The Love-letter.
There are three of the village girls who are prettier than its other girls. One of them is red-haired and buxom, with pink cheeks and white arms—she is the most admired by townsfolk: village folk have another taste. Nettina, from the walnut-grove, carries the palm with them—she has a figure that is grand in its every line, and when she dances on the green on afestanight, she does not bound and frolic with uncurbed merriment, but moves stately through the ring, and has no mind for any foolish jest with men that are from the cities. Nettina is a very proud and modest maid—she cares for no new fashions of dress, she is thrifty and patient, and when she walks up the steep from the church to her father’s cottage she can bear the floursacks on her shoulders or the dry leaf on her head without show of weariness or stain. ‘What a fine chip of a woman,’ say the village suitors! But Nettina looks neither to right nor to left till a fitting offer be made and a trusty mediator ready to negotiate—so—to meet coming down the mountain or at the well of an evening or uponthe piazza at Ave Maria and at the fair—Bianca even before Nettina is the pet of our village. She is grey-eyed and smooth-tongued, with long hair and lithe figure, not proud nor hasty, but good-tempered and merry, with ready jest, when the evening’s ‘chaff’ has hit the hardest. Moreover, she can deftly spin the distaff and weave linen on the hand-loom: Bianca is San Matteo’s second belle.
The daylight is gone, but the clearness of the summer’s night is as good as the sun. Supper has been cooked and eaten at home; the hearth is swept, and though the Angelus has finished sounding awhile ago, and resting-time is near, our Bianca sallies out into the white evening to do a commission that has been on her mind all day. The Signor Cappellano shall earn foursoldito-night, and who knows if he shall not earn some more on the day of the wedding, for Pietro Gambari is rich, and every priest shall have his due. Already she begins to dream of that pretty day in the mellow autumn, and of the silk dress, which surely such a promising lover will not fail to bestow for the marriage, even besides the gold which it is her right to expect! And so manyconfettifor the children! Bianca is rash. She is going to negotiate a little for herself, without the help, as yet, of the inevitable mediator. But only a little, to the extent of answering a love-letter! If thesuitor be true and worthy, he will find the mediator to send to her father’s house.
There is an early moon. It hangs in the clear sky just above the church spire, and floods thepiazzettawith grey light. The leaves of the walnut tree near by shiver gently, and the black cypresses in the burying-ground look very ghostly, but far off the moonlight only makes things lovelier. Everything is a little mystified in its treacherous beams, only the mountain’s outline looks more simply clear than even in daylight, when white vapours are prone to stray upon the border. Monte Bruno’s three cones stand, in even row, against the southern sky, and the moon is so bright that you can see the large chestnut that grows in one of the curves. Mon Pilato rears a tall mass into the nearer distance. The Cappellano’s cottage stands quite in the shadow of the oratory of San Gian-Battista, and there is even no light in the window this evening; but ghosts are few in the pious valleys of the Scrivia—Bianca has no fears.
‘Are you at home,Frà Giuseppe?’ she calls from below.
‘Who is it wants me at this hour of night?’ growls the under priest, as he comes out upon the stone balcony beneath his porch? ‘And is it you,Bianca bella? Come up, come up only!’ Even a priest is appeased by thesight of a pretty girl. ‘Who would have thought ofyourcoming to visit an old man like me?’
The Cappellano knows as well as another what is likely to be the errand of a damsel who seeks him after working hours! But he is not in canonicals, and would not be averse to a little amusement on his own account before the love-letter business begins.
‘Come in,Bianca bella, I have two mushrooms in oil on the hearth, that, if I don’t mistake, you will thank me right prettily for when you have eaten!’
‘O bella!’ cries the girl laughing, ‘Bella come il fondo della padella’ (pretty as the bottom of the frying-pan), ‘as the proverb says. You don’t take me in with that kind of fun. I come on business.’
But even while she speaks Bianca has seated herself on the bench beside the hearth, and is proving the merits of the mushrooms.
‘How goes it, Ninetta?’ says she the while to the old servant. You have a fine time of it with this man, I can take my oath. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll have nothing to do with men.’
Master and maid burst into a loud laugh.
‘I suppose it’s not to see the colour of my ink that you’ve come again to-night, then, you little liar.’
The Cappellano makes as though to pinch her cheek,but thinks better of it, for the girls of this village are very proud.
‘Well, well, I have a new bottle of beautiful red! Oh, whatfunghi, eh? Come into my study. I never do business in the kitchen. Ninetta has the long tongue; and a love-letter, why, it’s as delicate a matter as the confessional!’
‘Vossignoriacan easily jest, because you are but a priest, who knows nothing of these things’—Bianca blushes and is pleased as she says this—‘but indeed it is of no love that I speak to-night, and that you might have known me better than to suppose!’
More laughing; nobody believes a word that anybody else says! More chattering, and a little good, sound gossip; then the Cappellano leads the way to his study. It is not very different from the kitchen. Instead of a hearth in the middle of the floor, there is an old, rough-hewn table; instead of bright copper and earthenware vessels upon the walls, there are strangely-coloured maps of the two hemispheres. Two or three books bound in white calf—breviaries perhaps—lean to one or other side of the bookcase shelves; in the table’s midst is an ink-stand with a sponge soaked into it, a sand-pot, and a steel pen. The Cappellano sits before these implements, takes a sheet of pink paper from a drawer, dips the pen in the ink, shakes it, writes the date, and awaits furtherorders of Bianca, who stands smiling to herself in a corner.
She has a blooming, winsome face, grey eyes that are soft and shady, and crisply waving hair; she has full lips, too, and lovely rows of white gleaming teeth, and she laughs as she pulls a letter from her pocket.
‘This is the one which he wrote to me,’ she continues. ‘Perhaps you may like to see it, that you may know the style that will fit him best.’
‘No, no! my daughter; I have written many a love-letter, and can trust to my own sense,’ grumbles thescrivano, as he sets pens and paper in order, for he has his own well-worn phrases ready flowing to hand, and would be greatly discomfited at having to invent any new ones. He puts on his spectacles, smoothes the fair sheet of paper, and, dipping his pen in the ink, again glances up at the girl for instructions. She meanwhile stands awkwardly before him, smiling to herself, and ejaculating beneath her breath, as she twirls her apron mechanically round finger and thumb.
‘But I never said it was a love-letter,’ she says at last, laughing again.
‘Eh, well, well, my daughter. A letter to a gallant, then? What matter? it’s all the same thing. Tell me his name, and whether you mean to have him or no, and then leave the rest to me.’
‘But no,Signor Cappellano,’ remonstrates the damsel eagerly; ‘it is not just so. You must understand the affair.’ And she comes closer to the table, for Bianca wants to have a finger in the matter herself.
‘You see,’ she says, ‘the young man is rich and fine, they tell me, and a good match for me, a poorcontadina: I don’t want to send him quite away. But then, I don’t just know either if he will suit me or no! Now you, who know the Latin, and are fine and wise, you can put it grandly, what I mean.’
‘Yes, yes, my daughter, surely; so tell me what to write first.’
‘Well, first you shall put,’ and Bianca plays again with her apron, ‘You shall put—that I have received his letter,’ she blurts forth, as though struck with a good and sudden thought.
The fine steel pen proceeds to work, and makes a few flourishes on the pink paper, while the girl looks on, eager and intent.
‘That have I written,’ says thescrivanoat last. ‘What next?’
‘And next, next! You shall put that he does too much honour to a poor peasant girl such as I.’ Again the pen moves warily over the paper, and this sentence takes long to indite, for it can be inflated with many a fine word and sentiment; but in time thescrivanolooksup for fresh matter. The girl is sorely perplexed, indeed.
The Love Letter.The fine steel pen proceeds to work, and makes a few flourishes on the pink paper, while the girl looks on, eager and intent.
The Love Letter.
The fine steel pen proceeds to work, and makes a few flourishes on the pink paper, while the girl looks on, eager and intent.
‘But,vossignoria, who knows Latin,’ says she again, ‘can you not put together a fine letter?’
‘That can I do, my daughter; but do you wish me to say he shall come and see you or no?’
‘Well, you will understand,vossignoria, this is about how it is. Pietro Gambari is a rich young man, and I am only acontadina. For me, I should not mind being a miller’s wife, but it is not enough that the man tells me I amgraziosa, and would give me earrings.’
‘The Virgin forbid!’ ejaculatesFrà Giuseppe.
‘Well, that’s what I say, and so I spoke up to him, “Signor Pietro, if you wish to know of me,” said I “you can ask Pasquale, the baker, at Ponte, and for me I will inform myself of you.” And that I have done surely, but Pasquale has heard no word of this fine youth, so when he lets it be written to me whether I go to the fair at Damigiano or no, I wish to say, “Signor Pietro, it may happen I go and it may happen I stay at home,” and who knows but that may bring him to his senses! Oh, but you who know the Latin will understand better than a poor girl like me!’
‘Surely, surely,figlia mia,’ replies the Cappellano, returning to his flourishes on the paper, ‘we will say all that and more.’ Yet, in truth, he is somewhat puzzledat the prospect of something outside of the elegant ready-made phrases that have served the parish for sentiment during the last twelve years. Bianca begins to grow suspicious after a few dozen lines.
‘You understand,’ she says, ‘he must come, and he must not think I want him to come. So I shall go on the arm of Pasquale, and if he comes I shall leave those two to arrange the business as well as they can. Not another smile from me till I see the gold of his gifts to me and know his position! I am an honest girl, and no fool! And who knows but it might please your honour to tell him,’ adds she, as though struck by an after-thought, ‘that Paolo of our village is speaking to themanenteabout me! It would be but a white lie, for it was true a while ago, and I could tell it quickly in confession!’
‘Oh, for that, no matter; but it is whether he would believe it, my daughter!’ repliedFrà Giuseppe. Nevertheless, something he writes down. Poor credulous Bianca!
‘I want naught else,’ says she now, thinking of her pence.
But the priest means to earn something more yet out of this weary letter.
‘You have said nothing, hitherto,’ he complains! ‘Poor young man! He won’t know if you mean to havehim or no! One must give him at least to understand if you mean to look favourably on his suit.’
‘But if I don’t know myself?’
‘Eh, eh,per Bacco; what is to be done then?’
There is a long pause. Thescrivano’spen glides cunningly over the sheet: it forms capital letters, and small letters, and flourishes; it reaches the bottom of the page, and then he takes the sand-box to sprinkle it over. Bianca has looked on gloomily. She has been watching her little earnings ebb sadly away in all those lines, and strokes, and dots, and yet it seems as though she were to get no good out of this epistle. She is very sore and angry.
‘Is there anything more?’ says the little man, at last, in a provokingly mild tone.
‘No,per Bacco, there is no more! Is not that enough?’ she mutters crossly.
‘But I have said no word as to whether you will have him or no!’
‘Eh, Holy Virgin! Say what you will! I care not! For the rest, so long as you make it fine, he will not understand much of what you mean, unless he is more of an ass than I take him for. Give here,’ she concludes, petulantly, ‘till I put my cross.’
And the letter is sanded once more, as Bianca pulls out her silken netted purse.
‘How much?’ demands she; ‘and are you sure the affair will lead to a good end?’
‘The Virgin will see to your right, child, but twentysoldiare not too much for this. I say it with a clean conscience!’
‘Dio!what a bold heart you have to rob a poor girl so! And if Signor Pietro does not come after all, and if I am forced to content myself with a peasant?’
‘Eh, anima mia, that will not be my fault!’
‘But it will be the fault of your letter! Oh, these men, when I could have written it so well myself! But I can tell you, you may keep your fine scrawl many a day before I give you a franc for it. Tensoldi, come!’
‘My child, you dream! Tensoldi! I might have made twoSpiriti Santiin the time. Impossible! Eighteen.’
‘Nevermore,’ declares Bianca, staunchly. ‘Before I pay you eighteensoldiI take the letter to some one who knows how to read, and I make myself be told if you have said what I required.’
The poorscrivanobegins to get frightened. What would this bode? He might never write a letter again. ‘Make it fifteensoldi,’ he pleads.
And long and hotly they wrangle ere the price can be fixed between them, but at length a compromise is effected.Frà Giuseppeis to put up with twelvesoldinow, and to have a hand in the marriage ceremony, if the letter fulfil its purpose. What more could justice demand? The document is folded and sealed. Bianca exchanges it for the dirty coppers, and with a hasty leave-taking makes her way across the stream and up the rugged path to the thatched house, under the chestnuts. Neither Pietro Gambari, norsoldi, nor Cappellano, trouble her slumbers much in spite of all apparent excitement. Even a white lie rests lightly on a conscience of eighteen years old, that gets up at four in the morning.