Chapter 89: The Bandit: V
But Luigi raised his head proudly. As for Teresa, her eyes sparkled when she thought of all the fine dresses and beautiful jewelry she could buy with this purse of gold.
Cucumetto was cunning and perceptive, and this look from Teresa showed him that she was susceptible to temptation. He returned to the forest, pausing several times along the way, supposedly to salute his protectors.
Several days passed, and they neither saw nor heard of Cucumetto.
The carnival season was approaching. The Count of San-Felice announced a grand masked ball, to which all the distinguished people in Rome were invited. Teresa desperately wanted to see this ball. Luigi asked his patron, the steward, for permission that she and he might attend among the household servants. Permission was granted.
The ball was given by the count for the particular pleasure of his daughter Carmela, whom he adored. Carmela was exactly Teresa’s age and build, and Teresa was as beautiful as Carmela. On the evening of the ball, Teresa wore her best, her most brilliant hair ornaments and gayest glass beads, dressed in the traditional costume of women from the nearby towns. Luigi wore the very picturesque outfit of Roman peasants on holidays. They both mingled, as they had permission to do, with the servants and peasants.
The celebration was magnificent. Not only was the villa brilliantly illuminated, but thousands of colored lanterns hung from the garden trees. The palace soon overflowed onto the terraces, and the terraces onto the garden paths. At each crossroad was an orchestra and tables spread with refreshments. Guests stopped, formed dance groups, and danced wherever they pleased.
Carmela was dressed like a woman from a distant town. Her cap was embroidered with pearls, the pins in her hair were gold and diamonds, her belt was Turkish silk with large embroidered flowers, her bodice and skirt were cashmere, her apron was Indian muslin, and the buttons of her corset were jewels.
Two of her companions were similarly dressed in regional costumes. Four young men from the richest and noblest families in Rome accompanied them with that Italian ease which has no parallel in any other country. They were dressed as peasants from various towns. Needless to say, these peasant costumes, like those of the young women, were brilliant with gold and jewels.
Carmela wished to form a dance group, but there was one lady missing. She looked around, but none of the guests wore a costume similar to her own or those of her companions. The Count of San-Felice pointed out Teresa, who was on Luigi’s arm in a group of peasants.
"Will you allow me, Father?" Carmela asked.
"Certainly," the count replied. "Are we not at carnival?"
Carmela turned to the young man talking with her, said a few words to him, and pointed toward Teresa. The young man looked, bowed in agreement, then went to Teresa and invited her to dance in the group directed by the count’s daughter.
Teresa felt a flush pass over her face. She looked at Luigi, who couldn’t refuse his consent. Luigi slowly released Teresa’s arm, which he’d held beneath his own, and Teresa, accompanied by her elegant partner, took her place with much nervousness in the aristocratic dance group.
Certainly, in an artist’s eyes, Teresa’s authentic traditional costume had a very different character from Carmela’s and her companions’. And Teresa was frivolous and flirtatious, so the embroidery and muslins, the cashmere belts, all dazzled her, and the reflection of sapphires and diamonds nearly made her dizzy.
Luigi felt a sensation he’d never experienced before rising in his mind. It was like an acute pain that gnawed at his heart, then thrilled through his entire body. He followed with his eyes every movement of Teresa and her partner. When their hands touched, he felt as though he might faint. Every pulse beat violently, and it seemed as though a bell rang in his ears. When they spoke, although Teresa listened timidly with downcast eyes to her partner’s conversation, Luigi could read in the handsome young man’s ardent looks that his words were full of praise. It seemed as if the whole world was spinning around him, and all the voices of hell were whispering in his ears ideas of murder and assassination.
Then, fearing that his fit might overwhelm him, he clutched with one hand the branch of a tree he was leaning against, and with the other convulsively grasped the carved-handle dagger in his belt, which he unconsciously drew partway from its sheath from time to time.
Luigi was jealous! He felt that, influenced by her ambitious and flirtatious nature, Teresa might escape him.
The young peasant girl, at first timid and scared, soon recovered herself. We’ve said that Teresa was beautiful, but that’s not all, Teresa possessed all those natural graces which are so much more potent than affected and studied elegance. She had almost all the honors of the dance, and if she was envious of the Count of San-Felice’s daughter, we won’t venture to say that Carmela wasn’t jealous of her.
With overwhelming compliments, her handsome partner led her back to where he’d found her, where Luigi waited. Two or three times during the dance, the young woman had glanced at Luigi, and each time she saw that he was pale and his features were agitated. Once, even the blade of his knife, half-drawn from its sheath, had dazzled her eyes with its sinister glare. Thus, it was almost trembling that she took her lover’s arm again.
The dance had been flawless, and there was clearly great demand for a repeat. Carmela alone objected, but the Count of San-Felice begged his daughter so earnestly that she agreed. One of the partners then hurried to invite Teresa, without whom the dance couldn’t be formed. But the young woman had disappeared.
The truth was that Luigi hadn’t felt strong enough to endure another such trial. Half by persuasion and half by force, he’d taken Teresa to another part of the garden. Teresa had yielded despite herself, but when she looked at the young man’s agitated face, she understood by his silence and trembling voice that something strange was happening within him. She herself wasn’t exempt from internal emotion, and though she’d done nothing wrong, she fully understood that Luigi was right to reproach her. Why, she didn’t know, but she felt these reproaches were deserved.
However, to Teresa’s great surprise, Luigi remained silent, and not a word escaped his lips the rest of the evening. When the night’s chill had driven the guests from the gardens and the villa’s gates were closed for the indoor celebration, he took Teresa away, and as he left her at her home, he said, "Teresa, what were you thinking as you danced opposite the young Countess of San-Felice?"
"I thought," the young woman replied with all the frankness of her nature, "that I would give half my life for a costume like hers."
"And what did your partner say to you?"
"He said it depended only on myself to have it, and I had only to say one word."
"He was right," Luigi said. "Do you want it as badly as you say?"
"Yes."
"Well then, you shall have it!"
The young woman, very surprised, raised her head to look at him, but his face was so gloomy and terrible that her words froze on her lips. As Luigi spoke, he left her. Teresa followed him with her eyes into the darkness as long as she could, and when he’d completely disappeared, she went into the house with a sigh.
That night a memorable event occurred, no doubt due to some servant’s carelessness in failing to extinguish the lights. The Villa of San-Felice caught fire in the rooms next to lovely Carmela’s apartment. Awakened in the night by the flames’ light, she sprang out of bed, wrapped herself in a dressing gown, and tried to escape through the door. But the corridor through which she hoped to flee was already consumed by flames.