On reaching home the previous night, all her other sensations had been absorbed in a vague feeling of mingled3 dread4 and curiosity, produced by the sight of the weird5 figure in the yellow mask, which she had left standing6 alone with Fabio in the palace corridor. The morning light, however, suggested new thoughts. She now opened the note which the young nobleman had pressed into her hand, and read over and over again the hurried pencil lines scrawled7 on the paper. Could there be any harm, any forgetfulness of her own duty, in using the key inclosed in the note, and keeping her appointment in the Ascoli gardens at ten o’clock? Surely not—surely the last sentence he had written, “Believe in my truth and honor, Nanina, for I believe implicitly8 in yours,” was enough to satisfy her this time that she could not be doing wrong in listening for once to the pleading of her own heart. And besides, there in her lap lay the key of the wicket-gate. It was absolutely necessary to use that, if only for the purpose of giving it back safely into the hand of its owner.
As this last thought was passing through her mind, and plausibly9 overcoming any faint doubts and difficulties which she might still have left, she was startled by a sudden knocking at the street door; and, looking out of the window immediately, saw a man in livery standing in the street, anxiously peering up at the house to see if his knocking had aroused anybody.
“Does Marta Angrisani, the sick-nurse, live here?” inquired the man, as soon as Nanina showed herself at the window.
“Yes,” she answered. “Must I call her up? Is there some person ill?”
“Call her up directly,” said the servant; “she is wanted at the Ascoli Palace. My master, Count Fabio—”
Nanina waited to hear no more. She flew to the room in which the sick-nurse slept, and awoke her, almost roughly, in an instant.
“He is ill!” she cried, breathlessly. “Oh, make haste, make haste! He is ill, and he has sent for you!”
Marta inquired who had sent for her, and on being informed, promised to lose no time. Nanina ran downstairs to tell the servant that the sick-nurse was getting on her clothes. The man’s serious expression, when she came close to him, terrified her. All her usual self-distrust vanished; and she entreated10 him, without attempting to conceal11 her anxiety, to tell her particularly what his master’s illness was, and how it had affected12 him so suddenly after the ball.
“I know nothing about it,” answered the man, noticing Nanina’s manner as she put her question, with some surprise, “except that my master was brought home by two gentlemen, friends of his, about a couple of hours ago, in a very sad state; half out of his mind, as it seemed to me. I gathered from what was said that he had got a dreadful shock from seeing some woman take off her mask, and show her face to him at the ball. How that could be I don’t in the least understand; but I know that when the doctor was sent for, he looked very serious, and talked about fearing brain-fever.”
Here the servant stopped; for, to his astonishment13, he saw Nanina suddenly turn away from him, and then heard her crying bitterly as she went back into the house.
Marta Angrisani had huddled14 on her clothes and was looking at herself in the glass to see that she was sufficiently15 presentable to appear at the palace, when she felt two arms flung round her neck; and, before she could say a word, found Nanina sobbing16 on her bosom17.
“He is ill—he is in danger!” cried the girl. “I must go with you to help him. You have always been kind to me, Marta—be kinder than ever now. Take me with you—take me with you to the palace!”
“You, child!” exclaimed the nurse, gently unclasping her arms.
“Yes—yes! if it is only for an hour,” pleaded Nanina; “if it is only for one little hour every day. You have only to say that I am your helper, and they would let me in. Marta! I shall break my heart if I can’t see him, and help him to get well again.”
The nurse still hesitated. Nanina clasped her round the neck once more, and laid her cheek—burning hot now, though the tears had been streaming down it but an instant before—close to the good woman’s face.
“I love him, Marta; great as he is, I love him with all my heart and soul and strength,” she went on, in quick, eager, whispering tones; “and he loves me. He would have married me if I had not gone away to save him from it. I could keep my love for him a secret while he was well; I could stifle18 it, and crush it down, and wither19 it up by absence. But now he is ill, it gets beyond me; I can’t master it. Oh, Marta! don’t break my heart by denying me! I have suffered so much for his sake, that I have earned the right to nurse him!”
Marta was not proof against this last appeal. She had one great and rare merit for a middle-aged20 woman—she had not forgotten her own youth.
“Come, child,” said she, soothingly21; “I won’t attempt to deny you. Dry your eyes, put on your mantilla; and, when we get face to face with the doctor, try to look as old and ugly as you can, if you want to be let into the sick-room along with me.”
The ordeal22 of medical scrutiny23 was passed more easily than Marta Angrisani had anticipated. It was of great importance, in the doctor’s opinion, that the sick man should see familiar faces at his bedside. Nanina had only, therefore, to state that he knew her well, and that she had sat to him as a model in the days when he was learning the art of sculpture, to be immediately accepted as Marta’s privileged assistant in the sick-room.
The worst apprehensions24 felt by the doctor for the patient were soon realized. The fever flew to his brain. For nearly six weeks he lay prostrate25, at the mercy of death; now raging with the wild strength of delirium26, and now sunk in the speechless, motionless, sleepless27 exhaustion28 which was his only repose29. At last; the blessed day came when he enjoyed his first sleep, and when the doctor began, for the first time, to talk of the future with hope. Even then, however, the same terrible peculiarity30 marked his light dreams which had previously31 shown itself in his fierce delirium. From the faintly uttered, broken phrases which dropped from him when he slept, as from the wild words which burst from him when his senses were deranged32, the one sad discovery inevitably33 resulted—that his mind was still haunted, day and night, hour after hour, by the figure in the yellow mask.
As his bodily health improved, the doctor in attendance on him grew more and more anxious as to the state of his mind. There was no appearance of any positive derangement34 of intellect, but there was a mental depression—an unaltering, invincible35 prostration36, produced by his absolute belief in the reality of the dreadful vision that he had seen at the masked ball—which suggested to the physician the gravest doubts about the case. He saw with dismay that the patient showed no anxiety, as he got stronger, except on one subject. He was eagerly desirous of seeing Nanina every day by his bedside; but, as soon as he was assured that his wish should be faithfully complied with, he seemed to care for nothing more. Even when they proposed, in the hope of rousing him to an exhibition of something like pleasure, that the girl should read to him for an hour every day out of one of his favorite books, he only showed a languid satisfaction. Weeks passed away, and still, do what they would, they could not make him so much as smile.
One day Nanina had begun to read to him as usual, but had not proceeded far before Marta Angrisani informed her that he had fallen into a doze37. She ceased with a sigh, and sat looking at him sadly, as he lay near her, faint and pale and mournful in his sleep—miserably altered from what he was when she first knew him. It had been a hard trial to watch by his bedside in the terrible time of his delirium; but it was a harder trial still to look at him now, and to feel less and less hopeful with each succeeding day.
While her eyes and thoughts were still compassionately38 fixed39 on him, the door of the bedroom opened, and the doctor came in, followed by Andrea D’Arbino, whose share in the strange adventure with the Yellow Mask caused him to feel a special interest in Fabio’s progress toward recovery.
“Asleep, I see; and sighing in his sleep,” said the doctor, going to the bedside. “The grand difficulty with him,” he continued, turning to D’Arbino, “remains precisely40 what it was. I have hardly left a single means untried of rousing him from that fatal depression; yet, for the last fortnight, he has not advanced a single step. It is impossible to shake his conviction of the reality of that face which he saw (or rather which he thinks he saw) when the yellow mask was removed; and, as long as he persists in his own shocking view of the case, so long he will lie there, getting better, no doubt, as to his body, but worse as to his mind.”
“I suppose, poor fellow, he is not in a fit state to be reasoned with?”
“On the contrary, like all men with a fixed delusion41, he has plenty of intelligence to appeal to on every point, except the one point on which he is wrong. I have argued with him vainly by the hour together. He possesses, unfortunately, an acute nervous sensibility and a vivid imagination; and besides, he has, as I suspect, been superstitiously42 brought up as a child. It would be probably useless to argue rationally with him on certain spiritual subjects, even if his mind was in perfect health. He has a good deal of the mystic and the dreamer in his composition; and science and logic43 are but broken reeds to depend upon with men of that kind.”
“Does he merely listen to you when you reason with him, or does he attempt to answer?”
“He has only one form of answer, and that is, unfortunately, the most difficult of all to dispose of. Whenever I try to convince him of his delusion, he invariably retorts by asking me for a rational explanation of what happened to him at the masked ball. Now, neither you nor I, though we believe firmly that he has been the dupe of some infamous44 conspiracy45, have been able as yet to penetrate46 thoroughly47 into this mystery of the Yellow Mask. Our common sense tells us that he must be wrong in taking his view of it, and that we must be right in taking ours; but if we cannot give him actual, tangible48 proof of that—if we can only theorize, when he asks us for an explanation—it is but too plain, in his present condition, that every time we remonstrate49 with him on the subject we only fix him in his delusion more and more firmly.”
“It is not for want of perseverance50 on my part,” said D’Arbino, after a moment of silence, “that we are still left in the dark. Ever since the extraordinary statement of the coachman who drove the woman home, I have been inquiring and investigating. I have offered the reward of two hundred scudi for the discovery of her; I have myself examined the servants at the palace, the night-watchman at the Campo Santo, the police-books, the lists of keepers of hotels and lodging-houses, to hit on some trace of this woman; and I have failed in all directions. If my poor friend’s perfect recovery does indeed depend on his delusion being combated by actual proof, I fear we have but little chance of restoring him. So far as I am concerned, I confess myself at the end of my resources.”
“I hope we are not quite conquered yet,” returned the doctor. “The proofs we want may turn up when we least expect them. It is certainly a miserable51 case,” he continued, mechanically laying his fingers on the sleeping man’s pulse. “There he lies, wanting nothing now but to recover the natural elasticity52 of his mind; and here we stand at his bedside, unable to relieve him of the weight that is pressing his faculties53 down. I repeat it, Signor Andrea, nothing will rouse him from his delusion that he is the victim of a supernatural interposition but the production of some startling, practical proof of his error. At present he is in the position of a man who has been imprisoned54 from his birth in a dark room, and who denies the existence of daylight. If we cannot open the shutters55 and show him the sky outside, we shall never convert him to a knowledge of the truth.”
Saying these words, the doctor turned to lead the way out of the room, and observed Nanina, who had moved from the bedside on his entrance, standing near the door. He stopped to look at her, shook his head good-humoredly, and called to Marta, who happened to be occupied in an adjoining room.
“Signora Marta,” said the doctor, “I think you told me some time ago that your pretty and careful little assistant lives in your house. Pray, does she take much walking exercise?”
“Very little, Signor Dottore. She goes home to her sister when she leaves the palace. Very little walking exercise, indeed.”
“I thought so! Her pale cheeks and heavy eyes told me as much. Now, my dear,” said the doctor, addressing Nanina, “you are a very good girl, and I am sure you will attend to what I tell you. Go out every morning before you come here, and take a walk in the fresh air. You are too young not to suffer by being shut up in close rooms every day, unless you get some regular exercise. Take a good long walk in the morning, or you will fall into my hands as a patient, and be quite unfit to continue your attendance here. Now, Signor Andrea, I am ready for you. Mind, my child, a walk every day in the open air outside the town, or you will fall ill, take my word for it!”
Nanina promised compliance56; but she spoke57 rather absently, and seemed scarcely conscious of the kind familiarity which marked the doctor’s manner. The truth was, that all her thoughts were occupied with what he had been saying by Fabio’s bedside. She had not lost one word of the conversation while the doctor was talking of his patient, and of the conditions on which his recovery depended. “Oh, if that proof which would cure him could only be found!” she thought to herself, as she stole back anxiously to the bedside when the room was empty.
On getting home that day she found a letter waiting for her, and was greatly surprised to see that it was written by no less a person than the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi. It was very short; simply informing her that he had just returned to Pisa, and that he was anxious to know when she could sit to him for a new bust—a commission from a rich foreigner at Naples.
Nanina debated with herself for a moment whether she should answer the letter in the hardest way, to her, by writing, or, in the easiest way, in person; and decided58 on going to the studio and telling the master-sculptor that it would be impossible for her to serve him as a model, at least for some time to come. It would have taken her a long hour to say this with due propriety59 on paper; it would only take her a few minutes to say it with her own lips. So she put on her mantilla again and departed for the studio.
On, arriving at the gate and ringing the bell, a thought suddenly occurred to her, which she wondered had not struck her before. Was it not possible that she might meet Father Rocco in his brother’s work-room? It was too late to retreat now, but not too late to ask, before she entered, if the priest was in the studio. Accordingly, when one of the workmen opened the door to her, she inquired first, very confusedly and anxiously, for Father Rocco. Hearing that he was not with his brother then, she went tranquilly60 enough to make her apologies to the master-sculptor.
She did not think it necessary to tell him more than that she was now occupied every day by nursing duties in a sick-room, and that it was consequently out of her power to attend at the studio. Luca Lomi expressed, and evidently felt, great disappointment at her failing him as a model, and tried hard to persuade her that she might find time enough, if she chose, to sit to him, as well as to nurse the sick person. The more she resisted his arguments and entreaties61, the more obstinately62 he reiterated63 them. He was dusting his favorite busts64 and statues, after his long absence, with a feather-brush when she came in; and he continued this occupation all the while he was talking—urging a fresh plea to induce Nanina to reconsider her refusal to sit at every fresh piece of sculpture he came to, and always receiving the same resolute65 apology from her as she slowly followed him down the studio toward the door.
Arriving thus at the lower end of the room, Luca stopped with a fresh argument on his lips before his statue of Minerva. He had dusted it already, but he lovingly returned to dust it again. It was his favorite work—the only good likeness66 (although it did assume to represent a classical subject) of his dead daughter that he possessed67. He had refused to part with it for Maddalena’s sake; and, as he now approached it with his brush for the second time, he absently ceased speaking, and mounted on a stool to look at the face near and blow some specks68 of dust off the forehead. Nanina thought this a good opportunity of escaping from further importunities. She was on the point of slipping away to the door with a word of farewell, when a sudden exclamation69 from Luca Lomi arrested her.
“Plaster!” cried the master-sculptor, looking intently at that part of the hair of the statue which lay lowest on the forehead. “Plaster here!” He took out his penknife as he spoke, and removed a tiny morsel70 of some white substance from an interstice between two folds of the hair where it touched the face. “It is plaster!” he exclaimed, excitedly. “Somebody has been taking a cast from the face of my statue!”
He jumped off the stool, and looked all round the studio with an expression of suspicious inquiry71. “I must have this cleared up,” he said. “My statues were left under Rocco’s care, and he is answerable if there has been any stealing of casts from any one of them. I must question him directly.”
Nanina, seeing that he took no notice of her, felt that she might now easily effect her retreat. She opened the studio door, and repeated, for the twentieth time at least, that she was sorry she could not sit to him.
“I am sorry too, child,” he said, irritably72 looking about for his hat. He found it apparently73 just as Nanina was going out; for she heard him call to one of the workmen in the inner studio, and order the man to say, if anybody wanted him, that he had gone to Father Rocco’s lodgings74.
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1
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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plausibly
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| 似真地 | |
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entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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deranged
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| adj.疯狂的 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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derangement
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| n.精神错乱 | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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prostration
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| n. 平伏, 跪倒, 疲劳 | |
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doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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compassionately
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| adv.表示怜悯地，有同情心地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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superstitiously
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| 被邪教所支配 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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45
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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46
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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48
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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49
remonstrate
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| v.抗议，规劝 | |
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50
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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51
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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53
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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54
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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56
compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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57
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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58
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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59
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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60
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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62
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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