When the serving Sister in the Sacramentiste convent ran from the chilly parlour, where Bianca Maria fell in a faint, to the hospital for a doctor, and obstinately insisted Antonio Amati should come to help the invalid, that was the hour of the decisive meeting. The icy, bloodless hands were at last enfolded in the doctor's strong, healthy ones; once more the wonderful attraction by which loving souls overcome time, space, a thousand obstacles, this attraction—unlucky he who has not felt its power—brought together those who were bound to be united. How could it be these two were not to understand each other, if only Antonio Amati could, by his knowledge, save Bianca Maria from the disease sapping her vital forces, if only he could give her health, riches, and happiness? How not come to an understanding if that innocent gentleness, that mild poesy, that source of every affection, if all that was wanting in Antonio Amati's laborious, stern life, could only reach him through Bianca Maria's slight, modest personality?
He was strength, with a serene, just conscience; she was goodness, all unconscious tenderness and mercy. That strength and that goodness called to each other to unite. They were obeying destiny's order to join, so that love should create once more a fine miracle of harmony. When she had to will something, she lifted her eyes to her lover's face and drank in will power. When he looked at her he felt the stretched cords of his energy slacken and the great flower of benignity blossom in his heart.
But it was destined that all Amati's experiences in life were to be conflicts, that every reward men of talent and energy get in this life should only be gained by him after a fierce struggle. With love it was the same. A serious obstacle arose between him and Bianca Maria Cavalcanti. It was her father, the Marquis. The first time Amati saw the proud, deluded, violent man, he felt a painful suspicion rise in his mind. He divined dull hostility in Formosa. Perhaps birth, past and present conditions, divided them, the opposite ideas they had of life and its responsibilities. Perhaps the one that came from the earth, bringing forth good like her, scorned this falling away in health, fortune, and respectability. Perhaps he who lived by the arrogant rules of a life given up to luxury, pleasure, and generosity, despised the obstinate, unpolished worker, sparing in pleasures, unfavourable to them, too hard on himself and on others. Perhaps the one guessed the other's scorn, and felt miles apart, with such different ideas that they could never meet. Perhaps the reason of the mutual antipathy, of Amati's coldness and Formosa's hostility, was more inward, deeper, more mysterious. It may be neither dared confess it to himself. In short, it was suspicion, distrust, an unconscious hostility. Indeed, Amati saw in Carlo Cavalcanti the unknown danger that might wreck Bianca Maria's reason and life. It was vaguely, but obstinately, without well knowing why or wherefore; but he felt the danger was there. And Carlo Cavalcanti felt Antonio Amati was his judge—his enemy, I would almost say. Twice, when the doctor was present at Bianca Maria's fainting-fit and at the attack of fever, that made her delirious a day and a night, he said harsh things to the Marquis di Formosa about his daughter's health. The old man listened, quivering with rage, fretting inwardly. He submitted to this deliverer from a dark hour, but he looked haughtily at him, and shrugged his shoulders when he threatened that the girl would die. By what blindness did he always refuse to take Bianca Maria away from that cold, mean house, where all her youthful strength was languishing? At any rate, he obstinately refused, quivering with emotion every time the doctor touched on the subject. It seemed to be from affection, pride, and nervousness, as if he knew what the right remedy was, and could not, would not, make use of it. Full of doubt, the doctor got always nearer to something shady, but he checked himself, fearing to wound certain susceptibilities. The Marquis was poor: how could he change houses? It was natural for him to redden with fright and melancholy when he was told his daughter was fading away to a fatal ending, to frown with offended pride when offers of service were made. Still, his pride had had to give way that Saturday morning he asked Amati for a loan, saying he would give it back during the day. His pride had had to go altogether several other times, always on Saturday, with an urgent note in a large, shaky hand asking for money—more money out of Amati's purse, always promising to give it back the same day, always failing to do so.
He blushed a little as he wrote, his old head bent to weep over his lost dignity as an old man and a gentleman; but his passion was so strong he would have made money out of anything. When the doctor sent him the money in an envelope, and then another sheet of paper, so that the servant should not notice what it was, the Marquis felt mortified, and opened the envelope roughly with a sharp tear, and the blood went to his head. Amati never wrote a reply, but he never refused. In the evening, when father and daughter were in the drawing-room, she working at her fine lace, he going up and down the room to quiet his excited nerves, the doctor would come in. The Marquis could hardly restrain his annoyance, but went forward to meet his visitor with sham heartiness, his face pale. They greeted one another in an embarrassed way, while Bianca Maria's face sparkled. In spite of service rendered, no cordiality grew up between them. They were cold, and took stock of each other, feeling they were enemies. When the doctor, from his native audacity, and that which love gave him, went to sit opposite Bianca Maria and asked her about her health, when they gazed in each other's eyes, the Marquis was troubled, an angry quiver came into his voice. He was the obstacle. It was in vain every time his ruling passion obliged him to ask Amati for money that Amati gave it without hesitation, more delicately each time. It was lowering all the same. This queer intimacy could not rid them of suspicion, want of confidence, antipathy. Perhaps these loans, asked with a lying excuse, lying promises, only dug that gulf of sorrow, shame, and humiliation that is between him who asks and him who gives. Formosa's great dream now was to get money—a lot of money, so as to lead a grand life, after throwing the doctor's sous in his face and turning him out. He ended by hating him for these benefits it was so hard to ask for, that his wretched passion drove him to take.
Antonio Amati understood; he knew Formosa stood in the way. Naturally, he knew what was the greedy mouth that swallowed up all the old man's money, and some that was not his; he knew the fever that destroyed his gentlemanly feeling, that the wretchedness was the result of sin; he knew an irresistible force obliged him to ask for these loans. His only wish was that Bianca Maria should not suffer, that she should get out of these sad, poverty-stricken, mad surroundings, ever since the time she had, in a low state of health, bodily and mentally, induced by fever, told him she loved him and begged him to take her away. He renewed the offer of his country house, where his mother was, more than once. She shook her head, smiled sadly, and said nothing. One evening when she was suffering very much, choking with heat in that flat, airless in summer, icy in winter, he made the offer to Formosa, bringing it out naturally, trying to be cordial. Formosa thought it over a moment. His daughter looked anxiously at him, awaiting his answer.
'It is impossible,' said the Marquis di Formosa concisely.
'Why so?' the doctor asked boldly.
'Just because I choose,' the old man retorted obstinately.
'And you, my lady; what do you say?'
The doctor looked earnestly at her, to give her the strength to rebel. The poor girl's eyelids fluttered once or twice. She looked at her father, then said: