Alas! in this difficult debate, a grievous instinct inclined me to consider my own comfort more than hers. And without the least doubt I should have chosen the method of the sudden departure and the explanatory letter, if I had not been prevented from doing so out of regard for my mother. It was absolutely necessary to spare my mother, always, at any cost. This time, too, I could not rid myself of the inner sarcasm: "At any cost. What generosity! But it is very easy for you to return to the old conventions, and, further, very safe. This time, also, if you exact it, the victim will endeavor to smile, while she feels she is dying. Count on her, therefore, and do not concern yourself about the rest, O generous heart!"
At times, truly, man finds a singular joy in feeling a sincere and supreme contempt for himself.
"What are you thinking of, Tullio?" Juliana inquired of me with a naïve gesture, touching me between the eyebrows with the tip of her finger, as if to arrest my thought.
I took her hand without replying. And my very silence, that appeared grave to me, sufficed to modify anew the condition of my mind. There was so much gentleness in the voice, in the gesture, of the poor deluded woman that I became tender, and felt arise the enervating emotion that causes tears to flow and which is called pity for one's self. I felt a keen desire to be pitied. At the same time, an inner voice whispered: "Profit by this disposition of your soul; but, for the time being, reveal nothing. By slightly exaggerating, you will succeed in weeping, without difficulty. You well know the prodigious effect on a woman of the tears of a man whom she loves. Juliana will be distracted by them; and you yourself will seem to be crushed by some terrible grief. Then, to-morrow, when you tell her the truth, the recollection of your tears will raise you in her regard. She may think: 'This is then the reason why he wept yesterday. Poor fellow!' And it will be to your advantage not to be taken for an odious egotist; on the contrary, people will think that you have vainly fought with all your might against the evil influences that have possession of you, and that you are afflicted with some incurable malady, that you bear in your bosom a broken heart. Profit, therefore, by the opportunity."
"Have you anything on your conscience?" asked Juliana, in a low, caressing voice, full of confidence.
I bent my head, and, assuredly, was affected. But the preoccupation of these useful tears caused a diversion in my feelings by interrupting the spontaneity, and, in consequence, retarded the physiological phenomena of tears. "If I could not weep? Suppose the tears do not come?" I thought with ridiculous and puerile fear, as if my fate depended on this slight material fact that my will did not suffice to produce. And yet a voice always the same whispered inwardly: "What a mistake! What a mistake! No opportunity could be more propitious. One can scarcely see one's self in this room. What effect sobbing would have in the dark!"
"You do not answer me, Tullio," went on Juliana, after a short silence, passing her hand over my face and through my hair to compel me to raise my face. "You know you can tell me everything."
Ah! in truth, never since then have I heard a human voice of such sweetness. Even my mother had never spoken to me like that.
My eyes became moist, and I felt between my lids the warmth of the tears. "Quick, this is the moment, you must burst out." But it was only a solitary tear. And (shall I make the humiliating confession? but it is in the comedy of similar puerilities that the manifestations of the major part of human emotions are lowered)—and I raised my face to permit Juliana to notice it, and for an instant I felt an insane anxiety because I feared that, in the dark, she would be unable to see the tear glisten. To attract her attention to it I gave a deep sigh, as one does when trying to repress a sob. Bringing her face close to mine, so as to examine it more closely and made uneasy by my prolonged silence, she repeated:
"You don't answer me?"