Anna got up and opened her window, to let in the sun, but it was a grey morning, grey in sky and sea. Lead-coloured clouds rested on the hill of Posillipo; and the wide Neapolitan landscape looked as if it had been covered with ashes. Few people were in the streets; and the palm in the middle of the Piazza Vittoria waved its long branches languidly in the wintry breeze.

Her eyes were burning and her eyelids were heavy. She went into her dressing-room and bathed her face in cold water. Then she combed her hair and fastened it up with a big gold pin. And then she put on a gown of black wool, richly trimmed with jet, a morning street costume. Was she going out? She did not know. She dressed herself in obedience to the necessity which women feel at certain hours of the day to occupy themselves with their toilets. But when she came to fasten her brooch, a clover leaf set with black pearls, that Laura had given her for a wedding-present, she discovered that one of the pearls was gone. The clover-leaf brings luck, but now this one was broken, and its power was gone.

Eleven o'clock struck, and somebody tapped discreetly at the door. She could not find her voice, to answer.

The knock was repeated.

"Come in," she said feebly.

Cesare entered, calm and composed, carrying his hat and ebony walking-stick in his hand.

"Good-morning. Are you going out?" he asked tranquilly.

"No. I don't know," she answered, with a vague gesture.

All her nerves were tingling, as she looked at the traitor's handsome, wasted face, a face so quiet and smiling.

"You had something to say to me?" he reminded her, wrinkling his brow a little.

"Yes."

"I came home late. I didn't want to disturb you," he said, producing a cigarette, and asking permission with a glance to light it.

"You would not have disturbed me."

"I suppose it's nothing of much importance."

"It's a thing of great importance, Cesare."

"As usual," he said, with the shadow of a smile.

"I swear to you by the memory of my mother that nothing is more important."

"Goodness gracious! Act three, scene four!" he exclaimed ironically.

"Scene last," she said, dully, tearing a few beads from her dress, and fingering them.

"So much the better, if we are near the end. The play was rather long, my dear." He was tapping his boot with his walking-stick.

"We will cut it short, Cesare. I have a favour to ask of you. Will you grant it?"

"Ask, oh lovely lady; and in spite of the fact that last night you closed your door upon me, here I am, ready to serve you."

"I have a favour to ask, Cesare."

"Ask it, then, before I go out."

"I want to make a long journey with you—to be gone a year."

"A second honeymoon? The like was never known."

"A journey of a year, do you understand? Take me as your travelling companion, your friend, your servant. For a year, away from here, far away."

"Taking with us our sister, our governess, our dog, our cat, and the whole menagerie?"

"We two alone," she said.

"Ah," said he.

"What is your decision?"

"I will think about it."

"No. You must decide at once."

"What's the hurry? Are we threatened with an epidemic?"

"Decide now."

"Then I decide—no," he said.

"And why?" she asked, turning pale.

"Because I won't."

"Tell me your reason."

"I don't wish to travel."

"You have always enjoyed travelling."

"Well, I enjoy it no more. I am tired, I am old, I will stay at home."

"I implore you, let us go away, far from here."

"But why do you want to go away?"

"Listen. Don't ask me. Say yes."

"Why do you want to go away, Anna?"

"Because, I want to go. Do me the favour."

"Is my lady flying from some danger that threatens her virtue? From some unhappy love?"

"There's something more than my virtue in danger. I am flying from an unhappy love, Cesare," she said gravely, shutting her eyes.

"Heavens! And am I to mix myself up in these tragical complications? No, Anna, no, I sha'n't budge."

"Is there no prayer that can move you. Will you always answer no?"

"I shall always say no."

"Even if I begged you at the point of death?"

"Fortunately your health is excellent," he rejoined, smiling slightly.

"We may all die—from one moment to another," she answered, simply. "Let us go away together, Cesare."

"I have said no, and I mean no, Anna. Don't try to change me. You know it's useless."

"Then will you grant me another favour? This one you will grant."

"Let's hear it."

"Let us go and live alone in the palace in Via Gerolimini."

"In that ugly house?"

"Let us live there alone together."

"Alone? How do you mean?"

"Alone, you and I."

"Without Laura?"

"Without Laura."

"Ah," he said.

She looked at him pleadingly, and in her brown eyes he must have been able to read the sorrowful truth. But he had no pity; he would not spare her the bitter confession of it.

"Be frank," he said, with some severity. "You wish to separate from your sister!"

"Yes."

"And why? Tell me the reason."

"I can't tell you. I wish to separate from Laura."

"When?"

"At once. To-day."

"Indeed? Have you had a quarrel? I'll be peacemaker."

"I doubt it," she said, with a strange smile.

"If you'll tell me what you've quarrelled about, I'll make peace between you."

"But why do you ask these questions and make these offers? I want to separate from my sister. That is all."

"And I don't wish to," he said, looking coldly into his wife's eyes.

"You don't wish to be parted from Laura!" she cried, feeling her feet giving way beneath her.

"I don't indeed."

"Then I will go away myself, she cried, her brain reeling.

"Do as you like," he answered, calmly.

"Oh, heaven help me," she murmured, under her breath, staggering, losing all her strength.

"Now we have come to the fainting-fit," said Cesare, looking at her scornfully, "and so will end this scene of stupid jealousy."

"What jealousy! Who has spoken of jealousy?" she asked haughtily.

"Must I inform you that you have done nothing else for the past half-hour! It strikes me that you have lost the little good sense you ever had. And I give you notice that I'm not going to make myself ridiculous on your account."

"You wish to stay with Laura!"

"Not only I, but you too. For the sake of the world's opinion, as well as for our own sakes, we can't desert the girl. She's been confided to our protection. It would be a scandal which I'll not permit you to make. If I have to suffer a hundred deaths, I'll not allow you to make a scandal. Do you understand!"

She looked at him, changing colour, feeling that her last hope was escaping her.

"And then," he went on, "I don't know your reasons for not wishing to live any longer with your sister. She's good, she's well-behaved, she's serious; she gives you no trouble; you have no right to find fault with her. It's one of your whims—it's your everlasting desire to be unhappy. Anyhow, your idiotic caprice will soon enough be gratified. Laura will soon be married."

"Do you wish Laura to marry!"

"I wish it earnestly."

"You'll be glad of it!"

"Most glad," he answered, smiling.

Ah, in the days of her womanly innocence, before her mind had been opened to the atrocious revelations of their treason, she would not have understood the import of that answer and that smile; but she knew now the whole depth of human wickedness. He smiled, and curled his handsome black moustaches. Anna lost her head.

"Then you are more infamous than Laura," she cried.

"The vocabulary of Othello," he cried, calmly. "But, you know, it has been proved that Othello was epileptic."

"And he killed Desdemona," said Anna.

"Does it strike you that I look like Desdemona?"

"Not you, not you."

"And who then?"

"Laura."

"Your folly is becoming dangerous, Anna."

"Imminently, terribly dangerous, Cesare."

"Fortunately you take it out in words, not in actions," he concluded, smiling.

She wrung her hands.

"Last night Laura owed her life to a miracle," she said.

"But what has been going on here?" he exclaimed, agitated, rising to his feet. "And where is Laura?"

"Oh, fear nothing, fear nothing on her account. I've not harmed her. She's alive. She's well. She's very well. No wrinkle troubles her beauty, no anxiety disturbs her mind. Fear nothing. She is a sacred person. Your love protects her. Listen, Cesare; she was here last night alone in this room with me; and I had over her the right given me by heaven, given me by men; and I did not kill her."

Cesare had turned slightly pale; that was all.

"And if it is permitted to talk in your own high-sounding rhetoric, what was the ground of your right to kill her?" he asked, looking at the handle of his walking-stick, and emphasising the disdainful you.[F]

"Laura has betrayed me. She's in love with you."

"Nothing but this was lacking! That Laura should be in love with me! I'm glad to hear it. You are sure of it? It's an important matter for my vanity. Are you sure of it?"

"Don't jeer at me, Cesare. You don't realise what you are doing. Don't smile like that. Don't drive me to extremes."

"There are two of you in love with me—for I suppose you still love me, don't you? It's a family misfortune. But since you both adore me, it's probably not my fault."

"Cesare, Cesare!"

"And confess that I did nothing to win you."

"You have betrayed me, Cesare. You are in love with Laura."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Sure, Cesare."

"But bear in mind that certainties are somewhat rare in this world. For the past few minutes I've been examining myself, to discover if indeed I had in my soul a guilty passion for Laura. Perhaps I am mad about her, without knowing it. But you, who are an expert in these affairs, you are sure of it. Have the goodness to explain to me, oh, passionate Signora Dias, in what manner I have betrayed you, loving your sister. Describe to me the whole blackness of my treason. Tell me in what my—infamy—consists. Wasn't it infamy you called it? I'm not learned in the language of the heart."

"Oh, God! oh, God!" sobbed Anna, her face buried in her hands, horrified at what she heard and saw.

"I hope we've not to pass the morning invoking the Lord, the Virgin, and the Saints. What do you suppose they care for your idiocy, Anna? They are too wise; and I should be wiser if I cared nothing for it, either. But when your rhetoric casts a slur upon others, it can't be overlooked. I beg you, Signora Dias, to do your husband the kindness of stating your accusations precisely. Set forth the whole atrocity of his conduct. I fold my hands, and sit here on this chair like a king on his judgment-seat. I wait, only adding that you have already used up a good deal of my patience."

"But has Laura told you nothing?"

"Nothing, my dear lady."

"Where is she?"

"She's gone to church, I hear."

"Quietly gone to church?"

"Do you fancy that all women dance in perpetual convulsions to the tune of their sentiments, Signora Dias? No, for the happiness of men, no. Our dear and wise Minerva has gone to mass, for to-day is Sunday."

"With that horrible sin on her conscience! Does she think she can lie even to God? But it's a sacrilege."

"Ah, we're to have a mystical drama, a passion-play now, are we? Dear lady, I see that you have nothing to say to me, and I make my adieux."

He started to go, but she barred the way to him.

"Don't go, Cesare; don't leave me. Since you will have it so, you shall hear from my lips, though they tremble with horror in pronouncing it, the story of your infamy. I will repeat it to you to-day as I repeated it to Laura last night; and I hope it may burn in your heart as it burns in mine. Ah, you laugh; you have the boldness to laugh. You treat this talk as a joke. You sneer at my anger. You would like to get away from me. I annoy you. My voice wearies you. And what I have to say to you will perhaps bring a blush of shame even to your face, corrupt man that you are. But you cannot leave me. You are obliged to remain here. You must give me an account of your betrayal. Ah, don't smile, don't smile; that will do no good; your smile can't turn me aside. I won't allow you to leave me. Remember, Cesare, remember what you did last evening. Remember and be ashamed. Remember how cruel, how wicked, how atrocious it was, what happened last evening between you and my sister. Under my eyes Cesare, and for long minutes, so that I could have no doubt. I could not imagine that I was mad or dreaming. I saw it all, my ears heard the words you spoke, the sound of your kisses, your long kisses. I could not doubt. Oh, how horrible it is for a woman who loves to see the proof that she is betrayed! What new, unknown capacities for sorrow open in her soul! Oh, what have you done to me, Cesare, you whom I adored! You and my sister Laura, what have you done to me!"

She fell into a chair, crushing her temples between her hands.

"Is it your habit to listen at doors? It's not considered good form," said Cesare coldly.

"Do you wish me to die, Cesare? How could you forget that I loved you, that I had given you my youth, my beauty, all my heart, all my soul, that I adored you with every breath, that you alone were the reason for my being? You have forgotten all this, forgotten that I live only for you, my love—you have forgotten it?"

"These sentiments do you honour, though they're somewhat exaggerated. Buy a book of manners, and learn that it's not the thing to listen at doors."

"It was my right to listen, do you understand? I was defending my love, my happiness, my all; but the terrible thing I saw has destroyed for ever everything I cared for."

"Did you really see such a terrible thing?" he asked, smiling.

"If I should live a thousand years, nothing could blot it from my mind. Oh, I shall die, I shall die; I can only forget it by dying."

"You are suffering from cerebral dilatation. It was nothing but a harmless scene of gallantry—it was a jest, Anna."

"Laura said that she loved you. I heard her."

"Of course, girls of her age always say they're in love."

"She kissed you, Cesare. I saw her."

"And what of that? Girls of her age are fond of kissing. They're none the worse for it."

"She was in your arms, Cesare, and for so long a time that to me it seemed a century."

"It's not a bad place, you know, Signora Dias," he responded, smiling.

"Oh, how low, how monstrous! And you, Cesare, you told her that you loved her. I heard you."

"A man always loves a little the woman that is with him. Besides, I couldn't tell her that I hated her; it would scarcely have been polite. I know my book of manners. There's at least one member of our family who preserves good form."

"Cesare, you kissed her."

"I'd defy you to have done otherwise, if you'd been a man. You don't understand these matters."

"On the lips, Cesare."

"It's my habit. It's not a custom of my invention, either. It's rather old. I suspect it took its rise with Adam and Eve."

"But she's a young girl, an innocent young girl, Cesare."

"Girls are not so innocent as they used to be, Anna. I assure you the world is changing."

"She is my sister, Cesare."

"That's a circumstance quite without importance. Relationship counts for nothing."

She looked at him with an expression of intense disgust.

"You, then, Cesare," she said, "have no sense of the greatness of this infamy. She at least, Laura, the other guilty person, turned pale, was troubled, trembled with passion and with terror. You—no! Here you have been for an hour absolutely imperturable; not a shade of emotion has crossed your brazen face; your voice hasn't changed; you feel no fear, no love, no shame; you are not even surprised. She at least shuddered and cried out; she is an Acquaviva! It is true that, though she saw my anger and my despair, she had neither pity nor compunction, but her passion for you, at least, was undisguised. She had feeling, strength, will. But you—no. You, like her, indeed, could see me weep my heart out, could see me convulsed by the most unendurable agony, and have not an ounce of pity for me; but your hardness does not spring, like hers, from love; no, no; from icy indifference. You are as heartless as a tombstone. She, at least, has the courage, the audacity, the effrontery of her wickedness; she declares boldly that she loves you, that she adores you, that she will never cease to love you, that she will always adore you. She is my sister. In her heart there is the same canker that is in mine—a canker from which we are both dying. You—no! Love? Passion? Not even an illusion. Nothing but a harmless scene of gallantry! A half-hour of amusing flirtation, without consequence! But what does it mean, then, to say that we love? Is it a lie that a man feels justified in telling any woman? And what is a kiss? A fugitive contact of the lips, immediately forgotten? So many false kisses are given in the course of a day and night! Nonsense, triviality, rubbish! It's bad form to spy at doors; its exaggeration to call a thing infamous; it's madness to be jealous. And the sin that you have committed, instead of originating in passion, which might in some degree excuse it, you reduce to an every-day vulgarity, a commonplace indecency; my sister becomes a vulgar flirt, you a vulgar seducer, and I a vulgar termagant screaming out her morbid jealousy. The whole affair falls into the mud. My sister's guilty love, your caprice, my despair, all are in the mud, among the most disgusting human garbage, where there is no spiritual light, no cry of sorrow, where everything is permissible, where the man expires and the beast triumphs. Do you know what you are, Cesare?"

"No, I don't know. But if you can tell me, I shall be indebted for the favour."

"You are a man without heart, without conscience; a soul without greatness and without enthusiasm; you are a lump of flesh, exhausted by unworthy pleasures and morbid desires. You are a ruin, in heart, in mind, in senses; you belong to the class of men who are rotten; you fill me with fright and with pity. I did not know that I was giving my hand to a corpse scented with heliotrope, that I was uniting my life to the mummy of a gentleman, whose vitiated senses could not be pleased by a young, beautiful, and loving wife, but must crave her sister, her pure, chaste, younger sister! Have you ever loved, Cesare? Have you ever for a moment felt the immensity of real love? In your selfishness you have made an idol of yourself, an idol without greatness. A thing without viscera, without pulses, without emotion! You are corrupt, perverted, depraved, even to the point of betraying your wife who adores you, with her sister whom you do not love! Ah, you are a coward, a dastard; that's what you are, a dastard!"

She wrung her hands and beat her temples, pacing the room as a madwoman paces her cell. But not a tear fell from her eyes, not a sob issued from her breast.

He stood still, his face impenetrable; not one of her reproaches had brought a trace of colour to it. She threw herself upon a sofa, exhausted; but her eyes still burned and her lips trembled.

"Now that you have favoured me with so amiable a definition of myself," said he, "permit me to attempt one of you."

His tone was so icy, he pronounced the words so slowly, that Anna knew he was preparing a tremendous insult. Instinctively, obeying the blind anger of her love, she repeated, "You are a dastard; that's what you are, a dastard."

"My dear, you are a bore—that's what you are."

"What do you say?" she asked, not understanding.

"You're a bore, my dear."

The insult was so atrocious, that for the first time in the course of their talk her eyes filled with tears, and a sigh burst from her lips—lips that were purple, like those of a dying child. It seemed as if something had broken in her heart.

"Nothing but a bore. I don't employ high-sounding words, you see. I speak the plain truth. You're a bore."

Another sigh, a sigh of insupportable physical pain, as if the hard word bore had cut her flesh, like a knife.

"You flatter yourself that you're a woman of grand passions," he went on, after looking at his watch, and giving a little start of surprise to see how much time he had wasted here. "No? You flatter yourself that you're a creature of impulse, a woman with a fate, a woman destined to a tragic end; and to satisfy this notion, you complicate and embroil and muddle up your own existence, and mortally bore those who are about you. With your rhetoric, your tears, your sobs, your despair, your interminable letters, your livid face and your gray lips, you're enough to bore the very saints in heaven."

He pretended not to see her imploring eyes, which had suddenly lost their anger, and were craving mercy.

"Remember all the stupidities you've committed in the past four or five years," he went on, "and all the annoyance you've given us. You were a handsome girl, rich, with a good name. You might have married any one of a dozen men of your own age, your own rank, gentlemen, who were in love with you. That would have been sensible, orderly; you would have been as happy as happy can be. But what! Anna Acquaviva, the romantic heroine, condescend to be happy! No, no. That were beneath her! So you had to fancy yourself in love with a beggar whom you couldn't marry."

She made a gesture, as if to defend Giustino Morelli.

"Oh, did you really love him? Thanks for the compliment; you're charming this morning. Passion, inequality of position, drama, flight into Egypt, fortunately without a child—forgive the impropriety, but it escaped me. Morelli, chancing to be a decent fellow, Morelli ran away, poor devil! and our heroine treated herself to the luxury of a mortal illness. We, Laura, I, everybody, were bored by the flight, bored by the illness. The lesson was a severe one, and most women would have been cured of their inclination towards the theatrical, as well as of their scarlet fever. But not so Anna Acquaviva. It didn't matter to her that she had risked her reputation, her honour; it didn't matter to her that she had staked the name of her family; all this only excited her imagination. And, behold, she begins her second romance, her second drama, her second tragedy, and enter upon the scene, to be bored to death, Signor Cesare Dias!"

"Oh, Holy Virgin, help me," murmured Anna, pressing her hands to her temples.

"Dramatic love for Cesare Dias, an old man, a man who has never gone in for passion, who doesn't wish to go in for it, who is tired of all such bothersome worries. Anna Acquaviva gives herself up to an unrequited love, 'one of the most desolating experiences of the soul'—that's a phrase I found in one of your letters. Desolation, torture, spasms, despair, bitterness, these are the words which our ill-fated heroine, Anna Acquaviva, employs to depict her condition to herself and to others. And Cesare Dias, who had arranged his life in a way not to be bored and not to bore anyone, Cesare Dias, who is an entirely common and ordinary person, happy in his mediocrity, suddenly finds himself against his will dragged upon the scene as hero! He is the man of mysteries, the man who will not love or who loves another, the superior man, the neighbour of the stars. And nevertheless we find a means of boring him."

"Ah, Cesare, Cesare, Cesare!" she said, beseeching compassion.

"Imbecile ought to be added to the name of Cesare Dias. That's the title which I best deserve. Only an imbecile—and I was one for half-an-hour—could have ceded to your sentimental hysterics. I was an imbecile. But to let you die, to complete your tragedy of unrequited love——"

"Oh, why didn't you let me die?" she cried.

"I believe it would have been as well for many of us. What a comfort for you, dear heroine, to die consumed by an unhappy passion! Gaspara Stampa, Properzia de' Rossi, and other illustrious ladies of ancient times, with whose names you have favoured me in your letters, would have found their imitator. I'm sure you would have died blessing me."

Bowing her head, she sighed deeply, as if she were indeed dying.

"Instead of letting you die, I went through the dismal farce of marrying you. And I assure you that I've never ceased to regret it. I regretted it the very minute after I'd made you my idiotic proposal. Ah, well, every man has his moments of inexplicable weakness, and he pays dearly for them. And marriage, alas, hasn't proved a sentimental comedy. With your pretentions to passion, to love, to mutual adoration, you've bored me even more than I expected."

"But what, then, is marriage from your point of view?" she cried.

"A bothersome obligation, when a man marries a woman like you."

"You would have preferred my sister?" she asked, exasperated. But she was at once sorry for this vulgarity; and he speedily punished it.

"Yes, I should have preferred your sister. She's not a bore. I find her extremely diverting."

"She loved you from the beginning," she says. "A pity she didn't tell you so."

"A pity. I assure you I should have married her."

"Ah, very well."

But suddenly she raised her eyes to her husband; and at the sight of that beloved person her courage failed her. She took his hand, and said, "Ah, Cesare, Cesare, you are right. But I loved you, I loved you, and you have deceived me with my sister."

"Signora Dias, you have rather a feeble memory," he returned, icily, drawing his hand away.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that you easily forget. We are face to face; you can't lie. Have I ever told you that I loved you?"

"No—never," she admitted, closing her eyes agonised to have to admit it.

"Have I ever promised to love you?"

"No—never."

"Well, then, according to the laws of love, I've not deceived you, my dear Anna. My heart has never belonged to you, therefore it's not been taken from you. I promised nothing, therefore I owe you nothing."

"It's true. You're right, Cesare," she said; draining this new cup of bitterness that he had distilled for her.

"Perhaps you will speak to me of the laws of the land. Very good; according to the law a man and wife are required to be mutually faithful. A magistrate would say that I had betrayed you. But consider a little. Make an effort of memory, Anna, and recall the agreement I proposed to you that evening at Sorrento, before committing my grand blunder. I told you that I wished to remain absolutely free, free as a bachelor; and you consented. Is it true or not true?"

"It is true. I consented."

"I told you that I would tolerate no interference on your part with my relations with other women; and remember, Anna, you consented. Is that true or untrue?"

"It is true," she said, feeling that she was falling into an abyss.

"You see, therefore, that neither according to the laws of love nor according to the laws of marriage have I betrayed you. And if you had a conscience, to adopt your own phraseology, if you had the least loyalty, you would at once confess that I have not betrayed you. You accepted the whole bargain. I am free in heart, and at liberty to do as I like. I have not betrayed you. Confess it."

"Cesare, Cesare, be human, be Christian; don't require me to say that."

"Tragedies are one thing, and truth is another, Anna. I desire to establish the fact that I haven't betrayed you, my dear. For what I did last night, for what I may have done on any other night, for what I may do any night in the future, I have your own permission. Confess it."

"I can't say that, do you understand?" she cried. "Oh, you are always in the right; you always know how to put yourself in the right. You are right in your selfishness, in your perfidy, in your wickedness, in your frightful corruption; you were right in proposing that disgraceful bargain to me, which I was not ashamed to accept, and which you to-day so justly and so appropriately remind me of. But I believed that to love, to adore a man as I loved and adored you, would be a charm to conquer with; and I have lost. For you are stronger than I; indifference is stronger than love; selfishness is stronger than passion. Generous abandonment cannot overcome the refined calculation of a corrupt man. I am wrong, I alone, I confess it—since I loved you to the point of dying for you, since I imagined that that was enough, since I had in my soul the divine hope of winning you by my love. I am wrong, I confess it; yes, I confess it. I cannot love nor hate nor live. I am nothing but a bore, a superfluous person, and a tiresome; it is true; it is true. Say it again."

"If you wish it, I will."

"You are right. You are always right. I have done nothing but blunder. I have always obeyed the mad impulses of my heart. I fled from my home. I ought not to have loved you, and I loved you. I loved you; I have bored you; and I myself, of my free will, gave you permission to betray me. You are the most vicious man I know. You're unredeemed by a thought or a feeling. You horrify me. Under the same roof with your wife, you have committed an odious sin—a sin that would make the worst men shudder. And I can't punish you, because I consented to it; because I debased the dignity of my love before you; because indeed I am a cowardly and infamous creature. See how right you are! You have sinned, but so far as I am concerned you are innocent. I am infamous and cowardly, because I ought to have died rather than accept that loathsome bargain. Forgive me if I have upbraided you. I'll ask Laura's pardon too. No human being is soiled with an infamy so great as mine. Forgive me."

Perhaps he felt in these words the confusion of madness; perhaps he saw the light of madness in her eyes. But he was unmoved. She was a woman who had led him into committing a folly, who had bored him, and, what was more, who would like to continue to bore him in the future. He was unmoved. He was glad to have got the better of her in this struggle. He was unmoved. He thought it time to leave her, if he would retain his advantage.

"Good-bye, Anna," he said, rising.

"Don't go away, don't go away," she cried, throwing herself before him.

"Do you imagine that this duet is pleasing?" he asked, drawing on his gloves. "For the rest, we've said all there is to say. I can't think you have any more insults to favour me with."

"You hate me, do you?"

"No, I don't hate you exactly."

"Don't go away. Don't go away. I must tell you something very serious."

"Good-bye, Anna," he repeated, moving towards the door.

"Cesare, if you go away, I shall do something desperate," she cried, convulsively tearing her hair.

"You'd be incapable. To do anything desperate one must have talent. And you're a fool," he replied, smiling ironically.

"Cesare, if you go away, I shall die."

"Bah, bah, you'll not die. To die one must have courage." And he opened the door and went out.

She ran to the threshold. He was already at a distance. She heard the street door close behind him. For a few minutes she stood there, fearing to move lest she should fall; then mechanically she turned back. She went to her looking-glass, repaired the disorder of her hair, and put on a hat, a black veil, and a sealskin cloak. She forgot nothing. Her pocket-handkerchief was in her muff; in her hand she carried her card-case of carved Japanese ivory.

At last she left her room, and entered her husband's. A servant was putting it in order; but, seeing his mistress, he bowed and took himself off. She was alone there, in the big brown chamber, in the gray winter daylight. She went to her husband's desk, and sat down before it, as if she were going to write. But, after a moment's thought, she did not write. She opened a drawer, took something from it, and concealed it in her pocket.

After that, she passed through the house and out into the street.

She crossed the Piazza Vittoria, and entered the Villa Nazionale. Children were playing by the fountain, and she stopped for a moment to look at them. Twice she made the tour of the Villa; then she looked at her watch; then she seated herself on one of the benches. There were very few people abroad. The damp earth was covered with dead leaves.

She fixed her eyes upon the dial of her watch, counting the minutes and the seconds. All at once she put her hand into her pocket, and felt the thing that she had hidden there.

Anna rose. It was two o'clock.

She left the Villa, walking towards the Chiatamone. Before the door of a little house in the Via del Chiatamone she stopped. She hesitated for a moment; then she lifted the bronze knocker, and let it fall.

The door was opened by Luigi Caracciolo.

He did not speak. He took her hand, and drew her into the house.

They crossed two antechambers, hung with old tapestries, ornamented with ancient and modern arms, and with big Delft vases filled with growing palms, a smoking-room furnished with rustic Swiss chairs and tables, and entered a drawing-room. The curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted. The floor and the walls were covered with Oriental carpets; the room was full of beautiful old Italian furniture, statues, pictures, bronzes. There were many flowers about, red and white roses, subtly perfumed.

Caracciolo took a bunch of roses, and gave them to Anna.

"Dear Anna—my dear love," he said.

A faint colour came to her cheeks.

"What is it? Tell me, Anna. Dear one, dear one!"

"Don't speak to me like that," she said.

"Do I offend you? I can't think that I offend you—I who feel for you the deepest tenderness, the most absolute devotion."

He took her hands.

"It is dark here," she said.

"The day was so sad, the daylight was so melancholy. I have waited for you so many hours, Anna."

"I have come, you see."

"Thank you for having remembered your faithful servant." And delicately he kissed her gloved hand.

"Why not open the curtains a little?" she asked.

He drew aside his curtains, and let in the ashen light. She went to the window, and looked out upon the sea.

"Anna, Anna, come away. Somebody might see you."

"It doesn't matter."

"But I can't allow you to compromise yourself, Anna; I love you too much."

"I have come here to compromise myself," she said.

"Then—you love me a little?" he demanded, trying to draw her away from the window.

She did not answer. She sat down in an arm-chair.

"Tell me that you love me a little, Anna."

"I don't love you."

"Dear Anna, dear Anna," he murmured with his caressing voice, "how can I believe you, since you are here. Tell me that you love me a little. For three years I have waited for that word. Dear Anna, sweet Anna, you know that I have adored you for so long a time. Anna, Anna!"

"What has happened was bound to happen," she said.

"Anna, I conjure you,[G] tell me that you love me."

She shuddered as she heard him use the familiar pronoun.

"Do you love me?"

"I don't know. I know nothing."

"Dear one, dear one," he murmured, trembling with hope, in an immense transport of love.

He drew nearer to her and kissed her on the cheek.

A cry of pain burst from her, and she sprang up, horrified, terrified, and tried to leave the room.

"Oh, for mercy's sake, forgive me. Don't go away. Anna, Anna, forgive me if I have offended you. I love you so! If you go away I shall die."

"People don't die for such slight things."

"People die of love."

"Yes. But one must have courage to die."

"Don't let us talk of these dismal things. My love, we mustn't talk of things that will sadden you. Your beautiful face is troubled. Tell me that you forgive me. Do you forgive me?"

"I forgive you."

"I don't believe it. You don't forgive me. You love another."

"No, no—no other."

"And Cesare?"

But scarcely had he spoken the fatal name when he saw his error. Her eyes blazed; she trembled from head to foot, in a nervous convulsion.

"Listen," she said. "If you have a heart, if you have any pity, if you wish me to stay here with you, never name him again, never name him."

"You are right." But then he added, "And yet you loved him, you love him still."

"No. I love no one any more."

"Why would you not accept me when I proposed for you?"

"Because."

"Why did you marry that old man?"

"Because."

"And now why do you love him? Why do you love him?"

"I don't know."

"You see, you do love him," he cried in despair.

"Oh, God, oh, God!" she sobbed.

"Oh, I am a fool. Forgive me, forgive me. But I love you, and I lose my head. I love you, and I am desperate. And I need to know if you still love him. You will always love him? Is it so?"

"Till death," she said, with a strange look and accent.

"Say it again."

"Till death," she repeated, with the same strange intonation.

They were silent.

Luigi Caracciolo put his arm round her waist, and drew her slowly towards him.

Her eyes were fixed and void. She did not feel his arms about her. She did not feel his kisses. He kissed her hair, he kissed her sweet white throat, he kissed her little rosy ear. Anna was absorbed in a desperate meditation, far from all human things. He kissed her face, her eyes, her lips; she did not know it. But suddenly she felt his embrace become closer, stronger; she heard his voice change, it was no longer tender and caressing, it was fervid with tumultuous passion, it uttered confused delirious words. Silently, looking at him with burning eyes, she tried to disengage herself.

"Let me go," she said.

"Anna, Anna, I love you so—I have loved you so long!"

"Let me go, let me go!"

"You are my adored one—I adore you above all things."

"Let me go. You horrify me."

He let her go.

"But what have you come here for?" he asked, sorrowfully.

"I have come to commit an infamy."

"Anna, Anna, you are killing me!"

She looked at him fixedly.

"What is it, Anna? Something is troubling you, and you won't tell me what it is. My poor friend! You have come here with an anguish in your heart, wishing to escape from it; you have come here to weep; and I have behaved like a brute, a blackguard."

"No, you are good, I shall remember you," and she gave him her hand.

"Don't go away. Tell me first what it is. Tell me what you came for. Tell me, dearest Anna."

"It's too long a story, too long," she said, as if in a dream, passing her hand over her brow. "And now I must go, I must go."

"No, stop here, talk to me, weep. It will do you good."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"My minutes are numbered. You'll understand some day—to-morrow. Now I must go."

"Anna, how can I let you go like this? You have come here to be comforted, and I have treated you shamefully. Forgive me."

"You are not to blame, not in the least."

"But what is it that you are in trouble about, Anna? Who has been making you miserable, my poor fond soul? Whose fault is it? Who is to blame? Cesare?"

"No, I am to blame, I only."

"And Cesare—you admit it."

"No."

"Cesare is an infamous scoundrel, and I know it," he exclaimed.

"It is I who am infamous."

"I don't believe you. I should believe no one who said that, Anna."

"I must be infamous, since I alone am unhappy. I must go."

"Will you come back?—to-morrow? Anna, you are so sad, you are in such distress, I can't let you go."

"No one can detain me, no one."

"Anna, forget that I have spoken to you of love."

"I have forgotten it. Good-bye."

"You musn't go like this. You are too much agitated."

"No, I am calm. Listen, will you do me a favour? You repeated some verses to me one evening at Sorrento—some French verses—do you remember?"

"Yes. Baudelaire's 'Harmonie du Soir,'" he answered, surprised by her question.

"Have you the volume?"

"Yes."

"Take it, and copy that poem for me. Afterwards I will say good-bye."

He went into his library and brought back Les Fleurs du Mal. He seated himself at his writing-table, and looked at Anna. There was an expression of such immense sorrow in her eyes, that he faltered, and asked, "Shall I write?"

She bowed her head. While he was writing the first lines, Anna turned her back to him. She put her hand into her pocket and brought forth a little shining object of ivory and steel. He in a low voice repeated the verse he was writing—"Valse mÉlancolique et langoureux vertige"—when suddenly there was the report of a pistol, and a little cloud of smoke rose towards the ceiling.

Anna had shot herself through the heart, and fallen to the floor. Her little gloved hand held the revolver that she had taken from the drawer of her husband's desk. Luigi Caracciolo stood rooted to the carpet, believing that he must be mad.

So died Anna Acquaviva, innocent.

[F] Voi, instead of the more familiar tu, which he had previously employed.