"And pray why?" asked Regina.
"Why? Just because you're married! Here comes another villain," continued Marianna, pointing to Massimo, who had drawn nearer; "for that matter they're all villains, the men! And the good ones are worse than the bad. The good ones are stupid. I don't care if men are bad, terrible even, so long as they have some genius and will-power."
"If I had at least these attributes—" began Massimo, looking at her with his insolent eyes.
"You can't have them," she interrupted; "geniuses never oil their hair as you do." "It's oiled, signora, isn't it?"
"I—don't know," said Regina, "I think not."
"Ah, poor dear! you haven't found it out! You'll never find anything out."
"How silly she is!" thought Regina.
And again she fancied that the young lady read her thoughts.
"Oh, you're thinking me a fool!" she said; "but listen here. I've forgotten to tell you something I always tell people when I meet them first."
"We know what it is," interjected Massimo and Antonio; but Marianna went on—
"Once, seven years ago, at Odessa, the house I was living in went on fire. I was in a top room, all hemmed in by flames—impossible to get me out. The smoke was already blinding and stifling me, and I heard the roar of the flames quite close. I believed in God no more then than now; however, I did feel the need of recourse to some supernatural being, some occult or omnipotent power. So I made a vow. I promised if I were saved, I would henceforth always speak the truth. At that moment the floor fell in. I lost my senses; and when I came to, I found myself safe and sound in the arms of a most hideous fireman. 'How have you managed it?' I asked. 'Like this,' he answered, and told how he had rescued me at great peril of his life. 'Oh, very well,' I said, 'I suspect you're exaggerating; but I'm grateful, all the same, and I'll always remember you; the more vividly that your ugliness is quite unforgettable.'"
Regina laughed. "I seem to be reading a Russian story," she said.
"But is that little tale true?" asked Massimo; and Antonio added—
"You gave me a slightly different version."
"Now you're trying to be witty," said Marianna, "but it's no use. You can't be witty, except for women you wish to please, and you don't in the least wish to please me."
"Oh, yes, I wish to please you," said Massimo; "it's the sole object of my life."
"Well, I don't appreciate your jokes. There are plenty of women very inferior to me, and you won't succeed in pleasing even them."
"I shall succeed with the superior ones, perhaps."
"I don't think there are many women superior to me; if there are, you'll never get within a stone's throw of them."
"Then I suppose I'm one of the inferiors?" said Regina, for the sake of saying something.
"Yes, because you're married. A superior woman never marries. Or if in some spell of unconsciousness she does take a husband, she repents at once. If I wished to pay you a compliment, I should say I believe you are repenting."
"By Jove!" said Antonio, "that's not a matter of joke."
"Do you always tell the Princess the truth?" asked Regina.
"Of course she keeps me only for that purpose," said Marianna, looking, not without affection, at the Princess. Madame was telling Arduina a story of her aunt.
"—the handsomest and smartest woman in Paris," she said. "I've told you of her marriage, haven't I? They married her at fifteen to the lover of a lady who remained her friend for ten years, her friend, her confidante, her guide. For ten years she never guessed——"
Sor Mario, buried in his arm-chair, was listening, fighting with sleepiness and the desire to pick his teeth.
Marianna began to abuse Nietzsche and his opinion of women, but Regina's attention wandered to the Princess's stories, scraps of which reached her across the screaming and the audacities of the younger lady.
"If women understood him, they'd agree," said Massimo; "they don't approve because they don't understand."
"They do better than approve, they refute him," said Marianna.
"If Gaspare were here," said Antonio, "he'd soon settle the question."
Regina's soul shivered at the mere recollection of Gaspare, and his mother, and the servant.
"Her second husband was a Spaniard," narrated the Princess, "the handsomest man you could see, and acquainted with all the literary personages of his time. But his conduct——"
"The education of women has not even begun," said Marianna, turning to Regina; "women will never have any sense till men begin to tell them the truth."
"But what is the truth?" asked Massimo; "truth between man and woman only comes out when they quarrel."
"That's true up to a certain point. I'm always wondering why truth is so disagreeable to everybody. They tell me I'm cracked because I never tell lies. Nobody cares, because my words don't really interest the person I'm talking to. But let's suppose this lady were to tell her husband all she was thinking, her real impressions, her real idea of him, his family, his friends. I'm certain Signor Antonio would fall quite sick——"
"Regina!" cried Antonio, in feigned alarm, "can this be true?"
Regina laughed, but a shudder as of great cold interrupted her false merriment. The Princess was continuing her story.
"'Jeanne!' said my aunt, hammering at the door of the room where he was with the lady's maid, 'hand me the Figaro, if you please.' My aunt was discreet. That was all she said."
"And what did they reply?" asked Sor Mario, sitting up straight, his toothpick in his fingers.
"My dear!" said Arduina, "what a stupid question!"
Before leaving, the Princess invited Regina to her Friday receptions. Regina promised to go; but that night, when she was comfortably in bed, lulled in the quiet and warmth of the first half-slumber, she said—
"Antonio, do you know what? I've taken a great dislike to that Princess!"
"Why? She's all right."
"Yes, but—you see——"
"What?"
She paused—then went on, her voice rather sleepy: "Do you remember that female lion-tamer we saw at Parma? She looked at women in such a strange way. I couldn't think whom the Princess reminded me of, and I thought, and thought——Her eyes are just like that lion-tamer's! Didn't you see how she stared at me?"
"Well? She liked you. Who knows but she'll leave you something in her will!"
"Is she really rich?"
"The deuce she is! A millionaire."
"Her gloves were so dirty."
"Did you see her rings?"
"What do I care for rings if the gloves are dirty?"
Regina relapsed into silence; then she laughed softly, and presently fell into a light sleep. She dreamt she was in a wood on the banks of the Po towards Viadana. The shining waters were churned by a mill, but the mill was a castle with vast rooms hung with red, and the castle belonged to Madame Makuline. The Princess was dead, but her soul had climbed up a poplar-tree, through the silver leaves of which shone the river, a crystalline blue. The mill wheel roared like thunder, and Regina, seated on the entrance stair of the castle, was washing her feet in a runnel of greenish water which overflowed the steps. A white duck came to peck at the little toe of her right foot, and laughed. Regina laughed herself. She was vaguely aware she was dreaming, for she was analysing her sentiments, and knew that a mill is a mill, that ducks can't laugh, and souls can't climb poplar-trees. None the less, she was oppressed by mysterious fear, by a sense of intolerable