After the Pardon E-Book

Matilde Serao

• Herausgeber: Matilde Serao
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

In this romance, the author has vividly pictured the ravishing fierceness of the love which sways the Latins and bends them to its desires. Graphically she has shown how their passions force them beyond all laws and duties, beyond all vows.

Leseprobe

After the Pardon

By

Matilde Serao

FOREWARD

In this romance, the author has vividly pictured the ravishing fierceness of the love which sways the Latins and bends them to its desires. Graphically she has shown how their passions force them beyond all laws and duties, beyond all vows. In them the emotional nature and the finer intelligence are ever at variance. They confuse that rude instinct which is jealousy, physical and base, with the higher and more ardent love—the virile affirmation of possession with the fresher, more vigorous desire of love’s happiness—but this does not make their passions more trivial nor less consuming.

The author’s gifts are of rare quality. She delves alike into the souls of her characters and into their more animal humanity, and contrasts their weaknesses with their strength in a striking manner.

The story is of the intensest interest.

F. F.

PART I.SOLIS OCCASU

I

Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti, gracefully stretched on the sofa and immersed in the many soft cushions of all kinds of fabrics and colours, was reading alone. A steady light, opalised by the clear transparent silk of a large shade, was diffused from the tall pedestal at her side, on which was placed a quaint lamp of chased silver, so that the reader’s head, with her thick mass of chestnut hair, attired almost in harmony with its natural lines in broad waves and rich braids, received exactly the clearness of the light.

The pale face, slightly rosy beneath the fineness of its complexion, the large eyes bent over the reading, the little composed mouth, without smile but without bitterness, were delicately illuminated. The soft, opaque silk, of a sheenless silver, of her dress of exquisite style, blended itself with the colour of the cushions, while the soft fleecy lace which adorned the dress seemed a sort of superfluity of the large sofa. Amidst stuff and lace the feet peeped out in shoes of gold cloth, slightly peculiar and bright, the caprice of a lady in her own home.

She was reading alone, and the slow rustling of the pages, which she turned with a gentle movement, alone broke the silence of the room.

The tiny clock on a small table at her side tinkled clearly, striking half-past nine. Donna Maria started slightly, gave a rapid glance at the clock, and, from a long habit of solitude, said to herself almost aloud—

“Always later, always a little later.”

Suppressing a sigh of impatience, and shrugging her beautiful shoulders, she resumed her reading. Her fine sense of hearing told her that outside in the hall the lock of the front door was rattling, and a slight blush rose to her cheeks and forehead.

A servant knocked at the door, entered without waiting for a reply, and silently offered the evening papers on a tray. She took them and placed them on the small table, scarcely bestowing a glance on him as he withdrew discreetly. Then, all of a sudden, a kind of spasm of grief, of anger and of annoyance, contracted her pure countenance, and with a half-angry, and yet suppressed cry, she exclaimed—

“How annoying! How annoying!”

The book fell down. Donna Maria arose, exposing her tall, lithe figure, full of noble grace. The harmony of a body not slender but comfortably covered, added to the pleasing maturity of thirty years, undulated in the silk dress with a slight rustling as she went to the balcony, and lifting the heavy lace curtains looked through the clear glass into the street.

The majestic piazza of Santa Maria Maggiore stretched before her eyes as far as the steps of the great basilica with its lofty closed doors, while the vastness of the piazza and the architectural grandeur of the temple were bathed on that June night by the soft brightness of the moon. The passers-by were few and scattered, little black shadows cast on the roads and footpaths of the square. Then an electric tram, coming from the via Cavour, crossed the square, desecrating for a moment the Roman scene, where faith and the Church had placed one of their most enduring and ancient manifestations, and suddenly disappeared into the other artery of the via Cavour.

The woman gazed at that almost deserted space, at the immense solitary church, rendered cold by the light of the moon, and the solitude of her desolate spirit and desolate heart became more profound and intense.

“Maria,” said a voice at her shoulder.

She turned suddenly. The young man who had called her took her two hands and kissed them one after the other with tender gallantry, and while she bent her head with a smile he kissed her eyes with a soft caress.

“It is a little late,” he said, excusing himself.

“It wants a quarter of an hour to ten,” replied Maria precisely. He looked at his watch and added—

“Perhaps your watch is fast?”

“Perhaps,” she replied, as if to break off the discussion.

She sat down, and the young man, taking a low chair, his usual seat, placed himself beside her. Taking her hand loosely he began to play a little with her fingers, toying distractedly with the rings with which they were loaded.

“ ...m’aimes?” said Maria, in an almost childish French fashion, but in a voice without tone or colour.

“ ...t’aime,” he replied childishly, and rather perfunctorily. Having, as it were, accomplished a small preliminary duty of conversation they were silent.

She looked at him, and noticed that he was in evening dress, and in his buttonhole were some carnations which she had given him in the morning. Marco Fiore’s slightly delicate appearance was aided by these garments of society. His person gained freedom from a certain thinness more apparent than real. His face was a little too pallid, with deep-black hair and moustaches; the lips were fresh and strong. The eyes, which were extremely soft, with a fascinating softness, had every now and then something feminine in them. But there was nothing feminine in the gleams of passion which kept crossing them in waves, nor was there anything feminine in the generality of the lines, where firmness and even obstinacy were prominent. Two or three times, to break the silence, he kissed her slender fingers.

“Are you going out, Marco?” she asked in that decided voice of hers, which required a precise and direct reply.

“Yes, for a moment or two.... I am obliged to,” Marco insinuated.

“Where?”

“To the English Embassy, Maria.”

“Is there a reception?”

“Yes, the last of the season,” he explained, as if to clear up his obligation for going.

Again there was a silence. Maria sat with her two jewelled hands clasped over her knees among the silken folds of opaque silver, as if in a dream.

“Once upon a time I was a great friend of Lady Clairville.”

“And now?” Marco asked absent-mindedly.

Suddenly he repented of the remark. Maria’s large eyes, proud and ardent, were veiled in tears.

“Now no longer,” she said, still as if in a dream.

“It is you who avoid her,” he said, trying to repair the mischief.

“It is I, yes,” she said, awakening suddenly, in a clear voice. “I did not wish her to cut me. The English are faithful, I know. But still she is an ambassadress and sees lots of people, even bad people.”

He shook his head melancholily, as if he thought, “What is to be done? These are fatal matters to discuss.”

“And you, Marco, why are you going?” Maria questioned, with an increase of hardness.

“My mother is going there, so——”

“But she has your sister-in-law for company?”

“Yes, Beatrice is accompanying her; but both have no escort.”

“Is your brother Giulio away?”

“Yes, he is at Spello.”

They remained silent for a while.

“I am sure,” resumed Maria, “you will meet some one at the English Embassy.”

“Whoever, Maria?”

“Vittoria Casalta, your former fiancée, the sister of your sister-in-law,” and an accent more ironical than disdainful pointed the sentence.

“No, Maria,” he said, at once becoming serious.

“What is this ‘No,’ Marco?” and she smiled more sarcastically; “what are you denying?”

“That Vittoria Casalta is going to the English Embassy, Maria.”

“Ah, you know that she is not going there!” and she laughed bitterly.

“Don’t torment yourself, don’t torment me, dear soul!” he said softly, tenderly drawing her to himself with his conquering sweetness and gentle grace.

Donna Maria let herself be drawn to him, no longer smiling, as if expecting some word or action. But neither action nor word came. After the tender admonition, as usual, a certain dryness rendered them dumb and motionless.

She, as usual, was the first to interrupt this state of mind.

“And then, Marco, how do you know that the fair Vittoria is not going to Lady Clairville’s?”

“Because she no longer goes into society, Maria.”

“Has she taken the veil?” she exclaimed, with a sarcastic smile.

“Almost. For that matter she never has loved the world.”

“Perhaps she flies from you, Marco?”

“Yes, I believe she flies from me.”

“I tell you Vittoria Casalta still loves you,” Maria murmured slowly as if she were speaking to herself, as if she were repeating to herself a thing said many times.

“No,” said Marco vivaciously.

“She still loves you,” the woman repeated authoritatively, almost imperiously.

“There is only one woman who loves me, and she is you, Maria—you,” he replied, as if to finish the discussion.

She listened attentively from the very first words of the sentence, attentively as if to find in them a trace or a recollection of past things, but she did not hear there quite what she wished. The words were the same, but the voice was no longer the same which pronounced them, and no longer the same, perhaps, was the man who said them. A sense of delusion for an instant, only for an instant, was depicted on her face; an expression, however, which he did not notice.

“I have never understood, Marco,” she resumed in a grave voice, “if you loved this Vittoria Casalta seriously.”

“What does it matter now?” he exclaimed, a little vexed.

“No, it doesn’t matter, it is true. Still, I should have liked to have heard it from you.”

“How many times have you asked this, Maria?” he said, between reproof and increasing vexation.

“Also you have asked me pretty often, Marco, if I ever loved my husband,” she retorted disdainfully.

At such a reminder the countenance of Marco Fiore became convulsed. Every slightly feminine trace disappeared from his rather pale and delicate face, and the firm and obstinate lines of his profile and chin became more accentuated, manly and rough. His lips trembled as he spoke.

“Why do you name your husband? Why do you name him, Maria?”

“Because he is not dead, Marco; because he exists, because he lives,” she proclaimed imperiously, her large eyes flashing.

“I hate him. Don’t speak to me of him!” he exclaimed with agitation, rising and kicking the chair aside to walk about.

“But why do you hate him? Why? Tell me, tell me.”

“Because he is the only man of whom I can be, of whom I ought to be, jealous, Maria,” he exclaimed, beside himself with exasperation. Then Maria smiled joyfully, a smile which he did not observe.

“I renounced him, his name and his fortune for you,” she replied simply.

“Do you regret it?” he asked, still hot with anger, but somewhat distractedly.

“I do not regret it,” she replied, after an imperceptible moment of hesitation.

“But, Maria, I am sure he regrets you very much.”

“No.”

“I am as certain as if he had told me, and I am certain he will get you back, Maria.”

“No.”

“Yes, he will get you back.”

“Covering himself with shame?”

“Yes, because he loves you.”

“Covering himself with ridicule.”

“He loves you, he loves you.”

“Knowing that I do not love him.”

“What does that matter? He will take you back to try to make you love him.”

“This is madness.”

“All those who love are mad,” murmured Marco Fiore very sadly.

Stupefied and suffering, she looked at him. Each looked at the other as if to recognise themselves. They were the same who, strangely, every day and every evening, scarcely found themselves together without, after a few minutes, involuntarily irritating with curious and cruel fingers the old wounds which seemed to be healing, which their restless and disturbed minds caused to bleed again.

Here she was, Donna Maria Guasco Simonetti, graceful and exquisite, she who had been the object of a thousand desires, repulsed by her serene austerity and boundless pride, who had suddenly loved Marco Fiore madly and faithfully for three years. Here she was in that house where she had come to live alone, after abandoning the conjugal abode for three years, to live apart in a strange, constant and ardent love, forgetful of every other thing. Here she was, ever more graceful in the plenitude of her womanly grace, in the atmosphere of exclusive luxury with which she was surrounded, and in garments which reflected her fascination.

And the man, Marco Fiore, young, trembling with life, who had come there that evening, an impassioned lover who had not tolerated sharing the woman of his love with the husband, he had not fallen at her feet, infatuated as usual by his mortal infatuation; he had not taken her to his arms to press her to himself, to kiss her as his own.

Instead they had given themselves, as for some time, to a sad duel of words, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes angry, evoking the absent figures of the two betrayed, of Vittoria Casalta, Marco’s betrothed, of Emilio Guasco, the husband of Donna Maria.

Both tried to subdue themselves. She crossed the quiet room, and adjusted some knick-knacks on the pianoforte, which was covered with a peculiar flowered fabric, her profile was bent slightly in a pleasing way beneath the dense shadow of her magnificent hair.

Marco opened a cigarette case, and asked, with a voice already become expressionless—

“May I smoke?”

“Do smoke.”

“Would you like a cigarette?”

“No, Marco.”

She returned to the sofa, throwing herself down gently, and drawing under her head a cushion to support her mass of hair. So they remained for a while, he smoking his cigarette slowly, and she looking at a distant part of the room, her hands stretched along her body.

“Have you found some place for us, Marco, for August?”

“I am very uncertain,” he murmured. “In whatever holiday place one goes, however far away, one meets people.”

“Far too many,” she added.

“You don’t wish to meet any one?”

“That is so; I should like not to.”

“It is impossible, Maria.”

“People always make me suffer so.”

“Why, dear?”

“I don’t know.”

After an instant he resumed quietly—

“Let us remain in Rome.”

She trembled, and raised her eyebrows slightly.

“In Rome? In Rome in August?”

“If we can’t go anywhere else,” he added, without noticing Maria’s surprise.

“You renounce the holiday and travelling which we have had every year, Marco! Do you renounce them willingly?”

“Willingly,” he replied, with complete resignation.

Why did he not look her in the face? He would have seen the lines discompose under the wave of bitterness which invaded them, and then suddenly with heroic force recompose themselves. Instead, he only heard a proud, cold voice which accepted the renunciation.

“Let us remain in Rome.”

The hard, sharp compact which annulled one of their best dreams, and destroyed one of their intensest joys, was subscribed without any further observation.

He resumed with a little difficulty.

“Later on, in September, mamma wants me.”

“Where, then?”

“At Spello, you know, at our place, where she passes the autumn.”

“I know. You have gone there every year for some days; last year for ten days.”

“This year I ought to stay some days longer.”

“How many days longer?”

“Two weeks, perhaps two or three.”

As usual, on words which he feared would displease her Marco placed a courteous hesitation. He was never precise. He sought always to render the conversation more vague with a sweet smile.

Maria did not fall into the deception, and replied clearly—

“But three weeks are not the same as two, Marco.”

“They are not the same, it is true. I will try to shorten them.”

“Why remain so long?”

“My mother requires assistance this year; my brother Giulio is unable to give her any. I don’t like to say it, but my mother is getting older. The business of the house is heavy: there are so many things to regulate and decide. In fact, I neglect my mother a little.”

“Stop three weeks then,” she said, lowering her eyelids to hide the flash of her proud eyes.

“And you? What will you do in September in Rome alone?”

“I shall do what I can,” she said, throwing her head back among the cushions.

“Poor Maria,” he said slowly.

There was so much lack of comfort in those two words, so much empty sorrow; in fact, a pity so sterile, that she broke in—

“Don’t pity me, Marco; I don’t like you to pity me.”

“Does everything offend you, then, Maria?” he exclaimed, surprised.

“Pity above everything offends me—every one’s pity; but your pity offers me an atrocious offence.”

“You are very proud, Maria.”

“Very, Marco.”

“Will nothing ever conquer this fatal pride of yours?”

“Nothing, no one. No one except myself, and not even I myself.”

“Pride causes weeping, Maria.”

“It is true; but very seldom have human eyes seen my tears,” she said conclusively.

He felt that evening, as on so many others, that never more would they find, if not the flame of passion, even the penetrating sweetness of loving companionship. The beautiful and beloved woman was near him. They were together, alone and free, alone and masters of every movement of the mind and action of the body; but some mysterious obstacle had been interposed between them, whence all beauty, love, liberty and consent were in vain.

Maria had before her the man she loved, with all his attractive appearance, with all the charms of youth and health, with all his seductiveness of mind, and this man was there in the name of an invincible transport, and ought to be and could be hers in every hour of her life. Yet nothing came of it, just as if a wanton, and deliberately wanton, hand were destroying this flower and fruit of love.

Of the two, Marco Fiore seemed to be yielding feebly to this obstacle which was intruding itself between them: he was passive, a little morbid, and easily resigned. Maria Guasco, however, proud and combative, was fighting and endeavouring to conquer the infamous hand which was plucking in the dark all the roses of their passion. She, on the other hand, allowed herself to be conquered only at the last.

“Why don’t you go now?” she said anxiously.

“Do you believe I ought to?”

“Yes, it is nearly eleven. If you want to return here afterwards,” she added, “you will make me wait up rather too long.”

He raised his eyebrows as if he experienced some difficulty in breathing or speaking.

“Well ... afterwards I should like to return home with Beatrice and mamma.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed at this blow, without further observation.

They became silent. He bent his head with that aspect of accustoming himself to a thing which had to occur, which had been usual with him for some time. She, instead, raised hers with that ever renascent pride which scorched her soul, and at last succeeded in smiling.

“But what will you do afterwards at home, Marco?”

“I shall go to bed. I am a little tired.”

“Tired of what?”

“Why, I don’t know. I have a curious physical weariness.”

“You should let a doctor examine you.”

“Do you think so? Rest heals everything.”

“It is true. Do you remember the time when you were unable to go to sleep without having written me a letter?”

“Yes, I remember,” he said surprised; “but when was that?”

“It was before—before we lived together,” she replied, with a slight trembling of the lips.

“Some time ago,” he said simply, without meaning it.

He got up to go. He took her two hands in his and pressed them with an infantile caress over his face, minutely kissing their soft and fragrant palms, and, as she lowered her head, instead of kissing her eyes as when he came in, his kisses were immersed in the dark and odorous waves of her hair.

“To-morrow, then, Marco,” she whispered, raising her head.

“To-morrow certainly, Maria,” he replied.

She accompanied him for two or three steps, almost to the door. Then she stopped for still a look or a word.

“Toujours?” she asked.

“Toujours,” he replied.

Their voices were monotonous and colourless, and their faces inexpressive as they pronounced the usual words of farewell, now three years old.

II

All was quiet in Rome when Marco Fiore returned home to the ancient Palazzo Fiore in the via Bocca di Leone. His mother and sister-in-law had returned from the reception at the English Embassy before him. Donna Arduina Fiore and Donna Beatrice Fiore had, in fact, left without looking for him, supposing that he had returned to the lonely lady in the silent little villa at Santa Maria Maggiore. Instead, he had allowed himself to wander here and there among the well-dressed crowd in the smaller reception-rooms to converse haphazardly with friends, married women and girls, conversations which, with a smile and a laugh, nearly always bore an allusion to his condition as a man chained firmly and for ever, as a man exiled voluntarily from society, and deprived of all intercourse with light loves and flirtations.

At a direct allusion to Maria Guasco, the woman who had behaved with such marvellous audacity in a hypocritical society, he lowered his eyes with a slight smile and did not reply. If the allusion was too unkind to the absent one, to her who had thrown everything on the pyre to be able to love him in liberty and beauty, his face became serious. Anyhow, the conversation languished after such an insinuation or was broken off, and suddenly he felt himself estranged and far away from that society, which nevertheless was his own, from the people who belonged to his set and perhaps to his race. To have lived three years apart from them was sufficient to break the tie.

But that evening amidst such profound elegance, among the most beautiful Roman and foreign women and the most celebrated men, it seemed to him as if like had found like, and that the other Marco Fiore, he of three years ago, was living again. When two or three times his friends had smiled intentionally at his secret marriage, as they called it, a feeling of annoyance and oppression had tormented him. A moral and perhaps physical agitation kept showing him the silent room at Santa Maria Maggiore where the solitary woman was waiting for him, and he no longer saw Maria Guasco in her proud and passionate beauty, refulgent with a powerful and charming love, but in her imperious aspect and indomitable pride, as a soul which had given up everything for ever and which wished for everything. The weight of his amorous chain crushed his heart, as he left the imposing rooms of the English Embassy.

However, when he found himself in his own room, in Palazzo Fiore, one of those old rooms with lofty ceilings and furniture exclusively old; when among the shadows and bizarre half-shadows he looked distractedly at the four or five portraits of Maria Guasco, which were mixed among the beautiful and costly ornaments adorning the table and bookshelves; when he had noticed one of her by his pillow, dressed simply in a travelling costume with a little hat on the abundance of flowing hair, a portrait in which she seemed to walk absorbed and ecstatic towards an ideal aim—in truth that aim had been love, and the portrait had been taken on their first journey, in fact during their flight—Marco Fiore trembled as if under a severe shock, and his heart melted towards her.

Her image, not from scattered portraits, but from the depth of his soul where it was impressed, rose to his eyes with all the allurements of love, and it seemed to him confused in a mortal, incurable sadness. Tears were rising in the eyes of the ardent, sorrowing image, consumed by its secret flame, tears which he had so seldom seen in reality. The fascination of a vision more subjugating than any form of tangible life! Marco Fiore’s heart began to melt, seeing Maria weeping in his dream, and an immense regret and remorse overpowered him, because by every movement and deed of his he had caused her sadness that evening, because he had not spoken a single word of love to her, because he had not yielded to her timid and impassioned invitation to return to her after midnight, as he had always done in the past; because she was there in her room alone with the sorrow of her abandonment and desertion. For a short time Marco had no peace thinking of his involuntary coldness and cruelty, and he experienced an irresistible desire to go out, to go to Maria, to throw himself at her feet.

“I will go,” he said to himself, starting up.

But he did not pass the threshold of his room. The flow of bitterness and repentance ceased and composed itself slowly at the bottom of his heart, which became all at once mysteriously calm. He meditated on his sudden appearance at Maria’s house when she was no longer expecting him, when perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps Maria on that evening had not even wept as his vision had showed him, or perhaps her tears had been dried by her pride. How cold and sharp she had been with him! With what delight she had tortured him, and afterwards had aroused, cleverly and cruelly, his jealousy! With what calmness and iciness she had accepted all he had scarcely dared to tell her for fear of crucifying her: the August without travelling or holiday-making, and the September separated and far away! How in her pride she had spurned his tender pity!

Marco Fiore did not leave his room. His good impulse had fallen, his remorse had dissolved, and his dream of amorous consolation and human compassion had vanished. A great aridness spread itself over him. He was without desires, without hope or plans. Maria’s portraits around him spoke no more to him, and before closing his eyes in sleep he looked at them as strange and unknown figures, as figures indifferent to him.

*   *  *  *  *  *   *  *

A long absorption of thoughts held the woman who was left alone stretched among the cushions.

Twice her little clock struck the hour, but she did not heed it. The book had fallen on the ground and had not been picked up, the little chair where Marco had sat had not been moved from beside her, and in the air the subtle smell of cigarettes remained, while on the ash-tray on the little table there were some ashes. Amidst so much testimony of a vanished hour, which had spoken its word of truth, she immersed herself in the hidden passion of her tumultuous and ecstatic soul. Only the light step of her maid roused her, a pale and sleepy young woman, who was trying to keep her eyes open and conceal her weariness.

“Am I to wait for the master?” she asked in a subdued voice, as if fearing to wake her mistress.

“No, go to bed,” replied Donna Maria precisely.

“If Your Excellency is going to wait, I will wait too.”

“No, the master will not return.”

“Ah,” said the other, lowering her eyes, and after saying good-night she left.

At last Donna Maria arose and rapidly passed into the salotto, another room where she had placed her books, pictures, and writing-table, and where she used to pass the morning when she did not go out, and quickly entered the bedroom. A night-light was burning there subduedly, and a fresh fragrance impregnated the air. Everything was there in the familiar and caressing half-light. Like a shadow Donna Maria walked up and down her room, without stopping or touching anything, as if she were looking for something and really did not care to look for it.

She trembled, and sometimes stopped as if at the noise of steps.

With its counterpane of old flowered brocade, fringed with gold lace and turned down, the bed was made and glistened whitely with its sheets and lace.

All at once she discovered what she wanted. Her expert hands opened the drawer of a little inlaid cabinet near the bed, and fumbled there till she found and drew out a small object. It was a little diary, but she was unable to read the small pages as she turned them over. She came nearer the night-light and, finding the page, read thereon. Of a sudden a great cry escaped her breast, and, kneeling by the bed, she embraced the pillows convulsively.

“It is ten days ago—ten days!”

A hundred times with a hundred sighs, in a torrent of tears like one demented, she repeated the words in tones of anger, fear, and lament. She said the words with a desolation and sadness, and an immense melancholy. Then she murmured them more softly, and even stammered them. At last she was silent; her tears ceased. Then she fell, wearied out, into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

III

As she entered the courtyard of the Baths of Diocletian, where modern Rome has placed a museum for whatever the Tiber has restored, or whatever has been excavated in recent years, Maria Guasco closed her white lace parasol and looked around. The place seemed like the white and silent cloister of a Christian monastery. Four roomy covered porticisurrounded a garden planted simply with rose-bushes, box hedges, and some small trees. In the middle rose a stone sundial, and on the right a well with an ancient pully from whose rope was hanging an old-fashioned bucket. The portici were quite white, and along their walls were hanging fragments of marble and pieces of Roman bas-reliefs. There was an occasional bust on its pedestal, and some wooden benches. But at the beginning of the summer, at ten in the morning, the place was without visitors. Donna Maria stopped undecidedly.

She was dressed in a white soft stuff which waved noiselessly about her, a large white and very fine veil surrounded her hat, her abundant hair, and oval face. Youth, primal and fresh, proceeded from all the whiteness in which she walked, like one of those dense, soft, white clouds which give a sense of spiritual voluptuousness to the eyes. Her beauty was illuminated by it, and beneath the transparency of her complexion her blood coursed more lively, rendering more rosy her delicate and expressive countenance. Only her eyes contained a tinge of disturbance in their colour, undecided between grey and blue. Something proud and sad concealed them, sometimes even extinguishing their glance. Donna Maria’s mouth, too, had not a shadow of a smile. While she stood there she was so wrapped in her thoughts and sensations, as almost to forget the reason for which she had come at that unusual hour to the Baths of Diocletian.

“Good-morning, Donna Maria,” said a gentleman, coming towards her, taking off his hat with an extremely correct bow.

“Good-morning, Provana,” she said, frowning slightly and biting her lip; “since when have you been a frequenter of museums and a lover of the ancient statues of Faustina and Britannicus?”

“Oh, I don’t care for them, cara Signora,” he hastened to say with an ironical smile, “I don’t understand them, and, therefore, I detest them.”

“Why, then?”

“To be able to speak to you alone in a place which is completely deserted at this hour and season.”

“Why don’t you come to my house?” she replied, growing more austere; “I am alone sometimes.”

“Yes; but Marco Fiore can come there any minute, neither can you deny him entrance,” he replied coldly.

“Do you hate Marco Fiore so much, Provana?”

“I don’t hate him, I envy him,” he added, again becoming the gallant.

“So you hasten to give me a meeting where he must not interfere, to tell me things he must not hear?” she replied with a sardonic laugh.

“But you have come to listen,” he observed craftily.

She bit her lip hard, and extracted from her gold chain-purse a note, folded in four, which she gave to him.

“Take back your letter, Provana, and goodbye.”

“Don’t go, Donna Maria, don’t go. Listen to me since you have come. It is a serious matter.”

“Good-bye, Provana,” she replied, almost reaching the main entrance.

“In Heaven’s name, don’t leave! The matter is really so important;” and his voice trembled with anxiety.

Donna Maria looked at him intently. Gianni Provana, whose correct and gentlemanly face, with its more than forty years, for the most part pleasing and inexpressive in lines and colouring, seemed genuinely moved. His monocle had fallen from its orbit, and he was a little pale. He twisted his moustaches nervously, and his mouth, still fresh in spite of its maturity, seemed to restrain a flow of words with difficulty.

Donna Maria had never seen him thus; Gianni, the man of moderation in every gesture and word, so often sceptical, so often cold, but never agitated, the common type, in fact, of the elegant gentleman who assumes a correct pose from infancy, who cloaks himself with a studied disdain for everything, and most especially for the things he is not aiming at, and the persons he does not understand.

“Really I can’t think of anything important to listen to from you,” she murmured, turning back for a step or two.

“However, it is so, Donna Maria. It is a question of your good which is immensely dear to me.”

“Why is it dear to you? How do I concern you?”

“Why, I esteem you deeply; I love you.”

“Still I don’t love you, neither do I esteem you,” she replied icily.

“Why don’t you esteem me?”

“Because you are a dissembler, Provana.”

“Dissembling is often necessary and most useful in life. It is often an act of prudence and benevolence.”

“That is the invention of liars.”

They walked together, side by side, along one of the portici, drawing further away towards the back of the edifice. Gianni Provana watched her half curiously and half anxiously; she was distracted, gazing intently on an unknown point, trailing her parasol.

“How far has loyalty served you, Donna Maria? You have lost reputation, position, and family.”

“I have gained liberty and love,” she replied, raising her head proudly.

“But not happiness.”

“Liberty is love,” she answered, with a cry of revolt.

“You are the prisoner of your horrible condition, Donna Maria, and you are not sure that Marco Fiore loves you,” he insisted, determined to say all.

“It is I who ought to love him.”

“You don’t love him, Donna Maria. I swear that you don’t love him.”

“Who makes you say this? Who has told you this?”

“I say it because I know it. I say it because it is necessary to open your eyes to yourself and upon Marco Fiore!”

“Why do you do this? For what obscure motive? For what perfidious interest?”

“In your own interest entirely, Donna Maria.”

“That can’t be. You are a calculator. You have a plan; reveal it at once. I prefer it. What is the motive of this meeting?”

“To persuade you that you do not love Marco Fiore, and that he does not love you.”

“Is it he, is it Marco Fiore who sends you?” she exclaimed with a spasm in her voice.

Gianni Provana hesitated an instant.

“No, it is not he. It is I who have guessed all, who know all.”

She bent her head in thought. In spite of the horror which this colloquy with a man she had always despised caused her, although she was listening to words which offended her mortally, she continued to listen to him as if subjugated. They had now reached a corner of the portici near a large pillar. Not a shadow of a visitor appeared.

“Donna Maria, you who are truth herself, how can you endure this life of lies?”

“Of lies?”

“Exactly. You are deceiving Marco Fiore when you tell him that you love him, and you are deceiving yourself. He is deceiving you. This love is dead, in fact it has been lived much too long.”

“According to you, who suppose that you know something about love, how long does passion last? By the way, perhaps you have got the figures with you to explain them?”

“Yes; passion lasts from six months to a year, love from a year to two years. You have been living a lie for more than a year. O Donna Maria, break this chain.”

“Are we meant to slay this love?” she exclaimed mockingly, with a shrill bitterness in her voice.

“You ought to slay it!”

“And am I afterwards to burn myself on the pyre like the widows of Malabar?” she continued, even more mockingly and bitterly.

“You ought to live and be happy.”

“With you, eh? With Gianni Provana?”

“With another,” he said in a low voice, looking at her.

“With whom?”

“With Emilio Guasco,” he ventured to say.

“Don’t repeat the infamy!” she cried, clenching her teeth.

A terrible silence came upon them. The sun had already invaded half of the simple garden among the thick box hedges and winter roses. The soft singing of a little bird issued here and there from the trees.

“Does he send you, Provana?” she continued, in a voice almost hoarse with annoyance, so great was the disdain which she was controlling within her.

“No, he doesn’t send me, but I am come all the same. Donna Maria, does it please you to continue to live outside the laws, outside morality, outside society, when the great cause of it is at an end? Does it please you still to sacrifice your decorum, your dignity, your name, not to love but to your fancy? Where are there any more the supreme compensations for all that you have lost? Where are there any more the rich sentimental and sensual rewards for that which you have thrown away and abandoned? How does your abnegation profit you any more? You have given all and are giving all, and meanwhile your life is empty, your soul is empty.”

Why did she listen so intently, without interrupting, without rebelling? Why was no shock given to her pride? And why did she cry out no more in protest? Gianni Provana so cold, so sceptical in his manner, was reaching at that time and in that singular place almost to eloquence. She who suspected him, despised and considered him a liar and a hypocrite, was listening to him, while her face contracted with suffering and disdain.