The Land of Cockayne: A Novel

by Matilde Serao

'Very well. Thank you,' said the other.

They embraced, as sad and excited as if they were never to see each other again.

Now, when Don Crescenzio got to the Rossi Palazzo entrance, after hurriedly going downstairs almost as if he feared to hear the Lady Bianca Maria Cavalcanti's dying cries behind him—when he got out on the street alone, amid the people going and coming from Toledo Street that soft spring evening, he suddenly thought it was all over. The hundred francs his weeping had dragged from the Fragalàs' wretchedness was shut up in his otherwise empty purse in his great-coat pocket. Just there he felt something like an increasing heat, for that money was really destiny's last word. He would get no more; all was said. His desperate resolutions, his growing emotion, his day's struggle, running, panting, speaking, telling his wrongs, weeping, and the great dread of ruin tarrying with him, had done nothing but drag the last mouthful of bread from his most innocent debtor. A hundred francs—a mockery to the sum he had to pay on Wednesday, without fail. A hundred francs, no more; a drop of water in the desert. He felt it, for he had used up a lot of strength and excitement, and had only managed to drag these few francs from the Fragalà family's honesty; so he felt flabby, weak, and exhausted. That was the last word. Then there was no more money for him; he must look on himself as ruined—ruined, with no hope of salvation. A cloud—perhaps it was tears—swam before his eyes. The flow of the crowd took him to the bottom of Toledo Street; he let himself be carried along. He felt that he was the prey of destiny, with no strength to resist; he was like a dry leaf turned over by the whirlwind. He could do nothing more—nothing; all was ended. Some other people still owed him money. Baron Lamarra, Calandra the magistrate, and two or three others owed him small sums. But he did not want to go to them even; it was all useless, all, since, wherever he had gone, wherever he had taken his despair, he had found the marks of a scourge like his own—the gambling scourge—that had sent them all to wretchedness, shame, and death like himself.

He dared not go back to his home now, though it was getting late. He had gone down by Santa Brigida and Molo Road to Marina Street, where he lived in one of those tall, narrow houses one reaches by gloomy alleys from Porto, which look on to rather a dull sea between the Custom-house and the Granili, and from Marina Road, where fishermen's luggers and boats are anchored and tied up. Among the thousands of windows he gazed at the lighted-up one where his wife was putting the babies to bed. But he dared not go in—no. Was it not all ended? His wife would read the sentence, the condemnation, in his face, and he could not bear that. An increasing feebleness took hold of him; he felt as if his arms and legs were broken, and in the darkness and silence—where only the cabs taking travellers to the evening trains, only the trams going to the Vesuvian districts, gave a touch of life to the dark, broad Marina Road—not able to stand, he sat down on one of the seats in the long, narrow Villa del Popolo, the poor folk's garden that goes along the seashore. From there he still saw, though further off in the distance, like a star, the lighted window in his little home. How could he go in to bring tears and despair into that peaceful, happy little atmosphere! That innocent infant and the other about to come into the world, the mother so proud of her husband, of her little boy: must he—he—make them quiver with grief and shame that evening? This would be unbearable for him. How tremendous a punishment it was, falling on everyone's head, as if all were accursed, and destroying health, honour, fortune, everything!

In a dream, going on from one thing to another, he knit together all the threads of that chastisement that started from himself and returned to him, going on from his despair to that of others, while he still gazed at the slight beacon where his family were waiting for him. He saw again Ninetto Costa's pale, worn face, setting out for a much longer journey certainly than to Rome, leaving his mother a bankrupt suicide's name; he saw Marzano the advocate struck with apoplexy, his lips bloated, amid the frightful wretchedness that left no money to buy more ice, whilst a dishonouring accusation had been made against him, shaming his gray hairs; then Professor Colaneri, chased away from the school, accused of having sold his conscience as a teacher, and, after having cast off the clerical robe, now obliged to give up the religion he was born in, of which he had been a priest; he saw Dr. Trifari sailing in an emigrant ship, without a farthing, short of everything, while his old parents had to go back to dig the hard earth so as to earn their living; and Cesare Fragalàs resigned surrender, which ended the name of the old firm, and left him to confront a future of wretchedness. Finally, above everything, the illness Lady Bianca Maria Cavalcanti was dying of, while her father had not a bit of bread to put in his mouth. All, all were being punished, great and small, nobles and common folk, innocent and guilty, and he with them—he and his family, struck in all he held dearest—his means, home, happiness, and honour—a band of unfortunates, where the innocent were the ones that had to weep most, where little infants, girls, and women paid for grown men's mistakes, and old people, too—a band of wretched ones—to whom, in his mind, he added others that he knew and remembered. Baron Lamarra, with the accusation of forgery held over him by his wife, had gone back to work as a contractor, in the sun on the streets, among buildings in course of construction; and Don Domenico Mayer, the hypochondriacal official, who one day in despair, not being able to move for debt, had thrown himself from a fourth-floor window, dying at once; and Calandra the magistrate, who had twelve children, was so badly reported on that every six months he ran the chance of being put on the shelf; and Gaetano the glover, who had killed his wife Annarella with a kick on the stomach when she was two months gone with child: but no one knew anything about it except his children, who hated their father, as every Friday he promised to kill them also, if they did not give him money. All—all of them were at death's door, yet living on, amidst the pinching of need and the canker of shame. And he, finally, who had his family there in the little house waiting, while he had not the courage to go back, feeling that the first announcement of their misfortune would burn his lips. It was all one chastisement, one frightful punishment—that is to say, the hand of the Lord bearing heavily on the wicked, the guilty, and striking them to the seventh generation; or, rather, the same sin, the same guilt, that infamous, cursed gambling, had got to be an instrument of chastisement against those who had made an idol of it; for the gambling passion, like all others that are outside of life and real things, had the germ, the seed of bitter repentance, in the vice itself. They were struck where they had sinned, or, rather, by the sin itself. It was just one long burst of weeping from all eyes, even the purest ones, a burst of sobs from the cleanest lips; a crowd of poor, honest, innocent creatures struggling amidst hunger and death, paying for others' mistakes, giving the guilty the remorseful thought that they had cast the people they loved best into this great abyss. Not one safe, not one, of those who had given up their life to gambling, to infamous, wicked gambling, that eater-up of blood and money. Not even he or his family were safe; he, too, was broken; his children were to be reduced to holding out their hands. The punishment was too great; it was unbearable. What had he done to have to go to prison like an evil-doer, that his wife should be ashamed of belonging to him, and his children would never mention his name? What had he done to have to stay there in the street like a beggar, who dare not go back to his den, having got no alms from hard-hearted men? Ah! it was too much, too much! What fault had he committed?

A couple of policemen went through Marina Street, and cast searching glances into the darkness of the footpaths in Villa del Popolo; but the shadows were deep, and the men did not notice Don Crescenzio lying at full length on a seat. But he, by a quick change of scene, saw before him his lottery shop in Nunzio Lane, on glowing Friday evenings and anxious Saturday mornings, when the gamblers crowded to the three wickets in his shop, their eyes lighted up by hope, their hands quivering with emotion. He saw again the placards in blue and red letters that incited gamblers to bring more money to the lottery. He saw again the number of advertisements of Cabalists' newspapers and the mottoes: 'So you will see me'; 'It will be your fortune'; 'The people's treasure'; 'The infallible'; 'The secret unveiled'; 'The wheel of fortune.' He remembered the medium's frequent visits and his fatal intimacy with all the other Cabalists, spiritual brothers, and mathematicians, who excited the gamblers with their strange jargon and impostures. He saw it again at Christmas and Easter weeks, when the gambling became wild, fierce; for people have such a longing to get into the long-dreamt-of Land of Cockayne. And he always saw himself pleased with their illusions that ended in a sad disappointment; pleased that that mirage should blind the weak, the foolish, the sick, the poor, the sanguine—all those who live for the Land of Cockayne; pleased that everyone should get the infection, that no one was safe; quite delighted when, at great festivals, the rage increased and the stakes augmented his percentage. He saw it all clearly: his own figure bending to write the cursed ciphers and the lying promises in the ledger, the gamblers' crimson or pale faces distorted by passion. He bowed his head, crushed, feeling he had deserved the punishment, he himself, his family, on to the seventh generation. The lottery was a disgrace that led to illness, wretchedness, prison—every sort of dishonour and death. And he had kept a shop for the infamous thing!

CHAPTER XX

BIANCA MARIA CAVALCANTI

For three days in the Marquis di Formosa's house a deep silence had reigned. The doors, oiled in their hinges and locks, shut and opened with no noise. The two old servants, Giovanni and Margherita, walked on tiptoe, not saying a word, like shadows gliding over the floor—or, rather, they made no movement. Giovanni, seated on the single straw chair that furnished the lobby, Margherita seated at the sick girl's bedside, gazing at the pale face sunk in heavy stupor in the sickly slumber of high fever, both kept quite still. The doctor, some sort of a medical man, called in from Berriolas', the neighbouring druggists, said that above everything any noise would have a bad effect on the patient's brain, and at once in the house every sound, even sighs, were hushed. Not a word was said above the breath, for those old servants were accustomed to being silent and motionless. It looked already as if they had been overtaken by the long last rest. Then the doctor asked for the family practitioner. When they mentioned Dr. Amati's name, he at once proposed to send for him. He needed him. The Marquis di Formosa's anxious face got icy, and the two servants looked just as sorrowful. Then he suspected something, shook his head, and set to treating the patient himself, covering her burning head with ice, giving her quinine every two hours to try and bring down the high fever, the raging typhoid, giving her strong nourishment, but without making any improvement, never managing to overcome the state of coma she was in, except by raising a queer delirium, mingled with spasmodic nervous convulsions; for the blood-poisoning by typhoid was complicated by serious nervous disorders.