All the world seemed to have diminished in value. The nomad woman had armed herself anew with courage, and planned the route of her next professional tour. From the thought of the hero lying in his coffin, a lofty inspiration came to all noble hearts. La Foscarina knew how to receive it and to convert it to the thoughts and actions of daily life.
It happened that her beloved surprised her at the time she was packing her familiar books, the little cherished treasures from which she never parted—things that for her possessed the power of imparting dreams or consolation.
"What are you doing?" Stelio asked.
"I am making ready to leave the country."
She saw a change pass over his face, but she did not waver.
"And where are you going?"
"A long distance from here—I shall cross the Atlantic."
Stelio became slightly paler. But suddenly he was seized with doubt; he thought she was not speaking the truth; that she wished only to prove him; that her decision was not absolutely fixed, and that she expected to be persuaded to remain. The unlooked-for disillusion on the banks of Murano had left its mark on his heart.
"Have you really decided on this, then, so suddenly?"
She was simple, sure of herself, and prompt in her reply.
"My decision is not exactly sudden. My idleness has lasted too long, and I have the responsibility of all my company on my shoulders. While I am waiting for the Theater of Apollo to be opened, and for The Victory of Man to be finished, I shall go once more to bid farewell to the Barbarians. I must work for your beautiful enterprise. We shall need a great deal of gold to restore the treasures of Mycen?. And all that is connected with your work must appear with unrivaled magnificence. I do not wish Cassandra's mask to be of some base metal. But, above all, I wish to satisfy your desire that for the first three days the populace shall have free admission to the theater, and after that on one day of every week. My faith aids me to leave you. Time flies. It is necessary that each person should be in his own place, ready and full of strength, when the great day comes. I shall not fail you. I hope that you will be satisfied with your friend. I am going away to work, and certainly the task will be more difficult than I ever have found it before. But you, my poor boy, what a burden you have to bear! What an effort we demand from you! What great things we expect from you! Ah, you know it!"
She had begun courageously, in a tone that was almost blithe, trying to seem what above all she must be—a good and faithful instrument at the service of a powerful genius, a strong and willing companion. But a wave of repressed emotion would rise in her throat and stop her speech. Her pauses grew longer, and her hand wandered uncertainly among her books and treasures.
"May everything be ever propitious to your work! That is the only thing that really matters—all else is nothing. Let us lift our hearts!"
She shook her head, with its two wild wings, and held out both hands to her beloved. He, pale and grave, clasped them close. In her dear eyes, that were like sparkling springs of water, he saw a flash of the same beauty that had dazzled him one evening in the room where the fire had roared, and he had listened to the development of the two great melodies.
"I love you and I have faith in you," he said; "I will not fail you and you will not fail me. Something springs from us that shall be stronger than life itself."
"A great melancholy," she answered.
Before her, on a table, lay the familiar book, with pages turned down and margins full of scribbled notes; here and there a petal, a flower, a blade of grass lay between the leaves—signs of the sorrow that had asked and obtained from them the consolation of relief or of forgetfulness. Before her were strewn all the little cherished objects dear to her, strange, varied; nearly all were things of no value: a doll's foot, a silver heart, an ivory compass, a watch without a dial, a small iron lantern, a single earring, a flint, a key, a seal, and other trifles; but all were consecrated by some memory, animated by some superstitious belief, touched by the finger of love or of death, relics that could speak only to one of war and of truce, of hope and of sadness. Among these objects were figures to which artists had entrusted their secret confession, signs and enigmas, profound allegories, hiding truths that, like the sun, could not be gazed at by mortal eyes.
The young man put his arm around his friend's waist, and silently they went to the window. They saw the far-distant sky, the trees, the towers, the end of the lagoon over which Twilight was bending her face, while the Euganean hills were as quiet and blue as if they were the wings of earth folded in the peacefulness of eventide.
They turned toward each other, looking into the depths of each other's eyes. Then they embraced, as if to seal a silent compact.
Yes, all the world seemed to have diminished in value.
Stelio Effrena had asked of the widow of Richard Wagner that the two young Italian men that had carried the unconscious hero from the vessel to the shore that night in November, with four of their friends, might have granted to them the honor of bearing the coffin from the death-chamber to the boat and from the boat to the hearse. This request was granted.
It was the sixteenth of February,............