At last they were alone again in their bedroom, where the silver lamp burned before the Mother of Jesus, the holy grieving Mother. Cesare was depressed. But Luisella opened the glass door of the wardrobe at once, where she kept her most valuable things, and stood for a little searching in that half-light. Then she pulled two or three dark leather jewel-cases out.
'Here they are,' she said, offering the jewels to her husband.
'Oh, Luisella! Luisella!' he cried out, agonized.
'I give them to you willingly, for the sake of your honour. I would not dare to keep these stones when we are in danger of failing in honesty. Take them. But by all that has been sweet in our past, by all that may be frightful in our future, by the love you bore me, that I bear you, for our dear child's sake, whose head you wept over this evening, I implore you with my whole heart, as one prays to Christ at the altar, give me a promise.'
'Luisella, you want to kill me!' he cried out, putting his hands through his hair.
'Do you promise to leave all your trade affairs in my hands--debts and dues, buying and selling?'
'Will you promise to give me all the money you have or may get, and not try to get money without my knowledge?'
'Promise to believe me, only to listen to my advice and what I say.'
'Promise that no one will have more influence than me; promise to obey me as you did your mother when you were a child.'
'I swear it to the Madonna, who is listening to us.'
Both piously knelt before the holy images. They said the Lord's Prayer in a whisper, louder at the end. She raised her eyes, and said, 'Lead us not into temptation,' and he rejoined, very humbly and disconsolately, 'Lead us not into temptation.'
The summer rain beat sadly on the pavement; two broad yellow gutters went down the sides of Nardones Road; the sickening sulphurous smell of August storms was in the air. In San Ferdinando Square the cabs had their hoods up, and were shiny all over with rain, dripping on all sides. The long thin horses stood with their heads down, drenched to the bones, and running down with water. The drivers sat huddled up, their shapeless hats over their eyes, keeping their heads down and hands spasmodically fixed in the pockets of their torn capes, as they patiently bore the deluge from the sky. All around was dreary-looking--the royal palace, the porch of San Francesco di Paolo Church, the Prefecture, barracks, and large coffee-houses--all were dreary, in spite of the grandeur of the buildings and the numbers of lights behind the plate-glass windows. There was the majestic edifice of San Carlo Theatre also; but the whole night landscape was wrapped up in the noisy tempest that never rested, and seemed to draw new force from its weariness to beat on houses, streets, and men. There were few passers-by, and these looked like unhappy folks' ghosts walking under dripping umbrellas, or, having no umbrella, they scraped along the wall with coat-collar raised and soft hat soaked with rain. Some few wanderers turned the corner from Toledo Street into Nardones Road, which is a broad enough street in the best quarter of the town; but it has an equivocal appearance, all the same, as if it was uninhabited and unsafe. It had no shady corners, but shutter-closed windows, ill-lit balconies, and half-open doors, where the gaze was checked by a dark passage, had a suspicious appearance. Some great door now and then broke through this doubtful impression, from the brightness of the gas and width of its courtyard, but a shop with far from clean windows, obscured by reddish stuff curtains carefully drawn, a feeble light coming through and small or large shadows showing behind, gave a new feeling of suspicion and uneasiness to the minds of people going home that way who might be bending under the weight of cares and long fatigue.