Lucrezia Floriani, page 5
“Do you find that I am indulgent to myself and that I suffer from an excess of pride? I agree. I do possess great pride, but I have no vanity and one can say all possible ill of me without offending or distressing me in the slightest. I have never fought against my passions. If I have acted well or badly I have been punished and rewarded by those passions themselves. I was to lose my reputation as a result; I expected it; I sacrificed reputation to love, and that concerns me alone. What right have those people who condemn me to say that my example is dangerous? As soon as the culprit is condemned he is executed, therefore he can do no further harm; and those who might be tempted to imitate him, are sufficiently warned by the punishment”
Karol de Roswald and Salvator Albani left their boat at the entrance of the park, close to the cottage which the innkeeper at Iseo had pointed out to them. It was here that Madame Floriani had been born and here her father, an old, white-haired fisherman still occupied it. Nothing had been able to persuade him to leave this poor abode where he had spent his life and where long habit kept him; but he had consented to having it repaired, improved in sanitation and protected from the waters of the lake by a pretty, rustic terrace adorned with flowers and shrubs. He was sitting at his door amid his irises and gladioli, and was using the last few minutes of daylight in mending his nets, for, although his existence was henceforth assured, and his daughter piously watched not only over all his needs but also the anticipation of the rare extravagant whims he might have, he retained the parsimonious habits and tastes of the peasant, and he never discarded a single one of the tools of his work, as long as he could still make the slightest use of it.
5.
Karol noticed the handsome but somewhat hard face of the old man, and not dreaming that this could be the signora’s father, greeted him and was prepared to pass on But Salvator had stopped to contemplate the picturesque thatched cottage and the old fisherman who with his white beard, slightly yellowed by the sun, resembled a muddy lakeside divinity. The memories which Madame Floriani, almost weeping, had repeated to him so often, and the eloquence of her repentance, passed confusedly through his mind; moreover the austere features of the old man seemed to preserve some similarity to those of the beautiful young woman. He saluted him twice and went on to try and open the park gate, which stood ten yards away; at the same time he looked back several times in the direction of the fisherman who was watching him with an attentive and suspicious eye.
When the latter saw that the two young men were really attempting to enter the abode of Madame Floriani he rose and shouted, in a far from welcoming tone, that one was not allowed to enter there and it was not a public walk.
“I know this quite well, my good man,” replied Salvator, “but I am an intimate friend of the signora and I have come to see her.”
The old man approached and looked at him attentively. Then he continued, “I don’t know you. You don’t come from these parts, do you?”
“I am from Milan and I tell you that I am a great friend of the signora. Tell me, which is the correct entrance?”
“You won’t get in that way! Are you expected? Do you know if you will be received? What is your name?”
“Count Albani. And you, my good fellow, will you tell me your name? Aren’t you, by any chance, a certain worthy man called Renzo, or Beppo, or Checco Menapace?”
“Renzo Menapace. Yes, that’s me,” said the old man doffing his hat in keeping with the custom in Italy where the lower classes defer to a title. “How do you know me, signor? I have never seen you.”
“Nor I you; but your daughter resembles you and I know her real name.”
“A better name than the one she goes by now! However, they all call her by her stage name now; it’s become a habit. So you want to see her? Have you come just for that?”
“Of course, – if you have no objection. I hope she will be good enough to commend us to you and that you will not regret opening the gate to us. I presume that you have the key?”
“Yes, I have the key and yet, your Lordships, I can’t open it. Is this young gentleman with you?”
“Yes, he is the Prince de Roswald,” said Salvator who was fully aware of the influence of titles.
Old Menapace bowed more deeply than before although his face remained cold and stern. “My lords,” said he, “have the goodness to enter my home and wait there until I have sent my servant to inform my daughter, because I cannot promise that she will be prepared to see you.”
“Come,” said Salvator to the prince, “We must be resigned to waiting. It appears that Madame Floriani has now developed a mania for living the life of a recluse. But as I have no doubt that we shall be well received, let us go and have a look at the cottage where she was born. It will be rather curious.”
“What is indeed curious is the fact that she now lives in a palace herself and leaves her father in a cottage,” replied Karol.
“I beg your pardon, your Highness,” said the old man who turned around with a displeased expression, much to the surprise of the two young men, for they were in the habit of talking German when they were alone, and Karol had expressed himself in that language.
“Forgive me,” continued Menapace, “if I overheard you. I have always had excellent hearing and that is why I was the best fisherman of the lake, without mentioning my sight, which was equally excellent and is still not too bad.”
“So you understand German?” said the prince.
“I was a soldier for a long time; and I spent years in your country. I can’t speak your language very well although I still understand it a little, so allow me to answer you in my own. If I don’t live in my daughter’s palace, it is because I like my cottage, and if she doesn’t live in my cottage, it is because the accommodation is too small and we would interfere with each other. Besides, I am accustomed to living alone and it is only under protest that I tolerate the man servant she gave me with the pretext that at my age a man may need someone to help him. Fortunately he is a good lad. I chose him myself and I am teaching him how to become a fisherman. Come, Biffi, leave your supper for a while, my boy, and go and tell the signora that two foreign gentlemen are asking to see her. Your names, again, please, your Lordships?”
“Mine will suffice,” replied Albani who, together with Karol, had followed old Menapace as far as the entrance of his cottage. From his pocket book he drew a visiting card which he handed to the youth who acted as the fisherman’s servant Biffi left in all haste, after his master had given him a key which he kept hidden in his belt.
“You see, your Lordships,” said Menapace to his guests as he offered them rustic chairs which he had woven and stuffed himself with various kinds of aquatic grass, “you must not think that I am not well treated by my daughter. As far as money, friendship and attention goes, I have nothing but praise for her. Only I can’t change my ways at my age. You see that, don’t you? And as for all the money she used to send me when she was on the stage, I put it to better use than to lodge, dress and feed myself well I have no taste for that sort of thing. I bought land, because that’s good. It lasts and it will go back to her when I am not there any more. She is my only child. So she will have no cause to regret all she has done for me. It was her duty to give me a share of her riches and she has always fulfilled it It is my duty to make that money prosper, to invest it well and restore it to her when I die. I have always been a slave to duty.”
This narrow, selfish manner of regarding his relations with his daughter made Salvator smile.
“I am quite sure,” said he, “that your daughter does not make that kind of calculation with you and she has not the slightest idea of your system of saving.”
“It is only too true that the poor thing has no head for it at all,” replied Menapace with a sigh, “and if I listened to her I would eat up everything, I would lead the life of a prince, like her, with her, and all those to whom she flings money in handfuls! But what is to be done? We can’t agree about it She is kind, she loves me, she comes to see me ten times a day, she brings me everything she can think of to give me pleasure. If I cough or have a headache she spends whole nights with me. But all that does not prevent her from having one great fault, and that is that she is not a good mother, as I would wish.”
“What? She is not a good mother?” cried Salvator who had difficulty in remaining serious in the face of the peasant’s parsimonious morality. “I have seen her in the midst of her family and I believe you are mistaken, Signor Menapace.”
“Oh, if you think that a good mother should caress, tend, spoil and amuse her children and nothing more, very well But I am not pleased to see them never being refused anything, the little girls dressed like princesses, the boy already allowed to have dogs, horses, a boat and a gun like a man! They are good children, I admit, and very pretty, but that’s no reason for giving them all they want, as if it all cost nothing. I can see clearly that they run through at least thirty thousand francs a year in that house, what with pleasures and teachers for the children, books, music, excursions, presents … follies of all kinds. And there are charities! It is scandalous! All the cripples, all the vagabonds around here have learned the way to the house, a thing which they never knew in the days of old Ranieri, when he was the owner. There was a man who knew his interests well and made a profit out of his land! Whereas my daughter will be ruined if she doesn’t listen to me.”
The old man’s avarice utterly disgusted the prince; but Salvator was more amused by it than indignant He was well acquainted with the nature of peasants, that ruthlessness to retain things, that harshness to oneself, that thirst to acquire capital without ever enjoying one’s income, that fear of the future which to these poor toiling old men stretches beyond the grave. However he felt somewhat displeased on hearing Menapace invoke the memory of old Ranieri who had played so ugly a part in the story of Madame Floriani.
“If I remember rightly what Lucrezia told me,” said he, “this Ranieri was a vile skinflint He cursed his son and wanted to disinherit him because the latter wished to marry your daughter.”
“He caused us some trouble, it’s true,” resumed the old man, unmoved, “but whose fault was it? That young fool who wanted to marry a poor peasant girl … In those days Lucrezia had nothing. From her godmother, Signora Ranieri, she had learned many useless things, music, languages, elocution…”
“Things which have served her well since,” Salvator interrupted.
“Things which ruined her,” continued the inflexible old man. “It would have been better if the old Ranieri woman who could not give her anything towards setting her up in life hadn’t taken such a great liking to her and had left her to remain a peasant girl, a mender of nets, the daughter of a fisherman as she was and the wife of a fisherman as she could have become. Because I knew a good one, a man who had a good house, two big fishing boats, a pretty meadow and some cows. Oh yes, an excellent match. Pietro Mangiafoco, who would have married her if she had wanted to listen to reason. But instead of that, by educating her and making her so beautiful and learned, her godmother was the cause of all the misfortune which followed. Memmo Ranieri, her son, became crazy over Lucrezia and because he couldn’t marry her, carried her off. That is how my daughter was separated from me and that is why for twelve years I did not want to hear of her.”
“Save to receive the money which she sent him,” said Salvator to Karol, forgetting that the fisherman understood German.
But this reflection in no way offended the old man. “Of course I received it, invested it and turned it to good account,” he went on. “I knew that she was living on a grand scale and that one day she might be very pleased to find enough to live on after squandering all she had earned. And what hasn’t she given away and wasted? Ah! It is a curse to have such a character.”
“Yes, yes, she is a monster,” cried Salvator, laughing. “But meanwhile it seems to me that old Ranieri was ill advised not to wish to marry her to his son. He would have done so had he been able to foresee that this same young peasant girl would earn millions one day with her talent!”
“Yes, he would have done,” said Menapace, with the utmost calm, “but he couldn’t foresee it; and in refusing his consent to a marriage so unsuitable, he was within his rights. He did well Everybody else would have done the same and so would I, in his place.”
“So you don’t blame him, and very probably you remained on excellent terms with him while his son was abducting your daughter, because he was unable to extract the old skinflint’s consent?”
“The old skinflint, the avarone, as they called him, was hard, I agree; but after all he was just, and he wasn’t a bad neighbour. He never did me any good or ill. When he saw that I would not forgive my daughter he forgave me for being her father. And as for his son, he forgave him, too, when he abandoned Lucrezia to make a good marriage.”
“And have you forgiven this son, so worthy of his father?”
“It was not for me to forgive him, although, after all, he was within his rights. He had promised my daughter nothing in writing; it was she who was wrong to trust his love, and when he left her they had debts; her theatre venture had gone badly at the beginning. However, he is dead and God is his judge! But, excuse me, your Excellencies, I have left my nets by the water’s edge and if a storm blew up during the night they might get lost. I must bring them in. They are still in good condition and capable of catching plenty of fish. I supply my daughter’s table with them, but she pays for them, of course. Oh yes, I don’t give anything for nothing! And I say to her ‘Eat, eat, and make your children eat Fortunately for them, the more fish they eat, the more money I will leave them when I die.’”
6.
“What a vile nature,” said Karol, when Menapace had gone.
“It is human nature in all its nakedness,” replied Salvator. “He is the true type of the son of toil Foresight without enlightenment, uprightness without delicacy, common sense devoid of ideals, honest greed, ugly and sad.”
“It is more than that,” said the prince. “For me it is an example of an odious lack of morals, and I cannot understand how Signora Floriani can live with such a spectacle before her eyes.”
“I presume that when she came back to him she did not expect to find something so vilely prosaic. In her poetic memories of her old father and the thatched cottage, the noble creature was probably aspiring to the rustic life, the return to patriarchal innocence, to a touching reconciliation with this old man who had cursed her and whose name she could only utter with tears. But possibly there is even more virtue in staying on here than in ever having come at all and probably she understands, tolerates and even loves him in spite of everything.”
“To understand and tolerate is not a sign of a delicate soul; in her place I would certainly shower the old man with benefits, but I could not live near him without unendurable suffering; the mere idea of such a disaster shocks me and cuts me to the heart.”
“Where do you see all this perversity? This man does not understand the meaning of luxury nor the liberality which goes with easy circumstances among generous people. He is too old to feel that having and giving go together. He amasses what he receives from his daughter so as to preserve it for his grandchildren.”
“So she has children?”
“She had two; perhaps she has more now.”
“And her husband?” said Karol, hesitating, “Where is he?”
“She has never been married as far as I know,” said Salvator, calmly.
The prince was silent and Salvator, guessing his thought, could think of nothing to distract him. He certainly could not invent any good excuses for that fact.
After a moment Karol continued: “When a person’s behaviour is left to the hazards of life it is because of the lack of high standards in early youth. Could she receive any from a father who has not the slightest feeling on the subject of honour and who, amid all the irregularities of his daughter’s life, saw nothing but the money she was earning and spending.”
“Such is man seen at close quarters, such is life stripped of its glamour,” replied Salvator, philosophically. “When my dear Floriani used to speak to me of her first error she accused only herself and did not remember her father’s faults which were probably intolerable and which could have served her as an excuse. When she mentioned him, she would deplore, yet speak highly of his obstinate anger. She attributed it to an ancient virtue, to respectable prejudice. She would say, and I recollect it quite clearly, that once she had freed herself of all the ties of the world and all the fetters of love, she would go and throw herself at his feet and purify herself in his nearness. Well, the poor sinner will have found a saviour very unworthy of so noble a repentance and this disappointment must not have been one of the smallest in her life. Great hearts always see things as beautiful They are condemned to be constantly deceived.”
“Can great hearts resist many unhappy experiences?”
“The more or less harm they suffer proves their more or less greatness.”
“Human nature is weak. I therefore believe that souls which are truly attached to principles should not go out of their way to seek peril … Are you utterly determined to spend a few days here, Salvator?”
“I didn’t say that We shall only stay an hour, if you wish.”
By always giving way, Salvator controlled Karol, at least in external matters, for the prince was open-hearted and ready to sacrifice his aversions for the sake of good breeding and those ideals of behaviour which he upheld in all his actions.
“I do not wish to thwart you in anything,” he replied, “and to impose a deprivation on you or cause you regret would be unendurable to me; but at least promise me that you will try not to fall in love with that woman.”
“I give you my promise,” said Albani, laughing. “But it will be all to no purpose if my fate is to become her lover after being her friend.”
“You invoke destiny,” exclaimed Karol, “when it lies in your own hands! Here, it is your conscience and your will which should be sufficient to save you.”
