I
"Good morning, Prospero," said Annunziata.
"Good morning, Wide-awake," responded John.
He was in the octagonal room on the _piano nobile_ of the castle, where
his lost ladies of old years smiled on him from their frames. He had
heard an approaching patter of feet on the pavement of the room beyond;
and then Annunziata's little grey figure, white face, and big grave
eyes, had appeared, one picture the more, in the vast carved and gilded
doorway.
"I have been looking everywhere for you," she said, plaintive.
"Poor sweetheart," he commiserated her. "And can't you find me?"
"I couldn't," said Annunziata, bearing on the tense. "But I have found
you _now_."
"Oh? Have you? Where?" asked he.
"_Where?_" cried she, with a disdainful movement. "But _here_, of
course."
"I wouldn't be too cocksure of that," he cautioned her. "_Here_ is a
mighty evasive bird. For, suppose we were elsewhere, then _there_ would
be here, and here would be somewhere else."
"No," said Annunziata, with resolution. "Where a person is, that is
always _here_."
"You speak as if a person carried his here with him, like his hat," said
John.
"Yes, that is how it is," said Annunziata, nodding.
"You have a remarkably solid little head,--for all its curls, there's no
confusing it," said he. "Well, have you your report, drawn up, signed,
sealed, sworn to before a Commissioner for Oaths, and ready to be
delivered?"
"My report--?" questioned Annunziata, with a glance.
"About the Form," said John. "I caught you yesterday red-handed in the
fact of pumping it."
"Yes," said Annunziata. "Her name is Maria Dolores."
"A most becoming name," said he.
"She is very nice," said Annunziata.
"She looks very nice," said he.
"She is twenty-two years and ten months old," continued his informant.
"Fancy. As middle-aged as that," commented he.
"Yes. She is an Austrian."
"Ah."
"And as I told you, she is visiting the Signora Brandi. Only, she calls
her Frao Branta."
"Frao Branta?" John turned the name on his tongue. "Branta? Branta?"
What familiar German name, at the back of his memory, did it half evoke?
Suddenly he had a flash. "Can you possibly mean Frau Brandt?"
Annunziata gave a gesture of affirmation.
"Yes, that is it," she said. "You sound it just as she did!"
"I see," said John. "And Brandt, if there are degrees of unbirth, is
even more furiously unborn than Brandi."
"Unborn--?" said Annunziata, frowning.
"Not noble--not of the aristocracy," John explained.
"Very few people are noble," said Annunziata.
"All the more reason, then, why you and I should be thankful that we
are," said he.
"You and I?" she expostulated, with a shrug of her little grey
shoulders. "_Machè!_ We are not noble."
"Aren't we? How do you know?" asked John. "Anyhow," he impressively
moralized, "we can try to be."
"No," said she, with conclusiveness, with fatalism. "It is no good
trying. Either you are noble or simple,--God makes you so,--you cannot
help it. If I were noble, I should be a contessina. If you were noble,
you would be a gransignore.
"And my unassuming appearance assures you that I'm not?" said he,
smiling.
"If you were a gransignore," she instructed him, "you would never be
such friends with me--you would be too proud."
John laughed.
"You judge people by the company they keep. Well, I will apply the same
principle of judgment to your gossip, Maria Dolores. By-the-by," he
broke off to inquire, "what is her Pagan name?"
"Her Pagan name? What is that?" asked Annunziata.
"Maria Dolores, I take it, is her Christian name, come by in Holy
Baptism," said John. "But I suppose she will have a Pagan name, come by
in the way of the flesh, to round it off with,--just as, for instance, a
certain flame of mine, whose image, when I die, they'll find engraved
upon my heart, has the Pagan name of Casalone."
Annunziata looked up, surprised. "Casalone? That is my name," she said.
"Yes," said John. "Yours will be the image."
Annunziata gave her head a toss. "Maria Dolores did not tell me her
Pagan name," she said.
"At any rate," said he, "to judge by the company she keeps, we may
safely classify her as unborn. She is probably the daughter of a
miller,--of a miller (to judge also a little by the frocks she wears) in
rather a large way of business, who (to judge finally by her cultivated
voice, her knowledge of languages, and her generally distinguished air)
has spared no expense in the matter of her education. I shouldn't
wonder a bit if she could even play the piano."
"No," agreed Annunziata, "that is very likely. But why"--she tilted
upwards her inquisitive little profile--"why should you think she is the
daughter of a miller?"
"Miller," said John, "I use as a generic term. Her father may be a
lexicographer or a dry-salter, a designer of dirigible balloons or a
manufacturer of air-pumps; he may even be a person of independent means,
who lives in a big, new, stuccoed villa in the suburbs of Vienna, and
devotes his leisure to the propagation of orchids: yet all the while a
miller. By miller I mean a member of the Bourgeoisie: a man who, though
he be well to do, well educated, well bred, does not bear coat-armour,
and is therefore to be regarded by those who do with their noses in the
air,--especially in Austria. Among Austrians, unless you bear
coat-armour, you're impossible, you're nowhere. We mustn't let you
become enamoured of her if she doesn't bear coat-armour."
Annunziata's eyes, during this divagation, had wandered to the window,
the tall window with its view of the terraced garden, where the mimosa
bloomed and the blackcaps carolled. Now she turned them slowly upon
John, and he saw from their expression that at last she was coming to
what for her (as he had known all along) was the real preoccupation of
the moment. They were immensely serious, intensely concerned, and at the
same time, in their farther recesses, you felt a kind of fluttering
shyness, as if _I dare not_ were hanging upon _I would_.
"Tell me," she began, on a deep note, a deep coaxing note.... Then _I
dare not_ got the better, and she held back.... Then _I would_ took his
courage in both hands, and she plunged. "What have you brought for me
from Roccadoro?" And after one glance of half-bashful, all-impassioned
supplication, she let her eyes drop, and stood before him suspensive, as
one awaiting the word of destiny.
John's "radiant blondeur," his yellow beard, pink face, and sea-blue
eyes, lighted up, more radiant still, with subcutaneous laughter.
"The shops were shut," he said. "I arrived after closing time."
But something in his tone rendered this grim announcement nugatory.
Annunziata drew a long breath, and looked up again. "You have brought
me something, all the same," she declared with conviction; and eagerly,
eyes gleaming, "What is it? What is it?" she besought him.
John laughed. "You are quite right," he said. "If one can't buy, beg, or
borrow, in this world, one can generally steal."
Annunziata drew away, regarded him with misgiving. "Oh, no; you would
never steal," she protested.
"I'm not so sure--for one I loved," said he. "What would you have liked
me to bring you?"
Annunziata thought. "I liked those chocolate cigars," she said, her face
soft with reminiscence of delight.
"Ah, but we mustn't have it _toujours perdrix_," said John. "Do you, by
any chance, like marchpane?"
"Marchpane?--I adore it," she answered, in an outburst of emotion.
"You have your human weaknesses, after all," John laughed. "Well, I
stole a pocketful of marchpane."
Annunziata drew away again, her little white forehead furrowed.
"Stole?" she repeated, reluctant to believe.
"Yes," said he, brazenly, nodding his head.
"Oh, that was very wrong," said Annunziata, sadly shaking hers.
"No," said he. "Because, in the first place, it's a matter of proverbial
wisdom that stolen marchpane's sweetest. And, in the next place, I stole
it quite openly, under the eye of the person it belonged to, and she
made no effort to defend her property. Seeing which, I even went so far
as to explain to her _why_ I was stealing it. 'There's a young limb o'
mischief with a sweet tooth at Sant' Alessina,' I explained, 'who
regularly levies blackmail upon me. I'm stealing this for her.' And then
the lady I was stealing from told me I might steal as much as ever I
thought good."
"Oh-h-h," said Annunziata, a long-drawn _Oh_ of relief. "Then you didn't
steal it--she _gave_ it to you."
"Well," said John, "if casuistry like that can ease your conscience--if
you feel that you can conscientiously receive it--" And he allowed his
inflection to complete the sentence.
"Give it to me," said Annunziata, holding out her hands, and dancing up
and down in glee and in impatience.
"Nenni-dà," said John. "Not till after dinner. I'm not going to be a
party to the spoiling of a fair, young, healthy appetite."
Pain wrote itself upon Annunziata's brow. "Oh," she grieved, "must I
wait till after dinner?"
"Yes," said John.
For a breathing-space she struggled. "Would it be bad of me," she asked,
"if I begged for just a _little_ now?"
"Yes," said John, "bad and bootless. You'd find me as unyielding as
adamant."
"Ah, well," sighed Annunziata, a deep and tremulous sigh. "Then I will
wait."
And, like a true philosopher, she proceeded to occupy her mind with a
fresh interest. She looked round the room, she looked out of the window.
"Why do you stay here? It is much pleasanter in the garden," she
remarked.
"I came here to seek for consolation. To-day began for me with a tragic
misadventure," John replied.
Annunziata's eyes grew big, compassionating him, and, at the same time,
bespeaking a lively curiosity.
"Poor Prospero," she gently murmured. "What was it?" on tip-toe she
demanded.
"Well," he said, "when I rose, to go for my morning swim, I made an
elaborate toilet, because I hoped to meet a certain person whom, for
reasons connected with my dignity, I wished to impress. But it was
love's labour lost. The certain person is an ornament of the uncertain
sex, and didn't turn up. So, to console myself, I came here."
Annunziata looked round the room again. "What is there here that can
console you?"
"These," said John. His hand swept the pictured walls.
"The paintings?" said she, following his gesture. "How can they console
you?"
"They're so well painted," said he, fondly studying the soft-coloured
canvases. "Besides, these ladies are dead. I like dead ladies."
Annunziata looked critically at the pictures, and then at him with
solemn meaning. "They are very pretty--but they are not dead," she
pronounced in her deepest voice.
"Not dead?" echoed John, astonished. "Aren't they?"
"No," said she, with a slow shake of the head.
"Dear me," said he. "And, when they're alone here and no one's looking,
do you think they come down from their frames and dance? It must be a
sight worth seeing."
"No," said Annunziata. "These are only their pictures. They cannot come
down from their frames. But the ladies themselves are not dead. Some of
them are still in Purgatory, perhaps. We should pray for them." She
made, in parenthesis as it were, a pious sign of the Cross. "Some are
perhaps already in Heaven. We should ask their prayers. And others are
perhaps in Hell," she pursued, inexorable theologian that she was. "But
none of them is dead. No one is dead. There's no such thing as being
dead."
"But then," puzzled John, "what is it that people mean when they talk of
Death?"
"I will tell you," said Annunziata, her eyes heavy with thought.
"Listen, and I will tell you." She seated herself on the big round
ottoman, and raised her face to his. "Have you ever been at a
pantomime?" she asked.
"Yes," said John, wondering what could possibly be coming.
"Have you been at the pantomime," she continued earnestly, "when there
was what they call a transformation-scene?"
"Yes," said John.
"Well," said she, "last winter I was taken to the pantomime at Bergamo,
and I saw a transformation-scene. You ask me, what is Death? It is
exactly like a transformation-scene. At the pantomime the scene was just
like the world. There were trees, and houses, and people, common people,
like any one. Then suddenly click! Oh, it was wonderful. Everything was
changed. The trees had leaves of gold and silver, and the houses were
like fairy palaces, and there were strange lights, red and blue, and
there were great garlands of the most beautiful flowers, and the people
were like angels, with gems and shining clothes. Well, you understand,
at first we had only seen one side of the scene;--then click! everything
was turned round, and we saw the other side. That is like life and
death. Always, while we are alive, we can see only one side of things.
But there is the other side, the under side. Never, so long as we are
alive, we can never, never see it. But when we die,--click! It is a
transformation-scene. Everything is turned round, and we see the other
side. Oh, it will be very different, it will be wonderful. That is what
they call Death."
It was John's turn to be grave. It was some time before he spoke. He
looked down at her, with a kind of grave laughter in his eyes, admiring,
considering. What could he say? ... What he did say, at last, was
simply, "Thank you, my dear."
Annunziata jumped up.
"Oh, come," she urged. "Let's go into the garden. It is so much nicer
there than here. There are lots of cockchafers. Besides"--she held out
as an additional inducement--"we might meet Maria Dolores."
"No," said John. "Though the cockchafers are a temptation, I will stop
here. But go you to the garden, by all means. And if you do meet Maria
Dolores, tell her what you have just told me. I think she would like to
hear it."
"All right," consented Annunziata, moving towards the door. "I'll see
you at dinner. You won't forget the marchpane?"