"To-morrow night, or rather this night, for its already morning, I shall expect you. Don't fail me. Come, my adored one, my darling, my beloved bridegroom, come! I shall expect you as a flower expects the dew after a day of burning sun. Come! revive me, make me forget. My lips shall be laid on yours like——"
"No! no! no!" cried Anania convulsively, crumpling the letter before he had read the last lines, "I won't come! You are bad! bad! bad! I shall die, but I shan't see you again!"
With the letter crushed in his hand, he threw himself on his bed, burying his face in the pillow, biting it, restraining the sobs which rose in his throat. A shudder of passion ran through him, rising like a wave from his feet to his head. The last lines had filled him with tumultuous desire for Margherita's kisses, a desire as violent as it was despairing.
Little by little he regained self-control and knew what he was experiencing. He had seen the naked Margherita, and he felt for her a delirious love, and a disgust so great as to annihilate that very love.
How mean, how despicable she was! and consciously. The goddess, veiled in majesty and goodness, had thrown off her golden robes, and appeared naked, daubed with egotism and unkindness. The taciturn minerva had opened her lips to curse. The symbolic image had burst like a fruit rosy without, black and poisonous within. She was complete woman with all her savage wiles.
But the worst torment was the thought that Margherita guessed his secret sentiments. That she was right in reproving his deceptions, in asking the fulfilment of his duties of gratitude and love.
"It's all over!" he thought. "It was bound to end like this."
He got up and reread the letter. Every word offended and humiliated him. Margherita had loved him out of compassion, believing him as despicable as she was herself. Probably she had meant him to be just an instrument of her pleasure, a complacent servant, a humble husband. No, probably she had not thought of anything like that, but had loved him by mere instinct, because he had been the first to kiss her, to speak to her of love.
"She has no soul!" thought the poor boy. "When I raved, when I rose to the stars and swelled with superhuman joy, she was silent because in her there was emptiness. And I was adoring her silence, and thinking it divine! She spoke only when her senses were awaked. She speaks now because she's menaced with the vulgar annoyance of being given up. She has no soul, no heart! Not one word of pity! Not the modesty to conceal her selfishness. And she's ignorant too. Her letter is copied and recopied, yet even so it's badly expressed. But the last lines—there's her art! She knew the effect they'd produce. She knows me perfectly, and I am only now beginning to understand her. She wants to allure me to the meeting, because she thinks she can intoxicate me. Deceit! deceit! But I see through her now. Ah! not one kind word, not a single generous impulse, nothing! nothing! How horrible!"—(again, he crumpled the letter)—"I hate all women! I shall always hate them! I'll become bad myself! I'll grind you all to powder and spit upon you. I'll make you all suffer! I'll kill you, tear you to pieces! I'll begin this instant!"
He took the rezetta still wrapped in the coloured handkerchief, rolled it in a newspaper, sealed and despatched it to Aunt Grathia. "It's all over," he repeated. And he seemed to be walking through emptiness, over the cold clouds as on the ascent of Gennargentu. But now vainly he looked down or around him; there was no path of escape, all was cloud, infinite giddiness. During the day he thought of suicide, a hundred times.