'Who's that that being dead yet speaketh!'
*CHAPTER XXIII*
It is remarkable how quickly the brute genii will adapt himself to his
pint bottle when once the cork is in. Elastic, it must be remembered,
has the two properties of expansion and retraction, the latter being in
corresponding proportion with the former. Wherefore, the greater its
stretching capacity the more compact its compass unstretched.
So it is with life, which is elastic, and mostly lived at a tension.
Relax that tension, and behold the buoyant temperament rinding roomier
quarters in a straitened confinement than would ever a flaccid one in
the same; and this in defiance of Bonnivard, that fettered Nimrod of the
mountains, whose heart broke early in captivity, and who, nevertheless,
as a matter of fact, did not exist.
The truth is, a pint pot is over-enough to contain the mind of many an
honest vigorous fellow; and it is the mind, rather than the body, which
struggles for elbow-room. Carlo, in his prison, suffered little from
that mere mental horror of circumscription which, to a more sensitive
soul, had been the infinite worst of his doom. He champed, and stamped,
and raged, sure enough; cursed his fate, his impotence, his
restrictions; but all from a cleaner standpoint than the nerves--from
one (no credit to him for that) less constitutionally personal. That he
should be shut from the possibility of helping in a sore pass the little
friend of his love, of his faith, of his adoration--the pretty child who
had needed, never so much as at this moment, the help and protection of
his strong arm--here was the true madness of his condition. And he bore
it hardly, while the fit possessed him, and until physical exhaustion
made room for the little reserves of reason which all the time had been
waiting on its collapse.
Then, suddenly, he became very quiet; an amenable, wicked, dangerous
thing; fed greedily; nursed his muscles; spake his gaolers softly when
they visited him; refrained from asking useless questions to elicit
evasive answers; brooded by the hour together when alone. They treated
him with every consideration; answered practically his demands for
books, paper, pens and ink, wine--for all bodily ameliorations of his
lot which he chose to suggest, short of the means to escape it. There,
only, was there no concession--no response to the request of an insulted
cavalier to be returned the weapons of his honour of which he had been
basely mulcted. His fingers must serve his mouth, he was told, and his
teeth his meat--they were sharp enough. At which he would grin, and
click those white knives together, and return to his brooding.
But not, at last, for long. Very soon he was engaged in exploring his
dungeon, a gloomy cellar, two-thirds of it below the level of the moat,
and lit by a single window, deep-shafted under the massive ceiling. His
search, at first, yielded him no returns but of impenetrable
induracy--no variations, knock where he might, in the echoless
irresponsiveness of dumb-thick walls. Only, with that incessant
tap-tapping of his, the trouble in his brain fell into rhythm, chiming
out eternally, monotonously, the inevitable answer to a fruitless
question with which, from the outset, he had been tormenting himself,
and from which, for all his sickness of its vanity, he could not escape.
'What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? Done nothing,
therefore. What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? Done
nothing, therefore.'
So, the villainy was working, and he in his dungeon powerless to
counteract it.
He lived vividly through all these phases--of despair, of
self-concentration, of resourceful hope--during the opening twenty-four
hours of his confinement. And then, once upon a time, very suddenly,
very softly, very remotely, there was borne in upon him the strange
impression that he was not alone in his underworld.
The first shadow of this conviction came to haunt him during the second
night of his imprisonment, when, having fallen asleep, there presently
stole into his brain, out of a deep sub-consciousness of consciousness,
the knowledge that some voice, extraneous to himself, was moaning and
throbbing into his ear.
At the outset this voice appealed to him for nothing more than the
emotional soft babble of a dream. It seemed to reach to him from a vast
distance, breathing very faint, and thin, and sweet through aeons of
pathetic memories. He could not identify or interpret it, save in so
far as its burden always hinted of a wistful sadness. But, gradually, as
the spell of it enwrapped and claimed him, out of its inarticulateness
grew form, and out of that form recognition.
It was Bernardo singing to his lute. How could he not have known it,
when here was the boy actually walking by his side? They trod a smiling
meadow, sweet with narcissus and musical with runnels. The voice made
ecstasy of the Spring; frisked in the blood of little goats; unlocked
the sap of trees, so that they leapt into a spangled spray of blossoms.
A step--and the turf was dry beneath their feet. The sun smote down
upon the plain; the grasshopper shrieked like a jet of fire; the
full-uddered cattle lowed for evening and the shadowed stall.
Again, a step--and the leaves of the forest blew abroad like flakes of
burning paper; the vines shed fruit like heavy drops of blood; the sky
grew dark in front, rolling towards them a dun wall of fog--the music
wailed and ceased.
He turned upon his comrade; and saw the lute swung aside, the pale lips
yet trembling with their song. He knew the truth at once.
'We part here,' he murmured. 'Is it not? So swiftly run thy seasons.
And you return to Spring; and I--O, I, go on! Whither, sweet angel? O,
wilt thou not linger a little, that, reaching mine allotted end, I may
hurry back to overtake thee?'
Then, clasping his hands in agony, the tears running down his cheeks, he
saw how the boy bent to whisper in his ear--words of divine solace--nay,
not words, but music--music, music all, of an unutterable pathos.
And he awoke, to hear the shrunk, inarticulate murmur of it still
whispering to his heart.
He sat up, panting, in the deep blackness. His hands trembled; his face
was actually wet. But the music had not ended with his dream. Grown
very soft and far and remote, it yet went sounding on in fact--or was it
only in fancy?
His still-drugged brain surged back into slumber on the thought.
Instantly the voice began to take shape and reality: he caught himself
from the mist--as instantly it fell again into a phantom of itself.
And thus it always happened. So surely as he listened wakeful,
straining his hearing, the voice would reach him as a far plaintive
murmur, a vague intolerable sweetness, without identity or suggestion
save of some woful loss. So surely did his brain swerve and his aching
eyes seal down, it would begin to gather form, and words out of form,
and expression out of words--expression, of a sorrow so wildly sad and
moving, that his dreaming heart near broke beneath the burden of its
grief.
A strange experience; yet none so strange but that we must all have
known it, what time our errant soul has leapt back into our waking
consciousness, carrying with it, on the wind of its return, some echo of
the spirit world with which it had been consorting. Who has not known
what it is to wake, in a dumb sleeping house, to the certain knowledge
of a cry just uttered, a sentence just spoken, of a laugh or whisper
stricken silent on the instant, nor felt the darkness of his room
vibrate and settle into blankness as he listened, and, listening, lost
the substance of that phantom utterance?
But at length for Carlo dream and reality were blended in one
forgetfulness.
Morning weakened, if it could not altogether dissipate, his
superstitions. Though one be buried in a vault, there's that in the
mere texture of daylight, even if the thinnest and frowziest, to muffle
the fine sense of hearing. If, in truth, those mystic harmonics still
throbbed and sighed, his mind had ceased to be attuned to them. He lent
it to the more practical business of resuming his examination of his
prison.
At midday, while he was sitting at his dinner, a visitor came and
introduced himself to him, leaping, very bold and impudent, to the table
itself, where he sat up, trimming his whiskers anticipatory. It was a
monstrous brown rat; and self-possessed--Lord! Carlo dropped his fists
on the cloth, and stared, and then fell to grinning.
'O, you've arrived, have you!' said he. 'Your servant, Messer Topo!'
It was obviously the gentleman's name. At the sound of it, he lowered
his fore-paws, flopped a step or two nearer, and sat up again. Carlo
considered him delightedly. He was one of those men between whom and
animals is always a sympathetic confidence.
'Is it, Messer Topo,' said he, 'that you desire to honour me with the
reversion of a former friendship? What! You flip your whiskers in
protest? No friend, you imply, who could educate your palate to cooked
meats, and then betray it, returning you to old husks? Has he deserted
you, then? Alas, Messer! We who frequent these cellars are not masters
of our exits and our entrances. How passed he from your ken, that same
unknown? Feet-first? Face-first? Tell me, and I'll answer for his
faith or faithlessness.'
The visitor showed some signs of impatience.
'What!' cried Carlo. 'My grace is overlong? Shall we fall to? Yet,
soft. Fain would I know first the value of this proffered love, which,
to my base mind, seems to smack a little of the cupboard.'
His hand went into the dish. Messer Topo ceased from preening his
moustache, and stiffened expectant, his paws erect.
'Ha-ha!' cried Carlo. 'You are there, are you? O, Messer Topo, Messer
Topo! Even prisoners, I find, possess their parasites.'
He held out a morsel of meat. The big rat took it confidently in his
paws; tested, and approved it; sat up for more.
'What manners!' admired Carlo. 'Art the very pink of Topos. Come,
then; we'll dine together.'
Messer Topo acquitted himself with perfect correctness. When satisfied,
he sat down and cleaned himself. Carlo ventured to scratch his head.
He paused, to submit politely to the attention--which, though undesired,
he accepted on its merits--then, the hand being withdrawn, waited a
moment for courtesy's sake, and returned to his scouring. In the midst,
the key grated in the door, and like a flash he was gone.
'Ehi!' pondered Carlo; 'it is very evident he has been trained to shy at
authority.'
It seemed so, indeed, and that authority knew nothing of him.
Otherwise, probably, authority would have resented his interference with
its theories of solitary confinement to the extent of trapping and
killing him.
The prisoner saw no more of his little sedate visitor that evening; but,
with night and sleep, the voice again took up the tale of his haunting;
and this time, somehow, to his dreaming senses, Messer Topo seemed to be
the medium of its piteous conveyance to him. Once more he woke, and
slept, and woke again; and always to hear the faint music gaining or
losing body in opposite ratio with his consciousness. He was troubled
and perplexed; awake by dawn, and harking for confirmation of his
dreams. But daylight plugged his hearing.
He had expected Messer Topo to breakfast. He did not come. He
called--and there he was. They exchanged confidences and discussed
biscuits. The key grated, and Messer Topo was gone.
This day Carlo set himself to solve the mystery of his visitor's
lightning disappearances--_Anglice_, to find a rat-hole. Fingering, in
the gloom, along the joint of floor and wall, he presently discovered a
jagged hole which he thought might explain. Without removing his hand,
he called softly: 'Topo! Messer Topo!' Instantly a little sharp snout,
tipped with a chilly nose, touched him and withdrew. He stood up, as
the key turned in the lock once more.
This time it was Messer Jacopo himself who entered, while his bulldogs
watched at the door. He came to bring the prisoner a volume of Martial,
which Carlo had once had recommended to him, and of which he had since
bethought himself as a possible solace in his gloom. The Provost Marshal
advanced, with the book in his hand, and seeing his captive's
occupation, as he thought, paused, with a dry smile on his lips. Then,
with his free palm, he caressed the wall thereabouts.
'Strong masonry, Messer,' he said; 'good four feet thick. And what
beyond? A dungeon, deadlier than thine own.'
Carlo laughed.
'A heavy task for nails, old hold-fast, sith you have left me nothing
else. _Lasciate ogni speranza_, hey, and all the rest? I know, I know.
Yet, look you, there should have been coming and going here once, to
judge by the tokens.'
He signified, with a sweep of his hand, a square patch on the stones,
roughly suggestive of a blocked doorway, wherein the mortar certainly
appeared of a date more recent than the rest.
The other made a grim mouth.
'Coming, Messer,' he said; 'but little going. Half-way he sticks who
entered, waiting for the last trump. He'll not move until.'
Carlo recoiled.
'There's one immured there?'
'Ay, these ten years----'
And the wooden creature, laying the book on the table, stalked out like
an automaton.
He left the prisoner gulping and staring. Here, in sooth, was food for
his fancy, luckily no great possession. But the horror bit him,
nevertheless. Presently he took up the book--tried to forget himself in
it. He found it certainly very funny, and laughed: found it very gross,
and laughed--and then thought of Bernardo, and frowned, and threw the
thing into a corner. Then he started to his feet and went up and down,
nervously, with stealthy glances to the wall. Haunted! No wonder he
was haunted. Did it sob and moan in there o' nights, beating with its
poor blind hands on the stone? Did it----
A thought stung him, and he stopped. The rat! Its run broke into that
newer mortar, penetrated, perhaps, as far as the buried horror itself.
Was _there_ the secret of the music? Was it wont, that hapless spectre,
putting its pallid lips to the hole, to sigh nightly through it its
melodious tale of griefs?
He stood gnawing his thumb-nail.
What might it be--man or woman? There was that legend of a nun with
child by--Nay, horrible! What might it be? Nothing at this last,
surely--sexless--just a spongy chalk of bones, a soft rubble for rats to
nest in. O, Messer Topo, Messer Topo! on what dust of human tragedy did
you make your bed! Perhaps----
No! perish the thought! Messer Topo was a gentleman--descendant of a
long line of gentlemen--no hereditary cannibal. He preferred meats
cooked to raw. An hereditary guardian, rather, of that flagrant tomb.
And yet--
He lay down to rest that night, lay rigid for a long while, battling
with a monstrous soul-terror. A burst of perspiration relieved him at
last, and he sank into oblivion.
Then, lo! swift and instant, it seemed, the unearthly music caught him
in its spell. It was more poignant than he had known it yet--loud,
piercing, leaping like the flame of a blown candle. He awoke, sweating
and trembling. The vibration of that gale of sorrow seemed yet ringing
in his ears--from the walls, from the ceiling, from the glass rim of his
drinking-vessel on the table, which repeated it in a thousand tinkling
chimes. But again the voice itself had attenuated to a ghost of
sound--a mere AEolian thread of sweetness.
_But it was a voice_.
Carlo sat up on his litter. He was a man of obdurate will, of a
conquering resolution; and the moment, unnerving as it seized him out of
sleep, found him nevertheless decided. A shaft of green moonlight
struck down from the high grate into his dungeon, spreading like oil
where it fell; floating over floor and table; leaving little dark
objects stranded in its midst. Its upper part, reflecting the moving
waters of the moat outside, seemed to boil and curdle in a frantic dance
of atoms, as though the spirit music were rising thither in soundless
bubbles.
He listened a minute, scarce breathing; then dropped softly to the
floor, and stole across his chamber, and stooped and listened at the
wall.
The next moment he had risen and staggered back, panting, glaring with
dilated eyes into the dark. There was no longer doubt. It was by way
of Messer Topo's pierced channel that the music had come welling to him.
But whence?
Commanding himself by a tense effort, he bent once more, and listened.
Long now--so long, that one might have heard the passion in his heart
conceive, and writhe, and grow big, and at length deliver itself in a
fierce and woful cry: 'Bernardo! my little, little brother!'
With the words, he leapt up and away--tore hither and thither like a
madman--mouthed broken imprecations, fought for articulate speech and
self-control. The truth--all the wicked, damnable truth--had burst upon
him in a flash. No ghostly voice was this of a ten years immured; but
one, now recognised, sweet and human beyond compare, the piteous
solution of all his hauntings. The run pierced further than to that
middle tragedy--pierced to a tragedy more intimate and dreadful--pierced
through into the adjoining cell, where lay his child, his little love,
perishing of cold and hunger. He read it all in an instant--the
disastrous consequences of his own disaster. And he could not comfort
or intervene while this, his pretty swan, was singing himself to death
hard by.
Pity him in that minute. I think, poor wretch, his state was near the
worse--so strong, and yet so helpless. He shrieked, he struck himself,
he blasphemed. Monstrous? it was monstrous beyond all human limits of
malignity. So the ring had sped and wrought! What had this angel done,
but been an angel? What had Cicada, so hide-bound in his own conceit of
folly? Curst watchdogs both, to let themselves be fooled and chained
away while the wolf was ravening their lamb!