She came one morning, her arms full of white stockings she had knitted herself.
After smoothing my hair, she asked, as if nothing could be more natural, whether she might try one on to correct the size for the rest.
The doctor had gone to say Mass. The house was quiet.
I half-sat, half-dozed, too idle to object.
Bettina perched on the edge of my bed, slipped one stocking over her calf, then looked at me and laughed.
"Your legs are dirty, Giacomo."
Before I could protest, she fetched a basin, dipped a cloth, and knelt.
"Bettina," I murmured, "that's unnecessary—"
But she was already wiping, first with brisk, housewifely efficiency, then with something quieter, deliberate.
The water cooled my skin; her hand did not.
I would have been ashamed to let her see my bashfulness; I let her do as she liked, not foreseeing what would happen.
Bettina carried too far her love for cleanliness, and her curiosity caused me such intense voluptuousness that the feeling did not stop until it could be carried no further.
When it was over, silence fell, heavy and complete. I looked at her, I bethought myself guilty.
"Forgive me, I shouldn't have…" I begged her forgiveness.
She did not expect this, and, after considering for a few moments, she told me kindly: "No, Giacomo—it was my fault. But it will never happen again."
Then she left me to my own thoughts.
The air still smelled of lavender and something far less innocent.
My thoughts grew cruel.
I had dishonoured Bettina, betrayed the trust of her family, offended the sacred laws of hospitality.
The shame of it pressed so heavily that I could think of no atonement but marriage—were she willing to accept so unworthy a husband.
The feeling deepened by the day. Bettina no longer came in the mornings.
During the first week, I could easily account for the girl's reserve, and my sadness would soon have taken the character of the warmest love, had not her manner towards Cordiani inoculated in my veins the poison of jealousy.
I told myself I did not suspect her of repeating with him what had happened with me.
No, her restraint was proof she regretted it—proof that she felt what I felt.
And after due consideration, I felt convinced that the act she had been guilty of with me had been deliberately done, and that her feelings of repentance kept her away from me.
That thought was a comfort. It made me bold enough to act.
I composed a letter, short but calculated to restore peace to her mind, whether she thought herself guilty, or suspected me of feelings contrary to those which her dignity might expect from me.
My letter was, in my own estimation, a perfect masterpiece, and just the kind of epistle by which I was certain to conquer her very adoration, and to sink forever the sun of Cordiani, whom I could not accept as the sort of being likely to make her hesitate for one instant in her choice between him and me.
Half an hour after I sent the letter, Bettina appeared in the corridor. Her eyes gave nothing away.
"Tomorrow morning," she said, "I'll resume my visits."
But I waited in vain.
This conduct provoked me almost to madness.
At breakfast, she smiled as if nothing had happened. And you may imagine my surprise when just as she rose from the table, turned and said:
"Would you let me dress you as a girl?"
I blinked.
"For a masquerade," she explained, amused by my confusion. "Doctor Olivo has invited us. I thought you might accompany me."
The others laughed, thinking it a jest and seconded the motion. I laughed too, but not for the same reason.
Beneath the teasing tone I imagined an invitation—I thought this arrangement would afford a favorable opportunity for an explanation, for mutual vindication, and would open a door for the most complete reconciliation.
I accepted at once. But a most unexpected circumstance prevented our attending the ball, and brought forth a comedy with a truly tragic turn.
That very afternoon, Doctor Gozzi's godfather—a man advanced in age, and in easy circumstances, residing in the country, thought himself, after a severe illness, very near his end.
He sent to the doctor a carriage with a request to come to him at once with his father, as he wished them to be present at his death, and to pray for his departing soul.
The old shoemaker drained a bottle, donned his Sunday clothes, and went off with his son.
Their absence was a great opportunity for me. The ball was five or six days away and that was too remote to suit my impatience.
That evening, as Bettina passed me in the hallway, I whispered: "I'll leave my door unlatched tonight."
She promised to come.
She slept on the ground floor in a small closet divided only by a partition from her father's chamber; the doctor being away, I was alone in the large room.
The three boarders had their apartment in a different part of the house, and I had therefore no mishap to fear.
I was delighted at the idea that I had at last reached the moment so ardently desired.
When the house had settled into silence, I bolted the outer door, left the inner one ajar, and blew out the candle.
I did not undress.
People say the scenes in romances are exaggerated—the waiting, the heartbeat, the breath held between hope and fear.
They are wrong.
Reality, when it finally takes their place, is far less composed.
The hours stretched.
I waited till midnight without much anxiety, but midnight slipped to one, then two. Still no sound but the whisper of snow against the glass.
My blood boiled, my body trembled—not from the cold, but from my state of furious rage.
By four, I could endure no more.
Barefoot and half-mad, I crept down the staircase. The dog dozed by the hearth; I held my breath to keep the silence in the house.
I placed myself at the bottom of the stairs within a yard of Bettina's door. It was locked from within.
I sat, listening.
Nothing.
A man may wait for a verdict with less dread.
I imagined her asleep, or worse—awake and indifferent. Pride froze my hand before it could knock, and the dog.
I sat on the last step, knees to my chest, the chill of the stone biting through my nightshirt.
By dawn, my limbs were wooden, my teeth a drum.
It was then, in such a state and fearing lest a servant would see me and would think me mad, I determined to go back to my room. I rose.
Then behind me, the door creaked.
My heart leapt— I turn around.
The figure that stepped out was not Bettina.
Cordiani. His hair uncombed, shirt open, the insolent ease of a victor on his lips.
Our eyes met for one instant—long enough for him to see everything: my longing, my defeat.
He said nothing. The heel of his boot drove into my stomach like a musket ball.
I fell backward, the air torn from my chest, sprawled in the snow.
He turned without a word and vanished into the room he shares with brothers Felrlini.
I rose, committed to take my revenge upon Bettina.
Nothing would have saved her for me at that moment, but I find her door locked. I kicked it again and again until the panels shuddered.
The house dog woke, barking loudly.
That sound sobered me; I fled upstairs, slammed my own door, and collapsed on the bed to compose and heal up my mind and body, for I was half dead.
Deceived, humbled, ill-treated, an object of contempt to the happy and triumphant Cordiani, I spent three hours ruminating the darkest schemes of revenge.
To poison them both seemed to me but a trifle in that terrible moment of bitter misery.
This project gave way to another as extravagant, as cowardly-namely, to go at once to her brother and disclose everything to him.
I was twelve years of age, and my mind had not yet acquired sufficient coolness to mature schemes of heroic revenge, which are produced by false feelings of honour; this was only my apprenticeship in such adventures.
I was in this state when I heard a knock and the rough voice of Bettina's mother.
"Come down, Giacomo" she called. "My daughter, Bettina is dying!"
Dying.
As I would have been very sorry if she had departed this life before she could feel the effects of my revenge.
I pulled on my coat hurriedly and went down.
She lay in her father's bed, twisted and wild, her nightdress clinging to her in damp folds.
Her limbs struck out in frantic rhythm, she was throwing her body now to the right, now to the left, striking at random with her feet and with her fists, and extricating herself by violent shaking from the hands of those who endeavored to keep her down.
With this sight before me, and the night's adventure still in my mind, I hardly knew what to think.
I had no knowledge of human nature, no knowledge of artifice and tricks, and I could not understand how I found myself coolly witnessing such a scene, and composedly calm in the presence of two beings, one of whom I intended to kill and the other to dishonor.
Doctor Olivo was summoned; a nurse muttered about hysteria. He prescribed rest and cold baths.
I said nothing, but I could not refrain from laughing at them, for I knew, or rather guessed, that Bettina's sickness was the result of her nocturnal employment, or of the fright which she must have felt at my meeting with Cordiani.
At all events, I determined to postpone my revenge until the return of her brother, although I had not the slightest suspicion that her illness was all sham, for I did not give her credit for so much cleverness.
To return to my room I had to pass through Bettina's closet. Her dress lay tossed across the bed, carelessly.
I meant only to look—then my hand moved of its own accord.
A folded scrap of paper slipped from the pocket.
The handwriting was slanted, bold, unmistakably Cordiani's.
I wondered at her negligence, for if her mother chanced to find it instead, being illiterate, she would give it to her son.
I carried the note upstairs, lit a candle, and read:
"As your father is away, it is not necessary to leave your door ajar as usual. When we leave the supper-table, I will go to your closet; you will find me there."
For a long while I stared at the page in stupor.
My heart, which had so lately burned, now sat still as stone. Then the absurdity struck me.
I—frozen on the stairs, dreaming of conquest while the conqueror was already retreating by another door!
I laughed. Laughed until the candle guttered.
It was not mirth, nor despair, but the laughter of a boy who has been completely duped and could finally be completely cured of his love.
When I recovered, I folded the note neatly, as one preserves a document of instruction.
Cordiani, I decided, deserved forgiveness; Bettina, contempt.
I congratulated myself upon having received a lesson of such importance for the remainder of my life.
I even went so far as to acknowledge to myself that Bettina had been quite right in giving the preference to Cordiani, who was fifteen years old, while I was only a child.
Yet, in spite of my good disposition to forgiveness, the kick administered by Cordiani was still heavy upon my memory, and I could not help keeping a grudge against him.