“... Wherever they were, they betrayed us. At home, at the Exhibition, in the carriage—everywhere, everywhere they made fools of us. In the wood, in the English Garden they were together.... They snatched each other’s hands on the stairs, on the landing; they kissed each other, while we went on before. On the terrace, in the corner, they kissed over again. It’s a horrible, crying shame! I think the servants must have noticed it at Centurano. They must have laughed at us, that canaille must have laughed its fill behind our backs....”
There were two bright red spots on his cheekbones, and he was gasping.
“... And do you know why I call them assassins, why I say that they have killed me? And by God, I am right! The most odious, the most cruel part of it all is, that through their damned love affair I have caught this illness, that might have been spared me. On a chilly night, Lucia stood out on the balcony, the whole night through, and so did Andrea. I slept all night with the window open, with the cold air penetrating my lungs and inflaming them, making me cough for two months, making me so ill! They gazed at each other, called to each other and blew kisses: I caught the cough that has lasted two months, and made me spit this blood to-day.” He looked at her. In her horror, she hid her face in her hands. “You wonder how I know all this? You remember the novel that Lucia was writing? Another lie. It wasn’t a novel, it was a journal. Every day she wrote down all that happened to her, all her thoughts and fancies. The whole love affair is in it, from beginning to end—every look, every kiss, every act. Oh! there are splendid bits of description, beautiful things are narrated therein. It is instructive and interesting reading. You can profit by it, if you like. Read it, it will amuse you.”
Then grinning, like a consumptive Mephistopheles, he drew a bulky manuscript from under the pillow. He threw it into Caterina’s lap; she left it there, sooner than touch it, as if she were afraid of its burning her fingers.
“Yes,” he said, having reached the lowest depth of bitterness, “Lucia wished me to know how it all happened. She took the Madonna, she took the diamonds, but she has had the goodness to forget the journal! Do read it! It is a charming novel, a fine drama.”
He was exhausted, with the fever came a return of the stupor. His eyes were half closed, his feeble hands, with the violet veins standing out in relief, were like yellow wax. In the gloom, Caterina kept turning the pages of the journal, at first without reading, then glancing at a page here and there, grasping an idea, or discovering a fact amid the fantastic divagations in which its pages abounded. At certain parts she shuddered and fell back in her chair. He coughed weakly in his torpor, without unclosing his eyes. Suddenly a violent attack tore his chest, the cough began low, grew louder, died away, seemed to be over, and began again, cruelly, persistently. In the short intervals he groaned feebly, clutching at his ribs, as if he could bear it no longer. Then he expectorated again, and once more made that hurried gesture of examination. He fell back with a faint cry. He had spat blood. She had watched this scene; when she saw the blood, she shuddered and closed her eyes, as if she were about to faint.
“So these medicines are no good to me? The doctor is telling me a parcel of old woman’s tales. Why doesn’t he stop the hæmorrhage? I have swallowed such a lot of snow, I have taken such a lot of syrup of codeine and gallic acid, to stop the blood! Am I to spit all my blood away? Why haven’t they given me something stronger to-night, instead of to-morrow, if it is to do me any good?”
His lamentations, persistent, hoarse, torturing to his listener, filled the room. His voice had the aggrieved intonation that is peculiar to invalids who feel the injustice of not being cured. He continued to grumble at the doctor, the medicines, the syrup that failed to relieve his cough; the snow was useless, for it did not stop the hæmorrhage. Still complaining, he turned to Caterina:
“I beg your pardon; do you mind giving me that little paper of gallic acid, and a wafer?”
With the patience of one to whom these things are habitual, he made a pill and swallowed it, with an air of resignation. She had closed the journal.