The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER II

  MEMORIES

  How the birds sang that evening when the saffron afterglow had faintedover the forest spires, and when all was still with the hush of night,how the cry of a nightingale thrilled from a tree near the cottage!

  The glamor of the day had passed, and now what mockery and bitternesscame with the cold, unimpassioned light of the moon! Ilaria tossed andturned on her couch like one taken with a fever; her brain seemedafire, her hair like so much shadow about her head. As she lay staringwith wide, wakeful eyes, the birds' song mocked her to the echo; thescent of rose and honeysuckle floated in like a sad savor of death,and the moonlight seemed to watch her without a quaver of pity. Herheart panted in the darkness; she was torn by the thousand torments ofa troubled conscience; wounded to tears, yet her eyes were dry andwaterless as a desert. Raniero's face seemed to glare down on her outof the dusky gloom, and she could have cried out with the fear thatlay like an icy hand over her bosom.

  How her heart wailed for Francesco; how she longed for the touch ofhis hand. God of heaven, she could not let him go again and starve hersoul with the old, cursed life. His lips had touched hers; his armshad held her close; she had felt the warmth of his body, and thebeating of his heart. Was all this nothing,--a dream, a splendidphantasm, to be rent away like a crimson cloud? Was she to beRaniero's wife despite of all, a bitter flower growing up under agallows?

  God of heaven, no! What had the world done for her, that she shouldobey its edicts, and suffer for its tyrannies? Raniero had cheated herof her youth, her happiness; let him pay the price to the fates! Whathonor, indeed, had she to preserve for him? If he was a brute piece oflust, a tyrant, a traitor, so much the better! It would ease herconscience. She owed him no fealty, no marriage vow! Her body was nomore his than was her soul, and a dozen priests and a dozen massesmight as well marry ice to fire! How could a fool in a cape and frock,by gabbling a service, bind an irresponsible woman to the man shehated with a hatred enduring as the stars? It was a stupendous pieceof nonsense, to say the least of it. No God calling himself a justGod, could hold such a bargain holy.

  And then the truth! What a stumbling-block truth was on occasions. Sheknew Francesco's fine sensibilities, and his very love for her madehim the victim of an ethical tyranny. And again! For all her passionand the fire of her rebellious heart she was not a woman who couldfling reason to the winds and stifle up her conscience with a kiss.Besides, she loved Francesco to the very zenith of her soul. To have alie understood upon her lips, to be shamed before the man's eyes, werethings that scourged her in fancy even more than the thought of losinghim. She trembled when she thought how he might look at her in thedays to come, if a passive lie were proven against her with openshame.

  And Francesco was a monk! He might break the shackles, defy the powersof the Church,--he was a monk nevertheless! It might be possible thathis love proved stronger than his reason; it was possible that hemight face the world and frown down the petty judgments of men!Glorious and transcendent sacrifice! She could face calumny besidehim, as a rock faces the froth of the waves, she could look Ranieroin the eye and know neither pity nor shame.

  Her mood that night was like the passage of a blown leaf, tossed up toheaven, whirled over the tree-tops, driven down again into the mire.Strong woman that she was, her very strength made the struggle moreindecisive and more racking. She could not renounce Francesco for thegreat love she bore him; and yet she could not will to play a falsepart by reason of this same great love! Her soul, like a wanderer inthe wilds, halted and wavered between two tracks that led forward intothe unknown.

  As she tossed and tossed and thought of her life in Astura, her facebecame hard as stone. Even since they had journeyed from Naples,Ilaria had been conscious of a change. Her face showed melancholy,mingled with a constant scorn that had rarely found expression in theold days, within the walls of Avellino. For a time hope had waitedwide-eyed in her heart. She had conjured up love like some Easternhouse of magic, only to see its domes faint away into the gloom ofnight. The past was as a wounded dream to her! Her eyes had hungeredfor a face, grieving in dark reserve and silence. Her love, onceforged, could bend to no new craft.

  After the barren months at Astura, the long bondage of hate, Francescohad come into her life again. He had come to her with a glory of lovein his eyes, he had taken her hands and kissed them, as though therewere no such divine flesh in the whole wide world. How wonderful itwas, to be touched so, to have such eyes pouring out so strong a soulbefore her face; to know the presence of a great love and to feel theechoing passion of it in her own heart!

  Was this faery time but for an hour, a day, and no longer? Was she butto see the man's face, to feel the touch of his hands, the grand calmof his love, before losing him, perhaps for life? Her heart flutteredin her like a smitten bird. Could she but creep to him, where he lay,touch his hands, his lips! Her eyes stared out in the night with astarved frenzy.

  "Francesco! Francesco!"--

  It was like the wild cry of a woman over her dead love.

  A wind had arisen. The thousand voices of the trees seemed to call toher with a weird, perpetual clamor. She saw their spectral handsjerking and clutching against the sky. The wind was crying through thetrees, swaying them restlessly against the starry sky, makingplaintive moan through all the myriad aisles.

  How many a heart trembles with the return of day! What fears rise withthe first blush of light in the purple bowl of night! To Ilaria thedawn would come as a message of misery; she dared not think what thecoming hours would bring.

  At last she closed her weary eyes, and under the sheer weight of herown grief fell into a deep and dreamless slumber, while the gloom wasgrowing less and less, and dawn, like a pale phantom, stalked out ofthe east.