At two o’clock on the morning of 20th July last, I was returning from Z.’s house. I was almost home, when I heard footsteps behind me. I stopped. Two women passed me, hurrying down the road. I caught a glimpse of them in the lamplight. One was tall, thin, upright and elderly; the other – need I describe her? – for it was she. The briefest of glances sufficed for me to recognise her.
She was distressed, breathless, sobbing. I was so greatly moved by the unexpected sight of such anguish, by the awful suffering of that beautiful woman – who only a few days before had seemed so contented, radiant, inviolate – that I would have given my life not to see her laid low in the mud of a dark, deserted street by that most violent, most wilful, most hostile and most inexorably human of events: misfortune. She, the living image of delicacy and charm, the supreme expression of beauty, dignity, earthly omnipotence, was suddenly caught in the coils of the very serpent whom I had imagined would have been trampled beneath her feet, as she stood on a crescent moon!
For a moment, I was utterly perplexed. Finally, though, I hastened after her, caught her up and managed to blurt out:
‘Countess, I see you are upset. I can tell that something extraordinary and terrible has happened. You seem so alone and unprotected in this neighbourhood. Only in the most exceptional circumstances would I take the liberty of speaking to you. Use me, madam, as you would use a friend or a slave, whether it be for life and for death.’
She was clearly greatly distracted, listening without fully understanding me. Then she repeated my final words in a near hysterical voice:
‘For death! Who told you? How did you know?’
And leaning on the lady who accompanied her, whose arm she had grasped in terror, she looked up and stared at me, tremulous and pleading, her wild eyes filled with tears.
‘What do you want? Tell me!’ she said. ‘Are you going to arrest me? Here I am. Take me away.’
And then she turned this way and that, looking up and down the street with an expression of confusion, shame and fear on her face. She was anguish personified. My heart was filled with compassion and pity.
‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘and, please, don’t be upset! I know nothing. I haven’t come to arrest you or question you. I’m not a judge or a spy or an executioner. This is only the third time in my life that I’ve seen you. The first was on this very street about a month ago, when a coachman was demanding payment from you. The second was in the Rossio, a fortnight ago, when you happened to pass by. I am an unknown friend, obscure and anonymous. I imagined you were the very apogee of fortune and happiness, and I felt nothing for you but envy and hatred. Now I find you, it seems, on the edge of an abyss, and there is nothing in my poor, bruised heart except sympathy and devotion! Poor lady. So you are as unfortunate as the rest of us. Poor soul.’
My sadness for her was deep and sincere, my compassion unlimited.
‘I’m sorry,’ the countess replied, ‘I’m so distraught that I cannot properly understand your words; I’m so distressed that I barely recognise you or only half remember… but you seem generous and sympathetic. Oh, I can barely stand!’
I offered her my arm, which she took, remaining for a moment, motionless, leaning on me and on her companion, her head back and her mouth open, drinking in long draughts of air.
‘We must go!’ she said after a pause. ‘I cannot stay, I cannot die here. I have a letter I need to write. I must get home as soon as possible.’
And supported by her two companions, she managed to walk on, with slow, tottering steps, desperate, breathless, stopping every few seconds to fill her lungs with the air she lacked.
I was utterly at a loss what to do in the face of such grief. I occasionally thought of something to say, but dared not speak, for fear she might imagine that I, with gross impudence, was trying to fathom the cause of her distress.
The street was under repair, and so we had no choice but to walk over the sharp angles and edges of the loose crushed stones covering it. We were nearly at the corner of the street, when she turned to the woman accompanying her, a servant I now realised, and said:
‘Betty, can you put my shoe back on. It’s come off.’
The servant knelt down and exclaimed:
‘Countess, the satin’s all torn! Your foot is bleeding!’
The countess, however, seemed not to hear and pressed on resolutely.
I was amazed and touched by the brave spirit inhabiting that feeble form and felt an urge simply to pick that perfect, courageous body up and carry it in my arms. Luckily, a vacant cab appeared out of a nearby side street. I hailed the driver, and the countess, who was clearly in a great hurry to reach her house, got in along with her maid. I closed the door and, handing her my card, I said to the countess, almost whispering in her ear:
‘Whatever the cause, whatever the consequences of the strange event that has befallen you, you may be absolutely sure that not a soul in the world will know of our meeting. If you never have need of my help, I will continue to be what I am today, a complete stranger, who henceforth will consider his relationship with you to be exactly as it was before he saw you for the first time.’
Greatly moved, she replied:
‘Thank you for those kind words, which may well be the last I hear in this world. When you find out, as you inevitably will, what, after this horrific night, I will be deemed to be in the eyes of the courts and of society, tell your mother, your sister, your lover, if you have one, tell them all not to hate me! Tell them that I am far less guilty than I may appear and that I made this confession to you as I said goodbye, somewhere halfway between life and death. Goodbye! I will not shake your hand. I am unworthy of the friendship of decent people. The most I can ask for myself is pity. Have pity on me. Goodbye.’
The carriage had travelled no more than a few feet, when it stopped again at a gesture from the countess. She herself opened the door, stepped down and came towards me. I went to meet her.
‘I should like to talk further with you,’ she said.
After a short pause, during which she appeared to be organising her thoughts, she continued.
‘It was perhaps providential that we should meet here, at this time, in this street… You may be the one person God has appointed to protect me, to come to my aid. I have a relative to whom I will write immediately, entrusting him with my secret. I fear, however, that he may not be in Lisbon at present. If he is not, I don’t know who else I can confide in. If you have mercy and kindness enough in your heart to help me, come to my house at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.’
And, giving me her address in Lisbon, she climbed into the carriage again and departed.
What an extraordinary mixture of emotions she aroused in me, that woman who, according to her own lights, had committed some crime. I felt inclined to kneel at her lacerated feet and worship her!