Читать книгу Nostalgia - Grazia Deledda - Страница 6

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On waking next morning Regina found herself alone in the big hard bed.

It was raining; the room was oppressed by a grey, melancholy twilight which seemed thrown from the ceiling. Vehicles were already rolling in the street; screaming trams passed by; there was continued howling of tempestuous wind, the whole making on Regina an impression of unutterable dreariness. The luminous city of her dreams seemed pervaded by this howling wind through which resounded a thousand other voices; a ceaseless booming of toilsome life, dismal under eternal rain.

Presently she looked at the room, screwing up her eyes to distinguish the various objects. The grey ceiling, the three grey windows, especially that one at the foot of the bed, were positively funereal; the rough linen of the sheets and pillow-case, the coarse embroidery of their adornment filled her with horror.

And Antonio, where was he? In her ill-humour Regina resented his having risen silently so as not to wake her, his having left her alone in the immensity of that strange bed; but almost immediately the door was gently pushed open and Antonio looked in.

"There they are, her big eyes!" he said gaily, and came over hurriedly to kiss her lips; "so you've come to, little one, have you? Are you awake?"

"I think so," she murmured rather hoarsely, and threw her arm round his neck. "Is it raining?"

"Yes; it's raining needlessly hard!" he said, heaving an exaggerated sigh, "but it will soon leave off."

"Let us hope so! Open the shutters!"

He moved to obey. "This is Sunday; don't you know that in Rome it always rains on Sunday?—result of the Papal curse! Never mind. It will leave off. I assure you it will! Stay in bed a little longer. I'll ring for your coffee."

"No, no!" she cried, terrified lest the summons should bring her mother-in-law; "I'll get up at once! I'm anxious to write home."

"We'll go out the moment the rain stops," said Antonio. "If you don't mind we'll take Gaspare with us. He knows all about archæology. We'll go to the Forum."

"To the Forum!" she echoed, her eyes sparkling with revival of joy.

"Yes, my dear—to the Forum. Think of that! To the Forum! Have you realised where you are?"

She smiled at him without answering. He had changed his costume, was wearing a shining collar, a beautiful green tie, had curled his moustache. He was fresh, fragrant, very handsome. Light had come in with him, love, joy. Regina pulled him down to her, kissed his hair, which she said smelt of "burnt flowers," pretended to whisper something in his ear, and made instead a childish shout. He jumped in feigned terror, threatened her and shook her. They laughed, they played, they forgot everything but their own felicity.

"Where have you awaked, levrottin?" (leveret), he asked, using one of the pretty pet names he had learned in her country, where he had been for three months on a Royal Commission; "where are you? This time yesterday we were at Parma; to-day we are here. Think, what a distance! And three months ago we didn't so much as know each other! Do you remember the first day we made friends on the river-bank? And that great crimson sun behind the woods? The Master kept looking at us and smiling; he knew we'd have to get married!"

"'Here is the Signor Antonio Venutelli, junior clerk at the Treasury, and here is the noble Signorina Regina Tagliamari,'" continued Antonio, imitating the nasal voice of the school-master who had arranged their introduction; "'she is a real queen of goodness and of genius, fit to reign in the Eternal City, in unequalled Rome.'"

"Poor old man!" said Regina, more gravely. "Yes, we certainly owe our meeting to him."

"And what do you suppose they'd say in your home, now? They'd say, 'Regina is in Rome, and she's still in bed, the little sluggard, and she hasn't even been to Mass, the little heathen! Fancy being in Rome and not going to Mass!'"

"But look here!" she began, clapping her hands and imitating her husband's mock-heroic tone. However she was no longer merry. A sweet vision had melted her heart. She saw her mother—her dear, delicate mother, her pretty sister, her youngest brother, her darling, all starting for the nine o'clock Mass. The house on the river-bank was deserted. It stood among poplar-trees veiled in mist, like a fancy house in the background of a stage picture. Inside a fire burned on the great hearth, the black cat sat contemplating the flames, the Baratta painting was illuminated with grey and rosy tints which gave it a suggestive relief. The sound of a bell, singularly pure in tone, was dying on the still air in metallic vibrations; the northern landscape, with the great river winding along like an immense blue vein in the whiteness of that snowy plain, was spread out under the vaporous heaven. Silence—mysterious immensity—the mist of dream!

But this nostalgic vision, which gave her a melancholy pleasure seen thus under the caresses of him for whom she had abandoned all, was snatched from her by the entrance of Signora Anna. The old lady, round and enormous in her red flannel dressing-gown, her hair already dressed, and blacker and oilier than yesterday, advanced with circumspection, puffing and panting as was her wont. Regina blushed, removed her arms from Antonio's neck, and covered herself hastily.

"Why so?" said the young man, taking the coverlet away, "show your lovely little arms at once! Look, mother! see how white my Regina is!"

"No, no! let me alone!" said the girl, hiding under the sheet. But the old lady came nearer, helped Antonio to unbutton the wrist of Regina's jacket, and passed an approving finger over the bride's white and child-like arm.

"Upon my word!" she exclaimed, "you are really lovely!"

"Oh, dear me! Do please let me alone!" said Regina, flattered all the same.

"Isn't she lovely? Isn't she?" insisted Antonio, kissing the fair arms.

"Lovely! Very well made indeed! Brava!" said the mother-in-law, almost as if Regina had made herself. "And indeed I was white and shapely enough myself once," she went on; "now I'm an old woman, but in my day I was very much admired, I assure you!"

"Well really!" thought Regina, looking at her mother-in-law's thick hands, brown, chapped, smelling of garlic, and very unlike the blue-veined whiteness of her own delicate members.

"Won't you have some coffee? Do you take it with milk? I'll go and get the coffee and the milk—a little scalded cream—whipped eggs?"

"For pity's sake!" cried Regina. "No, thank you, I don't want anything."

"Get up! Get up!" said Antonio, "the rain's stopping. Let's go out!"

"You're not going to take her out in this weather!" protested the mother-in-law. "You're insane! She shall stay in bed. When I was a girl" (she turned to Regina), "I always stayed in bed the whole morning. But those days were different. The servants then were faithful, sensible, active, and the mistress could do the lady even if she wasn't one—thank heaven, I could."

"So you can now. What's to hinder you?" said Regina politely.

"Goodness me! What! with such maids as we get now? Dishonest, untruthful, ungrateful hussies! They're the torment of one's existence. There was a time when I loved my servants just as if they were members of the family; now I don't love them at all. They don't deserve it. This girl I have now makes me sick with the worries she causes me."

"Get up! Get up!" repeated Antonio.

But Regina would not stir till she was left alone. Then she jumped out of bed, and, clad in her long white nightgown, stood disconsolately looking at the chaos of objects in the room and at the grey light which penetrated by the three doleful windows. She made also the sad discovery that at Rome it was colder than in her own north country! She washed, dressed, and did her hair awkwardly. Everything was inconvenient from the washstand to the looking-glass, the latter a panel in the wardrobe draped with a heavy curtain. Having tucked this up she saw herself in the glass; pale, worn out, ugly. Her depression reasserted itself.

She was long in appearing, and at last Antonio came to look for her. She had peevishly pulled up all the blinds, tucked away all the curtains, and was engaged settling the things in her trunk.

"What on earth are you about?" he asked a little impatiently; and, taking her hand, led her to the dining-room, where Signora Anna was waiting at a table laid for two, but groaning under food sufficient for ten.

"I only want a drop of black coffee," said Regina.

"Only black coffee? My dear, you are crazy—so to speak—I don't mean any offence. But, you know, one must eat at Rome! Here is the black coffee. A little brandy in it?"

"No, thanks. It doesn't agree with me."

"Just try. You'll like it, I'm sure."

"No, no!"

"Yes, yes! If you don't mean to vex me——"

She had to take the brandy in the coffee, and then café au lait; and cream, and bread and butter, and biscuits, and the whipped eggs. At last tears rose in her eyes, so overwhelmed was she by her mother-in-law's insistence. By way of comfort Signora Anna at once offered a basin of broth and the wing of a roast chicken.

"But you're trying to kill me!" cried the girl, jesting, though desperate. Antonio laughed, and ate heartily.

Fortunately an alarming noise was heard in the kitchen, and the Signora ran, much agitated and tripping over her red dressing-gown. Regina seized the opportunity and fled to her room.

She put on a beautiful white scarf and a black hat with a pink ribbon, which she thought very smart; powdered herself carefully, and imagined every one was going to admire her as they did at home.

"Behold how lovely my Regina is!" said Antonio, half serious, half amused; "and just you look at her hat!"

Gaspare, buttoned up in his new great-coat, fat, heavy, rosy and pompous, was waiting at the dining-room door. He looked at Regina out of the corner of his eye, then saluted her and said gravely—

"Your hat is like a swallow's nest."

"I'd like to hear what you know about hats, when you know nothing about women," said Antonio.

"I shall never marry," declared Gaspare; "but if I should be overtaken by such unhappiness, at least my wife shall not make herself ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" retorted Regina. "Who? the unhappy one?"

Gaspare deigned no reply. They started.

Regina never forgave her husband for taking Gaspare with them on this their first walk through Rome.

"We'll go down Via Cavour to the Forum, and come back by Piazza Venezia and Via Nazionale," proposed Antonio, consulting his watch; "it's late already."

The weather had cleared. Great drops of shining water fell from the trees in the Via Torino gardens. Santa Maria Maggiore, rose-coloured and grey against the blue sky, towered like a mountain above her broad flight of rain-washed steps. Gaspare pointed to the church with his umbrella and named it. Regina looked indifferently; the edifice seemed to her ugly.

They went down Via Cavour. The wood pavement was drying rapidly, and Regina naïvely remarked that it wasn't polished as she had supposed last night.

"I should hope not!" said Gaspare, who dropped behind now and then to hawk and spit. "What extraordinary things women do suppose! The very opposite of the facts!"

"Men too," retorted Regina.

"Men oftener than women," added Antonio, gallantly.

"Eh! Possibly. Sometimes," said Gaspare, with a disagreeable smile.

Gaspare's rude manners offended Regina, though she had been warned he was "quite a character." Presently, however, she forgot him, and became absorbed in contemplation of the new things she was seeing.

People passed rapidly along the pavements, umbrellas under their arms; vivid light poured from the blue sky still furrowed by metallic clouds; through the bright moist air strayed the smell of roasted chestnuts. Yes! this wide, brilliant street was really fine! In a shop window were exhibited five astonishing hats, which Regina admired more than Santa Maria Maggiore. But presently the brothers made her deviate into a lane, dismal with old houses and old gardens hanging under high bastion-like walls, which went up and down, where there were no pavements, no shops, only a dirty crowd of hawkers, herb-sellers, street arabs. They walked on and on, but this melancholy street seemed endless. Regina grew tired; she leaned on Antonio's arm, and began again to feel a dull weight of sadness. Was this Rome?

The brothers made the blunder of supposing that Regina could walk as far as they. They dragged her on to the Forum, where, her eyes blinded by fatigue, she saw no more than a field of drenched ruins, a sorrow-stricken place, a cemetery over which the metallic clouds brooded, hiding the blue heaven and wrapping arches and columns in veils of doleful shade. Gaspare discoursed learnedly, but she did not listen. The tragic solitude of the vast graveyard was profaned by a great number of persons with eye-glasses and English gowns girded up with pins and dress-fasteners. The columns and the glorious fragments, still soaked with rain, seemed to Regina gigantic marble bones, exhumed by a nation of inquisitive children who amused themselves desecrating this stupendous sepulchre of a dead civilisation.

From the Forum they moved homewards towards Piazza Venezia. It was almost noon; the crowds took the trams by assault; a broad river of smartly-dressed women came down Via Nazionale, spread over the Piazza, and went up the Corso. A confused noise of trams, motors, carriages, human voices, sounded on the air which was still damp, but illuminated by changing light from between the clouds. Regina felt a kind of vertigo. She, who could see little that was distant, began to see even the near things confusedly. The incessant rumble of a thousand noises, among which the motors emitted roars like rampant wild beasts, gave her a vague sensation of terror. She fixed her wide eyes on the crowd, fascinated by the coming and going as by the flowing of a stream. She looked up and saw a network of telephone wires hiding the sky, which renewed her feeling of oppression; and yet, though tired and overwhelmed, she would not admit herself wondering or surprised. The elegance of the women certainly struck her. She felt envious, but also displeased. It was impossible there could be so many shapely and handsome women! They must be painted and padded! Oh, she knew very well! She knew how much corruption, falsity, hidden misery, that crowd carried within itself, the first contact with which on that uncertain autumn morning under the network of metallic threads awoke in her a mysterious sentiment of aversion and pity. Antonio fixed enamoured eyes on his bride's face; but those enamoured eyes failed to perceive the apathy of fatigue which was showing more and more plainly on the beloved features.

"Let's take a carriage," he suggested.

"Why not the tram?" asked Gaspare.

Antonio said the carriage would be quicker, but really he wanted at least for the first day to treat his Regina royally. Gaspare argued for the tram.

"Let's walk," said Regina.

"Walk? When we can't get you along?" exclaimed the brother-in-law.

"Then we'll have the carriage," said Regina to spite him.

"Oh, I see! We've become aristocrats!" said the misogynist.

They found a carriage and drove up Via Nazionale, now beginning to empty and a little somnolent. It appeared immense under the white light of a heaven which had become all silver. In the distant and vaporous background of Piazza Termini, the fountains looked like huge crystal flowers. The great street was a thing of exquisite beauty at that hour, under that tender and melancholy sky, with that grand yet delicate background. Antonio looked at his wife, hoping at last to find a ray of admiration in her bewildered eyes. But the great eyes, shadowed and full of weariness, were only following the floating flags, and did not notice the grandeur and beauty of the splendid street. At Via Napoli he said—

"Let's throw a glance into those cross-streets. We'll perhaps find our street, Regianotta!"

"It would take me three months to recognise it. I don't know what to look out for."

"But you aren't observing!"

"Very likely not. What's the good of observing?"

"What's the good of having eyes?" put in Gaspare.

"Yes, what's the good? One generally blunders with them."

Gaspare did not appear to understand. He merely spat, and reflected that women are all either fools or flirts.

From that day out, he classed Regina with what he called the "avalanche" of fool-women. She was like Arduina, like Marina the maid, like other women of his acquaintance. Supreme and reciprocal contempt reigned for their whole life between this brother and sister-in-law.

They came in, and Signora Anna declared the lunch "Ready, ready!" yet kept them waiting for half-an-hour. Regina had to give minute descriptions of everything she had seen. The three brothers argued about politics, their ideas being widely apart. Gaspare was a "forcaiuolo"[1] of the first water, uncompromising and cruel; Massimo was a Tolstoyan Socialist, as much against war as his brother was against liberty; Antonio was Liberal and a little opportunist. Signora Anna made excursions into her sons' conversation in a manner peculiar to herself. No matter what public character was named, she knew the history of his marriage and could give the name of his mistress. On all such matters she appeared singularly well informed.

After lunch Regina retired to her room, lay down, and slept. When she awoke her ears told her it was again raining, and very heavily. Finding herself once more in the big, hard bed under that detestable ceiling, in the gloom of the chilly room, her depression became almost desperation. She jumped up, and resolved to write her letter home. Antonio established her at the bureau in Signora Anna's room, and she began—

"It's pouring. I am in the lowest spirits."

But come! this was idiotic. Why distress her Mamma with useless lamentations?

"Is it not my own doing?" she thought, tearing the note-paper. "Who forced me to change my state, to leave my family, and my home? For the future I am alone. Alone! Even if I were to explain, no one would ever understand!"

Leaning against the desk, she philosophised bitterly.

"Have I the smallest right to complain? No. And there's no sense in complaining when the cause of discomfort is in oneself. My soul is sick; it's a plant torn from the place where it sprang; every little shock withers it. Why should I lament? It's useless. Nothing can cure me, not even Antonio's love. The rain will stop, the fine days will come, I shall have my own house, and needn't be bothered with any one's company; but shall I even then be happy? Who can tell? Yet, after all, what does it matter? One must just accept life as it is, and resign oneself, and try to live to oneself. I don't understand the mania for company. Isn't it possible to live alone? Isn't it better? What company so good as one's own? And," she concluded, "it won't last for ever. We've all got to die."

She took this for resignation, and decided to write a letter full of pious lies. But, searching the pigeon-holes for an envelope, she came upon Antonio's letters to his mother during the three months he had served on the Commission at C——e.

Curiosity prompted her to look into them.

In the beginning of the correspondence Antonio described the place with rapid touches, and praised the inhabitants, whom he found energetic, lively, quick-witted.

"I have established myself," he wrote, "in an excellent family, thoroughly honest and sensible. The father is school-master in a neighbouring village, but lives here that his own children may attend secondary schools. The boy Gabriele is smart, active, and ambitious. Gabriella, the girl, is very clever, and intends to be an authoress. The school-master (nick-named the guendol [spindle], because he's never quiet for a single moment) is an excellent fellow. He discourses of Raphael and Michaelangelo, making highly original criticisms. For instance, speaking of Raphael (whose surname he never omits), he says 'the painter of La Madonna delle Seggiole (plural), etc.'"

In a postscript to this letter Antonio added—

"The Master has suggested a marriage to me—a young lady of noble family, once very wealthy, now come down in the world—twenty-three—neither pretty nor ugly—clever—fortune, 30,000 lire."

In another letter Antonio boasted of tender regards from several young ladies in the neighbourhood, but said the Master still held to his idea.

"The Tagliamari are one of the best families in this part. They still have 200,000 lire to be divided into four parts. At present the elder daughter has 30,000. The Signora T—— is most distinguished widow of a noble who in his day ran through half-a-million. The Master paints the young lady as a model of wisdom and goodness. 'È fine, sa,' he says to me, 'fine, fine, fine!'[2] She has been educated at Parma in a school for ladies of rank. 'You ought to take her away from this,' he says, 'to Rome—that's her place.'"

"Poor old man," commented Antonio. "He imagines that I am a prince—I with my small berth at the Treasury!—fit to marry and carry off a young lady who is fine, fine, fine!"

"To be sure," he wrote in his letter of September 2nd, "30,000 lire are not to be despised; but I must first see the lady."

The next letter described the meeting with Regina on the banks of the Po, near her home.

"She is not beautiful. She has a muzzle like a cat; but she is very attractive, cultured, particularly intelligent. The Master must have talked to her of me, for she got red and looked at me in a shy sort of way. She asked if I was really private secretary to a princess. Evidently she would think that much more interesting than to be merely a junior clerk in the Treasury office!

"Yesterday I went to the Tagliamaris' villa. The mother is the most charming of women, a genuine great lady. She told me the whole story of her life, perhaps with intention, but in the most delicate way. She belongs herself to a distinguished family. Her husband was wealthy, but what she calls unlucky speculations, the floods of—80, and other misfortunes, completely ruined him——"

"What are you about, Regina?" asked Antonio, appearing at the door.

"Oh!" she cried, looking up, "I've discovered some most curious human documents!"

And she held up the letters. He flushed, and sprang to put them back in their pigeon-holes, then changed his mind and began to read them himself.

"Aren't you ashamed?" she said; "a 'signorina fine, fine, fine!' '30,000 lire not to be despised,' 'Private secretary to a princess more interesting in her eyes, etc., etc., etc.' You were horrid!"

"Read here! Read here!" said Antonio. "See what I say afterwards!"

But she got up and looked at herself in the glass.

"I declare it's true! I am like a cat!"

"Read here!" repeated Antonio, pursuing her, a letter in his hand.

"We'll read it later. Now I'm going to write home," she said, reseating herself at the bureau.

Antonio took all the letters and set himself to read them over, buried in a corner of the ottoman. Every now and then, while Regina wrote rapidly, he burst into exclamations and little laughs, then suddenly became serious, as if in the lively recollection of the last days passed at C——e he were living his happiness over again.

Later the pair presented themselves at Arduina's Apartment, where they were to dine. The authoress lived on the top floor of the palace in a small suite of rooms furnished in rather strange taste and pervaded by what seemed to Regina affected disorder.

Arduina came to meet her guests screaming with delight. She was dressed in a long white overall, her sleeves tucked up and displaying lean, yellow arms.

"Come in!" she said, hiding her hands behind her back; "give me a kiss, Regina!"

Regina kissed her without enthusiasm, and Antonio said—

"I've explained that to get time for writing you prepare dinner at 5 a.m. God only knows what sort of meal you'll give us!"

"Here's what will reassure you!" said Arduina, revealing floury hands. "I write easily, you know," she went on, "at any hour and in any place; so it's true, sometimes, when the inspiration comes I do sit down with a pen at a corner of the kitchen table. And I get so wrapped up in what I'm doing that the meat's apt to get burned. But what does it matter?" she added, laughing with her rather silly but apparently conceited laugh; "roast meat is no more than roast meat, and art is art. But come in; sit down; amuse yourself with these papers, dear. I'll be with you in a moment, and then you'll give me that information about female benevolence in Mantua."

"Leave her in peace," said Antonio, as before.

"Don't you interfere with me! There's no one cares for your wife so much as I do. Why, I adore her! Do you hear," she repeated, turning to Regina, "I adore you. It seems as if I'd known you for years. If for no other reason I love you because of your queenly name. By the way, have you seen the queen yet?"

"Of course! in my dreams last night."

"True; you only arrived last night. Still, you've had time. Where did you go this morning? To the Colosseum? Ah! I adore the Colosseum! I'd like to live in it! Have you read Quo Vadis? What! you have not?—and it's the finest of all modern books! I'll make you read it. I'll make you read all sorts of books. I'll introduce you to ever so many authors. I'll take you to intellectual circles, artistic gatherings, to lectures, to wherever one may live not by bread alone——"

"Are we to have bread alone here?" asked Antonio, in feigned alarm; "well, whatever you do, you're not to make Regina write for your paper."

"Why not?"

"I'd kill you—have you taken up!"

Regina laughed, and Arduina disappeared again into the kitchen.

When they were alone Antonio pulled Regina to the looking-glass. "We mayn't be beautiful," he said, kissing her, "but we make a good group. Look, my queen, and laugh; laugh as you used! You don't know what dumps I fall into when I see you displeased."

"I'm not displeased," she said, putting her hands on his breast.

"But neither are you pleased. You aren't my Regina of the river-side. Your face is long, your eyes are far away. You don't seem to care that you're in Rome—Rome of your dreams."

"It's the weather—the weather," she said in a dull voice.

"The weather will clear up," said Antonio, taking her to the window. "You'll see how beautiful Rome is in fine weather! It's almost always fine, and never cold. Just see all the gardens! Even here in Via Torino there's so much green. Shall we look out a bit? It's not raining now."

He opened the French window. Regina stepped out among the flower-pots—filled with consumptive little plants, on whose sparse leaves the melancholy of the grey sky was reflected. She looked down on the wet and deserted street.

Taking shelter under a doorway was a little old woman, dressed in black, and with a meagre basket of lemons by her side. She was hurriedly wringing out her stockings, and she was pale, huddled up, shaking with cold.

Regina had noticed her in the morning, and now, instead of admiring the palaces and gardens—squeezing up her eyes to see distinctly from this altitude of fifth storey—she looked again at the little old woman with the withered lemons.

Antonio pointed out the Costanzi Theatre, and tried to cheer her by saying that Bellincioni was expected at Carnival time.

"Just think, little one! You shall hear Bellincioni!"

But Regina was looking at the muddy pavement, presided over by that little black figure, whose whole fortune consisted in those seven miserable lemons. It seemed as if she had no right to rejoice in the pleasures offered by a great city, when in that same city, at a street corner, while it rained, that little old woman was to be seen tired and shaking with cold. Her soul must have turned sour and sad like the lemons which made up her ridiculous fortune, all her subsistence, the total of her long life of labour and sorrow.

"To be poor and old!" murmured Regina, trying to express her idea to her husband.

"What is it you've got in your head?" he returned; "do you imagine the old crone is suffering? Not she! She's used to that sort of life. If you altered her habits, even if you offered her a more comfortable existence, she'd be perfectly wretched."

Regina remembered her own case, and questioned whether Antonio were not right. Her thoughts flew to her old home, where the firelight would be just beginning to gild the semi-obscurity of the great parlour. The recollection was enough to make her feel sadder still, here in this cold and untidy little city drawing-room.

She was roused from her homesickness by Arduina, who brought tidings.

"The Princess is coming after all! She had promised, but I feared she'd never turn out a day like this. She is so kind! and so clever. I adore her. I must go and dress. Mario!" she cried, running to her husband, who was entering, "Mario, make haste! Put on at least your——"

Sor Mario entered, very grave, very fat, much out of breath. He pressed Regina's hand, gasped, and in compliance with his wife's insistence went away to dress. Regina could not make out if he were pleased or not that the Princess was honouring his board. As for herself she was curious, even anxious, to meet a lady of authentic rank, or, at any rate, of wealth, however little flattering her portrait as drawn by Antonio. It did not occur to her that the Princess in question could not be a very exalted personage if she deigned to sup with Arduina!

"She's old and deaf," Antonio had said; "she sets up to be a critic, and patronises, or at least receives visits from, the worst scribblers in Rome. But oh! these authors! They penetrate everywhere like flies. It's a fine thing, genius!—worth even more than money."

"Certainly," Regina had answered, "genius can buy even money; or, at any rate, can despise it!"

"I think we'd better dress, too," said Antonio thoughtfully, and added hastily, "not, of course, for her sake—for our own."

They descended the stair again, and Regina put on her prettiest silk, her lace scarf, her jewelled brooch, her rings. She powdered herself, and, following Antonio's suggestion, puffed her hair a little at the temples.

"That's it," he said approvingly, "you look another girl."

He changed his own attire, and curled his moustache.

"A perfect fop!" laughed Regina; "you intend to captivate the lady with that moustache!"

"Surely you don't imagine any one could fall in love with me?—not even that 'vecchia corna' (scarecrow)!"

"I fell in love with you!"

He caught her and kissed her.

"But is it true you were in love? I don't believe it!"

"It was you who didn't fall in love! A 'signorina fine, fine, fine.' '30,000 lire not to be despised,' 'a muzzle like——'"

"Yes; a muzzle, a muzzle, a muzzle!" he said, like a child persisting in some innocent insult.

As they were going forth the second time Signora Anna ran to see Regina's finery. She examined the stuff of her dress, and looked if it were lined with silk, while deep and painful sighs swelled her capacious bosom. In the kitchen Gaspare was heard scolding Marina.

Regina felt acute pleasure in the thought that Gaspare and the mother-in-law were not coming to Arduina's dinner. However, she was no sooner back in the squeezy drawing-room, where they sat awaiting "Madame," than her low spirits returned.

Evening fell rapidly; the shadows deepened like black impalpable clouds. Arduina was busy with final preparations. Sor Mario grunted benevolently, sunk in an arm-chair, his trousers drawn very tight over the knee. Antonio was thoughtful and silent. No one remembered to light the lamps.

Regina felt a weight of sadness upon her soul. What was it? The gloom, the oppression of twilight in this remote and unknown place to which destiny had carried her, or was it the mere reflection of Antonio's unwonted seriousness? She walked to the window, and again looked for the little old woman with the black raiment; lamps white and yellow pierced the cloudy twilight; the pavement glistened; an infinite sadness, a mystery of fearful shadow fell blacker and blacker from the heavens.

The bell rang. In rushed the servant and lighted the gas, barely in time for the great lady's entrance.

With eyes dazzled by this suddenly kindled light, Regina first saw the Princess, and was at once disillusioned. The tall, stout, flat-chested form, the felt hat, fastened by an elastic under the black chignon stuck at the nape of the neck—suggested something masculine. Thick, colourless lips, a small nose slightly awry, small metallic eyes of yellowish-green, marked the pale heavy face. The whole made up a figure which, once seen, was not likely to be forgotten.

"Bon soir," she said, in a soft, harmonious voice, oddly in contrast with her stout and malformed person. She talked on in French while Arduina hurried to relieve her of her hat and handbag. "I am pleased to see you back, Monsieur Venutelli. I received your letter. This is your bride? She is charming!"

Antonio bowed, and Regina looked at her with wondering eyes, saying shyly—

"You are very kind, Signora."

"Beg pardon?" said Madame, turning her left ear to Regina, who nearly laughed, remembering Antonio's mimicry of the deaf Princess.

But Signora Makuline had taken her hand, and was slipping a sapphire ring on one of its fingers, saying—

"You will allow me? With a thousand good wishes!"

"Oh, thank you! You are really too good!" cried Regina, delighted, and Antonio also looked at the ring and expressed thanks. Then they all sat down; the Princess removed her dirty white gloves, and, to Regina's surprise, displayed hands small as a child's, and covered with flashing rings.

"What shocking weather," said Madame, her small feline eyes not looking at any one. "I've been many years in Rome, but never remember an autumn like this. It's not manners to talk of the weather; but when it becomes a matter of health, the weather has certainly more influence over us than even the most important events of our lives!"

"Monsieur Antonio, this abominable storm will spoil your honeymoon," said Arduina, trying to joke; but Regina, rather offended, muttered some words of protest.

"Beg pardon?" said the Princess.

"Arduina is right," said Antonio; "my wife is, in point of fact, in the very worst of humours."

"N'est ce pas? In the worst possible humour!"

"It's not true!" protested Regina, "quite the contrary; I am extremely cheerful."

However, Madame was tiresome enough to observe that during dinner Regina spoke very little.

"I like to be silent! I like listening," explained the bride, rather shortly.

"Well," said the Princess, "there's a certain cachet about a young woman who doesn't talk. A woman's silence suggests something mysterious, something occult; even something charming. Georges Sand spoke little. One of my uncles was her intimate friend, and he told me Georges was designedly silent."

"Perhaps you yourself knew Georges Sand?" said Massimo ungallantly.

"No," replied Madame, unmoved.

"Her mother, perhaps?" murmured Antonio.

"Beg pardon?"

"I've been reading an article on Georges Sand's mother," said Antonio louder. "Most interesting! She was a woman of fiery genius, and of fiery heart, too, whose adventures no doubt influenced her daughter's imagination."

"Where did you see that article?" cried Arduina; "we'll reproduce it!"

Sor Mario, bending low over his plate, shook his head, and emitted a perhaps unintentional grunt.

Tedious talk followed of the adventures and romances of Georges Sand. Arduina declared that the novels were uninteresting. She liked modern books, and Quo Vadis? above all others.

"Dio Mio!" said Antonio, "do stop about Quo Vadis? And really, you know, it's not precisely modern!"

Regina listened and held her peace. The talk was entirely of books, theatres, authors. The Princess told some story of Tolstoy, whom she knew personally. Towards the close of the repast, violent discussion arose between Massimo and Arduina about a great contemporary Italian poet and novelist—not only about his works, but about his private life. Arduina spoke against the master, hatred darting from her eyes, venom from her lips. She reproached him even for having grown old, bald, and ugly before his time. Massimo, red with fury, withered his sister-in-law with looks of supreme contempt.

"Worms!" he cried, forgetting he sat at her table. "See what you writers are! Merely to blacken the greatest and purest glory of Italy you stoop to absolute nonsense, and don't even know what it is you are saying!"

"Peace! peace!" laughed Antonio.

But now a most extraordinary thing happened. Sor Mario spoke. He had not read one line of the poet's, nor had any scandal to tell of him, but he related:—

"I saw him once at Anzio; he was riding along the shore got up entirely in white; white coat, white hat, white gloves, on a white horse——"

"White gloves on a horse?" queried Massimo, laughing foolishly.

Regina asked the Princess her opinion of the author in question, and the lady replied—

"To tell the truth, I'm not one of his blind admirers; but his prose is certainly lovely—bewitching, like music——"

"True," said Antonio; "but one very quickly forgets what he says."

"That's just my impression," said Regina; "it's music without any echo."

Massimo shook his head; his long hair stood on end like that of an infuriated baby.

"People were coming down to bathe," continued Sor Mario, "and they stared at him and laughed. Some were in hopes the poet would tumble off his white horse——"

About nine, while Arduina was pouring out coffee, the Princess's lady companion arrived; a queer-looking little creature with dark, malignant countenance, a long, pointed chin, and minute, glittering eyes. Small, shrivelled, dressed in grey, this curious person seemed half-animal to Regina, a kind of human rodent. And, really, no sooner had she entered than the room was pervaded and animated by what seemed the scratching and running about of a rat; little cries and exclamations; hand-claspings and kisses which suggested bites, questions, remarks, and, above all, looks which seemed to Regina inquisitive, anxious, mocking, and impudent.

"Take a cup of coffee if you care for it, Marianna," said Arduina, while the companion felt the Princess's forehead with both her hands.

"Why, your head's burning!" she said; "have you been eating a great deal? What have you eaten? Whatever have you made her eat?" she went on, turning to Arduina. "Oh, yes, I'll have some coffee, though I know very well it won't be good! What wretched cups! They're as small as I am!"

Antonio had hinted to his wife that Marianna was commonly supposed to be the Princess's daughter; and Regina, watching her, thought—

"It's clearly the case of the mountain and the mouse."

Apparently, Marianna read her thought, for she turned her little head with the alertness of a mouse, surprised by some slight sound; then came and sat beside the bride, balancing her cup on the palm of her hand, and saying maliciously—

"That husband of yours is a villain; keep your eye on him if you don't want him in every sort of mischief."

"I think you're the villain this time," said Antonio; "what are you insinuating suspicions into my wife for?"

"Because I pity her."

"And pray why?" asked Regina.

"Why? Just because you're married! Here comes another villain," continued Marianna, pointing to Massimo, who had drawn nearer; "for that matter they're all villains, the men! And the good ones are worse than the bad. The good ones are stupid. I don't care if men are bad, terrible even, so long as they have some genius and will-power."

"If I had at least these attributes—" began Massimo, looking at her with his insolent eyes.

"You can't have them," she interrupted; "geniuses never oil their hair as you do." "It's oiled, signora, isn't it?"

"I—don't know," said Regina, "I think not."

"Ah, poor dear! you haven't found it out! You'll never find anything out."

"How silly she is!" thought Regina.

And again she fancied that the young lady read her thoughts.

"Oh, you're thinking me a fool!" she said; "but listen here. I've forgotten to tell you something I always tell people when I meet them first."

"We know what it is," interjected Massimo and Antonio; but Marianna went on—

"Once, seven years ago, at Odessa, the house I was living in went on fire. I was in a top room, all hemmed in by flames—impossible to get me out. The smoke was already blinding and stifling me, and I heard the roar of the flames quite close. I believed in God no more then than now; however, I did feel the need of recourse to some supernatural being, some occult or omnipotent power. So I made a vow. I promised if I were saved, I would henceforth always speak the truth. At that moment the floor fell in. I lost my senses; and when I came to, I found myself safe and sound in the arms of a most hideous fireman. 'How have you managed it?' I asked. 'Like this,' he answered, and told how he had rescued me at great peril of his life. 'Oh, very well,' I said, 'I suspect you're exaggerating; but I'm grateful, all the same, and I'll always remember you; the more vividly that your ugliness is quite unforgettable.'"

Regina laughed. "I seem to be reading a Russian story," she said.

"But is that little tale true?" asked Massimo; and Antonio added—

"You gave me a slightly different version."

"Now you're trying to be witty," said Marianna, "but it's no use. You can't be witty, except for women you wish to please, and you don't in the least wish to please me."

"Oh, yes, I wish to please you," said Massimo; "it's the sole object of my life."

"Well, I don't appreciate your jokes. There are plenty of women very inferior to me, and you won't succeed in pleasing even them."

"I shall succeed with the superior ones, perhaps."

"I don't think there are many women superior to me; if there are, you'll never get within a stone's throw of them."

"Then I suppose I'm one of the inferiors?" said Regina, for the sake of saying something.

"Yes, because you're married. A superior woman never marries. Or if in some spell of unconsciousness she does take a husband, she repents at once. If I wished to pay you a compliment, I should say I believe you are repenting."

"By Jove!" said Antonio, "that's not a matter of joke."

"Do you always tell the Princess the truth?" asked Regina.

"Of course she keeps me only for that purpose," said Marianna, looking, not without affection, at the Princess. Madame was telling Arduina a story of her aunt.

"—the handsomest and smartest woman in Paris," she said. "I've told you of her marriage, haven't I? They married her at fifteen to the lover of a lady who remained her friend for ten years, her friend, her confidante, her guide. For ten years she never guessed——"

Sor Mario, buried in his arm-chair, was listening, fighting with sleepiness and the desire to pick his teeth.

Marianna began to abuse Nietzsche and his opinion of women, but Regina's attention wandered to the Princess's stories, scraps of which reached her across the screaming and the audacities of the younger lady.

"If women understood him, they'd agree," said Massimo; "they don't approve because they don't understand."

"They do better than approve, they refute him," said Marianna.

"If Gaspare were here," said Antonio, "he'd soon settle the question."

Regina's soul shivered at the mere recollection of Gaspare, and his mother, and the servant.

"Her second husband was a Spaniard," narrated the Princess, "the handsomest man you could see, and acquainted with all the literary personages of his time. But his conduct——"

"The education of women has not even begun," said Marianna, turning to Regina; "women will never have any sense till men begin to tell them the truth."

"But what is the truth?" asked Massimo; "truth between man and woman only comes out when they quarrel."

"That's true up to a certain point. I'm always wondering why truth is so disagreeable to everybody. They tell me I'm cracked because I never tell lies. Nobody cares, because my words don't really interest the person I'm talking to. But let's suppose this lady were to tell her husband all she was thinking, her real impressions, her real idea of him, his family, his friends. I'm certain Signor Antonio would fall quite sick——"

"Regina!" cried Antonio, in feigned alarm, "can this be true?"

Regina laughed, but a shudder as of great cold interrupted her false merriment. The Princess was continuing her story.

"'Jeanne!' said my aunt, hammering at the door of the room where he was with the lady's maid, 'hand me the Figaro, if you please.' My aunt was discreet. That was all she said."

"And what did they reply?" asked Sor Mario, sitting up straight, his toothpick in his fingers.

"My dear!" said Arduina, "what a stupid question!"

Before leaving, the Princess invited Regina to her Friday receptions. Regina promised to go; but that night, when she was comfortably in bed, lulled in the quiet and warmth of the first half-slumber, she said—

"Antonio, do you know what? I've taken a great dislike to that Princess!"

"Why? She's all right."

"Yes, but—you see——"

"What?"

She paused—then went on, her voice rather sleepy: "Do you remember that female lion-tamer we saw at Parma? She looked at women in such a strange way. I couldn't think whom the Princess reminded me of, and I thought, and thought——Her eyes are just like that lion-tamer's! Didn't you see how she stared at me?"

"Well? She liked you. Who knows but she'll leave you something in her will!"

"Is she really rich?"

"The deuce she is! A millionaire."

"Her gloves were so dirty."

"Did you see her rings?"

"What do I care for rings if the gloves are dirty?"

Regina relapsed into silence; then she laughed softly, and presently fell into a light sleep. She dreamt she was in a wood on the banks of the Po towards Viadana. The shining waters were churned by a mill, but the mill was a castle with vast rooms hung with red, and the castle belonged to Madame Makuline. The Princess was dead, but her soul had climbed up a poplar-tree, through the silver leaves of which shone the river, a crystalline blue. The mill wheel roared like thunder, and Regina, seated on the entrance stair of the castle, was washing her feet in a runnel of greenish water which overflowed the steps. A white duck came to peck at the little toe of her right foot, and laughed. Regina laughed herself. She was vaguely aware she was dreaming, for she was analysing her sentiments, and knew that a mill is a mill, that ducks can't laugh, and souls can't climb poplar-trees. None the less, she was oppressed by mysterious fear, by a sense of intolerable repugnance and distress.

Antonio heard her laugh, that vague, strange laugh from the profundity of dream which is like a voice from the depths of a well.

"She's having pleasant visions—she is happy, my little queen!" he thought, much moved.