CHAPTER IX
BIANCA MARIA'S VISION
Both the gamblers went upstairs very quietly, like evil-doers or timid young fellows who have disobeyed their father's orders; each carried a latchkey, and shut the door without any noise. On going into his apartments and his own room, Cesare Fragalà, taking a fit of penitence, shook like a child; only his sleeping wife's placid breathing calmed him a little. He was afraid of awakening her, in case she questioned him, and guessed the truth with that extraordinary alarming intuition women have. He undressed by the slender light of a lamp before St. Agnes, and got into bed with the greatest caution, trembling—yes, trembling—lest he should wake his wife; and in his humble, contrite, desolate heart he swore not to stake another sou. Only this oath and his healthy constitution freed him from sleeplessness, which sits at the bedhead of all gamblers.
Sleeplessness had visited Formosa's pillows. He had vainly tried to read Rutilio Benincasa's mathematical table, to calm his wandering thoughts; the figures danced in a ring before his eyes. He vainly tried to say the rosary, to fix his mind on prayer, to humiliate his heart before the Eternal Will; prayer came coldly and haltingly from his lips. A strong fever of fancy held him, and put his nerves on the rack; it made him start up in his bed, quivering like a violin string: a madness took hold of him, and, from the black darkness and solitude, made itself all-powerful over his thoughts and feelings. He could not stay in bed; in spite of the cold, he got up and dressed, and began to walk about in his freezing room. He did not feel cold; his hands and head were warm; the candle-flame seemed a great blaze to him. All was silent in the house; he never allowed anyone to wait up for him. The two poor old servants—Giovanni and Margherita—whom he had despoiled of their money got on loan, to keep Bianca Maria alive, were sleeping in the closet—tired and sorrowful, perhaps. Bianca Maria was asleep in her cold room many hours ago certainly. But the Marquis di Formosa, devoured by his gambling folly, hoping and despairing of winning from one moment to another, implored God, the Virgin, the saints, the souls of his dead, his guardian angel, Fortune, all the powers of heaven and earth, to help him to win, to get the victory; he forgot his fears as a man and a Christian so far as to ask it from evil spirits, even. Formosa, burning with such madness, could not bear that all in the house should sleep quietly, placidly, while he was torn with anguish and hope. Ah no! he was not afraid of solitude and night, little noises from old furniture, old creaking ceilings, or noisy doors; he was afraid of nothing in that icy house where his wife died of languor and sorrow, where her meek shade still seemed to linger. Fear! He asked, he implored a voice, a revelation, a vision; he would have been pleased, happy, and not frightened, if he had seen something. But his soul was too stained with sin, his heart was unclean from earthly desires; a white soul, a virginal heart, was needed to get this heavenly grace, by which one saw what other human eyes were not allowed to see. Bianca Maria was sleeping; she slept, cold creature! though so near to Grace, and still refused to satisfy her father's wishes. He left his room, crossed the passage in front of the drawing-room, and stopped at his daughter's closed door. He listened—no sound. She was sleeping, cold-hearted girl! She had no pity for her father's tortures, and would not pray God and the Virgin for a vision. A dull rage mingled with his Friday madness; he went up and down the passage more than once, trying to go away from his daughter's room; but he could not manage it: his curiosity was so strong to know from her the spirit's revelation that she certainly must have had that night; it could not have failed to come. Don Pasqualino, the medium, after a three days' voluntary fast, after two nights' flagellation on his shoulders and bare, thin breast, had heard from the spirit who helped him that Bianca Maria would get the revelation. The spirit does not lie. Then involuntarily, as if pushed by a force he must obey, he took hold of the door-handle; it creaked, the door opened. But a sharp cry from inside answered to the noise—a girl's cry, whose light, watchful sleep had been disturbed. She rose up in bed, in her white nightgown, her black hair loose on her shoulders, eyes wide open, and hands clutching the coverlet.
'It is I, Bianca—it is I,' the Marquis di Formosa murmured, coming forward.
'Who—who is it?' she asked, shaking with fear, not daring to move.
'I—it is I, Bianca,' he repeated, getting impatient.
She sighed deeply without saying anything, but her breathing was still alarmed. The Marquis had got to his daughter's bed, guided by the faint light of a lamp before a small image of the Virgin.
The girl fell back on the pillows and looked at the ceiling. The Marquis sat down by her bed, and his nervous fingers played with the white fringe of the coverlid.