Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  Of course I married her. We Neapolitans lose no time in such matters. We are not prudent. Unlike the calm blood of Englishmen, ours rushes swiftly through our veins — it is warm as wine and sunlight, and needs no fictitious stimulant. We love, we desire, we possess; and then? We tire, you say? These southern races are so fickle! All wrong — we are less tired than you deem. And do not Englishmen tire? Have they no secret ennui at times when sitting in the chimney nook of “home, sweet home,” with their fat wives and ever-spreading families? Truly, yes! But they are too cautious to say so.

  I need not relate the story of my courtship — it was brief and sweet as a song sung perfectly. There were no obstacles. The girl I sought was the only daughter of a ruined Florentine noble of dissolute character, who gained a bare subsistence by frequenting the gaming-tables. His child had been brought up in a convent renowned for strict discipline — she knew nothing of the world. She was, he assured me, with maudlin tears in his eyes, “as innocent as a flower on the altar of the Madonna.” I believed him — for what could this lovely, youthful, low-voiced maiden know of even the shadow of evil? I was eager to gather so fair a lily for my own proud wearing — and her father gladly gave her to me, no doubt inwardly congratulating himself on the wealthy match that had fallen to the lot of his dowerless daughter.

  We were married at the end of June, and Guido Ferrari graced our bridal with his handsome and gallant presence.

  “By the body of Bacchus!” he exclaimed to me when the nuptial ceremony was over, “thou hast profited by my teaching, Fabio! A quiet rogue is often most cunning! Thou hast rifled the casket of Venus, and stolen her fairest jewel — thou hast secured the loveliest maiden in the two Sicilies!”

  I pressed his hand, and a touch of remorse stole over me, for he was no longer first in my affection. Almost I regretted it — yes, on my very wedding-morn I looked back to the old days — old now though so recent — and sighed to think they were ended. I glanced at Nina, my wife. It was enough! Her beauty dazzled and overcame me. The melting languor of her large limpid eyes stole into my veins — I forgot all but her. I was in that high delirium of passion in which love, and love only, seems the keynote of creation. I touched the topmost peak of the height of joy — the days were feasts of fairy-land, the nights dreams of rapture! No; I never tired! My wife’s beauty never palled upon me; she grew fairer with each day of possession. I never saw her otherwise than attractive, and within a few months she had probed all the depths of my nature. She discovered how certain sweet looks of hers could draw me to her side, a willing and devoted slave; she measured my weakness with her own power; she knew — what did she not know? I torture myself with these foolish memories. All men past the age of twenty have learned somewhat of the tricks of women — the pretty playful nothings that weaken the will and sap the force of the strongest hero. She loved me? Oh, yes, I suppose so! Looking back on those days, I can frankly say I believe she loved me — as nine hundred wives out of a thousand love their husbands, namely — for what they can get. And I grudged her nothing. If I chose to idolize her, and raise her to the stature of an angel when she was but on the low level of mere womanhood, that was my folly, not her fault.

  We kept open house. Our villa was a place of rendezvous for the leading members of the best society in and around Naples. My wife was universally admired; her lovely face and graceful manners were themes of conversation throughout the whole neighborhood. Guido Ferrari, my friend, was one of those who were loudest in her praise, and the chivalrous homage he displayed toward her doubly endeared him to me. I trusted him as a brother; he came and went as pleased him; he brought Nina gifts of flowers and fanciful trifles adapted to her taste, and treated her with fraternal and delicate kindness. I deemed my happiness perfect — with love, wealth, and friendship, what more could a man desire?

  Yet another drop of honey was added to my cup of sweetness. On the first morning of May, 1882, our child was born — a girl-babe, fair as one of the white anemones which at that season grew thickly in the woods surrounding our home. They brought the little one to me in the shaded veranda where I sat at breakfast with Guido — a tiny, almost shapeless bundle, wrapped in soft cashmere and old lace. I took the fragile thing in my arms with a tender reverence; it opened its eyes; they were large and dark like Nina’s, and the light of a recent heaven seemed still to linger in their pure depths. I kissed the little face; Guido did the same; and those clear, quiet eyes regarded us both with a strange half-inquiring solemnity. A bird perched on a bough of jasmine broke into a low, sweet song, the soft wind blew and scattered the petals of a white rose at our feet. I gave the infant back to the nurse, who waited to receive it, and said, with a smile, “Tell my wife we have welcomed her May-blossom.”

  Guido laid his hand on my shoulder as the servant retired; his face was unusually pale.

  “Thou art a good fellow, Fabio!” he said, abruptly.

  “Indeed! How so?” I asked, half laughingly; “I am no better than other men.”

  “You are less suspicious than the majority,” he returned, turning away from me and playing idly with a spray of clematis that trailed on one of the pillars of the veranda.

  I glanced at him in surprise. “What do you mean, amico? Have I reason to suspect any one?”

  He laughed and resumed his seat at the breakfast-table.

  “Why, no!” he answered, with a frank look. “But in Naples the air is pregnant with suspicion — jealousy’s dagger is ever ready to strike, justly or unjustly — the very children are learned in the ways of vice. Penitents confess to priests who are worse than penitents, and by Heaven! in such a state of society, where conjugal fidelity is a farce” — he paused a moment, and then went on— “is it not wonderful to know a man like you, Fabio? A man happy in home affections, without a cloud on the sky of his confidence?”

  “I have no cause for distrust,” I said. “Nina is as innocent as the little child of whom she is to-day the mother.”

  “True!” exclaimed Ferrari. “Perfectly true!” and he looked me full in the eyes, with a smile. “White as the virgin snow on the summit of Mont Blanc — purer than the flawless diamond — and unapproachable as the furthest star! Is it not so?”

  I assented with a certain gravity; something in his manner puzzled me. Our conversation soon turned on different topics, and I thought no more of the matter. But a time came — and that speedily — when I had stern reason to remember every word he had uttered.

  CHAPTER II.

  Every one knows what kind of summer we had in Naples in 1884. The newspapers of all lands teemed with the story of its horrors. The cholera walked abroad like a destroying demon; under its withering touch scores of people, young and old, dropped down in the streets to die. The fell disease, born of dirt and criminal neglect of sanitary precautions, gained on the city with awful rapidity, and worse even than the plague was the unreasoning but universal panic. The never-to-be-forgotten heroism of King Humbert had its effect on the more educated classes, but among the low Neapolitan populace, abject fear, vulgar superstition, and utter selfishness reigned supreme. One case may serve as an example of many others. A fisherman, well known in the place, a handsome and popular young fellow, was seized, while working in his boat, with the first symptoms of cholera. He was carried to his mother’s house. The old woman, a villainous-looking hag, watched the little procession as it approached her dwelling, and taking in the situation at once, she shut and barricaded her door.

  “Santissima Madonna!” she yelled, shrilly, through a half-opened window. “Leave him in the street, the abandoned, miserable one! The ungrateful pig! He would bring the plague to his own hard-working, honest mother! Holy Joseph! who would have children? Leave him in the street, I tell you!”

  It was useless to expostulate with this feminine scarecrow; her son was, happily for himself, unconscious, and after some more wrangling he was laid down on her doorstep, where he shortly afterward expired, his body being afterward carted away like so much rubbis
h by the beccamorti.

  The heat in the city was intense. The sky was a burning dome of brilliancy, the bay was still as a glittering sheet of glass. A thin column of smoke issuing from the crater of Vesuvius increased the impression of an all-pervading, though imperceptible ring of fire, that seemed to surround the place. No birds sung save in the late evening, when the nightingales in my gardens broke out in a bubbling torrent of melody, half joyous, half melancholy. Up on that wooded height where I dwelt it was comparatively cool. I took all precautions necessary to prevent the contagion from attacking our household; In fact, I would have left the neighborhood altogether, had I not known that hasty flight from an infected district often carries with it the possibility of closer contact with the disease. My wife, besides, was not nervous — I think very beautiful women seldom are. Their superb vanity is an excellent shield to repel pestilence; it does away with the principal element of danger — fear. As for our Stella, a toddling mite of two years old, she was a healthy child, for whom neither her mother nor myself entertained the least anxiety.

  Guido Ferrari came and stayed with us, and while the cholera, like a sharp scythe put into a field of ripe corn, mowed down the dirt-loving Neapolitans by hundreds, we three, with a small retinue of servants, none of whom were ever permitted to visit the city, lived on farinaceous food and distilled water, bathed regularly, rose and retired early, and enjoyed the most perfect health.

  Among her many other attractions my wife was gifted with a beautiful and well-trained voice. She sung with exquisite expression, and many an evening when Guido and myself sat smoking in the garden, after little Stella had gone to bed, Nina would ravish our ears with the music of her nightingale notes, singing song after song, quaint stornelli and ritornelli — songs of the people, full of wild and passionate beauty. In these Guido would often join her, his full barytone chiming in with her delicate and clear soprano as deliciously as the fall of a fountain with the trill of a bird. I can hear those two voices now; their united melody still rings mockingly in my ears; the heavy perfume of orange-blossom, mingled with myrtle, floats toward me on the air; the yellow moon burns round and full in the dense blue sky, like the King of Thule’s goblet of gold flung into a deep sea, and again I behold those two heads leaning together, the one fair, the other dark; my wife, my friend — those two whose lives were a million times dearer to me than my own. Ah! they were happy days — days of self-delusion always are. We are never grateful enough to the candid persons who wake us from our dream — yet such are in truth our best friends, could we but realize it.

  August was the most terrible of all the summer months in Naples. The cholera increased with frightful steadiness, and the people seemed to be literally mad with terror. Some of them, seized with a wild spirit of defiance, plunged into orgies of vice and intemperance with a reckless disregard of consequences. One of these frantic revels took place at a well-known cafe. Eight young men, accompanied by eight girls of remarkable beauty, arrived, and ordered a private room, where they were served with a sumptuous repast. At its close one of the party raised his glass and proposed, “Success to the cholera!” The toast was received with riotous shouts of applause, and all drank it with delirious laughter. That very night every one of the revelers died in horrible agony; their bodies, as usual, were thrust into flimsy coffins and buried one on top of another in a hole hastily dug for the purpose. Dismal stories like these reached us every day, but we were not morbidly impressed by them. Stella was a living charm against pestilence; her innocent playfulness and prattle kept us amused and employed, and surrounded us with an atmosphere that was physically and mentally wholesome.

  One morning — one of the very hottest mornings of that scorching month — I woke at an earlier hour than usual. A suggestion of possible coolness in the air tempted me to rise and stroll through the garden. My wife slept soundly at my side. I dressed softly, without disturbing her. As I was about to leave the room some instinct made me turn back to look at her once more. How lovely she was! she smiled in her sleep! My heart beat as I gazed — she had been mine for three years — mine only! — and my passionate admiration and love of her had increased in proportion to that length of time. I raised one of the scattered golden locks that lay shining like a sunbeam on the pillow, and kissed it tenderly. Then — all unconscious of my fate — I left her.

  A faint breeze greeted me as I sauntered slowly along the garden walks — a breath of wind scarce strong enough to flutter the leaves, yet it had a salt savor in it that was refreshing after the tropical heat of the past night. I was at that time absorbed in the study of Plato, and as I walked, my mind occupied itself with many high problems and deep questions suggested by that great teacher. Lost in a train of profound yet pleasant thought, I strayed on further than I intended, and found myself at last in a by-path, long disused by our household — a winding footway leading downward in the direction of the harbor. It was shady and cool, and I followed the road almost unconsciously, till I caught a glimpse of masts and white sails gleaming through the leafage of the overarching trees. I was then about to retrace my steps, when I was startled by a sudden sound. It was a low moan of intense pain — a smothered cry that seemed to be wrung from some animal in torture. I turned in the direction whence it came, and saw, lying face downward on the grass, a boy — a little fruit-seller of eleven or twelve years of age. His basket of wares stood beside him, a tempting pile of peaches, grapes, pomegranates, and melons — lovely but dangerous eating in cholera times. I touched the lad on the shoulder.

  “What ails you?” I asked. He twisted himself convulsively and turned his face toward me — a beautiful face, though livid with anguish.

  “The plague, signor!” he moaned; “the plague! Keep away from me, for the love of God! I am dying!”

  I hesitated. For myself I had no fear. But my wife — my child — for their sakes it was necessary to be prudent. Yet I could not leave this poor boy unassisted. I resolved to go to the harbor in search of medical aid. With this idea in my mind I spoke cheerfully.

  “Courage, my boy,” I said; “do not lose heart! All illness is not the plague. Rest here till I return; I am going to fetch a doctor.”

  The little fellow looked at me with wondering, pathetic eyes, and tried to smile. He pointed to his throat, and made an effort to speak, but vainly. Then he crouched down in the grass and writhed in torture like a hunted animal wounded to the death. I left him and walked on rapidly; reaching the harbor, where the heat was sulphurous and intense, I found a few scared-looking men standing aimlessly about, to whom I explained the boy’s case, and appealed for assistance. They all hung back — none of them would accompany me, not even for the gold I offered. Cursing their cowardice, I hurried on in search of a physician, and found one at last, a sallow Frenchman, who listened with obvious reluctance to my account of the condition in which I had left the little fruit-seller, and at the end shook his head decisively, and refused to move.

  “He is as good as dead,” he observed, with cold brevity. “Better call at the house of the Miserecordia; the brethren will fetch his body.”

  “What!” I cried; “you will not try if you can save him?”

  The Frenchman bowed with satirical suavity.

  “Monsieur must pardon me! My own health would be seriously endangered by touching a cholera corpse. Allow me to wish monsieur the good-day!”

  And he disappeared, shutting his door in my face. I was thoroughly exasperated, and though the heat and the fetid odor of the sun-baked streets made me feel faint and sick, I forgot all danger for myself as I stood in the plague-stricken city, wondering what I should do next to obtain succor. A grave, kind voice saluted my ear.

  “You seek aid, my son?”

  I looked up. A tall monk, whose cowl partly concealed his pale, but resolute features, stood at my side — one of those heroes who, for the love of Christ, came forth at that terrible time and faced the pestilence fearlessly, where the blatant boasters of no-religion scurried away like frighte
ned hares from the very scent of danger. I greeted him with an obeisance, and explained my errand.

  “I will go at once,” he said, with an accent of pity in his voice. “But I fear the worst. I have remedies with me; I may not be too late.”