'Begin! Ah, I have not ended—I shall not end when I die, but always while he is alive my soul shall pursue him, day and night, and I will—' she broke off. 'But you, too—you must wish him evil—you, all of us—then the evil will go with him always, if many of us cast it on him!'
She was like a terrible witch, with her pale face and dishevelled hair, and gaunt arms that made violent gestures.
'Speak, child!' she cried again. 'Curse him for your dead brother!'
'No. I will never do that,' said Vittoria.
A new light came into the raving woman's eyes.
'You love him!' she exclaimed, half choking. 'I know you love him—'
With a violent movement she pushed Vittoria away from her, almost throwing her to the ground. Then she fell back on the couch, and slowly turned her face away, covering her eyes with both her hands. Her whole body quivered, and then was still, then shook more violently, and then, all at once, she broke into a terrible sobbing, that went on and on as though it would never stop while she had breath and tears left.
Vittoria came back to her seat and waited patiently, for there was nothing else to be done. And the sound of the woman's weeping was so monotonous and regular that the girl did not always hear it, but looked across at the half-closed blinds of the window and thought of her own life, and wondered at all its tragedy, being herself half stunned and dazed.
It was bad enough, as it appeared to her, but could she have known it all as it was to be, and all that she did not yet know of her brother Tebaldo's evil nature, she might, perhaps, have done like her mother, and covered her eyes with her hands, and sobbed aloud in terror and pain.
That might be said of very many lives, perhaps. And yet men do their best to tear the veil of the future, and to look through it into the darkened theatre which is each to-morrow. And many, if they knew the price and the struggle, would give up the prize beyond; but not knowing, and being in the fight, they go on to the end. And some of them win.