Presently, with the faint splash of the oars in the water, there mingled a low sound of music. The rower nearest to her was singing in an under voice to keep his boy’s heart from succumbing to the spell of melancholy. She listened, still wrapped in this dreadful chaos that was dreamlike. At first the music was a murmur. But presently it grew louder. She could distinguish words now and then. Once she heard carissima, a moment afterwards amore. Then the poison in which the tip of this last arrow had been curiously steeped began its work in her. The quivering creature hidden within her cowered, shrank, put up trembling hands, cried out, “I cannot endure this thing. I do not know how to. I have never learnt the way. This is impossible for me. This is a demand I have not the capacity to fulfil!” And, even while it cowered and cried out, knew, “This I must endure. This demand I shall be made to fulfil. Nothing will serve me; no outstretched hands, no wailings of despair, no prayers, no curses even will save me. For I am the soul in the hands of the vivisector.”
Along the lake, past the old home of La Taglioni, past the Villa Pasta with its long garden, past little Torno with its great round oleanders and its houses crowding to the shore, the boatman sang. Gathering courage as his own voice dispersed his melancholy, and the warm hopes of his youth spread their wings once more, roused by the words of love his lips were uttering, he fearlessly sent out his song. Love in the South was in it, love in the sun, embraces in warm scented nights, longings in moonlight, attainment in darkness. The boy had forgotten the veiled lady, whose shrouded face and whose silence had for a moment saddened him. His hot, bold nature reasserted itself, the fire of his youth blazed up again. He sang as if only the other boatman had been there and they had seen the girls they loved among the trees upon the shore.
And the soul writhed, like an animal stretched and strapped upon the board, to whom no anaesthetic, had been given.
Never before would it have been possible to Lady Holme to believe that the mere sound of a word could inflict such torment upon a heart as the sound of the word amore, coming from the boatman’s lips, now inflicted upon hers. Each time it came, with its soft beauty, its languor of sweetness—like a word reclining—it flayed her soul alive, and showed her red, raw bareness.
Yet she did not ask the man to stop singing. Few people in the hands of Fate ask Fate for favours. Instinct speaks in the soul and says, “Be silent.”
The boat rounded the point of Torno and came at once into a lonelier region of the lake. Autumn was more definite here. Its sadness spoke more plainly. Habitations on the shores were fewer. The mountains were more grim, though grander. And their greyness surely closed in a little upon the boat, the rowers, the veiled woman who was being taken to Casa Felice.
Perhaps to combat the gathering gloom of Nature the boatman sang more loudly, with the full force of his voice. But suddenly he seemed to be struck by the singular contrast opposed to his expansive energy by the silent figure opposite to him. A conscious look came into his face. His voice died away abruptly. After a pause he said,
“Perhaps the signora is not fond of music?”
Lady Holme wanted to speak, but she could not. She and this bright-eyed boy were not in the same world. That was what she felt. He did not know it, but she knew it. And one world cannot speak through infinite space with another.
She said nothing. The boy looked over his shoulder at his companion. Then, in silence, they both rowed on.