Tales of Madness (16 page)

"Above suspicion! But, on the other hand..."

A torturesome doubt had insinuated itself into his mind, throwing it into confusion.

No one could know better than he that Donna Bicetta was above suspicion. For more than a year he had been declaring his love to her, besieging her with his courtship, without ever once obtaining anything more from her than a very sweet and compassionate smile for all his wasted efforts. With the serenity that comes from the staunchest feeling of self-assurance, without either taking offense at his impertinent overtures, or rebelling against them, she had made him understand that any insistence on his part would be useless, since she was just as much in love as he was, perhaps more so, but with her husband. If he really loved her, things being as they were, he had to understand that she could in no way violate her love for her husband. If he didn't understand that, then that in itself was a sign that he really didn't love her. And so?

Sometimes, in certain solitary beaches, the seawater is so limpid, so clear, and so transparent that, no matter how strong the desire is to immerse oneself in it, to enjoy its delightfully refreshing coolness, one feels an almost sacred restraint that inhibits one from disturbing it.

Nicolino Respi had always experienced this impression of limpidity and this feeling of restraint when approaching the soul of Donna Bicetta Daddi. This woman loved life with such a tranquil, attentive, and sweet love! Only in those three days spent in her villa near Perugia, having been overcome by a most passionate desire, had he violated that restraint and disturbed that limpidity, and he had been sternly rejected.

Now his agonizing doubt was that perhaps the anxiety he had caused her in those three days had not been lulled after his departure. Perhaps it had grown so great that her husband had become aware of it. One thing was certain: upon his arrival at the villa, Romeo Daddi had been calm and, within a few days of his departure, had gone mad.

"Above suspicion! But, on the other hand..."

Sometimes, in certain solitary beaches, the seawater is so limpid, so clear, and so transparent that, no matter how strong the desire is to immerse oneself in it, to enjoy its delightfully refreshing coolness, one feels an almost sacred restraint that inhibits one from disturbing it.

Nicolino Respi had always experienced this impression of limpidity and this feeling of restraint when approaching the soul of Donna Bicetta Daddi. This woman loved life with such a tranquil, attentive, and sweet love! Only in those three days spent in her villa near Perugia, having been overcome by a most passionate desire, had he violated that restraint and disturbed that limpidity, and he had been sternly rejected.

Now his agonizing doubt was that perhaps the anxiety he had caused her in those three days had not been lulled after his departure. Perhaps it had grown so great that her husband had become aware of it. One thing was certain: upon his arrival at the villa, Romeo Daddi had been calm and, within a few days of his departure, had gone mad.

So, then, was it because of him? So, then, had she been profoundly disturbed and overcome by his amorous assault?

Why, yes, yes, of course! How could he doubt it?

The following morning, as soon as it seemed to him to be the most opportune moment, he ran off to Donna Bicetta Daddi's house. He just had to see her. He just had to clear up that doubt of his at once, whatever the outcome might be. Perhaps she wouldn't receive him. But, in any case, he wanted to present himself at her house, ready to confront or suffer all the consequences of the situation.

Donna Bicetta Daddi was not at home.

For the past hour she had been unintentionally and unwittingly inflicting the cruelest of tortures on her friend Gabriella Vanzi, the woman who for three months had been her guest at the villa.

She had gone to see her so that they might figure out together, not the reason, no, unfortunately not the reason for that misfortune, but rather the circumstance, the occasion at least that had led to its happening there, at the time in which it first manifested itself, during that vacation, or more precisely, in the last days of it. But howsoever much she had taxed her memory, she hadn't succeeded in coming up with anything.

For the past hour she had been stubbornly trying to recall, to reconstruct those last days, minute by minute.

"Do you remember this? Do you remember that in the morning he went down into the garden without taking his old cloth hat, and that he called up for it to be thrown down to him from the window, and then he came back up laughing with that bunch of roses? Do you remember that he wanted me to take a couple of those roses along on the trip, and then walked me to the gate and helped me into the car and asked me to bring him those books from Perugia? Wait... one was... Oh, I don't recall exactly... but it was about sowing seeds... Do you remember? Do you remember?"

So disoriented was she by the exhausting reevocation of so many minute and insignificant details, that she did not notice her friend becoming increasingly more distressed and nervous.

Without the slightest indication of being upset, she had already relived in her mind the three days Nicolino Respi had spent in the villa, and she hadn't paused for one moment to consider whether her husband might have been driven to madness by the innocuous courtship of that man. That was out of the question. It had been a laughing matter for the three of them, that courtship of Respi, after his departure for Milan. How could she even imagine that? Besides, after his departure, hadn't her husband remained for more than two weeks as calm and peaceful as he had been before?

No, never! Not even the slightest hint of the most remote suspicion! In seven years of marriage, never once! How, where, could he ever have found a motive for suspicion? And yet, look, all of a sudden, there, in the peace and quiet of the countryside, without anything having happened...

"Oh, Gabriella, Gabriella, my dear, believe me, I'm going mad, I'm going mad, too!"

Suddenly, as she was recovering from this crisis of desperation, Donna Bicetta Daddi, raising her tear-filled eyes to look at her friend's face, discovered that her friend had become as stiff and livid as a corpse. Her friend was obviously trying to control an unbearable spasm. She was panting through flared nostrils and was watching her with wicked eyes. Oh, God! Almost with the same eyes her husband had had those last days when he began staring at her.

She felt her blood curdle, and was almost seized with terror.

"Why?... You too?... Why?..." she stammered, quivering. "Why are you looking at me like that, too?"

Gabriella Vanzi made a tremendous effort to transform the facial expression she had unconsciously assumed into a benign smile of compassion.

"Me... I'm looking at you...? No... I was thinking... That's it! I wanted to ask you... Yes, I know, you're sure of yourself... but is there nothing that you... nothing at all... nothing that you can reproach yourself with?"

Donna Bicetta was dumbfounded. With dilated eyes and her hands over her cheeks, she shouted:

"How's that?... are you now also repeating... his very words to me? How?... how can you?"

Gabriella Vanzi's face took on a false expression, and her eyes turned glassy.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Oh, God... And now you're becoming dazed just like him... What does it all mean? What does it all mean?"

No sooner had she stopped moaning these words, feeling herself gradually becoming overwhelmed with emotion, than she found her friend in her arms, clinging to her bosom.

"No... no... I swear it, Gabriella... no... only now..."

"What happened? Gabriella, come on, tell me, what happened?

"You can't understand... You can't understand... I know the reason why your husband went mad... I know it!"

"The reason? Which reason?"

"I know it, because I have it in me too, this reason for going mad... because of what happened to the two of us!"

"To the two of you?

"Yes... yes... to me and to your husband."

"Aha, well?"

"No, no! It's not what you're imagining! You can't understand... Without intending to deceive anyone, without thinking about it or wanting it to happen... in an instant... A horrible
thing that no one can blame himself for. Do you see how I talk to
you about it? Why I can tell you about it? Because I'm not to
blame! And neither is he! But it's precisely for this very reason...
Listen, listen, and when you've found out everything, maybe
you'll go mad too, just like I'm about to go mad, like he has gone
mad... Listen! You've relived in your mind the day you left the
villa to go to Perugia by car, right? The day he gave you a couple
of roses and asked you to bring him back some books..."

"Yes."

"Well, it was on that morning!"

"What was?"

"Everything that happened. Everything, and nothing... let me tell you, for heaven's sake. It was quite hot, remember? After seeing you leave, he and I walked back through the garden... The sun was scorching, and the buzzing of the cicadas was deafening... We went back into the villa and sat down in the small living room, right by the entrance to the dining room. The blinds were drawn, the inside shutters pulled shut. It was almost dark in there, and the air was cool and motionless... (I'm giving you now my impression of it, the only one I could possibly have, the one I remember and shall always remember. Perhaps he, too, had the same impression of it, identical to mine... He must have, because otherwise I'd never be able to explain anything to myself!) It was that cool, motionless air, after all that sun and the deafening buzzing of the cicadas... In an instant, without thinking about it, I swear it! Never, never, neither he nor I, certainly not... as if by some irresistible attraction present in that bewildering void, in the delightful coolness of that semidarkness... Bice, Bice... it happened like that, I swear it! In an instant!..."

Donna Bicetta Daddi sprang to her feet, impelled by a sudden access of hatred and contempt.