But Aurora’s did not move, and she did not even turn her head towards him.
“Take care!” she said quickly, in a low tone. “They are watching us.”
Marcello looked round and saw that the others were nearer than he had supposed, and he blushed foolishly.
“Well, what harm would there be if you gave me your hand?” he asked. “I only meant—”
“Yes, I understand,” Aurora answered, in the same tone as before. “And I am glad you like me, Marcello — if you really do.”
“If I do!” His tone was full of youthful and righteous indignation.
“I did not mean to doubt it,” she said quickly. “But it is getting to be different now, you know. We are older, and somehow everything means more, even the little things.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Marcello. “I begin to see. I suppose,” he added, with what seemed to him reckless brutality, “that if I kissed you now you would be furious.”
He glanced uneasily at Aurora’s face to note the effect of this terrible speech. The result was not exactly what he had expected. A faint colour rose in her cheeks, and then she laughed.
“When you do,” she said, “I would rather it should not be before people.”
“I shall try to remember that,” answered Marcello, considerably emboldened.
“Yes, do! It would be so humiliating if I boxed your ears in the presence of witnesses.”
“You would not dare,” laughed Marcello.
From a distance, as Aurora had guessed, Folco was watching them while he quietly talked to the Contessa; and as he watched, he understood what a change had taken place since last year, when he had seen Marcello and Aurora riding over the same stretch of sand on the same little horses. He ventured a reflection, to see what his companion would answer.
“I daresay many people would say that those two young people were made for each other.”
Maddalena looked at him inquiringly and then glanced at her daughter.
“And what do you say?” she asked, with some curiosity.
“I say ‘no.’ And you?”
“I agree with you. Aurora is like me — like what I was. Marcello would bore her to death in six months, and Aurora would drive him quite mad.”
Corbario smiled.
“I had hoped,” he said, “that women with marriageable-daughters would think Marcello a model husband. But of course I am prejudiced. I have had a good deal to do with his bringing up during the last four years.”
“No one can say that you have not done your duty by him,” Maddalena answered. “I wish I could feel that I had done as well by Aurora — indeed I do!”
“You have, but you had quite a different nature to deal with.”
“I should think so! It is my own.”
Corbario heard the little sigh as she turned her head away, and being a wise man he said nothing in answer. He was not a Roman, if indeed he were really an Italian at all, but he had vaguely heard the Contessa’s story. She had been married very young to a parliamentary high-light, who had made much noise in his day, had spent more than half of her fortune after getting rid of his own, and had been forgotten on the morrow of his premature death. It was said that she had loved another man with all her heart, but Corbario had never known who it was.
The sun was almost setting when they turned homeward, and it was dark when they reached the cottage. They found an unexpected arrival installed beside the Signora in the doorway of the sitting-room.
“Professor Kalmon is here,” said the Signora’s voice out of the gloom. “I have asked him to stay till to-morrow.”
The Professor rose up in the shadow and came forward, just as a servant brought a lamp. He was celebrated as a traveller, and occupied the chair of comparative physiology in the University of Milan. He belonged to the modern type of scientific man, which has replaced the one of fifty years ago, who lived in a dressing-gown and slippers, smoked a long pipe, and was always losing his belongings through absence of mind. The modern professor is very like other human beings in dress and appearance, and has even been known to pride himself on the fit of his coat, just like the common people.
There were mutual greetings, for the Professor knew all the party, and everybody liked him. He was a big man, with a well-kept brown beard, a very clear complexion, and bright brown eyes that looked as if they would never need spectacles.
“And where have you been since we last saw you?” asked Corbario.
“Are your pockets full of snakes this time?” asked Aurora.
The Professor looked at her and smiled, realising that she was no longer the child she had been when he had seen her last, and that she was very good to look at. His brown eyes beamed upon her benevolently.
“Ah, my dear young lady, I see it is all over,” he said. “You will never pull my beard again and turn my pockets inside out for specimens when I come back from my walks on the beach.”
“Do you think I am afraid of you or your specimens?” laughed Aurora.
“I have got a terrible thing in my waistcoat pocket,” the Professor answered. “Something you might very well be afraid of.”
“What is it? It must be very small to be in your waistcoat pocket.”
“It is a new form of death.”
He beamed on everybody with increasing benevolence; but somehow nobody smiled, and the Signora Corbario shivered and drew her light cloak more closely round her, as the first gust of the night breeze came up from the rustling reeds that grew in the pool below.
“It is time to get ready for supper,” said Folco. “I hope you are not hungry, Kalmon, for you will not get anything very elaborate to eat!”
“Bread and cheese will do, my dear fellow.”
When Italians go to the country they take nothing of the city with them. They like the contrast to be complete; they love the total absence of restraint; they think it delightful to dine in their shooting-coats and to eat coarse fare. If they had to dress for dinner it would not be the country at all, nor if dinner had to begin with soup and end with sweets just as it does in town. They eat extraordinary messes that would make a Frenchman turn pale and a German look grave. They make portentous pasties, rich with everything under the sun; they eat fat boiled beef, and raw fennel, and green almonds, and vast quantities of cream cheese, and they drink sour wine like water; and it all agrees with them perfectly, so that they come back to the city refreshed and rested after a gastronomic treatment which would bring any other European to death’s door.
The table was set out on the verandah that evening, as usual in spring, and little by little the Professor absorbed the conversation, for they all asked him questions, few of which could be answered shortly. He was one of those profoundly cultivated Italians who are often to be met nowadays, but whose gifts it is not easy to appreciate except in a certain degree of intimacy. They are singularly modest men as a rule, and are by no means those about whom there is the most talk in the world.
The party sat in their places when supper was over, with cloaks and coats thrown over them against the night air, while Kalmon talked of all sorts of things that seemed to have the least possible connection with each other, but which somehow came up quite naturally. He went from the last book on Dante to a new discovery in chemistry, thence to Japanese monks and their beliefs, and came back smiling to the latest development of politics, which led him quite naturally to the newest play, labour and capital, the German Emperor, and the immortality of the soul.
“I believe you know everything!” exclaimed Marcello, with an admiring look. “Or else I know nothing, which is really more probable!” The boy laughed.
“You have not told us about the new form of death yet,” said Aurora, leaning on her elbows and burying her young hands in her auburn hair as she looked across the table at Kalmon.
“You will never sleep again if I tell you about it,” answered the Professor, opening his brown eyes very wide and trying to look terrible, which was quite impossible, because he had such a kindly f
ace. “You do not look frightened at all,” he added, pretending to be disappointed.
“Let me see the thing,” Aurora said. “Perhaps we shall all be frightened.”
“It looks very innocent,” Kalmon answered. “Here it is.”
He took a small leather case from his pocket, opened it, and drew out a short blue glass tube, with a screw top. It contained half a dozen white tablets, apparently just like those in common use for five-grain doses of quinine.
A little murmur of disappointment went around the table. The new form of death looked very commonplace. Corbario was the only one who showed any interest.
“May I see?” he asked, holding out his hand to take the tube.
Kalmon would not give it to him, but held the tube before his eyes under the bright light of the lamp.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I make it a rule never to let it go out of my hands. You understand, don’t you? If it were passed round, some one might lay it down, it might be forgotten, somebody might take it for something else.”
“Of course,” said Folco, looking intently at the tube, as though he could understand something about the contents by mere inspection. “You are quite right. You should take no risks with such things — especially as they look so innocent!”
He leaned back in his chair again, as if satisfied, and his eyes met the Contessa’s at the same moment. There was no reason why she should not have looked at him just then, but he rested one elbow on the table and shaded his eyes from the light.
“It is strange to reflect,” said Kalmon, looking at the tube thoughtfully, “that one of those little things would be enough to put a Hercules out of misery, without leaving the slightest trace which science could discover.”
Corbario was still shading his eyes from the light.
“How would one die if one took it?” asked Aurora. “Very suddenly?”
“I call it the sleeping death,” answered the Professor. “The poisoned person sinks into a sweet sleep in a few minutes, smiling as if enjoying the most delightful dreams.”
“And one never wakes up?” inquired Marcello.
“Never. It is impossible, I believe. I have made experiments on animals, and have not succeeded in waking them by any known means.”
“I suppose it congests the brain, like opium,” observed Corbario, quietly.
“Not at all, not at all!” answered Kalmon, looking benevolently at the little tube which contained his discovery. “I tell you it leaves no trace whatever, not even as much as is left by death from an electric current. And it has no taste, no smell, — it seems the most innocent stuff in the world.”
Corbario’s hand again lay on the table and he was gazing out into the night, as if he were curious about the weather. The moon was just rising, being past the full.
“Is that all you have of the poison?” he asked in an idle tone.
“Oh, no! This is only a small supply which I carry with me for experiments. I have made enough to send all our thirty-three millions of Italians to sleep for ever!”
Kalmon laughed pleasantly.
“If this could be properly used, civilisation would make a gigantic stride,” he added. “In war, for instance, how infinitely pleasanter and more æsthetic it would be to send the enemy to sleep, with the most delightful dreams, never to wake again, than to tear people to pieces with artillery and rifle bullets, and to blow up ships with hundreds of poor devils on board, who are torn limb from limb by the explosion.”
“The difficulty,” observed the Contessa, “would be to induce the enemy to take your poison quietly. What if the enemy objected?”
“I should put it into their water supply,” said Kalmon.
“Poison the water!” cried the Signora Corbario. “How barbarous!”
“Much less barbarous than shedding oceans of blood. Only think — they would all go to sleep. That would be all.”
“‘I CALL IT THE SLEEPING DEATH,’ ANSWERED THE PROFESSOR”
“I thought,” said Corbario, almost carelessly, “that there was no longer any such thing as a poison that left no traces or signs. Can you not generally detect vegetable poisons by the mode of death?”
“Yes,” answered the Professor, returning the glass tube to its case and the latter to his pocket. “But please to remember that although we can prove to our own satisfaction that some things really exist, we cannot prove that any imaginable thing outside our experience cannot possibly exist. Imagine the wildest impossibility you can think of; you will not induce a modern man of science to admit the impossibility of it as absolute. Impossibility is now a merely relative term, my dear Corbario, and only means great improbability. Now, to illustrate what I mean, it is altogether improbable that a devil with horns and hoofs and a fiery tail should suddenly appear, pick me up out of this delightful circle, and fly away with me. But you cannot induce me to deny the possibility of such a thing.”
“I am so glad to hear you say that,” said the Signora, who was a religious woman.
Kalmon looked at her a moment and then broke into a peal of laughter that was taken up by the rest, and in which the good lady joined.
“You brought it on yourself,” she said at last.
“Yes,” Kalmon answered. “I did. From your point of view it is better to admit the possibility of a mediæval devil with horns than to have no religion at all. Half a loaf is better than no bread.”
“Is that stuff of yours animal, vegetable, or mineral?” asked Corbario as the laughter subsided.
“I don’t know,” replied the Professor. “Animal, vegetable, mineral? Those are antiquated distinctions, like the four elements of the alchemists.”
“Well — but what is the thing, then?” asked Corbario, almost impatiently. “What should you call it in scientific language?”
Kalmon closed his eyes for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts.
“In scientific language,” he began, “it is probably H three C seven, parenthesis, H two C plus C four O five, close parenthesis, HC three O.”
Corbario laughed carelessly.
“I am no wiser than before,” he said.
“Nor I,” answered the Professor. “Not a bit.”
“It is much simpler to call it ‘the sleeping death,’ is it not?” suggested the Contessa.
“Much simpler, for that is precisely what it is.”
It was growing late, according to country ideas, and the party rose from the table and began to move about a little before going to bed. The moon had risen high by this time.
Marcello and Aurora, unheeded by the rest, went round the verandah to the other side of the house and stood still a moment, looking out at the trees and listening to the sounds of the night. Down by the pool a frog croaked now and then; from a distance came the plaintive, often repeated cry of a solitary owlet; the night breeze sighed through the long grass and the low shrubbery.
The boy and girl turned to each other, put out their hands and then their arms, and clasped each other silently, and kissed. Then they walked demurely back to their elders, without exchanging a word.
“We have had to give you the little room at the end of the cottage,” Corbario was saying to Kalmon. “It is the only one left while the Contessa is here.”
“I should sleep soundly on bare boards to-night,” Kalmon answered. “I have been walking all day.”
Corbario went with him, carrying a candle, and shielding the flame from the breeze with his hand. The room was furnished with the barest necessities, like most country rooms in Italy. There were wooden pegs on which to hang clothes instead of a wardrobe, an iron bedstead, a deal wash-stand, a small deal table, a rush-bottomed chair. The room had only one window, which was also the only door, opening to the floor upon the verandah.
“You can bolt the window, if you like,” said Corbario when he had bidden the Professor good-night, “but there are no thieves about.”
“I always sleep with my windows open,” Kalmon answered, “and I have no valuables.”
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sp; “No? Good-night again.”
“Good-night.”
Corbario went out, leaving him the candle, and turned the corner of the verandah. Then he stood still a long time, leaning against one of the wooden pillars and looking out. Perhaps the moonlight falling through the stiff little trees upon the long grass and shrubbery reminded him of some scene familiar long ago. He smiled quietly to himself as he stood there.
Three hours later he was there again, in almost exactly the same attitude. He must have been cold, for the night breeze was stronger, and he wore only his light sleeping clothes and his feet were bare. He shivered a little from time to time, and his face looked very white, for the moon was now high in the heavens and the light fell full upon him. His right hand was tightly closed, as if it held some small object fast, and he was listening intently, first to the right, whence he had come, then to the left, and then he turned his ear towards the trees, through which the path led away towards the hut where the men slept. But there was no sound except the sighing of the wind. The frog by the pool had stopped croaking, and the melancholy cry of the owlet had ceased.
Corbario went softly on, trying the floor of the verandah with his bare feet at each step, lest the boards should creak a little under his weight. He reached the window door of his own room, and slipped into the darkness without noise.
Kalmon cared little for quail-shooting, and as the carriage was going back to Rome he took advantage of it to reach the city, and took his departure about nine o’clock in the morning.
“By the way, how did you sleep?” asked Corbario as he shook hands at parting. “I forgot to ask you.”
“Soundly, thank you,” answered the Professor.
And he drove away, waving his felt hat to his hosts.
CHAPTER III
MARCELLO COUGHED A little as he and Corbario trudged home through the sand under the hot May sun. It was sultry, though there were few clouds, and everything that grew looked suddenly languid; each flower and shrub gave out its own peculiar scent abundantly, the smell of last year’s rotting leaves and twigs all at once returned and mingled with the odours of green things and of the earth itself, and the heavy air was over-rich with it all, and hard to breathe. By and by the clouds would pile themselves up into vast grey and black fortresses, far away beyond Rome, between the Alban and the Samnite hills, and the lightning would dart at them and tear them to pieces in spite, while the thunder roared out at each home-thrust that it was well done; and then the spring rain would sweep the Campagna, by its length and breadth, from the mountains to the sea, and the world would be refreshed. But now it was near noon and a heavy weariness lay upon the earth.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1076