Part 9

After an unusually loud ring, Cedebonis remarked: “You will see that that is not he. He certainly will first try to get in by day, and not succeeding in this will return in the evening.” And this would undoubtedly have been the more logical method; but one thing Cedebonis did not take into account; Cocco Bertolli was mad. And so it happened that it _was_ just he who rang the bell. The servant rushed into the room in alarm to announce him.

All rose in consternation, save Biagio Speranza. “I beg you,” said he calmly, “to remain seated. I alone must go. You go on chatting here quietly. You will see; two peaceful words, and I shall make him reasonable.”

He rose and moved toward the door; but before leaving the dining-room he turned and added, raising one hand: “I beg you, then.” But the Pentoni, who until then had controlled herself with difficulty, burst into tears. Some surrounded her, trying to comfort her; others went on tiptoe to listen outside the drawing-room door.

Biagio Speranza himself went to open the door, resolutely; but at sight of Cocco Bertolli he stood as though turned to stone. The unfortunate fellow seemed to have scarcely an ounce of flesh on his bones, and his enormous ox-like eyes in his wasted, cadaverous face were positively terrifying. He paused at sight of Biagio Speranza, and twisted his mouth into a ferocious sneer. “Ah, you!” he murmured.

“Pardon me, what do you want?” asked Biagio.

“Now!” Cocco Bertolli clenched his fist, his eyes almost bursting from their sockets, “I merely wish to say two words to the lady in yonder, and to cut off her ears and nose.”

“Good Heavens! You would spoil her for _me_!” cried Biagio, laughing. “Come, come, my dear poet; you must know that I am now master of this house, and you shall enter it neither now nor at any other time.”

Cocco Bertolli, all of a tremor, drew down his loosely hanging vest, and said: “Very good. We will see about that. I merely wished to remind that good lady of a certain promise.”

“But pardon me, do you not understand,” Speranza tried to persuade him, “that the lady of whom you speak hoped, or rather was sure, that you--pardon me--that you were dying?”

“But I am not dead!” cried Cocco Bertolli, with fierce joy. “And I would have you understand that for her I have defied death!”

“Too bad!” exclaimed Biagio. “Too bad! Come now, if you will permit me to say so, do you really think that was worth while?”

“Ah, do you too know,” sneered Cocco Bertolli, “that your wife is a shameless woman?”

Biagio Speranza spread out his hands. “A stout woman, pardon, let us rather say a stout woman, so as not to offend her.”

“But I wish to offend her!” replied Cocco Bertolli, raising his arms, terrible in his wrath. “I wish to offend her before you, her worthy husband. Buffoon!”

Biagio Speranza paled, closed his eyes, then said mildly: “Listen, Cocco. Go away peaceably, or I will kick you out.”

“Me?”

“You. Or rather, see; I shut the door in your face to keep myself from kicking a poor madman, for you are nothing more than that.” And he closed the door.

“Vile clown!” roared Cocco Bertolli outside the door. “But I shall wait in the street for you, do you hear? I will make you pay for this!”

Biagio Speranza returned to the dining-room, still pale and trembling with the effort he had made to control himself. “Well?” asked all anxiously.

“Nothing,” he replied, with a nervous smile. “I have sent him away.”

“And he is waiting outside for you!” added Carolinona, who had heard in the hall the madman’s threat.

“Oh, Heavens!” moaned Carolinona, her face hidden in her handkerchief. “For my sake!” This weeping irritated Biagio Speranza; he felt an aversion for the part he was about to play, and shrugged his shoulders angrily. “Let him wait. I will go and give him what he deserves now!” And he looked for his hat and stick.

Then the Pentoni, as though impelled by a force stronger than her nature, started to her feet. “I implore you! For pity’s sake! Do not have anything to do with that madman. Let the others go first! Listen to me!”

All save Martinelli, who was shaking like a leaf, and the scornful Trunfo, echoed Carolinona’s words, and offered to go. But Biagio Speranza made way for himself violently, and crying, “Pray, what do you take me for?” he went out. The others followed him. At the foot of the stairs he turned, and again begged them to be good enough to remain behind.

“You make me lose my patience by acting thus,” he called to them. “Do you seriously believe that I will lift my hand against that poor unfortunate who has just left the hospital, unless he actually drives me to the wall? So stay where you are, I beg of you! Do not let him see you, for if he does he will begin haranguing. Do not aggravate the ridiculousness of my position.”

Dario Scossi then made a sign to the others to stop, and let Speranza go on alone. Shortly after they continued downstairs and paused in the hall to spy. Cariolin, who was slightly in advance, put his head a little way out of the front door. Biagio and Cocco Bertolli were talking vigorously, a slight distance apart; but suddenly Cariolin saw Cocco Bertolli raise one hand and solemnly administer a blow upon Speranza. At that they all rushed forward. Carolinona, who was standing at a window, gave a scream and fell back fainting in the trembling arms of Martinelli, while Trunfo, attracted by the cries from the street, rushed to the entrance, repeating scornfully: “This is too much! A fight! Clowns!”

Biagio Speranza, tearful with rage, and struggling to free himself, cried out to the friends who were holding him: “Let me go! Let me go!”

“At your disposal!” roared Cocco Bertolli as they dragged him away, amid the crowd which was flocking from every direction. “At your disposal! The Caffè della Svizzero!”

Dario Scossi, Cedebonis, and Cariolin finally succeeded in leading Biagio Speranza away, while he cried furiously: “I must kill him! I must kill him! Two of you, you, Scossi, and you, Cariolin, go at once to find him. Ridiculous as it is, atrociously ridiculous, a duel with that wretch, because of that woman in yonder, I must fight, for otherwise when I see him I should kill him like a dog. Go, go, I will await you at my home.”

The three friends sought to dissuade him, to persuade him not to attach any importance to what had occurred. After all it was but the onset of a madman. But Biagio Speranza would not listen to reason. “He has struck me, do you understand?” And he sprang into a cab to go home, while Scossi and Cariolin, followed by Cedebonis, serious, placid, and curious, repaired to the Caffè della Svizzero.

They found Cocco Bertolli there, swelling with pride, while he narrated the adventure amid the laughter of the crowd that had followed him.

“At once! At your service!” he called, coming toward them. “Pistols, swords, daggers; what you please, at your choice! Or even with hands and feet; but at once!”

Scossi made him understand that two more men were needed, with whom they could discuss the details of the meeting.

“I know no one,” protested Cocco Bertolli. “I would like to send Signor Speranza my two friends, Nero and Erostratus, but unfortunately they are both dead. So, pray, find me two living wretches; I do not wish to trouble myself with such paltry details.”

“I would assist in my quality of physician,” said Cedebonis. “But what can I do? I have lessons at the _liceo_.”

So Dario Scossi and Cariolin, together with Cocco Bertolli, set out in search of two seconds other than Erostratus and Nero.

Biagio Speranza, trembling with impatience, waited in his home for almost an hour. Then the doorbell rang, but instead of Scossi and Cariolin appeared Nannetta, who, having heard at the café about the quarrel, had come for news.

“Why, yes, I have been struck!” said Biagio. “Come in, Nannetta. We were _so_ comfortable in the country, we two, were we not? I have acted foolishly, but what will you? I must pay for it, as I told you--”

“A duel?” Nannetta asked him, terrified.

“Of course. Struck, I tell you.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

Nannetta kissed his cheek. “Dear, and if they kill you? Have you thought of that?”

“No, really I have not!” said Biagio, shrugging his shoulders, and he continued staring impatiently out of the window.

Nannetta followed him, but instead of staring down into the street she began gazing up at the stars, which glowed thickly in the moonless sky. She sighed, and said: “Do you know, Biagio, that I really wish you would not fight this duel?”

Struck by the strange tone of her voice, Biagio asked her with a forced smile: “Are you so fond of me?”

Nannetta shrugged her shoulders, smiling mournfully; she closed her eyes, and replied: “How do I know?--I do not want--”

“Come!” cried Biagio, with a start, “no melancholy! I have here some _marsala_; let us drink it! I must have some biscuits too--then you shall help me pack my valises. To-morrow, after giving that dog a good lesson, I shall be off!”

“For always?”

“For always!” He took the bottle of _marsala_, the biscuits, and invited Nannetta to sit down and drink. There was another ring at the door. It was Signor Martino Martinelli, reduced to the very shadow of himself, as though a breath could blow him away like a feather. “Come in, come in, my very dear Signor Martino!” cried Biagio, slapping him on the back. “Who sent you, eh? I bet you I can guess. My wife!” Nannetta burst out laughing at seeing the man with his huge nose standing there, petrified at sight of her.

“Do not laugh, Nannetta,” said Biagio. “Allow me to present to you the prototype of faithful husbands, Signor Martino Martinelli, famed for the biggest nose in the world. Signor Martinelli, tell my esteemed wife that you found me safe and sound, with a good bottle of wine in front of me, and a charming little lady at my side. Do not sneeze! Will you have something to drink?”

“Par--pardon me,” stammered Signor Martinelli thickly and indignantly; “permit me to tell--to tell you that you--yes, sir--that--you--misjudge, yes, I say, unworthily--yes, sir--a heart--a heart of gold, which at this moment beats--yes, I say--beats for you. Good evening.”

The laughter of Biagio and Nannetta followed him to the door. Signor Martinelli felt relieved after this outburst, and, elevated to a sphere of heroism, went away with his nose high in the air, like a war trumpet.

VIII

Giannantonio Cocco Bertolli arrived first at the place appointed for the meeting, accompanied by the physician and two artillery officers, friends of Cariolin, who had volunteered to act as seconds. He was most calm. Like a true poet, he praised the mild April morning. “The zephyr returns, bearing with it fair weather--” He praised the trilling of the birds, saluting the sun; inhaled voluptuously the resinous odor which the pine trees gave out, and the cypresses of the handsome villa nearby; recited an ode of Anacreon which he had translated, and finally told the two officers that they were enjoying the apologue of the geese and the migrating crane. He was the crane; that is to say, according to the geese, a madman. “For I have neither overeaten nor drunk too much, you must know. Since yesterday, gentlemen, food has not entered my disheartened stomach. Water; I have drunk water at the public fountain. Diogenes, gentlemen, had a cup, but when he saw a boy drinking out of his own hand, he broke his own cup and he too drank out of his own hand. I do the same. I do not know whether I shall eat to-day, or where I shall sleep. Perhaps I will present myself to some farmer in the country. I will dig. Then I shall eat; but free from all ties in this absolute, sublime liberty which intoxicates me, and which must naturally seem like madness to the slaves of the law, of necessity, of social conventions. In a short time I shall break the head of the imbecile who has tried to cross my path, and then I shall work on my great poem, ‘Erostratus.’”

A little later Biagio Speranza, Dario Scossi, and Momo Cariolin arrived with another physician. Biagio Speranza was very nervous; the thought of fighting with this madman, who had struck him, seemed to degrade him. But he tried to appear hilarious, so as not to lend too much importance to this duel, the grotesque epilogue of a silly prank. His valises and everything for his departure were ready, prepared at home. Now he would either give or receive a scratch, and all would be over. And by Jove, it was time!

The direction of the duel fell by lot to the young officer who acted as first second. But already it appeared that everything was being arranged most amicably. The ground being chosen and measured, the adversaries were then invited to take their places opposite each other. “If you please,” said the officer to Cocco Bertolli, “you must remove your coat.” Cocco took it off furiously and flung it far from him. At sight of his ragged and soiled shirt, torn at the elbows, all received a most painful impression; repulsion, disgust, and pity, all in one; they looked in each other’s eyes, questioning if this were not a case that should be brought to an end at once. But Cocco Bertolli, who already had his sword in hand, and quivered with impatience, demanded with proud indignation: “Well?”

“On guard!” said the officer.

Immediately Cocco Bertolli leaped forward like a tiger with terrible fury, flourishing his sword, and howling, upon his adversary. Thus attacked, Biagio Speranza, still under that painful impression, started back, parrying the storm of blows as well as he could. He might easily have run Cocco through the body simply by holding his sword stiff, straight out, with a sudden lunge; but he banished the temptation, and continued parrying the attacks. Suddenly, in his fury, the sword fell from Cocco Bertolli’s hand. “Enough!” cried the officer who was directing the encounter.

“What do you mean by enough?” cried Cocco Bertolli, out of breath. “Do you wish to profit by my misfortune? I appeal to my adversary, who surely can not consider such paltry satisfaction ‘enough.’”

Biagio Speranza stooped and picked up the fallen sword, and offered it courteously to Cocco Bertolli. “Here it is. On guard!” Then he glanced at his friends, as much as to say: “You see to what you have brought me?” And his nervous irritation increased. “If the other evening, after that blow, you had allowed me to give him a sound beating, I should not now have found myself under the hard necessity of killing this poor madman, so forlorn and miserable, or of letting him kill me.”

At the second command for attack, Speranza was resolved to oppose his adversary seriously. But without warning Cocco Bertolli was upon him again with redoubled fury. “Stop!” cried the officer.

But already, in this lightning-like assault, Biagio Speranza had been wounded, for he suddenly fell to the ground, his hands clenched to his breast. A sneer choked in his throat. He looked at the four seconds and the physicians, tried to say: “It is nothing!” but instead of words blood gushed from his mouth, and he sank back, terrified.

Having recovered from their first feeling of horror, the others bent over him, lifted him cautiously, and carried him with the greatest care into the house of the keeper of the villa, where they deposited him on a bed. The doctors thought at first that he had but a few minutes to live; nevertheless, they administered the first remedies, and waited, anxious, terrified. An hour passed, two, and one of the physicians proposed to send some one to the city for a stretcher. So, toward evening, Biagio Speranza was carried home, between life and death. The Pentoni, his old landlady, and Nannetta were waiting for him, all bathed in tears. But the latter, shortly after, when the first confusion was over, was politely sent away by Scossi. “It is not proper for you to stay here, my dear.” She made no reply, but under Carolinona’s very eyes wished to imprint a kiss upon the brow of the wounded man, who lay unconscious, flushed with fever.

“Ah,” she then said weeping to Scossi, “if you had only left us there in the country! Poor Biagio! My heart told me this would happen. But at least take away this unfortunate woman from his side; if he opens his eyes he will die of despair at seeing her beside him.” Then she went away.

While Nannetta was saying this, Carolinona had left the head of his bed, understanding herself that the sight of her in these first moments would not be acceptable to the wounded man. She had desired so ardently that he might return to the pension, but she had not said even a word to that effect, nor taken a single step to urge him to return. It would be most unjust to hold her responsible for the misfortune that had happened; and he should be the first to admit it, he who had forced her, actually forced her, to commit this folly. So he ought not to feel horror at sight of her there by his bed, nor cherish any rancor. But Carolinona at heart felt the positive necessity, almost instinct, to ascribe to others the fault of our own misfortunes; so she drew back into the shadow to watch, to give him the most passionate care, without any flattering hope of recompense. She merely wished, longed, and prayed that he might recover; she wished nothing for herself, not even gratitude, not even that he should know that she had secretly nursed him.

Dario Scossi, Cariolin, and Cedebonis, after the first few days, seeing that the wound began to improve, began to insist that she should take some hours of rest. But they insisted in vain. “It will do me no harm; I am accustomed to it,” Carolinona would reply.

One day Dario Scossi looked at her, and she no longer appeared so ugly to him. Grief and love, both despairing, seemed to have transfigured her. Those eyes, for instance, so intense with passion; she did not know it, but they were actually beautiful at that moment. Seeing herself gazed at kindly, Carolinona smiled faintly at him, while her eyes filled with tears. And to Dario Scossi that smile seemed sublime.

The vigils continued heroically for about a month, during which time Carolinona, like mother and sweetheart in one, watched anxiously at the sick man’s bedside while he slept, ready to retire into shadow as soon as he awoke. She actually lost flesh, but, illuminated from within by the joy of knowing him safe at last, she became beautiful--really beautiful? No, but--in the opinion of all--more than possible as a wife. “And then,” they added, “if she has won out, that is saying very little. Has she not actually restored him to the world? Biagio is her own from now on.”

But she could not believe in her own happiness until one day Biagio, still in bed, but already convalescent, called her to him, and said in a voice trembling with tenderness, gazing into her eyes, and pressing her hand: “My good Carolina!”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Speranza, in the Italian language, means “hope.”--Translator.

TWO MEN AND A WOMAN BY GRAZIA DELEDDA

[Illustration]

_Grazia Deledda was born at Nuoro, Sardinia, in 1872. Until her marriage in 1900 she lived in her native province. At scarcely twenty years of age she published a volume of Sardinian tales, and in 1900 obtained her first great success with “Elias Portolù,” which gave her fame throughout Europe. Besides these two volumes, her works consist so far of two collections of short stories, eight romances, and an exquisite drama. Her chief characteristics as a writer are spontaneity of inspiration, truth of observation, and a simplicity of style most refreshing after the labored subtleties of the psychologists. Her characters, all drawn from the surroundings of her early youth, are generally simple souls, living next to nature and full of violent passions._

[Illustration]

TWO MEN AND A WOMAN A STORY OF ITALIAN PRISON LIFE

BY GRAZIA DELEDDA

Translated by Florence MacIntyre Tyson. Copyright, 1903, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

Among the prisoners who arrived at the Penitentiary on the 23d of March, as the setting sun was flooding with crimson its cold, grim walls, was a young man of distinguished appearance; he was dressed in gray, and the folds of his large, soft gray hat, adorned with a knot of gray ribbon, quite hid his pale, thin face, with its aquiline nose and carefully kept pointed beard. During the journey he had not spoken once, but sat with bent head and knitted brows, his eyes intently fastened upon his thin, nervous hands with their long, polished nails, enclosed in the shining bands of the steel handcuffs. On reaching the Penitentiary he had for an instant raised his head and fixed his shining, burning eyes upon the countenance of the Direttore, who on his side returned the gaze coldly and at length. By a queer coincidence, the prisoner and the Direttore had the same name--Cassio Longino! And they both knew it; and the prisoner, who in his distant country across the sea where “Cassio” means “a white petticoat,” had often been the subject of many a caricature, experienced now a sort of bitter satisfaction, on seeing himself on that account sought by the cold, scornful glance of the Signore Direttore. With the first glance, the two men hated each other. The Direttore was approaching middle life, was small and stooped a little. His feet and hands were small, and the latter were always plunged in the pockets of his long, black overcoat. His clean-shaven face bore the marks of physical suffering, which was accentuated in deep lines about the pale, thin lips; his eyes were small and green and full of an almost cruel indifference; his hair was blond and short, and his ears large and prominent. For all these reasons, but chiefly because he was the commandant of the prison, he was exceedingly displeasing to No. 245; and No. 245 was displeasing to the commandant on account of his haughty manner, the fiery look with which he observed him, and especially on account of his vigorous, superb youth.

While the prisoners were being consigned to their quarters, the Direttore did not open his mouth, and for several days Cassio, shut up in a private cell, did not again see him. His cell faced the east, and through the tiny aperture pierced in the great stone rampart he could see the distant Apennines, still covered with snow, and the Tuscan landscape, over which the early spring was scattering a vivid green sward, and the pale, tender coloring of bursting twig and blossom. In the Penitentiary garden, which was cultivated by prisoners clad in white linen suits and red caps, Cassio, who by especial permission of the Government retained his gentleman’s clothes, watched the peach trees burst into a glory of intensest pink, and the apple trees toss their delicate bloom in rich masses through the balmy fragrant air.