“I should like to know how they could prevent it. It would be cruel tyranny.”
“And your health?”
“I shall struggle against it ... or if I die, death will be the more welcome to me, worn with toil, with the consciousness of accomplished duty.”
“I am not capable of such great things,” murmured Caterina, after a short silence. “Mine is not a great soul.”
“Never mind, dear,” said the other, stroking her hair as if she were a child, “the ideal of humanity is not for every one.”
Evening had closed in, recreation was over, the collegians re-entered the dormitory, passed thence to the corridor, and descending the stair, approached the chapel, for evening prayer. On they went, without looking at each other, in silence, prey to a melancholy so intense that it isolated them. They walked two and two, but not arm in arm. Two of them took each other by the hand, but with so languid a pressure that they scarcely held together. Behind them, the lights of Naples glimmered like evening stars; they entered into the garnered peace of the College, and did not turn to look back. The oppression of that long hour of twilight weighed upon their spirits, and there was something funereal in the long, unsmiling march to the chapel. The window, hastily closed by the last comer, Cherubina Friscia, grated on its rusty hinge with a noise like a laugh of irony.
V.
It was the last lesson. August was dying; the lessons were all coming to an end. After the September and October holidays, the children were to return to school for the Feast of San Carlo. But the Tricolors, maidens of seventeen or eighteen, having finished their education, left in September, to return no more. On that day, at two o’clock, they attended the history lesson the last of all. After that lesson, their course of study was absolutely finished.
That was why there was something so abnormal in the girls themselves, and in the very atmosphere about them. That was why the curly, blonde hair of Carolina Pentasuglia was dressed more like a poodle’s than it had ever been before; a roguish cherub’s head, one mass of curls. Giovanna Casacalenda, divested of her apron, was in pure white, a resplendent whiteness, broken only at the waist by her tricolor scarf. Artemisia Minichini wore a big gold locket on the velvet ribbon round her throat. Ginevra Avigliana had three roses in her waistband, right under her heart. But all of them sat demure and composed in the class-room, that already seemed so deserted: there was not a book on the desks, nor a scrap of paper, nor a pen. The inkstands were closed. A few drawers stood open. In a corner, on the ground, behind the blackboard, was a heap of tattered paper, torn into shreds or rolled up in balls. On a black panel destined to the exhibition of calligraphic achievements, there was chalked a tabulated list which set forth in finest imitation of printed letters, combined with copy-book and old English characters, embellished by countless flourishes, the fact that: “In the scholastic year —— the Signorine ... had completed the studies of the fifth gymnasial course....” And first on the list was Lucia Altimare. It was the clôture, the end of the volume, the word finis.... The young ladies never turned towards that tablet. The eyes of some of them were rather red. Oh! on that day the lesson was a serious and arduous one. They had all studied that period of 1815, with which the historical programme ended. From time to time the Professor made a critical remark, to which the pupils listened attentively. Caterina Spaccapietra, that diligent scribe, took notes on a scrap of paper. On that day the Professor was paler and uglier than ever: he seemed thinner, a pitiable figure in the clothes that set so awkwardly upon him. The most ludicrous item of his attire was a large cameo pin, stuck in a dark red cravat of the worst possible taste. On that day he was more careful than ever to avoid the glances of his pupils. He listened to them with profound attention, his eyes half closed, nodding his approval, murmuring an occasional bene under his breath. Now and again he would make an absent comment, as if he were talking to himself. Then the half-hour struck. As the minutes passed, the voice of the girl who repeated the lesson grew more and more tremulous: then at last the Professor added certain historical anecdotes concerning Napoleon. He spoke slowly, carefully picking his words. When he had ended the third quarter struck. The Professor and his pupils, impressed by a sudden and painful embarrassment, looked at each other. The history lesson was over.
“The class asks permission to read its farewell letter,” said Cherubina Friscia, whose placid face was undisturbed by emotion.