"Then let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Is that the end of your experience?" asked Leonora, gloomily.
"Oh--well--if you put it so. Only if you do not eat and drink too much, you may possibly not die until the day after to-morrow."
"Or you may spend your life in cooking the dinner, and die before it is served?" suggested Leonora.
"Or anything--what carnal similes!" laughed Batis...o...b... "But they are very apt for any one who cares for eating. If that is really an important enjoyment, it may as well stand as the type."
"Exactly--"if." I am sure you do not think it is, nor that any material satisfaction can possibly stand as a type, nor that we should enjoy to-day without thought of to-morrow, nor a great many other things you have said." She watched him as she spoke, and he liked to feel her eyes on him.
"No," he answered, "you are quite right. I do not think those things at all. But I am sure I generally do them," he added, smiling.
"But what do you think--really? Is there anything really high and n.o.ble in the world? It all seems so little and so hollow, sometimes."
She sighed, thinking how, formerly, she had said such things speculatively, and for the sake of raising an argument with her friends.
Batis...o...b.. turned on the stone seat, so that he faced her.
"Of course there are high and n.o.ble things in the world," he answered.
"It is when you look into the small workings of the mind and soul, as you have been making me do, that you lose sight of the great ones.
Material nature is most interesting under a microscope, and generally most beautiful in great ma.s.ses at a distance. But if you walk close to the grandest cliff in nature, and flatten your face against it, and hold your eye half an inch from the rock, the grandeur and the beauty are all gone, and without a microscope wherewith to examine your particular point, you will find the close inspection tiresome after a time. There is no microscope for the soul, any more than for the heart, or the mind.
You gain nothing by looking too closely at it. It is ten to one that you hit upon a diseased spot for your examination. It may amuse you for a time to study other people"s souls, because you can hardly get so near to them as to lose all impression of the whole, as you can with yourself. What does it matter what you know about your soul, so long as you do what is right?"
"That sounds true," said Leonora, "but I suppose there is something wrong about it."
"All good similes sound true," said Batis...o...b.., laughing. "That is the reason why popular orators and preachers are so fond of them. The real use of a simile is for an explanation; the moment you make an argument upon it, you are revelling in words without logic, calling ill.u.s.trations facts and generally making game of your audience."
"What a discouraging person you are," said Leonora. "You make one almost believe a thing, and then you turn round and tell one there is nothing to believe after all."
"Not so bad as that," said Batis...o...b.., leaning back and clasping his brown hands over his knee. "I have not said there was nothing to believe in. Only take care you do not believe in anything because it bears a tempting resemblance to something you like."
"That is ingenious, but I wish you would be positive about something. I wish you would tell me, for instance, what you yourself believe in." Her eyes turned towards him in the twilight. For the sun had gone down, and the orange-trees brought the shadows early where the two were sitting.
"What I believe in?" he repeated. "I suppose that, apart from religious matters, I believe most in sympathy and antipathy."
"That is not exactly a course of action or a rule of life," remarked Leonora, smiling and looking away.
"No. But in nine cases out of ten they are what determine both. At all events I believe in them. They always carry the day over logic, philosophy, and all manner of calculation and forethought. You may determine that it is your duty to like a person, you may induce yourself to think that you do, and you may make every one believe you do; but if you really do not--there is an end of it. And the reverse is just as true."
"I should think every one knew that," said Leonora in an indifferent way. But she was wondering why he had said it, whether he had any suspicion of her own state of mind. "It is very safe to say you believe in things of that sort--everybody does. You are a very indefinite person, Mr. Batis...o...b..."
"What is the use of defining everything? Lots of people have been burned alive, and have had their heads cut off for defining things they knew nothing about. Of course they were quite sure they knew better; but then, is it worth while to die for your personal opinion of an abstract question?"
"It is very fine and n.o.ble, though," said Leonora.
"There is a tradition that it is fine and n.o.ble to "die for" anything.
It sounds well. Every one admires it. But reflect that the common murderer "dies for" his individual views of the social state. The woman who maintained that scissors were better than a knife for cutting an apple suffered her husband to drown her rather than give up the point, and as she sank her fingers still opened and closed, to imitate the instrument she preferred. She "died for" her opinion, just as much as Savonarola or Giordano Bruno, whom my countrymen are so fond of raving about."
"You know that is not what I mean," said Leonora. "I mean it is n.o.ble to die for what is right."
"The question is, what is right? There are cases when it is eminently heroic to sacrifice one"s life."
"For instance?"
"For instance, to die for the liberty of one"s own country,--for the defence and safety of one"s king, who represents the embodiment of the social principle,--or for the honour of an innocent woman."
"But about liberty and one"s king, and that sort of thing," said Leonora, "where can you draw the line? There is no successful treason, you know, because when it succeeds it is called by other names. There must be a standard of absolute good--or something."
"I should think you must be a very unhappy person, Marchesa, if you are always trying to draw a line and to define absolute good. What is the use? Every one knows that it cannot be done."
Leonora was silent. It had interested her to hear the brilliant, successful man, apparently so happy and contented with his lot, talk seriously about the things she was always puzzling over. But what did it come to? What was the use? Those were his last words.
The warm gloom of the night settled softly round them, laden with the sweetness of the oranges and the aromatic scent of the late carnations.
Batis...o...b.. could just see Leonora by his side, her head bent forward as she rested her chin upon her hand. The indescribable atmosphere and faint perfume that surrounds women of high beauty and degree intoxicated him. She was so English in her beauty and so Russian in her delicate exuberance of vitality; above all, she was so intensely feminine, that Batis...o...b.. felt his senses giving way to the magnetic influence. He leaned forward in the dark till he was nearer to her, looking at the faint outline of her face. Leonora sighed, and the gentle sound seemed like the softened echo of past weeping.
"Marchesa," said Julius in a low voice, "can I really be your friend?
Will you let me help to make your life happier, if I can?"
Leonora felt the blood rise blushing to her face in the dark, and her heart trembled in its beating. A friend! Oh, if she really could find a strong, true friend to help her!
"How can you?" she asked faintly.
"I do not know," he answered. "Let me try. I will try very hard. I am sure I can succeed."
She let him take her hand for one moment. It was a consent, not spoken, but given and understood. Leonora rose to her feet, and they walked silently toward the house.
"When may I come?" he asked, as he bade her good night. He spoke quite naturally, as though it were already a matter of course that he should see her every day. She hesitated a moment, standing in the doorway with the warm light of the lamp upon her.
"Come at eleven," she said at last, and with a pleasant smile she left him and went in.
The aspect of life seemed changed for her when he was gone. That afternoon she had suffered intensely. Now there was a strange, calm sense in her heart that soothed all her thoughts, and made the lonely evening sweet and restful. She asked no questions, she made no self-examination, she desired of herself no reasons for her conduct. It was enough that the storm had pa.s.sed and that the calm was come, she knew not how. A man had spoken to her as no man ever spoke to her before, and the earnestness of his words still rang in her ear. He was loyal, strong, and true. He would be her friend,--he had asked it, she had granted it.
She dined alone and read a little afterwards, closing her eyes now and again to enjoy the peace that had descended upon her. For the first time in many months she was happy, supremely, quietly happy, and she asked no questions.
As for Batis...o...b.., he wandered homewards through the dark lanes, not heeding or caring where he went. He was wholly absorbed in recalling the events of the afternoon, revelling in the memory of Leonora"s face and looks and words. He, too, was wholly disinclined to reflect on the possible consequences of his action; he took it as a matter of course that he should keep his word and be indeed a friend to her; at all events he thought neither of the future nor the past, but only ever and ever of herself, clinging tenderly to the images he called up, and asking nothing better than to call them up again, dreaming and waking.
He might be in love, or he might not,--the question no longer entered his head. He was fascinated, charmed, and beside himself with enjoyment of his thoughts.
It was the state he had dreaded a day or two ago. To avoid it he had tried to escape, by a stratagem, beyond the possibility of seeing Leonora again. He had cursed his folly in going to see her. He had promised himself that he would not go again; he had reviewed his past troubles, and had remembered how plausibly they had begun. And at last he had fallen into the ancient trap, the snare of fair friendship set out to catch men and women and to destroy them. But the mouth of the pit was garnished with roses and lilies, sweet and innocent enough.
At eleven o"clock of the next day Julius was again with Leonora, and on the day following and the day after that. They walked together, read together, sailed together, and lunched together. A few stray callers came in now and then, but as they never came twice, not one of them thought it at all worthy of remark that Mr. Batis...o...b.. should happen to be calling at the same time.
Leonora found an extraordinary pleasure in his conversation. He had a fund of varied study and experience from which to draw, that amused her and made her think in new grooves; and when he talked about her ideas and interests he always succeeded in showing them to her in a new light.
His comments were by turns light and sarcastic, and then again very serious; and his general readiness to make things seem amusing made his graver sayings doubly strong by contrast. He had a bold way of a.s.serting that acc.u.mulated knowledge was of very little importance as compared with action, which would have sounded foolish enough from an ignorant man; but Julius was far from ignorant. He had studied a great many questions, and he possessed the faculty of speaking sensibly in a general way about subjects of which he did not profess to know anything.
Most of all she found in him a ready sympathy and a love of human nature and of life for life"s sake, that were utterly different from the artificial views she had cultivated. She found in him the strong love of enjoyment and the activity of mind and body, that best harmonised with her own real character; and in their long days together the hollowness and emptiness of life never once recalled themselves to her memory, except as things for her to wonder at and for Batis...o...b.. to turn into jest and laugh to scorn.
The whole situation was utterly new and unexpected to her. After the first few days at Sorrento with her husband she had made up her mind that the beauties of nature were very tedious, and that she would be glad to go back to Rome and begin the duties of society,--anything, rather than go on from day to day longing for a sensation, and finding only a great deal of weariness. But now, in the discovery of a new friend, a man of talent and tact, who made all gloomy musings seem ridiculous by the side of his sanguine activity, the place was transformed into a paradise for her. Not a day but brought some new thought, some witty saying, some bit of novelty with it, so that she found herself happy when she was alone in going over what they had said and done together.
As for Marcantonio, she should be very glad when he came back. It seemed to her that he must be much more amusing now, and that she could say things to rouse him and make him talk. She wrote affectionate notes every day, telling him how beautiful everything was, and how he was to enjoy it, now that the first difficulties of settling were over. She even said she had sent for the cook, and had ascertained that he was very well, having had no return of the fever; she thought it must please her husband to know that she was taking care of the household and looking after the people.
In the meanwhile Batis...o...b.. fell in love, studiously consoling his conscience with the reflection that he was doing a good deed, and was acting the part of a friend in making the time pa.s.s pleasantly for Leonora in her solitude. But his conscience did not trouble him greatly, though it would be sure to, by and by. At present everything was swamped in a sea of glorious enjoyment, and he was no less really happy than Leonora. Day after day began and ended alike, but yet ever different. They never referred to the singularity of the arrangement by which Julius came every day in the morning and stayed till dark. There seemed no reason why they should not leave well alone, and enjoy each other"s society to the very utmost. And they did, most fully, each wholly engrossed in the other.