Lucrezia Floriani, page 10
Karol, tossed by painful dreams, awoke at times in terror and despair. When this happened he instinctively sought some place of refuge from the phantoms that beset him, and it was the maternal arms of Madame Floriani which were to surround him as if they were a rampart, and her bosom on which to rest his aching head. Then, when he opened his eyes and gazed wild and distraught around him, he would see the beautiful, loving faces of Celio and Stella smiling at him. He returned their smile mechanically, as if he were making an effort to please them, but meanwhile his nightmare had faded and his panic was forgotten. His brain, which was still weak, also developed strange fancies. They would bring little Salvator’s rosy face close to his and when he looked at the child it seemed to him that he had wings like a cherub and fluttered round his head so as to cool him. Beatrice’s voice was unusually sweet and when she chattered quietly with her brothers, he thought he could hear her singing. In the fresh, soothing tone of her voice he could hear musical notes discernible to him alone, and one day when the little one was quietly arguing about a toy with her sister, Madame Floriani was surprised to hear the prince tell her that the child sang Mozart better than anyone else alive. “She has a beautiful nature,” he added, making a great effort to convey his thought “She has probably heard a lot of music, but she can only remember Mozart, never anything from the other masters.”
“And doesn’t Stella sing too?” asked Lucrezia, who was trying to penetrate to the meaning behind his words.
“She sometimes sings Beethoven, but it is less consistent, less sustained, less uniform.”
“And what about Celio? He never sings.”
“I can only hear Celio when he walks. There is so much grace and harmony in his person and his movements that the ground echoes beneath his footsteps and the room is filled with long, vibrating sounds.”
“And the little one?” asked Lucrezia, offering him the cheek of her bambino. “He is the noisiest one, he sometimes shouts. Doesn’t he hurt you?”
“He never hurts me. I can’t hear him. I think I have become deaf to noise. But melody and rhythm still affect me. When that cherub,” he added, pointing to little Salvator, “is before me, I see a kind of shower of bright colours dancing around my bed, which are shapeless, but dispel the evil visions. Ah! Do not remove the children. I shall be free of pain, as long as the children are there.”
Hitherto Karol had lived with the thought of death. He had grown up so accustomed to it that, before he had been stricken with this illness, he had reached the stage when he believed that he belonged to death and that every day of respite which he had been granted was by mere chance. He even went so far as to joke about it; but when we form that kind of idea when we are well, we can accept it with philosophical calm, whereas it is rare not to be driven to panic when it invades a mind weakened by illness. In my opinion the only sad thing about death is that it comes to us when we are so prostrated and demoralised that we can no longer see it for what it is and that it even terrifies souls which are in themselves calm and resolute. Thus, what happens to most sick people happened to the prince. When he had to pit himself at close quarters against the idea of dying in the spring time of life, the sweet melancholy on which he had fed hitherto degenerated into black despair.
If his mother had been his nurse in the present situation, she would have raised his spirits in a way entirely different from that used by Madame Floriani She would have spoken to him of the life hereafter, she would have surrounded him with the austere external succour of religion. The priest would have come to his aid and Karol, prepared by ritual pomp, would have accepted and endured his fate. But Lucrezia proceeded otherwise. She thrust aside from him the idea of death and when he gave her the impression that he thought it imminent and inevitable, she teased him tenderly and pretended to a calmness of mind she did not always have.
She applied so much prudence and apparent serenity to the matter that she succeeded in winning his confidence. She soothed him, not by telling him what it is too late to tell the sick, namely to despise life (that is a form of courage which is not to be relied upon, because this courage can very often kill,) but she cheered him by making him believe in life, and she quickly realised that he still loved, and fiercely loved, this physical life which he had scorned so much at the time when it was not menaced.
Salvator was afraid, because he thought that his friend would not have the moral strength to resist the disease. “How do you hope to save him?” he would say to Madame Floriani, “when he has been weary of life so long and especially since his mother’s death, and when he is slowly and gently yielding to consumption? From the almost pleasure which this idea gave him I had the feeling that he was already stricken and that when he fell he would never rise again.”
“You were wrong then and are wrong now,” answered Lucrezia. “No one has a taste for dying unless he is a monomaniac and your friend is certainly not that. He is well balanced and this nervous perturbation which was making him so gloomy will vanish when the present crisis passes. I assure you, he wishes to live and he will live.”
Karol did indeed wish to live, he wished to live for Lucrezia Floriani. To be sure he did not realise it and for the fortnight during which he was suffering the worst of the illness he forgot the shock which had precipitated it But this love continued and grew without his awareness, like that of a child in the cradle for the woman who feeds it. An instinctive attachment, indissoluble and imperious, took possession of his poor distressed soul and tore him away from the cold fingers of death. He fell under the ascendancy of this woman to whom he was no more than a patient to be nursed and to whom he transferred all the love he had felt for his mother and the love he thought he had had for his sweetheart.
In the early stages of his delirium he was obsessed by the idea that his mother, by a miracle of maternal love, had left her grave to come and help him to die and he kept on mistaking Lucrezia for her. It was this delusion which explained why she found him submissive to all her treatment, attentive to all she said and forgetful of all the mistrust with which her character had originally inspired him. When he was oppressed to the extent of being unable to breathe he sought her shoulder on which to rest his head and sometimes he would doze for an hour in that position without suspecting his mistake.
Then, one day, his delirium was gone and as his sleep had been more unbroken and wholesome he opened his eyes and fixed them, astonished, on the pale face of this woman, wearied with all the attentions and sleepless nights she had devoted to him. It seemed to him that he had come out of a long dream and he asked her if he had been ill long and was it she whom he had always seen by his side. “Good heavens,” he said when she had replied, “you certainly do look like my mother. Salvator,” he went on, recognising his friend who was approaching his bed, “doesn’t she look like my mother? I was completely thunderstruck by it when I saw her the first time.”
Salvator did not consider it opportune to contradict him, although he could not see the slightest similarity between the beautiful, shapely Lucrezia and the tall, gaunt, austere Princess de Roswald.
On another occasion, Karol still leaning on Madame Floriani’s arm, tried to support himself unaided “I feel better,” he said “I have more strength. I have tired you too much. I don’t understand how I could take advantage of your kindness to such an extent”
“No, no, lean on me, my child,” she answered gaily, using the familiar form of address which was a habit she easily adopted with people who interested her, and in Karol’s case she had come to regard him almost as a son.
“Are you my mother, then? Are you really my mother?” asked Karol whose mind was beginning to become confused again.
“Yes, yes, I am your mother,” she replied, without thinking that for Karol such a statement might be sacrilege. “Rest assured that at this moment it is absolutely the same thing.”
Karol said nothing, then his eyes filled with tears and he began to weep like a child and pressed her hand against his lips.
“My dear son,” she said, kissing him on the brow several times, “you must not weep, it may overtire you. If you think of your mother, think that she sees you from Heaven and blesses you, knowing that you will soon be better.”
“You are wrong,” Karol replied “High in Heaven, my mother has been calling a long time and urging me to go and join her. I can hear her clearly, but I, in my ingratitude, haven’t the courage to give up life.”
“How can you argue so mistakenly, child that you are?” said Lucrezia, with the tender seriousness and calm she would have used in chiding Celio. “When it is God’s will that we should live, our parents cannot summon us to them in the other world They neither wish it nor should wish it. So you must have dreamed it all; when one is ill one has many dreams. If your mother could make herself heard by you she would tell you that you have not lived long enough to deserve to go and join her.”
Karol turned round with an effort, possibly surprised to hear Madame Floriani preaching to him. He looked at her again, then as if he had not heard or understood what she had just said, he cried: “No, I haven’t the strength to die. You are holding me back and I cannot leave you. May my mother forgive me, I want to stay with you.”
And exhausted by his emotion he fell back in Lucrezia’s arms and sank into sleep once more.
12.
One evening, when the prince who was convalescing by now, had apparently fallen gently asleep, and Madame Floriani had put the children to bed, she was sitting with Salvator on the terrace, enjoying the cool air.
“My dear Lucrezia,” he said to her, “the time has come at last for us to speak of real life, for we have been traversing a twenty day nightmare which is now fading, thank God, – I should say thank you, for you have saved my friend, and you have added to my affection for you a gratitude which it is impossible to express. But now tell me, what are we going to do when once our dear patient is fit to travel?”
“We haven’t reached that stage yet,” she replied “He will not be able to leave even after a fortnight. He can barely walk round the garden at present and, as you know, strength returns much more slowly than it goes.”
“Let us suppose that this convalescence lasts another month. There is an end to everything. We can’t remain a burden on you eternally, and we shall have to part one day.”
“Certainly, but I want it to be delayed as long as possible. You are no burden to me; I am well rewarded for the attentions I have given to your friend by the happiness I feel in knowing that I have saved him. Moreover, his gratitude is so great, so genuine and tender, that I have begun to love him, almost as much as you love him yourself. It is natural to nurse and comfort those whom one loves. So I do not see that there is any occasion for thanking me so much.”
“You seem unwilling to understand me, my dear Lucrezia. It is the future which disturbs me.”
“What? The prince’s life? It has not been imperilled at all by this illness. I have studied him. He has an excellent constitution. It is even possible that he will outlive both of us.”
“I too am almost sure of it. The occasion has shown me what resources these nervous temperaments possess. But have you thought about his moral future, Lucrezia?”
“It seems to me that that is not my responsibility. Why do you ask me that?”
“I ought not to be surprised that a nature as loyal and generous as yours should carry simplicity as far as blindness, yet it is strange that you don’t understand me.”
“Well, then, I don’t understand you. Come, speak clearly.”
“To speak clearly on so delicate a matter to someone who gives no help at all is brutal. And yet I must Well – Karol loves you.”
“I should hope so! And I love him too; but if you are trying to tell me that he is in love with me, I cannot take your fears seriously.”
“Oh, my dear Lucrezia, please don’t make light of it. Everything is serious with a character which is as deep and intense as my poor friend’s. Believe me, it is frightfully serious.”
“No, no, Salvator, you are talking nonsense. That your friend should have a serious feeling of affection for me, keen, ardent gratitude if you wish – that is possible for a being as gentle and noble as he is. But that this boy should be in love with your old friend is impossible! You see him over-excited when he speaks to us and that is the effect of his weakness and the aftermath of his previous nervous condition. You hear him thank me in terms which are not proportionate to the services I have rendered him, and that is the effect of the beautiful language which comes from a beautiful soul, from a noble habit of thinking and saying things well, and from the distinguished education and exquisite manners he has acquired. But love me? What madness! He does not know me and if he did know me, if he knew my past life, the poor boy would be afraid of me. Fire and water, heaven and earth are not more dissimilar.”
“Heaven and earth, fire and water may be opposing elements, but they are always united or ready to unite in nature. Clouds and rocks, volcanoes and seas embrace each other when they meet. They shatter and merge together in the same eternal disasters. Your comparison affirms my assertion and must explain my fears.”
“You are being poetic to no purpose. I tell you that he would despise and maybe hate me if he realised that the sister of mercy who had waited on him was a sinner. I know all about his principles and ideas from what you tell me every day – for I must admit that he himself has never preached morality to me. But after all, how can you, who know his character and opinions so well, suppose that there could be any possible relationship between us in the future? Come, I know quite well what he will think of me when he recovers his health and clarity of judgement. I hve no illusions. Six months hence, in Venice, Naples or Florence someone will relate in his presence the sad adventures which have befallen me and those even sadder which they attribute to me – for there is nothing which they don’t ascribe to the rich … Well, remember at that time what I am telling you now. You will see your friend defend me a little, sigh a great deal and then say to you, ‘How unfortunate that so good a woman, for whom I feel so much friendship and gratitude, should be vilified so!’ That is all that La Floriani will mean to this proud young man. It will be a sweet but sad memory and I do not expect anything more, for what do I need save the truth? You are fully aware, Salvator, that I have the strength to accept all the consequences of my past, that they neither perturb nor offend me, and that they in no way affect the serenity of my conscience.”
“All you say saddens me, my dear Lucrezia,” replied Salvator, taking her hand tenderly, “because it is all true, save one point. My friend will leave you, certainly. He will flee you as soon as he has the strength to do so and has seen clearly into himself. Yes, he will hear fools tell the story of your life without understanding it and cowards slandering it. And he will suffer and sigh bitterly. But that that will be all, that his grief will fade with a few words and that your memory will be effaced by an effort of reason and will-power, that I deny! At this very moment Karol is more unhappy than he has ever been, and he will be unhappy for ever, although he does not yet realise it, lost as he is in the intoxication of first love.”
“I must interrupt you at the words ‘first love’,” said Lucrezia, who had been listening attentively. “It is because you yourself have told me that I would not be his first love that I cannot be too afraid of this one, assuming, as you do, that it exists. But did you not tell me that he had been betrothed to a beautiful girl of his own station, that he had been inconsolable when she died and that he would probably never love another woman? That is what you told me earlier on and if that is true, he does not love me, or if he is capable of loving me, it is not impossible that another woman will obliterate me from his thoughts.”
“But that would mean another five or six years of suffering for him – for he was eighteen when Lucie died and until he met you he had not even looked at another woman.”
“There is no possible comparison between two such different loves. For six years he may have mourned an angelic creature similar to himself; whom duty and attachment required him to prefer above all others. But in the case of a poor old theatrical like me, the widow of … several lovers, (I have never counted how many) he would not require six weeks to regain his senses, that is, if he ever lost them. Come, Salvator, let us drop the subject. That idea of yours distresses and offends me somewhat Why must your poor Lucrezia to whom you have shown proof of trust and rare brotherly love for the past three weeks – why must she necessarily be the object of everybody’s gross desires, and even of the most chaste and ailing of your friends? When I have expiated all my faults by so much suffering and made some slight amends for them with good deeds, why can I not be treated like a motherly friend by young men of good character? Must I play the part of Satan in connection with them, when in fact there is as little evil in me as there is in Stella or Beatrice? Am I a coquette? Am I still beautiful? Corpo di Dio, as my father would say, I so much wish to be left in peace that I do my utmost to give people cause for neither fear nor envy of me. Rest, oblivion, that is what I ask for, what I sigh for, what I sometimes moan for like the hart panting for the water brooks … When, then, will I cease to hear the word ‘love’ jarring on my ear like a false note?”
“My poor beloved sister,” said Salvator, “you are struggling in vain. For many a day to come you will have to resist, if not yourself, then at least the men who see you. It is useless for me to try to be absolutely calm when I am with you. Even I can’t do it and yet … “
“Come,” cried Lucrezia in frank and almost comical desperation, “are you starting again? Et tu, Brute … Kill me without delay. I would prefer that At least in that way I would be rid of that eternal refrain!”
