The crazy little carriage belonging to Petrin il Gliglo rattled along by the river-side towards Viadana. Regina was seated, not particularly comfortably, between her brother and sister, who had come to meet her at Casalmaggiore station. She laughed and talked, but now and then fell silent, absent-minded, and sad. Then Toscana and Gigino, being slightly in awe of her, became also silent and embarrassed.

The night was hot; the sky opaque blue, furrowed by long grey clouds. The big red moon, just risen above the horizon, illumined the river and the motionless woods with a splendour suggestive of far-off fire. The immense silence was now and then broken by distant voices from across the Po; a sharp damp odour of grass flooded the air, waking in Regina a train of melancholy associations.

Now she had arrived, now she was in the place of her nostalgia, in the dreamed-of harbour of refuge, it was strange that her soul was still lost to her. Just as at one time she had seemed to herself to have taken only her outward person to Rome, leaving her soul like a wandering firefly on the banks of the Po, so now it was only her suffering and tired body which she had brought back to the river-side. Her soul had escaped—flown back to Rome. What was Antonio doing at this hour? Was he very miserable? Was he conscious of his wife's soul pressing him tighter than ever her arms had pressed him? Had he written to her? Antonio! Antonio! Burning tears filled her eyes, and she suddenly fell silent, her thoughts wandering and lost in a sorrowful far-away.

She had already repented her letter, or at least of having written it so soon. She could have sent it quite well from here! He would have felt it less—so she told herself, trying to disguise her remorse.

"And the Master? And Gabri and Gabrie?" she asked aloud, as they passed Fossa Caprara, whose little white church, flushed by the moon, stood up clearly against the blackness of the meadow-side plane-trees. At the other side of the road was a row of silver willows, and between them the river glistened like antique, lightly oxidised glass. The whole scene suggested a picture by Baratta.

Toscana and Gigi both broke into stifled laughter.

"What's the matter?" queried Regina.

The boy controlled himself, but Toscana laughed louder.

"Whatever is it? Is the Master going to be married?"

"Lu el vorres, se, ma li doni li nal veul mia, corpu dla madosca (He'd be willing enough, but the women won't have him)," said Petrin, turning a little and joining in the "children's" talk.

"They want to go to—to Rome! Gabri and Gabrie!" said Toscana at last, and her brother again burst out laughing.

"Why do they want to go to Rome?"

"Gabri wants to get a place and to help Gabrie in her studies, as she intends to be a Professor——"

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

Then they laughed, all four, and Regina forgot her troubles. The boy and girl thought of going to Rome, as they thought of going to Viadana, without help and without money! It was amusing.

"And what does the Master say?"

"He's mad!" interrupted Petrin, turning his face, which was round and red like the moon. "El diss, chi vaga magari a pe: i dventarÀ na gran roba (He says let them go if it's even on foot! they'll turn out great!)."

Then Gigi mimicked Gabri, who talked through his nose:—

"We could go to Milan, of course, but there's no university there which admits women, like the universities of Florence and Rome. Rome is the capital of Italy; we'll go there. I'll be a printer, and Gabrie shall study."

And Toscana mimicked Gabrie:—

"My brother shall print all my books."

"My dear children, I think you are jealous," said Regina.

"Oh!" they cried, cut to the quick, for Gigi did verily want to go to Rome for his college course, and Toscana, who had a pretty mezzo-soprano voice, had a plan of living at her sister's to learn singing.

Regina became thoughtful, guessing their own and their friends' dreams, and remembering her own earlier illusions. She vainly sought to shake off the sadness, the remorse, the presentiment of evil, which was weighing her down.

"And you, Petrin, I suppose you want to go to Rome too? Couldn't you bring Gabri and Gabrie in this chaise?"

"I'm going to Paris," the man answered, stolidly.

"To be sure! I remember you thought of it last year. You said you had enough money."

"So I have still. I can't spend it here, and my uncle in Paris keeps writing 'Come! Come!'"

Regina was not listening. She was caught up in a pleasure, expected indeed, which yet took her by surprise, soothing her sick heart as a balsam soothes a wound. For there, in the hollow behind the row of black trees bordering the viassolin (lane), was the little white house, a lamp shining from its window! Already she heard the scraping voice of the frogs, which croaked in the ditch beside the lane. Shadows of two persons were spread across the road, and a soprano voice resounded in a prolonged call, like the shout of a would-be passenger to the ferryman on the opposite bank of the river—

"Regina—a—a——"

"It's that fool Adamo," said Gigi; "he's always calling you like that. He says you ought to hear him in Rome. She shouts, too," he added, pinching Toscana's knee.

"And so do you," said Toscana.

The voice rang out again, sent back by the water, echoing to the farther shore. Regina jumped from the carriage, and ran towards the two dear shadows. One of them separated itself from the other and rushed madly. It was the boy, and he fell upon Regina like a thunderbolt, hugging her, squeezing her tightly, even pretending to roll her into the river.

"Adamo! Are you gone mad?" she cried, resisting him. "Do you want to break my bones?"

Then Adamo, whose great dark eyes were brilliant in the moonlight, remembered Regina had written something about being ill, and he too became suddenly shy of her.

"How you've grown!" she exclaimed. "Why, you're two inches taller than I am!"

"Ill weeds grow apace," said Gigino. Then Adamo, who for fifteen was really a giant, gave Toscana a push en passant, and sprang upon his brother, trying to roll him down the bank. Shouts of laughter, exclamations, a perfect explosion of fun and childish thoughtlessness filled the perfumed silence. Regina left the children to forget her in this rough amusement, and hurried on to her mother.

They embraced without a word; then Signora Tagliamari asked for Antonio.

"I thought he would have come to take care of you!" she said. "Frankly now, how are you getting on together? You haven't had any little difference——"

"Oh dear no!" cried Regina. "I told you he couldn't get away just now. I've been bothered with a lot of palpitation—we've more than a hundred steps, you know. Fancy having to climb a hundred steps three or four times every day! Antonio got anxious and took me to a specialist—an extortioner—who demanded ten lire for just putting a little black cup against my chest! 'Native air,' he said; 'a few months of her native air!' But now I'm all right again. It's almost gone off. I'll stay for a month, or two months at the outside. Then Antonio will come for me——"

Mother and daughter talked in dialect, and looked each other fixedly in the face. The moon, white now and high in the heavens from which the clouds had cleared, illumined their brows. Signora Caterina, not yet forty-five years of age, was so like Regina that she seemed her elder sister. Her complexion was even fresher, and she had great innocent eyes, more peaceful than her daughter's. Regina, however, thought her much aged, and her black dress with sleeves puffed on the shoulders, which a year ago she had believed very smart, now seemed absurdly antiquated.

"He's coming to fetch you?" repeated the mother; "that's all right."

Regina's heart tightened. Would Antonio really come? Suppose he were mortally offended and refused to come? But no—no—she would not even fancy it!

Before traversing the short footpath which led between hedges to the villa, she stood to contemplate the beautiful river landscape bathed in moonlight. A veil seemed to have been lifted. Everything now was clear and pure; the air had become fresh and transparent as crystal. The dark green of the grass contrasted with the grey-green of the willows; the ditches reflected the moon and the light trunks of the poplar-trees, whose silver leaves were like lace on the velvet background of the sky. The house, small to her who was returning from the city of enormous buildings, was white against the green of the meadows. Round it the vines festooned from tree to tree, following each other, interlacing with each other, as in some silent nocturnal dance. The great landscape, surrounding and encompassing like the high seas seen from a moving ship, the wide river, familiar from her childhood, with its little fantastic islands, shut in by the solemn outline of the woods, by the far-reaching background, where a few white towers gleamed faintly through the lunar mist, relieved and expanded Regina's soul by pure immensity.

Swarms of fireflies flashed like little shooting stars; the mills made pleasant music; the freshness and sweetness of running water vivified the air; all was peace, transparence, purity. Yet Regina felt some subtle change even in the serenity of the great landscape, as she felt it in the countenance of her mother, in the manners of her brothers and sister. No, the landscape was no longer that; the dear people were no longer those. Who, what had changed them thus? She descended the little path, and the frogs redoubled their croaks as if saluting her passage. She remembered the damp and foggy morning in which she had gone away with Antonio. Then all around was cloud, but a great light shone in her soul; now all was brilliant—the heaven, the stream, the fireflies, the blades of grass, the water in the ditches—but the gloom was dark within herself.

Another minute, and she was inside the house. Alas! it also was changed! The rooms were naked and unadorned. Dear! how small and shabby was Baratta's picture over the chimneypiece in the dining-parlour! It was no longer that one!

They sat down to supper, which was lively and noisy enough. Then Regina went out again, and, in spite of the fatigue which stiffened her limbs, she walked a long way by the river-side. Adamo and her sister were with her, but she felt alone, quite alone and very sad. He was far away, and his presence was wanted to fill the wondrous solitude of that pure and luminous night. What was he doing? Even in Rome at the end of June the nights are sweet and suggestive. Regina thought of the evening walks with Antonio, through wide and lonely streets near the Villa Ludovisi. The moon would be rising above the tree tops, and sometimes Antonio would take his inattentive wife in by saying—

"How high up that electric light is!"

The fragrance of the gardens mixed with the scent of hay carted in from the Campagna, and the tinkle of a mandoline, moved the heart of the homesick Regina. Yes; even at Rome the nights had been delicious before the great heat had come, when already many of the people had gone away. Now she too had gone, and who could know if she would return? Who could tell if Antonio would want her ever again! Lost in this gnawing fear, she suddenly started and checked her steps. There, on the edge of the bank, abandoned in the lush grass, was that despised old millstone, which so often had stood before her eyes in her attacks of Nostalgia. Now she saw it in reality, and she noticed for the first time that it lay just exactly where a little track started, leading to the river through a grove of young willows and acacias. One evening, last autumn, standing on that little sandy path in the rosy shadow of the thicket, Antonio had sung her the song "The Pearl Fishers," and presently they had exchanged their first kiss. Now still she heard his voice vibrating in her soul.

And now she understood why she had always remembered the old stone. It would have meant nothing to her if it had not lain exactly at that spot, on that little tree-shadowed pathway, which was full of memories of him.

She stepped down it, standing for a minute among the willows, which had grown immensely, then approaching the water, now all bluish-white, gleaming under the moon. But the Po had made a new island, as soft and frothy as a chocolate cream, and even the river-side seemed to her changed.

Adamo and Toscana descended also to the water's edge, and the girl began to sing. Her voice trembled in the moonlit silence like the gurgle of a nightingale. Why she knew not, but Regina remembered the first evening at the Princess's and the voice of the elderly lady who had sung

How far off was that world! So far that perhaps she might never—never enter it again!

Ah! well! that mattered nothing! In this moonlight hour, in face of the purity of the river and of her native landscape, she seemed to have awakened from some pernicious intoxicating dream. Yet she was tormented by the doubt, the fear, that never again would she see the personages of her fevered dream, because never would Antonio come to lead her back into that far-off world. The days would pass, the months, the years. He would never come. Never! not after the three years of her suggesting, nor after ten, nor after twenty! How was it she had not thought of this when she had secretly planned her flight, even as a bird schemes to leave its cage without considering the perils to which it must expose itself? How could she help it? Which of us knows what we shall think or feel to-morrow? She had been dreaming; she was dreaming still. Even her increased terror, her fear that Antonio would forget her, was perhaps no more than a dreadful dream. But—if her dread should prove reality——

"What would become of me?" she thought, seemingly fascinated by the splendour of the running water. "There is no longer any place for me here. Everything is changed; everything seems to mistrust me. I have been a traitor to my old world, and now it pushes me from it! And I—I did not foresee that!"

"Come! Let us go!" she said, shaking herself and returning to the main path. She walked along, her head drooping, thinking she was surely mistaken. Her old world could not betray her! It was too old to be guilty of any such crime!

"Life is certainly quite different here, but I'll get used to it again. To-morrow, by daylight, when I am rested, I shall see everything in its old sweet aspect!"

For the present she dared not raise her eyes, lest she should see the willow which had protected their first kiss. She hurried past, fearful of an unforgettable spectre.

Toscana followed her singing, while Adamo, whose figure showed like a black spot on the glistening enamel of the water, amused himself shouting—

"Antonio—o—o. Antonio—o—o."

The sonorous tones echoed back from the river, and Regina hastened her steps lest her sister should see her scalding tears.

Ah! He made no response. Never again would he answer, never again!

But the next morning's sun dispersed Regina's childish fears, her anxiety, and her remorse.

"I shall hear from him to-day or to-morrow," she thought, waking in her old room, the window of which gave on the river. A swallow, which was used to come in and roost on the blind rod, flew round the room and pecked at the shut window. Regina jumped out of bed and opened it. The sight of the swallow had filled her heart with sudden joy, which increased at sight of the smiling landscape. Irresistibly impelled, she left the house and wandered through the fields, refreshing her spirit in the intoxicating bath of greenness and morning sun and lingering dew. She followed little grassy paths, at the entrance to which tall poplars reared their white stems like gigantic columns, their tops blending into one shimmering roof. She passed along the ditches populated by families of peaceful ducks; the little snails crept along, leaving their silvery tracks upon the grass; woodpeckers concealed in the poplars marked time with their beaks in the serenity of space and solitude.

As in the moonlit evening, so now in the sunshine, every blade of grass, every leaf, every little stone, sparkled and shone. The river rolled on its majestic course, furrowed by paths of gold, flecked here and there by pearly whirlpools. The islands, covered with evanescent vegetation, with the lace of trembling foliage, divided the splendours of the water and of the sky. Spring was still luxuriant over the immensity of the plain—spring strong as a giantess, kissed by her lover the river, decked by the thousand hands of the husbandmen, her slaves.

But when she was tired Regina threw herself upon the clover, still wet with dewdrops, and at once her thoughts flew far away. In the afternoon she began again to feel anxious and sad.

That very day visits began from inquisitive, tiresome, interested people—relations, friends, persons who wanted favours. They all imagined Regina influential to obtain anything, just because she lived in Rome. She was amused at first, but presently she wearied. All these people who came to greet and to flatter her seemed to have changed, to have grown older, simpler, less significant, than she had left them.

The Master himself came, with Gabriella, a small fair-haired creature, with pale, round face, and steely eyes, very bright, very deep, very observant.

"And so here is our Regina!" said the Master, buttoning his coat across his narrow chest. "Oh, bravissima! I got the postcard with the picture of the Colosseum. That really is a monument! Oh, brava, our Regina! I suppose you have visited all the monuments, both pagan and Christian? And seen the works of Michaelangelo Buonarotti? Oh, Rome! Rome! Yes, I wish my two children could get to the eternal Rome."

"Papa!" said Gabrie, watching Regina to see if she were laughing at him.

But Regina was merely cold and indifferent—an attitude which relieved but slightly intimidated the future lady-professor. A little later came a young lady of a titled family from Sabbioneta. She had a lovely slender figure, and was very pale, with black hair dressed À la Botticelli; she was smart also, wearing white gloves and tan shoes with very high heels.

Toscana, Gabrie and this young lady were all the same age—about eighteen—clever and unripe, like all school-girls. They were nominally friends. Regina, however, saw they envied and nearly hated each other. The aristocratic damsel gave herself airs, and spoke impertinences with much grace.

"Good gracious! What heels!" said Gabrie, whom nothing escaped. "But they're quite out of fashion!"

"They're always in fashion among the nobility," explained the other, condescendingly. Then they talked of a little scandal which had arisen the day before, in consequence of two Sabbioneta ladies having quarrelled in the street.

"Wives of clerks!" said the Signorina, contemptuously. "Women of the upper aristocracy would never behave like that!"

"But," said Regina, "where have you known any women of the upper aristocracy?"

"Oh! one meets them everywhere!"

"Look here, my dear; if you were to find yourself beside a lady of the upper aristocracy, and if she deigned to look at you at all, you would be frozen with humiliation and alarm."

The other girls giggled, and the Master asked eagerly—

"Regina, I wonder do you know the Duchess Colonna of San Pietro?"

"Chi lo sa? There are no end of duchesses in Rome!"

"We have an introduction to that great lady from a friend of ours at Parma."

"Papa!" cried Gabrie, red with indignation and pride, "I don't require any introductions! I snap my fingers at great ladies one and all! What could they possibly do for me?"

"My dear child," began Regina, pitying and sarcastic, "great ladies rule the world; and so——"

She stopped and turned pale, for there was a loud knock at the door. She fancied it the bicycling postman, who brought telegrams to the villages between Casalmaggiore and Viadana. But no; it was not he.

Evening fell—red and splendid as a conflagration. The three girls went out, and Regina lingered at the window, scrutinising the distance and looking for the telegraph messenger's bicycle.

The Master and Signora Tagliamari sat on a blue Louis XV sofa at the end of the room, and talked quietly. Now and then they threw a glance at Regina, who scarcely tried to conceal her sadness and disquiet. The Master, hoping she was listening, talked of the dreams and ambitions of his children.

"Well, as they wish it, we must let them work and conquer the world. What can they do here? Be a school-master? A school-mistress? No, thank you!"

"But if they go away, won't you miss them very much?"

"That's not the question, Signora Caterina! It's like a tearing out of the vitals when the young ones leave the parents. But the parents have brought them into the world to see them live, not vegetate. Ah, my children!" said the Master, stretching out his arms with great emotion, "the nest will remain empty and the old father will end his days in sorrow as, in truth, he began them; but in his heart, Signora Caterina, in his heart he will say with great joy, 'I have done my duty. I have taught my little ones to fly!' Oh, that my parents had done as much for me. Ah!"

Regina still looked out. She heard the Master's babble; she heard the fresh voices and the laughter of the three young girls who were strolling along the river; she watched the sky grow pale, diaphanous, tender green like some delicate crystal, flecked with little wandering clouds like a flight of violet-grey birds. She began to feel irritated. She knew not why. Perhaps because the girls made too much noise, or the Master was talking nonsense, or the postman did not appear out of the lonely distance.

The Master pulled a note-book from his pocket, and, interrupting himself now and then to explain that he did it without his daughter's knowledge, began to read aloud some of Gabrie's sketches.

"Listen to this! See how cleverly she observes people! It's a character for a future novel. My Gabrie is always on the look-out. She sees a character, observes, sets it all down. She's like those careful housewives who preserve everything in case it may come in useful. Listen to this!"

And he read: "'A young lady of eighteen, of titled but worn-out family, anÆmic, insincere, vain, envious, ambitious; knows how to hide her faults under a cold sweetness which appears natural. She is always talking of the aristocracy. Some one once told her she resembled a Virgin of Botticelli's, and ever since she has adopted a pose of sentiment and ecstasy.' Isn't it excellent, Signora Caterina?"

"Yes, indeed; quite excellent!" said the lady, with gentle acquiescence. "Regina, come and listen. Hear how Gabrie is going to write her novel. It's quite excellent."

Regina remembered the novel she also had wished to write, with which she was quite out of tune to-day. Her irritation increased. She had recognised the signorina from Sabbioneta in Gabrie's sketch, and resented the pretensions, the ambitions, the dreams of the Master's little daughter. The simple father's delusions were pitiable. Better tear them away and bid him teach his child to make herself a real life, refusing to send her forth into the world where the poor are swallowed up like straws in the pearly whirlpools of the river.

But in the faded eyes of the humble school-master she saw such glow of tenderness, of regret, of dream, that she had not the heart to rob him of his only wealth—Illusion.

"It's so dreadful to have no more illusions," she said to herself, and added that to-day there would come no telegram from Antonio.

As evening came on she again fell a prey to puerile terrors and unwholesome thoughts. She was wrapped in frozen shadows—a mysterious wind drove her towards a glacial atmosphere, where all was dizziness and grief. She seemed suspended thus in a twilight heaven, wafted towards an unknown land, like the little wandering clouds, the violet-grey birds, migrating without hope of rest. The old world to which she had returned had become small, melancholy, tiresome. She was no longer at her ease in it. But at last she was driven to confess a melancholy thing. It was not her old world which had changed; oh no! it was herself.