Stone's Fall

I nodded, but only hesitantly.

'That is why he likes Venice. There is opportunity, for people like him. You think of him as a mild, gentle man, do you not? Foolish, ineffectual but good-natured.'

'I suppose that is my general impression, yes.'

'You do not know him. You do not know what he is like.'

'I find this all difficult to believe.'

'I know. Much of the time he is as you know him. But then the madness comes on him and he changes. He is violent, cruel. Do you want me to tell you the things he does? The things he makes me do, when I don't run away, or lock myself in a room so he cannot come to me, him and the people he finds? He likes pain, you see. It excites him. It is the only thing which does. He is not manly in the world and he takes his revenge on me.'

I shook my head. 'Don't tell me.'

I reached out and took her hand, horrified by what she was saying. How could anyone treat such a woman – any woman – in the fashion she hinted at? It was beyond all understanding.

'You do not seem like someone who has been so abused,' I said.

'I do not have bruises or cuts, at the moment,' she said. 'Do you doubt me? Wait a little and soon enough I will have marks to satisfy you.'

'I did not mean that,' I replied quickly. 'I meant that you do not have the air of a woman mistreated. Neglected, unloved, perhaps.'

'I have grown used to it,' she said. 'It was not always so. In the beginning I rebelled, but how could I do so successfully? I have no money of my own, no position, he is my husband. If I ran away, where would I run? He would find me again, or I would starve. I tried, once, but I was discovered before I could leave.

'So I have learned. I think to myself that perhaps not all men are like that. I tell myself that it will pass. Once the madness passes, he is perfectly agreeable for weeks before it starts again. He has allowed me to show you around; is that the decision of a monster? The man you have met, is he cruel and violent? No. To the outside world he is meek and mild. Only I know the truth of what he is like. But who would ever believe me? If I said anything it is I who would be called mad, not him.'

Here she broke down completely, her head in her hands, sobbing silently. She could not go on, and even turned her back on me when I tried to comfort her. I insisted, and eventually she gave way, throwing herself into my arms and crying without restraint.

I could not yet see my course of action; all I knew was that I would eventually have one. 'You must leave,' I said. 'Leave Venice and your husband.'

'I cannot,' she said scornfully. 'How could I do such a thing? Where would I go?'

'I could . . .'

'No!' she said, really frightened now. 'No, you must say nothing. Do nothing. You must promise me.'

'But I must do something.'

'You must not! Do you think of yourself as a knight in shining armour, rescuing the damsel in distress? We do not live in an age when such things happen. He has rights. I am his property. What would happen? He would deny it all, of course. He would say I was inventing things. He would get someone like Marangoni to say that I was a habitual liar, that I was mad. Do you think that if I told the truth, said that he beats me to become excited . . .'

She broke off, horrified at what she had said, that she had let out more than she wished about her hellish existence.

'Please,' she said, pleading with me. 'Please do not take matters into your own hands. Do not intervene. There is nothing you can do for me. Except to love me a little, show me that there are men who are not monsters, that there is more to love than pain and tears.'

I shook my head in confusion. 'What do you want?'

'I need to think, to clear my head. Meeting you was – I cannot describe it. The moment I saw you I felt something I have never known before. I do not ask you for help; there is nothing you can do for me. I ask you simply for your presence, a little. That is more soothing and comforting than anything you can say or do.'

'You ask for too little.'

'I ask for more than any person has ever given me,' she replied, stroking my cheek. 'And if I asked for more, I might not get it.'

'You doubt me?'

She did not reply, but threw herself on me once more. 'No more words,' she said. 'Not for a while.'

She was ferocious; it was as though, having unburdened herself to me, shown me her secrets, she had no need left of any modesty or caution. She was violent with me, just as others had been violent in their hatred of her; it was her defence, I thought, to respond to her tormentors in such a way. Afterwards she lay once more on the ground, stretched out with a total lack of caution or care.

'I wish I could die now,' she said as she ran her fingers through my hair. 'Do you not agree? To end your life in this place, with the sound of the sea and the trees, the light twinkling through the branches. Will you kill me? It would make me happy, you know. Please, kill me now. I would like to die at your hands.'