第 83 页

eyes raised to the brass crucifix upon the altar he saw nothing, heard

nothing, but gave himself wholly to his entreaties, supplicating God to

take him in place of his nephew, if a sacrifice were necessary, and yet

clinging to the hope that so long as Dario retained a breath of life and

he himself thus remained on his knees addressing the Deity, he might

succeed in pacifying the wrath of Heaven. He was both so humble and so

great. Would not accord surely be established between God and a

Boccanera? The old palace might have fallen to the ground, he himself

would not even have felt the toppling of its beams.

In the bed-room, however, nothing had yet stirred beneath the weight of

tragic majesty which the ceremony had left there. It was only now that

Dario raised his eyelids, and when on looking at his hands he saw them so

aged and wasted the depths of his eyes kindled with an expression of

immense regretfulness that life should be departing. Doubtless it was at

this moment of lucidity amidst the kind of intoxication with which the

poison overwhelmed him, that he for the first time realised his perilous

condition. Ah! to die, amidst such pain, such physical degradation, what

a revolting horror for that frivolous and egotistical man, that lover of

beauty, joy, and light, who knew not how to suffer! In him ferocious fate

chastised racial degeneracy with too heavy a hand. He became horrified

with himself, seized with childish despair and terror, which lent him

strength enough to sit up and gaze wildly about the room, in order to see

if every one had not abandoned him. And when his eyes lighted on

Benedetta still kneeling at the foot of the bed, a supreme impulse

carried him towards her, he stretched forth both arms as passionately as

his strength allowed and stammered her name: "O Benedetta, Benedetta!"

She, motionless in the stupor of her anxiety, had not taken her eyes from

his face. The horrible disorder which was carrying off her lover, seemed

also to possess and annihilate her more and more, even as he himself grew

weaker and weaker. Her features were assuming an immaterial whiteness;

and through the void of her clear eyeballs one began to espy her soul.

However, when she perceived him thus resuscitating and calling her with

arms outstretched, she in her turn arose and standing beside the bed made

answer: "I am coming, my Dario, here I am."

And then Pierre and Victorine, still on their knees, beheld a sublime

deed of such extraordinary grandeur that they remained rooted to the

floor, spell-bound as in the presence of some supra-terrestrial spectacle

in which human beings may not intervene. Benedetta herself spoke and

acted like one freed from all social and conventional ties, already

beyond life, only seeing and addressing beings and things from a great

distance, from the depths of the unknown in which she was about to

disappear.

"Ah! my Dario, so an attempt has been made to part us! It was in order

that I might never belong to you--that we might never be happy, that your

death was resolved upon, and it was known that with your life my own must

cease! And it is that man who is killing you! Yes, he is your murderer,

even if the actual blow has been dealt by another. He is the first

cause--he who stole me from you when I was about to become yours, he who

ravaged our lives, and who breathed around us the hateful poison which is

killing us. Ah! how I hate him, how I hate him; how I should like to

crush him with my hate before I die with you!"

She did not raise her voice, but spoke those terrible words in a deep

murmur, simply and passionately. Prada was not even named, and she

scarcely turned towards Pierre--who knelt, paralysed, behind her--to add

with a commanding air: "You will see his father, I charge you to tell him

that I cursed his son! That kind-hearted hero loved me well--I love him

even now, and the words you will carry to him from me will rend his

heart. But I desire that he should know--he must know, for the sake of

truth and justice."

Distracted by terror, sobbing amidst a last convulsion, Dario again

stretched forth his arms, feeling that she was no longer looking at him,

that her clear eyes were no longer fixed upon his own: "Benedetta,

Benedetta!"

"I am coming, I am coming, my Dario--I am here!" she responded, drawing

yet nearer to the bedside and almost touching him. "Ah!" she went on,

"that vow which I made to the Madonna to belong to none, not even you,

until God should allow it by the blessing of one of his priests! Ah! I

set a noble, a divine pride in remaining immaculate for him who should be

the one master of my soul and body. And that chastity which I was so

proud of, I defended it against the other as one defends oneself against

a wolf, and I defended it against you with tears for fear of sacrilege.

And if you only knew what terrible struggles I was forced to wage with

myself, for I loved you and longed to be yours, like a woman who accepts

the whole of love, the love that makes wife and mother! Ah! my vow to the

Madonna--with what difficulty did I keep it when the old blood of our

race arose in me like a tempest; and now what a disaster!" She drew yet

nearer, and her low voice became more ardent: "You remember that evening

when you came back with a knife-thrust in your shoulder. I thought you

dead, and cried aloud with rage at the idea of losing you like that. I

insulted the Madonna and regretted that I had not damned myself with you

that we might die together, so tightly clasped that we must needs be

buried together also. And to think that such a terrible warning was of no

avail! I was blind and foolish; and now you are again stricken, again

being taken from my love. Ah! my wretched pride, my idiotic dream!"

That which now rang out in her stifled voice was the anger of the

practical woman that she had ever been, all superstition notwithstanding.

Could the Madonna, who was so maternal, desire the woe of lovers? No,

assuredly not. Nor did the angels make the mere absence of a priest a

cause for weeping over the transports of true and mutual love. Was not

such love holy in itself, and did not the angels rather smile upon it and

burst into gladsome song! And ah! how one cheated oneself by not loving

to heart's content under the sun, when the blood of life coursed through

one's veins!

"Benedetta! Benedetta!" repeated the dying man, full of child-like terror

at thus going off all alone into the depths of the black and everlasting

night.

"Here I am, my Dario, I am coming!"

Then, as she fancied that the servant, albeit motionless, had stirred, as

if to rise and interfere, she added: "Leave me, leave me, Victorine,

nothing in the world can henceforth prevent it. A moment ago, when I was

on my knees, something roused me and urged me on. I know whither I am

going. And besides, did I not swear on the night of the knife thrust? Did

I not promise to belong to him alone, even in the earth if it were

necessary? I must embrace him, and he will carry me away! We shall be

dead, and we shall be wedded in spite of all, and for ever and for ever!"

She stepped back to the dying man, and touched him: "Here I am, my Dario,

here I am!"

Then came the apogee. Amidst growing exaltation, buoyed up by a blaze of

love, careless of glances, candid like a lily, she divested herself of

her garments and stood forth so white, that neither marble statue, nor

dove, nor snow itself was ever whiter. "Here I am, my Dario, here I am!"

Recoiling almost to the ground as at sight of an apparition, the glorious

flash of a holy vision, Pierre and Victorine gazed at her with dazzled

eyes. The servant had not stirred to prevent this extraordinary action,

seized as she was with that shrinking reverential terror which comes upon

one in presence of the wild, mad deeds of faith and passion. And the

priest, whose limbs were paralysed, felt that something so sublime was

passing that he could only quiver in distraction. And no thought of

impurity came to him on beholding that lily, snowy whiteness. All candour

and all nobility as she was, that virgin shocked him no more than some

sculptured masterpiece of genius.

"Here I am, my Dario, here I am."

She had lain herself down beside the spouse whom she had chosen, she had

clasped the dying man whose arms only had enough strength left to fold

themselves around her. Death was stealing him from her, but she would go

with him; and again she murmured: "My Dario, here I am."

And at that moment, against the wall at the head of the bed, Pierre

perceived the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, embroidered in gold and

coloured silks on a groundwork of violet velvet. There was the winged

dragon belching flames, there was the fierce and glowing motto "_Bocca

nera, Alma rossa_" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth darkened by a roar,

the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. And behold! all that

old race of passion and violence with its tragic legends had reappeared,

its blood bubbling up afresh to urge that last and adorable daughter of

the line to those terrifying and prodigious nuptials in death. And to

Pierre that escutcheon recalled another memory, that of the portrait of

Cassia Boccanera the _amorosa_ and avengeress who had flung herself into

the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio. Was

there not here even with Benedetta the same despairing clasp seeking to

vanquish death, the same savagery in hurling oneself into the abyss with

the corpse of the one's only love? Benedetta and Cassia were as sisters,

Cassia, who lived anew in the old painting in the _salon_ overhead,

Benedetta who was here dying of her lover's death, as though she were but

the other's spirit. Both had the same delicate childish features, the

same mouth of passion, the same large dreamy eyes set in the same round,

practical, and stubborn head.

"My Dario, here I am!"

For a second, which seemed an eternity, they clasped one another, she

neither repelled nor terrified by the disorder which made him so

unrecognisable, but displaying a delirious passion, a holy frenzy as if

to pass beyond life, to penetrate with him into the black Unknown. And

beneath the shock of the felicity at last offered to him he expired, with

his arms yet convulsively wound around her as though indeed to carry her

off. Then, whether from grief or from bliss amidst that embrace of death,

there came such a rush of blood to her heart that the organ burst: she

died on her lover's neck, both tightly and for ever clasped in one

another's arms.

There was a faint sigh. Victorine understood and drew near, while Pierre,

also erect, remained quivering with the tearful admiration of one who has

beheld the sublime.

"Look, look!" whispered the servant, "she no longer moves, she no longer

breathes. Ah! my poor child, my poor child, she is dead!"

Then the priest murmured: "Oh! God, how beautiful they are."

It was true, never had loftier and more resplendent beauty appeared on

the faces of the dead. Dario's countenance, so lately aged and earthen,

had assumed the pallor and nobility of marble, its features lengthened

and simplified as by a transport of ineffable joy. Benedetta remained

very grave, her lips curved by ardent determination, whilst her whole

face was expressive of dolorous yet infinite beatitude in a setting of

infinite whiteness. Their hair mingled, and their eyes, which had

remained open, continued gazing as into one another's souls with eternal,

caressing sweetness. They were for ever linked, soaring into immortality

amidst the enchantment of their union, vanquishers of death, radiant with

the rapturous beauty of love, the conqueror, the immortal.

But Victorine's sobs at last burst forth, mingled with such lamentations

that great confusion followed. Pierre, now quite beside himself, in some

measure failed to understand how it was that the room suddenly became

invaded by terrified people. The Cardinal and Don Vigilio, however, must

have hastened in from the chapel; and at the same moment, no doubt,

Doctor Giordano must have returned with Donna Serafina, for both were now

there, she stupefied by the blows which had thus fallen on the house in

her absence, whilst he, the doctor, displayed the perturbation and

astonishment which comes upon the oldest practitioners when facts seem to

give the lie to their experience. However, he sought an explanation of

Benedetta's death, and hesitatingly ascribed it to aneurism, or possibly

embolism.

Thereupon Victorine, like a servant whose grief makes her the equal of

her employers, boldly interrupted him: "Ah! Sir," said she, "they loved

each other too fondly; did not that suffice for them to die together?"

Meantime Donna Serafina, after kissing the poor children on the brow,

desired to close their eyes; but she could not succeed in doing so, for

the lids lifted directly she removed her finger and once more the eyes

began to smile at one another, to exchange in all fixity their loving and

eternal glance. And then as she spoke of parting the bodies, Victorine

again protested: "Oh! madame, oh! madame," she said, "you would have to

break their arms. Cannot you see that their fingers are almost dug into

one another's shoulders? No, they can never be parted!"

Thereupon Cardinal Boccanera intervened. God had not granted the miracle;

and he, His minister, was livid, tearless, and full of icy despair. But

he waved his arm with a sovereign gesture of absolution and

sanctification, as if, Prince of the Church that he was, disposing of the

will of Heaven, he consented that the lovers should appear in that

embrace before the supreme tribunal. In presence of such wondrous love,

indeed, profoundly stirred by the sufferings of their lives and the

beauty of their death, he showed a broad and lofty contempt for mundane

proprieties. "Leave them, leave me, my sister," said he, "do not disturb