“On guard!” said the officer.
Immediately Cocco Bertolli leaped forward like a tiger with terrible fury, flourishing his sword, and howling, upon his adversary. Thus attacked, Biagio Speranza, still under that painful impression, started back, parrying the storm of blows as well as he could. He might easily have run Cocco through the body simply by holding his sword stiff, straight out, with a sudden lunge; but he banished the temptation, and continued parrying the attacks. Suddenly, in his fury, the sword fell from Cocco Bertolli’s hand. “Enough!” cried the officer who was directing the encounter.
“What do you mean by enough?” cried Cocco Bertolli, out of breath. “Do you wish to profit by my misfortune? I appeal to my adversary, who surely can not consider such paltry satisfaction 'enough.’”
Biagio Speranza stooped and picked up the fallen sword, and offered it courteously to Cocco Bertolli. “Here it is. On guard!” Then he glanced at his friends, as much as to say: “You see to what you have brought me?” And his nervous irritation increased. “If the other evening, after that blow, you had allowed me to give him a sound beating, I should not now have found myself under the hard necessity of killing this poor madman, so forlorn and miserable, or of letting him kill me.”
At the second command for attack, Speranza was resolved to oppose his adversary seriously. But without warning Cocco Bertolli was upon him again with redoubled fury. “Stop!” cried the officer.
But already, in this lightning-like assault, Biagio Speranza had been wounded, for he suddenly fell to the ground, his hands clenched to his breast. A sneer choked in his throat. He looked at the four seconds and the physicians, tried to say: “It is nothing!” but instead of words blood gushed from his mouth, and he sank back, terrified.
Having recovered from their first feeling of horror, the others bent over him, lifted him cautiously, and carried him with the greatest care into the house of the keeper of the villa, where they deposited him on a bed. The doctors thought at first that he had but a few minutes to live; nevertheless, they administered the first remedies, and waited, anxious, terrified. An hour passed, two, and one of the physicians proposed to send some one to the city for a stretcher. So, toward evening, Biagio Speranza was carried home, between life and death. The Pentoni, his old landlady, and Nannetta were waiting for him, all bathed in tears. But the latter, shortly after, when the first confusion was over, was politely sent away by Scossi. “It is not proper for you to stay here, my dear.” She made no reply, but under Carolinona’s very eyes wished to imprint a kiss upon the brow of the wounded man, who lay unconscious, flushed with fever.
“Ah,” she then said weeping to Scossi, “if you had only left us there in the country! Poor Biagio! My heart told me this would happen. But at least take away this unfortunate woman from his side; if he opens his eyes he will die of despair at seeing her beside him.” Then she went away.
While Nannetta was saying this, Carolinona had left the head of his bed, understanding herself that the sight of her in these first moments would not be acceptable to the wounded man. She had desired so ardently that he might return to the pension, but she had not said even a word to that effect, nor taken a single step to urge him to return. It would be most unjust to hold her responsible for the misfortune that had happened; and he should be the first to admit it, he who had forced her, actually forced her, to commit this folly. So he ought not to feel horror at sight of her there by his bed, nor cherish any rancor. But Carolinona at heart felt the positive necessity, almost instinct, to ascribe to others the fault of our own misfortunes; so she drew back into the shadow to watch, to give him the most passionate care, without any flattering hope of recompense. She merely wished, longed, and prayed that he might recover; she wished nothing for herself, not even gratitude, not even that he should know that she had secretly nursed him.
Dario Scossi, Cariolin, and Cedebonis, after the first few days, seeing that the wound began to improve, began to insist that she should take some hours of rest. But they insisted in vain. “It will do me no harm; I am accustomed to it,” Carolinona would reply.