I remained hidden here for some time and when I learned that he had accepted the inevitable I bought this house and settled here. However, I am still slightly apprehensive, for he loved me greatly, and if his present mistress hasn’t the skill to hold him, I may find myself burdened with him once more.”

“In that case,” said Salvator, laughing and holding out his arms to her, “keep me here as your knight I shall cleave him in twain if he appears.”

“No, thank you. I shall protect myself quite well without you.”

“So you don’t want me to stay?” said Salvator, whose natural gaiety had been somewhat heightened by a few glasses of maraschino, and who had completely forgotten his friend and his own solemn promises.

“Oh yes, stay as long as you wish,” replied Madame Floriani, giving him a little pat on the cheek, “but on the old footing.”

“Let it be on a war footing, so that I can rebel.”

“Take care,” said she, freeing herself from his arms, “if you are no longer my friend as you were in the old days, I shall send you away. Let us go and find your travelling companion who must be bored there, all alone, in the drawing room.”

Karol who had been leaning against a column had heard all this dialogue. It seemed to him now that he was coming out of a dream and he moved away so as not to be accused of eavesdropping, whereas in reality he had been standing there lost to his surroundings. He passed his hand over his brow as if to efface the memory of a nightmare. The involuntary effort he had made to enter into the mind of a being so stormy and anarchic, a mixture of things so magnificent and so deplorable, had shattered his soul. He could not understand how Salvator’s passion could grow stronger as this woman disclosed her successive errors more and more boldly, and how the very things that would have repelled him, attracted this irresponsible young man like a moth attracted by light.

He felt incapable of facing them. He was afraid of being unable to hide his displeasure from Salvator and his pity from Madame Floriani He left hastily through another door and, meeting Celio, asked him to show him the room which they had been good enough to place at his disposal. The boy took him to the upper floor, then to a handsome apartment where two beds, beautifully fresh and downy, had already been prepared for him and Salvator. The prince asked the boy to tell his mother that, feeling exhausted, he had retired, and begged her to accept his respects and his apologies.

Remaining alone, he tried to collect his thoughts and recover his composure, but he found it impossible to regain his habitual calmness of mind. It seemed as if a brutal influence had deeply disturbed his inner peace. He determined to lie down and go to sleep, but he sighed and tossed in vain in his luxurious bed. Sleep would not come and he heard midnight strike and he still had not slept a wink. Nor did Salvator appear.

8.

And yet Salvator Albani was a great sleeper. Like all fit, robust, active and easy-going men he ate voraciously, tired, himself out the livelong day, and did not need much persuasion to go to sleep as quickly as the prince who, because of his regular habits and indifferent health, was obliged not to keep late nights.

If however since first they began travelling together, the occasion arose when Salvator’s evening engagement was unusually long, he never failed to go two or three times and reassure himself that his child (as he called him) was sleeping quietly. He had a paternal instinct and though he was no more than four or five years older than Karol, he cared for him just as he would have done for his own son, so great was his need of serving and helping people who were weaker than himself. In this there was some resemblance between Madame Floriani and him, and that is why he could appreciate better than anyone else the deep love she bore her children.

In spite of everything, Salvator for once forgot his usual concern, and Madame Floriani, unaware of the attentions and considerations to which the prince was accustomed from his friend, did nothing to remind him to return to Karol.

“Your friend has already left us,” she said to him after receiving Celio’s message. “He appears to be unwell What did you say his name was? How long have you been travelling together? One has the impression that he is grieving over something…”

When Salvator had answered these questions she continued: “Poor boy! He interests me. It is beautiful to love a mother so much and mourn for her so long. His face and manners went straight to my heart. Ah, if my dear Celio lost me, how sad for him! Who would love him as I do?”

“One should adore one’s children and live for them, as you do,” said Salvator, “but one must not accustom them overmuch to living for themselves or for the tender mother who dedicates herself to them. There are grave dangers and drawbacks in not giving their minds all the development of which they are capable, and my friend is an example of this. He is an adorable being, but unhappy.”

“How is that? Why? Explain it to me. When it is a matter of children, character or education, I am always ready to listen and consider.”

“Oh, my friend has a strange character and I could not possibly define it, but, in a word, I can tell you that he takes everything to excess, affection as well as aversion, happiness as well as sorrow.”

“Well, that means an artistic nature.”

“That’s exactly it, but he has not been sufficiently developed in that direction. His emotions are intense and keen, but they are too generalised for art. He is exclusive in his tastes, but he is not dominated by a special passion which would occupy him and compel him to abstract himself from real life.”

“Well, that is a feminine nature.”

“Yes, but not like yours, my dear. Although he is capable of as much passion, devotion, delicacy and rapture as the tenderest woman…”

“In that case he is indeed to be pitied, for he will go through life searching in vain for a heart which will match his.”

“Ah, Lucrezia, did you yourself search far enough? If you only wished, your quest need go no further.”

“Tell me more about your friend.”

“No, I am not talking about him, but about myself”

“I understand and I shall answer you presently, but I don’t like to change the subject every minute. Tell me this first while asserting that there are similarities between us, why do you say that your friend is so different from me?”

“Because there are a thousand nuances in your mind, and he has none. Work, children, friendship, the countryside, flowers, music – everything that is good and beautiful – you feel it all so deeply that you can always find something to distract and console you.”

“That’s true.