I attempted to make my way to [pg 341] an old sofa, covered with red damask, at the other end of the vast and scantily-furnished room; but I had no sooner risen than my strength failed me, and I was obliged to lean against a table to keep myself from falling. Livia hastened to procure some cold water, with which she sprinkled my face. I soon recovered, but was still pale and agitated when Ottavia came in. She had left me quite well an hour before, and, finding me now in such a state, she exclaimed with mingled impatience and alarm as she advanced: “Good heavens! what has happened to her? She was so well this morning.”... And giving Livia a furtive, distrustful glance, she extended the index and little finger of her hand, closing all the others; turning around as she made this gesture, the meaning of which is only too well known in our country.[89] This was done so quickly that I hoped I was the only one to perceive it.
“How foolish!” I angrily exclaimed to Ottavia, seizing her hand and covering it with mine. “Are you going to treat me always as if I were an invalid or an old woman? Thanks to Livia”—and I emphasized these words—“I have entirely recovered.”
Ottavia, half angry, half sorry, was about to go away; but Livia made a sign for her to remain, and, pressing my hand as she embraced me once more, left the room without uttering a word.
VI.
The little incident I have just related will doubtless excite some astonishment, and be regarded as scarcely confirming what I have said before about Ottavia's piety and good sense. But whoever has lived in the southern part of Italy knows there are hundreds of people in that region whose education, and even religious instruction, are in no way deficient, and who, nevertheless, are not exempt from the singular superstition I have just referred to.
I leave it to the erudite to prove that Magna Græcia derived it from classical Greece, the mother country; that remote antiquity made use of the same absurd gesture to avert the effects of what it was still more absurd to believe; and that in those days, as well as now, people multiplied this very sign under the form of protective amulets—not only as jewels to be worn, but in the objects that surrounded them. I likewise leave to them the task of explaining why this evil has resisted the influence of time and the progress of civilization, as well as the spirit of Christianity. All that can be said, it seems to me, is that in those regions this superstition takes the place of all those that abound in the North of Europe, and from which Italy is exempt. For instance, we do not hear people there, as in Ireland, Scotland, and Sweden, talk of strange, weird apparitions, fairies, or malign spirits, under the name of bogies or banshees. They are not afraid, as in Russia, of meeting people clothed in black, of the number thirteen, and a thousand other absurd notions which Catholicism has condemned without being able to eradicate, and which Protestantism has [pg 342] been much more powerless against. Nor are the ruins, as in Germany, associated with wild legends or haunted by spirits. But, to make up for all this, the jettatura holds there its baleful sway. Though frequently ridiculed, it is feared more than any one is willing to admit; and there is no one, even among the most reasonable, who would suffer this dreaded epithet to be applied to himself, or any one he loved, without manifesting his displeasure. It would be impossible to account for the cause of this prejudicial notion in individual cases, or explain why this fearful term is sometimes applied to men of special merit, and women who are young, lovely, and amiable, as well as to those whom a pretext is wanted to avoid, or whose appearance has something repugnant. Sometimes it is sufficient that a person has accidentally witnessed some misfortune, and, if the same thing is known to occur again, the word escapes from the lips, flies from mouth to mouth, and the foolish prejudice is established. This had been the case with poor Livia. An accident once happened to me in my childhood when she was with me; shortly after, she was present when another occurred to one of our young friends; and a third time, she happened, in one of her charitable rounds, to be in the house of a poor man at the time of his death. This was spoken of at first as a mere jest; but it gradually became a source of mortification and humiliation to her, though none of us were ever allowed to make the least allusion to it in her presence. The repeated troubles of the past few weeks had disturbed the faithful Ottavia's equilibrium and good sense to such an unusual degree that when she found me, pale and agitated, leaning on my sister's shoulder, the first thought inspired by her terror caused her instantly to make this involuntary gesture.
I was so vexed at this occurrence that for a moment I forgot everything else. I felt angry with Ottavia, and threw myself on the old sofa without speaking, in a fit of mingled sorrow and displeasure.
I had always been fond of Livia, and now all the repressed and pent-up tenderness of my heart was poured out on her. She seemed to be the only person in the world that still loved me—the only one that stood between me and what appeared like a great void. Yes, my mother was right in what she said about the great necessity of my nature. As a flower dies, deprived of the sun, so without affection I should soon cease to exist. I placed no reliance on the durability of that which my brother had just manifested. As to my father, his love seemed extinct in comparison with that of former times. And now that I knew the reason of his coldness and severity, I had no hope of overcoming them; for I felt sure he would less readily excuse the truth, were it revealed to him, than the error which had caused such a change in his manner.
Therefore for any one to wound the feelings of Livia, my darling sister, my indulgent and faithful friend, was at this time like piercing my very heart. I remained with my head on the cushions of the old sofa, while Ottavia was bustling about the chamber, as if trying to divert my attention from what had taken place. At last she approached and tried to get hold of my hand. I withdrew it.