300THE BALL AT THE PALMAROSA PALACE.When Signora Agatha reached the foot of the great staircase, where there were few people, she had recovered her tranquillity; but Michel was trembling more than ever.
THE BALL AT THE PALMAROSA PALACE.When Signora Agatha reached the foot of the great staircase, where there were few people, she had recovered her tranquillity; but Michel was trembling more than ever.
THE BALL AT THE PALMAROSA PALACE.
When Signora Agatha reached the foot of the great staircase, where there were few people, she had recovered her tranquillity; but Michel was trembling more than ever.
When Signora Agatha reached the foot of the great staircase, where there were few people, she had recovered her tranquillity; but Michel was trembling more than ever.
"Doubtless she is going to show me the door herself," he thought, "without allowing anyone to divine her purpose. She is too great and too kind not to rescue me from the insults of her servants and the contempt of her guests; but the advice she is going to give me will be none the less deadly. This probably means the ruin of all my future prospects, and the wreck of the life I have dreamed of will lie here on the threshold of her palace."
"Michelangelo Lavoratori," said the princess, putting her bouquet to her face to deaden the sound of her voice, which might have reached some ear on the alert with curiosity, "I have discovered to-day that you are a genuine artist, and that a noble career lies open before you. A few more years of earnest work, and you may become a master. Then the world will receive you, as you deserve to be received to-day, for the man who has nothing more than well-founded hopes of his personal glory is at least the equal of those who have only the memory of the glory of their ancestors. But tell me if you are in haste to make your appearance in this society which you have seen to-night, and whose spirit you can already divine? If you wish it, I have but to say a word, to raise my hand. All the connoisseurs here noticed your figures, and asked me your name, your age, and your antecedents. I have only to present you to my friends, to declare that you are an artist, and from this day you will be so considered, and practically emancipated from your present social position. Your father's humble profession, far from injuring you, will be an added source of interest; for the world is always surprised to see a poor man born with genius, as if artistic genius had not always sprung from the common people, and as if our caste were still fruitful in superior men. Answer me, Michel; do you wish to sup to-night at my table, by my side, or do you prefer to sup in the buttery, beside your father?"
This last question was put so concisely that Michel thought that he could read his sentence in it. "This is either a delicately administered but most severe lesson that I am receiving," he thought, "or else it is a test. I will come forth pure!"—And at once recovering his wits, which had been violently agitated a moment before, he replied proudly:
"Signora, most fortunate are they who sit at your side and whom you treat as friends! But the first time that I sup with persons in aristocratic society, it will be at my own table, with my father sitting opposite me. That is equivalent to saying that it will never happen, or that, in any event, many years still separate me from glory and wealth. Meanwhile, I will sup with my father in the buttery of your palace, to prove to you that I am not proud and that I accept your invitation."
"Your reply gratifies me," said the princess; "continue to be a man of spirit, Michel, and destiny will smile upon you; remember that I predict it!"
As she spoke, she looked him in the face, for she had dropped his arm and was about to leave him. Michel was dazzled by the flames that gushed from her eyes, usually so soft and dreamy, but animated for him alone—that was certain now—with an irresistible affection. And yet he was not disturbed by it as before. Either it was a different expression, or he had misunderstood it at first. What he had taken for passion was affection, rather, and the desire which had swept over him like a flood changed to a sort of enthusiastic adoration, as chaste as she who inspired it.
"But listen," added the princess, motioning to the Marquis della Serra, who passed at that moment, to give her his arm, and thus admitting him to a share in the conversation: "although there is nothing humiliating to a sagacious mind in eating in the buttery, and although there is nothing intensely exhilarating in supping in the salon, I desire that you should do neither. I have reasons for that which are entirely personal to you, and which your father must have explained to you. You have already attracted attention to-day by your work. Avoid showing yourself freely for a few days more, but without concealing yourself with an affectation of mystery, which course would have its dangers. I could have wished that you had not come to this fête. You should have understood why I did not order a card of admission to be given to you; and your father tried to remove any desire that you might have to be present by telling you that, if you remained, you would be charged with some duty which would not suit you. Why did you come? Tell me frankly: are you very fond of spectacles like this? You must have seen as beautiful ones at Rome?"
"No, signora, I have never seen any that were beautiful at all, for you were not present."
"He wishes to make me believe," said the princess, with a smile of the utmost amiability, addressing the marquis, "that he came to the ball on my account. Do you believe it, marquis?"
"I am sure of it," replied the marquis, pressing Michel's hand affectionately. "Let us see, Master Michelangelo, when are you coming to see my pictures and dine with me?"
"He also declares," said the princess, hastily, "that he will never dine with people of our sort without his father."
"Why this exaggerated timidity, pray?" said the marquis, fixing his eyes upon Michel's with an expression of penetrating intelligence, in which a touch of severity was mingled with kindliness; "can it be that Michel is afraid that you or I would make him blush because he is not yet as respectable as his father? You are young, my boy, and no one can expect to find in you the virtues for which the noble-hearted Pier-Angelo is admired and loved; but your intelligence and your excellent sentiments are enough to justify you in going anywhere with confidence, without being compelled to efface yourself in your father's shadow. However, have no fear; your father has already promised to come to dine with me the day after to-morrow. Will it be convenient for you to accompany him on that day?"
Michel having accepted, struggling the while to conceal his confusion and surprise beneath an affected ease of manner, the marquis added:
"Now allow me to tell you that we shall dine together on the sly: your father was accused of conspiracy long ago; I am an object of suspicion to the government; we still have enemies who may accuse us again of conspiring."
"Well, good-night, Michelangelo, we shall meet again soon," said the princess, observing Michel's bewilderment; "be charitable enough to believe that we know how to appreciate real merit, and that we did not wait for yours to be revealed before discovering your father's. Your father has been our friend for many years, and if he does not eat at my table every day, it is because I fear to expose him to persecution by his enemies by making him conspicuous."
Michel was perturbed and out of countenance, although he would not for anything in the world have given the impression that he was dazzled by the sudden favors of fortune; but at heart he felt humiliated rather than overjoyed by the affectionate lesson he had received. "For it was a lesson," he said to himself, when the princess and the marquis, being accosted by other guests, had walked away, after bidding him good-night with a friendly nod; "these wise and philosophical grandees gave me to understand clearly enough that their affability is a mark of homage bestowed upon my father rather than myself. I am invited on his account, not he on mine; so that it is not my merit which procures me these marks of distinction, but my father's virtuous qualities. O God! forgive me for the proud thoughts that led me to desire to enter upon my career apart from him! I was mad, I was wicked; I have received a most useful lesson from these great nobles, upon whom I sought to impose respect for my origin, and who have, or pretend to have, a more heartfelt respect for it than I have myself."
But the young artist's wounded pride soon recovered from this blow. "I have it!" he cried, after musing a few moments. "These people are deep in politics. They are still conspiring. Probably they did not even take the trouble to look at my paintings, or else they know nothing about art. They pet and flatter my father, who is one of their tools, and they are trying to gain possession of me, too. Ah well! if they wish to arouse Sicilian patriotism in my bosom, let them go about it in a different way and not attempt to exploit my youth without advantage to my reputation! I see their object; but they shall learn to know me. I am willing to be the victim of a noble cause, but not the dupe of other people's ambition."
"But," said Michel to himself, "are the patricians all alike in this island? Does the age of gold still flourish in Catania, and do the servants alone retain the pride of prejudice?"
The majordomo had just passed and saluted him with a depressed and crestfallen air. Doubtless he had been reprimanded, or expected to be.
Michel was passing through the dressing-room, resolved to go home, when he saw Pier-Angelo holding the wadded great-coat of an old noble in a light wig, who was feeling about for the arm-holes, shaking as with palsy. Michel blushed at that sight, and quickened his pace. In his opinion, his father was much too good-natured, and the man who allowed himself to be waited upon thus gave an explicit contradiction to the conjectures in which he had just been indulging concerning the noble-hearted generosity of the great.
But he did not escape the humiliation he shunned. "Ah!" cried Pier-Angelo, "there he is, monsignor! Look, you were asking me if he was a handsome boy; look at him!"
"Ah! upon my word, the rascal is well turned, and no mistake!" said the old noble, standing in front of Michel, and eying him from head to foot, as he wrapped his coat about him. "I am much pleased with your decorative work, my boy; I noticed it particularly. I was just telling your father, whom I have known a long while, that you will deserve to succeed him some day in his trade; and if you don't go about town too much, you'll never land in the gutter. At all events, if you ever do get there, it will be your own fault. Call my carriage for me. Be quick; there is quite a cool wind to-night, and it's a bad thing when one has just been in such a suffocating crowd."
"A thousand pardons, your excellency," rejoined Michel, frantic with rage. "I am afraid of the wind myself."
"What does he say?" the old man asked Pier-Angelo.
"He says that your excellency's carriage is at the door," replied Pier, struggling hard to keep from roaring with laughter.
"Very good; I will hire him by the day, with you, when I have work for you."
"Oh! father!" cried Michel, as soon as the old nobleman had gone, "how can you laugh? That impertinent man treats you like a footman, and you accept such treatment with a smile!"
"It makes you angry," said Pier, "but why? I am laughing at your anger and not at the goodman's lack of ceremony. Didn't I promise to help the people of the house in every way? I happen to be here; he asks me for his great-coat; he is old, infirm, foolish—three reasons why I should take pity on him. And why should I despise him, pray?"
"Because he despises you!"
"According to your ideas, but not according to his conception of the things of this world. He is an old devotee, formerly a great rake. In the old days he seduced the daughters of the common people; to-day he bestows alms on the poor mothers. God will forgive him for his early sins, beyond any doubt. Why should I be more straitlaced than the good Lord! I tell you that the differences which social customs create among men are neither so important nor so real as you think, my child. They are all disappearing little by little, and if those who are inordinately sensitive would be a little less stiff, all those barriers would soon be nothing but empty words. For my part I laugh at those who consider themselves so much better than I am, and I never lose my temper. It is not in any man's power to humiliate me, so long as I am at peace with my conscience."
"Do you know, father, that you are invited to dine with the Marquis della Serra on the day after to-morrow?"
"Yes, that is understood," replied Pier-Angelo, coolly. "I accepted this invitation because he is not tiresome like most of the great nobles. Ah! what a price some of them would have to pay me to induce me to pass a couple of hours with them! But the marquis is a man of intellect. Do you mean to go there with me? Don't accept unless you choose, Michel; do you understand? You must not stand on ceremony with any one if you wish to retain your openness of heart."
There was evidently a wide difference between Pier-Angelo's idea of the honor conferred upon him by such an invitation and the idea that Michel had conjured up of his triumphal entrance into society. Intoxicated at first by what had seemed to him to be love on the part of the princess; then bewildered by the amiability of the marquis, which tended to diminish the force of the portent, but did not explain it; and, lastly, irritated by the insolence of the man in the great-coat, he did not know which way to turn. His theories concerning the victories of talent fell to the ground before the heedless simplicity of his father, who accepted everything—homage and disdain—with placid gratitude or satirical amusement.
At the doors of the palace Michel met Magnani, who was also going away. But, after walking a few steps, the two young men, revived by the morning air, determined, instead of going to bed, to skirt the hill and watch the rising of the sun, which was just beginning to whiten the sides of Ætna. They paused on a small hill, about the half height of Ætna itself, and seated themselves on a picturesque spot, having at their right the Villa Palmarosa, still gleaming with light and echoing with the strains of the orchestra; on their left the towering cone of the volcano, with the vast slopes forming an amphitheatre of verdure, rocks and snow to the summit. It was a strange and superb spectacle. Everything was ill-defined in that boundless expanse, and thepiedimontacould hardly be distinguished from the upper belt, callednemorosaorsilvosa. But while the dawn, reflected in the sea, suffused the lower portion of the picture with a pale, vague light, the bold, jagged edges and immaculate snow of the peak were sharply outlined against the transparent atmosphere of the night, which was still a deep blue and studded with stars about the giant's head.
The sublime tranquillity, the imposing serenity of the towering peaks, presented a marked contrast to the commotion all about the palace. The music, the shouts of the servants, the rumbling of the carriages, seemed, in the presence of placid, silent Ætna, a satirical epitome of human life as compared with the mysterious abyss of eternity. As the light grew stronger the peaks became less distinct, and the gorgeous streamer of reddish smoke that had cut the deep blue sky became blue itself, and wound upward like an azure serpent against an opal background.
Then the picture changed, and the contrast was reversed. The commotion and noise rapidly subsided about the palace, and the horrors of the volcano became visible; the formidable inequalities of its surface, its yawning chasms, and all the marks of desolation it had left upon the soil from its crater to its base, even beyond the point from which Michel and Magnani were gazing at it, even to the very seashore, where Catania lies, imprisoned by countless blocks of lava as black as ebony. That awe-inspiring marvel of nature seemed to be defied and insulted by the joyous airs which the orchestra was playing, softly now, and by the fast-dying illuminations which crowned the main façade of the palace. Now and again the music and the candles seemed to make an effort to revive. Evidently some indefatigable dancers compelled the musicians to shake off their torpor. Perhaps the burnt-out candles set fire to their collars of pink paper. One would have said, watching that brilliant and echoing structure, that the heedless gayety of youth was struggling against the prostration of sleep or the languor of sensual desire, while the undying scourge of that sublime country sent its blazing smoke into the air, a menace of destruction which could not always be defied with impunity.
Michelangelo Lavoratori was absorbed by the spectacle of the volcano, Magnani's eyes were fixed more frequently on the villa. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and his young friend, following the direction of his glance, saw a white figure which seemed to be floating in space. It was a woman walking slowly on the high terrace of the palace.
"She, too," cried Magnani, involuntarily, "is watching the sun rise over the mountain. She, too, is musing, and, it may be, sighing!"
"Who?" queried Michel, whose mind had hardened itself somewhat to eject its own chimera. "Are your eyes sharp enough to see from here whether it is Princess Agatha or her maid who is taking the air on the terrace?"
Magnani hid his face in his hands and made no answer.
"Come, my friend," said Michel, obeying a sudden inspiration, "be frank with me. The great lady with whom you are in love is the Princess Agatha?"
"Well, why should I not admit it?" rejoined the young mechanic, in a profoundly sorrowful tone; "it may be that I shall soon repent of having confided to a child whom I hardly know a secret which I have never allowed those who should be my best friends to suspect. There must be some fateful reason for this longing to unbosom myself which has suddenly drawn me toward you. Perhaps it is the late hour, the fatigue, the excitement caused by the music and lights and perfumes; I do not know. Perhaps, rather, it is because I feel that you are the only person here who is capable of understanding me, and that you are mad enough yourself not to be too severe upon my madness. Well, yes, I love her! I fear her, I hate her, and I adore her all at once—that woman who is unlike all other women, whom no one knows, and whom I do not know myself."
"I certainly shall not laugh at you, Magnani; I pity you, I understand you and I love you, because I think that I can detect a certain similarity between you and me. I, too, am excited by the perfumes, the intense brilliancy of that ball, and the noisy dance-music, in which my imagination detects such an undertone of gloom and melancholy through its false liveliness. I, too, feel over-excited and a little mad at this moment. I fancy that there is some deep mystery in our sympathetic feeling for each other."
"Because we both love her!" cried Magnani, beside himself. "Why, Michel, I guessed it from the first glance you bestowed upon her; you, too, love her! But you are loved by her, or will be, and she will never love me!"
"Loved, I shall be loved, or am already! What are you saying, Magnani? you are raving!"
"Listen to me; I must tell you how this disease took possession of me, and perhaps you will understand what is taking place in yourself. Five years ago my mother was ill. The doctor who attended her, for charity's sake, had almost given her up; her case seemed hopeless. I was sitting with my face in my hands, weeping bitterly, at the gate of our little garden, which opens on a street which is almost always deserted, and which ends in the fields on the outskirts of the town. A woman wrapped in a cloak passed the gate and stopped: 'Young man,' she said, 'why do you grieve so? what can I do to lighten your sorrow?'—It was almost dark and her face was hidden; I could not see her features, and her voice, which was extremely sweet, was unfamiliar to me. But her pronunciation and her manner convinced me that she did not belong to our class.
"'Signora,' I replied, rising, 'my poor mother is dying. I ought to be with her, but, as she is fully conscious and I have reached the end of my courage, I came outside to weep, so that she should not hear me. I am going back to her, for it is cowardly to weep like this.'
"'Yes,' she said, 'we must have enough courage to lend some to those who are struggling in the death agony. Go back to your mother; but tell me first if all hope is lost? has she no doctor?'
"'The doctor has not been to-day, and I understand that he can do nothing more.'
"She asked me the doctor's name and my mother's, and when I answered, she said: 'What! has she grown so much worse during the night? he told me last evening that he still hoped to save her.'
"These words, which she involuntarily let fall did not lead me to think that it was the Princess of Palmarosa who was speaking to me. I did not then know what many people do not know to-day, that that charitable woman paid several doctors to attend the poor of the city, the suburbs, and the country; that, without ever appearing in person, unwilling to receive the reward of her good works in the esteem and gratitude of others, she gave the most assiduous and careful attention to all the details of our hardships and our necessities.
"I was too much engrossed by my grief to pay the same attention to her words that I afterwards paid to them. I left her; but when I entered my poor invalid's room, I saw that the veiled lady had followed me. She approached my mother's bed without speaking, took her hand and held it a long time, leaned over her, looked into her eyes, listened to her breathing, and finally said in my ear: 'Young man, your mother is not so ill as you think. She still has some strength and vitality. The doctor did wrong to give up hope. I will send him to you and I am sure that he will save her.'
"'Who is this woman?' my mother asked in a feeble voice; 'I do not recognize you, my dear, but I recognize everybody else here.'
"'I am a neighbor of yours,' replied the princess, 'and I came to tell you that the doctor is coming soon.'
"She went out, and my father at once exclaimed: 'That woman is the Princess Agatha! I recognized her perfectly.'
"We could not believe my father; we supposed that he was mistaken, but we did not have time to discuss the question much. Mother said that she felt better, and the doctor soon arrived, ordered other remedies, and left us, saying that she was saved.
"And so she was; and since then she has always insisted that the veiled lady she saw at her death-bed was her patron saint, who had appeared to her just as she was praying to her, and that the breath of that blessed spirit had restored her life as by a miracle. We cannot disabuse my dear mother's mind of that pious and poetic idea, and my brothers and sisters, who were children then, share it with her. The doctor always pretended that he didn't know what we meant when we talked about a woman in a blackmazzaro, who had just entered the house and gone out again, saying that he was coming, and that my mother was saved.
"They say that the princess requires absolute secrecy from all those whom she employs in her good works, and indeed they go so far as to say that her modesty in that respect amounts to a mania. Her secret was kept for many years; but the truth always comes out at last, and now many know that she is the hidden providence of the unfortunate. But see the injustice and absurdity of human judgments! Some of our people declare that she once committed a crime, and made a vow to atone for it; that her noble and saintly life is a self-imposed, terrible penance; that in her heart she hates all mankind so bitterly that she will never exchange a sympathetic word with those whom she assists; but that the fear of everlasting punishment impels her to devote her life to works of charity. Isn't it horrible to form such judgments? And yet that is what I have heard said, in a very low tone, it is true, by old women who have called to see my mother in the evening, and it is sometimes repeated by younger people, who are impressed by these extraordinary conjectures. For my own part, I was fully convinced that I had not seen a phantom, and although my father, fearing lest he might lose the princess's good-will if he betrayed her incognito, dared not repeat that it was she who had appeared to us, he said it at first so naturally and so confidently that I could not doubt it.
"As soon as my mother was convalescent, I went and offered to pay the doctor for his services; but he refused my money, as did the druggist. They replied to my questions according to the lesson that had been taught them, that a secret association of wealthy and devout people paid them for their trouble and outlay."
"My brain began to work," said Magnani, continuing his narrative. "As the grief that had overwhelmed me gave place to joy, the romantic portion of my adventure recurred to my memory. The slightest details stood out distinctly and assumed an intoxicating charm. That woman's soft voice, her graceful figure, her noble carriage, her white hand, were constantly in my mind. A ring which she wore, of a curious shape, had attracted my attention when she felt my poor mother's pulse.
"I had never entered the Palmarosa palace. It is not open to strangers or to inquisitive natives, like most of the ancient abodes of our patricians. The princess has lived in retirement there, hidden from the world, so to speak, ever since her father's death, receiving very few visitors, going out only at night, and that very rarely. I had to watch for an opportunity to see her near at hand, for I was determined to see her with the eyes which I had for her alone thenceforth. I had never desired before that time to see her features, and she had shown them so seldom in ten years that the people of the suburb had forgotten them. When she rode out the shades were lowered, and when she went to church her head was completely enveloped in her black mantilla. Indeed, it was commonly said among us that she had once been very beautiful, but that she had had a scrofulous eruption on her face which made her so frightful that she preferred not to show herself.
"All this was simply vague rumor, for my father and other mechanics whom she employed laughed at these stories, and declared that she was the same as always. But my youthful brain was affected, none the less, by these contradictory reports, and my desire to see that woman was blended with an indefinable dread which prepared me by slow degrees for the madness of falling in love with her.
"One fact in particular added to my ardent longing. My father, who went often to the palace, as a simple journeyman, to assist the master upholsterer to hang and drape curtains and the like, refused to take me there with him, although I was accustomed to go everywhere else with him. He had often put me off with excuses which I accepted without examining them; but when my longing to find my way into that sanctuary became overpowering, he was compelled to admit that the princess did not like to see young people in her house, and that the master upholsterer carefully excluded them when he went there with his workmen. This extraordinary restriction served only to inflame my desire. One morning I resolutely took my hammer and my apron and entered the Palmarosa palace, carrying a prie-Dieu covered with velvet, which my father had just finished in his employer's workshop. I knew that it was made for Signora Agatha; I consulted nobody, but took possession of it and started.
"That was five years ago, Michel! The palace which you see at this moment, so resplendent, with its doors wide open, and filled with people, was just the same a month ago as it was at the time of which I am telling you, just the same as it had then been during the five years that had passed since she was left an orphan and mistress of her own life, and as it probably will be again to-morrow. It was a tomb in which she seemed to have buried herself alive. All the treasures to-day spread out for everyone to see were buried in darkness under layers of dust, like relics of the dead in a tomb. Two or three servants, dismal and silent, walked noiselessly through the long galleries closed to the sunlight and the outer air. On all sides thick curtains hanging before the windows, doors which refused to swing on their rusty hinges, an air of solemn neglect, statues standing erect in the shadow like ghosts, family portraits that followed you with their eyes with a distrustful air. I was frightened, and yet I walked on. The house was not so jealously guarded as I expected. It had invisible sentinels in its reputation for inhospitable gloom and the dread of its loneliness. I carried thither the insane audacity of my twenty years, the ill-fated rashness of a heart enamored in anticipation, and rushing headlong to its destruction.
"By a chance which seemed like fatality, I was not questioned by anyone. The few servants of that dismal abode did not see me, or did not think of preventing me from proceeding, relying, perhaps, upon some Cerberus nearer to the person of their mistress, whose duty it was to guard the door of her apartments, and who, by some miracle, happened not to be there.
"Instinct or destiny guided me. I passed through several rooms, I put aside heavy, dust-covered portières; I passed through one more open door and found myself in a very richly furnished room, where a full-length portrait of a man occupied a panel of the wall directly opposite me. I stopped. That portrait sent a shudder through my veins. I recognized it from my father's description of the original, whose character was then a much more common subject of anecdote and gossip among our people than the peculiarities of the princess. It was the portrait of Dionigi Palmarosa, Princess Agatha's father, and I must tell you something of that terrible man, Michel; for it may be that you have not as yet heard his name in this country, where nobody mentions it except in fear and trembling. Indeed, I see that I should have mentioned him to you before, for the hatred and terror which his memory inspires would have explained to you in some measure the distrust, and even malevolence with which his daughter, despite all her virtues, is regarded by some persons of our station in life.
"Prince Dionigi was a fierce, despotic, cruel and overbearing man. The pride of birth made him almost insane, and every indication of spirit or of resistance on the part of his inferiors was punished with incredible arrogance and severity. Vindictive to excess, he had, it was said, killed his wife's lover with his own hand, and worried her to death, poor creature, in a sort of captivity. He was bitterly detested by his equals, and still more bitterly by the poor, whom he assisted, however, on occasion, with lordly liberality, but in such a humiliating way that one felt degraded by his benefactions.
"Now you will understand better the small degree of sympathy which his daughter has acquired. It seems to me that the constraint in which she passed her early youth, under the iron rule of such a detestable father, may well explain her reserved disposition, and what I may call the premature withering or repression of her heart. Doubtless she is afraid of reawakening antipathies connected with the name she bears, by entering into relations with other people; and if she avoids intercourse with her fellow men, it is for reasons which should arouse the compassion and deep interest of fair-minded persons.
"A single other fact will serve to exhibit Prince Dionigi's disposition. About fifteen or sixteen years ago, I think—it is all very vague in my boyish memories,—a young mountaineer in his service, being maddened beyond endurance by the harshness of his language, ventured, they say, to shrug his shoulders as he held the stirrup for the prince to dismount from his horse. He was a worthy, honest fellow, but proud and of violent temper. The prince struck him a vicious blow. Thereafter they hated each other intensely, and the groom—his name was Ercolano—left the Palmarosa palace, saying that he knew the great secret of the family and that he would soon have his revenge. What was that secret? He had no time to reveal it, and no one ever knew what he had to reveal; for they found Ercolano the next morning on the seashore, murdered, with a dagger bearing the Palmarosa arms in his breast. His relations dared not demand justice, they were poor!"
Magnani had reached this point when the white figure they had seen wandering about the terrace crossed the flower-garden once more and went inside. Michel shuddered from head to foot.
"I don't know why your story has such an effect upon me," he said. "I seem to feel the cold blade of that dagger in my breast. That woman terrifies me. A strange superstition is creeping into my mind. A person cannot have a murderer's blood in her veins without having either a wicked heart or an unhinged mind. Give me a chance to breathe, Magnani, before you finish your story."
"The painful emotion that you feel, the dark thoughts that come to your mind," rejoined Magnani, "all fell to my lot at sight of Dionigi's portrait; but I passed on and through another door; the staircase leading to the casino was before me, and I found myself in the princess's oratory, where I set down the prie-Dieu and looked about me. No one there! I had no excuse for going farther; the mistress of that depressing mansion had evidently gone out. So I must needs retire without seeing her, lose the benefit of my audacity, and perhaps never again have the courage or the opportunity.
"It occurred to me to make a noise to attract her attention, in case she were in the adjoining room; for I was certainly in her apartments, I could not doubt it. I took my hammer and struck the gilt nails of the prie-Dieu, as if I were putting the finishing touch to it.
"My stratagem succeeded.—'Who is there? who is making such a noise?' said a faint voice, with a pure and distinct enunciation which left no doubt in my mind of the identity of that voice with that of the mysterious visitor whose accents had not ceased to echo in my heart like an ineffably sweet melody.
"I walked toward a velvet portière and raised it with the determination born of a last hope. I saw a woman reclining on a couch, in a bedroom sumptuously furnished in antique style: it was the princess; I had roused her from her siesta.
"My appearance terrified her beyond words; she leaped into the middle of the room as if she would fly. Her lovely face, whose gentle and somewhat languid serenity I had been able to contemplate with admiration for a second, was distorted by childish, incredible terror.
"I hastened to retrace the steps I had taken.—'I beg your excellency not to be frightened,' I said: 'I am only a poor upholsterer's apprentice, an awkward lout, ashamed of my mistake. I thought that your highness was out, and I was working here——'
"'Go away!' she exclaimed, 'go away!'
"And with a gesture in which there was more bewilderment and dismay than sternness and anger, she pointed to the door.
"I attempted to go, but I seemed to be rooted to the floor as in a dream. Suddenly I saw the princess, who had risen with extraordinary vehemence, turn as pale as a lovely lily; her breathing ceased; her head fell back; her arms dropped at her sides. She would have fallen to the floor had I not rushed to her and caught her in my arms.
"She had lost consciousness. I placed her on her couch, I was so bewildered that it did not occur to me to call for help. Indeed what would have been the use of ringing? Everybody was asleep or attending to his special duty in that house, where silence and solitude alone seemed to be absolute masters. May God forgive me! Twenty times since then I have been tempted to enter her service as a footman!
"Oh! Michel, it would be impossible for me to tell you to-day what took place within me during the two or three minutes that that woman lay stretched out like a dead woman before my eyes, with her lips as white and dry as pure wax, her eyes half-open, but strange and expressionless, her dark hair falling over her brow on which the cold perspiration stood in beads, and all that exquisite, refined beauty, above all comparison in my thought. It was not the intoxicating flame of a gross animal passion that was kindled in my plebeian blood. It was adoration, as pure and timid and refined and mysterious as the being who inspired it. I felt an irresistible longing to prostrate myself at the feet of a dead and gone martyr, for I thought that she was dead, and it seemed as if my soul were ready to leave the earth with hers.
"I dared not touch her; I did not know what to do to restore her. I had no voice with which to call for help. I was motionless in my perplexity, as one is when struggling violently in a horrible dream. At last a phial fell under my hand, I know not how. She recovered consciousness little by little, looked at me without seeing me, not understanding or seeking to understand who I could be. At last she raised herself on her elbow and seemed to be collecting her thoughts.
"'Who are you, my friend?' she said, seeing me on my knees by her side, 'and what do you want? You seem to feel very sorrowful.'
"'Ah! yes, your highness, God is my witness that I am very unhappy to have frightened you so.'
"'You did not frighten me,' she said, with an evident embarrassment which astonished me. 'Did I cry out?—Ah! yes,' she continued, with a shudder, yielding once more to an impulse of distrust or alarm.—'I was asleep; you came in; you frightened me. I do not like to be surprised in that way. But did I say anything unkind to you, that you weep?'
"'No, your highness,' I replied; 'you fainted, and I would rather have died than have caused you this discomfort.'
"'Am I alone here, pray?' she cried in a tone of distress that tore my heart. 'Can anybody who pleases enter my apartments and insult me?'—She rose and ran to her bell-rope. She seemed desperate—beside herself. Her words and her excitement had affected me so painfully that it did not occur to me to fly. And yet, if she had rung—if anyone had come—I should have been treated like a criminal. But she stopped, and the expression of her face told me the truth at once concerning her disposition.
"It was a blending of unhealthy suspicion and sympathetic kindliness. She had been so wretchedly unhappy in her early youth—so everyone said! At all events, she could not have been ignorant of her father's execrable character. She may have witnessed some murder in her childhood. Who knows what scenes of violence and terror have been enacted behind the thick walls of that dumb mansion? It was by no means impossible that she might have acquired therefrom some mental malady of which I had just witnessed an outbreak; and yet what angelic sweetness her glance expressed when she dropped the bell-cord, apparently overcome by my humble attitude and the grief by which I was overwhelmed!
"'You came in here by chance, did you not?' she said. 'You did not know that it is a whim of mine not to like new faces; or, if you did know it, you had the courage to disregard my orders, because you have had some misfortune which I can lighten? I have seen you somewhere; I have a vague remembrance of your features. Your name is——?'
"'Antonio Magnani, your highness. My father works here sometimes.'
"'I know him; he has some little means. Is he sick? Has he run in debt?'
"'No, signora,' I replied, 'I do not ask alms, although you are the only person on earth from whom I could accept alms without blushing. I have long wished to see you; not to beg from you, but to bless you. You saved my mother; you encouraged me. You leaned over her pillow; you restored my hope and her life. That is certain; of course you do not remember it, but I shall never forget it. May God reward you for what you did for us! That is all I wanted to say to your highness; and now I will go away, begging you not to blame anyone, for the fault is entirely mine.'
"'I will not tell anyone that you came into my house in spite of my orders,' she said. 'Your employer and your father would reprove you for it. Nor do you say that you saw me in such a fright. People would say that I am mad, as they say now, I believe, and I do not much like to have people talk about me. As for your thanks, I do not deserve them. You are mistaken; I never did anything for you, my child.'
"'Oh! I am not mistaken, your highness; I should have known you among a thousand. The heart has instincts deeper and truer than the senses. You do not wish your benefactions to be discovered, so I do not speak of them. I do not intend to thank you for paying the doctor; no, you are rich, and it is easy for you to give. But you are not obliged to love and pity those whom you help. And yet you pitied me when you saw me weeping at the door of the house where my mother lay dying, and you loved my mother when you leaned over her bed of pain.'
"'But I tell you again, my child, that I do not know your mother.'
"'That is possible; but you knew that she was sick. You wished to see her, and charity was in your very glance—how ardent at that moment!—since your glance, your voice, your touch, your breath, cured her as by a miracle. My mother was conscious of it; she remembers it; she thinks that it was an angel who appeared to her; she addresses her prayers to you because she thinks that you are in Heaven. But I was sure that I should find you on earth, and should have an opportunity to thank you.'
"Princess Agatha's cold and impassive face relaxed as if involuntarily. It lighted up for an instant with a warm glow of sympathy, and I saw that treasures of kindliness were contending in that suffering heart against a painful misanthropical propensity.—'Well,' she said, with a divine smile, 'I see, at all events, that you are a good son and adore your mother. God grant that I may in truth have brought her good fortune! but I believe that God alone deserves thanks. Thank Him and worship Him, my child; He alone understands and can relieve certain sorrows, for men cannot do much for one another. How old are you?'
"I was twenty at that time. She listened to my reply, and said, looking at me as if she had not yet noticed my features: 'True, you are older than I thought. You can come and work here when you choose. I am accustomed to your face now, and it will not startle me again; but another time do not wake me suddenly by hammering in my ears in that way, for I am always depressed and nervous when I wake. That is my disease!'
"While she was speaking, and while she looked after me as I walked toward the door, her eyes expressed this thought: 'I do not offer you my assistance in life, but I will keep my eye on you, as I do on so many others, and I will find ways to serve you without your knowledge; and I will take measures to avoid having to listen to your thanks again.'
"Yes, Michel, that is what was said by that face, at once angelic and cold, maternal and unfeeling; a terrible enigma, which I have never been able to solve, and which I am less able to solve to-day than ever."
Magnani ceased to speak, and it did not occur to Michel to question him. But at last the young painter, coming to himself, asked his friend for the rest of his story.
"My story is at an end," replied Magnani. "Ever since that day I have been admitted to the palace as a workman. I have often seen the princess, but I have never spoken to her."
"How does it happen, then, that you love her? for you do not know her? you do not know her real opinions?"
"I thought that I had guessed them. But, during this last week, when she has seemed inclined to emerge suddenly from her tomb, throw open her house, and take part in social life; especially to-day, when she has been going about and conversing familiarly with people of our station, with kindly words and cordial invitations—for I overheard the conversation that you had with her and the Marquis della Serra on the main staircase; I was close at hand,—I no longer know what to think of her. Yes, even recently I thought that I had fathomed her character. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, I have come here with other workmen, I have seen her pass from time to time, walking slowly, with an absent-minded, melancholy, yet perfectly tranquil air. If she sometimes seemed downcast and distressed, the serenity of her glance was not disturbed. She always bowed to us collectively with greater courtesy than persons of her rank ordinarily show to us. Sometimes she would exchange with the master upholsterer or my father a few pleasant words, equally free from pride and from warmth. She seemed to feel an instinctive respect for their years. I was the only young workman admitted to her house, but she never seemed to pay the slightest attention to me. She did not avoid my glances, but met them without seeing them.
"At certain times, however, I noticed that she saw many more things than she seemed to see; and that people who complained, even when she did not seem to hear them, obtained justice or help at once, without knowing whose was the mysterious hand put forth over them. You see, she conceals her boundless charity as other people conceal their shameful selfishness. And you ask me how it happens that I love her! Her virtue arouses my admiration, and the dumb despair which seems to be crushing her inspires in my heart profound and affectionate compassion. To admire and to pity—is not that to adore? The pagans, who have left so many magnificent ruins on our soil, sacrificed to their gods, all radiant with strength and glory and beauty; but they did not love them; and we Christians have felt the light of faith pass from our minds into our hearts, because God was shown to us in the guise of a bleeding, tear-bedewed Christ. Ah! yes, I do love that woman, who has paled, like a flower of the woods, beneath the terrible shadow of paternal tyranny. I do not know the story of her infancy, but I divine the misery of her girlhood. They say that, when she was fourteen, her father, being unable to force her to marry in accordance with the views dictated by his pride and ambition, to which he proposed to sacrifice her, confined her for a long time in a secluded room of yonder palace, and that she suffered there from hunger, thirst, heat, neglect, and despair. Nothing definite has ever been known about it. Another version of the story also gained currency; it was said that she was in a convent; but the terror-stricken air of her servants said plainly enough that her disappearance was a part of some unjust and unnatural punishment.
"When Dionigi died, his heiress reappeared in the palace, with an old aunt who was little better than he, but who allowed her to breathe a little more freely. They say that at that time again she had several brilliant offers of marriage, but that she obstinately refused, thereby much angering the princess, her aunt. Her death put an end at last to her niece's persecutions, and at the age of twenty she found herself alone and free in the house of her fathers. But it was evidently too late for her to rouse from the state of prostration to which so much sorrow had brought her. She had lost the strength and the desire to be happy. She was torpid, a little inclined to be morose, and seemingly incapable of inviting the affection of others. She gained the affection, however, of some persons of her own rank, and it is certain that the Marquis della Serra, whom she refused to marry when he entered the lists several years ago, has never ceased to love her ardently. Everybody says so, and I know it; I will tell you how.
"Although I pride myself, without undue boasting, on being a good workman, I confess that when I am in the palace, I am, in spite of myself, the slowest of the slow. I am excited and perturbed. The ring of the hammers irritates my nerves, as if I were a silly girl; I am overcome by the heat at the slightest exertion with my arms. Every moment of the time I either have a feeling that I am going to faint, or am tempted to creep into dark corners, crouch there out of sight, and allow myself to be left behind. I surprise myself listening, prowling, spying. I no longer dare to go into the princess's oratory or her bedroom alone. Oh! no; although I know the road perfectly well. My respect is stronger now than my insane and restless passion! But if I can breathe the perfume that escapes through the chinks of the door of her boudoir; if I can hear, even at a distance, the sound of her light footsteps, which I know so well—then I am content, I am drunk with joy.
"Thus I have heard, I dare not say involuntarily—for if chance placed me within earshot, my will was not strong enough to prevent me from listening,—more than one interview between the princess and the marquis. How often have I been consumed by frantic jealousy? but I have acquired certain knowledge that he is only her friend, a loyal, respectful, submissive friend.
"One day, among others, they had a conversation, every word of which, I believe, is engraved with fatal distinctness on my memory.
"The princess was saying when I entered the adjoining room:
"'Oh! why question me so persistently? You know, my friend, that I am absurdly impressionable; that the thought of the past freezes my blood, and that, if I could make up my mind to speak of it—I believe, yes, I believe that I should go mad!'
"'Very well, very well,' he cried, 'let us not speak of it, let us be content with our tranquil friendship. Look at that lovely sky and those sweet cyclamens, which seem to smile in your hands.'
"'These flowers do not smile,' she replied, 'you do not understand their language, and I can tell you why I love them. It is because they are in my eyes the emblem of my life and the image of my heart. See how curiously limp they are; they are pure and fresh and fragrant; but is there not something unhealthy and decrepit in the inversion and unnatural upturning of their petals?'
"'It is true,' said the marquis, 'they have a sort of dishevelled look; they grow as a general rule on windswept peaks. One would say that they were trying to fly away from their stalks as if there were nothing to hold them, and that nature had provided them with wings like butterflies.'
"'And yet they do not fly away,' continued the princess; 'they are firmly attached to their stalks. Although apparently fragile, there are no hardier plants, and the most violent winds never strip them of their petals. While the rose succumbs to a hot day, and strews the burning earth with its leaves, the cyclamen is obstinate, and lives many days and nights in retirement, and, as it were, shrunken into itself: it is a flower that has no youth. You probably have never seen it just as it is opening. I have patiently watched that mysterious process; when the bud opens, the petals are rolled tightly together and separate with an effort. The first one that frees itself stretches out like a bird's wing, then throws itself backward and resumes its twisted position. Another follows, and the flower, almost before it is open, is already tremulous and wrinkled, as if it were about to die of old age. That is its way of living, and it lives a long while so. Ah! it is a melancholy flower, and that is why I carry it everywhere.'
"'No, no, it does not resemble you,' said the marquis, 'for its uncovered breast exhales its fragrance freely to all the winds of heaven, whereas your heart is mysteriously closed, even to the most discreet and least exacting affection!'
"They were interrupted; but I knew enough. Ever since that day, I too have loved the cyclamen, and I always cultivate it in my little garden; but I dare not pluck the flowers and smell them. Their odor makes me ill and drives me mad!"
"It is the same with me," said Michel. "Yes, it is a dangerous odor! But I no longer hear the carriages, Magnani. Doubtless the palace will soon be closed. I must go and join my father, for he must be tired out, whatever he may say, and he may need my help."
They walked in the direction of the ball-room. It was deserted; Visconti and his fellow-servants were extinguishing the candles which were still carrying on the struggle against the daylight.
"Why this fête after all?" said Magnani, as he glanced about that immense hall, whose height seemed to be doubled by the darkness overhead, while the bluish rays of dawn crept sadly into the lower portions through the open doors. "The princess might have helped the poor in other ways, and I cannot yet understand why she submitted to make this public demonstration of charity when she had always done good so mysteriously hitherto. What miraculous change has taken place in our reserved benefactress's existence? Instead of rejoicing at it, I, although I would give my life for her, am hurt by it, and cannot think of it without bitterness. I loved her as she was; I cannot understand her when she is cured, consoled, and effusive. Is everybody to know her and to love her now? People will no longer say that she is mad, that she once committed a crime, that she is concealing a horrible secret, that she is ransoming her soul by pious works, although she detests mankind! Madman that I am! I am afraid of being cured myself, and I am jealous of the happiness that she may have recovered! Tell me, Michel, do you suppose that she has made up her mind to love the Marquis della Serra, and that she will invite the court, the city, and the country, to celebrate her betrothal magnificently under her own roof? She gave a royal fête to-day; perhaps she will give a popular fête to-morrow. She is making her peace with everybody; great and small will make merry at her wedding! Ah! there will be dancing there! what fun for us, eh? and how kind the princess is!"
Michel remarked his companion's bitterness and irony; but although he was conscious of a thrill of strange emotion at the idea of Agatha's marriage to the marquis, he put all the more restraint upon himself. He, too, had been struck to the heart, but the shock was too recent for him to dare, or to deign, to give the name of love to his feeling. Magnani's madness served as a warning to him. He pitied him, but there seemed to him to be in that young man's abnormal position something humiliating to which he did not choose to subject himself.
"Come to your senses, my friend," he said. "Such a beautiful fête, at night, has a tendency to excite one, especially when one is only a spectator. But here comes the sun above the horizon, and it should dispel all phantoms and all visions. I feel as if I had just waked from a fantastic dream. Listen! The birds are singing outside; there is nothing here but dust and smoke. I am very sure that your madness is not so absorbing every hour of your life as you fancy at this moment of excitement and unreserve. I will wager that when you have slept two hours you will return to your work feeling like a different man. For my part, I already feel the salutary effect of real life, and I promise you that the next time we see the spectre pass close to us, I will not try to dispute her glance with you."
"Her glance!" cried Magnani, bitterly, "her glance! Ah! you remind me of the glance she bestowed upon you, before the ball opened, the first time she saw your face. My God! what an expression! If it had fallen upon me, just once in my life, I would have killed myself instantly, in order not to live any more upon certainty and cold reason, after such an illusion, such delirious joy. And you, Michel, felt the consuming fire that she communicated to you. You were scorched by it for an instant, and, but for my mockery, you would still gloat over it with rapture. But what does it matter to me now? I see clearly that she has lost her mind; that she has deprived her solitary sorrow of its sanctity; that she loves someone, you or the marquis—what matter which? Why this special display of friendship for your father, whom she hardly knew a year ago? My father has worked for her ever since she was born, and she barely knows his name. Does she propose to cap the climax of her eccentric life by an act of downright insanity? Does she propose to atone for her father's tyranny and unpopularity by marrying a child of the people—a mere boy?"
"You are the one who is mad," said Michel, disturbed and almost angry. "Go and get a breath of fresh air, Magnani, and don't involve me in the vagaries that your excitement suggests to you. Signora Agatha is sleeping peacefully at this moment, remembering neither your name nor mine. If she honored me with a kindly glance, it was because she loves painting and is pleased with my work.—Look, my friend," added the young artist, pointing to the figures of his fresco, upon which a rosy beam of the morning sun shone through the open windows. "There are the only intoxicating realities of my life. Let the lovely princess marry the Marquis della Serra. I shall be very glad; he is a courteous gentleman, and I like his face. I, when I choose, will paint a more perfect and less problematical divinity than the pale-cheeked Agatha."
"You, wretched boy? Never!" exclaimed Magnani, indignantly.
"I agree that she is beautiful," rejoined Michel, with a smile. "I have scrutinized her, and I have profited by that scrutiny. I have obtained from her all that I should never ask her for, the spectacle of her grace and her charms, to reproduce them and idealize them at my pleasure."
"I have always been told that artists had hearts of ice," said Magnani, staring at Michel in blank amazement. "You have seen the storm which drives me wild, and you remain cold—you laugh at me! Ah! I blush to think that I have betrayed my madness to you, and I am going away to hide my head!"
Magnani disappeared, frantic with excitement, and Michel was left alone in the almost deserted ball-room. Visconti was extinguishing the last candles, and Pier-Angelo, before taking his leave, was assisting to restore order temporarily in that structure which was to be entirely removed before evening.
Michel also assisted, but languidly. His own reflections having cooled his excitement, he felt utterly exhausted, mentally and physically.
Magnani's abrupt outbreak disturbed him. He reproached himself because, after undergoing in silence the rebound of the young mechanic's agitation, he had not succeeded better in sympathizing with his trouble, but had allowed him to go away uncomforted. On the other hand, he could not avoid a slight feeling of irritation. It seemed to him that Magnani had carried his effusiveness too far in seeking to convince him that he, Michel, was the object of a sudden passion on the part of the princess. It was so absurd, so improbable, that Michel, who was more self-possessed, more of a man of the world at eighteen than Magnani could ever be, shrugged his shoulders pityingly.
And yet, self-esteem is such a persistent and impertinent adviser that Michel now and again heard a voice within him saying: "Magnani has guessed aright. Jealousy gives him a keenness of vision which you yourself have not. Agatha loves you; she took fire at first sight. And why should she not love you?"
Michel was intoxicated and abashed at once by these flushes of vanity which rose to his cheeks. He was in haste to return home and recover his tranquillity altogether with sleep. And yet he desired to wait for his father, who was still at work, zealous and indefatigable, attending to a thousand minute details, a thousand apparently unnecessary precautions.
"Patience!" said the excellent Pier-Angelo. "I shall have finished in a minute; but I want our dear princess to be able to sleep in peace, and I don't propose that anybody shall come here and make a racket before to-night. Above all things, I don't propose to leave a single candle lighted in any corner. Now is the time when there is most danger of fire! Look! that idiot of a Visconti has left the lamp in the grotto burning; I can see it from here. Go and put it out, Michel, and take care not to spill oil on the couch."
Michel went into the grotto of the naiad; but, before extinguishing the lamp, he could not resist the temptation to gaze for a moment at the beautiful statue, the lovely foliage with which he had decorated it, and the couch whereon he had seen Agatha as in a dream. "How young she looked and how lovely she was!" he thought; "and how that man who loves her gazed at her, with an adoration which betrayed itself in spite of him, and which infected the most immaterial portion of my heart! I noticed others during the ball who stared at her with an insolence born of desire, which made my whole being quiver with indignation! All these great nobles love her, each in his own way, and she loves no one of them!"
And Agatha's glance passed through his memory like a lightning-flash, its dazzling brilliancy putting to flight all reason, all fear of ridicule, all self-distrust.
While musing thus, he had extinguished the lamp, and had sunk upon the cushions of the divan, expecting that his father would call him and that he might enjoy one last moment of comfort before leaving that fascinating grotto.
But fatigue overpowered him. He could contend no longer against the chimeras of his imagination. Half-reclining comfortably on the couch, and alone for the first time in twenty-four hours, he rapidly lost consciousness. For one moment he dreamed with his eyes open. The next moment he was sleeping soundly.
How many minutes,—or was it seconds only?—passed while Michel was overpowered by that irresistible lassitude, he had no idea. The power of the imagination, when transported into the domain of dreams, travels so fast and surmounts so many obstacles at a single bound, that time is an inadequate measure of it, especially in the first sleep.
Michel had a strange dream. A woman softly entered the grotto, walked to where he sat, leaned over him and gazed at him for a long time; he felt her fragrant breath caress his brow, he fancied that he felt also the fire of her glance fastened passionately upon him. But he could not see her, for it was dark in the grotto, and, moreover, it was impossible for him to raise his heavy eyelids; but it was Agatha; Michel's heart, inflamed by that woman's presence, told him so plainly enough.
At last, as he tried to rouse himself in order to speak to her, she placed her cool, soft lips on his forehead and imprinted a kiss thereon, so long, but so light, that he could not summon the strength to reply to it, overcome as he was by joy, and at the same time by the fear that it was only a dream.
"But it is a dream, alas! it is nothing but a dream," he said to himself, still sleeping; and yet the fear of waking caused him to wake. So it is that, in sleep, the instinctive, frantic desire to prolong the illusion causes it to vanish more quickly.
But what a strange and persistent dream! Michel, with his eyes open, sitting half erect, supported by his trembling arm, saw and heard that woman fly. The curtain at the entrance of the grotto being lowered, he could distinguish only an indistinct figure; he felt the touch of a silk dress; the curtain opened and closed again so quickly that it seemed to him that the phantom passed through without touching it.
He started to follow her; but all his blood rushed back to his heart so violently that he could not stand erect, but was compelled to fall back on the divan, and it was a full minute before he was able to rush to the blue velvet portière that separated him from the ball-room.
He drew it aside with a convulsive gesture and found himself face to face with his father, who said, with a jocose and placid air:
"So it seems that we have been having a nap, eh, my boy? Now, everything is in order; let us go home and see if little Mila is awake."
"Mila?" cried Michel, "is Mila here, father?"
"It may well be that she isn't far away," replied the old man. "I'll bet that she hasn't closed her eyes all night; she was so anxious to come to see the ball! But I forbade her to leave the house before daylight."
"It is daylight now," said Michel, "and Mila is probably here! Tell me, father, did some woman, my sister, perhaps, just come into the grotto?"
"Did you dream it? I saw no one. To be sure, my eyes weren't looking in that direction all the time, and I saw some striped skirts prowling about outside, which meant that some curious creatures had stolen into the garden. Can Mila have come in while my back was turned?"
"Why, this very instant, father, just as you came to the opening, someone went out, a woman; I am certain of it!"
"You are talking at random now, for I saw nothing but my shadow on the curtain. Come, you need a good nap, let us go home. They are just closing the last door. If your sister is here we shall find her."
Michel was about to follow his father; but as he was turning away he saw something glistening in the grotto and was led to cast a last glance inside. Was it a spark that had fallen on the carpet, near the couch? He stooped: it was a piece of jewelry, which he picked up and examined by daylight. It was the gold locket, surrounded with diamonds and bearing the princess's crest, which she had given Mila. He opened it to make sure that it was the same. He recognized a lock of his own hair inside.
"I knew that Mila came into the grotto," he said to his father, as they walked toward the garden; "she gave me a kiss which woke me."
"She evidently must have gone in there," rejoined Pier-Angelo, indifferently; "but I didn't see her."
At that instant Mila emerged from a clump of magnolias, and came forward, laughing and capering, to meet her father, whom she kissed affectionately, as she did Michel.
"It is high time for you to come home and rest," she said; "I came to tell you that your breakfast is waiting. I was so impatient to see you! Are you terribly tired, father, dear?"
"Not at all," the good man replied, "I am used to these things, and a sleepless night is all pleasure when you sup till morning. Your breakfast will go begging, Mila; but your brother here is asleep on his legs. Come, children; let us be off; see, they are closing the garden gates now."
But, instead of continuing to close the gates, the servants suddenly threw them wide open again, and Michel saw a procession of monks file in, monks of divers orders, all carrying wallets and purses; they were the begging brothers of all the mendicant orders, which have numerous establishments in Catania and its neighborhood. They were making their usual round and had come to collect for their respective communities the broken meat left from the fête. Some two score of them passed slowly through the gate; most of them had asses to carry away the avails of their quest. There was something so surprising and comical in their obsequious manner and their solemn bearing when they entered the gardens, escorted by their asses,—strange guests at a ball—that Michel, diverted from his emotion, had much ado to keep from laughing.
But no sooner were they fairly inside the gates than they broke ranks, and, shaking off their consequential, discreet manner, began to run toward the ball-room, each striving to outstrip his neighbors, beating their asses to make them move faster, hurrying, jostling, and freely exhibiting their greed and their jealousy. They overran the ball-room, almost breaking down the fragile doors, and attempted to ascend the main staircase of the peristyle, or to force their way into the kitchens. But the butler and hisofficers, being prepared for the assault, and knowing their ways, had carefully barricaded all the issues; they brought forth the fragments destined for the monks, and distributed them as impartially as possible. There were dishes of meat, remnants of pastry, pitchers of wine, and even pieces of glass and porcelain which had been broken during the fête, and which the good monks put together with great care and mended most skilfully, for the adornment of their own sideboards, or to sell to collectors. They quarrelled over the booty with little decency, reviled the servants for not giving them all that they were entitled to, for treating one better than another, for failing in respect for the patron saints of their convents. They even threatened them with the infirmities which those saints were supposed to be especially skilful in curing when the afflicted person had acquired their good-will.
"Bah! what a miserable ham you have given me!" cried one. "You are already deaf in one ear; you can depend upon it that before long you will not be able to hear the thunder with the other."