'Our misfortune is known to everyone who comes near us,' she went on, quivering with grief. 'Such a misfortune, to crown the others! Mother died of it, from physical and moral weakness. Our whole means are sacrificed to it; it has taken my father's heart from me; when it has destroyed all that is dearest, it will hand me over to wretchedness and death.'
'Don't be afraid, don't fear; everything has a remedy,' he said vaguely, trying to cut short that despairing outflow.
'It can't be cured,' she said earnestly. 'My dying mother, in a lucid interval, said as she kissed me: "Don't judge your father—never be hard on him; obey, be obedient. The passion that eats him up, and is killing me, can only increase with years. This fever will get higher: I have not cured it, neither will you. Leave him to this dream—don't annoy him; if you are unhappy, ask God's help; but respect his years. He only desires our happiness—he is killing me for it; he will make you suffer frightfully, though he is noble and generous. Be merciful to him. It is only so that I can die, as I do, with a quiet conscience." Mother was right. With years he has got unhappier, more eccentric; he is incurable now; he forgets everything, everything—you know what I mean. Some day or other I fear my noble old father, whose gray hairs I ought to honour—that I want everyone to respect—may forget the laws of honour in some dark gambling combination.'
'May God keep him from it!' said Amati, starting.
'May God hear you!' she cried out; 'but I pray so much, and the evil gets worse. If you knew! We are in want of everything: it is the first time I have told anyone. I am quivering with shame, but I can't hide anything from you. He has sold everything: first works of art, then furniture, down to a few jewels mother kept for me—and he adored her!—even the Cavalcanti portraits—though he is proud of his race!—even the silver lamps in the chapel—and he is religious! I live with these two old servants, so faithful neither sin nor poverty has taken them from us! They are not paid: they serve us of the House of Cavalcanti without pay. Do you know, it is by their clever contrivances that the house goes on, that we have enough to eat, and that there is oil in the lamps! I am raising for you the veil of sacred family decency—don't betray us!' He bent and kissed the hand Bianca held out to him, to seal his promise. 'All that money, and more that he gets somewhere—I know not where and have no wish to know—goes in gambling. Friday and Saturday he is wild. Other wretches, like that medium, come for him: his very name makes me shiver with fright and shame; they have queer alarming consultations; they get excited, shout, and quarrel; they use a queer jargon. These are his friends; men of his own rank, his relations, have left him. It may be he asked money from them, got it, and did not give it back, perhaps; it may be the whisper, even, of wickedness makes them avoid us. These Cabalists, men who see'—she shivered and looked round—'take his money from him and incite him to play. The day is at hand when he will have nothing left, and he won't be able to gamble. God, God open his eyes, if we are not to perish altogether, the name and the family!'
'Bianca, Bianca, I implore you to be calm,' he said, alarmed at her excitement, following its phases with a doctor's mind and a man's heart.
'I can't,' she cried. 'I have not told you all. Listen: I am a poor, weak creature; the blood runs poor and slow in my veins, you know—you told me so. I have lived either in this sad house or my aunt's convent—that is to say, with my father, always full of his fancies, or with my aunt, whose faith gives her almost prophetic visions. Mother died here; as the gambling passion filled my father's mind, the delusion began to filter into mine against my will. Father speaks to me of ghosts, phantoms, spirits, at all hours, especially in the evening and at night, and I believe in them; you see how frightful that is. The sunlight, seeing people, chases fears away; but evening comes, the house gets full of shadows, my blood freezes; when father speaks of the spirit my heart stops or goes at a gallop; I feel as if I was dying of fear. I get queer singings in my ears. I hear light steps, smothered voices. I see in my mind's eye white-robed figures—they look at me and weep; shadowy hands smooth my hair. I seem to feel icy breaths on my cheek; my nights now are one long watch, or light sleep broken by dreams.'
'There are no such spirits, Bianca,' said he, in a gentle, firm voice.
'I am so weak, so unfit to get rid of delusions. When I have got calmer, father, from his own fancies or the medium's infamous suggestions, comes to torment me. He wishes me to see without caring about my feebleness, my fears, not knowing how he tortures me. He speaks of the spirit, wants me to call it up, for I am young and innocent. I try to go against him; vainly I struggle and ask him to spare me, not to make me drink this bitter cup. But it is no use: he is obstinate and blinded; he wants me to see the spirit, and ask what numbers to play. Father has such influence over me, he makes me share his madness to a frightful extent. I shall end by being like him, a poor deluded thing, worn out by night watches and daily delusions.'