"You deserve that I should kill you, it is true. By all the souls that hear me, by the souls of our dead parents, by the Madonna, who, with them, is shuddering in heaven at your crime, you deserve that I should kill you!"
"But Cesare would weep for me," taunted Laura, again mistress of herself.
"It is true," rejoined Anna, icily. "Go away then. Go at once."
"Good-bye, Anna."
"Good-bye, Laura."
Leisurely, collectedly, she turned her back upon her sister, and moved away, erect and supple in her white frock, with her light regular footstep. Her hand turned the knob of the door, but on the threshold she paused, involuntarily, and looked at Anna, who stood in the middle of the room with her head bowed, her cheeks colourless, her eyes expressionless, her lips violet and slightly parted, testifying to her fatigue. Laura's hesitation was but momentary. Shrugging her shoulders at that spectacle of sorrow, she closed the door behind her, and went off through the darkness to her own room.
Anna was alone. And within herself she was offering up thanks to the Madonna for having that night saved her from a terrible temptation. For, from the dreadful scene that had just passed, only one thought remained to her. She had besought her sister not to love Cesare any more, promising in exchange all the devotion of her soul and body; and Laura had thrice responded, obstinately, blindly, "I can't help it." Well, when for the third time she heard those words, a sudden, immense fury of jealousy had seized her; suddenly a great red cloud seemed to fall before her eyes, and the redness came from a wound in her sister's white throat, a wound which she had inflicted; and the pale girl lay at her feet lifeless, unable for ever to say again that she loved Cesare and would not cease to love him. Ah, for a minute, for a minute, murder had breathed in Anna's poor distracted heart, and she had wished to kill the daughter of her mother! Now, with spent eyes, feeling herself lost and dying at the bottom of an abyss, she uttered a deep prayer of thanksgiving to God, for that He had swept the red cloud away, for that He had allowed her to suffer without avenging herself. Slowly, slowly she sank upon her knees, she clasped her hands, she said over all the old simple prayers of her childhood, the holy prayers of innocence, praying that still, through all the hopeless misery that awaited her, she might ever be what she had been to-night, a woman capable of suffering everything, incapable of revenge. And in this pious longing her soul seemed to be lifted up, far above all earthly pain.
All her womanly goodness and weakness were mingled in her renunciation of revenge.
The violent energy which she had shown in her talk with Laura had given place to a mortal lassitude. She remained on her knees, and continued to murmur the words of her orisons, but now she no longer understood their meaning. Her head was whirling, as in the beginning of a swoon. She dragged herself with difficulty to her bed, and threw herself upon it, inert as a dead body, in utter physical exhaustion.
Laura had undone her. The whole long scene between them repeated itself over and over in her mind; again she passed from tears to anger, from jealousy to pleading affection; again she saw her sister's pure white face, and the cynical smile that disfigured it, and its hard incapacity for pity, fear, or contrition. Laura had overthrown her, conquered her, undone her. Anna had gone to her, strong in her outraged rights, strong in her offended love, strong in her knowledge of her sister's treachery; she had expected to see that proud brow bend before her, red with shame; she had expected to see those fair hands clasped and trembling, imploring pardon; she had expected to hear that clear voice utter words of penitence and promises of atonement. But far from that, far from accepting the punishment she had earned, the guilty woman had boldly defended her guilt; she had refused with fierce courage to give way; she had clung to her infamy, challenging her sister to do her worst. Anna understood that not one word that she had spoken had made the least impression upon Laura's heart, had stirred in it the faintest movement of generosity or affection; she understood that from beginning to end she had failed and blundered, knowing neither how to punish nor how to forgive.