Gemma flinched then as though he had struck her. The insult was flagrant, and it was time to make an end. She rose from her chair slowly, as though she were very tired, and filled her gla.s.s from the decanter on the table with a hand that trembled so that half the wine was spilled.
"Orazio," she said, and her dark eyes sought his and held them so that he was compelled to stand still looking at her. "Orazio, I hope you and your ugly fool of a mother will die slowly of a horrible disease, and be tormented in h.e.l.l for ever. May your flesh be covered with sores while your bones rot and are gnawed by worms. _Cosi sia!_"
She crossed herself devoutly, and then drank some of the wine and flung the gla.s.s over her shoulder. It fell to the floor and crashed to splinters.
The man"s jaw dropped and his mouth fell open, but he had no words to answer her. She made a curious movement with her hands as though she would cleanse them of some impurity, and then turned and went quickly into her own room. They all heard the bolts drawn and the key turned in the lock.
Olive was the first to speak, and her voice sounded strange and unnatural to herself.
"She has said her say and left us, Signor Lucis. Will you not go too?
You will not marry her. _Benissimo!_ We wish you good-evening."
"You are very easy, signorina _mia_," he answered resentfully; "but I cannot forgive."
"Who asked your forgiveness?" she retorted. "It is you who should beg our pardon--you, who are so ready to believe the tales that are told in the _cafes_ and to come here to abuse helpless women. You are a coward, signore. Oh, how I hate men ... Judges in Israel ... I would have them stoned first. _What"s that?_"
There was shouting in the street, and then a loud knocking on the house door. The women looked at each other with frightened eyes.
"What is it?"
Carmela ran to Gemma"s door and shook the handle, calling to her to come out. There was no answer, and perhaps they had a dreadful premonition of the truth even then; Olive left them huddled together like frightened sheep. The knocking still continued, and it sounded very loud when she came out of the flat on to the stairs. She was beside herself; that is, she was aware of two Olives, one who spoke in a strange voice and trembled, and was now going down into the darkness, stumbling at nearly every step and moaning incoherent prayers to G.o.d, and one who watched and listened and was surprised at what was said and done.
When she opened the great house door a man stood aside to let her come out. She looked at him and knew him to be one of the neighbours, and she wondered why he had run out into the street in his shirt-sleeves.
He was pale, too, and looked ill, and he seemed to want to speak to her, but she could not listen.
A crowd had collected about something that was lying on the pavement near their house wall; Olive looked up and saw Gemma"s window opened wide, and then she knew what it was. The people made way for her and let her come to where the dead thing lay on its back with the knees drawn up. Some woman had already covered the face with a handkerchief, and dark blood was oozing out from under it. Olive crouched down beside its pitiful disarray.
"Will someone help me carry her into the house?" she said.
No one answered her, and after a while she spoke again.
"Will someone fetch a doctor quickly?"
"It is useless, _figlia mia_; she is dead."
"At least"--her voice broke, and she had to begin again, making a painful effort to control the words that she might be quite intelligible--"at least help me to carry her in from the street. Is there no Christian here?"
Two _carabinieri_ came running up now, and they made the people stand back so that a s.p.a.ce of pavement was left clear; the younger man spoke to Olive.
"We cannot move the body until the authorities come, signorina. It must stay where it is, but we shall guard it and keep the people off, and you can fetch a sheet from the house to cover it."
"Oh, G.o.d!" she said, "when will they come?"
He slightly shrugged his shoulders.
"I do not know. We have sent to tell them. In a few minutes, perhaps, or in two hours, three hours."
"And we must leave her here?"
"Yes, signorina."
"I will get the sheet."
He helped her to rise from her knees. Looking down she saw a stain of blood on her skirt, and she clung to his arm for a moment, swaying as though she would fall. There was a murmur among the people of pity and sympathy. "_Poveretta! Che disgrazia!_"
"_Coraggio!_" the _carabiniere_ said gently.
Up again, up all the dark stairs, wondering if the others knew and were afraid to come down, wondering if there had been much pain, wondering if it was not all a dreadful dream from which she must wake presently. They knew.
The younger girl met her cousin at the door; Maria had fainted, and _la zia_ was hysterical; as to Orazio, he was sitting on the sofa crying, with his mean, mouse-coloured head buried in the cushions.
"I looked out of your bedroom window as I could not get into her room," whispered Carmela. "Oh, Olive, what shall we do?"
"I am going to take down a sheet as they will not let us bring her in.
You can come with me, and we will stay beside her and say prayers."
"Yes, yes. Oh, Olive, that is a good idea."
The two came out into the street together and spread the white linen covering carefully over the stark body before they knelt, one on each side. Of the thousands who had filled the Piazzale at sunset hundreds came now to see them mourning the broken thing that lay between.
Olive was aware of many faces, of the murmuring of a great crowd, and shame was added to the horror that held her fast. She folded her hands and tried to keep her eyes fixed upon them. Then she began to pray aloud.
"_Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum--_"
The clear voice was tremulous at first, but it gathered strength as it went on, and Carmela said the words too. The men in the crowd uncovered, and the women crossed themselves.
Rain was falling now, slowly at first and in heavy drops that splashed upon the stones, and there was a threatening sound--a rumbling of thunder--away in the south.
Olive knew no more prayers in Latin, but her cousin began the Miserere.
"_Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam, et secundum mult.i.tudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam._"
Among the many who had come to look their last upon the Odalisque were men who had made free with her poor name, had been unsparing in their utterance of the truth concerning her and ready to drag her down, and some of these moved away now shamefacedly, but more stayed, and one after another took up the words.
"_Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo munda me._"
Gemma herself had trodden out the fire that consumed her, but who could dare say of the grey cold ashes, "These are altogether vile."
"_Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis et vincas c.u.m judicaris._"
She had sinned, and she had been punished; she had suffered fear and shame.
"_Asperges me hyssopo et mundabor, lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor._"
There had been some taint in her blood, some flaw in her will.
"_Cor mundum crea in me, Deus, et spiritum r.e.c.t.u.m innova in visceribus meis._"
A dark-eyed slender boy, wearing the green and white and scarlet of his _contrade_, pushed his way to the front presently. It was Romeo, and he carried a great bunch of magnolia blossoms.