After Dark by Wilkie Collins (smart ebook reader .TXT) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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âBut where have you been for nearly a whole year past? In Italy?â
âNo; at Paris. You know I can singânot very well; but I have a voice, and most Frenchwomen (excuse the impertinence) have none. I met with a friend, and got introduced to a manager; and I have been singing at the theaterânot the great parts, only the second. Your amiable countrywomen could not screech me down on the stage, but they intrigued against me successfully behind the scenes. In short, I quarreled with our principal lady, quarreled with the manager, quarreled with my friend; and here I am back at Pisa, with a little money saved in my pocket, and no great notion what I am to do next.â
âBack at Pisa? Why did you leave it?â
Brigidaâs eyes began to lose their indolent expression. She sat up suddenly in her chair, and set one of her hands heavily on a little table by her side.
âWhy?â she repeated. âBecause when I find the game going against me, I prefer giving it up at once to waiting to be beaten.â
âAh! you refer to that last yearâs project of yours for making your fortune among the sculptors. I should like to hear how it was you failed with the wealthy young amateur. Remember that I fell ill before you had any news to give me. Your absence when I returned from Lucca, and, almost immediately afterward, the marriage of your intended conquest to the sculptorâs daughter, proved to me, of course, that you must have failed. But I never heard how. I know nothing at this moment but the bare fact that Maddalena Lomi won the prize.â
âTell me first, do she and her husband live together happily?â
âThere are no stories of their disagreeing. She has dresses, horses, carriages; a negro page, the smallest lap-dog in Italyâin short, all the luxuries that a woman can want; and a child, by-the-by, into the bargain.â
âA child?â
âYes; a child, born little more than a week ago.â
âNot a boy, I hope?â
âNo; a girl.â
âI am glad of that. Those rich people always want the first-born to be an heir. They will both be disappointed. I am glad of that.â
âMercy on us, Brigida, how fierce you look!â
âDo I? Itâs likely enough. I hate Fabio dâAscoli and Maddalena Lomiâsingly as man and woman, doubly as man and wife. Stop! Iâll tell you what you want to know directly. Only answer me another question or two first. Have you heard anything about her health?â
âHow should I hear? Dressmakers canât inquire at the doors of the nobility.â
âTrue. Now one last question. That little simpleton, Nanina?â
âI have never seen or heard anything of her. She canât be at Pisa, or she would have called at our place for work.â
âAh! I need not have asked about her if I had thought a moment beforehand. Father Rocco would be sure to keep her out of Fabioâs sight, for his nieceâs sake.â
âWhat, he really loved that âthread-paper of a girlâ as you called her?â
âBetter than fifty such wives as he has got now! I was in the studio the morning he was told of her departure from Pisa. A letter was privately given to him, telling him that the girl had left the place out of a feeling of honor, and had hidden herself beyond the possibility of discovery, to prevent him from compromising himself with all his friends by marrying her. Naturally enough, he would not believe that this was her own doing; and, naturally enough also, when Father Rocco was sent for, and was not to be found, he suspected the priest of being at the bottom of the business. I never saw a man in such a fury of despair and rage before. He swore that he would have all Italy searched for the girl, that he would be the death of the priest, and that he would never enter Luca Lomiâs studio againââ
âAnd, as to this last particular, of course, being a man, he failed to keep his word?â
âOf course. At that first visit of mine to the studio I discovered two things. The first, as I said, that Fabio was really in love with the girlâthe second, that Maddalena Lomi was really in love with him. You may suppose I looked at her attentively while the disturbance was going on, and while nobodyâs notice was directed on me. All women are vain, I know, but vanity never blinded my eyes. I saw directly that I had but one superiority over herâmy figure. She was my height, but not well made. She had hair as dark and as glossy as mine; eyes as bright and as black as mine; and the rest of her face better than mine. My nose is coarse, my lips are too thick, and my upper lip overhangs my under too far. She had none of those personal faults; and, as for capacity, she managed the young fool in his passion as well as I could have managed him in her place.â
âHow?â
âShe stood silent, with downcast eyes and a distressed look, all the time he was raving up and down the studio. She must have hated the girl, and been rejoiced at her disappearance; but she never showed it. âYou would be an awkward rivalâ (I thought to myself), âeven to a handsomer woman than I am.â However, I determined not to despair too soon, and made up my mind to follow my plan just as if the accident of the girlâs disappearance had never occurred. I smoothed down the master-sculptor easily enoughâflattering him about his reputation, assuring him that the works of Luca Lomi had been the objects of my adoration since childhood, telling him that I had heard of his difficulty in finding a model to complete his Minerva from, and offering myself (if he thought me worthy) for the honorâlaying great stress on that wordâfor the honor of sitting to him. I donât know whether he was altogether deceived by what I told him; but he was sharp enough to see that I really could be of use, and he accepted my offer with a profusion of compliments. We parted, having arranged that I was to give him a first sitting in a weekâs time.â
âWhy put it off so long?â
âTo allow our young gentleman time to cool down and return to the studio, to be sure. What was the use of my being there while he was away?â
âYes, yesâI forgot. And how long was it before he came back?â
âI had allowed him more time than enough. When I had given my first sitting I saw him in the studio, and heard it was his second visit there since the day of the girlâs disappearance. Those very violent men are always changeable and irresolute.â
âHad he made no attempt, then, to discover Nanina?â
âOh, yes! He had searched for her himself, and had set others searching for her, but to no purpose. Four days of perpetual disappointment had been enough to bring him to his senses. Luca Lomi had written him a peace-making letter, asking what harm he or his daughter had done, even supposing Father Rocco was to blame. Maddalena Lomi had met him in the street, and had looked resignedly away from him, as if she expected him to pass her. In short, they had awakened his sense of justice and his good nature (you see, I can impartially give him his due), and they had got him back. He was silent and sentimental enough at first, and shockingly sulky and savage with the priestââ
âI wonder Father Rocco ventured within his reach.â
âFather Rocco is not a man to be daunted or defeated by anybody, I can tell you. The same day on which Fabio came back to the studio, he returned to it. Beyond boldly declaring that he thought Nanina had done quite right, and had acted like a good and virtuous girl, he would say nothing about her or her disappearance. It was quite useless to ask him questionsâhe denied that any one had a right to put them. Threatening, entreating, flatteringâall modes of appeal were thrown away on him. Ah, my dear! depend upon it, the cleverest and politest man in Pisa, the most dangerous to an enemy and the most delightful to a friend, is Father Rocco. The rest of them, when I began to play my cards a little too openly, behaved with brutal rudeness to me. Father Rocco, from first to last, treated me like a lady. Sincere or not, I donât careâhe treated me like a lady when the others treated me likeââ
âThere! there! donât get hot about it now. Tell me instead how you made your first approaches to the young gentleman whom you talk of so contemptuously as Fabio.â
âAs it turned out, in the worst possible way. First, of course, I made sure of interesting him in me by telling him that I had known Nanina. So far it was all well enough. My next object was to persuade him that she could never have gone away if she had truly loved him alone; and that he must have had some fortunate rival in her own rank of life, to whom she had sacrificed him, after gratifying her vanity for a time by bringing a young nobleman to her feet. I had, as you will easily imagine, difficulty enough in making him take this view of Naninaâs flight. His pride and his love for the girl were both concerned in refusing to admit the truth of my suggestion. At last I succeeded. I brought him to that state of ruffled vanity and fretful self-assertion in which it is easiest to work on a manâs feelingsâin which a manâs own wounded pride makes the best pitfall to catch him in. I brought him, I say, to that state, and then she stepped in and profited by what I had done. Is it wonderful now that I rejoice in her disappointmentsâthat I should be glad to hear any ill thing of her that any one could tell me?â
âBut how did she first get the advantage of you?â
âIf I had found out, she would never have succeeded where I failed. All I know is, that she had more opportunities of seeing him than I, and that she used them cunningly enough even to deceive me. While I thought I was gaining ground with Fabio, I was actually losing it. My first suspicions were excited by a change in Luca Lomiâs conduct toward me. He grew cold, neglectfulâat last absolutely rude. I was resolved not to see this; but accident soon obliged me to open my eyes. One morning I heard Fabio and Maddalena talking of me when they imagined I had left the studio. I canât repeat their words, especially here. The blood flies into my head, and the cold catches me at the heart, when I only think of them. It will be enough if I tell you that he laughed at me, and that sheââ
âHush! not so loud. There are other people lodging in the house. Never mind about telling me what you heard; it only irritates you to no purpose. I can guess that they had discoveredââ
âThrough herâremember, all through her!â
âYes, yes, I understand. They had discovered a great deal more than you ever intended them to know, and all through her.â
âBut for the priest, Virginie, I should have been openly insulted and driven from their doors. He had insisted on their behaving with decent civility toward me. They said that he was afraid of me, and laughed at the notion of his trying to make them afraid too. That was the last thing I heard. The fury I was in, and the
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