Withered Leaves Volume Iii Part 21

"Who is the man?" asked Blanden.

"So far as I can hear," said the host, "he is a dealer, who, in transporting his goods--whether from greediness and anxiety, whether from delight in such adventures--does not leave the matter to competent professional smugglers, but a.s.sumes the management himself. Certainly, this time it is a great expedition, which might have entirely provided a princely ball at Warsaw with jewels and silk. He has fared ill to-day! He defended himself and fired a revolver, but was mortally wounded."

The servant of the house then entered and begged Blanden to go to the wounded man, who urgently requested it.

"The poor man will not part from life without thanking me," said Blanden.

He went up the stairs and entered a room meagrely lighted with a feeble oil lamp. Against the wall stood a wretched bedstead, upon which lay a straw mattress. At the head of the bed sat a Cossack, his lance in his hand.

"Make room, good fellow," said the wounded man's voice, "let the gentleman come to me! You can stand on guard as well as sit. I am no longer dangerous."

He had spoken Russian. The Cossack drew back while Blanden went up to the bed, but his sensation of pity suddenly gave place to one of astonishment, when, in the man doomed to die, he recognised the amber merchant.

"Signor Baluzzi!" cried he shocked, for he suddenly recollected that this man stood in some mysterious relation to Giulia.

"I shall soon be dead," said Baluzzi, while spasmodic gasps interrupted the words brought out with such difficulty. "_Corpo di bacco!_ I should not have believed that it would come so soon, but I feel it is to be, and the frontier official, who was a surgeon formerly, says so too.

People follow many trades here."

"I am sorry for you, Baluzzi! How could you enter upon so insane an undertaking?"

"Insane? _L'a.s.sicuro di no!_ I have often had the most splendid success, but misfortune must befall all in time; you, too, Herr von Blanden, and I am glad, because I have the right to hate you."

The Italian's dim eyes gleamed, he clenched his hand convulsively, and then let it fall again upon the pillow.

"What do these insinuations mean?--speak! If you have a secret to confide to me do not hesitate, for it might easily become too late."

"A secret of a strange kind," said Baluzzi, as he tossed about and groaned. "Haha, now it will come upon her, too. This bullet speeds beyond the frontier--and into her heart! I foretold it to her when she gave me up in her unworthy pride. I was too weak. I let myself be dazzled by the gold that she promised and gave me! But now it is all over, death is approaching, it needs no bribe. Now I will speak! That was the agreement. I shall hold firmly to it!"

"You speak in riddles," said Blanden.

"As she will no longer rest in my arms, neither shall she in yours,"

said the Italian. "I shall a.s.sert my rights. I shall preserve them with my last breath, long as I may have denied them. That is worthy of a brave man. She is mine, and belongs to this death-bed."

"Of whom do you speak?" cried Blanden, more astonished.

"Of Giulia, your--mistress!"

"Hah, you scoundrel," cried Blanden, "I shall be forgetting that a dying man is before me, that these words are the unnecessary attacks of an expiring intellect."

"You are mistaken," said Baluzzi, but pain compelled him to stop for a time and to speak more softly. "I speak the truth."

"Fool--united to me at the altar!"

"Null and invalid, null and invalid!"

"Is there anything you wish, Baluzzi? I will gladly carry it out, but to listen longer to your wandering speech is impossible."

"Wandering speech! Haha--am I a madman? Do I tear off the bandage which the wretched surgeon, the old frontier official, put on? Do I grope in the air half unconsciously? No, my mind is clear, clear as yours, clearer, perhaps, at this moment. I can understand that the world begins to go round with you when I repeat that 'Giulia can only be your mistress, because she is--my wife!'"

"Your wife, madman!"

Blanden shouted in a torrent of anger, then he shuddered. Various dark impressions, for which hitherto he could not account, swept suddenly over him, the possibility of what was incredible lay before him like a deep fearful abyss.

"She has deceived you, _carissimo_!"

"Oh, then--then I should envy you the merciful bullet which struck you, envy you your approaching death," cried Blanden, beside himself, "but it cannot be, Giulia could not thus deceive me."

"She wanted to belong to you for ever, and she did not mind a crime."

"She must have dreaded the disclosure every moment."

"There you have an ardent daughter of our country! She would be happy at any price."

"You should have come forward long since, have opposed it."

"I did not do it. I was accustomed to turn away from her, to be silent.

It was more advantageous for me! She paid well for my silence, but that she should treat me with contempt ate silently into my vitals, and I vowed to be avenged upon the overbearing woman as soon as the hour should have struck."

Bach one of these replies, which Baluzzi gave in a low expiring voice, was a deathblow for Blanden. Not only could he not refute them, but they bore the impress of truth.

The dark recollection of the Lago Maggiore, of Giulia's agonised bursts of anguish, of the force of circ.u.mstances which she lamented, of Baluzzi's appearance on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and at the gate of the villa, all returned overwhelmingly upon him. He had many times asked casual questions which she had always answered crossly and evasively, and only in order to avoid marring the peace of their honeymoon had he refrained from an enquiry which might easily be misinterpreted. With the keen sharpness of a knife this thought quivered through his brain, and a dread feeling of pain rent his heart, and yet with every excuse which his anxious reason could discover, he tried to stem the coming evil.

"Your wife, you say, your wife, but where were you married?"

"In the church of San Giulio, on the island, in the lake of Orta."

"I will a.s.sume that you are speaking the truth, a.s.sume it without believing it. But then she was your wife years ago. She is divorced."

"Our Church knows no divorce," murmured Baluzzi softly to himself.

"Your laws--"

"Do not recognise it either!"

"Well, then, she has been divorced in some other country where it is permitted."

"I have always remained a subject of Italy, and even here--I had grounds enough for a divorce--remember the villa at Stresa--but I would not."

Baluzzi made a sign of denial. He groaned, and pressed his hand upon his heart. He could not speak any more.

"Horrible," cried Blanden; then he began to perceive what Giulia's heart must have gone through in its pa.s.sionate love for him--the unbounded deception became comprehensible. He could not but acknowledge to himself that he should never have made his, this vagrant's wife, even if she had been divorced. Giulia had told herself the same, and therefore concealed the past from him.

But that he should realise the possibility, could realise it, seemed to him like inexpiable injustice to Giulia.

The man, sick unto death, was a prey to wild delirium, but even through madness there runs one connecting thread, on which it hangs its pictures, and is often more sharp-sighted, more rational than sound sense.

A pause ensued. The Cossack, who was weary, began to whistle a song which is sung on the sh.o.r.es of the Don by the girls of his race.

Baluzzi had somewhat recovered.