truths of Christianity, he might well have brought
thence the contagion of false doctrine, might even
have become conversant with secret magic arts; and,
therefore, though long friendship had indeed its claims,
still a wise prudence pointed to the necessity of
separation. Fabio fully agreed with the excellent
monk. Valeria was even joyful when her husband
reported to her the priest’s counsel; and sent
on his way with the cordial good-will of both the
young people, loaded with good gifts for the monastery
and the poor, Father Lorenzo returned home.
Fabio intended to have an explanation with Muzzio
immediately after supper; but his strange guest did
not return to supper. Then Fabio decided to defer
his conversation with Muzzio until the following day;
and both the young people retired to rest.
IX
Valeria soon fell asleep; but Fabio could not sleep.
In the stillness of the night, everything he had seen,
everything he had felt presented itself more vividly;
he put to himself still more insistently questions
to which as before he could find no answer. Had
Muzzio really become a sorcerer, and had he not already
poisoned Valeria? She was ill ... but what was
her disease? While he lay, his head in his hand,
holding his feverish breath, and given up to painful
reflection, the moon rose again upon a cloudless sky;
and together with its beams, through the half-transparent
window-panes, there began, from the direction of the
pavilion—or was it Fabio’s fancy?—to
come a breath, like a light, fragrant current ... then
an urgent, passionate murmur was heard ... and at that
instant he observed that Valeria was beginning faintly
to stir. He started, looked; she rose up, slid
first one foot, then the other out of the bed, and
like one bewitched of the moon, her sightless eyes
fixed lifelessly before her, her hands stretched out,
she began moving towards the garden! Fabio instantly
ran out of the other door of the room, and running
quickly round the corner of the house, bolted the
door that led into the garden.... He had scarcely
time to grasp at the bolt, when he felt some one trying
to open the door from the inside, pressing against
it ... again and again ... and then there was the
sound of piteous passionate moans....
‘But Muzzio has not come back from the town,’
flashed through Fabio’s head, and he rushed
to the pavilion....
What did he see?
Coming towards him, along the path dazzlingly lighted
up by the moon’s rays, was Muzzio, he too moving
like one moonstruck, his hands held out before him,
and his eyes open but unseeing.... Fabio ran up
to him, but he, not heeding him, moved on, treading
evenly, step by step, and his rigid face smiled in
the moonlight like the Malay’s. Fabio would
have called him by his name ... but at that instant
he heard, behind him in the house, the creaking of
a window.... He looked round....
Yes, the window of the bedroom was open from top to
bottom, and putting one foot over the sill, Valeria
stood in the window ... her hands seemed to be seeking
Muzzio ... she seemed striving all over towards him....
