V
Rosina Stefano sat alone in the little parlor of her home in one of the quaint side-streets of the Italian quarters, picturesque with its jumble of weather-stained frame dwellings and exotic little shops.
It was a chill, dreary night outside. A piping wind made fantastic noises about eaves and gables, and shook the windows as with ghostly hands. A lamp, burning under a blue shade, filled the chamber with eerie shadows. A coal fire was dying to embers in the open grate. There was a knock at the door.
“Entre!”
Guisseppi threw open the door and stood upon the threshold smiling.
“Rosina!”
The girl rose from her chair and stared fixedly at him out of frightened eyes. With a quick gesture, as if for protection against some supernatural menace, she made the sign of the cross.
“I have come back to you, Rosina.” Guisseppi took a step toward her and threw open his arms.
Rosina shrank back.
“Do you not still love me?”
Her lips framed a “No” for answer in a terror-stricken whisper.
“Come, my little sweetheart, embrace me.”
“No, no, Guisseppi!” Her voice was a tremulous cry. “You are dead!”
“Dead? Certainly I am not dead. I am alive and well, and I love you just as I always loved you.”
“You are only a ghost.”
“Don’t be foolish, little one. Do I look like a ghost? Me? Come into my arms and see how strong they are. Lay your head on my breast and feel the beating of my heart. And every beat of my heart is for you.”
Rosina stood motionless. There flashed through her mind old grewsome stories of vampires that lured their victims into their power with love traps and sucked their blood. Momentary horror froze her blood.
“O Guisseppi,” she exclaimed, “why have you risen from the dead? Why do you come back to haunt me?”
“Poor girl, do not talk like that. I tell you I am alive—tingling to my finger tips with life and love for you. If I were dead, I should still love you. Death could not kill my love for you. Have you forgotten everything? I thought you loved me. You have often told me so. I believed you would always love me, be true to me forever. Now I find you changed and cold.”
“I did love you, Guisseppi. To the depths of my being I loved you.” Her words came in a passionate torrent in her liquid native tongue. “You were my earth and heaven, my life, my soul’s salvation. All day my thoughts were of you. I dreamed of you at night. There was nothing I would not have done for you. There was nothing I would not have given you. I could have lived for you always. I could have died for you. Did I not come to see you every day in jail? Did I not bring you constantly dishes I had cooked myself with utmost care? Was not I close beside you in the court room every day of the long trial?
“I did everything to soothe and comfort you through all those terrible days. Was it nothing that I remained constant when you were locked in a cell condemned to death? I was true to the very trap-door of the hangman. What greater proof could a woman give of her love than to remain true to a man sentenced as a felon to the eternal disgrace of the gallows?”
She paused for a moment, erect, motionless, her face aflame, seemingly transfigured like the wonder woman of a vision.
“Ah, yes,” she went on; “then there was no one like my Guisseppi; no eyes so bright, no lips so tender, no face so dear. You were my god. Can I ever forget the songs you used to sing to me in the happy days before ‘Devil’ Cardello crossed your life. Your voice was divine. Every note thrilled me. I loved it. To me it was the music of the stars. Nothing in all the world was so beautiful as your voice. But now your voice has changed. There is no longer any music in it. As you speak to me, it seems a voice from the sepulchre.”
Guisseppi raised an arresting hand. He threw back his head. He smiled again.
“My voice has changed? Listen, cara mia.”
Slowly he began to sing an old Italian serenade. The ballad told of a knight of old who had bade a lily-white maid farewell and gone off to the wars and who, wounded and left for dead on the battlefield, was nursed back to life and returned to find his lady unchanged in her devotion against rivals and temptations.
Soft in the opening cadences, Guisseppi’s voice grew in volume and power. It brought out in shades and nuances of wonderful beauty all the charm and romance of the ancient tale—the sadness of farewell, the clash of battle, the wounded soldier’s dreams of his sweetheart as life seemed ebbing, the gladness of his homecoming, his happiness in reunited love.
Into the music, Guisseppi threw all the ardor and passion of his own love. There were notes like tears in his voice when, in minor strain, he sang the sorrows and dreams of the soldier; and the final crescendo passage, vivid with renewed love, was a burst of joyous melody straight from his heart.
“And you loved me still the same!” The words rose like incense from an altar. They fluttered about Rosina’s ears like a shower of rose leaves.
The girl listened, spellbound. Never in happier days had she heard Guisseppi sing with such compelling sweetness. There seemed a new and wonderful quality in his voice. With his magical music, he was like a conjurer bending her spirit to his subtle enchantments.
On a golden cloud, she was transported to the sunny shores of Italy. A cavalier sang the serenade in the moonlight to his mandolin and, leaning from her latticed balcony, she dropped a rose to him. The bay of Naples spread its crinkled azure before her. Against the dark, star-spangled crystal of the night, sculptured Vesuvius upheld its canopy of smoke.
As the music steeped her senses, she fancied she could feel its golden filaments being drawn about her, binding her more and more closely in a fairy chain. As if under the charm of melodious hypnotism, her old love returned. All the tenderness and passion of her heart went out again to Guisseppi. The siren influence of his voice was transforming her. Her strength of will was crumbling. She stood swaying, helpless, her eyes glowing with rekindled love.
Suddenly the song ended. The spell was broken. Rosina passed a languid hand over her eyes as if to brush away a film of sleep. She seemed to wake from a trance. Guisseppi stood before her radiant, smiling.
“Now will you believe I am alive? Could a dead man sing like that?”
A look of awe overspread Rosina’s face.
“You never sang like that before.”
“This is the first time my life and happiness were ever at stake on a song.”
“The Guisseppi I used to know could not sing like that. You are not Guisseppi. You are a spirit. Some demon has taught you how to sing so beautifully. You have come back with this new devil’s voice of yours to lure my soul to hell.”
“Ah, Rosina, how can you delude yourself with such foolish fancies. Do you not see me here solid in flesh and blood?”
“I see you, but I know you are only a shadow from the grave.”
“If your eyes deceive you, your ears can not. You have heard me sing.”
“That was some devil’s necromancy.”
Guisseppi fell on his knees before her and stretched out his arms in supplication.
“I love you, Rosina. That is all I can say. The hangman’s noose was not able to strangle my love for you. Your love is more to me now than it ever was before. The world has turned cold to me. You are my only hope, my refuge. I need you. I want you with all my soul.”
The girl shook her head sorrowfully. Her eyes rested upon him with sadness that was touched with renunciation.
“It can never be,” she said firmly. “How you are here, I do not know. You are dead; of that I am sure. My love for you was buried in the grave that was dug for you. You are not the boy I once loved. You are something strange and different. I am afraid of you. It is only with horror that I could fancy the kisses of a dead man on my lips. The thought of a ghost’s endearments fills me with loathing. Go back to the dead. I can love and reverence those who are gone, but there is no love anywhere in all the world for the dead returned from the grave.”
She turned away and stood with her head bowed in her hands.
Slowly Guisseppi struggled to his feet. He staggered weakly against the wall and buried his face in his arms.
“And you, Rosina!” he sobbed.
This was the final, crushing blow. He felt now that he was indeed dead—dead at the grave of his lost love.