Cecilia: A Story of Modern Rome

by F. Marion Crawford

After that there was nothing to be done but to watch and wait, and hear the broken phrases that fell from the sick man's lips, now high, now low, now laughing, now despairing, as if a host of mad spirits were sporting with his helpless brain and body and mocking each other with his voice.

So it went on, hour after hour, and all the next day, till his strength seemed almost spent. Lamberti listened, because he could not help it when he was in the room, and again and again Cecilia's name rang out, and the first passionate words of speeches that ran into incoherent sounds and were drowned in a groan.

Lamberti had nursed men who were ill and had seen them die in several ways, but he had never taken care of one who was very near to him. It was bad enough, but it was worse to know that he had an unwilling share in causing his friend's suffering, and to feel that if Guido lived he must some day be told that Lamberti had taken his place. It was strangest of all to hear the name of the woman he loved so constantly on another's lips. When the two men talked of her she had always been "the Contessina," while she had been "Cecilia" in the hearts of both.

There was something in the thought of not having told Guido all before the delirium seized him, that still offended Lamberti's scrupulous loyalty. It would be almost horrible if Guido should die without knowing the truth. Somehow, his consent still seemed needful to Lamberti's love, and it seemed so to Cecilia, too, and there was no denying that he was now in danger of his life. If he was to die, there would probably be a lucid hour before death, but what right would his best friend have to embitter those final moments for one who would certainly go out of this world with no hope of the next? Yet, when he was gone at last, would it be no slur on the memory of such true friendship to do what would have hurt him, if he could have known of it? Lamberti was not sure. Like some strong men of rough temperament, he had hidden delicacies of feeling that many a girl would have thought foolish and exaggerated, and they were the more sensitive because they were so secret, and he never suffered outward things to come in contact with them, nor spoke of them, even to Guido.

Some people said that Guido was Quixotic, and he was certainly the personification of honour. If the papers Lamberti had safe in his pocket had come into Guido's possession as they had come into Lamberti's own, Guido would have sent them back to Princess Anatolie, quite sure that she had a right to them, whether they were partly forged or not, because he had originally given them to her and nothing could induce him to take them back. The reason why Guido's illness had turned into brain fever was simply that he believed his honourable reputation among men to have been gravely damaged by an article in a newspaper. Honour was his god, his religion, and his rule of life; it was all he had beyond the material world, and it was sacred. He had not that something else, simple but undefinable, and as sensitive as an uncovered nerve, that lay under his friend's rougher character and sturdier heart. Nature would never have chosen him to be one instrument in that mysterious harmony of two sleeping beings which had linked Cecilia and Lamberti in their dreams. It was not the melancholy and intellectual Cassius who trembled before Cæsar's ghost at Philippi; it was rough Brutus, the believer in himself and the man of action.

The illness ran its course. While it continued Lamberti went every other day to the Palazzo Massimo and told the two ladies of Guido's state. He and Cecilia looked at each other silently, but she never showed that she wished to be alone with him, and he made no attempt to see her except in her mother's presence. Both felt that Guido was dying, and knew that they had some share in his sufferings. As soon as the Countess learned that the danger was real she gave up all thought of leaving Rome, and there was no discussion about it between her and her daughter. She was worldly and often foolish, but she was not unkind, and she had grown really fond of Guido since the spring. So they waited for the turn of the illness, or for its sudden end, and the days dragged on painfully. Lamberti was as lean as a man trained for a race, and the cords stood out on his throat when he spoke, but nothing seemed to tire him. The good Countess lost her fresh colour and grew listless, but she complained only of the heat and the solitude of Rome in summer, and if she felt any impatience she never showed it. Cecilia was as slender and pale as one of the lilies of the Annunciation, but her eyes were full of light. In the early morning she often used to go with her maid to the distant church of Santa Croce, and late in the afternoons she went for long drives with her mother in the Campagna. Twice Lamberti came to luncheon, and the three were silent and subdued when they were together.

Then the news came that Princess Anatolie had died suddenly at her place in Styria, and one of the secretaries of the Austrian embassy, who was obliged to stay in town, came to the Palazzo Massimo the same afternoon and told the Countess some details of the old lady's death. There was certainly something mysterious about it, but no one regretted her translation to a better world, though it put a number of high and mighty persons into mourning for a little while.

She died in the drawing-room after dinner, almost with her coffee cup in her hand. It was the heart, of course, said the young secretary. Two or three of her relations were staying in the house, and one of them was the man who had been at her dinner-party given for the engaged couple, and who resembled Guido but was older. The Countess remembered his name very well. It had leaked out that he was exceedingly angry at the article in the Figaro and had said one or two sharp things to the Princess, when Monsieur Leroy had come in unexpectedly, though the Princess had sent him away for a few days. No one knew exactly what followed, but Monsieur Leroy was an insolent person and the Princess's cousin was not patient of impertinence nor of anything like an attack on Guido d'Este. It was said that Monsieur Leroy had left the room hastily and that the other had followed him at once, in a very bad temper, and that the Princess, who thought Monsieur Leroy was going to be badly hurt, if not killed, had died of fright, without uttering a word or a cry. She had always been unaccountably attached to Monsieur Leroy. The secretary glanced at Cecilia, asked for another cup of tea, and discreetly changed the subject, fearing that he had already said a little too much.

"I believe Guido may recover, now that she is dead," Lamberti said, when he heard the story.

The change in Guido's state came one night about eleven o'clock, when Lamberti and the French nun were standing beside the bed, looking into his face and wondering whether he would open his eyes before he died. He had been lying motionless for many hours, turned a little on one side, and his breathing was very faint. There seemed to be hardly any life left in the wasted body.