We are in Piacenza now. It happened here, the unfolding of The Thought — and the frost. Ever since the encounter in the Five Cucumbers any soul-saving project of mine would have been unseasonable. But the door kept banging in my mind with the cry " have it over — have it over." And so I did, and so it is.
There was moonlight, and there had been a heavenly drive from nine until midnight along the wide white road, the vast fertile gardens of the plain on either side sending up sweet homey odours of hay and wild rose, and wonderful nightingales in the hedges singing me good luck as we swept past. I never realised before what a motorist I had become, enjoying as I did this broad way that led to destruction. There seemed two of rae. One was in a covert coat exulting in the steady throbbing of the engine, the swift rush through the night, the dangerous twists as we made way for sleeping drivers, the power, the mightiness of this unruly beast which John controlled. The other me was a sick little thing afraid of the road, of the distant obstacles looming up before us that ceased to be distant as instantly as we saw them; of John, of herself, of what must be said when the run was over. And yet the two went on through the night, snuffing in the air, sometimes singing together, their voices in perfect harmony, sometimes calling a greeting to the patrons of a wayside caffè who rose to look, lunged forward to answer, and stood in the silent streets watching the gleam of our rear light as we winked past them.
When we came upon the larger towns, Modena, Reggio, Parma, many towered, glistening in the white light, we were halted momentarily by the city gates, one sleepy custom officer making a poor show of examining our luggage, while his brother in the business swung open the iron barriers. At Parma John shouted awake a vendor of gasoline, and filled up the tank while the me in the covert coat scurried hastily about the town for a flask of the real Parma violets. She came back without them, and at the farmacia they may be still discussing the oddity of her demand. Then on we went into the sweet, singing moonlight.
It was John, after all who opened the subject, aided by the proprietor of the San Marco, who had so modernised his hostelry as to build a horror of a cosy comer in my huge room hoping to gladden the eye of the chance American. I had not expected it to happen that way, but when John exclaimed with a good deal of sentiment that this was more like home than any room he had entered for weeks, sighing, I did not remind him that the crazy draperies had never in any way filled a comer of our lives ; instead I went to him quite gently and whispered in his ear. He was only puzzled and thought he hadn't heard aright. I spoke aloud then, standing up before him, and very careful about the cracks in my voice.
" Yes, John, you have heard it straight, I do. I want to go home. It calls to me. All through the night there has been a crying in my heart for home. And I must tell you, John; just as I told you when I wanted to go away, now I must tell you when I want to go back. We've had a nice trip, dear, but it has been a long time away and — it's very cool at home in August, John."
I stopped for breath, I might have saved it, he misunderstood. " You'll be all right in the morning, child, you must take my room, it's the cosy comer that's upset you." Again the ludicrous! But I seized his arm with both my hands and talked on rapidly.
" No, John, it's not the cosy comer, they get full of dust, I never liked them. It's something else you don't quite seem to realise. You don't quite seem to appreciate just what I am offering you. We'll go home by Genoa on that boat, and that John, dear, will be the end of all this foolishness. That's what it is. You see, dear John, my eyes are opened. Say you are happy, John, please say it."
He looked at me curiously, and when he spoke it was in his office voice. " And so you're backing out. And why? Just tell me that. And why? "
" This is the better way, the tires don't last forever, and we've accomplished quite enough. We've learned a great deal, John."
He shook me off. " Accomplished ! " was that John's voice, not hot, but cold with anger. " We've accomplished nothing. We are half way through this stunt, we've everything our way. Our plans worked splendidly, yet here you are, right on the edge of Italy, crying like a quitter to give it up. I tell you I'll not do it."
I stood petrified by the thing I had feared, but for which I was not at all prepared. How largely is the element of hope a part of woman ! " John, you must be careful. You surely do not urge that we go on when I, I, your wife, would give it up. Think, John, think."
" I don't need to think," John retorted, walking up and down. " I tell you I want to go on, and do what we have undertaken. It may be for weal and it may be for woe, but you and I will take the chances per agreement."
I followed him. We were going about in circles.
"You command me," I cried out.
" I do," he flung back.
I fell into our nation's stigma, the cosy comer, and he stood over me with his anger once more under control talking persuasively.
" It*s the best thing that ever happened to us yet, why stop it now? It's making a woman of you and a manlier man of me."
My eyes flashed and he resented it.
" There is a kind of people," he continued slowly, " who go about projecting plans and weakly withdrawing them. We have a name for them back in America. Nobody likes it, nobody would be it, nor have a wife, not even a wife, a short sport."
I rose right up out of the cosy comer. It was a mighty moment. " John Ward, go on to Paris, but I think you'll find in the years to come that a taller wife can be a shorter sport."
John gave no sign of comprehension. He scarcely heeded. He had won his point.
Chapter XIII
John bears no malice — when he has his way. He even makes excuses for my shortcomings, and let me sleep into the morning blaming himself for the long run which wore upon my nerves. He never knew how little that wild ride had caused my lapsing into lazy hours. Nobody knew in all the Albergo San Marco but myself and the night watchman.
One may judge how very art nouveau the San Marco had become when an all-night waiter was introduced along with the innovations in twisted electroliers and ash trays made out of curving ladies. I had not expected the waiter. It is quite bad enough to steal through the empty stone corridors of an hotel in a kimono over your nightie with only space staring at you and making hideous faces where your bedroom candle throws no gleam. But to be confronted right in the door of your destination — the reading room — by a sleepy man in shirt sleeves who, "always the politeness," struggled into his coat at your approach (although you yourself had nothing at all to struggle into), and — well, such a turn of affairs is altogether too nerve racking, especially when you love your husband, and yet are fleeing from him with a breaking heart.
All those things happened to me after I had put down in my book of inner thoughts the dreadful doings of the night, and John was coughing away in the next room — he says he coughs, not snores. First the resolve had come to me after some tears, much fierce indignation, and fine speeches, both to John and to Mrs. Baring. Oh, had they but been present! It was not a crazy resolve or a hasty one, but a very simply formed desire to take the boat from Genoa and to take it quite alone. I didn't mean by that to charter it, but to go without John and without clothes, shorn of my husband and my vanity, home to work.
Everything was planned systematically. Nothing was done without reason. The midnight prowl to the reading-room, half clad, was emblematic of my final leave taking. The sleeping watchman roused to unusual activity represented but the first of the obstacles that I would have to overcome. This was mastered by a bribe, or the promise of one. I never have my purse when wearing a kimono, but he understood.
" Silence is all I ask of you," I told him, "please hold the candle and get the key to the reading-room door."
He did delightedly. He hoped It was going to be an intrigue and asked if he should light the upper hall. I was very stern with him then, and he brought the papers, the ones from Genoa, later found the column for me, and eventually explained what boats were departing and what ones coming in. When he named the outward bound ones he ran away from me, and for those that were entering port he bounded back. He was enjoying my clandestine meeting
with the newspapers much more than I was, for it is not easy to get the sailings straight, and when I thought how John had always done this for me the tears rushed down like a tidal wave all over the North German Lloyd and blinded me, so that the watchman waiter had to tell the gentilissima signora after all that this day which was dawning being Monday she could so easily get the boat of Thursday the Königin Luise and sail away from sorrow.
At this gentle prodding for the truth on the part of the romantic waiter I was again severe with him, and yet again was forced humbly to beg his silence.
Intrigue has its price. He obeyed me to the letter, but in the hope of further developments dogged my footsteps all the morning, and when my fascinated eyes met his he would roll his own, drop the left lid and slyly lay a finger on his lips. John almost caught him as he was bringing in my breakfast, did so, in fact. The wink was too far on the droop to be withdrawn, but with rare presence of mind he worked the other boldly and continued doing so, first the right and then the left like a poor, nervous, twitching wretch, instead of the night errand that he was. His interest in ray welfare hastened our departure. I myself would have stayed on a day in this quaint town with its beautiful churches which no one knows, but in fear that I might miss the Königin Luise he dwelt upon the dangers of the mountains, the suddenness of the tums, the overhanging rocks, until John who would rather face a danger than eat a lobster grew frantic to press on.
John and I were not bad friends. He was all gentleness, cloaking his satisfaction at the divorcing of me with extra touches of compassion. I, more in sorrow than in anger, accepted what he offered me, sure that my sweetness would leave a deeper memory and a bitterer one when he was free. When he was free! Oh, heaven! Always in my thoughts it has been I who would enjoy that blessing. I had not dreamed that John would prize the privilege also, and now he fights for it, fights for one moment of grass widowerhood, that in the next he may be bound again. Prometheus bound! Was it a vulture that did claw him then, or was it a giraffe?
(Note: I find at times when overmastered by emotion a tendency to blank verse. I regret that the humiliating cause of these metrics prevents their repetition to the Minerva Club.)
Anyway, we left at noon, rolling out from a real garage, part of the real hotel, our tank full of gasoline, and more in a demijohnaj ready for a hundred mile drive, over the Apennines once more, to Genoa.
The watchman waiter ran beside us to point out the road, and my last look over my shoulder embraced a vision of the creature making mad gestures indicating silence.
Friday, May 25.- We left Milan at five o'clock, scarcely half awake, having enjoyed buth three hours' rest. It rained heavily; but the road was good and level, and we reached Lodi, so celebrated for the battle fought by Napoleon, in time for breakfast; for which, however, we payed dearly, and enjoyed but an indifferent meal. Parmasan cheese, so much esteemed, is the production of this place. On arriving at the banks of the Po, we were informed that it would not be safe to cross it for some time, the wind, which was then blowing violently, rendering the stream as rough as the sea; and the wooden bridge having been, a short time before, carried away by the floods occasioned by the late continued rains. No better situation offering itself, we took our seats on the bench of the custom-house, and rather impatiently watched the tide for an hour and a half, in that cold and bleak resting-place; but this by way of variety. At lenght, however, we were enabled to cross the river in a small boat, arranging for Armstrong and the carriages to follow. We were fourteen minutes in making the passage; but Armstrong and the carriages two hours and a half. This detention obliged us to determine on remaining to-morrow at Piacenza, a dull town, not in the least assimilating with its name.
