Occupied in various thoughts, I scarcely saw where I wandered, till a flashing glimmer of blue blossoms recalled me to the object of my walk. I had reached the Punto d’Angelo. It was, as Lilla had said, a flat rock bare in every place save at the summit, where it was thickly covered with the lovely gentians, flowers that are rare in this part of Italy. Here then the fabled angel paused in his flight to bless the venerable sanctuary of Monte Vergine. I stopped and looked around me. The view was indeed superb—from the leafy bosom of the valley, the green hills like smooth, undulating billows rolled upward, till their emerald verdure was lost in the dense purple shadows and tall peaks of the Apennines; the town of Avellino lay at my feet, small yet clearly defined as a miniature painting on porcelain; and a little further beyond and above me rose the gray tower of the Monte Vergine itself, the one sad and solitary-looking object in all the luxuriant riante landscape.
I sat down to rest, not as an intruder on the angel’s flower-embroidered throne, but on a grassy knoll close by. And then I bethought me of a packet I had received from Naples that morning—a packet that I desired yet hesitated to open. It had been sent by the Marquis D’Avencourt, accompanied by a courteous letter, which informed me that Ferrari’s body had been privately buried with all the last religious rites in the cemetery, “close to the funeral vault of the Romani family,” wrote D’Avencourt, “as, from all we can hear or discover, such seems to have been his own desire. He was, it appears, a sort of adopted brother of the lately deceased count, and on being informed of this circumstance, we buried him in accordance with the sentiments he would no doubt have expressed had he considered the possible nearness of his own end at the time of the combat.”
With regard to the packet inclosed, D’Avencourt continued—“The accompanying letters were found in Ferrari’s breast-pocket, and on opening the first one, in the expectation of finding some clew as to his last wishes, we came to the conclusion that you, as the future husband of the lady whose signature and handwriting you will here recognize, should be made aware of the contents, not only for your own sake, but in justice to the deceased. If all the letters are of the same tone as the one I unknowingly opened, I have no doubt Ferrari considered himself a sufficiently injured man. But of that you will judge for yourself, though, if I might venture so far in the way of friendship, I should recommend you to give careful consideration to the inclosed correspondence before tying the matrimonial knot to which you alluded the other evening. It is not wise to walk on the edge of a precipice with one’s eyes shut! Captain Ciabatti was the first to inform me of what I now know for a fact—namely, that Ferrari left a will in which everything he possessed is made over unconditionally to the Countess Romani. You will of course draw your own conclusions, and pardon me if I am guilty of trop de zele in your service. I have now only to tell you that all the unpleasantness of this affair is passing over very smoothly and without scandal—I have taken care of that. You need not prolong your absence further than you feel inclined, and I, for one, shall be charmed to welcome you back to Naples. With every sentiment of the highest consideration and regard, I am, my dear conte,
“Your very true friend and servitor,
“PHILIPPE D’AVENCOURT.”
I folded this letter carefully and put it aside. The little package he had sent me lay in my hand—a bundle of neatly folded letters tied together with a narrow ribbon, and strongly perfumed with the faint sickly perfume I knew and abhorred. I turned them over and over; the edges of the note-paper were stained with blood—Guido’s blood—as though in its last sluggish flowing it had endeavored to obliterate all traces of the daintily penned lines that now awaited my perusal. Slowly I untied the ribbon. With methodical deliberation I read one letter after the other. They were all from Nina—all written to Guido while he was in Rome, some of them bearing the dates of the very days when she had feigned to love me—me, her newly accepted husband. One very amorous epistle had been written on the self-same evening she had plighted her troth to me! Letters burning and tender, full of the most passionate protestations of fidelity, overflowing with the sweetest terms of endearment; with such a ring of truth and love throughout them that surely it was no wonder that Guido’s suspicions were all unawakened, and that he had reason to believe himself safe in his fool’s paradise. One passage in this poetical and romantic correspondence fixed my attention: it ran thus:
“Why do you write so much of marriage to me, Guido mio? it seems to my mind that all the joy of loving will be taken from us when once the hard world knows of our passion. If you become my husband you will assuredly cease to be my lover, and that would break my heart. Ah, my best beloved! I desire you to be my lover always, as you were when Fabio lived—why bring commonplace matrimony into the heaven of such a passion as ours?”
I studied these words attentively. Of course I understood their drift. She had tried to feel her way with the dead man. She had wanted to marry me, and yet retain Guido for her lonely hours, as “her lover always!” Such a pretty, ingenious plan it was! No thief, no murderer ever laid more cunning schemes than she, but the law looks after thieves and murderers. For such a woman as this, law says, “Divorce her—that is your best remedy.” Divorce her! Let the criminal go scot-free! Others may do it that choose—I have different ideas of justice!
Tying up the packet of letters again, with their sickening perfume and their blood-stained edges, I drew out the last graciously worded missive I had received from Nina. Of course I heard from her every day—she was a most faithful correspondent! The same affectionate expressions characterized her letters to me as those that had deluded her dead lover—with this difference, that whereas she inveighed much against the prosiness of marriage to Guido, to me she drew the much touching pictures of her desolate condition: how lonely she had felt since her “dear husband’s” death, how rejoiced she was to think that she was soon again to be a happy wife—the wife of one so noble, so true, so devoted as I was! She had left the convent and was now at home—when should she have the happiness of welcoming me, her best beloved Cesare, back to Naples? She certainly deserved some credit for artistic lying; I could not understand how she managed it so well. Almost I admired her skill, as one sometimes admires a cool-headed burglar, who has more skill, cunning, and pluck than his comrades. I thought with triumph that though the wording of Ferrari’s will enabled her to secure all other letters she might have written to him, this one little packet of documentary evidence was more than sufficient for my purposes. And I resolved to retain it in my own keeping till the time came for me to use it against her.
And how about D’Avencourt’s friendly advice concerning the matrimonial knot? “A man should not walk on the edge of a precipice with his eyes shut.” Very true. But if his eyes are open, and he has his enemy by the throat, the edge of a precipice is a convenient position for hurling that enemy down to death in a quiet way, that the world need know nothing of! So for the present I preferred the precipice to walking on level ground.
I rose from my seat near the Punto d’Angelo. It was growing late in the afternoon. From the little church below me soft bells rang out the Angelus, and with them chimed in a solemn and harsher sound from the turret of the Monte Vergine. I lifted my hat with the customary reverence, and stood listening, with my feet deep in the grass and scented thyme, and more than once glanced up at the height whereon the venerable sanctuary held its post, like some lonely old god of memory brooding over vanished years. There, according to tradition, was once celebrated the worship of the many-breasted Cybele; down that very slope of grass dotted with violets had rushed the howling, naked priests beating their discordant drums and shrieking their laments for the loss of Atys, the beautiful youth, their goddess’s paramour. Infidelity again!—even in this ancient legend, what did Cybele care for old Saturn, whose wife she was? Nothing, less than nothing!—and her adorers worshiped not her chastity, but her faithlessness; it is the way of the world to this day!