CHAPTER VI
Angela lived for weeks in a state of sleepless apathy, so far as her companion could see. She scarcely spoke, and ate barely enough to keep herself alive. She seemed not to sleep at all, for two or three times during every night Madame Bernard got up and came to her room, and she always found her lying quite motionless on her back, her eyes wide open and staring at the tasteless little pattern of flowers stencilled in colours on the ceiling. Once Madame Bernard proposed to take away the night-light that burned in a cup on the floor, but Angela shook her head almost energetically. She never opened a book either, nor occupied herself in any way, but seemed content to sit still all day and to lie awake all night, never complaining, and never even speaking unless her friend asked her a direct question. Every morning at sunrise she put on her hat and went to the ancient church of San Crisogono, which is served by Trinitarian monks. Sometimes Madame Bernard went with her, but more often she was accompanied by the one woman-servant who cooked and did the housework.
The unhappy girl found neither consolation nor hope in the daily service; she went to it because, somehow, it seemed to be the only thing she could do for the dead. She knelt down every day on the same spot, and remained kneeling till after the priest and the acolyte were gone; she took her missal with her, but never looked at it, and her lips never moved in prayer; she felt no impulse to go to confession, nor any devotional craving for the Communion. The mass was a mere form to her, but she attended it regularly, as if she expected that much of herself and would not do less than the least that seemed to be her duty. That was all. Prayer in any form of words frightened her, for it soon brought her near to that blinding darkness which she had already met twice and had learned to dread; her present misfortune was incomparably greater than those that had gone before, and she was sure that if the outer night rose round her again it would take her soul down into itself to eternal extinction. If she had been physically stronger, she might have tried to call this a foolish delusion; weak as she was, and growing daily weaker, it seemed as certain as that her body must perish instantly if she walked over a precipice. The past was distorted, the present had no meaning, and there was no future; she vaguely understood Dante's idea that the body may be left on earth, apparently alive, for years after the soul has departed from it, for the evil Alberigo's spirit told the poet that his own body and Branca d'Oria's were still animated by demons when their souls were already in the torment of the eternal ice. But Angela felt rather as if her living self were a mere senseless shell, uninhabited by any spirit, bad or good, and moved by the mechanics of nature rather than by her own will or another's.
Madame Bernard watched her with growing anxiety as the days and weeks brought no change. The little lodging in Trastevere was very silent, and Coco sat disconsolately drooping his wings on his perch when his mistress was out, as she was during more than half the day, giving the lessons by which she and Angela lived. The girl sometimes did not move from her chair throughout the long morning any more than if she had been paralysed, or at most she tried to tend the flowers. The roses were blooming now, and on fine days, when the windows were open, the aromatic perfume of the young carnations floated in with the sunbeams. Angela did not notice the scent, and for all the pleasure the blossoms gave her they might have been turnips and potatoes. But there was a feeble underlying thought of duty in plucking off a small withered leaf here and there, and in picking out the tiny weeds that tried to grow round the flower-stems. From very far away she heard Madame Bernard telling her, an age ago, that she could tend the flowers and take care of the parrot by way of helping in the house.
Coco regarded her efforts with melancholy contempt, and turned his back on her when she came near him, and even when she changed the water in his tin cup. As he only drank three or four drops in a day, it probably seemed to him a work of supererogation. While his mistress was out he rarely uttered a sound; but when he heard her footstep in the short passage outside, he gave vent to his feelings and hailed her return with boisterous shouts and unearthly whistling of old French military tunes. Even the noise he made did not disturb Angela; she hardly heard him, for her nerves were not overwrought, but deadened almost to insensibility.
Madame Bernard consulted a young doctor, a man of talent, who was taking lessons of her for the sake of his practice among foreigners. She used to say that between her pupils, and their friends and relations, she could get the best advice on any matter without paying a penny for it. The young physician answered that he could not help her much without seeing the patient, but that the best thing for Angela would be to eat and sleep well and not to fret.
Some such idea had probably occurred to the little Frenchwoman, for she laughed gaily in the doctor's face, and he, not being paid to look serious, joined in her laughter.
'You cannot say it is bad advice,' he said, 'and you wanted me to say something. Let me see the young lady, and I will tell you honestly whether I know of anything that will do her good, as I would tell a colleague.'
They agreed that he should call one evening on pretence of taking an extra lesson in a leisure hour; he came at the appointed time, and watched Angela narrowly during the short time she remained in the room. When she was gone, he gave his opinion without hesitation.
'The best thing for her would be a good illness,' he said. 'You look surprised! I will try to explain. That young lady is stronger than you think. It would do her a world of good to shed tears, but she cannot because her unconscious power of resistance has been exercised till it has grown rigid. You have heard of Hindu devotees who hold up one arm till it stiffens in that position, so that they could not move it if they tried. That is an image of what I mean, unless it is the thing itself. After learning the terrible news Donna Angela unconsciously steeled herself against her natural impulse to break down. She has a strong will, and the result is what you see. The strain of resisting was so great that it deadened her to all sensation in a few hours. If she could fall ill, the tension would relax; in my opinion it will do so when her physical strength is worn out by starvation and lack of sleep, but a simple specific malady, like the whooping-cough or the measles, would be better for her. If you cannot break up her present condition, and if she has any organic weakness of the heart, it may stop beating one of these days. That is what is called dying of a broken heart, my dear Madame Bernard. There is no medicine against that like a broken leg!'