BIANCA MARIA'S VISION

Both the gamblers went upstairs very quietly, like evil-doers or timid young fellows who have disobeyed their father's orders; each carried a latchkey, and shut the door without any noise. On going into his apartments and his own room, Cesare FragalÀ, taking a fit of penitence, shook like a child; only his sleeping wife's placid breathing calmed him a little. He was afraid of awakening her, in case she questioned him, and guessed the truth with that extraordinary alarming intuition women have. He undressed by the slender light of a lamp before St. Agnes, and got into bed with the greatest caution, trembling—yes, trembling—lest he should wake his wife; and in his humble, contrite, desolate heart he swore not to stake another sou. Only this oath and his healthy constitution freed him from sleeplessness, which sits at the bedhead of all gamblers.

Sleeplessness had visited Formosa's pillows. He had vainly tried to read Rutilio Benincasa's mathematical table, to calm his wandering thoughts; the figures danced in a ring before his eyes. He vainly tried to say the rosary, to fix his mind on prayer, to humiliate his heart before the Eternal Will; prayer came coldly and haltingly from his lips. A strong fever of fancy held him, and put his nerves on the rack; it made him start up in his bed, quivering like a violin string: a madness took hold of him, and, from the black darkness and solitude, made itself all-powerful over his thoughts and feelings. He could not stay in bed; in spite of the cold, he got up and dressed, and began to walk about in his freezing room. He did not feel cold; his hands and head were warm; the candle-flame seemed a great blaze to him. All was silent in the house; he never allowed anyone to wait up for him. The two poor old servants—Giovanni and Margherita—whom he had despoiled of their money got on loan, to keep Bianca Maria alive, were sleeping in the closet—tired and sorrowful, perhaps. Bianca Maria was asleep in her cold room many hours ago certainly. But the Marquis di Formosa, devoured by his gambling folly, hoping and despairing of winning from one moment to another, implored God, the Virgin, the saints, the souls of his dead, his guardian angel, Fortune, all the powers of heaven and earth, to help him to win, to get the victory; he forgot his fears as a man and a Christian so far as to ask it from evil spirits, even. Formosa, burning with such madness, could not bear that all in the house should sleep quietly, placidly, while he was torn with anguish and hope. Ah no! he was not afraid of solitude and night, little noises from old furniture, old creaking ceilings, or noisy doors; he was afraid of nothing in that icy house where his wife died of languor and sorrow, where her meek shade still seemed to linger. Fear! He asked, he implored a voice, a revelation, a vision; he would have been pleased, happy, and not frightened, if he had seen something. But his soul was too stained with sin, his heart was unclean from earthly desires; a white soul, a virginal heart, was needed to get this heavenly grace, by which one saw what other human eyes were not allowed to see. Bianca Maria was sleeping; she slept, cold creature! though so near to Grace, and still refused to satisfy her father's wishes. He left his room, crossed the passage in front of the drawing-room, and stopped at his daughter's closed door. He listened—no sound. She was sleeping, cold-hearted girl! She had no pity for her father's tortures, and would not pray God and the Virgin for a vision. A dull rage mingled with his Friday madness; he went up and down the passage more than once, trying to go away from his daughter's room; but he could not manage it: his curiosity was so strong to know from her the spirit's revelation that she certainly must have had that night; it could not have failed to come. Don Pasqualino, the medium, after a three days' voluntary fast, after two nights' flagellation on his shoulders and bare, thin breast, had heard from the spirit who helped him that Bianca Maria would get the revelation. The spirit does not lie. Then involuntarily, as if pushed by a force he must obey, he took hold of the door-handle; it creaked, the door opened. But a sharp cry from inside answered to the noise—a girl's cry, whose light, watchful sleep had been disturbed. She rose up in bed, in her white nightgown, her black hair loose on her shoulders, eyes wide open, and hands clutching the coverlet.

'It is I, Bianca—it is I,' the Marquis di Formosa murmured, coming forward.

'Who—who is it?' she asked, shaking with fear, not daring to move.

'I—it is I, Bianca,' he repeated, getting impatient.

She sighed deeply without saying anything, but her breathing was still alarmed. The Marquis had got to his daughter's bed, guided by the faint light of a lamp before a small image of the Virgin.

The girl fell back on the pillows and looked at the ceiling. The Marquis sat down by her bed, and his nervous fingers played with the white fringe of the coverlid.

'Why were you so frightened?' he asked, after a long silence.

'I don't know; it is stronger than I am.'

'When one is in the Lord's grace there is no need for fear,' he remarked sententiously and severely. 'Have you some mortal sin on your conscience?'

'No ... I don't think so, at least,' she said, hesitating.

They kept silence. The Marquis di Formosa looked into the shadows.

'Has the spirit come?' he asked afterwards, in a whispered, mysterious tone.

'Oh, do not speak of that,' she said, sighing again, shutting her eyes, and hiding her face in her hands.

'Has it come?' he insisted; a gambler's cruelty was raging in him now.

'For mercy's sake, if you love me, don't speak of that!' she said, taking his hand and kissing it, so as to move him more.

'Tell me, has it come?' he again repeated implacably.

She, feeling she could not escape that persecution, looked despairingly towards the Virgin, then hid her face in the pillows.

'Tell me, tell me, if it has come!' he cried out, bending over the pillows, as if to breathe his magnetic curiosity into his daughter's face.

'No, it has not,' she said, in a thread of a voice.

'You are lying.'

'I am not.'

'You are lying. The spirit has been here, I feel it.'

'Be good to me; say no more about this,' she said, trembling dreadfully.

'How did you see it? Awake? dozing? sleeping? It was a white figure, was it not, with lowered eyelids, but smiling?... What did it say to you? A very weak voice, wasn't it? Something you alone could have heard?'

'Father, you want to kill me,' she uttered desolately.

These are womanly fears,' said he disdainfully. 'Who ever died through a communication from on high? The meeting of soul and spirit is a spring of life. Bianca Maria, don't be ungrateful, don't be cruel; tell me all.'

'You are trying to kill me,' she repeated, desperately and resignedly.

'You are a fool! Do you wish me, your father, to pray to you? Well, I will; there is nothing else to be done. Children are ungrateful and wicked; they give back cruelty for our love. I pray to you, Bianca, I beg of you, as if you were my patron saint, to tell me all.'

'I will die of this, father,' she murmured, her voice choked in the pillows that helped her to curb her crying and sobs.

'Listen, Bianca,' he went on coldly, keeping in his anger; 'you must believe me. I am a man, I am sane, I am in my senses, I can reason. Well, it is an article of faith with me, as clear as the light, as the sun, that you have had to-night, or will have, a spirit's apparition. It will come to bless our family; it will tell you words of happiness. If it has come, so much the better; your duty as an obedient, loving daughter of the House of Cavalcanti is to tell me all, at once.'

'I know nothing,' she said dryly.

'Do you swear it?'

'I swear that I know nothing.'

'Then this vision will come in the succeeding hours of the night. I am going into the chapel, to pray. I am a sinner, but sinners, too, can ask for grace. I will pray that you may see and feel the spirit.'

'No, don't go away!' she cried out, getting up in her bed and catching hold of his arm with a despairing clutch.

'Why should I not?'

'Don't go away, for the love of God! If you have any affection for me, stay here.'

'I must go and pray, Bianca,' he exclaimed, carried away by excitement, not understanding his daughter's convulsive state.

'No, no—stay; I can't be left alone here, or I'll die of fright.' She spoke restlessly, quite pallid, her trembling hands still clutching her father's arm. She dared not look round. With her head down on her breast, she shut her eyes and bit her lips; while he, in his mad obstinacy, looked fixedly at his daughter, thinking he saw in her that spiritual disorder that must, by a fatality, go with the great miracles that have to do with the soul.

'How do you feel?' he questioned, very deeply and intensely, as if he wished to tear the truth from her soul.

'Stay here, stay here,' said she, her teeth chattering with terror.

'You see something?' he asked suggestively, with an intensity in his voice and will that was bound to influence that fragile feminine frame, broken as it was by the nervous shock.

'I am afraid to see—I am afraid!' she said, very low, leaning her forehead on her father's arm.

'Don't be afraid, dear; don't fear,' he whispered tenderly, paternally caressing her black hair.

'Be silent; keep silence,' said she, with a quick shiver. She continued to lean on his shoulder, hiding her face, shrinking all over. The Marquis put his arm round her waist, to keep up her quivering, feeble body; she hid more, clinging to her father as to a raft of safety. He sometimes felt her quiver all through her nerves.

'What is the matter?' he asked then.

'No, no!' she said, more by gesture than voice.

'Look, look—don't be frightened,' suggested the deluded man.

'Be silent!' she answered, shuddering. He held her up, waiting with a madman's patience that would wait for hours, days, months, years, provided the truth of his delusion were proved.

'Bianca darling,' the Marquis murmured, sometimes encouraging her tenderly. She answered with a sigh, that seemed a lamenting, suffering child's sob. Holding her against his breast, Formosa felt the strong rigidity of that young sickly frame shaken by long shivers. When she trembled all over, he felt the rebound. It seemed to him the implored revelation was imminent. He again said to her, obstinately, pitilessly, 'How do you feel?' She waved her hand, in an alarmed way, as if she wished to chase away a frightful thought or a dreadful vision. What did the agony of that young breast matter to him, the fatal want of balance in the nerves? In that chilly virginal room, a circle of light on the ceiling from the Virgin's lamp alone breaking the shadow, with the quivering form in his arms, the soul trembling before Divine mysteries, he felt it a solemn moment; time and space were not. He, Formosa, was facing at last the great mystery. From his innocent daughter's lips he would know his life's secret, his future: the fatal ciphers that contained his fortune—the spirit would tell Bianca Maria everything, and she would tell him.

'Bianca, Bianca, implore him to come and tell you whether we are to live or die. Pray to him, because he, the spirit, comes forth from the Divine, to tell you the divine word; pray to him, if he is here near you, or in you, if he is before your eyes or your fancy; pray to him, Bianca, pray to him. Our life is at stake. Save us, Bianca, save us!'...

He went on speaking, incoherently, invoking the spirit's presence, addressing the wildest, saddest prayers to her and to him. The girl, trembling, shivering, her teeth chattering with terror, clung on her father's neck, like a suffering child, fastened like a vice. She said no more, but it was evident the hour, the surroundings, and her father's voice increased her nervousness. A stifled sob came from her breast, and a very faint, constant lament, like a dying child's, from her lips. He spoke to her all the time, but when he got more urgent, almost wrathful in his sorrow, he felt her arms twitching with despair. Then gradually a change came. To begin with, Bianca's hands and forehead were, as usual, icy cold; she was so bloodless, she had lost her vital heat. Indeed, in that spasm the deluded old man had felt that her whole body was frozen. Suddenly, at intervals, when her teeth stopped chattering and her arms relaxed through debility, he felt a slight heat rising under the skin on her hands and up to her forehead. It seemed a current of heat spreading all through her young body, which filled her impoverished veins with warm blood, and made her forehead and hands burn. He beard her breathing get more distressed; sometimes her breast rose with a long sigh, as if she needed air. Twice he tried to put her head down on the pillow, but she gave a frightened shiver.

'Don't leave me alone, for the love of God!' she stammered, like a baby.

'I won't leave you. Tell me what you see,' he repeated, indomitable and implacable.

'It is dreadful, dreadful!' Bianca stammered, going on trembling, trembling as if she had the body of an old woman of seventy.

'What is dreadful? Speak, Bianca, tell me everything; tell me what you have seen.'

'Oh!' lamented she despondingly.

Now the teeth had given up chattering, her short breathing came from her throat faintly, she burnt all over, and her quick respiration scorched her father's neck where her head leant; besides this, her temples and pulse beat rapidly, but her father, possessed altogether by his madness, in the mysterious half-light of that chilly night, close to the poor drowsy soul in the tortured body, lost all sense of realities. His sick fancy keenly enjoyed the hour's drama, without taking in how cruel it was. He was quivering with joy, indeed, as he believed the great moment of the spirit's revelation had come; the fortunes of the House of Cavalcanti were to be decided that moment. His daughter's uneasiness, terror, spasms, broken words, were easily explained; it was the Favour drawing near. So much time, so long had gone by in unhappiness and wretchedness; now all was to be changed. To-morrow he and his daughter would be rich—have millions! Oppressed and uneasy, Bianca Maria had slid down from her father's breast on to the pillows; her whistling breath was very audible, her eyes shone curiously. Nailed to the spot by his unhealthy curiosity, the Marquis stood by the bed, watching his daughter's every movement by the lamp-light, struck down as she was on that bed of sorrow. Suddenly, as if by an electric shock, her hands clutched the coverlet wildly; a hoarse cry came from her throat.

'What is it?' the Marquis cried out, shaken also.

'It is the spirit—the spirit!' she stammered, her voice changed to a deep cavernous tone.

'Where is it?' the father said in a whisper.

'In the doorway! Look at it; it is there!' she said firmly and forcibly, staring at the door.

'I see nothing—nothing! I am a poor sinner!' Formosa cried out despairingly.

'The spirit is there,' she whispered, as if she heard nothing.

'How is it clad? What is it doing? What does it say? Bianca, Bianca, pray to it!'

'It is clad in white ... it does not move ... it says nothing ...' she murmured in a dreamy way.

'Implore him—implore him to speak to you. You are free from sin, Bianca.'

'It does not speak ... it will not speak!'

'Bianca, pray in God's name, by His strength and power.'

They kept silence. The Marquis di Formosa kept his whole attention on the door where his daughter alone saw the spirit, his whole soul in prayer. She lay still more restless; her burning hands clutched the folds of the sheet between her fingers.

'What does it say?'

'It says nothing.'

'But why will it not speak? Why has it come if it will not speak?'

'It does not answer me,' she replied, still in the same voice that seemed to come from a distance.

'But what is it doing?'

'It looks at me ... looks at me steadily ... the eyes are so sad, so sad. It looks pityingly at me, just as if I were dead. Am I dead, then?'

'Now it will go away without telling you anything!' Formosa shouted out. 'Ask him what numbers come out to-morrow.'

She gave an agonized moan.

'I think it is weeping now, as if I were dead; it looks so to me. Tears fall down its cheeks.'

'Tears, sixty-five,' Formosa said to himself, as if he feared someone would hear him.

'It raises its hand to greet me....'

'Look how many fingers it lifts—look well; make no mistake.'

'Three fingers. It bows to me; it wants to go away....'

'Tell him to come back; pray him to—pray....'

'He signs "yes,"' Bianca Maria went on after a pause. 'It is going away—it has gone; it has disappeared....'

'Let us praise God!' Formosa cried out, kneeling at the foot of the bed. 'The fingers three, the hand five, tears sixty-five; we must find out the number for the dead girl. Let us thank God!'

'Yes, yes,' the girl murmured in a queer tone; 'we must find out the number for the dead girl—we must find out....'

'We will find out,' exclaimed Formosa, laughing like a madman.

He thought no more about his daughter, who was now in a state of high fever with the violence of the effimere, that carries off a life in twenty-four hours. She panted, drinking in the air with her open mouth, like a dying bird. The blood beat so wildly in her veins it seemed it would burst them; her whole slender form burned like red-hot iron. But the Marquis di Formosa only felt a youthful impatience; he had gone twice to the window to see if day was breaking. No; he had still some hours to wait before he could play the spirit's numbers. It occurred to him he had no more money. How could he play? Not a franc. It was a cruel thing, this continual thirst nothing could satisfy. But he would find the money, if he had to sell the last of his furniture and pawn himself. He would get it, by Gad! now he had got the revelation—now the ministering spirit had deigned to enter his house. His fortune was in his hands; he would put everything on the spirit's numbers.

'Oh, Ecce Homo! Ecce Homo of Cavalcanti House! it was you did us this favour. A new chapel must be added for you, and four lamps of massive silver, always kept lit, in remembrance of what you have done for us.' The Ecce Homo would help him to get the money too. Good and powerful Ecce Homo, the family protector, give money—money to gamble with!

Overmastered by his fervent, passionate thoughts, the Marquis di Formosa spoke aloud, gesticulating with his hands through his hair, wandering about the room like a madman.

Bianca Maria went on raving in a whisper, because her breath was failing, softly, vaguely speaking of Maria degli Angioli, or with deep melancholy of a fresh, laughing, green country place she would like to live in, down there far, far off. But the old man, carried away by his thoughts, no longer listened to her, and as the cold dawn of March burst forth, two deliriums were confused together in that room—father's and daughter's tragically.

In the livid cold light of dawn the Marquis di Formosa wandered in a shaky way, with wild-looking eyes and pallid face, through his flat, searching his empty drawers and sparse furniture for something to sell or pawn. He found nothing. He opened the drawers with trembling hands again, and groped in them, shaking them hard, then he looked around with madness in his gaze, thinking he would like to sell or pawn the bare walls of the house that had once been his. Nothing, nothing! Little by little, eaten up by the lottery, valuable jewels had disappeared, heavy antique and modern silver plate, pictures by great masters, precious books, artistic rarities in bronze, ivory, carved wood—the house was stripped, only the furniture that it would have been disgraceful to part with was left. Alas! nothing could be found to turn into money so as to play the spirit's number. He wrung his hands despairingly; he had left Bianca Maria in a feverish, oppressed stupor, a few confused words still came from her lips, and the servants were still sleeping. He even went into the chapel, wildly; but the lamps burning there were brass. He had bought the altar vases himself when he sold the real silver ones, and had got imitation silver instead. He thought a moment of taking the silver crown from the Virgin's head, and the seven swords in her heart that represent the great agonized Mother's sorrows, but a mysterious dread restrained him.

He went out without being able to say a prayer even, the night's delusion and Saturday morning's feverish haste held him so strongly that dawn. He thought who he could borrow money from, but could not find anyone; he held his beating temples to keep his thoughts together, so as to get what he wanted. All friends of his own rank and his great relations kept away from him after his wife's death; but only after he had laid them all under contribution for his gambling. His present friends? They were all gamblers, all making desperate attempts that morning to go on staking; they would certainly not lend money—each one thought of himself, looked out for himself. New friends? That passion prevented him from finding any, except that morbid set of madmen, damned like himself. A great deal of money was needed, as the spirit had deigned to reveal himself; a fortune must be made that day or never. Suddenly a flash of light struck him: a name came to his mind. He could give him the money; he was a man of honour; he had a lot of money; he would not refuse a Formosa a small loan. While he wrote to Dr. Antonio Amati at his desk, on a leaf torn from a book full of ciphers, he thought he need not feel ashamed to ask a loan from a stranger, for he would give it back that very evening. After he had written, one thought made him tremble: if Amati said 'No'? He was a mere acquaintance, a stranger; money hardens all hearts.

'Take this letter to Dr. Amati, and bring the answer back,' he said to Giovanni, who came in, hardly awake, on being rung for.

'He will be asleep....'

'Take it!' Formosa ordered. He bit his lips, certain now that Amati would refuse; he felt a blush of shame come to his cheek. But he must have money—he must, at whatever cost! He flung himself in the easy-chair, looking at the ciphers on bits of paper scattered on the desk without seeing them; he felt overcome by that irrepressible rage of his ruling passion, at war with realities.

'When he awakes he will give the answer,' said Giovanni, coming in, silently waiting his master's orders.

'Giovanni, give me the rest of the money you have,' said Formosa sullenly.

'I haven't got any, sir,' the other answered, shaking all over.

'Don't tell lies; you have other fifty francs. Give me them at once....'

'My lord, I took the loan of it from a money-lender. I must give it back at so much a week; don't take it from me....'

'That does not matter to me,' Formosa said haughtily.

'Don't take it from me, my lord. If you knew what it was needed for....'

'It does not matter to me' the Marquis said fiercely. 'Give me the fifty francs....'

'They are for getting food for her ladyship....'

'That does not matter to me!' Formosa yelled.

'As that is so, I obey,' said the old servant despairingly, and he took out the other fifty-franc note. The Marquis snatched at it like a thief, and put it quickly in his pocket.

'Your wife has money, too; get it from her,' Formosa went on again coldly.

'Where could my wife get it?'

'She has some. Make her give it to you, and bring it here. Spare me a scene. If your wife denies it, you can leave the house at once, both of you.'

'No, my lord—no; I am going at once,' said the servant humbly.

But a scene followed in there; there was long, agitated talk between the husband and wife. The woman did not wish to let her money be carried off; she cried, wept, and sobbed. Silence at last, and then a moaning.

Giovanni came in again, with his old face distorted, and bent more, as if struck by paralysis. As he put another fifty francs down on the desk, silently, his eyes red with the rare, burning tears of old age, the Marquis was so struck by his appearance that he suddenly relented, and said good-naturedly:

'It is three hundred francs, between yesterday evening and to-day. This evening you will get it all.'

'How am I to get to-day's dinner?'

'I will see about it—at four o'clock,' the Marquis said vaguely.

'Her ladyship is ill; she will want a little soup this evening,' the servant muttered.

Then, searching his pockets, with a miserly grimace, the Marquis di Formosa gave three francs to the man, following them with a greedy look.

There was a knock. Formosa started. It was Dr. Amati's answer. It did not matter now if he said 'No.' But as he got the envelope in his hands, he knew by touch that the money he wanted was there, and, red with delight, he put the envelope in his pocket without opening it. He went out now, at eight in the morning, as if carried by an irresistible breath of wind; he went without turning back to look at his sick child, his bare house, his weeping servants, who had given him everything, the neighbour whose visits he had not paid for, and yet dared to ask a loan of money from—he went off, taking three hundred and fifty francs with him, to put it all on the spirit's numbers, while he had left his poor old servants fasting, and had haggled over a little soup for Bianca Maria. No one in the house saw him again till mid-day. His daughter lay in bed, in a burning fever, breathing with difficulty, often asking for something to drink—nothing else. Margherita sat down by the bed, saying the Rosary over to herself to pass the time. She often put her hand on the invalid's forehead, alarmed at its being so hot. The sick girl said nothing; she was sleeping, breathing uneasily. Suddenly, opening her eyes, she said distinctly to Margherita:

'Call the doctor to me.'

'He won't be at home now.'

'When he comes back, then.' And she shut her eyes again.

The doctor only came at half-past four. He stood at the door of the little room, scenting the feverish air.

'You might have called me before,' he said to Margherita roughly.

'Oh, sir, if I could tell you——'

He told her to hold her tongue. The invalid was looking at him, her lovely, gentle eyes wide open, her hand held out to him. The strong man, with the massive head, the good-natured, ugly face, got a look of great tenderness before the fragile creature Affection welled up from his heart. He felt at once that the fever would soon be over: it was falling already, with the suddenness of malaria; but the thorn of that miserable existence, trembling between life and death, victim of a disease he could not find out the meaning of, would stay in his heart.

'Now I am going to order a medicine for you,' he said gently to the sick girl, holding her hand in his.

'No, do not,' she said softly.

'Don't you want any?'

'Listen, listen!' she said, pulling him to her to let him hear better—'take me away!' She trembled as she said this, and Antonio, paling suddenly, struck by an indescribable emotion, could not even answer. 'Take me away!' she added humbly, as if imploring him.

'Yes, dear—dear,' he stammered; 'wherever you like—at once.'

'To the country—far off,' the poor thing whispered, 'where one sees no ghosts in fever, where there are no shadows nor frightful spectres.'

'What do you say?' said he, surprised.

'Nothing; take me away to the country, to greenness and peace with your mother ... before God.'

'Oh dear, dear!' He could say nothing else, this great man, in the supreme emotion, the sweetness of the idyll.

'Far away take me,' she still whispered, looking at him with great, good eyes.

Alone, very sweetly and modestly, they spoke of love without using words.