! Caterina had always felt a profound compassion for her, which she had never been able to express, but was none the less as intense as it was sincere. The last year at school had been a tumultuous one, it was a wonder that Caterina had maintained her placid serenity in the midst of all those girls, who were yearning for freedom, panting for life; who already boasted adorers, affianced husbands and lovers; who hated the College, and treated the maestre with impertinence. Her aunt had informed her that Andrea Lieti was to be her husband; she had no anxiety for her own future. But she was very anxious about Lucia, who during this last year had been unusually delicate, who had turned Galimberti’s head, who had made up her mind to be a nun, and attempted to commit suicide. Caterina had saved her life. And last, like a dream, the last night at school, when they had entered the chapel, had knelt down and sworn, before the Madonna, to love each other for ever, reproduced itself in her memory....
Lucia vanished, Andrea entered upon the scene. Andrea had been kind and amiable to Caterina during their courtship. At first, it had been a marriage of convenience; the young man wanted a wife, her fortune suited him, and the orphan girl had to be married. Andrea was a very good match for her; the engaged pair got on capitally together. Andrea’s vigorous, often violent temperament, was well balanced by Caterina’s calm and gentle nature. He neither wrote letters nor offered flowers, nor paid more than two or three visits during the week, while they were engaged, but Caterina had not missed these demonstrations of love. Love she read in Andrea’s honest, merry eyes, when they met hers. She had admired him from the first, for the herculean comeliness of his fine physique, and the grace of a gentlemanlike athlete, with which he wore either morning or evening attire. And immediately she had begun to love him, because she had found him good and honest and just. The strong man, who could be a very child, in whom she divined a feminine delicacy, won her heart. As usual, from timidity and the habit of reserve, her emotion was self-contained. Later on, in her married life, she had always been shy and retiring with her husband, neither expressing her love for him by well-turned phrases or poetic imagery. But perhaps he knew it, for from morning till night she busied herself in the house, and with the food, forestalling his wishes, preparing a cool sitting-room for him in the summer, and a warm bedroom in winter. The viands he preferred his wife carefully dressed, ever placid and smiling. No, she had never found words to tell him the happiness that flooded her heart when he raised her in his strong arms, kissed her throat, and called her “Nini”; but every day her gratitude proved it to him, and her constant thought and care for him. She did not tell him that when he went shooting and left her alone for days, she wearied after him, and longed for his return.... On his return, he was so happy and so pleasantly tired, that she had never spoken of those solitary hours to him. If they separated for eight or ten days, she wrote to him every day, just a line about household matters, or the people who had called.... There was no flourish about her letters; they began with Caro Andrea, and ended with la tua affezionatissima moglie, Caterina. She murmured inwardly against her own timidity, and often felt that she was very stupid. That poor Galimberti had once said to her: “Spaccapietra, you are entirely wanting in imagination.” Then she had taken heart when it occurred to her that Andrea must know how well she loved him; if she said nothing, her every act spoke for her. Luckily Andrea was of a frank, open disposition; he did not like affected grimaces, he did not make melting speeches; his was a well-conditioned love that could exist without his perpetually asking her during the honeymoon, “Do you love me?” Besides, she knew of no other answer than “Yes.” Again Lucia appeared on the scene; Lucia, more beautiful than herself, nervous, suffering, fantastic. Lucia and Andrea stood together in the foreground of her life. Oh! how she could recall her trouble, through their disputes and their reciprocal dislike. Her heart had been torn between love for Andrea, to whom Lucia was odious, and love for Lucia, who held Andrea in contempt. She could neither venture to coerce them, nor could she divide herself in two. She loved them both, each in a different fashion. When they had begun to know each other, and their antipathy had turned to a more cordial sentiment, then there had been thanksgiving in her heart, that the miracle she prayed for with all her might had come to pass. She had not told either of them how much her love for them had grown since they had deigned to be friends; but during the whole year she had tried to prove her gratitude to them. She passed her life between them, for them, ever devising a way to make their life pleasant; tending and caring for them, body and soul, thinking of naught but the two persons in whom her life was centred. Thus had Caterina Lieti lived and had her being, thus it was that her whole existence appeared to her like a series of events, of which she was a spectator on that winter night. Her memory was as clear and definite as the facts it recalled. With calm patience, staring into the darkness the better to discern them, she searched for other memories; if perchance she had overlooked any incident of a different nature, anything singular, exceptional, like all that she had already recalled. Was there nothing, really nothing? Twice she repeated this question to herself, but she found nothing. Her conscience had been calm, equal, unvaried; it had known two constant and active loves—Andrea, Lucia.
Well, now all was clear to her. The science of life had come to her in a flash, sweeping faith and innocence from her heart. Her intellect opened wide to the cruel lesson, applied as by a blow from a hammer. She felt like another woman, one suddenly aged and become more capable, a woman of cool, clear judgment, searching eye, and an implacable conscience. She no longer discovered in herself either indulgence, pity, kindness, nor illusions; in their stead she found the inflexible justice that could weigh men and things.
Now she understood it all. Lucia’s personality encroached on the life around her; Lucia the Protagonist, Lucia the Sovereign. The personality rose, clearly defined against her horizon, as if in harsh relief, without any softening or veiling of the contours, without any optical illusion, cruel in its truth. In vain Caterina closed her dazzled eyes not to see this truth, it filtered through her lids, like the sun. The gigantic figure attracted all the others, fascinated them, bewitched them, seized them, absorbed them, and down below there only remained certain pitiful, shrunken shades, that vaguely struggled and despaired within a grey mist. Lucia reigned, beautiful and cruel, not bending her eyes on those who wrung their hands, nor hearing their groans, her eyes half closed so that she might not see, her ears unheeding; contemplating herself, adoring herself, making an idol of herself.
Surely this was a monstrous creature, a spirit ruined in infancy, an ever-swelling egoism that assumed the fair cruel features of fantasy. At bottom, the heart was cold, arid, and incapable of enthusiasm; its surface was coated with a prodigious imagination that magnified at will every sensation and impression. Within, a total absence of sentiment; without, every form of sentimentalism. Within, indifference to every human being; without, the delirium of noble Utopian theories, fluctuating aspirations round a vague ideal. Within, a harsh spongy pumice-stone, that nothing can soften, that is never moved; without, the sweetness of a voice and the tenderness of words. And artifice, so deeply rooted in the soul as to mock nature, artifice so complete, so perfect that by night, alone with herself, she could persuade herself that she was really unhappy and really in love: artifice that had become one with disposition, temperament, blood and nerves, until she had acquired the profound conviction of her own goodness, her own virtue, and her own excellence.
The vision became more and more distinct, cynically revealing the falseness of its character, and the lie that was incrusted in its every line. To have the fantasy of error, the fantasy of sentiment, the fantasy of love, the fantasy of friendship, the fantasy of sorrow; never anything but blinding, corroding fantasy, put forward in the guise of all that is sweet and wholesome. To weave fancies on God, the Madonna, the affections, on everything; to barter the realities of life for the unreality of a dream; to be master of the fantasy that endows the eye with seductive charm, the voice with voluptuous melody, the smile with fascination that makes the kiss irresistible; to feed one’s nerves on the torments of others, bringing about the enacting of the drama that is artificial for oneself, and terribly earnest for everybody else. That was Lucia.
That smiling and weeping monster, with the moving tears, the enchanting voice, the bewitching flexibility and poetry of diction, that profound and feminine egoism, had absorbed all that surrounded her.... Caterina had pitied and loved her, Galimberti had loved and pitied her, Alberto had loved her, Andrea had loved her. She had stood in their midst and had drawn all the love out of them. At the languor of her countenance, all had languished; in her mystic prostration, all had suffered; her mock passion had burned deep into their flesh. Her egoism had battened on sacrifice and abnegation: yet they who loved her, loved her more and more. Whoever had approached her had been taken. Those whom she took never regained their freedom. Their souls blended with her soul, they thought her thoughts, dreamed her dreams, shuddered with her thrills; their bodies clung to her irrevocably, without hope of deliverance, receiving from her their health and their disease. And for the aggrandisement of this potent egoism, its glory and its triumph, Caterina beheld the misery of those who had surrounded Lucia: the fate of Galimberti, who was dying in a madhouse; the misery of his starving, despairing mother and sister; the lugubrious and dishonoured agony of Alberto, the husband she had abandoned; the dishonour of her father and her name; the ruin of Andrea, who left home, wife, and country to live a life of despair with Lucia; and the last most innocent victim, Caterina herself, bereft by Lucia of her all.
All these wrongs were irreparable. Horrible was the agony of the dying, who cried for Lucia and loved her; horrible the life of the survivors, who hated, cursed, and loved her. Irreparable the past, irreparable the present. Lucia towered above the ruins, enthroned, audacious, triumphant, formidable, casting on the earth the shadow of her inhuman egoism, obscuring the sky with it.
The dawn rose livid and frozen. Caterina was still there, stiffened in her chair, pressing the wedding ring that had been returned to her between her icy fingers. She uttered a cry of terror when, in the grey morning light, she saw the white bed, so smooth and cold; a cry so terrible that it did not sound human. She opened her arms and threw herself down on the spot where Andrea had slept—and wept upon that tomb.