Lucrezia Floriani, page 20
“That certainly is a brilliant idea!” Salvator laughed “You take my breath away. What an amazing thought! Do you realise what you are saying, Karol’s You, marry Lucrezia?”
“Your doubts are offensive. Spare me your surprise. I am resolved on it So come with me to plead my cause and obtain her consent”
“Never,” exclaimed Salvator, “unless you come to me ten years from this day and make the same request then. Oh, Karol, despite all the days I have spent close to you I still don’t know you. You who used to refrain from living through an excess of austerity, mistrust and pride, are now ready to fling yourself into the opposite excess and grapple with life with the frenzy of a madman. I who have been obliged to endure so many sermons and remonstrances from you, now see myself playing the role of mentor to save you from yourself.”
Salvator then enumerated to his friend all the impossibilities of such a union. He spoke to him firmly and simply. He admitted that in herself Lucrezia was worthy of so much love and devotion and that if he, Salvator, were ten years older and could accept the bonds of marriage he would prefer her to all the duchesses in the world. But he proved to the young prince that the harmony of tastes, opinions, character and inclinations which are the basis of conjugal calm, could never exist between a man of his, Karol’s age, rank and nature and a peasant’s daughter who had become an actress, was six years older than he, a mother, a democrat in her instincts and early background, etc, etc. It is not even necessary to tell the reader everything that Salvator felt obliged to say on the subject But the influence he had gained over his friend during the first part of this conversation, failed completely in face of his obstinacy. Karol had understood of life everything he was capable of understanding of it absolute devotion. Everything which was prudent and advantageous as far as his own existence was concerned, was a closed book to him.
I hope that the reader will excuse him for his puerilities, his jealousy and his caprices. They were not so to him and it is in such circumstances that the grandeur and strength of his soul compensated for these failings. The more Salvator pointed out to him the disadvantages of his plan, the more ardent grew his love. If Salvator could have transformed this marriage into an incessant martyrdom in which Karol was to suffer all kinds of torture for the benefit of Lucrezia and her children, Karol would have thanked him for drawing a picture of a life so consistent with his ambition and his need for self-sacrifice. He would have accomplished this sacrifice with fervour. He would still have been capable of making Lucrezia out to be a criminal if in his presence she uttered a name which offended his ear, allowed Salvator to embrace her knees, threatened to beat her child or caress her dog excessively, but he would never have thought of reproaching her for accepting the sacrifice of his whole life.
Fortunately – am I right to say “fortunately”? but no matter – Madame Floriani, on receiving this unexpected proposal, won a victory for Count Albani’s arguments by refusing it. She was moved to tears by the prince’s love, but she was not surprised by it and Karol was grateful to her for believing in his sincerity. As for her consent, she said that even if the lives of her children depended on it, she would not give it.
Thus ended a battle of delicacy and nobility which lasted for more than a week. The idea of this marriage hurt Lucrezia’s invincible pride. Perhaps in the very interest of her children she was making a mistake. But this resistance was in keeping with the kind of pride which had made her so great, so kind and so unhappy. Once in her life, at the age of fifteen, she had judged it as very natural to accept the innocent offer of a marriage which was apparently unsuitable. However, Ranieri was neither noble nor very rich and at that time the daughter of Menapace had brought as her marriage portion her innocence and her beauty in all its splendour. But he had been unable to keep his word to her and Lucrezia herself had quickly released him from it because of her accurate knowledge of society and the thought of the suffering to which her lover, cursed by his father and persecuted by his family, would have been condemned for her sake. Since then she had made an oath, not to renounce marriage, but never to marry anyone but a man of her own condition and for whom this union would be not a shame but an honour.
She felt this so deeply that nothing was able to shake her and the prince’s persistence distressed her greatly. What any other woman in her place would have regarded as heady flattery, to her appeared almost as a humiliating presumption, and if she had not known that Karol was utterly ignorant of all the deliberate calculations of social life, she would have been annoyed by his hopes of moving her.
Ever since the time when she had become the mother of four children and had experienced the outbursts of retrospective jealousy on the part of her lovers at the sight of this family, she had resolved never to marry. She did not fear anything similar from Karol as yet, nor did she anticipate that he would very soon endure the same tortures as the others in this connection. But she told herself that she would be forced to make sacrifices to the position and interests of any man she married, and these sacrifices would affect her intimacy with her children. Moreover this husband would inevitably have to blush before the world when he appeared with them and patronised them. And finally Karol would lose his esteem and recognition as a sensible man in the cold and cruel opinion of the world by accepting all the consequences of his romantic devotion.
Therefore she had no need to gain support from Count Albani in order to remain resolute. As long as he hoped to sway her, Karol was full of persuasive charm. But when Lucrezia saw that by continually urging consideration for the prince and the feelings of his noble family she was in danger of apparently acting like those women who offer a hypocritical resistance in order to ensnare their prey even more, she cut short his entreaties by a clear and rather abrupt refusal She was also greatly terrified of allowing herself to weaken, for although she listened to nothing but her maternal love for the moment, she would have ultimately yielded to his prayers and tears. She was therefore compelled to pretend a little and to proclaim a kind of systematic hatred for marriage, although she would never have dreamed otherwise of opposing marriage in general.
When the prince was finally convinced of the futility of his pleading he fell into a deep sorrow. The tears tenderly dried by Lucrezia were followed by a need to dream, to be alone, to lose himself in conjectures about that real life which he had wished to enter and which despite his efforts he failed to understand. Then followed the return of the phantoms of the imagination, the suspicions of a mind unable to appreciate any material fact at its correct value, and jealousy, the inevitable torture of a dominating love disappointed in its hopes of absolute possession.
The idea occurred to him that Salvator had prearranged with Lucrezia all their long conversations; Salvator’s apparent inspirations, the seemingly spontaneous and natural speeches during which Karol’s spirit had been utterly exhausted – all this was planned in advance. He thought that Salvator had not renounced the idea of being Lucrezia’s lover after him and that, treating him as a spoilt child, he had permitted him to precede him so as to claim his rights in secret as soon as he saw him satiated. It was for that reason, he thought, that he had urged him so much to go away from time to time, in order not to allow Lucrezia’s love to become too serious and to be able to persuade her to listen to him during some suitable interval.
Or else (a supposition even more groundless and insane) Karol told himself that Salvator had thought of marrying Lucrezia even before he had had the same idea and that by mutual consent she and he, tied by an affection consistent with their characters, had agreed to be united one day when they had enjoyed their respective freedom for some time longer.
Karol recognised the fact that Lucrezia’s love for him had been innocent and spontaneous, but he feared to see it end as quickly as it had been kindled and like all men in such circumstances he was alarmed by this emotion which he had once so greatly admired and blessed.
And then, when the inner conscience of the unhappy lover justified his mistress in face of the fancies of his sick mind, he told himself that for the first time in her life Lucrezia had in him a lover worthy of her, and that she would cling to him naturally and for ever, if alien contrivances did not come and entice her away from him. Then his mind turned to Count Albani and he accused him of wishing to seduce Lucrezia by arguments of epicurean philosophy and the shameless fascination of his ill-stifled desires. He indicted the smallest word, the slightest gesture. Salvator was vile, Lucrezia was weak and abandoned.
Then he would weep when those two friends, who in all their conversations spoke only of him and lived only for his happiness, came to wrench him away from his solitary meditations and overwhelmed him with open caresses and gentle reproaches. He would weep in Salvator’s arms, he would weep at Lucrezia’s feet He did not confess his madness and a moment later he was obsessed by it all the more.
22.
“She does not love me, she has never loved me.” These were his words to Salvator at moments when the idea that Salvator was still his friend became lucid to him once more.
“That soul so cold and so strong does not even understand love when in order to dissuade me from marrying her she invokes personal considerations – that is, personal to me! Doesn’t she know then that nothing can impair the joy of a heart filled with love when it has sacrificed everything to the possession of the object of its love? Why does she speak to me of preserving my liberty for me? On the contrary I understand that it is she who is afraid of losing hers. But what does the word ‘liberty’ mean in connection with love? Can one imagine any other but that of belonging to each other without any obstacle? If on the other hand it is a door left open to distractions and the cooling of affection, that is, to infidelity, there is not, nor has there ever been any love in a heart which defends itself thus!”
Salvator tried to justify Lucrezia against these cruel suspicions, but it was useless. Karol was too unhappy to be just. Sometimes he would come and ask his friend for comfort and help against his own weakness, at others, convinced that he was the principal enemy of his happiness, he avoided him.
This situation became more gloomy and more painful every day and Count Albani, bringing good advice and affectionate words to both lovers in turn, could, in spite of everything, see the wound festering and their happiness becoming torment. He would have liked to put an abrupt end to the situation by carrying his friend off, but it was impossible. His own life was hardly enviable in this perpetual conflict and he would have wished to go, yet he dared not abandon his friend in the midst of such a crisis.
Lucrezia had hoped that Karol would grow calmer and become reconciled to the idea of being no more than her lover. On seeing his suffering continue and becoming more frenzied, she was suddenly overcome by utter lassitude. When a mother sees her child, who is condemned to a diet by the doctor, suffer, weep and ask for food with desperate earnestness, she is perplexed, she hesitates and wonders if she should heed the strict regime of science or rely on the instincts of nature. Lucrezia proceeded rather similarly with respect to her lover. She asked herself if it were not preferable to administer to him the dangerous but possibly sovereign remedy of yielding to his will rather than condemn him, out of prudence, to a lingering death. She summoned Salvator, spoke to him and confessed that she was almost beaten. She also admitted that she felt that this marriage would be her own destruction, but that she could no longer endure the sight of a grief like Karol’s and that she did not wish to deny him this proof of love and devotion.
Salvator felt almost as shaken as Lucrezia. Yet he hardened himself against compassion and continued to fight in order to save these two lovers from the temptations of an irreparable madness.
Karol who spied on all their movements more than they thought and could guess without hearing all that was said around him, saw Lucrezia’s indecision and the Count’s persistence. It seemed to him that the latter was playing an odious role. There were moments when he felt nothing but a deep hatred for him.
Things had reached this stage and Karol would have triumphed, if not for an event which revived the full force of Lucrezia’s argument.
Karol was strolling along the sand on the lakeside at the lower end of the park which was part of the estate and was closed day and night to strangers. However, as the water was shallow as the result of drought, a dry strip of sandy shore became exposed and this enabled people from outside to enter the enclosure if they felt inclined to do so. The instinctive jealousy of the prince had drawn his attention to the situation, and on several occasions he had ventured to observe aloud that a few stakes interwoven with branches would form an easily constructed and effective barrier against the few yards of exposed beach. Lucrezia had promised to have this done, but being preoccupied with more important thoughts, she had forgotten about it. At this moment she was in her boudoir with Salvator and was telling him that she had reached the end of her courage and that to see the endless suffering – through her own fault – of the being for whom she would be willing to give her life, had become an undertaking beyond her strength.
Meanwhile Karol was walking on the beach, a prey to his usual agitation and seeing nothing of external objects save what was calculated to irritate his suffering and add to his anxieties. This strip of ground which was so badly protected made him particularly impatient each time he saw its inadequacy.
Although nature around him lay there in all its splendour, he saw nothing of it. The rays of the setting sun turned the sky to crimson, the nightingales sang, and in a skiff moored a few yards away from the prince, Stella was rocking little Salvator who was playing with some shells.
The two children formed an admirable group, the one absorbed by that mysterious intenseness which children apply to their games, the other lost in a no less mysterious reverie, making the light craft sway with her small feet and in a voice as light as the murmur of water singing a slow and monotonous refrain. As she sang thus on the boat tied up to a willow, Stella imagined she was going for a long voyage on the lake; she was launched on an endless poem peopled with the happiest creations. And as little Salvator examined, arranged and re-arranged his shells and pebbles on the seat of the boat, he had the serious and profound look of a philosopher solving a deep problem.
Antonia, the handsome peasant girl who was watching them, was sitting some distance away and was spinning gracefully. Karol had no eyes for these things. He did not even suspect the presence of the two children. All he saw was Biffi engaged in cutting stakes, and rather too slowly for his liking, for night would soon fall and he would not have even begun to plant them by that time.
All at once Biffi gathered up his stakes, slung them on to his shoulder and made as if to take them in the direction of the fisherman’s cottage.
The prince would have regarded it as a crime if he had ever given an order in Madame Floriani’s house; for a slight indiscretion, the least offence against good breeding, is a veritable crime in the eyes of people of his class. But at that moment, seized by uncontrollable impatience, he asked Biffi in an authoritative tone why he was giving up his task by removing the materials.
Like all his compatriots, Biffi had a gentle, mocking nature. At first, probably thinking that the actor was playing at being a prince to try him out, he pretended to be deaf. Then surprised on seeing that Karol was really angry, he stopped and deigned to reply that these stakes were meant for old Menapace’s garden and he was about to fix them there.
“Hasn’t the mistress ordered you,” said Karol, trembling in every limb with inexplicable rage, “to put them here to cut this beach off?”
“She said nothing to me,” replied Biffi, “and I see nothing to cut off here, seeing that when it rains again the water will rise as far as the outer wall.”
“That does not concern you,” retorted Karol. “If the signora gives an order, it seems to me that it should be obeyed.”
“So be it,” replied Biffi. “I am quite agreeable. But if old man Menapace sees me using on this job the wood he needed to support his vines, he will be angry.”
“No matter,” said Karol, quite beside himself “You must obey the signora.”
“I agree,” said Biffi, hesitating and half dropping his burden; “she is the one who pays me, but it is her father who grumbles at me.”
Karol insisted. He saw or thought he saw in the distance a man following the side of the lake and stopping at intervals as if trying to make his way in the direction of the Villa Floriani. Biffi’s slowness and disobedience exasperated the prince. He put his hand on the youth’s shoulder in a commanding way and with a look of indignation which was so foreign to the customary gentleness of his expression that Biffi was afraid and hastened to obey.
“Well now, Your Highness,” he said, in a half wheedling, half mocking tone which the prince thought more offensive than it was, “show me the place and command me, seeing that you know what’s to be done. For I know nothing about it. Nobody told me anything, I swear it”
Karol did something of which he had never in his life thought himself capable. He stooped to the execution of a material thing, even as far as to draw with his stick on the sand the line of the fence which Biffi must follow, and to show him the spot where he must drive the stakes, and he did it with all the more accuracy and zeal as for once he was not mistaken, because the stranger he had seen in the distance was approaching visibly and, still walking on the beach, was making his way towards him without hesitation.
