CHAPTER III.
The next night, at the time of assembling specified in the invitationsto the masked ball, Fabio was still lingering in his palace, andstill allowing the black domino to lie untouched and unheeded onhis dressing-table. This delay was not produced by any change in hisresolution to go to the Melani Palace. His determination to be presentat the ball remained unshaken; and yet, at the last moment, he lingeredand lingered on, without knowing why. Some strange influence seemed tobe keeping him within the walls of his lonely home. It was as if thegreat, empty, silent palace had almost recovered on that night the charmwhich it had lost when its mistress died.
He left his own apartment and went to the bedroom where his infant childlay asleep in her little crib. He sat watching her, and thinking quietlyand tenderly of many past events in his life for a long time, thenreturned to his room. A sudden sense of loneliness came upon him afterhis visit to the child's bedside; but he did not attempt to raise hisspirits even then by going to the ball. He descended instead to hisstudy, lighted his reading-lamp, and then, opening a bureau, took fromone of the drawers in it the letter which Nanina had written to him.This was not the first time that a sudden sense of his solitude hadconnected itself inexplicably with the remembrance of the work-girl'sletter.
He read it through slowly, and when he had done, kept it open in hishand. "I have youth, titles, wealth," he thought to himself, sadly;"everything that is sought after in this world. And yet if I try tothink of any human being who really and truly loves me, I can rememberbut one--the poor, faithful girl who wrote these lines!"
Old recollections of the first day when he met with Nanina, of the firstsitting she had given him in Luca Lomi's studio, of the first visitto the neat little room in the by-street, began to rise more and morevividly in his mind. Entirely absorbed by them, he sat absently drawingwith pen and ink, on some sheets of letter-paper lying under his hand,lines and circles, and fragments of decorations, and vague remembrancesof old ideas for statues, until the sudden sinking of the flame of hislamp awoke his attention abruptly to present things.
He looked at his watch. It was close on midnight.
This discovery at last aroused him to the necessity of immediatedeparture. In a few minutes he had put on his domino and mask, and wason his way to the ball.
Before he reached the Melani Palace the first part of the entertainmenthad come to an end. The "Toy Symphony" had been played, the grotesquedance performed, amid universal laughter; and now the guests were, forthe most part, fortifying themselves in the Arcadian bowers for newdances, in which all persons present were expected to take part.The Marquis Melani had, with characteristic oddity, divided his twoclassical refreshment-rooms into what he termed the Light and HeavyDepartments. Fruit, pastry, sweetmeats, salads, and harmless drinks wereincluded under the first head, and all the stimulating liquors and solideatables under the last. The thirty shepherdesses had been, accordingto the marquis's order, equally divided at the outset of the eveningbetween the two rooms. But as the company began to crowd more andmore resolutely in the direction of the Heavy Department, ten of theshepherdesses attached to the Light Department were told off to assistin attending on the hungry and thirsty majority of guests who were notto be appeased by pastry and lemonade. Among the five girls who wereleft behind in the room for the light refreshments was Nanina. Thesteward soon discovered that the novelty of her situation made herreally nervous, and he wisely concluded that if he trusted her where thecrowd was greatest and the noise loudest, she would not only be utterlyuseless, but also very much in the way of her more confident andexperienced companions.
When Fabio arrived at the palace, the jovial uproar in the HeavyDepartment was at its height, and several gentlemen, fired by theclassical costumes of the shepherdesses, were beginning to speakLatin to them with a thick utterance, and a valorous contempt for allrestrictions of gender, number, and case. As soon as he could escapefrom the congratulations on his return to his friends, which poured onhim from all sides, Fabio withdrew to seek some quieter room. The heat,noise, and confusion had so bewildered him, after the tranquil life hehad been leading for many months past, that it was quite a reliefto stroll through the half deserted dancing-rooms, to the oppositeextremity of the great suite of apartments, and there to find himselfin a second Arcadian bower, which seemed peaceful enough to deserve itsname.
A few guests were in this room when he first entered it, but the distantsound of some first notes of dance music drew them all away. After acareless look at the quaint decorations about him, he sat down aloneon a divan near the door, and beginning already to feel the heat anddiscomfort of his mask, took it off. He had not removed it more thana moment before he heard a faint cry in the direction of a longrefreshment-table, behind which the five waiting-girls were standing. Hestarted up directly, and could hardly believe his senses, when he foundhimself standing face to face with Nanina.
Her cheeks had turned perfectly colorless. Her astonishment at seeingthe young nobleman appeared to have some sensation of terrormingled with it. The waiting-woman who happened to stand by her sideinstinctively stretched out an arm to support her, observing that shecaught at the edge of the table as Fabio hurried round to get behind itand speak to her. When he drew near, her head drooped on her breast, andshe said, faintly: "I never knew you were at Pisa; I never thought youwould be here. Oh, I am true to what I said in my letter, though I seemso false to it!"
"I want to speak to you about the letter--to tell you how carefully Ihave kept it, how often I have read it," said Fabio.
She turned away her head, and tried hard to repress the tears that wouldforce their way into her eyes "We should never have met," she said;"never, never have met again!"
Before Fabio could reply, the waiting-woman by Nanina's side interposed.
"For Heaven's sake, don't stop speaking to her here!" she exclaimed,impatiently. "If the steward or one of the upper servants was to comein, you would get her into dreadful trouble. Wait till to-morrow, andfind some fitter place than this."
Fabio felt the justice of the reproof immediately. He tore a leaf out ofhis pocketbook, and wrote on it, "I must tell you how I honor and thankyou for that letter. To-morrow--ten o'clock--the wicket-gate at theback of the Ascoli gardens. Believe in my truth and honor, Nanina, forI believe implicitly in yours." Having written these lines, he took fromamong his bunch of watch-seals a little key, wrapped it up in the note,and pressed it into her hand. In spite of himself his fingers lingeredround hers, and he was on the point of speaking to her again, when hesaw the waiting-woman's hand, which was just raised to motion him away,suddenly drop. Her color changed at the same moment, and she lookedfixedly across the table.
He turned round immediately, and saw a masked woman standing alone inthe room, dressed entirely in yellow from head to foot. She had a yellowhood, a yellow half-mask with deep fringe hanging down over her mouth,and a yellow domino, cut at the sleeves and edges into long flame-shapedpoints, which waved backward and forward tremulously in the light airwafted through the doorway. The woman's black eyes seemed to gleam withan evil brightness through the sight-holes of the mask, and the tawnyfringe hanging before her mouth fluttered slowly with every breath shedrew. Without a word or a gesture she stood before the table, and hergleaming black eyes fixed steadily on Fabio the instant he confrontedher. A sudden chill struck through him, as he observed that the yellowof the stranger's domino and mask was of precisely the same shade asthe yellow of the hangings and furniture which his wife had chosen aftertheir marriage for the decoration of her favorite sitting-room.
"The Yellow Mask!" whispered the waiting-girls nervously, crowdingtogether behind the table. "The Yellow Mask again!"
"Make her speak!"
"Ask her to have something!"
"This gentleman will ask her. Speak to her, sir. Do speak to her! Sheglides about in that fearful yellow dress like a ghost."
Fabio looked around mechanically at the girl who was whispering to him.He saw at the same time t
hat Nanina still kept her head turned away, andthat she had her handkerchief at her eyes. She was evidently strugglingyet with the agitation produced by their unexpected meeting, and was,most probably for that reason, the only person in the room not consciousof the presence of the Yellow Mask.
"Speak to her, sir. Do speak to her!" whispered two of the waiting-girlstogether.
Fabio turned again toward the table. The black eyes were still gleamingat him from behind the tawny yellow of the mask. He nodded to the girlswho had just spoken, cast one farewell look at Nanina, and moved downthe room to get round to the side of the table at which the Yellow Maskwas standing. Step by step as he moved the bright eyes followed him.Steadily and more steadily their evil light seemed to shine through andthrough him, as he turned the corner of the table and approached thestill, spectral figure.
He came close up to the woman, but she never moved; her eyes neverwavered for an instant. He stopped and tried to speak; but the chillstruck through him again. An overpowering dread, an unutterableloathing seized on him; all sense of outer things--the whispering of thewaiting-girls behind the table, the gentle cadence of the dance music,the distant hum of joyous talk--suddenly left him. He turned awayshuddering, and quitted the room.
Following the sound of the music, and desiring before all things nowto join the crowd wherever it was largest, he was stopped in one ofthe smaller apartments by a gentleman who had just risen from the cardtable, and who held out his hand with the cordiality of an old friend.
"Welcome back to the world, Count Fabio!" he began, gayly, then suddenlychecked himself. "Why, you look pale, and your hand feels cold. Not ill,I hope?"
"No, no. I have been rather startled--I can't say why--by a verystrangely dressed woman, who fairly stared me out of countenance."
"You don't mean the Yellow Mask?"
"Yes I do. Have you seen her?"
"Everybody has seen her; but nobody can make her unmask, or get her tospeak. Our host has not the slightest notion who she is; and our hostessis horribly frightened at her. For my part, I think she has given usquite enough of her mystery and her grim dress; and if my name, insteadof being nothing but plain Andrea D'Arbino, was Marquis Melani, I wouldsay to her: 'Madam, we are here to laugh and amuse ourselves; supposeyou open your lips, and charm us by appearing in a prettier dress!'"
During this conversation they had sat down together, with their backstoward the door, by the side of one of the card-tables. While D'Arbinowas speaking, Fabio suddenly felt himself shuddering again, and becameconscious of a sound of low breathing behind him.
He turned round instantly, and there, standing between them, and peeringdown at them, was the Yellow Mask!
Fabio started up, and his friend followed his example. Again thegleaming black eyes rested steadily on the young nobleman's face, andagain their look chilled him to the heart.
"Yellow Lady, do you know my friend?" exclaimed D'Arbino, with mocksolemnity.
There was no answer. The fatal eyes never moved from Fabio's face.
"Yellow Lady," continued the other, "listen to the music. Will you dancewith me?"
The eyes looked away, and the figure glided slowly from the room.
"My dear count," said D'Arbino, "that woman seems to have quite aneffect on you. I declare she has left you paler than ever. Come intothe supper-room with me, and have some wine; you really look as if youwanted it."
They went at once to the large refreshment-room. Nearly all the guestshad by this time begun to dance again. They had the whole apartment,therefore, almost entirely to themselves.
Among the decorations of the room, which were not strictly in accordancewith genuine Arcadian simplicity, was a large looking-glass, placedover a well-furnished sideboard. D'Arbino led Fabio in this direction,exchanging greetings as he advanced with a gentleman who stood near theglass looking into it, and carelessly fanning himself with his mask.
"My dear friend!" cried D'Arbino, "you are the very man to lead usstraight to the best bottle of wine in the palace. Count Fabio, let mepresent to you my intimate and good friend, the Cavaliere Finello, withwhose family I know you are well acquainted. Finello, the count is alittle out of spirits, and I have prescribed a good dose of wine. I seea whole row of bottles at your side, and I leave it to you to apply theremedy. Glasses there! three glasses, my lovely shepherdess with theblack eyes--the three largest you have got."
The glasses were brought; the Cavaliere Finello chose a particularbottle, and filled them. All three gentlemen turned round to thesideboard to use it as a table, and thus necessarily faced thelooking-glass.
"Now let us drink the toast of toasts," said D'Arbino. "Finello, CountFabio--the ladies of Pisa!"
Fabio raised the wine to his lips, and was on the point of drinking it,when he saw reflected in the glass the figure of the Yellow Mask. Theglittering eyes were again fixed on him, and the yellow-hooded headbowed slowly, as if in acknowledgment of the toast he was about todrink. For the third time the strange chill seized him, and he set downhis glass of wine untasted.
"What is the matter?" asked D'Arbino.
"Have you any dislike, count, to that particular wine?" inquired thecavaliere.
"The Yellow Mask!" whispered Fabio. "The Yellow Mask again!"
They all three turned round directly toward the door. But it was toolate--the figure had disappeared.
"Does any one know who this Yellow Mask is?" asked Finello. "One mayguess by the walk that the figure is a woman's. Perhaps it may be thestrange color she has chosen for her dress, or perhaps her stealthy wayof moving from room to room; but there is certainly something mysteriousand startling about her."
"Startling enough, as the count would tell you," said D'Arbino. "TheYellow Mask has been responsible for his loss of spirits and change ofcomplexion, and now she has prevented him even from drinking his wine."
"I can't account for it," said Fabio, looking round him uneasily; "butthis is the third room into which she has followed me--the third timeshe has seemed to fix her eyes on me alone. I suppose my nerves arehardly in a fit state yet for masked balls and adventures; the sight ofher seems to chill me. Who can she be?"
"If she followed me a fourth time," said Finello, "I should insist onher unmasking."
"And suppose she refused?" asked his friend
"Then I should take her mask off for her."
"It is impossible to do that with a woman," said Fabio. "I prefer tryingto lose her in the crowd. Excuse me, gentlemen, if I leave you to finishthe wine, and then to meet me, if you like, in the great ballroom."
He retired as he spoke, put on his mask, and joined the dancersimmediately, taking care to keep always in the most crowded corner ofthe apartment. For some time this plan of action proved successful, andhe saw no more of the mysterious yellow domino. Ere long, however, somenew dances were arranged, in which the great majority of the persons inthe ballroom took part; the figures resembling the old English countrydances in this respect, that the ladies and gentlemen were placed inlong rows opposite to each other. The sets consisted of about twentycouples each, placed sometimes across, and sometimes along theapartment; and the spectators were all required to move away on eitherside, and range themselves close to the walls. As Fabio among otherscomplied with this necessity, he looked down a row of dancers waitingduring the performance of the orchestral prelude; and there, watchinghim again, from the opposite end of the lane formed by the gentlemen onone side and the ladies on the other, he saw the Yellow Mask.
He moved abruptly back, toward another row of dancers, placed at rightangles to the first row; and there again; at the opposite end of the gaylane of brightly-dressed figures, was the Yellow Mask. He slipped intothe middle of the room, but it was only to find her occupying his formerposition near the wall, and still, in spite of his disguise, watchinghim through row after row of dancers. The persecution began to growintolerable; he felt a kind of angry curiosity mingling now with thevague dread that had hitherto oppressed him. Finello's advice recurredto his me
mory; and he determined to make the woman unmask at allhazards. With this intention he returned to the supper-room in which hehad left his friends.
They were gone, probably to the ballroom, to look for him. Plenty ofwine was still left on the sideboard, and he poured himself out a glass.Finding that his hand trembled as he did so, he drank several moreglasses in quick succession, to nerve himself for the approachingencounter with the Yellow Mask. While he was drinking he expectedevery moment to see her in the looking-glass again; but she neverappeared--and yet he felt almost certain that he had detected hergliding out after him when he left the ballroom.
He thought it possible that she might be waiting for him in one of thesmaller apartments, and, taking off his mask, walked through severalof them without meeting her, until he came to the door of therefreshment-room in which Nanina and he had recognized each other. Thewaiting-woman behind the table, who had first spoken to him, caughtsight of him now, and ran round to the door.
"Don't come in and speak to Nanina again," she said, mistaking thepurpose which had brought him to the door. "What with frightening herfirst, and making her cry afterward, you have rendered her quite unfitfor her work. The steward is in there at this moment, very good-natured,but not very sober. He says she is pale and red-eyed, and not fit to bea shepherdess any longer, and that, as she will not be missed now, shemay go home if she likes. We have got her an old cloak, and she is goingto try and slip through the rooms unobserved, to get downstairs andchange her dress. Don't speak to her, pray, or you will only make hercry again; and what is worse, make the steward fancy--"
She stopped at that last word, and pointed suddenly over Fabio'sshoulder.
"The Yellow Mask!" she exclaimed. "Oh, sir, draw her away into theballroom, and give Nanina a chance of getting out!"
Fabio turned directly, and approached the Mask, who, as they looked ateach other, slowly retreated before him. The waiting-woman, seeing theyellow figure retire, hastened back to Nanina in the refreshment-room.
Slowly the masked woman retreated from one apartment to another tillshe entered a corridor brilliantly lighted up and beautifully ornamentedwith flowers. On the right hand this corridor led to the ballroom; onthe left to an ante-chamber at the head of the palace staircase. TheYellow Mask went on a few paces toward the left, then stopped. Thebright eyes fixed themselves as before on Fabio's face, but only for amoment. He heard a light step behind him, and then he saw the eyesmove. Following the direction they took, he turned round, and discoveredNanina, wrapped up in the old cloak which was to enable her to getdownstairs unobserved.
"Oh, how can I get out? how can I get out?" cried the girl, shrinkingback affrightedly as she saw the Yellow Mask.
"That way," said Fabio, pointing in the direction of the ballroom."Nobody will notice you in the cloak; it will only be thought some newdisguise." He took her arm as he spoke, to reassure her, and continuedin a whisper, "Don't forget to-morrow."
At the same moment he felt a hand laid on him. It was the hand of themasked woman, and it put him back from Nanina.
In spite of himself, he trembled at her touch, but still retainedpresence of mind enough to sign to the girl to make her escape. Witha look of eager inquiry in the direction of the mask, and a halfsuppressed exclamation of terror, she obeyed him, and hastened awaytoward the ballroom.
"We are alone," said Fabio, confronting the gleaming black eyes, andreaching out his hand resolutely toward the Yellow Mask. "Tell me whoyou are, and why you follow me, or I will uncover your face, and solvethe mystery for myself."
The woman pushed his hand aside, and drew back a few paces, but neverspoke a word. He followed her. There was not an instant to be lost, forjust then the sound of footsteps hastily approaching the corridor becameaudible.
"Now or never," he whispered to himself, and snatched at the mask.
His arm was again thrust aside; but this time the woman raised herdisengaged hand at the same moment, and removed the yellow mask.
The lamps shed their soft light full on her face.
It was the face of his dead wife.