Avoiding the crowd under the colonnades1, Francis walked slowly up and down the noble open space of the square, bathed in the light of the rising moon.
Without being aware of it himself, he was a thorough materialist2. The strange effect produced on him by the room — following on the other strange effects produced on the other relatives of his dead brother — exercised no perplexing influence over the mind of this sensible man. ‘Perhaps,’ he reflected, ‘my temperament3 is more imaginative than I supposed it to be — and this is a trick played on me by my own fancy? Or, perhaps, my friend is right; something is physically4 amiss with me? I don’t feel ill, certainly. But that is no safe criterion sometimes. I am not going to sleep in that abominable5 room to-night — I can well wait till to-morrow to decide whether I shall speak to a doctor or not. In the mean time, the hotel doesn’t seem likely to supply me with the subject of a piece. A terrible smell from an invisible ghost is a perfectly6 new idea. But it has one drawback. If I realise it on the stage, I shall drive the audience out of the theatre.’
As his strong common sense arrived at this facetious7 conclusion, he became aware of a lady, dressed entirely8 in black, who was observing him with marked attention. ‘Am I right in supposing you to be Mr. Francis Westwick?’ the lady asked, at the moment when he looked at her.
‘That is my name, madam. May I inquire to whom I have the honour of speaking?’
‘We have only met once,’ she answered a little evasively, ‘when your late brother introduced me to the members of his family. I wonder if you have quite forgotten my big black eyes and my hideous9 complexion10?’ She lifted her veil as she spoke11, and turned so that the moonlight rested on her face.
Francis recognised at a glance the woman of all others whom he most cordially disliked — the widow of his dead brother, the first Lord Montbarry. He frowned as he looked at her. His experience on the stage, gathered at innumerable rehearsals12 with actresses who had sorely tried his temper, had accustomed him to speak roughly to women who were distasteful to him. ‘I remember you,’ he said. ‘I thought you were in America!’
She took no notice of his ungracious tone and manner; she simply stopped him when he lifted his hat, and turned to leave her.
‘Let me walk with you for a few minutes,’ she quietly replied. ‘I have something to say to you.’
He showed her his cigar. ‘I am smoking,‘he said.
‘I don’t mind smoking.’
After that, there was nothing to be done (short of downright brutality) but to yield. He did it with the worst possible grace. ‘Well?’ he resumed. ‘What do you want of me?’
‘You shall hear directly, Mr. Westwick. Let me first tell you what my position is. I am alone in the world. To the loss of my husband has now been added another bereavement13, the loss of my companion in America, my brother — Baron14 Rivar.’
The reputation of the Baron, and the doubt which scandal had thrown on his assumed relationship to the Countess, were well known to Francis. ‘Shot in a gambling-saloon?’ he asked brutally15.
‘The question is a perfectly natural one on your part,’ she said, with the impenetrably ironical16 manner which she could assume on certain occasions. ‘As a native of horse-racing England, you belong to a nation of gamblers. My brother died no extraordinary death, Mr. Westwick. He sank, with many other unfortunate people, under a fever prevalent in a Western city which we happened to visit. The calamity17 of his loss made the United States unendurable to me. I left by the first steamer that sailed from New York — a French vessel18 which brought me to Havre. I continued my lonely journey to the South of France. And then I went on to Venice.’
‘What does all this matter to me?’ Francis thought to himself. She paused, evidently expecting him to say something. ‘So you have come to Venice?’ he said carelessly. ‘Why?’
‘Because I couldn’t help it,’ she answered.
Francis looked at her with cynical19 curiosity. ‘That sounds odd,’ he remarked. ‘Why couldn’t you help it?’
‘Women are accustomed to act on impulse,’ she explained. ‘Suppose we say that an impulse has directed my journey? And yet, this is the last place in the world that I wish to find myself in. Associations that I detest20 are connected with it in my mind. If I had a will of my own, I would never see it again. I hate Venice. As you see, however, I am here. When did you meet with such an unreasonable21 woman before? Never, I am sure!’ She stopped, eyed him for a moment, and suddenly altered her tone. ‘When is Miss Agnes Lockwood expected to be in Venice?’ she asked.
It was not easy to throw Francis off his balance, but that extraordinary question did it. ‘How the devil did you know that Miss Lockwood was coming to Venice?’ he exclaimed.
She laughed — a bitter mocking laugh. ‘Say, I guessed it!’
Something in her tone, or perhaps something in the audacious defiance22 of her eyes as they rested on him, roused the quick temper that was in Francis Warwick. ‘Lady Montbarry —!’ he began.
‘Stop there!’ she interposed. ‘Your brother Stephen’s wife calls herself Lady Montbarry now. I share my title with no woman. Call me by my name before I committed the fatal mistake of marrying your brother. Address me, if you please, as Countess Narona.’
‘Countess Narona,’ Francis resumed, ‘if your object in claiming my acquaintance is to mystify me, you have come to the wrong man. Speak plainly, or permit me to wish you good evening.’
‘If your object is to keep Miss Lockwood’s arrival in Venice a secret,’ she retorted, ‘speak plainly, Mr. Westwick, on your side, and say so.’
Her intention was evidently to irritate him; and she succeeded. ‘Nonsense!’ he broke out petulantly23. ‘My brother’s travelling arrangements are secrets to nobody. He brings Miss Lockwood here, with Lady Montbarry and the children. As you seem so well informed, perhaps you know why she is coming to Venice?’
The Countess had suddenly become grave and thoughtful. She made no reply. The two strangely associated companions, having reached one extremity24 of the square, were now standing25 before the church of St. Mark. The moonlight was bright enough to show the architecture of the grand cathedral in its wonderful variety of detail. Even the pigeons of St. Mark were visible, in dark closely packed rows, roosting in the archways of the great entrance doors.
‘I never saw the old church look so beautiful by moonlight,’ the Countess said quietly; speaking, not to Francis, but to herself. ‘Good-bye, St. Mark’s by moonlight! I shall not see you again.’
She turned away from the church, and saw Francis listening to her with wondering looks. ‘No,’ she resumed, placidly26 picking up the lost thread of the conversation, ‘I don’t know why Miss Lockwood is coming here, I only know that we are to meet in Venice.’
‘By previous appointment?’
‘By Destiny,’ she answered, with her head on her breast, and her eyes on the ground. Francis burst out laughing. ‘Or, if you like it better,’ she instantly resumed, ‘by what fools call Chance.’ Francis answered easily, out of the depths of his strong common sense. ‘Chance seems to be taking a queer way of bringing the meeting about,’ he said. ‘We have all arranged to meet at the Palace Hotel. How is it that your name is not on the Visitors’ List? Destiny ought to have brought you to the Palace Hotel too.’
She abruptly27 pulled down her veil. ‘Destiny may do that yet!’ she said. ‘The Palace Hotel?’ she repeated, speaking once more to herself. ‘The old hell, transformed into the new purgatory28. The place itself! Jesu Maria! the place itself!’ She paused and laid her hand on her companion’s arm. ‘Perhaps Miss Lockwood is not going there with the rest of you?’ she burst out with sudden eagerness. ‘Are you positively29 sure she will be at the hotel?’
‘Positively! Haven’t I told you that Miss Lockwood travels with Lord and Lady Montbarry? and don’t you know that she is a member of the family? You will have to move, Countess, to our hotel.’
She was perfectly impenetrable to the bantering30 tone in which he spoke. ‘Yes,’ she said faintly, ‘I shall have to move to your hotel.’ Her hand was still on his arm — he could feel her shivering from head to foot while she spoke. Heartily31 as he disliked and distrusted her, the common instinct of humanity obliged him to ask if she felt cold.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Cold and faint.’
‘Cold and faint, Countess, on such a night as this?’
‘The night has nothing to do with it, Mr. Westwick. How do you suppose the criminal feels on the scaffold, while the hangman is putting the rope around his neck? Cold and faint, too, I should think. Excuse my grim fancy. You see, Destiny has got the rope round my neck — and I feel it.’
She looked about her. They were at that moment close to the famous cafe known as ‘Florian’s.’ ‘Take me in there,’ she said; ‘I must have something to revive me. You had better not hesitate. You are interested in reviving me. I have not said what I wanted to say to you yet. It’s business, and it’s connected with your theatre.’
Wondering inwardly what she could possibly want with his theatre, Francis reluctantly yielded to the necessities of the situation, and took her into the cafe. He found a quiet corner in which they could take their places without attracting notice. ‘What will you have?’ he inquired resignedly. She gave her own orders to the waiter, without troubling him to speak for her.
‘Maraschino. And a pot of tea.’
The waiter stared; Francis stared. The tea was a novelty (in connection with maraschino) to both of them. Careless whether she surprised them or not, she instructed the waiter, when her directions had been complied with, to pour a large wine-glass-full of the liqueur into a tumbler, and to fill it up from the teapot. ‘I can’t do it for myself,’ she remarked, ‘my hand trembles so.’ She drank the strange mixture eagerly, hot as it was. ‘Maraschino punch — will you taste some of it?’ she said. ‘I inherit the discovery of this drink. When your English Queen Caroline was on the Continent, my mother was attached to her Court. That much injured Royal Person invented, in her happier hours, maraschino punch. Fondly attached to her gracious mistress, my mother shared her tastes. And I, in my turn, learnt from my mother. Now, Mr. Westwick, suppose I tell you what my business is. You are manager of a theatre. Do you want a new play?’
‘I always want a new play — provided it’s a good one.’
‘And you pay, if it’s a good one?’
‘I pay liberally — in my own interests.’
‘If I write the play, will you read it?’
Francis hesitated. ‘What has put writing a play into your head?’ he asked.
‘Mere accident,’ she answered. ‘I had once occasion to tell my late brother of a visit which I paid to Miss Lockwood, when I was last in England. He took no interest at what happened at the interview, but something struck him in my way of relating it. He said, “You describe what passed between you and the lady with the point and contrast of good stage dialogue. You have the dramatic instinct — try if you can write a play. You might make money.” That put it into my head.’
Those last words seemed to startle Francis. ‘Surely you don’t want money!’ he exclaimed.
‘I always want money. My tastes are expensive. I have nothing but my poor little four hundred a year — and the wreck32 that is left of the other money: about two hundred pounds in circular notes — no more.’
Francis knew that she was referring to the ten thousand pounds paid by the insurance offices. ‘All those thousands gone already!’ he exclaimed.
She blew a little puff33 of air over her fingers. ‘Gone like that!’ she answered coolly.
‘Baron Rivar?’
She looked at him with a flash of anger in her hard black eyes.
‘My affairs are my own secret, Mr. Westwick. I have made you a proposal — and you have not answered me yet. Don’t say No, without thinking first. Remember what a life mine has been. I have seen more of the world than most people, playwrights34 included. I have had strange adventures; I have heard remarkable35 stories; I have observed; I have remembered. Are there no materials, here in my head, for writing a play — if the opportunity is granted to me?’ She waited a moment, and suddenly repeated her strange question about Agnes.
‘When is Miss Lockwood expected to be in Venice?’
‘What has that to do with your new play, Countess?’
The Countess appeared to feel some difficulty in giving that question its fit reply. She mixed another tumbler full of maraschino punch, and drank one good half of it before she spoke again.
‘It has everything to do with my new play,’ was all she said. ‘Answer me.’ Francis answered her.
‘Miss Lockwood may be here in a week. Or, for all I know to the contrary, sooner than that.’
‘Very well. If I am a living woman and a free woman in a week’s time — or if I am in possession of my senses in a week’s time (don’t interrupt me; I know what I am talking about)— I shall have a sketch36 or outline of my play ready, as a specimen37 of what I can do. Once again, will you read it?’
‘I will certainly read it. But, Countess, I don’t understand —’
She held up her hand for silence, and finished the second tumbler of maraschino punch.
‘I am a living enigma38 — and you want to know the right reading of me,’ she said. ‘Here is the reading, as your English phrase goes, in a nutshell. There is a foolish idea in the minds of many persons that the natives of the warm climates are imaginative people. There never was a greater mistake. You will find no such unimaginative people anywhere as you find in Italy, Spain, Greece, and the other Southern countries. To anything fanciful, to anything spiritual, their minds are deaf and blind by nature. Now and then, in the course of centuries, a great genius springs up among them; and he is the exception which proves the rule. Now see! I, though I am no genius — I am, in my little way (as I suppose), an exception too. To my sorrow, I have some of that imagination which is so common among the English and the Germans — so rare among the Italians, the Spaniards, and the rest of them! And what is the result? I think it has become a disease in me. I am filled with presentiments39 which make this wicked life of mine one long terror to me. It doesn’t matter, just now, what they are. Enough that they absolutely govern me — they drive me over land and sea at their own horrible will; they are in me, and torturing me, at this moment! Why don’t I resist them? Ha! but I do resist them. I am trying (with the help of the good punch) to resist them now. At intervals40 I cultivate the difficult virtue41 of common sense. Sometimes, sound sense makes a hopeful woman of me. At one time, I had the hope that what seemed reality to me was only mad delusion42, after all — I even asked the question of an English doctor! At other times, other sensible doubts of myself beset43 me. Never mind dwelling44 on them now — it always ends in the old terrors and superstitions45 taking possession of me again. In a week’s time, I shall know whether Destiny does indeed decide my future for me, or whether I decide it for myself. In the last case, my resolution is to absorb this self-tormenting fancy of mine in the occupation that I have told you of already. Do you understand me a little better now? And, our business being settled, dear Mr. Westwick, shall we get out of this hot room into the nice cool air again?’
They rose to leave the cafe. Francis privately46 concluded that the maraschino punch offered the only discoverable explanation of what the Countess had said to him.
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1
colonnades
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| n.石柱廊( colonnade的名词复数 ) | |
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materialist
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| n. 唯物主义者 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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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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rehearsals
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| n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 )；排练；复述；重复 | |
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bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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petulantly
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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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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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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purgatory
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| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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bantering
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| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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playwrights
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| n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 ) | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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presentiments
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| n.（对不祥事物的）预感( presentiment的名词复数 ) | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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