Lucrezia Floriani, page 11
“I’ll say no more,” exclaimed Salvator, who dreaded the sight of her grief coming so soon after that small flash of playfulness. “I shall never speak again, I shall never mention myself even if it should kill me. I have given you my promise and I swear to keep it. But it will not be so with all men. It will be useless for you to say that you are old: they will look at you and see the vivid flame of life coursing through your generous veins. You will screw your hair up as negligently as you do now and hide yourself in that eternal dressing gown which looks more like a penitent’s sackcloth than a woman’s garment, but it will all be to no purpose: you will still be beautiful in spite of yourself, still more beautiful than any other woman in the world! What other woman besides yourself could show herself in broad daylight dressed so casually, expose her neck and arms to the blazing sunshine, tire her complexion and her eyes watching a patient throughout endless nights, after feeding half a dozen children, working, weeping, suffering … Oh, what haven’t you endured? What other woman could, after all this, still inflame the imagination of men, whether they be as chaste as my friend Karol or as experienced as your friend Salvator?”
‘I tell you,” cried Madame Floriani, losing her patience, “if you continue talking in that way and succeed in convincing me that I shall fall in love again one day, I can see myself this very night putting acid or some other corrosive on my face so as to be hideous to-morrow.”
“What?” cried Salvator, taken aback, “Would you really be so savage to yourself?”
“No, I didn’t mean it,” she answered, candidly. “I have suffered enough not to have the slightest wish to look for more suffering.”
“But supposing you could disfigure yourself without making yourself blind or doing yourself any real harm … You wouldn’t do it, would you?”
“I would not do it lightly, for I am an artist. I love beauty and I do my utmost to shield my children’s eyes from the sight of ugliness. I would terrify my own self if I became an object of horror and disgust, and yet I assure you that if I had to choose between the tortures of a new love and the unpleasant consequences of disfiguring myself I would not hesitate in my choice.”
“You sound so sincere as you speak that you terrify me. A person like you is capable of anything. Lucrezia, don’t take it into your head to commit that kind of madness, – like Frederick the Great’s sister who, they say, disfigured herself, so as not to be sought in marriage, and so preserve herself for her lover.”
“That is indeed sublime,” said Lucrezia, “for it is the greatest sacrifice a woman can make.”
“Yes, but the story adds that with the destruction of her beauty the princess also destroyed her health and that she became unbalanced and ill-natured. So remain beautiful. Otherwise you may be running the risk of losing your goodness of heart, which is no mean treasure.”
“Friend,” said Madame Floriani, “time will settle everything. Little by little I shall grow ugly without thinking about it, possibly without realising it, and then I believe I shall be happy at last Through fatal experience I have learned that there is no happiness in love and so I still maintain the dream of a certain state of calm and innocence which I believe I feel at this moment and which seems to me full of delight Don’t tell me then that your friend is about to disturb it with his own suffering. I shall do something to prevent him from loving me.”
“And how will you set about it?”
“By telling him the truth about myself Help me. Don’t spare him … But all this is nonsense. I am mad to believe what you have said. He cannot be in love with me. Doesn’t he still wear the portrait of his beloved on his heart?”
“Do you really think he loved her?” said Salvator, after a short silence.
“You told me so,” replied Lucrezia.
“Yes, I thought so too, because he believed it himself, and spoke of it so eloquently. But, between ourselves, wouldn’t you say that the love which a man has for a woman is not complete unless he has possessed her? True love cannot feed eternally on desires and regrets. And when I come to think now of the relations between Prince Karol and Princess Lucie, I am convinced their love existed only in their imagination. They had seen one another five or six times, perhaps, and even then, always in the presence of their parents.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, Karol told me so himself. They barely knew one another when they were betrothed and she died so soon afterwards that they had no time to become better acquainted.”
“Did you yourself ever see Princess Lucie?”
“I saw her once. She was a pretty creature, slight, pale – and consumptive. I could tell that immediately, although no one else thought so. She was very elegant and graceful. She dressed exquisitely and had a grand air, which I considered somewhat too affected, blue eyes, a cloud of hair, a delicate complexion, the reputation of an angel and a poetic aura. I did not like her. She was too romantic and too disdainful. She was one of those beings to whom I am always tempted to say: ‘Do open your mouth when you speak, do put your feet down on the ground when you walk, do eat with your teeth, do cry with your eyes, do play the piano with your fingers, do laugh with your throat, and not with your eyebrows, do bow with your body and not with your chin. If you are a butterfly or a flower, fly away into the wind and don’t come to flutter round our eyes or ears. If you are dead, say so immediately.’ In short she made me impatient. She was like something which resembles a woman, but is nothing more than her shadow. She had a mania for covering herself with flowers and perfume which gave me the migraine on the day when I had the honour of dining with her. She had the fragrance of an embalmed corpse, and I would have preferred a sachet in my wardrobe rather than a woman like that by my side – at least I would not have been obliged to inhale its perfume all the time.”
“I cannot help laughing at the portrait,” said Lucrezia, “and yet I feel that it is exaggerated and that there is a hint of spite in it. The princess did not like you, that’s obvious. You probably paid her a compliment which was not too refined. Let us leave the dead in peace and respect this memory in the pure soul of Prince Karol. Indeed, it is my intention to make him speak of her and rekindle that love in him; it will be salutary for him at this moment. Good night, my friend. Don’t worry, Karol will never love anyone but a sylph.”
Lucrezia was genuinely convinced that Salvator was mistaken. She was well aware that his own love for her was generous and, so to speak, good-natured, a love very sincere but very matter-of-fact, one which would have imposed no chains but would equally have accepted none; in a word a good, warm friendship with a few pleasures now and again, and as many infidelities as could or would be permitted by either partner.
Madame Floriani wanted no more chains and thought herself proof against all passion, but she had formed too high a conception of love, she had felt it too deeply and indeed was too uncomplicated and ardent by nature for such an arrangement not to appear revolting to her. She did not know the meaning of doing things by halves and if, without her knowledge, she was still harbouring certain feelings, she preferred to conquer and silence them rather than satisfy them without rapture and without the conviction, possibly illusory, but nevertheless sincere, of a life shared with another in eternal fidelity. That is how she had always loved and whether her passion had lasted a week or perhaps even a day, as Salvator had said, it had been in the firm belief that it was for life. Great facility in self-delusion, blind benevolence in judgement, inexhaustible tenderness of heart, resulting in over-haste, errors and weakness, heroic devotion to unworthy objects, unparalleled energy applied to a wretched goal in actual fact yet sublime in intention – such was the generous, extravagant and deplorable story of her entire existence.
As ready to respond to desire as to renounce it, she had thought for the whole of the past year that she was finally free of love and that nothing could bring her back to it. Her mind was so quick to accept a resolution and accustom itself to a certain manner of looking at things, that she was convinced that her victory was won for ever, and if she could have based the length of time on the intensity of her conviction, she would have sworn on oath that she had not known love for more than twenty years.
And yet the last wound was barely healed and like a good soldier who rejoins his comrades when his legs can hardly support him to the ambulance, Lucrezia bravely faced daily contact with these two men in love with her, each in his own way. She comforted herself by saying that she had never felt any love for the one, nor could she ever feel love for the other, and that as Providence had meant her to be necessary to them, there was no reason for her to torture herself by dwelling on the possible dangers of the situation.
Still thinking of all that Salvator Albani had just said, she sat down in her boudoir before entering her bedroom and began to loosen her hair and arrange it for the night in a charmingly casual manner. “Perhaps,” she said to herself, “it may be a harmless ruse on Salvator’s part to discover what I think of his friend and whether I am to be approached by way of impertinence or sentiment He had invented this story of Karol’s love to renew those outbursts of passion which I have forbidden him.”
And yet there were words which the prince had let slip, exclamations, certain looks which should surely have enlightened a woman of Lucrezia’s age and experience. But she had preserved a child-like modesty and innocence despite everything, and this trait of her character was not one of the least of its charms. Perhaps that was why she always appeared young, and why people suddenly found that they liked her.
As she was arranging her hair before a mirror by the light of a single candle, she looked at herself carefully for a moment, as she had not done for the past year, but she possessed the instinct for living for herself to such a slight degree, that she saw nothing more in her face than the memory of the men who had loved her. “Nonsense,” she said to herself, “they would not love me if they saw me now. How could I really please others when the ones who had so many greater reasons for loving me than my youth and beauty are now indifferent to me?” She had not been happy in her loves and yet she had kindled passions so violent that it was no compliment to her to inspire a passing fancy, and after being an idol to become a diversion.
She therefore felt very resolute when, lowering the gauze curtains over the mirror on her dressing table, she promised herself that no one would ever have any rights over her again; but as she was taking up her candle to return to her children, she started at the sight of a ghost in front of her.
“My dear prince,” she said after a moment of uncontrollable panic, “there you are out of your bed when we thought you sound asleep! What is the matter? Are you in pain? And to think you were alone! Salvator has just left me. Didn’t he go back to you? Speak please, I am very uneasy about you.”
The prince was so pale and agitated and was trembling so much that there was indeed cause for anxiety. He had difficulty in replying. At last he seemed to come to a decision.
“Don’t be afraid of me, and don’t be afraid for me,” he said. “I am well, very well. But I could not sleep. So I went and stood near the window. I heard voices. I was sorely tempted to go down and join in your conversation. But I did not dare … I hesitated a long time. At last, when your voices died and I saw Salvator wandering alone far in the garden, I made a great resolution … I came to look for you … Forgive me, I am so confused that I do not know what I am doing, nor where I am, nor how I had the audacity to penetrate into your own private apartments.”
“Set your mind at rest,” said Madame Floriani as she made him sit down on her divan. “I am not offended. It is quite clear that you are ill. You can barely stand up. Come now, my dear prince, you must have had a bad dream. I thought I had left Antonia by your bedside. Why did the young scatter-brain leave you alone?”
“It was I that asked her to leave me. I am going now. Forgive me again. I think I must be mad to-night”
“No, no, stay here till you feel better. I shall go and find Salvator. Between us we shall distract you, you will forget your malaise as you talk to us and when you are more yourself, Salvator will take you back to your room. You will sleep calmly when he is near you.”
“Don’t go for Salvator,” said the prince, and with an impetuous movement seized both her hands. “He can do nothing for me. You alone can do everything. Listen, listen to me and let me die afterwards if the little strength I have regained fades in the supreme effort I must make in order to speak to you.
“I heard everything that Salvator said to you this evening and all that you answered. My window was open; you were standing below it At night voices carry in the solemn silence here. So I know everything: you do not love me and you do not even believe that I love you.”
“Here it starts again,” thought Lucrezia, overcome with distress and weary in anticipation of what she would have to say in self-defence without wounding his sad heart “My dear child,” she began, “listen…”
“No, no,” he cried with an energy of which one would have thought him incapable. “I have nothing to listen to. I know everything you will say, I do not need to hear it and it is not even certain whether I have the strength to do so. It is I who must speak. I ask nothing of you. Have I ever asked you for anything? Would you even know my thoughts if Salvator had not guessed them and betrayed them? But there is one thing in all this which is intolerable to me, something which has pierced me to the heart, because it was you who said it. You believe that I cannot love a woman like you. You speak evil of yourself to prove that I must think it too. And lastly you think that I shall forget you and that when people will speak ill of you in my presence I shall sigh like a coward and express regret for being linked to you by gratitude. These thoughts are horrible, they kill me! Tell me that you deny them or I do not know what I shall do in my despair.”
“Don’t be so distressed by a few thoughtless words which I do not even remember,” cried Lucrezia, alarmed by the growing excitement of the prince. “I never dreamed of accusing you of arrogance and I know that you are incapable of ingratitude. Didn’t I say rather that your gratitude to me was greater than the very natural services I rendered you? I implore you, forget the words which offended you; I withdraw them and I am ready to beg your pardon for them. Calm yourself and prove the sincerity of your friendship for me by not torturing yourself unnecessarily.”
“Yes, yes, you are good, entirely good,” said Karol, clinging to her convulsively, for he could see that she was anxious to put an end to this tête-à-tête, “but for the first and probably the last time I must speak. Know then that if anyone, whether it be Salvator or anyone else, if anyone ever tells you that my feelings for you are not those of respect, adoration and worship – the same worship that I gave to the memory of my mother – then he will have lied like a coward, he will be my enemy and I shall kill him if I meet him! I who am gentle, weak and reserved will become venomous, violent and implacable, stronger to punish him than all your pugnacious swashbucklers. I am aware that I have the appearance of a child, the features of a woman … but they don’t know what there is inside me. They cannot know, I never speak of myself. I do not wish to be noticed, I do not know how to set about making myself loved, I am not loved … I will never be loved. I do not even ask that people should believe me capable of great love … what does it matter to me? But you, you.., Ah, you at least must know … Know that this dying man belongs to you like a slave belongs to his master, like blood to the heart, like the body to the soul. What I cannot accept is that you should doubt it, that you should say that I cannot love another human being. Am I not a man? All men love God and I love you as the ideal, as perfection. I fear you as I fear God, I venerate you so much that I would die at your feet rather than express an outrageous desire before you…
“Nor do I see you as a phantom, like the one I carried within me for so long. I know full well that you are a woman who has loved before and may love again…someone, not me. Well, so be it, I accept everything and I do not need to understand the mysteries of your heart and your life in order to adore you. Be anything you wish, abandon your children, deny God, drive me away from you, love the man who seems most worthy of it. If Salvator finds favour in your eyes, if he can give you a moment’s happiness, listen to him, make him happy. I shall surely die in consequence, but no thought of blame will enter my mind, no feeling of vengeance will touch my heart I shall die blessing you, proclaiming that you have the right to do everything which is forbidden to others and that what is a crime and a reproach in them is a virtue and a glory in you. I tell you, I am so unhappy in this world and the love which I bear you is gnawing at my heart with such agony, that at this moment I only have one wish, the desperate wish to die. But if you want me to go away to-morrow, never to see you again yet go on living, I shall live and be content to live in torment in order to obey you. Do you think that I have loved anyone more than you? It is untrue! I have never loved anyone. I realise now that what I once thought was love was just imagination, for, as Salvator has told you, it was in my brain, I had not felt it devour my heart. She was a pure woman and I respect her memory so much that I do not wish to lie to her any longer by wearing her portrait on my heart. Take it, hide it, keep it I no longer understand it. When I look at it now I always see your features on it, not hers. I give it to you and beg you to accept it because it must not be profaned and because there are only two places where it can be sanctified: your hand and the grave of my mother … Do not think that I am delirious. If I were calm I would not have the courage to speak; but the courage I have now reveals the truth and proclaims what I have been thinking every hour since I have known you. And I would tell it to the whole world. I would swear it solemnly on the heads of your children. I shall tell Salvator himself. Let him hear me, let him know and never have the folly to deny it. I love you … you who for me have no name, you whom I could not describe in words. I love you … Fire is consuming me … I am dying!”
