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Casa Braccio, a novel by F. Marion Crawford |
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Part 2. Gloria Dalrymple - Chapter 33 |
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_ PART II. GLORIA DALRYMPLE CHAPTER XXXIII REANDA neither wished to see Gloria again, nor to take vengeance upon Paul Griggs. He was not a brave man, morally or physically, and he was glad that his wife had left him. She had put him in the right, and he had every reason for refusing ever to see her again. With a cynicism which would have been revolting if it had not been almost childlike in its simplicity, he discharged his servants, sold his furniture, gave up his apartment in the Corso, and moved back to his old quarters in the Palazzetto Borgia. But he did not acknowledge Gloria's note in any other way. She had left him, and he wished to blot out her existence as though he had never known her, not even remembering the long two years of his married life. She was gone. There was no Gloria, and he wished that there never had been any woman with her name and face. On the third day, he met Paul Griggs in the street. The younger man saw Reanda coming, and stood still on the narrow pavement, in order to show that he had no intention of avoiding him. As the artist came up, Griggs lifted his hat gravely. Reanda mechanically raised his hand to his own hat and passed the man who had injured him, without a word. Griggs saw a slight, nervous twitching in the delicate face, but that was all. He thought that Reanda looked better, less harassed and less thin, than for a long time. He had at once returned to his old peaceful life and enjoyed it, and had evidently not the smallest intention of ever demanding satisfaction of his former friend. Francesca Campodonico had listened in nervous silence to Reanda's story. "She has done me a kindness," he concluded. "It is the first. She has given me back my freedom. I shall not disturb her." The colour was in Francesca's face, and her eyes looked down. Her delicate lips were a little drawn in, as though she were making an effort to restrain her words, for it was one of the hardest moments of her life. Being what she was, it was impossible for her to understand Gloria's conduct. But at the same time she felt that she was liberated from something which had oppressed her, and the colour in her cheeks was a flash of satisfaction and relief mingled with a certain displeasure at her own sensations and the certainty that she should be ashamed of them by and bye. It was not in her nature to accept such a termination for Reanda's married life, however he himself might be disposed to look upon it. "You are to blame almost as much as Gloria," she said, and she was sincerely in earnest. She was too good and devout a woman to believe in duelling, but she was far too womanly to be pleased with Reanda's indifference. It was wicked to fight duels and unchristian to seek revenge. She knew that, and it was a conviction as well as an opinion. But a man who allowed another to take his wife from him and did not resent the injury could not command her respect. Something in her blood revolted against such tameness, though she would not for all the world have had Reanda take Gloria back. Between the two opposites of conviction and instinct, she did not know what to do. Moreover, Reanda had struck his wife. He admitted it, though apologetically and with every extenuating circumstance which he could remember. "Yes," he answered. "I know that I did wrong. Am I infallible? Holy Saint Patience! I could bear no more. But it is clear that she was waiting for a reason for leaving me. I gave it to her, and she should be grateful. She also is free, as I am." "It is horrible!" exclaimed Francesca, with sorrowful emphasis. She blamed herself quite as much as Reanda or Gloria, because she had brought them together and had suggested the marriage. Reanda's thin shoulders went up, and he smiled incredulously. "I do not see what is so horrible," he answered. "Two people think they are in love. They marry. They discover their mistake. They separate. Well? It is finished. Let us make the sign of the cross over it." The common Roman phrase, signifying that a matter is ended and buried, as it were, jarred upon Francesca, for whom the smallest religious allusion had a real meaning. "It is not the sign of the cross which should be made," she said sadly and gravely, and the colour was gone from her face now. "There are two lives wrecked, and a human soul in danger. We cannot say that it is finished, and pass on." "What would you have me do?" asked Reanda, almost impatiently. "Take her back?" "No!" exclaimed Francesca, with a sharp intonation as though she were hurt. "Well, then, what? I do not see that anything is to be done. She herself can think of her soul. It is her property. She has made me suffer enough--let some one else suffer. I have enough of it." "You will forgive her some day," said Francesca. "You are angry still, and you speak cruelly. You will forgive her." "Never," answered Reanda, with emphasis. "I will not forgive her for what she made me bear, any more than I will forgive Griggs for receiving her when she left me. I will not touch them, but I will not forgive them. I am not angry. Why should I be?" Francesca sighed, for she did not understand the man, though hitherto she had always understood him, or thought that she had, ever since she had been a mere child, playing with his colours and brushes in the Palazzo Braccio. She left the hall and went to her own sitting-room on the other side of the house. As soon as she was alone, the tears came to her eyes. She was hardly aware of them, and when she felt them on her cheeks she wondered why she was crying, for she did not often shed tears, and was a woman of singularly well balanced nature, able to control herself on the rare occasions when she felt any strong emotion. In spite of Reanda's conduct, she determined not to leave matters as they were without attempting to improve them. She wrote a note to Paul Griggs, asking him to come and see her during the afternoon. He could not refuse to answer the summons, knowing, as he did, that he must in honour respond to any demand for an explanation coming from Reanda's side. Gloria wished him to reply to the note, giving an excuse and hinting that no good could come of any meeting. "It is a point of honour," he answered briefly, and she yielded, for he dominated her altogether. Francesca received him in her own small sitting-room, which overlooked the square before the Palazzetto. It was very quiet, and there were roses in old Vienna vases. It was a very old-fashioned room, the air was sweet with the fresh flowers, and the afternoon sun streamed in through a single tall window. Francesca sat on a small sofa which stood crosswise between the window and the writing-table. She had a frame before her on which was stretched a broad band of deep red satin, a piece of embroidery in which she was working heraldic beasts and armorial bearings in coloured silks. She did not rise, nor hold out her hand, but pointed to a chair near her, as she spoke. "I asked you to come," she said, "because I wish to speak to you about Gloria." Griggs bent his head, sat down, and waited with a perfectly impassive face. Possibly there was a rather unusual aggressiveness in the straight lines of his jaw and his even lips. There was a short silence before Francesca spoke again. "Do you know what you have done?" she asked, finishing a stitch and looking quietly into the man's deep eyes. He met her glance calmly, but said nothing, merely bending his head again, very slightly. "It is very wicked," said she, and she began to make another stitch, looking down again. "I have no doubt that you think so," answered Paul Griggs, slowly nodding a third time. "It is not a question of opinion. It is a matter of fact. You have ruined the life of an innocent woman." "If social position is the object of existence, you are right," he replied. "I have nothing to say." "I am not speaking of social position," said Donna Francesca, continuing to make stitches. "Then I am afraid that I do not understand you." "Can you conceive of nothing more important to the welfare of men and women than social position?" "It is precisely because I do, that I care so little what society thinks. I do not understand you." "I have known you some time," said Francesca. "I had not supposed that you were a man without a sense of right and wrong. That is the question which is concerned now." "It is a question which may be answered from more than one point of view. You look at it in one way, and I in another. With your permission, we will differ about it, since we can never agree." "There is no such thing as differing about right and wrong," answered Donna Francesca, with a little impatience. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong. You cannot possibly believe that you have done right. Therefore you know that you have done wrong." "That sort of logic assumes God at the expense of man," said Griggs, calmly. Francesca looked up with a startled expression in her eyes, for she was shocked, though she did not understand him. "God is good, and man is sinful," she answered, in the words of her simple faith. "Why?" asked Griggs, gravely. He waited for her answer to the most tremendous question which man can ask, and he knew that she could not answer him, though she might satisfy herself. "I have never talked about religion with an atheist," she said at last, slowly pushing her needle through the heavy satin. "I am not an atheist, Princess." "A Protestant, then--" "I am not a Protestant. I am a Catholic, as you are." She looked up suddenly and faced him with earnest eyes. "Then you are not a good Catholic," she said. "No good Catholic could speak as you do." "Even the Apostles had doubts," answered Griggs. "But I do not pretend to be good. Since I am a man, I have a right to be a man, and to be treated as a man. If the right is not given me freely, I will take it. You cannot expect a body to behave as though it were a spirit. A man cannot imitate an invisible essence, any more than a sculptor can imitate sound with a shape of clay. When we are spirits, we shall act as spirits. Meanwhile we are men and women. As a man, I have not done wrong. You have no right to judge me as an angel. Is that clear?" "Terribly clear!" Francesca slowly shook her head. "And terribly mistaken," she added. "You see," answered the young man. "It is impossible to argue the point. We do not speak the same language. You, by your nature, believe that you can imitate a spirit. You are spiritual by intuition and good by instinct, according to the spiritual standard of good. I am, on the contrary, a normal man, and destined to act as men act. I cannot understand you and you, if you will allow me to say so, cannot possibly understand me. That is why I propose that we should agree to differ." "And do you think you can sweep away all right and wrong, belief and unbelief, salvation and perdition, with such a statement as that?" "Not at all," replied Griggs. "You tell me that I am wicked. That only means that I am not doing what you consider right. You deny my right of judgment, in favour of your own. You make witnesses of spirits against the doings of men. You judge my body and condemn my soul. And there is no possible appeal from your tribunal, because it is an imaginary one. But if you will return to the facts of the case, you will find it hard to prove that I have ruined the life of an innocent woman, as you told me that I had." "You have! There is no denying it." "Socially, and it is the fault of society. But society is nothing to me. I would be an outcast from society for a much less object than the love of a woman, provided that I had not to do anything dishonourable." "Ah, that is it! You forget that a man's honour is his reputation at the club, while the honour of a woman is founded in religion, and maintained upon a single one of God's commandments--as you men demand that it shall be." Griggs was silent for a moment. He had never heard a woman state the case so plainly and forcibly, and he was struck by what she said. He could have answered her quickly enough. But the answer would not have been satisfactory to himself. "You see, you have nothing to say," she said. "But in one way you are right. We cannot argue this question. I did not ask you to come in order to discuss it. I sent for you to beg you to do what is right, as far as you can. And you could do much." "What should you think right?" asked Griggs, curious to know what she thought. "You should take Gloria to her father, as you are his friend. Since she has left her husband, she should live with her father." "That is a very simple idea!" exclaimed the young man, with something almost like a laugh. "Right is always simple," answered Francesca, quietly. "There is never any doubt about it." She looked at him once, and then continued to work at her embroidery. His eyes rested on the pure outline of her maidenlike face, and he was silent for a moment. Somehow, he felt that her simplicity of goodness rebuked the simplicity of his sin. "You forget one thing," said Griggs at last. "You make a spiritual engine of mankind, and you forget the mainspring of the world. You leave love out of the question." "Perhaps--as you understand love. But you will not pretend to tell me that love is necessarily right, whatever it involves." "Yes," answered the young man. "That is what I mean. Unless your God is a malignant and maleficent demon, the overwhelming passions which take hold of men, and against which no man can fight beyond a certain point, are right, because they exist and are irresistible. As for what you propose that I should do, I cannot do it." "You could, if you would," said Francesca. "There is nothing to hinder you, if you will." "There is love, and I cannot." _ |
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