Somerset Maugham - The Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (33 Works in One Edition)

No one was in the room. We waited, holding our breath. At last Giulia entered. She walked to the window and looked out, and went back to the door. She sat down, but sprang up restlessly, and again looked out of window. Whom was she expecting?

She walked up and down the room, and her face was full of anxiety. I watched intently. At last a light knock was heard; she opened the door and a man came in. A small, slight, thin man, with a quantity of corn-coloured hair falling over his shoulders, and a pale, fair skin. He had blue eyes, and a little golden moustache. He looked hardly twenty, but I knew he was older.

He sprang forward, seizing her in his arms, and he pressed her to his heart, but she pushed him back.

'Oh, Giorgio, you must go,' she cried. 'He has come back.'

'Your husband?'

'I hoped you would not come. Go quickly. If he found you he would kill us both.'

'Tell me you love me, Giulia.'

'Oh yes, I love you with all my heart and soul.'

For a moment they stood still in one another's arms, then she tore herself away.

'But go, for God's sake!'

'I go, my love. Good-bye!'

'Good-bye, beloved!'

He took her in his arms again, and she placed hers around his neck. They kissed one another passionately on the lips; she kissed him as she had never kissed me.

'Oh!' I gave a cry of rage, and leaped out of my concealment. In a bound I had reached him. They hardly knew I was there; and I had plunged my dagger in his neck. Giulia gave a piercing shriek as he fell with a groan. The blood spattered over my hand. Then I looked at her. She ran from me with terror-stricken face, her eyes starting from her head. I rushed to her and she shrieked again, but Fabio caught hold of my arm.

'Not her, not her too!'

I wrenched my hand away from him, and then—then as I saw her pallid face and the look of deathly terror—I stopped. I could not kill her.

'Lock that door,' I said to Fabio, pointing to the one from which we had come. Then, looking at her, I screamed,—

'Harlot!'

I called to Fabio, and we left the room. I locked the door, and she remained shut in with her lover....

I called my servants and bade them follow me, and went out. I walked proudly, surrounded by my retainers, and I came to the house of Bartolomeo Moratini. He had just finished dinner, and was sitting with his sons. They rose as they saw me.

'Ah, Filippo, you have returned.' Then, seeing my pale face, they cried, 'But what is it? What has happened?'

And Bartolomeo broke in.

'What is that on your hand, Filippo?'

I stretched it out, so that he might see.

'That—that is the blood of your daughter's lover.'

'Oh!'

'I found them together, and I killed the adulterer.'

Bartolomeo kept silence a moment, then he said,—

'You have done well, Filippo.' He turned to his sons. 'Scipione, give me my sword.'

He girded it on, and then he spoke to me.

'Sir,' he said, 'I beg you to wait here till I come.'

I bowed.

'Sir, I am your servant.'

'Scipione, Alessandro, follow me!'

And accompanied by his sons, he left the room, and I remained alone.

The servants peeped in at the door, looking at me as if I were some strange beast, and fled when I turned round. I walked up and down, up and down; I looked out of window. In the street the people were going to and fro, singing, and talking as if nothing had happened. They did not know that death was flying through the air; they did not know that the happiness of living men had gone for ever.

At last I heard the steps again, and Bartolomeo Moratini entered the room, followed by his sons; and all three were very grave.

'Sir,' he said, 'the stain on your honour and mine has been effaced.'

I bowed more deeply than before.

'Sir, I am your very humble servant.'

'I thank you that you allowed me to do my duty as a father; and I regret that a member of my family should have shown herself unworthy of my name and yours. I will detain you no longer.'

I bowed again, and left them.

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I WALKED back to my house. It was very silent, and as I passed up the stairs the servants shrunk back with averted faces, as if they were afraid to look at me.

'Where is Fabio?' I asked.

A page whispered timidly,—

'In the chapel.'

I turned on my heel, and passed through the rooms, one after another, till I came to the chapel door. I pushed it open and entered. A dim light came through the painted windows, and I could hardly see. In the centre were two bodies covered with a cloth, and their heads were lighted by the yellow gleam of candles. At their feet knelt an old man, praying. It was Fabio.

I advanced and drew back the cloth; and I fell on my knees. Giulia looked as if she were sleeping. I had so often leant over her, watching the regular heaving of the breast, and sometimes I had thought her features as calm and relaxed as if she were dead. But now the breast would no more rise and fall, and its wonderful soft whiteness was disfigured by a gaping wound. Her eyes were closed and her lips half parted, and the only difference from life was the fallen jaw. Her face was very pale; the rich waving hair encircled it as with an aureole.

I looked at him, and he, too, was pale, and his fair hair contrasted wonderfully with hers. He looked so young!

Then, as I knelt there, and the hours passed slowly, I thought of all that had happened, and I tried to understand. The dim light from the window gradually failed, and the candles in the darkness burnt out more brightly; each was surrounded by a halo of light, and lit up the dead faces, throwing into deeper night the rest of the chapel.

Little by little I seemed to see into the love of these two which had been so strong, that no ties of honour, faith, or truth had been able to influence it. And this is what I imagined, trying to console myself.

When she was sixteen, I thought, they married her to an old man she had never seen, and she met her husband's cousin, a boy no older than herself. And the love started and worked its way. But the boy lived on his rich cousin's charity; from him he had received a home and protection and a thousand kindnesses; he loved against his will, but he loved all the same. And she, I thought, had loved like a woman, passionately, thoughtless of honour and truth. In the sensual violence of her love she had carried him away, and he had yielded. Then with enjoyment had come remorse, and he had torn himself away from the temptress and fled.

I hardly knew what had happened when she was left alone, pining for her lover. Scandal said evil things.... Had she, too, felt remorse and tried to kill her love, and had the attempt failed? And was it then she flung herself into dissipation to drown her trouble? Perhaps he told her he did not love her, and she in despair may have thrown herself in the arms of other lovers. But he loved her too strongly to forget her; at last he could not bear the absence and came back. And again with enjoyment came remorse, and, ashamed, he fled, hating himself, despising her.

The years passed by, and her husband died. Why did he not come back to her? Had he lost his love and was he afraid? I could not understand....

Then she met me. Ah, I wondered what she felt. Did she love me? Perhaps his long absence had made her partly forget him, and she thought he had forgotten her. She fell in love with me, and I—I loved her with all my heart. I knew she loved me then; she must have loved me! But he came back. He may have thought himself cured, he may have said that he could meet her coldly and indifferently. Had I not said the same? But as they saw one another the old love burst out, again it burnt them with consuming fire, and Giulia hated me because I had made her faithless to the lover of her heart.