"Chi sa se mai!"
"Chi sa se mai!"
Then he attended to the sick man, walked up and down, and studied the Medusa head, on which the firelight shone warmly--strangely like the tints of ebbing life when the reluctant blood struggles with the death-terror. It affected him powerfully. At last he was obliged to turn away his eyes; and now, for the first time, observed some loose figures, some of them of corroded Pompeian bronze, and others by a newer hand, as life-like and reckless as they. Near them lay a torn and dusty copy of "Ariosto." He seized it, and read it eagerly. It was the only book he was able to discover.
So passed the hours. Long after midnight the sleeping man groaned heavily, and struck out his arms in his dreams. As Theodore arranged his disordered couch, and spread the coverlid over him afresh, he awoke fully, and half arose. He felt around him, as if for a weapon, and asked, in a determined voice,--
"Who are you?"
"A friend!--do you not recognize me?" answered Theodore.
"It is false!--I have none." shouted the wounded man, striving to raise himself upon his feet. The pain of his wounds brought back recollection. He sank down again, and collected himself thoroughly. He lay still for awhile, and then said, more quietly,
"Youareone. Now I recollect you. What are you doing here at this hour? Why are you not gone home? Areyoudifferent from the other sons of men, who only do good in order to sleep more soundly? Go!--you have earned your rest. Why do you watch my dreams?"
"The doctor insists upon having your wounds kept cool during the night. I could not trust to a stranger."
"Areyounot one?"
"No; not for a couple of pauls; but for your own sake I do this."
The other lay silent awhile. Then he said, with a strange excitement, "You would do me a kindness by going. It makes me feel ill to have a man moving about me. When it comes to thanking, I am more clumsy than an old man courting a young girl."
"Do not trouble yourself about thanks. I stay because you want me. If you could manage without me, you should not have to complain of my being in your way."
"I cannot sleep when I know that you are sitting; and freezing there."
Theodore stirred the fire. "I hope that you feel, even over there, how warm I must be here."
After a pause, during which the sick man had lain with closed eyes, he asked--
"You are a Lutheran, sir?"----"Yes."
"I knew it," said Bianchi to himself; "he wishes to rob the church of a soul--he does it all for that! They are no better than we are."
"The fever makes you rave." said Theodore emphatically; "say what you will."
They were both silent for a long time. Theodore placed fresh ice upon the wounds, as before; and Bianchi lay with his face turned towards the wall, motionless, as though he slept. Suddenly, as Theodore was again busied about him, he turned round, and raised himself half up. With the wounded arm he clutched towards Theodore's hand, and grasped it with his burning one, and said, low and slowly--"You are good! you are good! you are a man!" His weakness overcame him; he fell back upon the straw, and burst into a convulsive fit of weeping. As the tears ceased to flow, he slept anew.
When he awoke, the bright morning light was forcing its way through the crevices in the shutters, and making a sunny twilight around him. He saw the boy by his bedside, and the doctor, and heard that Theodore had gone into the town early in the morning, as soon as the boy came in, without saying anything about his return.
Thus he passed half the day, restless, dreaming, listening towards the door. Two mice, which he had tamed, and for whom he had hitherto ever had a caress, even in his moments of deepest gloom and misery, now came into the middle of the room, blinked their bright little eyes at him, squeaked, and flourished about, without his casting a glance towards them. The boy, not knowing that they were permitted guests, frightened them away. Some one knocked. It was somebody who brought the artist an order for a pair of ear-rings, in red shell. Bianchi let him depart without speaking to him; nor did he say a word to a sculptor of his acquaintance, who had heard of the terrible adventure of the previous night, and was good-hearted enough to visit the solitary being.
Meanwhile, Theodore, already early in the day, had mounted the stone steps of the large house in which Mary's parents resided. The old servant opened the door. "They waited long for you last night," he said. "I was sent to your lodgings, but you had not returned. Miss Mary thought that you must have met with some accident, as you were on horseback. But, God be praised! you are safe."
Theodore did not answer; he heard music within--a sonata of Beethoven--suddenly it ceased; a stool was pushed back, a gown rustled. As he entered, Mary stood before him; she seemed to have paused suddenly in the middle of the room on her way to the door; she tried to speak; her cheeks flushed. He seized her hand eagerly with both of his, and now saw that she had been weeping. "Mary!" he said, "I find that I have more to crave pardon for than I expected--you have been uneasy about me!"
She tried to smile. "I am delighted to find that there was no reason for it," she said. "Something prevented you; it was very foolish to think the worst at once. I will go and call my parents."
He held her back entreatingly. "You have been weeping, Mary!"
"It is nothing; I had a bad night, and the music just now agitated me."
He let her hand fall. She remained standing on the same spot, supporting herself against a chair. He took one turn up and down the room, and stood before her; he grasped her hand again, stammered out a word, and then pressed her passionately to his breast. She rested weeping blissfully and silently in his arms.
"We will go to my parents," said Mary, when she had had a little recovered the emotion of that first embrace. "Come!"
She took him gently by the hand. He longed to remain alone with her; it seemed to him as though she would be separated from him again when they came into the presence of others; yet he permitted her to lead him. They found her parents together in her mother's boudoir. As he entered he felt a longing to entreat his loved one to be silent on what had just passed between them, he felt incapable of talking calmly over it, or of meeting any one but herself in his blissful intoxication. It had already passed her lips. The mother, a stately, ceremonious woman, clasped him heartily in her arms; formal as she usually was, she could not hear the pleasant news without saying some heartfelt words of blessing, which, kindly as they were meant, still sounded foreign and strange to Theodore's state of feeling. Her father said nothing. He pressed his future son-in-law warmly by the hand, and kissed his daughter's forehead.
Theodore described the adventures of the previous evening. Mary leant her head on his breast, and when he told of the combat, threw her arm timidly around her lover, as if to assure herself that all was past, and that she really possessed him again in safety. Her mother made a sign to her, which, slight as it was, did not escape Theodore. She removed her arm, and sat near him without touching him. He felt pained; he felt, too, when after some hours he was obliged to leave, and kissed her again with his whole heart on the threshold, that she avoided him shily, and at first turned away her lips from his. He departed with a strange confusion of feeling--a weight upon his heart--and an obstinate deadened glow in every vein. He stood still for a moment before the door; the street was deserted, he pressed his feverish forehead against the cool stone pillars, and stretched forth his arms as if he would draw down a part of the heavens and press it to his breast, and then went somewhat more calmly on his way to the Tritone.
A passionate flush passed over Bianchi's haggard features, as he recognized Theodore's footsteps without. He raised himself and gazed eagerly and fully at him as he entered--taller and more manly than he had appeared to him the evening before. Theodore went to him and said, "You have rallied, Bianchi, and the doctor is satisfied. Keep quiet, I entreat you; you must let me walk up and down a little, my ideas are in a whirl, and my thoughts will not allow me to rest."
He told him not from whence he came, nor that within the last few hours he had bound his fate to a woman; but there lay a glory on him, from which Bianchi could not turn away his eyes. He had laid aside his hat, and thrown his cloak over one shoulder, his head sprang freely from the broad chest--the short curled hair was a little disordered--his forehead massive and noble; and thus, with an absent look, and his arms folded across his cloak, he seemed almost to have forgotten the purpose of his visit As he paced up and down, he struck his foot against the burning logs, and gazed at the fire. At last he turned, and said--
"Tell me about yourself, Bianchi!"
"What would you know?"
The tone of this question, doubtful, almost distrustful, and yet submissive and compliant, struck Theodore's delicate ear. He drew a stool near the couch, seized Bianchi's hand and said--
"I wish to know nothing, except how you feel now; and if you are in no humour to talk, make a sign with your hand, which now betrays but slight remains of your fever."
He felt the pressure of the hand, which then withdrew itself hesitatingly from his.
"You will soon be so well that we shall be able to part without the necessity of meeting again. For the present you must resign yourself to my intrusiveness; for you must know that I have made up my mind not to let the carelessness of a stupid boy be the destruction of such an artist as you are."
"AsIam!" and he laughed sadly. "Doyouknow what I am? Who knows it not? A day labourer am I, cutting shells for women, with a woman's patience, whose stout arms are ashamed of him when they encounter a piece of marble. Well, perhaps, yesterday the matter was arranged so that the poor cripples will have nothing to reproach themselves for in future!"
"You talk strangely--as if there were not room enough within a circle of two inches for a soul that can at times express itself in two words."
"For the idea, possibly, but hardly for the execution."
"You must have experienced that," said Theodore. "But are youobligedto do what is so disagreeable to you?"
The sick man cast a quiet look around the four bare walls, and said--
"I have got so used to the amount of luxury you see about you; I did, indeed, once think of beginning a large work without there in the square, eating my artichoke by the fountain at noon, and sleeping at night at the foot of my work. But one is effeminate and fears the weather, and cowardly, and afraid of the gossipping. Besides, I cannot do without the wine or--"
"But if you had an opportunity of working in marble without any discomfort to yourself," interrupted Theodore.
The sick man started up excitedly.
"Do you know what you are doing with your thoughtless questions?" he cried, and his eyes sparkled. "Look in that corner; there have I cast one on the top of the other, all that used to come to me with such questions. The dust is burying these impertinent babblers day by day, and my eyes know already that it is an unpardonable sin for them to wander towards them. And yet I was fool enough to allow myself to hope again when they said that models were to be sent in for the monument to the last Pope. For a couple of weeks I thought and dreamt of nothing else, and worked it out with energy, and was myself satisfied with my work. Fool that I was, to be deluded by such fancies. That was yesterday. I wrapped the model in a cloth, and bore it myself all the way to the Cardinal Secretary of State,--for my soul hung upon it, and I thought another might let it fall. And then I was obliged to give the rascally servants civil words and my last scudo before they would even permit me to enter. Inside it was all black and red and violet, with their reverences' stockings, and they stared at me from head to foot, because I had run out of my studio without thinking of taking off my old working-jacket. I thought, 'Let them stare;' took courage, and stepped with a bow and my work before his eminence. I saw at once that he was in a bad temper, and that his neighbour had already tasted some of its effects. I told him shortly why I was there, and begged to be permitted to show my sketch. The old fellow nodded, after his custom, cast a glance over the figures, which looked doubly noble amongst all those rogues, and said, 'Not bad. But 'twont do, 'twont do; wants noblesse, my son, and more direct reference to the holy church. Take it home and beat it up. The clay is wet still.' I stood like a man in a madhouse. Beat it up! as if my loftiest ideas were broth. Whilst I stood there, unable to utter a word, up stepped the monsignori, stuck their learned spectacles on their noses, and abused it before and behind till they did not leave a nail's breadth without a spot of blame, just as when the old wolf half kills a sheep, and then hands it over to her whelps to worry and whet their milk-teeth upon. If I could only have spoken and described all that had passed through my brain whilst I was at work on the model, perhaps the old man might have looked at it differently, for they say that he has a good-enough head. But just at this unlucky moment he was full of ill temper, and poured it all out over me. So at last I got tired of this chattering, this whizzing of children's painted bird-bolts, not one of which hit the matter, and every one the man, for they pricked me like needles. Another would have shaken himself laughingly, and perhaps have won the day. But I--how was I to do it? My father did not make much talk over his cameos, and when he died, Rome was neither more agitated nor stiller, and I have ever kept out of the way of your learned men; so I stole away from them this time too, and swore never to have aught to do with them again. As I passed along the Repelta I got into a rage, and threw my model into the Tiber. 'Let it melt there,' said I to myself; and I felt relieved, and took a fancy to go and walk about the campagna. There you found me."
"You must not abuse thesavant," said Theodore, laughingly, after a pause, in order to bring the other, who had sunk into a reverie, back to the subject. "Your instinct did not deceive you when you felt an antipathy to my being near you. For I am here in Rome for the purpose of poking about old parchments, and digging out long-buried matters, about which but few are interested. Histories of the old Italian towers, state papers, and judicial reports. And so we are doubly-separated individuals."
"Youmay be, and do what you like," said Bianchi, quickly, and half aside. "You are good and handsome, and a German."
"You little know German learning. It is even more horrible than the Roman. I myself have a secret terror of it. It has a power of glaring at feeble souls, that turns them into stone, like those poor rogues who gazed on the face of the Medusa."
"The Medusa?"
"You must know her better than I do. Have you not thrown her away there in the corner and left her, half begun and half ended, cut upon the shells on your work-table?"
"I do not know much about it. When I was quite a boy, my father gave me a part of it to work at. I loved the head, for I had but little pleasure, and the dark death in the beautiful woman's face fascinated me. Afterwards I saw the circular one in the villa Ludovisi, and never rested until I had made a copy of it as well as I could at home. It is more human and passionate there, than in the Grecian one, where it is reduced to a mere mask. I have never asked what they meant by it, and reading annoys me."
"If you like, I will read the story to you, as told by one of the old poets?"
"Do--and soon and--when do you return?" he asked, as Theodore arose.
"To-night," said the young man; "but not to read to you, for you are not well enough yet. I will not listen. I know what you are going say. But a sick man must not have a will of his own."
When he returned in the evening, he found wine upon the table, and a comfortable cushioned chair placed by the hearth. Bianchi slept, and the boy whispered that he had made him buy the wine and borrow the chair from a neighbour, and that he had not been quiet or slept until he had seen all done as he wished.
The next evening Theodore read, from an old Italian "Ovid," the fable of the Medusa, as he had promised. He looked from time to time over his book towards Bianchi, whose eyes were fixed upon the ceiling. Theodore's calm voice seemed to bind him with a spell; the tale which he read, to move his innermost soul--so the other read on. When he arose, Bianchi drew a deep breath, and cried, "You are going!--you do not know how I have enjoyed it! These tales were to me but mutilated old statues, the limbs scattered about, the head far from the trunk, and all weather-beaten and decayed. As you read it, all drew itself together again, and now stands entire before me. Oh! that my arms were but sound again--my fingers tremble at the thought of kneading a piece of clay--but that is not to be--and you go--you smile! I can guess where you are going! well--enjoy your youth. But now I think for the first time of the nights I have made you pass."
"They would have been more lonely than they have been here--and you cannot guess where I go, Bianchi. I am going to pay court to two old people, and only now and then the soft hand of their daughter touches my arm in secret. All my enjoyment is seeing--hoping."
"And you can confess that so quietly, and not gnash your teeth with impatience and longing? I fear that I, too, once passed such a fruitless lovetime. Like a worm I grovelled on the ground, and cursed the eyes which had played me so bitter a trick."
"I bless them! And when I suspect such madness in my blood, I refresh my dull soul in the free air, up and down the Forum, or roam away to the Capucines, where now the snow is resting against the stem of the palm-tree; it must struggle through the winter, too, however warm its heart may be."
"Can you deny that it plagues and worries you more than the whole affair is worth? It makes one idle and womanly, and that is the worst of all. If we were not fools, longing for the impossible, all were well, one as good as another, if she were pretty and kind."
"I think not. I require something more thanany onecan give me, unless I am to leave her for the sake of some other."
"Who spoke of that?"--"Both of us, I think."
"Not I," said Bianchi. "I never could dream that you know your own advantages so little--with your face and your years."
He said no more, seemingly out of humour. "Let it be as it may." said Theodore, earnestly, "and let each one care for himself, and be glad that the other can be happy after his own fashion."
They never touched upon this subject again. Bianchi seemed to have entirely forgotten it, and Theodore did not agitate it. The old bitterness and fierceness of the sick man returned more and more as his wounds healed, and those rare touches of gentleness which he had shown to his friend disappeared for ever. He avoided giving him his hand; he never spoke of himself nor his feelings, never asked Theodore about his plans nor his past life, and hardly ever called him by his name; yet he never avoided Theodore's frequent visits, nor refused the little comforts which he brought him. Only once, when he saw some fruit in a basket, arranged beneath a layer of the earliest violets, with that delicate taste which belongs to a woman's hand alone, he placed the present coldly, and without saying a word, upon the mantelpiece. Theodore was silent; when he went he took the basket with him as he had brought it.
Still he continued to read to him--old poets, extracts from Dante and Tasso, and, at last, Machiavelli. The old deities, whose statues, scattered about Rome, had hitherto been to him merely fine carvings, semi-vivified by indistinct ideas, now became clear and living. It seemed as if he now for the first time saw with his waking eyes the world in which he had so long wandered in dreams. And the desire to go abroad awoke in him, and he longed to visit, personally, all that his imagination had clearly, and for the first time, thoroughly grasped.
The almond-trees blossomed crimson in the gardens of Monte Pincio, when he first stood on the parapet and looked over broad Rome towards the hills. Below him lay the town, noisy and sunny; the river glimmered brightly. On St. Angelo fluttered the broad folds of the standard in the wind that breathed softly from the sea, and overhead stretched the soft, delicate blue of the Roman March sky. Bianchi supported himself upon his staff, and looked darkly from under his eyebrows, as was his wont when he struggled against the promptings of his own heart. Theodore also stood buried in thought; at last he turned his gaze from the distance, looked seriously at Bianchi, and said, "You are recovered; in a few days more you will be below there in your new studio and I think that we shall still find a little time to spend together, even though I, too, shall be obliged to keep closer to my work, and must somewhat curtail the pleasure of being with you. It so happens that I shall have a reason for visiting you much oftener than you might otherwise permit--that is, if you will consecrate the new studio by undertaking a work in which I am personally much interested. The matter is this: a family with whom I am intimate has settled here, perhaps permanently. The man, a German, formerly lived in England, and married an Englishwoman, who brought him two children, a son and a daughter. The son, who was attacked by consumption, tried the climate of Rome as his last chance of recovery, and so the whole family emigrated with him. I loved him well, as did every one who knew him, and can hardly believe that I saw so much worth and nobleness sink into the earth--there, by the Pyramid of Cestus. That was last winter. His parents wish to erect a monument to him, with a relief which may shadow forth his character and honour his memory. I know no one to whom I would so willingly intrust this work as yourself."
"You may depend upon me, Theodore," said the sculptor; "I will do what within me lies."
"Would you not like to know his parents, and learn from them the idea which they wish to be carried out on the monument?"
The other was silent for a while. "No," he said, quietly: "I wish for no acquaintances, and love not tears. You loved him--that is enough: I will do it foryou. You must not misunderstand me," he continued, after a pause. "I should be of no use there. Whoever wants me must attack me like a bear in his den. If I cannot escape, I can manage to get upon my hind legs almost politely, and growl my word with them. But even that is tiresome. I will say nothing and show nothing until the model is so far advanced that even the laity may see what it means--then they may come."
They spoke of other matters. Bianchi grew even brighter and almost joyous, whilst a shadow lay on Theodore's face. So they remained all the day together, and they both felt it like a leave-taking. For the first time the open, common-place day was around them--the rattle of carriages, and the whirl of laughing passengers. Bianchi did not take Theodore's arm. Slowly he walked near him, glancing at the women and the girls, many of whom seemed to know him, and here and there nodding to an acquaintance without stopping to speak to him. When he had passed, people stood still, whispering, pointing towards him, and following him with glances in which pity, respect, and a certain kind of fear, seemed mingled. He himself appeared not to observe it. He looked straight before him, often over the heads of the people, towards the villas without the walls, and the broad campagna, and his eyes glittered. "What are you thinking of?" asked Theodore.
"I am thinking how my mice will bear their fate when the old palace is pulled about their ears, and the bright daylight peeps into all their private holes and comers. I know that they have had a family lately. Poor fools! to love to linger under the same roof without learning anything from one! How I rejoice that I am poor, and free, and alone, and can carry all my belongings with me in a hand-cart!" He stretched out his arms, and waved them in the sir, as if he poised the burden that awaited them. He looked younger and fresher than he had ever done before.
In the evening he asked Theodore to accompany him to a tavern, in which, before his accident, he had spent many a night. "You shall see what good Roman society is, and the remains of nobler races," he said. "They are a little mistrustful of foreign elements, that step in without knowing what they want, or perhaps who know only too well. They say that it is not much better in nobler houses. Let them do what they like, and drink your wine without making much fuss: they let me do as I please, even if I bring a German with me, for they rather look up to me."
He led him a few streets distant from the Sistine, to the beautiful fountain of Bernini, the Fontana di Trivi. Opposite the lofty grottoed and niched façade, in the centre of which the water-god stands above the artificial rocks, and rules the streams, which burst out from all sides into the deep bason, there stood a mean-looking old house, with a smoky lantern over the door. They entered the spacious chamber, which occupied the whole breadth of the house, and served as a drinking-room. At the further end the fire on the hearth played against the blackened wall, and to the right a flight of steps led to the upper story. No furniture was to be seen except benches and tables, on and around which a mixed, silent company was gathered. A boy bore plates of fried fish, salad, and macaroni, and disappeared from time to time through a trap-door, to rise to the surface again, bearing fresh-filled flasks.
A joyous welcome resounded from the lower end of the room as the two friends entered. "Eccolo!" cried a portly woman, who forced her way through the crowd towards the door, drying her hands on her apron. "Eccolo! welcome a thousand times, Ser Carlo!" and she gave him her hand heartily. "A mezzo of Frascati, Chico; of the new, that came in yesterday. Only think, Ser Carlo! who do you think that I was just talking about to my Domenico this very moment? I said to him, 'Domenicuccio,' said I, 'you are a bear and a brute, never to go and see how it fares with our Ser Carlo; for I, as you well know, have my hands full with the children and the guests, and you yourself to look after, you stupid animal! And it will seem a thousand years till I see him again, fine fellow that he is!' 'Lalla mia!' says he, 'to-morrow I will see about it; and,' says he, 'if you have no objection, Lalla, I think that he won't refuse a little drop of the new wine, just a barilotto!' Said I, 'Well, Cuccio, that is just the very best idea you have had all these ten years that we have been married!' And just then Girolamo came in, and said that he had seen you on the Pincio, and I said, 'Blessed be the Virgin! then it won't be long before we see him here;' and just at that moment you opened the door and stood before us! And really it has done you good--you have grown handsomer, Ser Carlo. I would not believe Girolamo, but positively the Madonna has wrought a miracle on you. I have not prayed all through my rosary for nothing!"
"So I have to thank you, Sera Lalla, that I have not gone mad, and am quit for a little lameness? You have got the best wife in Rome, Domenico,--a saint! a real treasure of grace! Ay, here I am once more!" and he shook the host, a heavy-looking, insinuating sort of fellow, vehemently by the hand; "and this gentleman that you see here is my friend, who saved me from the jaws of the dogs. But, holla! there sits my noble Gigi over there, and eats and drinks, and can't even give his throat time to say 'Good evening.' Shame on you, Gigi! to treat old friends, and one, moreover, who has risen, like Saint Lazarus, from the dead, in such a frosty fashion!"
"He has asked after you more than all the others put together," whispered the hostess. "He could not take his glass for a week at a time when they began to talk about you. He was only afraid of visiting you."
The man of whom the good woman spoke sat at one of the centre tables, propped up tightly against the wall, and continued steadily thrusting large pieces of food into his mouth. He was good-looking, his bald head covered with a little skull-cap, his black coat buttoned up to his throat, and a certain air of decency about him, which distinguished him from the others, without showing, at the same time, any particular pretension.
Bianchi stepped up to him, and greeted him across the table with a wave of the hand. "Dear Ser Gigi," he said, "do not distress yourself--we understand each other." He remarked now for the first time that the worthy man's eyes were glimmering moistly, and that he only continued eating in order to prevent his joyous embarrassment being marked.
"He is a singer," whispered Bianchi to his companion; "he keeps to the churches, and sings on festal days. They wanted to give him the tonsure, because he has some education and is decent-looking, but it did not quite suit him. They are all free men, as many as sit here. Come, my friend Gigi will make room for us near himself."
Meanwhile, the boy brushed down the table with a by no means clean napkin, and placed a large open flask before them. Theodore seated himself, whilst Bianchi had to shake hands and answer questions about the room. A reeking brass lamp flared with its thin, redly-burning wicks over the table. It took Theodore some time to become accustomed to the atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and rancid oil, but he soon forgot all, at the sight of a striking couple, who sat at the table directly opposite to him. One was a young girl in the costume of Albano--the red jacket closed neatly round the just ripening bosom, above it was folded the lace collar, and large silver pins held the flat white handkerchief, which did not conceal the shape of her head, firmly on her hair. Her face was in the fresh bloom of youth, beauty, and health--three virtues which love to be kept together in such a situation. Only the expression of the mouth had a shy softness and yieldingness about it, almost irresolute and sorrowful, and the large eyelids so entirely covered the eyes that only a narrow dark gleaming line betrayed that they slept not.
She ate from the plate before her, slowly and indifferently, and drank but little wine, whilst her brown cheeks glowed ever with the same fire.
Beside her sat an old woman in a Roman costume, blinking vivaciously about her, but silent, and busied with her wine and food, which she enjoyed greedily. They had nothing whatever in common, and yet seemed to belong to each other.
When Bianchi at last came to take his seat, and had emptied his first glass, he started back with an almost comic expression of astonishment, and cried, "Madonna Santa! what beauty! How did you come by such a neighbour, Ser Gigi? A niece of yours? or only a forgotten child, that appeared before your eyes by chance? Blessed be her mother."
"Chè, Chè!"' said the singer, seriously. "I wish you were right. Ask her yourself where she comes from. The sweet little mouth would not bestow a word upon me."
Bianchi cast a keen glance on the old woman, and growled to himself, "So, so, I fancy we understand each other." The old woman remarked it, and said, as she emptied the rest of the bottle into her glass,
"A bashful thing, gentlemen! a poor shy orphan; lived with the wicked people up in the mountains when I found her, and took pity on the young creature. How easily one is lost, when one gets into wrong hands. I brought her with me to Rome, for the Virgin's sake, and keep her here as well as a poor old woman can, in all honour and virtue--poor thing. Look up, Caterina, when the gentlemen speak to you."
The girl obeyed, and let her large calm eyes rest for a moment on Bianchi, and let them sink again almost immediately. The artist half-raised himself from his seat and bent over towards her.
"You are called Caterina?"
"Yes," she answered, in a deep but soft voice.
"How old are you?"----"Eighteen years."
"You have left a lover behind in Albano, or perhaps more than one?"
She shook her head.
"How you talk!" interrupted the old woman, hastily. "'Tis a good girl, I tell you, and as innocent as the Madonna. Should I have got so fond of her else?"
"Well, well! If I believe it, I believe her face, and not yours, mother. Can she dance? The gentleman here is a stranger, and I should like him to learn what a real salterello is like."
Theodore said a few words--"that it would be a great favour." The old woman beckoned to the hostess; Caterina arose silently. Soon the nearest tables were pushed aside, to leave a small space clear, and Lalla brought the tambourine. Whilst the old woman seated herself in a corner with it, the other guests crowded round one after the other, and the boy who had been serving them prepared himself for his part in the dance, Bianchi whispered in his friend's ear: "Look at that form, and the delicacy of the hands and feet, and how she stands there, a perfect figure! such as I never saw before--blameless even to the darling little ears--and as yet hardly knowing herself! To be obliged to let Checo dance with her! I understood it pretty well once. But now, I conjure you, let your eyes do their best. A miracle will be performed."
Theodore needed not the prompting. He leaned against a table, and turned not his eyes from Caterina. At the first vehement notes of the tambourine the girl began the dance; Lalla stood near he old woman and clattered the castanets. Señor Luigi, the singer, sat immovable behind his table, and began to hum an air with the first notes. Soon he sang the song and the words cheerily out. The words, which Theodore could not understand, the feverish restlessness of the monotoned instruments, and above all, the strange witchery of the dancing girl, by degrees so confused his ideas, that he felt as if he had been gazing into a new and unknown world. All that he had known, loved, possessed, retreated into a vacuous gloom, which deprived it of all colouring; forms, thoughts, wishes, and hopes whirled through his soul to the dull notes of the tambourine, as to a great review. He cast them all aside. It was as though a voice called within him, "They are all worthless and dead. Here alone is life and bliss."
When the dance ceased he awoke from his dream, and looked wildly around. He seized his hat. "Are you going? Already? Now?" asked Bianchi, astonished. "I see that you don't enjoy yourself amongst my friends here."
"You mistake me," answered Theodore, looking gloomily before him. "How gladly would I remain. How gladly--but I have given a promise. I must pay a visit--we shall see each other to-morrow, Bianchi."
"Oh!" murmured Bianchi. "Pity, pity! how you will amuse yourselves, you and the others! Pity, pity!"
He laughed sharply and bitterly as Theodore turned away, and yet he did not seem sorry at his going.
On getting into the open air, the young man stood long opposite the fountain, and drew into his confused soul the breath of the water, and the living rushing of its fall. The moon lighted up the head and part of the chest of the water god, below the drops only glanced out of the darkness. He descended the steps, and drank as if to wash away the intoxication of his soul, and then seated himself upon the edge of the bason. He remembered the old saying, that whoever drank of this fountain would lose his home-longing for Rome; and then he fell into painful reveries. When the noise of the tambourine reached his ear anew from the osteria, he started up in terror, with difficulty he forced himself to pass the door, and to follow one of the neighbouring streets. When in the distance, the deadened sound again reached him, he paused for a moment and seemed to wrestle with himself; then he went resolutely farther down into the town to Mary's house.
There was a pause in the conversation when he entered. His bride arose, advanced to meet him, and took his hand warmly. He let a keen passing glance rest for a moment on the noble face which looked up so frankly to his, and then approached her mother, who greeted him heartily, and bent forward in her easy-chair to shake his hand. Like her daughter, she was still dressed in black; but wore her hair gathered under a grey gauze cap, whilst Mary's brown locks were kept in order by a narrow black ribbon across her brow. Her father, too, received him kindly, and introduced him to two gentlemen, strangers, who were seated at the brightly-lighted table. They were Englishmen, brothers, old friends of the house, who had arrived from England but shortly before. For their convenience, the conversation was carried on in English.
"You are late, dear Theodore," said the mother; "we wanted you whilst we were describing to our friends the last hours of poor Edward. My poor eyes did their duty but feebly then, and Mary and her father were both ill, as you know. We all felt the loss more than you did, for you hardly knew him; and so you were the most self-possessed, and better able to realize what rests upon our memories only as a horrible agitated dream, even now almost incredible!"
Theodore felt a reluctance to talk. The quiet, of the room, the feeling of agitation with which he entered, strange faces, and a strange tongue, all oppressed him in the highest degree. And now, at this same moment, when he had but just been face to face with an existence so full of magical bliss, he was expected to describe the death-bed of poor Edward to strangers.
They thought that it was his sorrow that prevented his answering. He had seated himself near Mary, and gazed long on her delicate, pale brow. Its unruffled, snowy stillness disturbed him. Her blue eyes, that beamed clear, and happy, and calmly, had to-day lost their power over him. He felt distinctly that it was his own incapacity which prevented his enjoying this noble face as formerly, that made him no longer wait longingly for each word from those charming lips, or feel each smile penetrate into his inmost soul. He struggled for awhile against this insensibility, which caused him bitter agony,--it was in vain!
She was conscious of the existence of some struggle going on within him; but the presence of the others prevented her grasping closer, by her fervent participation in its sorrows, the heart which was separating itself from her.
One of the strangers asked about the monument which was intended to be erected to Edward. Theodore roused himself, and mentioned that that very day he had entrusted the work to a friend, of whose character and circumstances he gave a slight sketch. Mary's parents knew more of him; but the disjointed picture did not seem to satisfy the stranger.
"It were to be wished,"' he said, "that this man could be conscious of some trace of Edward's inner nature in his own being, so that he might be able to identify himself with the delicate form and short blessed life of our lost friend, as something beloved. He seems to be, from your description, a violent, inflexible man, to whom nothing can be more incomprehensible than our Edward's idea of living only for others, and of shaping his last sigh into a wish for the happiness of those he loved."
"He is rough and energetic," answered Theodore; "but the beautiful affects him, and he looks upon what is noble with reverence and awe. I remarked, when I read Homer to him, how powerfully the idyllic, I might say the feminine, passages of the poem moved him."
"Possibly because they accorded more with his artistic fulness than the barren uniformity of battle and danger. And yet it is one thing to possess a mind capable of being affected by certain common-place, natural, heathen emotions, and another to have one by which the blessings of our religion are appreciated. Edward was a Christian; your friend at best is but a professing Roman Catholic."
"I cannot deny," interrupted the mother, "that I have thought much on this point already. Before we intrust a work like this, which we have all so much at heart, to a stranger, it were at least advisable to have a sketch made which we could discuss and decide upon."
"I know him, dearest mother," said Theodore, emphatically. "If it were his custom to throw his first ideas upon a scrap of paper, it would be easy enough to discuss the matter with him; but he always prefers, first, to work up his subject in clay of the intended size; and he has, besides, particularly entreated that in this case he may be permitted to labour for a time without letting any one see it. That it depends upon your approval, he knows already."
Then there ensued a pause, in which the rather excitedly-spoken words of the young man echoed disagreeably. Mary went to the piano and endeavoured to charm away the discord with music. Only with Theodore was it ineffectual. The simple ballad had no power over one in whose ear the maddening tones of the tambourine again awoke spectrally, and the echo of the marvellous song of the chorister overwhelmed the pure voice. He saw Bianchi's firm gaze fastened upon him, and heard again the words, "There will be a miracle performed!" And here, where he was now, all was strange, and tame, and wonderless.
After the song, Mary seated herself again by his side. She spoke German to him; she asked about his amusements and his employments, about Bianchi. He talked absently, and thus half-confusedly, as if to himself, he told her about the osteria and the girl's dancing. As he glanced up from time to time, he marked a clouded tension over the delicate brows. The conversation between them died away. The father asked about English families, on which subject the guests talked eagerly. It was without interest to Theodore, and so he became again absorbed by his whirling thoughts. At last he departed. The strangers had taken up their residence with Mary's parents. It seemed to him as though he were doubly driven unhappy from this circle which once was his own--doubly--by himself and by others.