"You are very timid," she said; "I hope that if you are afraid of me there is no touch of distrust in your fear. I must speak to you quickly; do you answer in the same way. Are you disposed to do me a very great favor, at the risk of your life? I ask it in your mother's name!"
Magnani fell on his knees. Only with his eyes, which were streaming with tears, could he testify his enthusiasm and his devotion. Agatha understood him.
"You must return to Catania," she said; "run until you overtake two men who have just left here and who will not have five minutes' start of you. One is Michelangelo Lavoratori; you can readily recognize him in the moonlight. The other is a mountaineer wrapped in his cloak. Follow them without seeming to watch them, but do not lose sight of them. At the least suspicious gesture on that man's part, you will hurl yourself upon him and throw him down. You are strong," she added, touching the young artisan's robust arm; "but he is active and cunning. Be on your guard! See, here is a dagger; use it only in self-defence. That man is either my enemy or my preserver, I do not know which. Spare his life, if possible. Fly with Michel, if you can thereby avoid a bloody battle. You live in the same house with Michel, do you not?"
"Almost, signora."
"Be where you can assist him at the first alarm. Do not go to bed; pass the night as near his room as you can. The man I speak of will go away before daylight; do not leave your house and do not let Michel go away unless you go together, always together, do you understand? And be ready until I give different orders. To-morrow I will explain everything to you; I will see you. Rely upon me, from this day forth, as a second mother. Come, my child, follow me; I will put you on the track of Michel and his companion."
She took him by the arm and hastily led him up to the Casino, which they passed through without a word. She opened the garden gate, and pointing to the staircase in the rock, "Go," she said, "celerity, caution, and your noble heart, the heart of a man of the people, for your friend's buckler!"
Magnani descended the stairs as swiftly and noiselessly as an arrow. He wasted no time in reflection, nor did he exhaust the force of his determination by worrying. He did not even ask himself the question whether Michel was his fortunate rival, and whether he should not be tempted to run him through the heart. Impelled by the magic force which Agatha's hand and breath had given him, he was all ready to lay down his life for that favored child of fortune, and he felt no more regret than hesitation at the thought of sacrificing himself thus. Nay, more, he was happy and proud to obey the woman he loved, and her words rang in his heart like a voice from Heaven.
He was soon in the fields and discovered two men walking along a path. He recognized Michel; he recognized the mountaineer's cloak. He took pains not to show himself; but he measured with a glance the distance and the obstacles that he would have to pass over in case of an alarm. The mountaineer stopped for a moment, talking earnestly. Magnani, with a determined effort of strength and activity, which under other circumstances would have been beyond the power of man, reached a point sufficiently near to overhear him, and found that he was talking of love and poetry.
He allowed them to gain on him again, and, gliding through a narrow path among the blocks of lava that lay in great heaps at the entrance to the city, he arrived before them in the yard of the adjoining houses occupied by his family and Michel's. He watched his young friend and his suspicious guest enter the house. Then Magnani made the circuit of the houses, looking for a place where he could pass the night, unseen, but within hearing of the slightest noise, the slightest commotion inside.
Pier-Angelo had been notified by the princess and by a message from the monk of Mal Passo, that he must not be alarmed by his son's absence, and that, in case of danger, the young man would pass the night either at the convent with his uncle, or in the Marquis della Serra's palace. The princess would have preferred the latter course; but the necessity of showing absolute confidence in the brigand, concerning whose sensitiveness Fra Angelo had fully informed her, had triumphed over her anxiety. With great foresight she had sent for Magnani, and we have seen that she was justified in her reliance upon that excellent young man.
Pier-Angelo, naturally optimistic, and reassured by the message he had received, had gone to bed and was making up for the fatigue of the ball like a man who knows how to use time to advantage. Mila had also gone to her room; but she was not asleep. She had passed the afternoon with the princess, and, upon being questioned by her concerning her friends, had spoken of Antonio Magnani among others with a warmth which would have betrayed the secret of her heart, even if Agatha had not been watchful and penetrating. It was the favorable account the girl had given of her young neighbor which had finally led the princess to call upon him for aid in the embarrassment of her situation. She had said to herself that Magnani might well become Mila's husband some day, and that nothing could be more natural, therefore, than that he should have a share in shaping Michelangelo's destiny. She had entrusted Mila with the message to Magnani to come to her that night, and poor Magnani, on receiving the message, had nearly fainted. Should we not rather saypoor Mila? But Mila had attributed the young man's confusion to his timidity alone. Agatha was the last person whom she would have suspected of being her rival, not that she was not in her eyes the loveliest of women, but because, in a pure heart, there is no room for jealousy of the persons whom one loves. On the contrary, the true-hearted child was happy in the mark of esteem and confidence with which her dear Agatha had honored Magnani. She was proud of it for his sake, and would have liked to be able to carry him such messages every day.
But the princess had thought that she ought not to conceal from Mila the fact that Michel was necessarily involved in an adventure in which he might incur some danger, and that Magnani would assist him to defend himself.
So Mila was anxious; she had said nothing to her father of her fears; but she had been out more than ten times on the road to the villa, listening to noises in the distance, watching all the passers-by, and returning to the house each time more distressed and alarmed than before. At last, when eleven o'clock struck, she dared not go out again, but remained in her room, sometimes at the window, where she tired her eyes staring to no purpose, sometimes beside her bed, where she fell on her knees, depressed beyond measure, with her face buried in the pillow. At times her pulses throbbed so violently that she mistook the throbbing for a noise by her side. Then she would start and raise her head, and, hearing nothing, try to pray.
At last, about midnight, she thought that she heard distinctly a faint sound of irregular footsteps in the yard. She looked and fancied that she saw a shadow glide along the wall and disappear in the darkness. It was Magnani; but she could not distinguish any well-defined form, and was not sure that she had not been deceived by her own imagination.
A few moments later two men stole noiselessly up the outside staircase of the house. Mila had begun to pray again, and did not hear them until they were under her window. She ran to the window, and seeing only the tops of their heads, as she was directly above them, she had no doubt that they were her brother and Magnani returning together. She hastily rearranged her lovely hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, and hurried to meet them. But as she passed into Michel's chamber, the outer door of that chamber opened, and she found herself face to face with Michel and a man who was fully a head shorter than Antonio Magnani.
The Piccinino, whose features were hidden by the hood of his cloak, hastily drew back and closed the door, saying: "You probably did not expect your mistress to-night, Michel. Under any other circumstances it would give me great pleasure to see her, for she seemed to be as beautiful as the Madonna; but at this moment you will oblige me greatly if you can send her away without letting her see me."
"Have no fear," replied the young artist. "This woman is my sister, and I will send her back to her own room. Stay here a moment, behind the door."
"Mila," he said, entering the room again and holding the door between his companion and himself, "you seem to have taken a mania for sitting up late like a night-bird. Go back to your own room, my dear love, I am not alone. One of father's apprentices has asked me to take him in, and I am going to share my bed with him. You must see that you shouldn't stay here another moment, unless you want to be seen with your hair and dress in disorder."
"I will go," said Mila; "but tell me first, Michel, whether Magnani came home with you?"
"What does it matter to you?" rejoined Michel, testily. Mila heaved a profound sigh, and returned to her room, where she threw herself on her bed, quite disheartened, but determined to pretend to be asleep, and to listen to everything that was said in the adjoining room. Perhaps something had happened to Magnani; her brother's abrupt manner seemed to her of evil augury.
As soon as the Piccinino found himself alone with Michel, he asked him to throw the bolts and to place a mattress from the bed against the thin warped door of the adjoining room, through which the light could be seen and their voices heard. When that was done, he asked him to make sure that his father was asleep, or, if he were still awake, to wish him good-night, so that the old man might not take it into his head to come upstairs. As he spoke, the bandit unceremoniously threw himself on Michel's bed, having first removed his rich doublet, and, covering his head with his cloak, seemed determined not to lose an instant in going to sleep.
Michel went downstairs as he was requested; but he was no sooner on the staircase than the young outlaw sprang to his feet as swiftly and lightly as a bird, threw the mattress aside, drew the bolt, and approached Mila's bed, beside which her little lamp was still burning.
Mila heard him come in; but she supposed that Michel had come to make sure that she was in bed. It did not occur to her that another could have the audacity to enter her room thus, and, like a child who is afraid of being scolded, she closed her eyes and lay perfectly still.
The Piccinino had never seen a beautiful woman without being disturbed and restless until he had examined her carefully, in order that he might cease to think of her if her beauty was imperfect, or cast his net over her if her style of beauty succeeded in inflaming his disdainful heart, a strange compound of love and indolence, energy and torpor. Few men of twenty-five have lived so chaste and self-restrained a life as the bandit of Ætna; but few imaginations are so fertile as his was in dreams of pleasure and in boundless appetites. It seemed that he was always seeking to kindle his passions in order to test their intensity, but that he abstained from gratifying them most of the time, fearing lest his enjoyment might fall short of the idea he had conceived of it. Certain it is that on the few occasions on which he had given way, he had been profoundly depressed afterwards, and had reproached himself for having expended so much exertion for a pleasure so soon exhausted.
Perhaps he had other reasons for wishing to see Michel's sister's features without Michel's knowledge. However that may be, he gazed at her attentively for a moment, and, enraptured by her beauty, her youthful grace, and her air of innocence, he asked himself whether he would not do better to love that fascinating child rather than a woman older than himself and doubtless more difficult to persuade.
At that moment Mila, weary of feigning sleep, and more eager for news of Magnani than afraid of her brother's reproaches, opened her eyes and saw the stranger leaning over her. She saw his eyes gleaming under his hood, and, terror-stricken, she was on the point of crying out, when he put his hand over her mouth.
"Child," he said in a low voice, "if you say a word, you are lost. Hush, and I will go away. Come, come, my lovely angel," he added, in a caressing tone, "don't be afraid of the friend of your family; before long perhaps you will thank him for having disturbed your sleep."
And, being unable to resist an insane impulse of coquetry, of a sort that often caused him suddenly to forget his resolutions and his cautious instincts, he threw back his hood and disclosed his beautiful features, made still more beautiful by a sweet and winning smile. The innocent Mila thought that she had had a vision. The diamonds that sparkled on the young man's breast so heightened the general effect that she did not know whether it was an angel or a prince in disguise who stood before her. Bewildered, hesitating, she smiled back at him, half fascinated, half terrified. Thereupon he lifted a heavy tress of her black hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, and put it to his lips. Fear gained the upper hand. Again Mila attempted to cry out. The stranger flashed such a terrible glance at her that her voice failed her. He put out the lamp, returned to Michel's room, bolted the door, and replaced the mattress; then, throwing himself on the bed and concealing his face, he seemed to be sleeping soundly when Michel returned. All this had happened in less time than it has required to tell it.
But, for the first time in his life, perhaps, the Piccinino could not compel sleep to deaden the activity of his thoughts. His imagination was an unbroken steed, with whom he had fought so many battles that he believed that he had placed a curb in his mouth forever. But the curb was broken, and that powerful will, exhausted in trivial combats, no longer sufficed to control fierce instincts too long held in check. He was between two violent temptations, which appeared to him in the shape of two women almost equally desirable, and whom the detestable Ninfo had practically offered to share with him. Michel was the hostage whom he had in his hands, and for whose ransom he could demand and perhaps obtain everything.
To be sure, he no longer believed in Agatha's passion for the young artist; but he had seen her utter indifference as to the matter of money, when it was a question of saving her friends from perils that threatened them. Was she so disinterested as to think that she ought to sacrifice something more than her fortune to ransom her protégé? Probably not; so that the bandit must rely upon his individual powers of seduction, and he saw in Michel only a means of gaining access to her so that he might exert those powers.
As for the young sister, it seemed to him an easier matter to overcome so innocent a child, not only because of the more direct affection which she undoubtedly entertained for her brother, but also because of her inexperience and the purity of her imagination, which he had tested with a glance.
In respect to youthful charm and mere physical beauty, Mila far surpassed Agatha; but Agatha was a princess, and the instinct of vanity was strong in the bastard of Castro-Reale. She was supposed never to have had a lover, she seemed prudent and strong. She had had twenty years or more to practise self-defence and to repel the assaults of the passions she had inspired; for she was at least thirty years old, and in the fiery climate of Sicily, where plants mature in less time than they require in France to put forth buds, a girl of ten is almost a woman.
It was, therefore, a most glorious conquest to dream about, and for that reason most intoxicating. But there was also the fear of failure, and Carmelo thought that in that case he should die of shame and rage. He had never known pain; it was a word almost devoid of meaning to him until that moment. He was beginning to discover that one can suffer for other causes than anger and ennui. As he lay awake, he watched Michel without his knowledge. He saw him sit down at his table and take his head in his hands, in an attitude of the most complete discouragement.
Michel was profoundly depressed. All his dreams had vanished like smoke. His situation seemed to him sufficiently elucidated by the conversation he had had with the bandit as they returned from the villa. To test him, the Piccinino had repeated Abbé Ninfo's calumnies, pretending to believe them and generously to take Michel's part. The young painter's noble and upright heart had rebelled against a suspicion which assailed the princess's dignity; his denials and his manner of describing his first interview with her in the ball-room had corresponded so closely with the way in which the princess herself had represented the facts to the bandit, that the latter, after a more searching and subtle examination than that of an inquisitor, had ended by becoming convinced that there was nothing criminal in the princess's relations with the artist.
Thereupon, seeing that there was a background of unhappiness to Michel's modesty and loyalty, the Piccinino had concluded that, if the princess did not love him, he wished that she might, and that he had fallen in love with her at first sight. He remembered Michel's abrupt and ironical reply to himself during the ball, and he took a cruel delight in making him feel that he could not hope to be loved by such a woman. It even occurred to him to admit that he questioned him only to test the refinement of his nature, and he ended by repeating word for word what Agatha had said when she pointed to Michel at the window of the boudoir: "Look at that young man and tell me if there can possibly be any wrongful relations between two persons of our respective ages and conditions." Then he added, pressing Michel's hand as they entered the city: "My child, I am pleased with you; for any other man, at your age, would have seized the opportunity to pose as the hero of a mysterious adventure with that adorable woman. Now I see that you are already a serious-minded man, and I can say to you in confidence that she has made an ineffaceable impression on me, and that I shall be like a stone in the crater of the volcano until I have seen her again."
The tone in which the Piccinino proclaimed, so to speak, this confession, combined with the remembrance of his enraptured face and his triumphant attitude when he returned to the boudoir with Agatha, alarmed Michel beyond expression. He had not felt obliged in conscience to tell him what illusions he had cherished, what he had thought that he could read in certain glances, still less what had taken place—and he did not believe that it was altogether a dream—in the grotto of the naiad. Indeed, he would have considered it his bounden duty to deny it with all his strength if his rival could have suspected it. But all his phantoms of pride and happiness took flight before Agatha's cold words, repeated in a dry, cutting tone by the Piccinino. But one point remained obscure in his situation. That was the peculiarly warm affection of the princess for his father and sister. But how could he attribute the honor of that affection to himself? It was based upon an ancient political connection or upon gratitude for some service rendered by Pier-Angelo. Pier-Angelo's son was subjected to the dangers of that connection at the same time that he shared its benefits. When that debt of the heart was paid, it was impossible that Michel could arouse any further interest in the generous patroness of his family. The mysteries that had fascinated him fell back into the domain of reality, and instead of the pleasant labor of combating charming illusions, he had the mortification of feeling that he had combated them unsuccessfully and the pain of being unable to revive them.
"Why should I be jealous of the insolent joy that shone in the eyes of that bandit?" he said to himself in dire distress. "Have I any business even to consider the question whether his strange manner caused the princess pleasurable or painful emotion? What have she and I in common? What am I to her? Pier-Angelo's son! And he, this bold-faced adventurer, is her mainstay and her savior. He will soon have a claim upon her gratitude—perhaps upon her esteem and affection; for it rests only with him to acquire them. He loves her, and if he is not mad he will find some way or other to make her love him. But how can I earn any title to her distinction? Of what consequence are the embryotic products of my art in comparison with the energetic assistance which she demands? It seems to me that she looks upon me as a child, since, instead of calling me to her aid, and entrusting to me some mission of importance to her interests and her personal safety, she does not even consider me capable of defending my own life. She considers me so weak or so timid that in this hour of our common danger she has sought the intervention of a stranger—an ally more dangerous than useful, it may be. O my God! how far she is from looking upon me as a man! Why did she not simply say to me: 'Your father and I are threatened by an enemy. Drop your brushes, take a dagger; defend your father or avenge me!' Fra Angelo reproached me for my indifference; but, instead of correcting it, they actually treat me like a child whom they pity, and whose life they save without troubling themselves about his heart!"
While he abandoned himself to these melancholy reflections, Michelangelo felt as if his heart were breaking, and finding in front of him the sprig of cyclamen, which was still living in its Venetian glass, he let a scalding tear fall upon it.
Mila had been so astonished and alarmed by the appearance of the Piccinino that she could not possibly sleep. The fact that alarmed her most was that she no longer heard conversation in the adjoining room, and that she could not make sure that her brother was there. She was unwilling to go to bed, and, after a few moments, as her reflections served only to increase her terror, she rose and opened another door of her chamber which opened on an outer gallery, or rather a dilapidated corridor sheltered by an awning, and ending in a staircase which served as a means of communication between her room and those of the other occupants of the house. Mila had never opened that door at night, but this time she went out on the gallery, having fully determined to seek refuge with her father and to sit in his chamber until daylight.
But she had barely taken three steps when a new cause of alarm brought her to a standstill. A man was leaning against the wall of the gallery as motionless as a robber on the watch.
She was about to fly, when a voice said in a whisper: "Is that you, Mila?" And as the man walked toward her she recognized Magnani.
"Don't be afraid," he said. "I am watching here by order of a person who is dear to you. Doubtless you know why, as you transmitted her message to me?"
"I know that my brother has been in danger this evening," replied the girl; "but it seems that you are not the only one whom our dear princess has stationed beside him to defend him. There is another young man in his room, whom I do not know."
"I know it, Mila; but that young man is the very one who is under suspicion; and I must stand guard as near as possible to the place where he is sleeping, until he has left the house."
"But you are a long way from him!" exclaimed Mila, in dismay, "and my brother might be murdered and you not hear it from here."
"But what am I to do?" replied Magnani. "I could not get any nearer to his room. He took pains to lock the door at the foot of the other staircase. So I am here; and I have my eyes and ears open, I assure you!"
"I will watch, too," said the girl, resolutely, "and you can sit up with me, Magnani. Come into my room. Even though people should speak ill of us, if we were seen, even if my father and brother should scold me severely, it makes no difference to me! I am only afraid of the man who is locked into Michel's room with him, or alone—for they put a mattress against my door, and I cannot find out whether Michel is really there. I am afraid for Michel; I am afraid for myself."
And she told how the bandit had entered her room when Michel was apparently not there to oppose his entrance.
Magnani, being unable to explain such an extraordinary occurrence, accepted Mila's suggestion without hesitation. He entered her room, leaving the door of the gallery ajar, in order that he might retire unseen if need were, but all ready to burst in Michel's door at the slightest alarming noise.
When he had listened coolly and cautiously, with his eye and ear glued to the partition, he said to Mila, beckoning her to the side of the room farthest from the door, and speaking very low:
"Set your mind at rest; they are not so well barricaded that I could not see Michel sitting at his table, apparently deep in meditation. I could not make out the other one, but I promise you that they cannot make a movement which I shall not hear, and that their bolt will not hold a second against my fist. I am armed; so don't be afraid any more, my dear Mila."
"No, no, I am not afraid," she said. "Since you have been here, I have recovered the use of my mind. Before you came, I was like a madwoman; I neither saw nor heard anything except through a veil. Have you had no accident, run no risk yourself to-night, Magnani?"
"None at all; but what are you looking for, Mila? You will make a noise fumbling in that drawer."
"No, no," she said. "I am getting a weapon too, for I feel as brave as a lion with you."
And she held up an ebony spindle, carved and mounted in silver, the stout, sharp point of which might at need serve the purpose of a stiletto.
"When our dear princess gave me this to-day," she said, "she had no suspicion that I might perhaps use it to defend my brother. But tell me, Magnani, how did the princess receive you, and how did she explain these mysteries which are happening all about us, and which I do not understand at all? We can safely talk here in this doorway; no one will hear us and it will help to make the time seem shorter and less dull."
She sat down on the step outside the door that opened on the gallery. Magnani sat beside her, ready to fly if any inquisitive individual should approach, ready to show himself if Michel's guest made any sign of hostility. They talked in very low tones, and their whispered words expired in the open air, nor did either of the two become so engrossed as to fail to pause and listen intently at the slightest sound.
When Magnani had told Mila what little he knew, she lost herself in vain conjectures as to the identity of that handsome young man, whose expression was at once sweet and fear-inspiring, who styled himself, when speaking with her, the friend of the family, and of whom the princess had said to Magnani: "He is either our savior or our enemy."—And, when Magnani urged her not to try to fathom a secret which the princess and her family apparently deemed it necessary to conceal from her, she replied: "Do not think that I am consumed by silly childish curiosity! No, I have not that wretched failing. But I have been afraid all day long, and yet I am not timid, either. Something incomprehensible is going on about me, and I, too, believe that I am threatened by enemies whom I do not know. I do not dare to mention the subject to my father or to the princess; I am afraid that if they undertake to look out for me, too, they will neglect a part of the precautions demanded by their own safety. But I must think about defending myself; to-morrow, when you go to your work and my father and brother have gone out, I shall begin to tremble again for them, for you and for my self."
"I shall not go to work to-morrow, Mila," said Magnani. "The princess ordered me not to leave your brother, whether he remains at home or goes out. She did not mention you, which fact makes me almost certain that you are not included in the secret persecution at which she has taken fright. But, whatever happens, I shall not stir from here, without having made sure that no one can come and frighten you."
"Listen," she said, "I am going to tell you what happened to me to-day. You know that we often have in our yard some of those begging brothers, who annoy everybody, even the poor people, and whom you cannot get rid of without giving them something. Well, one of them came just after Michel and my father had left the house, and I never saw a monk so persistent, and so bold, and so inquisitive. Just fancy that, when he saw me working at my window, he took up his station just below it, and there he stood, staring at me with a gaze that embarrassed me, although I tried not to meet his eyes. I tossed him some bread in order to get rid of him. He didn't condescend to pick it up. 'Young woman,' he said, 'that is not the way people give alms to a brother of my order. They take the trouble to go downstairs to him and to commend themselves to his prayers, instead of tossing him a crust as if he were a dog. You are not a pious maid, and your parents have brought you up badly. I am sure that you are not a native?'
"I made the mistake of answering him. He had put me in a bad humor with his sermon, and he was so ugly, so dirty, so insolent, that I could not help exhibiting my disgust. It seemed to me that I recognized him as a man I had seen in the morning at the Palmarosa palace. My brother was disturbed by his face at that time, and questioned my uncle Fra Angelo about him. He sent us away in haste, promising to find out who he was, for he did not recognize him as a Capuchin, and my father said that he resembled a certain Abbé Ninfo, who bears us a grudge, apparently. However, either it was not the same man, or else he had changed his disguise; for he wore the costume of a bare-footed Carmelite when he came here; and, instead of a thick, curly black beard, he had a red beard, as short and stiff as a wild boar's hair. He was even more horrible in that dress, and if it was not the same man, why, I can safely say that I have seen to-day the two most repulsive monks in Valdemona."
"And you were imprudent enough to talk with him?" said Magnani.
"Talk is not the word; I requested him to carry his preaching somewhere else, saying that I had no time to go down to him or to listen to his reprimands; that, if he did not consider my alms worthy of his acceptance, he could give it to the first poor person he met, and that, if he was born proud, he had made a great mistake in becoming a mendicant."
"Doubtless he was irritated by your replies?"
"No, for if I had seen that he was mortified or angry, charity or prudence would have kept me from saying so much. But, instead of continuing to scold me, he began to smile; a ghastly sort of smile, to be sure, but not resentful.
"'You are an amusing child,' he said, 'and I forgive your lack of propriety because of your wit and your black eyes.'
"I ask you if it was not very wicked for a monk to pay any attention to the color of my eyes? I told him that he might stay a year under my window before I would look to see what color his were. He called me a flirt; a strange word, isn't it, in the mouth of a man who ought not even to know that there is such a word? I closed my window, but when I opened it a quarter of an hour later, being unable to endure the stifling heat in my room when the sun is high, he was still looking at me. I refused to talk to him any more. He told me that he would stay there until I gave him something better than bread; that he knew that I wasn't a poor girl; that I had a beautiful pin of chased gold in my hair, and that he would gladly accept that, unless I preferred to give him a lock of hair in its place. And he followed that up with such absurd and extravagant compliments that I believed and still believe he was laughing at me, and that it was his spiteful and unseemly way of venting his anger.
"As there were people in the house, particularly your father and one of your brothers, whom I could see working in their rooms within reach of my voice, I was not alarmed by that wretched monk's strange remarks and impertinent glances; I answered only by making fun of him, and, to get rid of him, I promised to give him something on condition that he would go away at once. He declared that he had the right to accept or refuse my offering, and that, if I would let him choose, he would be very modest and would not ruin me.—'What do you want,' I said, 'a skein of silk to mend your ragged frock?'—'No,' he replied, 'it's too badly spun.'—'Do you want my scissors to cut your beard, which is growing all awry?'—'No, for I might perhaps use it to cut off the rosy tip of that impertinent little tongue.'—'A needle, then, to sew up your mouth, which doesn't know what it says?'—'No, for I am afraid that your needle has no sharper point than your epigrams.'
"We jested thus for some time; although he annoyed me, he made me laugh; for it seemed to me that his manner had become more fatherly than threatening, that he was really a monk, one of those persistent jokers such as we all know, who obtain by teasing what they cannot extort by prayer; and lastly, I discovered that he was very bright, and I did not put a stop to that childish badinage so soon as I should have done. I took from the wall a little mirror about the size of my hand, of no value, which he had noticed hanging by my window, as to which he asked me how many hours a day I passed consulting it. I lowered it to him by a silk thread, saying that he would certainly enjoy looking at himself in it much more than I had enjoyed having his face before my eyes so long.
"He seized it eagerly and kissed it, exclaiming in a tone which frightened me: 'Has it retained a reflection of your beauty, O dangerous maiden? Just a reflection! that is very little, but if I could fix it there, I would never take my lips from it.'
"'Fie!' I said, drawing back from the window, 'those words dishonor the frock you wear, and such jesting does not befit a monk.'
"I closed my window again and came to this door where we are now, and opened it so that I could breathe while I worked. But I had not been there five minutes when I saw the Capuchin before me. He had presumed to enter the house, I don't know how; for I had locked the outer door, and he must either have been prowling around in the adjoining house, or have known all the ins and outs of this one.—'Go away,' I said to him; 'no one has a right to enter a house in this way, and if you come near my door, I will call my father and brother, who are in the next room.'
"'I know perfectly well that they are not there,' he replied, with a hateful laugh, 'and as for the neighbors, it would do no good to call them, for I should be far away before they could get here. What makes you afraid of me, young woman? I only wanted to have a nearer view of your soft eyes and your red lips; Raphael's Madonna is a mere maid-servant compared with you. Come, don't be afraid of me'—and, as he spoke, he held the door open, which I tried to shut in his face.—'I would give my life for a kiss from you; but if you refuse me that, give me at least the rose that perfumes your breast; I shall die of joy dreaming that ——'
"I heard no more, for he had let the door go and tried to seize me in his arms. In spite of my terror, I had more presence of mind than he expected; for I stepped quickly to one side, slammed the door in his face, and as he was a little bewildered by the blow, I took advantage of it to run through Michel's room. I ran downstairs at the top of my speed, and didn't stop until I was in the street, for there was no neighbor near enough to depend upon. When I was among the people in the street, I was no longer afraid of the monk, but I wouldn't have come back to my room for anything on earth. I walked to Villa Palmarosa, and didn't feel entirely at ease until the princess had taken me into her room. I passed the rest of the day there, and did not come home until father was ready. But I dared not say anything about what had happened, for the reason I have given you—and if I must be entirely frank, because I felt that I had been imprudent to joke with that wretched begging monk, and that I deserved some blame for it. A rebuke from my father would almost kill me; but from Princess Agatha—why, I would rather be damned at once and forever!'"
"Dear child, as you are so afraid of reproaches, I will keep your secret," said Magnani, "and I will not venture to make the slightest comment."
"On the contrary, I beg you to comment as severely as you please, Magnani. It will not humiliate me from you. I am not presumptuous enough to think that you like me, and I know that my childish faults will not cause you the slightest distress. It is because I know how dearly my father and Princess Agatha love me that I dread so to grieve them. But you can say whatever you please to me, for you will simply laugh at my foolishness."
"So you think me very indifferent, do you?" said Magnani, upon whom this story of the monk had had a singularly disquieting and disturbing effect.
Then, surprised at the question that had escaped him, he rose and went on tiptoe to listen at Michel's door. He thought that he could hear the regular breathing of a sleeping person. The Piccinino had in fact succeeded finally in allaying the tumult of his thoughts, and Michel, overcome by weariness, was dozing in his chair, with his head resting on his hands.
Magnani returned to Mila; but he dared not sit beside her again. "And I too," he thought, ashamed, and as it were, afraid of himself, "I am a monk consumed by my imagination and excited by enforced continence. This child is too lovely, too pure, too trustful, to live thus the untrammelled neglected life of girls of our station; no one can look at her without emotion, whether he be a monk doomed to celibacy or a man hopelessly in love with another woman. I would like to have my hands on that vile monk and break his neck; and yet I too quiver at the thought that this unsuspecting maiden is in this room, alone with me, in the silence of night, ready to seek shelter in my arms at the slightest alarm!"
Magnani tried to divert his thoughts by talking of the princess with Mila. The innocent girl lured him into it, and he accepted that subject of conversation as a preservative. It will be seen that a strange revolution had taken place in two days in the young man's mental condition, since he had already reached the point of looking upon his love for Agatha as a duty, or as what the doctors call a depurative.
If he had been certain that the princess loved Michel, of which fact he was persuaded at times, with a feeling of utter stupefaction, he would have been almost entirely cured of his own mad passion. For he had given it so exalted a place in his thoughts that, as he had lost hope, so he had almost reached the point where he desired nothing. His passion had become a sort of pious habit, so ideal that it no longer touched the earth, and that by returning it, Agatha might have destroyed it instantly. Assume that she loved any man on earth, even the man who cherished so exalted an adoration for her, and she became in his eyes simply a woman, whose influence he could combat. That was the result of five years' suffering without the slightest presumption, and without a moment's intermission. In a heart of such strength and purity, the utmost order had prevailed amid the effervescence of a passion which resembled a beginning of madness; and it was precisely that circumstance which might be Magnani's salvation. Efforts to deaden his pain would have served only to excite him more, and after indulging in vulgar pleasures, he would have returned to his chimera with more suffering and more weakness; whereas by abandoning himself without resistance, without desire for repose, and without terror, to a martyrdom which might be everlasting, he had allowed the flame to become concentrated in one spot, where it burned dully, not fanned from without, and deprived of any fresh sustenance.
Thus Magnani had reached that critical moment when a man must be cured or die, without any transition. He did not appreciate it, but it certainly was a fact, for his senses were awaking from a long period of numbness, and Agatha, far from contributing to the awakening, was the only woman to whom he would have blushed to attribute in his thoughts the perturbation that he felt.
Little by little, he leaned toward the girl in order not to lose a single one of her words, and he ended by sitting down beside her, and asking her why it had occurred to her to talk of him with Princess Agatha.
"Why, it is very simple," replied Mila; "she led me to do it by asking me which of the young mechanics of my acquaintance Michel had been most intimate with since he had arrived in the island; and as I hesitated between you and one or two of father's apprentices who assisted Michel, and whom he seemed to like, the princess herself said:
"'Perhaps you are not sure, Mila, but I would be willing to wager that it is a certain Magnani, who works for me, and of whom I think very highly. During the ball they sat in my garden together, and I was very near them—just behind the myrtle bush. I had gone there to rest, and was almost in hiding, in order to escape for an instant the torture of such a long performance. I overheard their conversation, which interested and touched me to the last degree. Your brother has a noble mind, Mila, but your neighbor Magnani has a great heart. They talked of art and work, of ambition and duty, of happiness and virtue. I admired the artist's ideas, but I fell in love with the artisan's sentiments. For your young brother's sake, I hope that Magnani will always be his best friend, the confidant of all his thoughts, and his adviser in the delicate emergencies of his life. You can advise him to that effect from me, if he happens to mention me to you; and if you tell either of them that I listened to the sincere outpouring of their thoughts, you will not fail to tell them also that I was a discreet listener, for there came a time when Magnani seemed on the point of disclosing to Michelangelo some personal matter which I did not choose to overhear. I retired hastily at the first word,'—Is all that accurate, Magnani? Do you remember the subject of your conversation with Michel in the garden of the Casino?"
"Yes, yes," sighed Magnani, "it is all true; indeed, I noticed when the princess retired, although it would never have occurred to me that it was she who was listening to us."
"At all events, you ought to be proud of it, Magnani, and very glad of it, since what you said made her feel so much friendship and esteem for you. I even thought that I could see that she preferred your way of thinking to my brother's, and that she looked upon you as the wiser and better of the two, although she says that she has felt the same motherly interest in the welfare of both of you from that moment. Couldn't you repeat to me all the beautiful words which the princess so enjoyed hearing? I should be very glad to have the benefit of them, for I am a poor little girl, with whom Michel himself hardly deigns to talk seriously."
"My dear Mila," said Magnani, taking her hand, "honor to the man whom you consider worthy to form your heart and your mind! But, even if I could remember all that Michel and I said to each other in that garden, I should not presume to think that it would benefit you in any way. Aren't you better than either of us? And as for wit, which of us can have more than you?"
"Oh! now you are laughing at me! Princess Agatha has more than all three of us together, nor do I think that even my father has any more than she has. Ah! if you knew her as well as I do, Magnani! Such a head and heart! such charm! such kindness! I could pass my whole life listening to her; and, if my father and she would allow it, I would like to be her servant, although obedience is not my leading characteristic."
Magnani was silent for a few moments. He could not succeed in disentangling his thoughts in his excitement. Hitherto Agatha had seemed to him so far above all praise that he was indignant and hurt when anyone ventured to say that she was lovely, charitable and sweet. He preferred to listen to those who said that she was ugly and mad, when they did not know her and had never seen her. They at all events said nothing about her in which there was the slightest sense, whereas the others praised her too feebly, and annoyed Magnani beyond words by their inability to comprehend her. But on Mila's lips Agatha lost nothing of the idea he had formed of her. Only Mila seemed to him pure enough to utter her name without profaning it, and because she shared his adoration, she was almost equal to his idol in his eyes.
"Dear Mila," he said at last, still holding her hand, which he had forgotten to give back to her, "to love and to understand as you do indicates a great mind. But what did you say about me to the princess? Ought I not to ask you?"
Mila blessed the darkness, which concealed her blushes, and she grew bolder as a timid woman gradually becomes intoxicated by the assured impunity of a masquerade.
"I am really afraid that it will be indiscreet in me to repeat it to you," she said, "and I should not dare to do it!"
"So you said unkind things about me, did you, naughty Mila?"
"No; for Princess Agatha had said so much good of you that it would have been impossible for me to think any evil of you. I cannot look at anything except through her eyes. But I let out something which Michel told me in confidence."
"Really? I don't know what you mean."
Mila noticed that Magnani's hand trembled. She ventured to strike a decisive blow.
"Well," she said, in an artless, almost indifferent tone, "I told the princess that you were really very kind, very pleasant and very learned; but that one had either to know you very well, or else guess at you in order to find it out!"
"Because ——?"
"Because you were in love, and that made you so melancholy that you lived almost entirely alone, buried in meditation."
Magnani trembled.
"It was Michel who told you that!" he said, in a changed tone that made Mila's heart bleed. "And doubtless he betrayed my confidence to the end," he added; "he told you the name——"
"Oh! Michel is incapable of betraying anybody's confidence," she replied, struggling to maintain her courage at the level of the crisis she had provoked; "and I, Magnani, am incapable of leading my brother on to such a base thing. Besides, why should I be at all interested, I should like to know?"
"Of course, it must be a matter of entire indifference to you," replied Magnani, completely crushed.
"Indifference is not the word," she said; "I have much esteem and friendship for you, Magnani, and I pray for your happiness. But I am interested in my own happiness, too, so that I have no time to be idle and pry into other people's secrets."
"Your happiness! At your age, Mila, happiness is love; so you are in love, too, are you?"
"In love? why not? Do you consider me too young to think about such things?"
"Ah! my dear child, you are at the age when one should think about such things, for at my age love is despair."
"Why, is your love not returned? I was not mistaken in thinking that you are unhappy?"
"No, my love is not returned," he replied, dejectedly, "and never will be; I have never even dreamed that it would."
A more romantic and more experienced woman than Mila might have looked upon that admission as a definitive obstacle to all hope; but her ideas of life were more simple and more logical: "If he has no hope, he will recover," she thought.
"I pity you deeply," she said to Magnani, "for it is such great happiness to feel that one is loved, and it must be so ghastly to love all by oneself!"
"You will never know such a misfortune," Magnani replied; "and the man you love should be the most grateful and the proudest of men!"
"I am satisfied with him," she said, gratified to feel that jealousy was beginning to make itself felt in the young man's perturbed heart; "but listen, Magnani! there is a noise in my brother's room."
Magnani ran to the other door; but, while he was making vain efforts to distinguish the nature of the noises Mila had heard, she heard other noises in the yard. She looked through the blind, and, beckoning to Magnani, pointed out to him Michel's mysterious guest, who was gliding toward the street so lightly and adroitly, that unless one had a delicate ear and keen eye and was on the alert, expecting to see him, it would have been impossible to detect his movements.
Even Michel had not been roused from the light doze into which he had fallen.
Mila was still very ill at ease, although Magnani urged her to take some rest, promising that he would remain in the yard or in the gallery, and that Michel should not leave the house without him. As soon as Magnani had left her, she fell upon a chair and drew her table noisily along the floor, so that she might hear Michel wake and move about in his turn.
The young man soon entered her room, after noticing with amazement that the Piccinino's light body had left little more impression on his bed than if he had been a spectre. He found little Mila still up, and reproved her for her wilful sleeplessness. But she explained her reasons for anxiety; and, without mentioning Magnani, for the princess had enjoined upon her not to let Michel know of his presence, she told him of the Piccinino's strange and impudent visit to her room. She also told him something of her experience with the monk, and made him promise that he would not leave her during the morning, and that, if he were summoned by the princess later in the day, he would not go out without letting her know, because she was determined to seek shelter with some friend and not remain alone in the house.
Michel readily agreed. He was utterly unable to understand the bandit's conduct on that occasion. But we can imagine that such an audacious performance, taken in connection with the impertinence of the pretended monk, left him in a decidedly uncomfortable frame of mind.
When he returned to his chamber, after barricading the door of the gallery with his own hands in order to protect his sister against any fresh attack, he looked about for the cyclamen upon which he had gazed so sorrowfully as he sat beside his table. But the cyclamen had disappeared. The Piccinino had noticed that the princess, as on the evening of the ball, had a bouquet of cyclamen in her hand or close at hand, and that she seemed to have contracted the habit of playing with that bouquet even more than with her fan, the inseparable companion of all the women of the South. He had also noticed that Michel treasured one of those flowers, and that he had drawn it toward his face several times, then hastily pushed it away, during the first agitated moments of his vigil. He had divined the mysterious charm attached to that plant, and before leaving the room he had maliciously taken it from the glass upon which Michel's inert hand still rested. He threw the little flower into the sheath of his dagger, saying to himself: "If I stab anyone to-day, perhaps this memento of the lady of my thoughts will remain in the wound."
Michel tried to follow the Piccinino's example, that is to say, to recover his lucidity of thought by enjoying an hour or two of real sleep. He had insisted that Mila should go to bed, and, in order to make surer that she was adequately guarded, he left the door open between their rooms. He slept heavily, as young men of his age do, but his sleep was disturbed by confused and distressing dreams, an inevitable consequence of his present position. When he woke, shortly after daylight, he tried to collect his thoughts, and first of all he looked to see if he had not dreamed of the abstraction of the precious cyclamen.
His surprise was unbounded when he saw that the glass, empty when he fell asleep, was filled with freshly gathered cyclamens.
"Mila," he said, seeing that his sister was already up and dressed, "you have cheerful and poetic ideas, I see, despite our anxieties and dangers. These flowers are almost as lovely as you; but they can never replace the one I have lost."
"You imagined," she said, "that I had taken it or tipped over the glass after your extraordinary friend went away; you almost scolded me, and you refused to remember that I had never so much as thought of putting my foot inside yourmysteriouschamber! Now, you accuse me of replacing it with others, which is no less absurd; for where could I have got them? Am I not barricaded on the gallery side? Haven't you my key under your pillow? Unless, indeed, these pretty little flowers grow on my pillow, which is possible—in a dream."
"Mila, you persist in jesting on all subjects and at all seasons. You may have had this bouquet last night. Weren't you at Villa Palmarosa in the afternoon?"
"For heaven's sake, don't these flowers grow anywhere but in Princess Agatha's boudoir? I understand now why you are so fond of them. Where, pray, did you pick the one that you looked for so long this morning, instead of going straight to bed?"
"I picked it in my hair, little one, and I believe that my brains left my head with it."
"Ah! very good; now I understand why you talk nonsense."
Michel could find out nothing more. Mila was as calm and smiling when she woke as she had been disturbed and fearful when she fell asleep. He obtained nothing from her but quips of the sort in which she was proficient, always possessed of some metaphorical meaning, and instinct with a sort of childish charm.
She asked him for the key of her room, and while he was dressing, lost in thought, she attended to her household duties with her usual activity and lightness of heart. She flew about the corridors and stairways, singing like the morning lark. Michel, as melancholy as the winter sun on the ice-fields at the pole, heard the floors creaking under her agile feet, heard her merry laugh as she received her father's kiss on the floor below, heard her ascend the stairs to her room, like a well-aimed arrow, then go down again to the fountain to fill the graceful earthen jugs, which are made at Siacca, after Moorish models, and are commonly used by the people of those regions; heard her salute the neighbors with kindly pleasantries, and play with the half naked children who were already beginning to roll about on the flagstones in the yard.
Pier-Angelo was also dressing, more rapidly and in more cheerful mood than Michel. Like Mila, he sang, but in a deeper and more martial voice, as he shook his brown, red-lined jacket. He was interrupted at times by a lingering remnant of drowsiness, and yawned over the words of his ballads, then finished the refrain triumphantly. That was his way of waking, and he never sang better, in his own ears, than when his voice failed him.
"Happy heedlessness of truly popular natures!" said Michel to himself, as he leaned on his window-sill, half-dressed. "One would say that nothing unusual was taking place in my family, that we were not surrounded by enemies and snares; that my sister slept as usual last night, that she knows nothing of love without hope, of the danger of being beautiful and poor in view of the schemes of vicious minds, and of the other danger that she may be deprived at any moment of her natural protectors. My father, who must know everything, acts as if he suspected nothing. In this wretched climate everything is forgotten or takes on an entirely different aspect in the twinkling of an eye. The volcano, tyranny, persecution—nothing interrupts the songs and laughter. At noon, overwhelmed by the heat, they all sleep and seem like corpses. The cool evening air revives them like vigorous plants. Terror and rashness, grief and joy, succeed one another with them like the waves on the shore. Let one of the chords of the heart be relaxed, and twenty others wake to new life, just as the taking of a flower from a glass of water causes a whole bouquet to appear there! I alone, amid these incomprehensible transformations, am always on the alert, but always serious; my thoughts are always lucid, but always gloomy. Ah! would that I had remained the child of my caste and the man of my native land!"
The group of houses of which Michel's formed a part was shabby and ugly in reality, but exceedingly picturesque. Built upon blocks of lava, and in part constructed of the same lava, those rough structures bore traces of the last earthquakes which had overturned them. The lower floors, which were bolted to the solid rock, retained an unmistakable flavor of antiquity; and the upper portions, erected in haste after the disaster, or already shaken by later shocks, even now had a decrepit look: huge cracks, roofs with a threatening pitch, and dangerous staircases, the rails of which were all awry. Wild vines inextricably tangled about the ragged protuberances of cornices and awnings, prickly aloes, crushing by their weight the old terra-cotta urns, and encroaching with their rough branches upon the little terraces which hovered in the most insane way upon the highest points of those tumble-down buildings; white linen, or garments of gaudy hue hanging from all the windows, or flying about like banners on lines stretched from house to house: all this formed a strange, bold picture. One could see children playing and women working almost among the clouds, on narrow platforms surrounded by pigeons and swallows, and barely protected, away up there in space, by a few black, worm-eaten rails, which it seemed that the first gust of wind would blow away. The slightest change of level in that volcanic soil, the slightest convulsion in that gorgeous but ill-omened landscape, and the torpid or reckless occupants of those houses would be engulfed in a raging hell, or swept away as the leaves are by the tempest.
But danger acts upon men's minds in proportion to its distance. In the midst of actual security, the idea of a catastrophe presents itself under terror-inspiring colors. When one is born, breathes and lives in the midst of actual danger, under a never-ceasing threat, the imagination becomes deadened, fear loses its keen edge, and there ensues a strange repose of mind which resembles torpor rather than courage.
Although the picture we have described possessed a genuine poetic charm, in its very shabbiness and its disorder, Michel had not yet detected it. He had passed his childhood at Rome, in houses more solidly constructed at all events and of a neater aspect, if not more sumptuous, and his thoughts always aspired to the splendor of palaces. His father's abode, that hovel in which Pier-Angelo had lived ever since his childhood, and to which he had returned with so much love in his heart, seemed to young Michel nothing more than a pestiferous den which he would have been glad to see return to the lava from which it had come forth. In vain did Mila, in marked contrast to her neighbors, keep their little quarters almost fastidiously neat and clean. In vain was their staircase embellished with the loveliest flowers. In vain did the bright morning sun draw broad lines of gold athwart the shadows of the black lava and upon the heavy arches of the recessed portions of the building. Michel thought of nothing but the grotto of the naiad, the marble fountains of the Palmarosa palace, and the porch where Agatha had appeared to him like a goddess in the doorway of her temple.
At last, after bestowing one regretful thought upon his recent chimera, he was ashamed of his dejection. "I came to this country, when my father hadn't sent for me," he said to himself, "and my uncle the monk convinced me that I must submit to the drawbacks of my position and accept its duties. I subjected myself to a most severe test when I turned my back upon Rome and the hope of glory to become an obscure workingman in Sicily. The test would have been too mild and too short if, at the outset, being loved or admired at first sight by a great and noble lady, I had had only to stoop and pick up laurel crowns and piastres. Instead of that, I must be a good son and a good brother, and, moreover, a stout-hearted man, to defend at need the honor of my family. I am well assured that the signora's esteem and my own, perhaps, can be had only at that price. Very well, I will accept my destiny cheerfully, and learn to endure without regret what my nearest and dearest endure so courageously. I will be a man in advance of my years, and lay aside the overpetted personality of my youth. If I have anything to blush for, it is for having been a spoiled child so long, and for having failed to see that it would soon be my duty to assist and protect those who devoted themselves to me so unselfishly."
This determination restored peace to his heart. His father's songs and little Mila's seemed to him the sweetest of melodies.
"Yes, yes," he said to himself, "sing on, happy birds of the South, pure as the sky that looked down upon your birth! This merriment is the indication of a perfectly clear conscience, and laughter well befits you, who have never had an idea of evil! Ah! my old father's dear old ballads, which have allayed the anxieties of his life and lessened the fatigue of his labor—I should listen to them with respect instead of smiling at their simplicity! And my young sister's merry laughter I should welcome with affectionate delight as a proof of her courage and her innocence! Away with my selfish dreams and my unfeeling curiosity! I will go through the storm with you, and will enjoy as you do a burst of sunlight between two clouds. My careworn brow is an insult to your candor—black ingratitude for your kindness. I propose to be your staff in distress, your comrade in toil, and your boon companion in joy!
"Sweet and melancholy flowers," he added, stooping fondly over the bouquet of cyclamen, "whatever hand plucked you, whatever the sentiment of which you are a pledge, my breath, aflame with evil desires, shall sully you no more. If I sometimes lay bare my heart, as you do, I pray that it may be as pure as your calices; and if it bleeds, as you seem to bleed, I pray that virtue may exhale from its wounds, even as fragrance exhales from your bosom."
Immediately after forming these excellent resolutions, made more seductive by this vein of poetic imagery, young Michel completed his toilet without further dallying, and made haste to join his father, who was already at work mixing colors topatchthe paint at Villa Palmarosa in many places where it had been marred by the chandeliers and decorations of the ball.
"Here," said the goodman, handing him a large purse of Tunisian silk, filled with gold pieces; "here is the pay for your beautiful ceiling."
"It is too much by half," said Michel, examining the beautifully embroidered and shaded purse with much more interest than its contents. "Our debt to the princess is not yet discharged, and I propose that it shall be this very day."
"It is, my child."
"Then it must have been paid out of your wages, not out of mine. For if I know how to estimate the contents of a purse, there is more here than I propose to accept. Father, I do not propose that you shall work for me. No, I swear by your gray hairs that you shall never work for your son again, for it is his turn to work for you. Nor do I intend to accept alms from Princess Agatha; I have had enough of such patronage and generosity."
"You know me well enough," replied Pier-Angelo, with a smile, "to believe that, far from interfering with your pride and your dutiful sentiments, I shall always encourage them. Take my advice, therefore, and accept this money. It is honestly yours; it costs me nothing, and the person who gives it to you is at liberty to place what estimate she pleases on the merits of your work. That is the difference that there will always be between you and your father, Michel. An artist has no fixed price. A single day of inspiration may make him rich. Whereas, a deal of hard work is not enough to raise us mechanics out of the slough of poverty. But God, in His mercy, has given us compensations. The artist conceives and brings forth his works with much pain. The mechanic performs his task with laughter and a song. I am so accustomed to that, that I wouldn't exchange my trade for yours."
"Let me at least derive from mine such pleasure as it is capable of affording me," said Michel. "Take this purse, father, and let nothing ever be taken from it for my use. It is my sister's marriage portion; it is the interest on the money she lent me when I was at Rome; and if I never earn enough to make her richer, let her at least have the benefit of my day of success. O father!" he cried, seeing that Pier-Angelo was unwilling to accept his sacrifice, "do not refuse me; you will break my heart! Your blind affection has almost corrupted my nature. Help me to cease to be the selfish creature that you would have made me. Encourage my good impulses, instead of robbing me of their fruit. It comes only too late."
"True, my boy, I ought to do it," said Pier-Angelo, deeply touched; "but consider that this is no mere commonplace sacrifice of money that you propose to make. If it were simply a matter of depriving yourself of some little pleasure, it would be of little consequence, and I should not hesitate. But your artistic future, the cultivation of your intellect, the very essence of your life, are contained in this little silk net! It means a year of study in Rome! And who knows when you will be able to earn as much more? Perhaps the princess won't give any more balls. The other nobles are neither so rich nor so generous as she. Such opportunities are not often met with, and are very likely not to happen twice in a lifetime. I am growing old; I may fall from my ladder to-morrow and cripple myself; then how would you resume the life of an artist? Aren't you at all alarmed at the idea that, for the pleasure of giving your sister a marriage portion, you run the risk of becoming a mechanic again, and remaining a mechanic all your life?"
"So be it!" exclaimed Michel; "that no longer frightens me, father. I have reflected. It seems to me that there is as much honor and pleasure in being a mechanic as in being rich and proud. I love Sicily! Is it not my native land? I do not propose to leave my sister again. She needs a protector until she is married, and I propose that she shall be able to make her choice deliberately. You are old, you say! you may be crippled to-morrow! Well then! who would take care of you, pray,—who would support you, who would comfort you,—if I were away? Would it be possible for my sister to do it when she has a family of her own? A son-in-law? but why should I leave it for another to fulfill my duties? Why should he steal my honor and my glory? for this is wherein I choose to establish them henceforth, and my chimeras have given place to reality. Tell me, father, am not I, too, in a cheerful mood this morning? Would you like me to sing a second to the old ballad you were singing just now? Do I seem to you to have the despairing look of a man who is sacrificing himself? Do you not love me, I pray to know, that you refuse to be my employer?"
"Very well!" replied Pier-Angelo, gazing at him with glistening eyes, and with a trembling of the hands that indicated extraordinary emotion. "You are a man of heart! and I shall never regret what I have done for you!"
As he spoke, Pier-Angelo removed his cap, uncovering his bald head, and stood erect in the attitude, at once proud and respectful, of an old soldier before his young officer. It was the first time in his life that he had adopted the more formal mode of address with Michel,[7]and that change, which might have seemed to denote coldness and dissatisfaction in other fathers, assumed in his mouth a peculiarly affectionate and majestic meaning. It seemed to the young painter that he had been hailed as a man by his father at last, and that that form of address—that uncovered head and those few calm and serious words—rewarded and honored him more abundantly than the most eloquent academic eulogy.
While they worked together, Mila busied herself preparing their breakfast. She went back and forth from one room to another, but passed more frequently than was absolutely necessary along the gallery of which we have spoken. She had a secret reason for this. Magnani's chamber, which, to tell the truth, was only a wretched garret with a window in which there was no glass—the warm climate making that luxury unnecessary for people in good health—was at the corner of the house nearest to the gallery, and by leaning over the rail one could talk with a person who happened to be sitting at the window of that modest apartment. Magnani was not in his room; he only passed the night there, and at daylight went to his work elsewhere, or worked out-of-doors on the gallery opposite the one on which Mila often sat at her work. From there she could watch him without looking at him, for hours at a time, and not lose a single one of his movements, although she did not seem to lift her eyes from her work.
But on this morning she walked back and forth to no purpose. He was not on the gallery, although he had promised her, as well as the princess, not to go away from home. Had he allowed himself to be overcome by sleep, after two sleepless nights? That was hardly consistent with what she knew of his stoical determination and of his inexhaustible strength. Doubtless he was breakfasting with his parents. But Mila, who had stopped more than once to listen to the tumultuous voices of the Magnani family, could not distinguish the grave, manly tones which she knew so well.
She looked at the window of his garret. The room was dark and empty as usual. Magnani had no luxurious habits as Michel had, and he had always crushed within himself any craving for refinement in his surroundings. Whereas Pier-Angelo and his daughter, in anticipation of the cardinal's death and the young painter's arrival, had made ready for that beloved child a neat, clean, airy attic chamber, furnished with the best that they could spare from their own furniture, Magnani slept on a rug thrown on the floor by his window, to make the most of the little air which could find its way in through that loophole, recessed as it was between two walls. The only embellishment which he had introduced consisted of a box which he had placed on the outer edge of that yawning aperture, and in which he had sown a few pretty convolvuli which formed a frame of fresh flowers for the window.
He watered them every day; but during the last forty-eight hours he had been so engrossed that he had forgotten them; the pretty white bells had closed and drooped languidly upon their half-withered leaves.
Mila, carrying one of her earthen jugs perched lightly on her head, an enormous braid of hair thrice twisted acting as a cushion, noticed that her neighbor's convolvuli were dying of thirst; that would have afforded a pretext for speaking to him if he had been anywhere about; but there was nobody in that retired and sheltered corner. Mila tried, by stretching her arm over the rail, to reach the poor plants and give them a few drops of water. But her arm was too short, and the jug did not reach the box. Children cannot bear the impossible, and when they have undertaken a thing they go on with it at the peril of their lives. How many times have we climbed upon a window to reach a swallow's nest, and counted with the tips of our fingers the little warm eggs on their bed of down!
Little Mila spied a stout branch of grapevine which hung along the wall like a bell-rope and was twisted about the rail of the gallery. To climb over the rail and cling to the vine did not seem to her very difficult. In this way she reached the window. But, as she raised her lovely arm to water the convolvuli, a strong hand seized her slender wrist, and a brown face, wearing a smile that displayed two rows of large white teeth, stooped toward hers.
Magnani, not wishing to sleep, nor, on the other hand, to seem to be watching what was taking place in the house, as Agatha had ordered, had lain down on his rug to rest his weary limbs. But his mind and his eyes were wide open, and, at every risk, he had seized that stealthy arm whose shadow passed across his face.
"Let me go, Magnani," said the girl, more deeply moved by the meeting than by the risk she might be incurring; "you will throw me down! this vine is giving way under me."
"Throw you down, my dear child!" replied the young man, passing a powerful arm about her waist. "Unless this arm is cut off, and then the other, you shall never fall!"
"Never? that is saying a good deal, for I love to climb, and you won't always be with me."
"Happy the man who will be with you always and everywhere, sweet little Mila! But what are you doing here with the birds?"
"I saw from my window that this lovely plant was thirsty. See how its pretty head droops and how its leaves are falling. I thought that you were not here, and I was going to give the poor roots something to drink. Here is the jug. You can bring it back to me by and by. I am going back to my work."