The Rome publisher, Servetti, heard of The Book, and came to Milan to ask if he could have it. Zardo, the publisher of the "Cycle of Lyrics," who had omitted to pay for the last two editions of that distinguished and fortunate volume, sent, unasked, an unverisimilarly large cheque; and suggested for her new work a special édition de luxe. Nancy replied to no one, heeded no one. The Book held her soul.
It was a winter evening, and the lamps were lit, when Nancy wrote at the summit of a candid page, "Chapter XVII." She wrote the heading carefully, reverentially, painting over the Roman numbers with loving pen. This was the culminating chapter of The Book. It had been worked up to in steep and audacious ascent, and after it and from it the story would flow down in rushing, inevitable stream to its portentous close. But this chapter was the climax and the crown.
Nancy passed a quick hand across her forehead and pushed back her ruffled hair. Then she looked across at Aldo. He was sitting at the opposite side of the table with some sheets of music-paper before him. The shine of the lamp fell blandly on his narrow head. He looked dejected and dull.
"What is it, Aldo?" she asked, stretching her hand affectionately across the table to him. In the joy and the overflowing ease of inspiration she felt kind and compassionate.
"Oh, nothing," sighed Aldo. "I was thinking of writing a symphony; but I cannot do anything without trying it at the piano. And that disturbs you. Never mind! Don't worry about me."
"Oh, but I do worry," said Nancy, getting up and going round to his side. She bent over him with her arm on his shoulder. Before him on the sheet was half a line of breves and semibreves, which Nancy remembered from her childhood as little men getting over stiles.
"You know," said Aldo, with his pen going over and over the face of one of the little men and making it blacker and larger than the others, "Ricordi is publishing those songs of mine; but I believe it is only because they have your words. So I thought I would try a symphony which will be all my own. But I ought to be able to try it at the piano."
"I know, dear," said Nancy, smoothing his soft, thick hair. "I know I am a horrid, selfish thing, upsetting everything and everybody. But never mind!" And she glanced across to the large "Chapter XVII" at the top of the fair sheet, and the wet ink of the "XVII" glistened and beckoned to her upside down at the other side of the table. "Wait till I have finished my book. Then you shall do all you want; and we shall go and pass blue days in the country and be as happy as sandboys, and "—she added for him—" as rich as Crœsus."
He raised his dark eyes to her, and she thought that he looked like Murillo's Saint Sebastian.
"Your writing has swallowed up all your love for me," he said.
"Oh no!" said Nancy, and she caressed the beautiful brow. "It is you, your presence, your beauty, that inspires me and helps me to write."
Aldo sighed. "I suppose I am a nonentity. And I must be grateful if the fact of my having a straight nose has helped you to write your book."
Nancy felt conscience-stricken. "Don't be bitter, dear heart," she said. "I must be selfish! If I do not sit there and write, I feel as if I had a maniac shut up in my brain, beating and shrieking to get out. And oh, Aldo, when I do write, coolly and quickly and smoothly, I feel like a mountain-spring gushing out my life in glad, scintillant waters."
Aldo drew her face down and kissed her. "Nothing shall interfere with your book," he said.
"No, nothing," said Nancy—"nothing!"
As she spoke a strange, quivering sensation passed over her, a quick throb shook her heart, and the roots of her hair prickled. Then it was past and gone. She stepped back to her place at the table and stood looking down at Chapter XVII. The wet ink still glistened on it. She was waiting.... She knew she was waiting for that strange throb to clutch at her heart again. She looked across at Aldo. He was thoughtfully painting the face of another semibreve and making it large and black. She sat down and dipped the ivory pen into the gaping mouth of the inkstand.
Ah, again! the throb! the throb! like a soft hand striking at her heart. And now a flutter as of an imprisoned bird!
"Aldo! Aldo!" she cried, falling forward with her face hidden on her arm. And her waving hair trailed over Chapter XVII, and blurred the waiting page.
XXI
Nancy stirred, sighed, and awoke.
In the room adjoining, Valeria was sobbing in Zio Giacomo's arms, and Aunt Carlotta was kissing Adèle, and Aldo was shaking hands with everybody.
Nancy could hear the whispering voices through the half-open door, and they pleased her. Then another sound fell on her ear, like the ticking of a slow clock—click, click, a gentle, peaceful, regular noise that soothed her. She turned her head and looked. It was the cradle. The Sister sat near it, dozing, with one elbow on the back of the chair and her hand supporting her head; the other hand was on the edge of the cradle. With gentle mechanical gesture, in her half sleep, she rocked it to and fro. Nancy smiled to herself, and the gentle clicking noise lulled her near to sleep again.
She felt utterly at peace—utterly happy. The waiting was over; the fear was over. Life opened wider portals over wider, shining lands. All longings were stilled; all empty places filled. Then with a soft tremor of joy she remembered her book. It was waiting for her where she had left it that evening when futurity had pulsed within her heart. The masterpiece that was to live called softly and the folded wings of the eagle stirred.
In the gently-rocking twilight of the cradle the baby opened its eyes and said: "I am hungry."
BOOK II
I
When eighteen thousand of the forty thousand francs were gone, Aldo said: "I must do something." And when eighteen thousand of the forty thousand francs were left, he said: "Something must be done." Carlo had washed his hands of him; all that Lady Sainsborough had sent him was her portrait, one "taken on the lawn with Fido," and another, "starting for my morning ride with Baron Cucciniello." "Flighty old lunatic!" said Aldo, throwing the pictures into the fire and digging at them with the poker. Then he called Nancy and told her how matters stood.
Nancy did not seem to realize that it made much difference. She crawled under the table and hid behind the green table-cloth. "Peek-a-boo!" The baby crawled after her and pulled her hair.
"Well, what are we going to do?" said Aldo.
"As soon as the baby can walk," replied Nancy, looking up at him from under the table, "I shall start my work again. As long as it is such a teeny, weeny, helpless lamb"—and she kissed the small, soft head on which the hair grew in yellow tufts here and there—"its mother is not going to be such a horrid (kiss), naughty (kiss), ugly (kiss) tigress (kiss, kiss) as to leave a poor little forlorn (kiss)–"
Aldo left the room, and nobody under the table noticed that he had gone.
He went to Zio Giacomo, who for Nancy's sake took him into his office to make architectural drawings and plans at a salary of two hundred francs a month.
At the end of the third week Aldo looked round the room where four other men were drawing plans, and observed them meditatively. Two were sallow and thin, one was sallow and fat, and one was red and fat. The sallow, thin ones had little hair, the sallow, fat one had no hair; the red, fat one wore glasses. They had all been here drawing plans for four, six, and twelve years at salaries between two hundred and six hundred and fifty francs a month.
Aldo made a calculation on his blotting-paper. Say he stayed five years. He would get 200 francs a month for the first two years = 4,800 francs; 300, or say 350, for the next two years = 8,400 francs; 400, or perhaps 450, for the following year = 5,400 francs. Totaclass="underline" 18,600 francs.
Eighteen thousand six hundred francs! So that, supposing he spent nothing, but went on living on what remained of Nancy's dot for five years (which was out of the question, of course, as it was not enough), at the end of five years he would find himself exactly where he was to-day, and just five years older. Probably thin and sallow; or fat and sallow; or red and fat, with glasses. It was preposterous. It was out of the question. Here he was to-day, with the eighteen thousand francs and the five years still before him.