“How is he getting on, chiaruccia?” (chirurgeon) asked Fenice.
“How is he getting on, chiaruccia?” (chirurgeon) asked Fenice.
“Not badly, praise the Madonna!” answered the old woman, and with sharp glances inspected the gentlemen who were entering behind the young girl.
Filippo started up from a half sleep and his pale face suddenly glowed: “It is you!” said he.
“Yes, I am bringing the gentlemen with whom you intended to fight, that they may see for themselves that you could not come. There’s a surgeon here, also.”
The feeble glance of the man lying there stole slowly over the four strange faces. “He is not among them,” he said. “I do not know any of these gentlemen.”
As he spoke, and was about to close his eyes again, the spokesman stepped out from among the three and said: “It is enough that we knowyou, Signor Filippo Mannini. We have orders to wait and to arrest you. Letters of yours have been seized, from which it appearsthat you have set foot in Tuscany again not only in order to settle the duel, but also to establish a certain society for the purpose of lending aid to your party at Bologna. You see before you the Commissary of Police and here are my orders.”
He drew a paper from his pocket and held it before Filippo’s face. But the latter only stared at it, as if he understood nothing of the matter, and fell back again into his sleep-like stupor.
“Examine the wound, Doctor”—the Commissary now turned to the surgeon. “If his condition will allow it at all, we must carry the gentleman down without delay. I saw some horses outside there. We can accomplish two acts of the law at once if we take possession of them, for they are laden with smuggled goods. It is a lucky thing one knows what sort of people visit Treppi when one wants to know it.”
As he said this, and the surgeon approached Filippo, Fenice disappeared from the room. The old chirurgeon remained quietly sitting and mumbling to herself. Voices were heard without and an unusual disturbance of going to and fro, and at the hole in the wall faces looked in and quickly disappeared again.
“It is possible,” the surgeon now said, “for us to take him down if we bind him tight with a twofold bandage. Frankly, he would recover more rapidly if he were left here in this peaceful spot and in the care of this old witch, whose medicinal herbs put the most learned physician to shame. The fever may endanger his life on the way, and I will in no case take the responsibility, Mr. Commissary.”
“Unnecessary, unnecessary,” replied the other. “Howto get rid of him does not enter into the question. So bind your rags about him, as tight as you can, so that none of them may slip, and then forward. We have the moonlight and are taking a young fellow along with us as guide. Meanwhile, go out, Molza, and secure the horses.”
The police officer whom the order concerned opened the door of the room quickly and was about to go out when an unexpected sight turned him to stone. The room adjoining was occupied by a crowd of village folk, at whose head stood two contrabbandieri. Fenice was still addressing them as the door opened. Now she stepped to the threshold of the room, and said, with sharp emphasis:
“You will leave this room instantly, gentlemen, and without the wounded man, or you will never see Pistoja again. No blood has ever yet flowed in this house as long as Fenice Cattaneo has been mistress of it, and may the Madonna prevent any such crime for all time to come. Do not try to return, either, with more men. You still bear in mind, perhaps, the spot where one has to climb up, one by one, the rock staircase. A single child can defend this pass, if he rolls down the steep the stones that lie scattered up on top as if sown there. We will place a watch there until this gentleman is in safety. Now, go and boast abroad of your heroism, how you have played a young girl false and wished to murder a wounded man.”
The faces of the officers turned paler and paler, and after the last words there followed a pause. Then, asif at a word of command, they all three drew from their pockets the pistols that had up to now been concealed, and deliberately the Commissary said: “We come in the name of the law. If you do not respect it yourself, will you still hinder others from executing it? It may cost six of you your lives if you compel us to procure the law by force.”
A murmur passed through the crowd of the others. “Be still, friends,” cried the resolute girl. “They dare not do it. They know that every man they shoot will bring a sixfold death upon the murderer. You speak like a fool,” she said, turning again to the Commissary. “The fear that sits on your brows speaks, at least, more reasonably. Do as fear advises you. The way is open, gentlemen!”
She stepped back and pointed with her left hand toward the front door of the house. Those in the room whispered a few words together, then with conciliatory bearing they walked through the excited crowd, which with ever-increasing curses made way for them. The surgeon was undecided which he should follow; but at an imperious nod from the young girl, he hastily joined his companions.
This whole scene had been witnessed by the big eyes of the sick man in the chamber, who had half risen. Now the old woman went back to him and smoothed his pillow for him.
“Lie still, my son!” said she, “there is no danger. Sleep, sleep, poor son, the old chiaruccia watches, and that you may be still more secure, that is our Fenice’s care, the blessed child! Sleep, sleep!” She croonedhim to sleep with monotonous songs, like a child. But he took the name of Fenice with him into his dreams.
Filippo was ten days up there in the mountains and in the care of the old woman, slept much by night, and by day, sitting before the door, enjoyed the clear air and the peacefulness of it all. As soon as he was able to write again, he sent a messenger with a letter to Bologna, and the next day received an answer. Whether welcome or unwelcome was not to be read in his pale face. Except to his nurse and the children of Treppi he spoke to no one, and he saw Fenice daily during the evening, when she was kept busy about the house. At sunrise she left the house and remained all day in the mountains. Formerly it had been otherwise, as he gathered from her chance utterances. But even when she was at home there was never an opportunity to speak to her. She went about in general as if perfectly unconscious of his presence, and appeared to be ordering her life as formerly, yet her face had become like stone and her eyes as dead.
When Filippo, one day, enticed by the beautiful weather, had wandered farther than usual from the house, and with the feeling of new strength was climbing an easy height, he was startled as he turned the corner of a rock and unexpectedly saw Fenice sitting on the moss near a spring. She had distaff and spindle in her hands, and during the spinning appeared to be much absorbed. At Filippo’s step she looked up, but spoke not a word, yet the expression of her face changed, and she quickly gathered up all her tools.Then she went away, without heeding his call, and was soon out of sight.
The morning after this incident, he had just risen and his first thoughts were again turned to her, when the door of his room opened and the young girl calmly appeared before him. She remained standing at the threshold, and signed to him imperiously with her hand, as he was about to approach her hastily from the window.
“You are cured once more,” she said coldly. “I have spoken with the old woman. She thinks you have strength to travel again by short day stages and on horseback. You will leave Treppi early in the morning, and never return. This promise I demand of you!”
“I promise it, Fenice, on one condition.”
She was silent.
“That you go with me, Fenice!” He spoke with great, uncontrolled emotion.
A dark frown of anger overclouded her brow. But she restrained herself, and said, holding on to the door-knob: “In what way have I deserved to be made sport of? Make the promise without condition. I expect it on yourhonor, Signor!”
“Will you so thrust me aside, after you have instilled your love charm into me to the very core and made me your own forever, Fenice?”
She calmly shook her head. “There is no longer any charm between us,” she said in a hollow voice. “You lost blood before the drink worked; the spell is broken. And it is well that it is so, for I have donewrong. Do not let us speak of it any more and only say that you will go. A horse will be ready and a guide for wherever you will.”
“If it is no longer magic that binds me to you, there is surely something else, for which you have no remedy. May God be gracious to me—”
“Be still!” she interrupted him, and closed her lips tightly. “I am deaf to such words as you are going to speak. If you think there is something due to me and are trying to pity me—then go and the account is therewith balanced. You shall not think that this poor head of mine can learn nothing. I know now that one can not buy a human being—as little by the pitiable services that go as a matter of course, as by seven years of waiting—which is also a matter of course, before God. You shall not think that you have made me unhappy. You have cured me! Go, and take my thanks with you!”
“Answer me, before God!” he cried, beside himself, and went nearer to her, “have I cured you also of yourlove?”
“No,” she said firmly. “What is that to you? That is my affair; you have neither right nor power over it. Go.”
With that she stepped back and over the threshold. The next moment he had fallen on the stones at her feet and was clasping her knees.
“If it is true, what you say,” he cried in greatest sorrow, “then save me, receive me, take me up to you, or this brain, which only a miracle has kept together, will burst in pieces, along with the heart that you wishto thrust aside. My world is empty, my love the prey of hate, my old and my new home banished me; what have I to live for, if I must also lose you!”
Then he looked up at her and saw the bright tears breaking from her closed eyes. Her face was still motionless; then she took a deep breath, her eyes opened, her lips moved, still without words. At one touch life was again blossoming in her. She bent down over him, her strong arms lifted him up—“You are mine!” she whispered trembling. “So will I be yours.”
The sun as it rose the next day saw the pair on their way to Genoa where Filippo decided to retire before the plots of his enemies. The tall, pale man rode upon a safe horse, which his wife was leading by the bridle. On both sides extended in the clearness of the autumn the heights and depths of the beautiful Apennines; eagles circled above the ravines, and far away in the distance glistened the sea. And calm and shining like the ocean there the future lay before the wanderers.