“Andrea!”
“Su! small victim of a barbarous husband: as we have an hour to spare before dinner, and because the success of our enterprise inclines us to clemency, you may even read us your letter. Unto us shall be brought vermouth and cigars, to help us to endure this new torment with befitting patience. Oh! Lord, consider the sufferings of your unhappy Andrea...!”
“Andrea, one more word, and I won’t read it.”
“Ma che! you are dying to read it! Su! up, intriguer; up, witch. We accord you our august attention.”
Caterina drew the hand that held the letter out of her pocket and read as follows:
“Caterina mia!
“This letter, which I am about to write to thee, will not be, like the others, laden with what my father calls vagaries. This is a serious letter. Caterina, collect all the sense, all the reason of which you can dispose; add to it all your experience, call to your help the whole height and depth of your friendship, and be helpful to me in counsel and support. Caterina, I have reached the most solemn moment of my life. A pilgrim and a wanderer, without a guide, I have come to the crossing of the roads. I must decide. I must reply to the dark question of the future, the mystic riddle will have its answer; it calls for a 'Yes,’ or a 'No’. Oh! Caterina, how have I dreaded this decisive moment! how have I halted and stumbled, as with waning strength I neared it! Behold, it has caught me up, it is upon me like an incubus. Listen to me patiently; I will try not to weary you. But I want to put my position clearly before you. Do you remember when we spoke of our future, on the College terrace? I told you then, that I should never marry; that I should seek to fulfil a lowly but noble mission, one to which I might consecrate my poor strength, the fervour of my soul, the impulses of a heart enamoured of sacrifice. I sought, and I had found—what human egoism has debarred me from: my father, my unloving father, has prevented me from becoming a Sister of Charity. He would not have them say, 'See, he had but one daughter, and he made her so unhappy that she has taken the veil!’ If this was my destiny, may God forgive him for not having permitted me to follow it. Other missions are either too arduous for my state of health, or too meagre to satisfy my passionate yearning.... My time was passed in prayer, almsgiving, in seeking to console the afflicted, but without any definite occupation or vocation. At last, one day, as it befell Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, a great light struck my eyes, and I fell down before the voice of the Lord. He has spoken to me: I have understood His words, and, lowliest among those lowly ones who dare to raise their eyes to the Virgin’s throne, I have to say in her words: 'Lord, behold thy servant, thy will be done!’
“Near to me, my own Caterina, was a mission to be accomplished, a sacrifice to be offered up. Near to me was a suffering being, condemned by the fatal atavism which has poisoned his blood, to an agonising death. The doctors do not, among themselves, disguise the fact that his will not be a long life. Carderelli has said, with brutal frankness: 'He may live some time, if every precaution is taken.’ But it is written that he will die the death. He has the germs of phthisis; he will die of consumption. You guess of whom I speak: my cousin, Alberto Sanna. He does not know the sad truth about himself, but we others do: he is condemned.
“Now picture to yourself the kind of life led by poor Alberto. He is very rich, but quite alone in the world, at the mercy of mercenary beings, in the hands of servants who neglect him, and have no love for him. Pleasure is always tempting him, but he may not, he dares not.... His friends are bad counsellors: for when he listens to them he loses the fruit of a month’s care. When he falls ill, he is alone, uncared for, utterly miserable; it is piteous, my sweet Caterina. As soon as he begins to recover, he leaves his bed, wraps himself up and comes to me for comfort and consolation. He is saddened because of his illness, because he has no one to love him, because he will never have a family of his own, because all happiness is denied to him, because at the banquet of life he may only appear for a moment, to disappear, like the patient of Gilbert. He needs a soul, a love of his own: one who will care for him, love him, who, if she cannot make the remaining years of his life happy ones, is at least content to pour out all her tenderness in them. He looks around and sees that he is alone in the crowd, of no interest to any one. Living, none to love him; dead, none to mourn him. Well, this creature, this soul, this woman, will I be to him.... Yes, Caterina, I shall marry Alberto Sanna. It will be a boundless sacrifice of my youth, my whole life, and every dream of joy and splendour. It will be a silent holocaust that I shall offer up to God. For the happiness of a suffering fellow-creature, I will give my whole happiness. I will cast my life away for the life of an afflicted being, whose smile will be my only reward. I am not in love with Alberto Sanna. You know that this earthly and carnal sentiment has never existed in me, nor will it ever exist. I am overwhelmed with pity, compassion, for an unhappy fellow-creature, and out of sheer compassion I wed him. He loves me with a blind, passionate, and childlike affection—and believes that mine for him is love—and I wish him to believe it. In some cases, deception is true piety. I will be to him a faithful wife, a compassionate sister, a watchful mother, an untiring nurse: he shall never read signs of weariness nor fatigue on my countenance. I will cut myself off from the society that he may not frequent. I will say good-bye to all worldly avocations; they shall not disturb our quiet household. I will forget my own sufferings, in alleviating his. If one of us must needs be unhappy, I will be that one. Mute, calm, smiling, I will bury deep in my heart whatever might pain poor Alberto. I will be his smile.... The future is a melancholy one. I know not how I shall bear it. May God give me strength where strength will be needed. For the sake of my poor dear, for my poor afflicted one, I must live. I hope I shall not fall ill. God would not lay upon me the burden of having to die before Alberto. God does not recall those who have a mission upon earth until it is accomplished. This thought so supports me that I feel as if triple strength had been given to me. On the other hand, Caterina, it is necessary that I should leave my home. My father cannot bear me near him. He would willingly have left me at the College, had it not been for regard to public opinion. I have already told you as much. He is an egotist, and indifferent to all human suffering. From morning till night he finds something to complain of in my attire, the furniture of my poor rooms, my friends, the time they stay with me, and what he is pleased to call my 'fatal’ attitude. Every day he wounds me cruelly. He says the most dreadful things to me: that his friends consider me eccentric; that my behaviour is mad; that I am the worst coquette of his acquaintance. How have I wept; how have I writhed; poor victim that I am, eternally held up to martyrdom by the Philistine! I bend my head without attempting to reply to him. I am an obstruction in my own house, Caterina. I have had to make a painful effort in asking Galimberti to discontinue his frequent visits; they were the subject of vulgar, scandalous gossip among the servants, who made a laughing-stock of him. Poor, beloved friend, I have been forced to sacrifice thee to the world; at the very moment when thou hadst need of the consolation of my friendship, just at the moment when the College authorities had, with barbarous injustice, turned thee away! I write to him from time to time, if only not to break off too suddenly. I fear that he is very miserable. I try, in my letters to him, to write the sweetest words that sympathy has ever inspired. Now you see what my father has done for me! The truth is that my presence casts a gloom over his house, where he would fain have mirth and laughter. The truth is that he is younger at forty-two than I am at twenty; that he wishes I were married, so that he may be free of me. The horrible truth is that he, who has been a widower for fifteen years, is waiting for the hour of deliverance, the hour of my marriage, to marry again himself.
“So that all and everything combines to draw me closer to Alberto. In marrying I please my father, I give happiness to my affianced husband, and peace to my conscience. I need not say to you, who know me, that no idea of self-interest influences me. Alberto is much better off than I am; but what are his riches to me? We shall not receive, we shall only keep two horses in our stable, for the invalid’s drives; I shall dress simply in black; mourning for a blighted existence.... We shall have but few servants, having so few wants.... Neither pomp, nor luxury, nor fêtes, nor balls; the state of Alberto’s health does not admit of them. I shall be content if he will give me something for my poor. I shall have to administer our fortune, for he cannot do so. I will bend my neck under this hard, dry, ungrateful yoke; I will drink the last drop in the bitter chalice I have prepared for myself....