“She is dying of them.”
* * * * *
When we rose from table, Anatolia proposed going down to the garden.
“Let us go and bask in the sun a little more!” she suggested, pointing
to a shaft of sunbeams which shot down from the highest pane of a
window where the faded curtains were not drawn. “Who will come?”
By the movement her hand was lit up, turned golden down to her wrist,
and the rays slid through her fingers like docile hair. “We will all
come,” I replied.
Don Ottavio begged to be excused, and retired (he seemed like an
intruder among us); but the prince laid his arm in Anatolia’s, as
Antonello had done before on the steps, and said--
“I will come down to the quadrangle with you.”
As we passed through the vast reception hall, now reduced to a disused
anteroom, I noticed an old sedan chair with the two poles still in it,
as if a lady had just descended from it, or was about to enter.
“Who uses the sedan chair?” I asked, as I stopped to look at it.
“None of us,” answered Anatolia after a moment’s hesitation, during
which a shade of agitation passed over every face.
“It is of the time of Charles III.,” said the prince, concealing his
melancholy thoughts under a smile. “It belonged to the Duchess of
Cublana, Donna Raimondetta Montaga, who was the most beautiful lady of
the court, and was praised as the greatest beauty of the kingdom.”
“The design is excellent,” I remarked, approaching it, for I was
attracted by this piece of antiquity, which seemed hardly yet dead, and
to which the memory of Donna Raimondetta gave a tender interest and
grace, so that I almost imagined as I looked that she was alive again
within it. “It is an exquisite work of art, and wonderfully preserved.”
But I noticed a strange feeling of uneasiness among my hosts, and
that this uneasiness was caused by the object I was looking at. And by
virtue of this mystery, I felt more strongly than before the imaginary
life dwelling within the precious wood.
“Perhaps the soul of Donna Raimondetta lives inside,” I said lightly,
and I could not resist the desire to open the pane of glass. “It could
not have a more delicate casket. Let us see.”
As I opened it, a subtle odour reached my nostrils, and I put my head
inside, so as to breathe it better.
“What a scent!” I exclaimed, delighted with the unexpected sensation.
“Is it the Duchess of Cublana’s perfume?”
And for a few seconds my imagination hovered in the soft atmosphere
created by the enchantment of the ancient dame, picturing a little
round mouth like a strawberry, a powdered head-dress, and a brocade
dress stiffened by a hoop.
The sedan chair was scented like a bridal chest; it was lined inside
with willow-green velvet, and decorated with a little oval mirror on
each side; without, it was all gilded and painted in the most refined
taste, the ceiling and jointings were enriched with delicate carving,
all the more harmonious and pleasing to the eye from the veil thrown
over them by the hand of time; the whole was the work of a graceful
imagination and a skilled hand.
“Or perhaps it is you, Donna Violante,” I added, “who have poured out
one of your phials on this soft velvet, as a homage to your famous
ancestress?”
“No, it is not I,” she said, almost indifferently, as if she had
fallen back into her usual apathy, and was again far away.
“Let us go now,” begged Anatolia, drawing on her father, whose arm
still rested in hers. “It is always so cold in this room.”
“Let us go,” repeated Antonello, shivering.
From the top of the staircase we could already hear the sound of the
water; at first it sounded hoarse, then gradually clearer and louder.
“Has the fountain been turned on?” asked the prince.
“We turned it on just now,” said Anatolia, “in honour of our guest.”
“Did you notice the play of the echo in the quadrangle, Claudio?” Don
Luzio inquired. “It is extraordinary.”
“Truly extraordinary,” I replied. “It is a wonderful effect of sound.
It is like a musician’s trick. I think an attentive harmonist might
discover the secret of unknown chords and discords in it. It would be
an incomparable training for a delicate ear. Is it not true, Donna
Violante? You are on the fountain’s side, against Antonello.”
“Yes,” she said simply, “I love and understand water.”
“_Laudato si, mi Signore, per sor acqua._” (Praised be Thou, O Lord,
for sister water.) “Do you remember the canticle of St. Francis, Donna
Massimilla?”
“Certainly,” replied the betrothed of Christ, with her faint smile,
colouring slightly. “I belong to the Poor Clares.”
Her father’s look was a melancholy caress.
“_Suor Acqua_” (Sister Water), Anatolia called her, caressing the soft
bands of hair on her forehead with her fingers. “Take that name.”
“It would be presumptuous,” replied the Poor Clare with laughing
humility.
She recalled to me with only a slight variation the saying of the
saint: _Symphonialis est aqua_.
We were all there close to the rushing fountain. Each of the mouths was
pouring out its voice through a glass pipe like a curved flute. The
lower shell was quite full already, and the four sea-horses were up to
their bellies in water.
“The design is by Algardi, the Bolognese,” said the prince, “the
architect of Innocent X.; but the sculpture was done by the Neapolitan
Domenico Guidi, the same who executed the greater part of the relief of
Attila at St. Peter’s.”
Violante had drawn near the edge of the basin again, and I gazed at the
reflection of her figure in the liquid element, whose continual tremor
melted the features as it rippled away round the horses’ hoofs.
“There is a tragic story in connection with this fountain,” added the
prince, “a story which has become the source of some superstitious
ideas. Don’t you know it?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied, “but tell it me, if you will.”
And I looked at Antonello, thinking of the lost soul which tormented
and terrified him at night. He also was now looking intently at
Violante’s reflection as it trembled in the depths of the water.
“Here in this fountain Pantea Montaga was drowned,” began Don Luzio.
“In the time of the Viceroy Peter of Aragon----”