VIII
Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli arrived first at the place appointed for the meeting, accompanied by the physician and two artillery officers, friends of Cariolin, who had volunteered to act as seconds. He was most calm. Like a true poet, he praised the mild April morning. “The zephyr returns, bearing with it fair weather—” He praised the trilling of the birds, saluting the sun; inhaled voluptuously the resinous odor which the pine trees gave out, and the cypresses of the handsome villa nearby; recited an ode of Anacreon which he had translated, and finally told the two officers that they were enjoying the apologue of the geese and the migrating crane. He was the crane; that is to say, according to the geese, a madman. “For I have neither overeaten nor drunk too much, you must know. Since yesterday, gentlemen, food has not entered my disheartened stomach. Water; I have drunk water at the public fountain. Diogenes, gentlemen, had a cup, but when he saw a boy drinking out of his own hand, he broke his own cup and he too drank out of his own hand. I do the same. I do not know whether I shall eat to-day, or where I shall sleep. Perhaps I will present myself to some farmer in the country. I will dig. Then I shall eat; but free from all ties in this absolute, sublime liberty which intoxicates me, and which must naturally seem like madness to the slaves of the law, of necessity, of social conventions. In a short time I shall break the head of the imbecile who has tried to cross my path, and then I shall work on my great poem, 'Erostratus.’”
A little later Biagio Speranza, Dario Scossi, and Momo Cariolin arrived with another physician. Biagio Speranza was very nervous; the thought of fighting with this madman, who had struck him, seemed to degrade him. But he tried to appear hilarious, so as not to lend too much importance to this duel, the grotesque epilogue of a silly prank. His valises and everything for his departure were ready, prepared at home. Now he would either give or receive a scratch, and all would be over. And by Jove, it was time!
The direction of the duel fell by lot to the young officer who acted as first second. But already it appeared that everything was being arranged most amicably. The ground being chosen and measured, the adversaries were then invited to take their places opposite each other. “If you please,” said the officer to Cocco Bertolli, “you must remove your coat.” Cocco took it off furiously and flung it far from him. At sight of his ragged and soiled shirt, torn at the elbows, all received a most painful impression; repulsion, disgust, and pity, all in one; they looked in each other’s eyes, questioning if this were not a case that should be brought to an end at once. But Cocco Bertolli, who already had his sword in hand, and quivered with impatience, demanded with proud indignation: “Well?”
“On guard!” said the officer.
Immediately Cocco Bertolli leaped forward like a tiger with terrible fury, flourishing his sword, and howling, upon his adversary. Thus attacked, Biagio Speranza, still under that painful impression, started back, parrying the storm of blows as well as he could. He might easily have run Cocco through the body simply by holding his sword stiff, straight out, with a sudden lunge; but he banished the temptation, and continued parrying the attacks. Suddenly, in his fury, the sword fell from Cocco Bertolli’s hand. “Enough!” cried the officer who was directing the encounter.
“What do you mean by enough?” cried Cocco Bertolli, out of breath. “Do you wish to profit by my misfortune? I appeal to my adversary, who surely can not consider such paltry satisfaction 'enough.’”
Biagio Speranza stooped and picked up the fallen sword, and offered it courteously to Cocco Bertolli. “Here it is. On guard!” Then he glanced at his friends, as much as to say: “You see to what you have brought me?” And his nervous irritation increased. “If the other evening, after that blow, you had allowed me to give him a sound beating, I should not now have found myself under the hard necessity of killing this poor madman, so forlorn and miserable, or of letting him kill me.”
At the second command for attack, Speranza was resolved to oppose his adversary seriously. But without warning Cocco Bertolli was upon him again with redoubled fury. “Stop!” cried the officer.
But already, in this lightning-like assault, Biagio Speranza had been wounded, for he suddenly fell to the ground, his hands clenched to his breast. A sneer choked in his throat. He looked at the four seconds and the physicians, tried to say: “It is nothing!” but instead of words blood gushed from his mouth, and he sank back, terrified.
Having recovered from their first feeling of horror, the others bent over him, lifted him cautiously, and carried him with the greatest care into the house of the keeper of the villa, where they deposited him on a bed. The doctors thought at first that he had but a few minutes to live; nevertheless, they administered the first remedies, and waited, anxious, terrified. An hour passed, two, and one of the physicians proposed to send some one to the city for a stretcher. So, toward evening, Biagio Speranza was carried home, between life and death. The Pentoni, his old landlady, and Nannetta were waiting for him, all bathed in tears. But the latter, shortly after, when the first confusion was over, was politely sent away by Scossi. “It is not proper for you to stay here, my dear.” She made no reply, but under Carolinona’s very eyes wished to imprint a kiss upon the brow of the wounded man, who lay unconscious, flushed with fever.
“Ah,” she then said weeping to Scossi, “if you had only left us there in the country! Poor Biagio! My heart told me this would happen. But at least take away this unfortunate woman from his side; if he opens his eyes he will die of despair at seeing her beside him.” Then she went away.
While Nannetta was saying this, Carolinona had left the head of his bed, understanding herself that the sight of her in these first moments would not be acceptable to the wounded man. She had desired so ardently that he might return to the pension, but she had not said even a word to that effect, nor taken a single step to urge him to return. It would be most unjust to hold her responsible for the misfortune that had happened; and he should be the first to admit it, he who had forced her, actually forced her, to commit this folly. So he ought not to feel horror at sight of her there by his bed, nor cherish any rancor. But Carolinona at heart felt the positive necessity, almost instinct, to ascribe to others the fault of our own misfortunes; so she drew back into the shadow to watch, to give him the most passionate care, without any flattering hope of recompense. She merely wished, longed, and prayed that he might recover; she wished nothing for herself, not even gratitude, not even that he should know that she had secretly nursed him.
Dario Scossi, Cariolin, and Cedebonis, after the first few days, seeing that the wound began to improve, began to insist that she should take some hours of rest. But they insisted in vain. “It will do me no harm; I am accustomed to it,” Carolinona would reply.
One day Dario Scossi looked at her, and she no longer appeared so ugly to him. Grief and love, both despairing, seemed to have transfigured her. Those eyes, for instance, so intense with passion; she did not know it, but they were actually beautiful at that moment. Seeing herself gazed at kindly, Carolinona smiled faintly at him, while her eyes filled with tears. And to Dario Scossi that smile seemed sublime.
The vigils continued heroically for about a month, during which time Carolinona, like mother and sweetheart in one, watched anxiously at the sick man’s bedside while he slept, ready to retire into shadow as soon as he awoke. She actually lost flesh, but, illuminated from within by the joy of knowing him safe at last, she became beautiful—really beautiful? No, but—in the opinion of all—more than possible as a wife. “And then,” they added, “if she has won out, that is saying very little. Has she not actually restored him to the world? Biagio is her own from now on.”
But she could not believe in her own happiness until one day Biagio, still in bed, but already convalescent, called her to him, and said in a voice trembling with tenderness, gazing into her eyes, and pressing her hand: “My good Carolina!”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Speranza, in the Italian language, means “hope.”—Translator.
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
BY GRAZIA DELEDDA
Grazia Deledda was born at Nuoro, Sardinia, in 1872. Until her marriage in 1900 she lived in her native province. At scarcely twenty years of age she published a volume of Sardinian tales, and in 1900 obtained her first great success with “Elias Portolù,” which gave her fame throughout Europe. Besides these two volumes, her works consist so far of two collections of short stories, eight romances, and an exquisite drama. Her chief characteristics as a writer are spontaneity of inspiration, truth of observation, and a simplicity of style most refreshing after the labored subtleties of the psychologists. Her characters, all drawn from the surroundings of her early youth, are generally simple souls, living next to nature and full of violent passions.
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
A STORY OF ITALIAN PRISON LIFE
BY GRAZIA DELEDDA
Translated by Florence MacIntyre Tyson. Copyright, 1903, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
Among the prisoners who arrived at the Penitentiary on the 23d of March, as the setting sun was flooding with crimson its cold, grim walls, was a young man of distinguished appearance; he was dressed in gray, and the folds of his large, soft gray hat, adorned with a knot of gray ribbon, quite hid his pale, thin face, with its aquiline nose and carefully kept pointed beard. During the journey he had not spoken once, but sat with bent head and knitted brows, his eyes intently fastened upon his thin, nervous hands with their long, polished nails, enclosed in the shining bands of the steel handcuffs. On reaching the Penitentiary he had for an instant raised his head and fixed his shining, burning eyes upon the countenance of the Direttore, who on his side returned the gaze coldly and at length. By a queer coincidence, the prisoner and the Direttore had the same name—Cassio Longino! And they both knew it; and the prisoner, who in his distant country across the sea where “Cassio” means “a white petticoat,” had often been the subject of many a caricature, experienced now a sort of bitter satisfaction, on seeing himself on that account sought by the cold, scornful glance of the Signore Direttore. With the first glance, the two men hated each other. The Direttore was approaching middle life, was small and stooped a little. His feet and hands were small, and the latter were always plunged in the pockets of his long, black overcoat. His clean-shaven face bore the marks of physical suffering, which was accentuated in deep lines about the pale, thin lips; his eyes were small and green and full of an almost cruel indifference; his hair was blond and short, and his ears large and prominent. For all these reasons, but chiefly because he was the commandant of the prison, he was exceedingly displeasing to No. 245; and No. 245 was displeasing to the commandant on account of his haughty manner, the fiery look with which he observed him, and especially on account of his vigorous, superb youth.
While the prisoners were being consigned to their quarters, the Direttore did not open his mouth, and for several days Cassio, shut up in a private cell, did not again see him. His cell faced the east, and through the tiny aperture pierced in the great stone rampart he could see the distant Apennines, still covered with snow, and the Tuscan landscape, over which the early spring was scattering a vivid green sward, and the pale, tender coloring of bursting twig and blossom. In the Penitentiary garden, which was cultivated by prisoners clad in white linen suits and red caps, Cassio, who by especial permission of the Government retained his gentleman’s clothes, watched the peach trees burst into a glory of intensest pink, and the apple trees toss their delicate bloom in rich masses through the balmy fragrant air.
A prey to keen anguish and despair, he never wandered far from his cell. The long, silent evenings overwhelmed him with despair; often he did not sleep at night, but tossed feverishly upon his hard straw pallet. When, in the morning, the guard, a great, tall fellow, whose red head brushed against the ceiling of the cell, would come in to make up the bed, Cassio was always dressed and standing before his tiny, barred window.
Outside the swallows were wheeling and fluttering about, their wings and breasts flashing in the sunshine. The prisoner did not deign to speak a word to the guard, nor did he take the slightest notice of the continual complaints, whistles, or gestures of his neighbor on the right; but when the exercise hour arrived and he was allowed to walk in the courtyard, he paced in haughty indifference, without even a glance at his companions, up and down the sad, dew-covered pavement.
The rumor spread through the prison that he was a very rich lord from Sardinia, a relation of the Direttore, and since the Direttore was feared and hated (though none of the prisoners knew the reason of this hate and fear, for the poor man had never done them any evil, except with his look of icy indifference), No. 245, within a week after his arrival, was hated, and strange to say, was feared.
Having requested permission to write, the first of April he was sent for into the office; through the barred window there penetrated a ray of pale sunshine, in whose light danced the shadows of a distant treetop. The Direttore, bent more than usual, was working at a gray table; he neither moved nor spoke for a long time, during which Cassio, standing upright and stiff, his eyes fixed on the branches trembling in the sunshine, grew hot with humiliation.
Ah! in the presence of the others, of that crowd of criminals, and the vile guards, he could at least give himself the satisfaction of taking refuge in a certain, scornful dignity; he was stronger than those who bound him, greater than those whom he would not even deign to call companions in misfortune, but in the presence of this little man, so ill and full of disdain, he must bow, must reply, must humiliate himself.
“You,” said the Direttore bruskly, turning around, but not rising, “are condemned to three years of simple detention for forgery; and you may write only once a month.”
His voice was rather weary, but the tone was pure Tuscan.
“I know it,” replied Cassio, “but I have not asked to be allowed to write to my own home, but on my own account, in my own cell.”
“It is not possible. Why do you not ask to be placed in the office of the clerks?”
“Is there chance of being allowed to do so?”
“Yes, there is every chance.”
That very day Cassio proffered his request, and on the next was placed in the office, where a great quantity of work was badly executed by three other prisoners. The room, which was next to that of the Direttore, was even more desolate and gloomy, and the three clerks, the first, fat and bald, with small, bleared eyes; the second, fair, pale, and with a transparent look, and the third a tall muscular young man, with black curly hair, and the face of a Roman emperor, made a bad impression on the new arrival.
They appeared resigned to, and even contented with, their melancholy fate. Cassio, on the other hand, experienced a profound disgust, which was but accentuated by the stupid resignation of his companions in misfortune—a very anguish of impotent desperation, and regretted his request. Better to have remained alone in his cell, with his hands clasping the bars of the little window, and before him the distant Apennines, that brought to him memories of his own native mountains, resounding with the neighing of his black charger, dashing in pursuit of the straying sheep—alone with his sentence and his sorrow!
He of the curly head, bolder than the other two, who contented themselves with casting stealthy glances at him, sought promptly, though respectfully, to make his acquaintance. (They knew that he had the same name as the Direttore, and so it was told among the other prisoners.)
“Are you a Sardinian?”
“Yes,” replied he coldly.
“Since Fate has sent you to this place, allow me—”
“A beautiful Fate!” interrupted Cassio bitterly, and cut off sharply the compliment the unfortunate man was about to present to the presumed great Sardinian signore. But he said nothing more himself, nor asked anything of the others.
Three days later, there arrived for him from Sardinia a letter bearing an air of indefinable elegance. The handwriting was large and firm, while a delicious, almost imperceptible fragrance escaped from the sheets.
The Direttore opened it, and read it with a certain hesitation and half feeling that he had been expecting it.
After all, he was a man who was still young; he had suffered much and loved much, and if his own sufferings had produced that profound indifference which passed for cruelty among the unhappiness it was his fate to control, there still remained in his heart something of sympathy and compassion. Had No. 245 been a poor devil, like almost all the other prisoners, instead of a most interesting personality, the Direttore, after the first day, would never have given him another thought. But this handsome young stranger, with his haughty, distinguished air, who had arrived surrounded by a romantic mystery, had attracted the attention of every one, as well as his own.
The queer stories current in the gloomy cells and dark corridors had also reached his ears.
The thought that there might be something of truth in them had even begun to pierce his customary indifference with a faint interest, which was augmented as he perused the letter.
Not that it contained anything of especial interest. It was written by a half-sister of Cassio.
An intense affection manifested itself through all the four sheets, a certain nameless sweetness, and exquisite suggestion of comfort and resignation.
“Have courage, Cassio, do not despair nor suffer too much; remember that we two are alone in the world, alone to love and believe in one another. The time will pass, and when God reunites us I will know how to recompense thee for the immense sacrifice thou hast made for me. Do not feel humiliated nor cast down; the good know that thy fault was an act of heroism—”
“Indeed,” thought the Direttore, “prisoners are always innocent, generally are victims, but that they should be heroes!”
This letter, so different from the vulgar epistles that were accustomed to come to the Penitentiary; so good, delicate, and loving, gave him food for reflection.
A sort of morbid curiosity took possession of him, against which he struggled in vain, to find out, to know everything. So that in spite of himself, though not contrary to the regulations of the establishment, which he scrupulously observed, he sent for No. 245, and on his arrival, he opened the conversation by explaining some difficult work to be done in the office, and then, fixing a look of close scrutiny upon him, said:
“Here is a letter for you.”
Cassio proffered never a word, but raised his head, and his face turned red to the tips of his ears.
And for the second time a wonderful thing happened. The Direttore of the Penitentiary envied his prisoner. For to the prisoner in his profound wretchedness had come a voice of comfort and affection, illuminating his dark horizon with a glory that was mirrored on his countenance, and to him, free and powerful, alone and lost in the infinite sadness of deep suffering, there never came one word of tenderness, one ray of light.
In spite of his emotion, Cassio perceived something abnormal was passing in the mind of the Direttore, and, astute Sardinian that he was, he took advantage to ask eagerly if he might not have the letter at once and read it there in the office.
Better there, under the badly concealed indifference of the little green eyes, than in the repulsive surroundings of his workroom, subject to the vulgar curiosity of the three clerks.
From that day he became more sociable, more resigned, and the Signore Direttore showed him a certain deference which did not escape the eyes of the others, and but confirmed the report of an assumed relationship.
“But still he did not receive permission to write until he had been there a month, though on the very day he was given two sheets. And his letter was not less affectionate than had been his sister’s, though less sweet and delicate; in every line was displayed the agony of helplessness:
“I have been here but a month, though it seems thirty years. I am beginning to be more resigned. They have put me in the clerk’s office, with three terrible strangers [this the Direttore erased], the work is hard, but it helps to pass the time. At first I could not accustom myself to it, now I am less desperate. The Signore Direttore is very kind to me. Yes, I know the time will pass somehow or other, but still I feel as if my sentence would be eternal; that the 987 days yet remaining are as boundless as the waves; but most of all do I suffer when I think of thee; and yet the thought brings me much comfort. Thou art so good. Please do not forget me and get married when I am away! But I am ashamed, my dear Paola, such a thing I well know is impossible. How could a good sister forget her unhappy brother? But all the same, when I am tossing sleeplessly on my narrow bed, the thought fills me with terror. Who could believe such a thing possible?
“Though I am now resigned to all, I did once believe in the justice of men. But what have they done to me? Write very soon and do not forget me. If that were to happen I would soon find a termination to my sufferings.”
Not a word nor thought for any one else, only for her! The answer arrived by return mail, together with clothes, books, and money.
The Signore Direttore felt anew the strange fascination of envy and longing, as he read the delightful, tender letter of Paola. She had not a word of reproach for the lack of confidence the unhappy man had shown in her, but said how grieved she was that he should be so sad, and assured him she would never marry until his return. She had, too, a good word for the Signore Direttore. “Love and respect him; he can do much for thee; can be like a father to thee” [“a brother, young lady,” thought the Direttore]. “I pray for thee and for him.”
“Thanks,” he murmured rather bitterly.
In the third letter, Cassio having asked what she was doing and how she passed the days:
“The days pass sadly in thy absence. I look after my affairs as well as I can, and often go into the country with my foster-parents. Poor things, they are a great comfort to me! We go on horseback, and these trips are my only diversion. In the house nothing new has happened. I am embroidering the tapestry I began at school, when my dreams were so different from the present reality. I am working into it certain rich Sardinian embroideries ferreted out by the foster-mother.
“I never see any one, but am always thinking of thee and counting the days.”
“Why in the world do not these people, who seem rich and cultivated, think of asking for a pardon?” the Direttore asked himself, and, rising, he went into the garden—where the Tuscan spring was rioting amid a very glory of roses, crimson, white, and yellow; while gleaming among the deep green of the shrubbery, like brilliant butterflies, moved about the little red caps of the prisoner gardeners—and fell into a strangely sweet strain of thought of which the tender, strong sister of No. 245 was the subject. In fancy he saw her, tall and dark, like her brother, with the pallor and distinguished appearance so marked in the prisoner; or bending patiently over her embroidery; or else trotting on her little Sardinian horse, her eyes half closed as she faced the ardent beams of the mid-day sun. Then, lost in wonder, he took himself to task for such boyish romance, till he worked himself into quite a frenzy of anger at his foolishness, which left him exhausted and more indifferent even than was his wont.
And so the months rolled by, bringing three or four more letters from Paola. In the last she promised to send her picture, if Cassio was quite sure he would be allowed to receive it.
“It is allowed,” wrote the Direttore at the bottom of the page before sending it to the prisoner.
For one, two, three weeks, in that great pile, under the overarching blue sky and ardent sunshine that turned it into a very furnace, two souls were awaiting with passionate eagerness, though under different aspects, that picture of a woman.
The waiting of Cassio was sweet and full of peace, amid the passive resignation that habit and hope had begun to plant in his heart. The pleasure of anticipation brought him almost a sentiment of happiness; he would rise up early in the morning with the thought that perhaps to-day he would receive it, and as he waited for the guard who came to conduct him to the office, he would turn to his little window and reach out his hands as if striving to gather in some of the freshness of the morning; and he was always thinking of the picture.
Outside the swallows were flitting and wheeling as they sang, their wings and tails gleaming in the sunshine; the yellow corn surrounded with its golden glory the shining green of the distant vineyards, while farther away, the watching Apennines shone in the luminous morning air. The prisoner called to mind the crimson dawns of his native mountains, brilliant with flowering yellow broom, then his thoughts turned to the expected picture, till he felt a vague feeling that was almost happiness.
The Direttore quitted his bed with a face even paler than was its wont, and he, too, thought of the picture; but his waiting was made up of a strange mingling of restlessness, bitterness, and anger against himself, because he could not overcome his foolish curiosity, his foolish sentimentalism, the foolish interest “these people” awakened in him.
He went into the garden, and then into his bureau, and did his duty, performing all his tiresome work, and with cold eyes, and hands in his pockets, inspected those men clad in their prison garb of shame, but all the time he was waiting for the picture. In the bottom of his heart, under his anger and cruel indifference, there glimmered a spark of joy, from which a tiny ray sprang into his eyes and stayed there. And this spark, this hidden ray of light, burst into brilliant flame on the arrival of the picture, so instinct with life and loveliness and charm. She was not in the least as his fancy had pictured her; for hers was a blond and delicate loveliness. The beautiful dark eyes, and the delicately curved lips and dimpled chin were suffused with an infinite sweetness. It was the same ineffable sweetness as filled her letters, a fragrance exhaled from every word and this mysterious and suggestive fascination it was which had conquered the soul of this silent man, who was thought cruel and was feared and hated only because he was a poor dreamer.
The letter accompanying the photograph was, as usual, full of sweetness and charm.
“I was thinking of thee and smiling when the picture was taken; may it bring thee a little joy and comfort in hoping for better days. Read in my eyes all that I would fain say to thee.”
Just here, the Direttore, too, looked into the eyes of the picture, then finished reading the letter, only to return to gaze on the picture, turning it so the full light should fall upon it, until the face seemed to assume a sort of reality, the lovely eyes to shine, the lips to smile.
“Oh, Dio! What a fool I am!” said Signore Longino to himself; but in his heart he was thinking: “How would this exquisite creature write to her lover, if she writes thus to her brother!” And then he fell to thinking sadly, that he was small, ugly, almost old, hated and feared by all those unfortunates whom his cold eyes dominated.
Once more he read the letter and gazed at the glowing picture, and—and that day neither the one nor the other were given to the prisoner.
That night the Signore Direttore had a queer dream; he thought a mutiny had broken out among the prisoners and they yelled and shook their chains and rushed upon him. He held Paola’s picture in his hands and could neither move nor defend himself, for then the picture would fall to the ground and No. 245 would know that he had stolen it. But just as he was about to be killed by the prisoners, Cassio threw himself between, crying: “Leave him alone, for he is to marry my sister, and then he will become good because she is so good.”
He waked up bathed in perspiration, and passed the rest of the night sleeplessly tossing about his bed.
Cassio, in the meanwhile, was waiting patiently, though as the days passed a vague anxiety disposed his new-found repose. A week went by and still no picture came, and he had waited so long! so long! What could be happening over yonder, beyond the sunlit sea among the purple solitudes of the fragrant thyme-scented mountains? Paola must be ill—or had she forgotten him? Cassio fell back into the agonized despair of his first days. He asked, but was refused, permission to telegraph. With difficulty he got permission to write two days sooner than his allotted month.
His letter was so sad and full of despair that the Direttore felt more than ever ashamed of his deed; for two weeks he had lived in torment, and while he seemed more cruel and hard than ever, his little, green eyes fell sadly upon the prisoners, for at last he understood how, against his will, a man might be led into crime. As he read the sad letter of No. 245, he murmured again: “But why do not they ask for pardon?” And he became aware that with the new-found pity awakened for No. 245 mingled a certain egotism of hope, that then he could speak frankly to the prisoner—one no longer—and say: “Signore, I may be a fool, but all the same I have fallen desperately in love with your sister, whom I have never seen. Will you give her to me for my wife?”
Paola telegraphed at once that she had sent another photograph by registered mail. In the eagerness for the peace of her poor prisoner, she pretended she had not sent a picture, and had been unable to write on account of a lot of reasons, which she detailed at length, principally she had been unable to be photographed before.
“How good she is!” thought the Direttore in admiration, and he felt inclined to write and tell her everything.
But of course he did not do so. “She will think I am mad, and will fear for her brother.”
And so the summer passed and autumn approached; prisoners came and went. In the office the three clerks were not only resigned, but even happy, but showed an ill-concealed dislike for the haughty Sardinian, who, to an extent, was himself resigned. Only amid the sweetness of the autumn, when the dawn flooded the pure sky with crimson and gold or the setting sun threw his red beams on the sad walls, he was tortured with longing for freedom and home; and he fretted like a horse taken from his free pastures and shut up in confinement; but he was learning to control these rebellions and to immerse himself to the lips in hope and dreams of the future, till the present seemed scarcely a reality. But when winter came and the Apennines were black with storm clouds, and the angry rain pelted incessantly the grim fortress, Cassio felt his nerves snap like cords stretched too far. During the day the three heads of the clerks, pinched with cold, the blear blue eyes, the transparent profile, the head like the Roman emperor, appeared to him as in some tortured vision, awakening within him a brutal desire to seize some object and crush them to pieces. This desire increased from day to day, and was at times so intense that Cassio experienced the strange sensation of having realized it. Once in his cell he would come to himself and understand that he hated the three unfortunate clerks because they represented during those terrible winter days all the human power that was torturing him, against which his inmost soul revolted. His nights were almost sleepless. Outside the wind was roaring with a suggestion of distant torrents. Amid the darkness and roar of elements Cassio lost all perception of time, and as he tossed on his narrow bed, blessed visions came at last to his storm-tossed heart. The sighing of the wind in his distant well-loved mountains; the prints of the wild boar among the green ferns; the noisy stream bounding from rock to rock; the partridges flitting among the flowering oleanders; the joyful neighing of his black horse, and, above all else, the smile of Paola.
But with the gray dawn the sweetness of dreams was turned into bitter reality, and no one knows what might have happened to the three clerks had he not been one day providentially summoned to the Direttore’s office.
The Signore Direttore deigned to ask a favor. He had been sent a little fragrant plant with a few slender, dry branches; it had come from Sardinia, and he wanted to know if the prisoner could tell him anything about it.
Cassio took the slender branches in his long, delicate hands, and inhaled its fragrance with closed eyes. The perfume brought him a vision of the green mountains of Gennargentu. An intense homesickness thrilled him.
“It is the tirtillo.”
“The tirtillo. I thought so. The precious secret of the Sardinian shepherds that gives its especial aroma to the Sardinian cheese.”
Cassio bowed in assent.
“The famous tirtillo,” continued the Direttore, “the new cure for epizootic.”
“In Sardinia it has been used for centuries,” replied Cassio humbly. “Many things that on the continent pass for discoveries are well known on the island.”
The Direttore did not reply, but turned his back and resumed his writing, and apparently all was over, when, suddenly turning around, he addressed Cassio without looking at him.
“Has a pardon been asked for you?”
“Yes; after the sentence in the Court of Cassation I appealed in the Giudiziarie of Cagliari.”
“To whom did you appeal?”
“To the Ministry.”
“That was unfortunate. The Ministry when appealed to never decides. Often the prisoner has finished his term before they arrive at any conclusion.”
Cassio looked very grave.
“It would be better to send your request to the Queen; it would sooner be obtained.”
“Pardon me,” returned Cassio, bowing his head, “but is there a chance that it would be obtained?”
“If the request should be made by your sister, it would be granted.” answered the other bruskly, and again he turned his back so that he should not see the prisoner’s emotion, and the latter should not see the Direttore’s confusion.
This time the conversation was really over, and Cassio was reconducted to his office. But he was really another man; the presence of his three unhappy companions aroused his compassion, but no longer his hatred. Around his thin fingers still lingered the fragrance of the tirtillo, and, raising them to his mouth, he inhaled the fresh sweetness of his distant meadows.
And probably for the first time, the Direttore was sincerely loved by one of his prisoners.
Cassio wrote to Paola begging her to ask the Queen for a pardon.
“You can make the request for yourself, without having recourse to the formal process of the law. Explain things as they are. I hope and bless him who has counseled it.”
And so the winter passed. In the limpid dawn of a February day, Cassio was standing before his grated window; his face was pale and bloodless, but his eyes were shining with hope. From the Apennines, which raised their lofty, white crests into the crystal azure of the sky, there came a delicious odor of snow; long strips of vivid green were scattered over the valley, and already in the garden the apricot trees were displaying their rosy blossoms.
Cassio felt his blood dance through his veins with the mysterious expectation of coming happiness; all the glories of the opening spring seemed reflected in his soul.
Another man, free, in his cold and melancholy rooms, felt the same tumultuous, though sweet sensation; his green eyes reflected the tender splendor of the budding season, his heart enclosed a precious shrine.
There came a day when the inquiry of the Ministry into the conduct of the prisoner, Cassio Longino de Isidoro, reached him. The Direttore’s reply was of the best. He did not know why No. 245 had been guilty of forgery, but he believed him to be an honest young man, of fine morals and excellent education. By the same mail he also sent to an intimate in the Bureau a letter that, coming from such a person as Signore Longino, could not fail to effect.
Whether it was instrumental in bringing about the result or not, the decree of pardon and order for freedom arrived very soon after—when Cassio had been there just a year.
Once more he was summoned to the Direttore’s office. Outside, the air was balmy and fragrant, and the sky of deepest blue. Inside, the shadows of distant branches trembled in the sunshine that poured in through the barred window. The Direttore was seated at his table, but this time he rose as Cassio entered. The youth noticed it, but did not dare to give words to the wild hope that sprung up within him, but he felt his heart beat with a violence that well-nigh choked him.
“The decree has arrived,” said the Direttore, and he was holding something in his hand.
“The decree?”
“The decree of pardon.”
“For whom?” asked Cassio eagerly.
The Direttore began to lose patience.
“For whom but for you?” And he rejoiced in the deep emotion shown by the young man. So much the better; if the thing was so great as to seem impossible, so much the greater would be his gratitude. But then he thought sadly: Suppose his efforts should result in failure! If in the excess of his gratitude Cassio should give him false hopes!
“For me! for me!” stammered the poor youth. “For me! For how long?”
“For all the rest of your sentence. You are free—that is, not at once, but after a few formalities, in a week at most.”
Gradually Cassio pulled himself together. At first he had gazed at the Direttore without seeing him. Now he began to look at him. He observed his pale face was flushed, that the air of physical suffering had disappeared, that the small, green eyes were shining.
He, on the other hand, was trembling violently, his face was ashy, his hands cold, and a mist floated before his eyes.
“This man is fine, when he is rejoicing in the happiness of another. How I have misjudged him,” he thought. Then he asked himself: “But why did he do it?”
He was to know very soon.
The Direttore begged him to be seated; he showed him the decree, and profited by the moment in which Cassio was looking at the King’s signature to begin:
“Now, I have something else to tell you. Listen and do not judge hastily. I have long been awaiting this moment, and the thing seemed easy, but now I see I need great courage and you great indulgence if we are to understand each other.”
He smiled sadly, and the old expression of suffering returned once more.
Cassio looked at him stupidly, still confused with the weight of his happiness, but beginning to gain his self-control. The other understood that his opportunity was slipping away and hastened to speak, though, in spite of every effort, his voice trembled.
“I scarcely know how to express myself so you may understand everything; but I have confidence in your intelligence. Listen. I have done everything in my power to obtain that piece of paper there”—and he pointed to the decree, and Cassio, following his gesture, sat gazing at the sheet—“and, above all, I did so because I felt you deserved it.” (“Does he know my story?” Cassio asked himself, feeling that his deserts in prison had been very few.) “I do not ask for gratitude, indeed I will be thankful if you will not allow that sentiment to influence you at all. I wish to speak to you as one gentleman to another.” (“Heavens! does he think me a grand Signore and wish to ask me for money?” thought Cassio. “I am not ungrateful, but what can he want of me?”) “Now you are free and are at liberty to act as seems good to you.”
“Speak,” returned the other, with a sad impatience, “whatever lies in my power—”
“I do not know if it lies in your power.”
“Speak! Speak!”
“Listen, but do not ill-judge me, nor think me insane. While reading your sister’s letters, I have learned to appreciate so good and noble a soul, and—” (“Oh, Dio mio! he has fallen in love with her!” cried Cassio to himself, and the world grew suddenly dark.) “I have learned to love her. Do not laugh at me. I am still young!”
But Cassio felt small inclination to laugh.
“Have you written to her?” he asked bruskly.
“No, certainly not. Pray do not be offended. I have not allowed myself so great a privilege. Only to you—”
“But it is impossible, not to be thought of—impossible!” interrupted Cassio, striking as he spoke the paper which was lying on his knees, till it rustled.
“It seems impossible, but it is true; and though it may be strange, it is not the first time it has happened. My demand is serious, Signore Longino. Can your sister accept it?”
“What demand?”
The other thought a moment. “This young man is laboring under too much excitement; I was wrong to speak to him so suddenly. He is not in a state to hear it.”
“My proposal of marriage.”
Cassio did not reply at once. By a terrible effort he controlled himself. When the mist cleared from his eyes he turned and looked at the Direttore, and beheld him as in the past, pale, suffering, and ugly and into his terrible pain there fell one drop of comfort—she would not accept him, he felt sure.
“But,” he asked, “have you reflected what you are doing? Have you written to my country and obtained information? In such cases—”
“I have not written. What would be the good? I know your sister, that she is good and noble, I desire nothing more. I, too, am all alone.”
“You are too good. I do not know how to properly express my gratitude. Do not fear you are not understood. I both understand and admire you. I feel myself greatly honored by your offer, and if it remained with me—but let me assure you I will do all in my power. Do not despair.”
He rose and rolled up the pardon, looking at it with ill-concealed bitterness as he towered over the small person of the Direttore, who approached with extended hand to express his thanks. He asked permission to return to his cell and unroll his bed. Everything was granted him. As he threw himself on his comfortless cot he groaned in agony. Paola was not his sister, but his fiancée. For her he had soiled his honor, compromised his future, and broken with his family. She alone remained to him. She had feigned to be his sister in order that she might write to him. And must he lose her now? That other possessed a splendid position, was good and noble. Had he a right to snatch such a brilliant future from Paola? He had sacrificed to her his honor and well-nigh two years of liberty, but she had not asked the sacrifice of him, and was it right that in exchange he should ask for her whole life? In any case she must decide for herself, and at the bottom of his heart he felt secure of her—but it made him wretched to think he had deceived and was still deceiving so noble and excellent a man.
“I will tell him everything, come what may,” he decided after an hour of anxious thought, then uncertainty took possession of him once more. “No, I will say nothing. After all he has no right to know, and I will write when I reach home. After all he did it only because he wanted to on his own account. His cat-like eyes fill me with distrust; perhaps he would do me some harm.”
Later he grew ashamed of his distrust, and cried out loud in his lonely cell, “Am I indeed vile?”
Approaching the grating, he stood gazing at the white, diaphanous clouds piled up on the horizon; they had assumed the shape and coloring of an alabaster staircase whose luminous steps disappeared into the unsealed heights. Cassio, as he looked, was overwhelmed with an intense homesickness, and suddenly he felt good and pure, as if he had indeed mounted to the last step of those silver stairs and caught from that height a glimpse of his beloved native land. He murmured:
“Had it not been for him I should have languished here for yet a weary time. I might have died or committed some madness. I will tell everything, let the result be what it may.”
He waited anxiously the hour when it would be possible for him to see the Direttore, then addressed him in clear tones:
“See, Signore Direttore, I have been thinking of what you were very good enough to tell me this morning.”
“Very well,” answered the other, though he feared for the result.
“Before entering upon the subject, please allow me to tell you in a few words of the strange circumstances of my condemnation for,” he added, smiling sadly, “I am bold enough to believe you do not think me guilty.”
The other man said never a word.
“Listen. For ten years I have loved a maiden of my own country. She was rich, but an orphan living with her guardian. I was sent away to college and was absent many years. On my return I learned that the poor girl, although she had attained her majority, was kept in subjection and badly treated by her guardian, who had possessed himself of all her property. He gave her nothing, but kept her shut up and frightened with terrible threats. I succeeded in communicating with her, and, finding that she loved me, I vowed to free her and restore her property. 'Let us be married,’ she said, 'and I will fly with you.’ But as my intentions might involve me in many difficulties, I would not accept her offer. I assisted her to take refuge with friends, and when she was in safety I began my operations.
“And can you guess what I did? I almost think so. I forged the name of her guardian, and since he was very rich and well known at home and abroad, and his credit was illimitable, I obtained a good deal of money. I placed all in the name of the young girl and waited. When the notes fell due, all became known. I had foolishly hoped I should be considered a hero. Instead I was seized, vilified, condemned. My little property was taken, my family disowned me. She, alone of all the world, remains to me, and she, Signore Direttore, is Paola.”
The Signore Direttore remained absolutely silent. What, indeed could he say? He only felt that Cassio’s story and his own seemed impossible, though he knew but too well it was but too true. Cassio understood him perfectly.
“It is strange, impossible, is it not? Had I been told it, I would not have believed it.”
“Life is strange,” said the other at last, and he clenched his hands till the nails penetrated the flesh. “The ways of destiny are indeed mysterious.”
“He is resigned,” thought Cassio, and he hazarded another remark.
“Life is often a terrible romance.” But looking the Direttore in the face he saw an expression of such agony imprinted as caused him to retract his thought of a moment before.
“But see,” he continued, “in spite of everything I will do all in my power to prove my gratitude.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me speak. It was my duty to let you know the exact truth, but you have been so good to me that I give you my word of honor, as a gentleman, that I will do everything—”
“What are you saying? What are you saying?” repeated the other in a strange tone, as if he were listening to distant voices, and not to Cassio’s words.
“After all, Paola alone can decide. I will tell her everything, as if I were indeed her brother and nothing more.”
“Oh, no! No! What are you saying?”
“Nay, if you will allow it I will write this very day, and we will await her reply. Perhaps when it comes I will not need to return to my own country.”
“What are you saying?” repeated the Direttore; but now his voice had regained its strength, and, raising his eyes, he looked Cassio full in the face. “You must not write, but return at once to your home, where, I prophesy, every happiness awaits you. From the bottom of my heart I hope so. And yet, who would ever have imagined it! You are right. Life is a terrible romance.”
“But,” Cassio persisted, “let me write. I beg it of you as a personal favor. You will see the debt I owe you can never be canceled, and duty should be stronger than love. Paola will be much more fortunate with the Direttore than with me, and above all things I desire her happiness and well-being.”
The other listened patiently; once his eyes flashed with a vivid light, but he remained immovable.
“See,” he concluded, after having expressed his appreciation of Cassio’s generosity, “if your duty is to prove yourself grateful and generous toward the signorina, her duty is no less to make you happy and recompense you for all you have suffered.”
“But—” interrupted Cassio.
“One moment—let me finish, please. If the signorina were to act otherwise, she would not be the noble, lofty being I have imagined her, and then my offer would no longer exist. Do you understand? Am I not right?”
But Cassio answered never a word, and the Direttore turned toward the window. And the soul of each was full to overflowing. Cassio thought but of his happiness, and the Direttore reminded himself with bitterness that in any case his dream was lost to him forever.
RAILROAD AND CHURCHYARD
BY BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON
Björnson, said to be the first great figure in Norway to teach the bourgeoisie to rise by their own efforts, was born in 1832. In 1860 appeared his epoch-making story of peasant life, “Arne,” and the trilogy, “Sigurd Slembe,” and other plays. Declaring for the separation of Norway and Sweden, he became chief of the Republican Party. The critic Brandes says: “The mention of his name among his countrymen is like running up the national flag.”
Two sharply marked periods appear in Björnson’s literary career—the first, romantic, religious, in which he wrote, among other things, Norway’s national hymn; the second, from 1874 on, being realistic, critical, aggressive. His vigorous imagination, love of truth, excessive yet sincere enthusiasm, are in a style so compressed as to be at times almost obscure. Björnson has been called the “Creator of the National Drama in Norway,” the “Great Rival of Ibsen,” the “Victor Hugo of Norway.”