CHAPTER V.
One morning shortly after their arrival at Madrid, the two went to the great picture-gallery, of all picture-galleries the most delightful.
“When you shall have seen Murillo’s Conceptions,” Elena said, “you will see the difference between a sweet human nature and a supernatural creature. Raphael has painted good and beautiful women full of religious feeling; Murillo has painted the miraculous woman. The Spaniard had a vision of the Divine.”
“You have been in Madrid before?”
“For two years,” said Elena quietly.
They entered the large hall. It was early for visitors; but two artists were there copying. One had had the courage to set his easel up before one of Murillo’s large Conceptions.
Tacita seated herself before that heavenly vision, and became absorbed in it. It was a revelation to her. The small picture in the Louvre had made but a slight impression on her, weary as she was with sight-seeing. But here was a reflection of heaven itself in the exquisite figure that floated before her supported on a wreath of angels, the white robe falling about her in veiling folds, and the long cerulean scarf full of that same wind that shookthe house wherein waited the Apostles and the Marys when the Holy Ghost descended upon them. The two little hands were pressed palm to palm, the long black hair fell down her shoulders, her large black eyes, fixed on some dawning, ineffable glory, were full of a solemn radiance, her delicate face was like a white lily in the sunshine. The figure was at once childlike, angelic, and imposing.
Tacita had not removed her eyes from the picture when Elena came to touch her arm, and whispered: “Do you know that you have not winked for half an hour?”
Tacita roused herself. “I scarcely care to look at anything else now,” she said. “I will glance about the room there, and then go home.”
She went into the Isabella room, and walked slowly along the wall. Nothing dazzled her after that Murillo. Even Fra Angelico’s angels looked insipidly sweet beside its ethereal sublimity. The “Perla” kept her but a moment. Those radiant black eyes of the “Concepcion” seemed to gaze at her from every canvas. She was about leaving the room, when something made her turn back to look again at an unremarkable picture catalogued as “A Madonna and Saints.” Of the two catalogues she saw, one ascribed it to Pordenone, the other to Giorgione. She glanced at it without interest, wondering why she had stopped. The Madonna and Child, and the woman who held out to them a basket of red and white roses might just as well not have been painted for any significance they had;and she was about turning away when she caught sight of a face in the shadowed corner of the canvas behind the kneeling woman.
This was no conventional saint. The man seemed to be dressed in armor, and his hand rested on a sword-hilt or the back of a chair. The shadows swathed him thickly, leaving the face alone distinct. One guessed at a slight and well-knit figure. The face was bronzed, and rather thin, the features as delicate as they could be without weakness. Dark auburn hair fell almost to the shoulders, a slight moustache shaded the lip, a small pointed beard the chin. The brows were prominent, and strong enough to redeem a weak face, even; and beneath them were the eyes that go with such brows, penetrating, steady, far-seeing, and deep-seeing. Those eyes were fixed on the Madonna and Child, not in adoration, but with an earnest attention. He stood erect, and seemed to be studying the characters of those two beings whom the woman before him knelt to worship. Yet, reserved and incisive as the look was, something of sweetness might be discerned in the man’s face.
Tacita, half turned to go away, remained gazing at that face, fascinated. What a fine strength and purity! What reserve and what firmness! It was a face that could flash like a storm-cloud. Would anything ever make such a man fear, or be weak, careless, or cruel?
Elena came and stood by her, but said nothing.
“Behold a man,” said Tacita, “whom I would follow through the world, and out of the world!”
Her companion did not speak.
“Why was I not in the world when he lived in it!” the girl went on. “Or why is he not here now! Fancy that face smiling approval of you! Elena, do the dead hear us?”
“The living hear us!” replied the woman. “Is the air dead because you cannot see it? Is it powerless because it is sometimes still? It is only the ignoble who go downward, and become as stones.”
She spoke calmly and with a sort of authority.
They went out together.
“We are late for our luncheon,” Elena said as they got into their carriage. “We must lose no time, if we are to see the king and queen go out to drive. Are you decided to leave Madrid to-morrow?”
“I don’t know,” Tacita replied absently.
“I shall want to know this evening, dear; so try to make up your mind. I want to send for some of my people to meet us. I hope that you will like my people.”
“If they are like you, I shall love them,” Tacita said.
“How long will you be content to stay with us?” the woman asked.
“How can I say, Elena? You have told me that your people are quiet, kind, and unpretending. That is pleasant, but only that is not enough for a long time. I want to see persons who know morethan I do, who can paint, play on instruments, dance, sing, model, write poetry, speak with eloquence, and govern with strength and justice. I think that my heart would turn to lead if I had to live forever with people who were uncultivated. But if your people are like you, they are not merely simple. You know a great deal more than I do; and you are alwayssimpatica.”
“By simplicity, I do not mean ignorance,” her friend said. “Professor Mora was simple. Some barbarous persons are very involved and obscure.”
“Oh! if you speak in that sense”—
They ate their luncheon, stepped into the carriage that was waiting for them, and drove to the Plaza del Oriente. A good many persons were standing about the streets there waiting to see the young king and queen, Alfonso and Cristina, drive out. It was a gathering of leisurely, serious-looking people, with very few among them showing signs of poverty. The sky was limpid above the trees; and in the square opposite the corner at which our travelers waited, a bronze horseman seemed leaping into the blue over their topmost boughs.
Tacita glanced about her, at the people, the palace gate from which the royal cortége would issue, at the bronze horseman in the air; and then, turning a little to the other side, saw a man leaning carelessly against the trunk of a tree—saw him, and nothing else.
She felt as though she had received an electricshock. There before her was the face of the Giorgione picture, every feature as she had studied it that morning, and the very expression of which she had felt the power. He was gazing at the palace gate, not as though waiting to see, but already seeing. One would have said that the walls were transparent to him, and that he was so absorbed in observing that king and queen whom no one else saw as to be oblivious to all about him.
His dress was some provincial or foreign costume. Black velvet short-clothes were held at the waist by a fringed scarf of black silk. His short jacket of black cloth was like a torero’s in shape. He wore a full white shirt, black stockings and sandals, and a scarlet fez on his dark hair in which the sunshine found an auburn tint.
Tacita gazed at him with eyes as intent as his own. The smileless lips, the brow with its second sight, the pointed beard and faintly bronzed skin—they were the same that she had but an hour or two before engraven on her mind in lines as clear and sharp as those of any antique intaglio.
The stranger had not seemed aware of her observation; and the distance at which he stood from her gave no reason for his being so. But presently, when she began to wonder if he would ever stir, he went quietly to a poor woman who, with a child in her arms, leaned against the fence behind him, and took the child from her.
She looked surprised, but yielded in silence. The infant stared at him, but made no resistance.He had not looked directly at either of them, nor addressed them. He brought the child to the carriage, and held it out, his eyes lowered, not downcast, nor once looking at its occupants.
Both Tacita and Elena silently placed a silver coin in the child’s hand.
The man retreated a step, respectful, but not saluting, and carried the child to its mother. She showed in receiving it the same silent surprise with which she had yielded it to him. The stranger returned to his former position under the tree. He had not looked at any one, nor spoken a word; yet he had displayed neither affectation nor rudeness. A winged seed could not have floated past with more simplicity of action, nor yet with more grace.
There was a stir among the people. Two horsemen had issued from the palace gate, and an open carriage followed, behind which were again two other cavaliers. Tacita descended hastily from the carriage. In doing so she glanced at the tree against which the stranger had leaned; but he was no longer to be seen.
The royal carriage passed by, its occupants bowing courteously to the young traveler who courtesied from her post on the sidewalk. The queen was pale and sad-looking, the spirited face of the young king had something in its expression that was almost defiant. The spectators were cold and merely civil. At such a sight one remembers that kings and queens have also hearts that may be wounded, and that they sometimes need and deserve compassion.Few of them, indeed, have willfully grasped the crown; and on many of them it has descended like a crown of thorns.
“The king gives the queen the right hand, though she is queen consort only,” Tacita said as they drove away. “In Italy the king regnant must absolutely have the right; and etiquette is quite as imperative in placing the gentleman at the lady’s left hand. Consequently, the king and queen of Italy do not drive out together. Gallantry yields to law, but evades a rudeness.”
She was scarcely conscious of what she was saying. Her eyes were searching the street and square. “What is his name?” she exclaimed suddenly, without any preface whatever.
“His name is Dylar,” answered Elena. “He will make a part of the journey with us.”
“He is from your place?” Tacita asked. She could not have told whether she felt a sudden joy or a sudden disenchantment.
“Yes, he is from our place.”
“The child was not his?”
“Oh, no!”
“Why did he bring it to us?”
“Probably he saw that they were poor.”
“Does he know them?”
“He must know that they are poor, or he would not have asked charity for them.”
“He asked nothing,” said Tacita.
“Yet you gave.”
“It is true; he did ask and seemed sure of receiving.Why does he make a part of the journey with us?”
“He knows the way and the people. He will meet us when we cross the mountains.”
“I wonder if they are the mountains that my grandfather remembered!” thought Tacita, and asked no more. Some feeling that was scarcely fear, but rather a sense of coming fate, began to creep over her. She had entered upon a path from which there was no retreat, and something mysterious was stealing about her and closing her in.
“Dylar is here,” Elena said as they drove into the gardens of the Ritiro. “Shall we stop and speak to him? I want to tell him when we will leave Madrid. What shall I say?”
“We will leave to-morrow morning,” Tacita said, looking eagerly around. Already it seemed to her a wonderful thing to hear this man speak.
He was walking to and fro under the trees, and came to the side of their carriage immediately. He glanced at Tacita, and slowly bowed himself in something of an oriental fashion. One might have hesitated whether to compare his manner to that of a perfectly trained servant come to take orders, or to the confident reserve of a sovereign about to hear if his orders had been obeyed. “The signorina has decided to set out to-morrow morning,” Elena said to him. “We shall not stop anywhere.”
“I will meet you at the orange-farm,” the man answered quietly.
The voice was clear and low, the enunciation perfect.
He looked at Tacita with a reassuring kindness. “Elena knows all that is necessary,” he said. “Trust to her, and have no fear.”
She felt herself in the presence of a superior. “I have no fear now,” she replied; and thought, “How did he know that I was afraid!”
He drew back, and they went on their way, neither speaking of what had occurred.