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Updated: June 27, 2025
No people are more suspicious and imaginative than Italians, when they have been warned that there is danger; and this does not proceed from natural timidity, but from the enormous value they set upon life itself, as a good possession. As for what Veronica ate and drank, Elettra was wise, too.
She did not allow the conversation to flag, for she feared lest Veronica should be tired of sitting in her room and suddenly propose to go somewhere else, just for the sake of the change. It was essential to Matilde's plan that Elettra should bring the things for tea. She did not allow herself to think, and she succeeded in staving off silence. Now that the deed was so near, it seemed unreal.
Then she had really thought that she heard another footstep, somewhere, while Elettra was standing still beside her. It had only been the cat, of course. It was such a very fat cat, as Elettra said, and the floors were of the old-fashioned sort, laid on wooden beams, and trembled very easily, as they do in old Italian houses.
She glanced at the black frock she wore and smiled, realizing for the first time what Elettra had meant by protesting against her wearing it any longer. But none of the details were of a nature to check such a woman in anything she really wished. If she chose to be waited on by women and to wear old clothes, that was her affair and concerned no one else.
Before dinner, Elettra came and told her mistress that the countess was suddenly taken very ill, and was crying aloud with the pain she suffered. Veronica hastily went to her aunt, and found that a doctor had already come and was making her swallow olive oil out of a full tumbler. A servant followed her into the room with a plate full of raw eggs, and the doctor was asking for magnesia.
For she could not have found anything to say. From time to time, during the day, she had news of Veronica. Elettra never left her mistress but once, shortly before twelve o'clock. She went out for a quarter of an hour, and came back bringing fresh eggs, bread, and wine, which she had bought herself. "It is poor fare, Excellency," she said, as she boiled the eggs in the tea-urn, "but it is safe.
Gregorio had been heard laughing wildly in his room, and a frightened chambermaid said that he was going mad. Elettra had great difficulty in getting something to eat, which she brought to Veronica's room with a glass of wine. The girl's first outbreak of sorrow ebbed to a melancholy placidity, as the hours went by. She got her prayer-book, and read certain prayers for the dead.
She could easily find an excuse for bringing in Gregorio who, like many modern Italians, had acquired the habit of drinking tea every day. She herself would make the tea, and put in the sugar and cream. Elettra would, as usual, have brought in the tea-tray with the silver urn, for Veronica always preferred being served by her maid when she had anything in her own room.
And again she wondered about Matilde and Gregorio, and what they were doing. She tried to read, but not the novel Bosio had given her. She took up another book, and presently found herself saying prayers over it. The day was very long and very sad. Before Elettra came back from her errands, a servant knocked at Veronica's door.
As she passed a half-open door the package of poison in her pocket struck against the door-post and reminded her of its presence, if she needed reminding. The doctor was bending over Matilde, who seemed very weak. As Elettra entered, she saw that there was no one else in the room.
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