THE MASTERPIECES OF
GEORGE SAND
AMANDINE LUCILLE AURORE DUPIN,
BARONESS DUDEVANT
VOLUME VIII
THE PICCININO
THE LAST OF THE ALDINIS
The Masterpieces of George Sand
Amandine Lucille Aurore Dupin, Baroness
Dudevant, _NOW FOR THE FIRST
TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED
INTO ENGLISH THE PICCININO, AND THE LAST OF THE
ALDINIS BY G. BURNHAM IVES_
_WITH TWELVE PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS BY
ORESTE CORTAZZO._
_VOLUME II_
_PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY
GEORGE BARRIE & SON
PHILADELPHIA_
[Illustration: _SIGNORA ALDINI AND HER GONDOLIER._
_I saw the blood come and go in the signora's
cheeks as I took the oar and eagerly pushed against
the marble steps which seemed to flee behind us._]
CONTENTS
THE PICCININO
CHAPTER
XXXVI. THE FAMILY PORTRAITS
XXXVII. BIANCA
XXXVIII. A COUP DE MAIN
XXXIX. AN IDYLL
XL. DECEPTION
XLI. JEALOUSY AND GRATITUDE
XLII. AN EMBARRASSING CONJUNCTURE
XLIII. A CRISIS
XLIV. REVELATIONS
XLV. MEMORIES
XLVI. GLADNESS OF HEART
XLVII. THE VULTURE
XLVIII. THE MARQUIS
XLIX. DANGER
L. A NOCTURNAL JOURNEY
LI. CATASTROPHE
LII. CONCLUSION
THE LAST OF THE ALDINIS
INTRODUCTION
FIRST PART
SECOND PART
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE PICCININO
THE LAST OF THE ALDINIS
VOLUME II
SIGNORA ALDINI AND HER GONDOLIER
THE PICCININO RECEIVES MILA
AGATHA PROTECTS MICHELANGELO
NELLO ENTERS THE ALDINI PALACE
THE STRANGE LUNCHEON
ALEZIA VISITS CHECCHINA
THE PICCININO
(_Continued_)
XXXVI
THE FAMILY PORTRAITS
"Well," replied Michel, emboldened by his host's dignified arguments and
sincere kindliness, "I will tell you my whole thought; and I trust that
Master Barbagallo will permit me to speak before him, even though what I
have to say may be offensive to his beliefs. If the study of heraldic
science were a useful and moral study, Master Barbagallo, the favored
nursling of that science, would regard all men as equal before God, and
would recognize no distinction except between narrow-minded or wicked
and intelligent or virtuous men. He would appreciate fully the vanity of
titles and the very doubtful value of genealogical trees. He would have
broader views concerning the history of the human race, as we were
saying just now; and he would view that wonderful history with a glance
no less firm than impartial. Whereas, if I am not mistaken, he views it
with a certain narrowness of vision which I cannot accept. He esteems
nobility an excellent thing because it is privileged; he despises the
common people because they have no history and no memories. I will wager
that he despises himself by dint of admiring the grandeur of others,
unless he has discovered amid the dust of some library some document
which affords him the honor of deeming himself related in the fourteenth
degree to some illustrious family."
"I have not that honor," said the majordomo, somewhat disconcerted.
"However, I have had the satisfaction of assuring myself that I am not
descended from ignoble stock; some of my male ancestors were men of
distinction in the clergy and in business."
"I congratulate you most sincerely," said Michel, ironically; "for my
own part, it has never occurred to me to ask my father whether our
ancestors were sign-painters, beadles or majordomos. Indeed, I admit
that it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and that I have never
had but one thought in that direction--namely, to owe any celebrity I
may attain to myself, and to create my own coat-of-arms with my palette
and brushes."
"Good!" exclaimed the marquis, "a noble ambition. You aspire to be the
founder of a race illustrious in the arts, and to earn your own
nobility, instead of throwing it away, as so many poor creatures do who
are unworthy to bear a great name. But would you consider it a
disadvantage that your descendants should be proud to bear your name?"
"Yes, signor marquis, I would, if my descendants were ignorant fools."
"My friend," replied the marquis, very calmly, "I am aware that the
nobility has degenerated in all countries, and I do not need to tell you
that it is the less pardonable in proportion to the degree of
distinction that it had to bear and of grandeur to maintain. But is it
for us to call this or that social rank to book, or to attempt to decide
concerning the merit or lack of merit of the individuals who compose it?
The most interesting, and at the same time the most profitable course
for us all, in a discussion of this sort, would be to examine the
institution in itself. Will you not tell me your ideas, Michel, and
whether you approve or disapprove the distinctions established between
different classes of men?"
"I approve them," said Michel, unhesitatingly, "for I aspire to
distinguish myself; but I disapprove any application of the principle of
heredity in such distinctions."
"Of the principle of heredity?" repeated the marquis. "In so far as
fortune and power are concerned, I agree. That is a French idea--a bold
idea. I like such ideas! But in so far as regards disinterested renown,
honor pure and simple--will you allow me to ask you a few questions, my
boy?
"Let us assume that Michelangelo Lavoratori, here present, was born only
two or three hundred years ago. Let us assume that he was the rival of
Raphael or Titian, and that he left a name worthy to stand beside those
glorious names. I will assume, also, that this palace in which we now
are belonged to him, and that it has remained in his family. Lastly, let
us assume that you are the last scion of that family, and that you do
not cultivate the art of painting. Your inclinations have turned you
toward some other profession, or perhaps you have no profession, for you
are rich; the noble works of your illustrious ancestor produced a
fortune which his descendants have faithfully transmitted to you. You
are standing here under your own roof, in the portrait gallery in which
your ancestors have their places one after another. Moreover, you know
the history of all of them. It is contained in manuscripts which have
been carefully preserved and handed down in your family.
"Let us suppose, further, that I, a child picked up on the steps of a
hospital, wander into this palace. I am ignorant of my father's name,
and even of that of the unfortunate creature who gave birth to me. I
have no ties whatever that bind me to the past, and, born but yesterday,
I gaze with surprise upon this succession of ancestors from whom you
have descended through well-nigh three centuries. I question you in
open-mouthed wonder, and I am even inclined to make sport of you for
living thus with the dead and through the dead; and I doubt whether this
brilliant lineage has not deteriorated a little in the lapse of time.
"You answer me by pointing with pride to the founder of your race, the
illustrious Michelangelo Lavoratori, who, from nothing at all, had
become a great man, and whose memory will never perish. Then you tell me
a fact at which I marvel greatly: that the sons and daughters of this
Michel, overflowing with veneration for their father's memory, chose to
be artists too. One was a musician, another an engraver, a third a
painter. If they did not receive from heaven the same talents as their
father, they did at all events retain in their hearts and transmit to
their children respect and love for art. Their children, in their turn,
did likewise, and all these talents, all these mottoes, all these
biographies, which you exhibit to me and explain to me, present the
spectacle of several generations of artists, eager to maintain the
standard of their hereditary profession. Unquestionably only a few among
all these seekers after glory were truly worthy of the name they bore.
Genius is an exception, and it takes you but a short time to point out
to me the small number of noteworthy artists who have upheld by their
own labors the glory of your family. But that small number has been
sufficient to replenish your generous blood, and to maintain in the
ideas of the intermediate generations a certain fire, a certain pride,
a certain thirst for grandeur which may still produce distinguished men.
"But I, a foundling, isolated in the vast expanse of time--I continue my
apologue,--a natural scorner of all hereditary celebrity, seek to lower
your pride. I smile with an air of triumph when you admit that this or
that ancestor, whose portrait impresses me by its air of innocence, was
never anything more than a paltry genius, a narrow-minded creature; that
a certain other, whose rakish dress and bristling moustache I do not
like, was a black sheep, a fool or a fanatic; in short, I give you to
understand that you are a degenerate artist, because you have not
inherited the sacred fire, and that you have fallen asleep in a
luxurious _far niente_, contemplating the fruitful life of your
forefathers.
"Thereupon you reply to me; and you will allow me to place in your mouth
a few words which seem to me not devoid of sense:
"'I am nothing at all in myself; but I should be even less had I not a
venerable past to lean upon. I am overborne by the apathy natural to
minds devoid of inspiration; but my father taught me one thing which
passed from his blood into mine: that I come of a distinguished family,
and that if I could do nothing to renew its splendor, I should, at all
events, abstain from tastes and ideas which might tarnish it. In default
of genius, I have respect for family tradition, and, having no ground
for pride in myself, I repair the wrong which my nullity might inflict
upon my ancestors by bestowing a sort of adoration upon them. I should
be a hundred times more guilty if, caring naught for my ignorance, I
should shatter their images and profane their memory by airs of
contempt. To deny one's father because one cannot equal him is the act
of a fool or a dastard. On the other hand, it is a pious duty to invoke
his memory in order to obtain forgiveness for being less eminent than
he; and the artists with whom I consort and to whom I have no works of
my own to show, listen to me with interest, at all events, when I speak
to them of the works of my ancestors.'
"That is the answer you would make to me, Michel, and do you think that
it would have no effect upon me? It seems to me that if I were the poor,
abandoned child that I have imagined, I should fall into profound
melancholy, and should complain of fate for having dropped me upon the
earth alone, and, so to speak, without sponsors.
"But I pass to a less ponderous apologue, and one better adapted to your
artistic imagination, which, however, I beg you will interrupt
immediately if you have already heard it. The anecdote has been
attributed to several persons cut after the pattern of Don Juan, and as
old stories are rejuvenated from generation to generation, it has been
told recently of Cæsar de Castro-Reale, the _Destatore_, the famous
brigand, who was no ordinary man either in good or evil.
"At Palermo, in the days when he sought to deaden his faculties in wild
dissipation, uncertain whether he should succeed in making a perfect
brute of himself, or should decide to raise the standard of rebellion,
it is said that he went one evening to visit a venerable palace which he
had just lost at play, and which he wished to see once more before
leaving it never to return. It was the last remnant of his fortune, and
perhaps the only thing which caused him the slightest regret; for it was
there that he had passed his early years, there that his parents had
died, there that the portraits of his ancestors were buried in the dust
of long neglect.
"He went there to notify his steward to receive on the morrow, as the
proprietor of the estate, the nobleman who had won it on a cast of the
dice.--'What,' said the steward, who, like Master Barbagallo, had a
profound respect for family traditions and portraits; 'you have staked
everything, even your father's grave, even the portraits of your
ancestors?'
"'Staked and lost everything,' replied Castro-Reale, heedlessly.
'However, there are a few articles which I am able to redeem, and my
successful adversary will not haggle over them. Let us look at these
family portraits! I have forgotten all about them. I used to admire them
at a time when I knew nothing about such things. If there are some which
have merit, I will set them aside and make some arrangement with their
new owner. Take a light and follow me.'
"The steward, agitated and trembling, followed his master through the
dark and deserted palace. Castro-Reale strode before, with arrogant
assurance; but they say that he had drunk immoderately on arriving at
his palace, in order to provide himself with a store of stoicism or
recklessness that should last to the end. He himself opened the rusty
door, and seeing that the hand trembled in which the old majordomo held
the light, he took it in his own and held it on a level with the face of
the first portrait in the gallery. It was a fierce warrior armed from
top to toe, with a broad ruffle of Flemish lace over his iron cuirass.
See! here he is, Michel, for the same pictures which play a part in my
narrative are here before your eyes; they are the same which were sent
from Palermo to me, as the last heir of the family."
Michel looked at the old warrior and was impressed by his masculine
features, his bristling moustache, and his stern appearance.
"Well, your excellency," he said, "that decidedly unamiable and ungenial
face gave the _dissoluto_ food for reflection, I doubt not?"
"Especially," replied the marquis, "as the face became animated, the
eyes rolled angrily in their dark orbits, and the lips uttered these
words in a sepulchral voice: '_I am not pleased with you!_' Castro-Reale
shuddered and recoiled in terror; but, deeming himself the dupe of his
own imagination, he passed to the next portrait and looked it in the
face with an insolence bordering on madness. It was an ancient and
venerable abbess of the Ursulines of Palermo, a great-great-aunt, who
died in the odor of sanctity. You can see her, Michel, yonder on your
right, with her veil, her gold cross, her yellow face wrinkled like
parchment, her piercing and imperious eyes. I fancy that she says
nothing to you; but when Castro-Reale raised the candle to her face, she
blinked her eyes as if dazzled by the sudden light, and said to him in a
strident voice: '_I am not pleased with you!_'
"This time the prince was frightened; he turned to the steward, whose
knees were knocking against each other. But, determined to struggle on
against these warnings from the supernatural world, he suddenly
confronted a third portrait, that of the old magistrate, whom you see
beside the abbess. He put his hand on the frame, not daring to look too
long at the ermine cloak which is hardly distinguishable from the long
white beard; but he tried to shake him, saying: '_And you?_'
"'_Nor am I_,' replied the magistrate, in the crushing tone of a judge
pronouncing sentence of death.
"Castro-Reale dropped his candle, they say, and, unconscious of what he
did, stumbling at every step, went on to the end of the gallery, while
the poor majordomo, frozen with fear, stood dumb and motionless at the
door by which they had entered, daring neither to follow him nor to
abandon him. He heard his master stumbling along in the darkness, at an
uneven, hurried gait, colliding with the furniture and muttering curses;
and he also heard each portrait apostrophize him as he passed with the
terrible, monotonous words: '_Nor am I!_--_Nor am I!_--_Nor am I!_'--The
voices grew fainter as they receded along the gallery; but all repeated
the fatal sentence distinctly, and Castro-Reale was unable to escape
that long series of maledictions, which not one of his ancestors spared
him. It took him a long while, it seems, to reach the door at the other
end. When he had passed through it and closed it violently behind him,
as if he thought that he was pursued by spectres, silence reigned once
more; and, so far as my knowledge goes, these portraits have never
recovered the power of speech from that day to this."
"Tell the rest, tell the rest, your excellency!" cried Fra Angelo, who
had listened to this narrative with gleaming eyes and parted lips; for
despite his intelligence and the education he had received, the
ex-brigand of Ætna was too much of a monk and too much of a Sicilian
not to believe it to a certain extent; "tell him that after that moment
neither the steward of the palace of Castro-Reale, nor any inhabitant of
the province of Palermo ever saw the Prince of Castro-Reale again. There
was, at the end of the gallery, a drawbridge which they heard him cross,
and as his plumed hat was found floating on the water, they concluded
that he was drowned, although they searched in vain for his body."
"But the lesson had a more salutary effect," added the marquis. "He fled
into the mountains, organized a band of partisans, and fought there ten
years, to rescue, or, at all events, to avenge his country. False or
true, the story was current for a long while, and the new owner of
Castro-Reale believed it in so far that he preferred not to keep these
terrible family portraits, and sent them to me at once."
"I do not know whether the story is authentic," said Fra Angelo. "I
never dared ask the prince; but it is perfectly certain that his
determination to become a partisan came to him in the manor-house of his
ancestors the last time that he visited it. It is certain, too, that he
experienced some violent emotion there, and that he did not like to have
anybody mention his ancestors to him. It is certain, too, that his mind
was never sound after that night, and that I have often heard him say,
in his days of depression: 'Ah! I ought to have blown out my brains when
I crossed the drawbridge of my palace the last time!'"
"Surely that is all the truth there is in this fanciful tale," said
Michel. "But no matter! Although there is not the slightest connection
between these illustrious individuals and my humble self, and although I
am not aware that I have any reason to reproach myself with respect to
them, I should be a little disturbed, it seems to me, if I had to pass
the night alone in this gallery."
"For my part," said Pier-Angelo, "I am not ashamed to say that I don't
believe a word of this story; and yet, if the signor marquis would give
me his fortune and his palace to boot, I wouldn't take them on the
condition of having to remain here alone an hour, after sunset, with the
lady abbess, the magistrate, and all these illustrious monks and
soldiers. The servants have tried more than once to lock me in here for
their own amusement; but I have never let them catch me, I would jump
out of window first."
"And what are we to conclude from all this, with respect to the
nobility?" said Michel to the marquis.
"We conclude, my child," replied the Marquis della Serra, "that
privileged nobility is an injustice, but that family traditions and
memories have much force, usefulness and beauty. In France they obeyed a
noble impulse when they invited the nobles to burn their letters patent,
and the nobles performed a duty imposed by tact and good taste by
consummating the holocaust; but afterward they broke open tombs, exhumed
dead bodies, and even insulted the image of Christ, as if the
resting-place of the dead were not sacred, and as if the Son of Mary
were the patron of the great nobles only and not of the poor and lowly.
I forgive all the frenzies of that revolution, and I understand them
better, perhaps, than those persons who have discoursed of them to you,
my young friend; but I also know that the philosophy which guided it was
not very complete or very deep, and that, with respect to the idea of
nobility, as with respect to all other ideas, it was much more
successful in destroying than in building up, in uprooting than in
sowing. Let me say another word to you on this subject, and then we will
go and have some ices out of doors, for I am afraid that all these dead
men and women bore and depress you."
XXXVII
BIANCA
"Look you, Michel," said the marquis, taking Pier-Angelo's hand in his
right hand and Fra Angelo's in his left; "all men are noble! And I would
stake my head that the Lavoratori family is quite as good as the family
of Castro-Reale. If we are to judge the dead by the living, surely here
are two men who must have had men of worth, men of heart and brain for
ancestors; whereas the _Destatore_, a mixture of great qualities and
deplorable faults, prince and bandit, repentant devotee and desperate
suicide by turns, as surely gave the lie many a time to the nobility of
the haughty personages whose images surround us. If you are rich some
day, Michel, you will begin a family gallery without realizing it, for
you will paint these two noble faces, your father's and your uncle's,
and you will never sell them!"
"And his sister's!" cried Pier-Angelo; "he will not forget hers either,
for it will serve some day as a proof that our race was not unpleasant
to look upon."
"Well," continued the marquis, still addressing Michel, "do you not
consider that you have every reason to regret that you do not know the
story of your father's and your uncle's father?"
"He was a worthy man!" cried Pier-Angelo; "he was once a soldier, then
an honest mechanic, and I knew him as a most excellent father."
"And his brother was a monk like myself," said Fra Angelo. "He was pious
and wise; my memory of him had great influence on me when I was
hesitating about taking the frock."
"There you see the influence of family memories!" said the marquis. "But
your grandfather and great-uncle, my friends, what were they?"
"As for my great-uncle," replied Pier-Angelo, "I don't know that I ever
had one. But my grandfather was a peasant."
"What was his life?"
"I was told in my childhood probably, but I don't remember."
"And your great-grandfather?"
"I never heard of him."
"I have a vague remembrance that we had a great-great-grandfather who
was a sailor, and one of the bravest of sailors. But his name has
escaped me. For us the name of Lavoratori dates back but two
generations. It is a sobriquet like most plebeian names. It marks the
transition from one trade to another in our family, when our grandfather
ceased to be a peasant in the mountains to become a mechanic in the
town. Our grandfather's name was Montanari; that was a sobriquet too.
His grandfather had a different name, doubtless. But at that point
everlasting night begins for us, and our genealogy enters into oblivion
so complete that it is equivalent to non-existence."
"Even so," rejoined the marquis; "you have summed up the whole history
of the common people in the example of your family. Two or three
generations are conscious of a connecting bond; but all those which
preceded and all those which will follow are strangers to them forever.
Do you consider that just and as it should be, my dear Michel? Is not
this utter neglect of the past, this heedlessness of the future, this
absence of interest in the intermediate generations, a sort of
barbarism, an uncivilized condition of affairs, indicating a most
revolting contempt for the human race?"
"You are right, and I understand you, signor marquis," Michel replied.
"The history of each family is the history of the human race, and
whoever knows one knows the other. Certainly the man who knows his own
ancestors, and who derives from a scrutiny of their successive
existences a series of examples to follow or to shun, has, so to speak,
a more intense and more complete life in his heart than he who can refer
only to two or three vague and intangible shadows of the past. Therefore
nobility of birth is a great social privilege; if it imposes grave
duties, it furnishes vast enlightenment and vast powers. The child who
spells out the knowledge of good and evil in books written with the
blood which flows in his own veins, and in the features of the painted
faces which reflect his own image like mirrors in which he loves to
recognize himself, should always become a great man, or at least, as you
said, a man enamored of true grandeur, which is an acquired virtue
supplying the place of inborn virtue. I realize now what there is that
is true and estimable in this principle of heredity which binds the
generations together. What there is in it that is unfortunate, I will
not remind you; you know it better than I."
"What there is unfortunate I will tell you myself," replied the marquis.
"There is the fact that nobility is an exclusive privilege which all
families do not share; that established distinctions rest upon a false
principle, and that the peasant hero does not win fame and have his name
inscribed in history like the patrician hero; that the domestic virtues
of the workingman are not recorded in a book that is always open to his
posterity; that the poor and virtuous mother of a family, lovely and
chaste to no purpose, does not leave her name and her image on the walls
of her hovel; that that hovel of the poor man is not even assured to his
descendants as a place of refuge; that all men are not wealthy and free,
so that they may consecrate thought, monuments and works of art to the
worship of their past; lastly, that there is no such thing as the
history of the human race, but only of a few names rescued from
oblivion, which are called illustrious names, heedless of the fact that
at certain times whole nations become illustrious under the influence of
the same deed and the same idea. Who can tell us the names of all the
enthusiastic, noble hearts who have thrown aside the spade or the hoe to
go to fight the infidel? You have ancestors among them, I doubt not,
Pier-Angelo, and you know nothing of them! Or the names of all the
sublime monks who have preached the law of God to savage peoples? Your
ancestors are among them, Fra Angelo, and you know nothing of them! Ah!
my friends, how many noble hearts are stilled forever, how many noble
deeds buried in oblivion without advantage to those who live to-day! How
melancholy and disastrous is this impenetrable darkness of the past to
the common people, and how my heart aches to think that you are probably
descended from the blood of brave men and martyrs, although you cannot
find the faintest trace of their passage upon the paths you follow
through life! Whereas I, who am not so good a man as you, can learn from
Master Barbagallo what ancestor of mine was born or died this month five
hundred years ago! Consider! On one side the unmitigated abuse of this
worship of the patrician; on the other the horror of a vast grave which
swallows up without distinction the consecrated bones and the impure
bones of the common people! Oblivion is a punishment which should be
visited upon the wicked only, and yet it is visited upon no one in our
haughty families; whereas in yours it overtakes the most virtuous!
History is confiscated to our profit, and you people seem to have no
connection whatever with history, which, however, is your work more than
ours!"
"Well," said Michel, deeply moved by the marquis's ideas and sentiments,
"you have given me for the first time a true conception of nobility. I
always attributed it to a few glorious personalities, who must be
separated from their race. Now I can imagine lofty and generous
thoughts, succeeding one another from generation to generation,
connecting the generations with one another, and making as much account
of humble virtues as of brilliant deeds. That is judging as God judges,
signor marquis, and if I had the honor and the misery to be of noble
birth--for it is a grievous burden to him who comprehends it--I should
like to see and think as you do."
"I thank you," replied the marquis, taking his hand and leading him out
on the terrace of his palace. Pier-Angelo and Fra Angelo looked at each
other with deep emotion; both had understood the full scope of the
marquis's ideas, and they felt strengthened and uplifted by this new
aspect which he had given to life, collective and individual alike. As
for Master Barbagallo, he had listened with religious respect, but had
understood absolutely nothing; and he went away wondering how one could
be noble without a palace, without parchments, without a coat of arms,
and above all else, without family portraits. He concluded that the
nobility could not do without wealth: a marvellous discovery which
fatigued him much.
At that moment, as the beak of a great pelican of gilded wood, which did
duty as hour hand on a monumental clock in the gallery of the Della
Serra palace, marked four o'clock in the afternoon, the Piccinino was
thinking that his five or six repeating watches must be slow, so
impatiently did he await Mila's arrival. He went from the English watch
to the Geneva watch, disdaining the Catanian watch which he might have
purchased with his money--for the Catanians are watch-makers as well as
the Genevans--and from the one surrounded with diamonds to the one
adorned with rubies. Being a connoisseur in jewels, he laid claim to
none but articles of the most exquisite quality from the booty taken by
his men. Thus no one knew the time better than he, who was so keen to
make the most of it, and to employ his moments most methodically, in
order to lead side by side a life of study and of meditation, a life of
adventures, intrigues, and _coups de main_, and a life of pleasure and
of lust, which he neither could nor wished to enjoy otherwise than in
secret.
Fierce to the point of despotism in his impatience, he was as intolerant
of having to wait himself as he was fond of making others wait and of
worrying them by skilfully devised delays. This time, however, he had
yielded to the necessity of coming first to the rendezvous. He could not
be sure that Mila would have the courage to wait for him, or to enter
his house if he were not there himself to meet her. He went to the gate
more than ten times, and angrily retraced his steps, afraid to leave the
wooded road that bordered his garden, lest, if he should meet anyone, he
should seem to be intent upon some design. The leading principle in his
scheme of life was always to appear calm and indifferent in the eyes of
placid people, always distraught and preoccupied in the eyes of
busybodies.
[Illustration: _THE PICCININO RECEIVES MILA._
_He strode toward Mila with an imperious air,
seized the rein of her mule, and, taking the girl in
his arms as soon as she was in front of his garden
gate, lifted her to the ground, pressing her lovely
body with something very like violence._]
When Mila at last appeared at the top of the green path which descended
sharply to his orchard, he was really angry with her, for she was a
quarter of an hour late, and, thanks to the Piccinino's discernment or
fascinations, there was not one among the fair maidens of the mountain
who would have allowed him to be first at the rendezvous in a
love-affair. The brigand's unruly heart was inflamed therefore with
ill-disguised rage; he forgot that he was not dealing with a mistress,
and he strode toward Mila with an imperious air, seized the rein of her
mule, and, taking the girl in his arms as soon as she was in front of
his garden gate, lifted her to the ground, pressing her lovely body with
something very like violence.
But Mila, partly opening the folds of her double mantle of muslin, gazed
at him in surprise.
"Are we in danger already, my lord?" she said, "or do you think that I
have brought anyone with me? No, no! See, I am alone, I have come with
perfect confidence in you, and you have no reason to be displeased with
me."
The Piccinino recovered his self-control as he looked at Mila. She had
ingenuously arrayed herself in her Sunday garb to appear before her
protector. Beneath her purple-velvet waist could be seen a second waist
of a pale blue, embroidered and laced with excellent taste. A light net
of gold thread confined her beautiful hair, in accordance with the
fashion of the province, and to protect her face and her costume from
the sun's scorching heat, she had enveloped herself in the _mantellina_,
a thin veil of ample proportions, which covers the head and the whole
body, when it is skilfully arranged and worn with grace. The Piccinino's
sturdy mule, bearing a flat saddle of velvet trimmed with gilt nails,
upon which a woman could easily ride sidewise, was panting and restive,
as if proud to have borne and to have saved from all danger so lovely a
rider. It was easy to see, from his foam-flecked sides, that little Mila
had not spared him, or that she had bravely trusted to his zeal. It had
been a dangerous ride, however: ridges of lava to cross, torrents to
ford, precipices to skirt. The mule had taken the shortest path; he had
climbed and leaped like a goat. Mila, seeing how strong and adroit he
was, could not, despite her anxiety, avoid that intense and mysterious
pleasure which women find in danger. She was proud of having felt
physical courage spring to life within her with moral courage; and while
the Piccinino admired the brilliancy of her eyes, and of her cheeks
flushed by the exercise, she, thinking only of the merits of the white
mule, turned and kissed him on the nose, saying: "You are worthy to
carry the pope!"
The brigand could not help smiling, and he forgot his anger.
"Dear child," he said, "I am very glad that my good Bianca pleases you,
and now I think that she would be worthy to eat from a golden manger,
like the charger of a Roman emperor. But come quickly; I don't wish
anyone to see you come in here."
Mila docilely quickened her pace, and when the brigand had led her
across his garden, after securely locking the gate, she allowed him to
escort her into his house, whose neatness and coolness delighted her.
"Is this your own house, pray, my lord?" she asked him.
"No," he replied, "we are in Carmelo Tomabene's house, as I told you;
but he is my debtor and my friend, and I have a room under his roof to
which I sometimes retire when I need rest and solitude."
He led her through the house, which was arranged and furnished in rustic
fashion, but with an orderly, substantial, homelike appearance which the
dwellings of rich peasants seldom display. At the end of the ventilating
corridor, which ran from end to end of the upper floor, he opened a
double door, the inner one being bound with iron, and ushered Mila into
the truncated tower which he had incorporated into his house, so to
speak, and where he had fitted up a dainty and mysterious boudoir.
No princess ever possessed one more sumptuous, more sweetly perfumed or
adorned with rarer objects. But no artisan had ever put his hand to it.
The Piccinino himself had concealed the walls beneath hangings of
Oriental silk stitched with gold and silver. The divan of yellow satin
was covered with the skin of a huge royal tiger, whose head startled the
girl at first; but she soon grew bold enough to touch its scarlet-velvet
tongue, its eyes of enamel, and to sit upon its black-striped side. Then
she gazed about with dazzled eyes at the gleaming weapons, the Turkish
sabres adorned with jewels, the pipes with gold tassels, the
chafing-dishes, the China vases, the innumerable objects of an exquisite
beauty, a magnificence or a singularity which appealed to her
imagination like the descriptions of enchanted palaces with which it was
filled.
"All this is even more incomprehensible and more beautiful than anything
I have seen at the Palmarosa palace," she said to herself, "and surely
this prince is richer and even more illustrious than the princess. He
must be some claimant to the Sicilian crown, who is working secretly to
bring about the downfall of the Neapolitan government."--What would this
poor child have thought if she had known the source of that piratical
splendor!
While she gazed at everything with the artless admiration of a child,
the Piccinino, who had bolted the door and lowered the Chinese shades at
the window, gazed at Mila with the utmost amazement. He had expected
that he would have to tell her the most incredible fables, the most
audacious lies, to induce her to follow him to his lair, and the
facility of his triumph began already to disgust him with it. To be
sure, Mila was the loveliest creature he had ever seen; but was her
perfect tranquillity due to impudence, or stupidity? Could so seductive
a creature possibly be ignorant of the effect her charms were certain to
produce? Could so young a maid risk a tête-à-tête of this sort
without a moment of fear or embarrassment?
The Piccinino, observing that she had a very beautiful ring on her
finger, and thinking that he could follow the thread of her thoughts by
following the direction of her glances, said to her, with a smile: "You
love jewels, my dear Mila, and, like all girls, you think more of
personal adornment than of anything else in this world. My mother left
me a few trinkets of some value, which are in that lapis lazuli casket
by your side. Would you like to look at them?"
"If I may without indiscretion, I would like to," Mila replied.
Carmelo took the casket, placed it on the girl's knees, and, kneeling
beside her on the edge of the tiger's skin, he displayed before her eyes
a mass of necklaces, rings, chains and buckles which were thrown
pell-mell into the casket with a sort of superb contempt for such a
multitude of priceless objects, some of which were masterpieces of
old-fashioned carved work, others perfect treasures by reason of the
beauty and great size of the diamonds.
"My lord," said the girl, running her inquisitive fingers over all this
wealth, while the Piccinino fastened his dry, inflamed eyes upon her at
close range, "you have too little respect for your mother's jewels. My
mother left me only a few bits of ribbon and a pair of scissors with
gold handles, which I preserve as relics, and which are very carefully
stowed away in my closet. If we had time before that accursed abbé
comes, I would put this casket in order."
"Do not take that trouble," said the Piccinino; "indeed we have not
time. But you have time enough to take whatever you would like to keep."
"I?" said Mila, with a laugh, replacing the casket on the mosaic table.
"What should I do with them? Not only should I, a poor silk-spinner, be
ashamed to wear a princess's jewels, which, by the way, being your
mother's, you should give only to your betrothed, but I should be very
much embarrassed with all these inconvenient trinkets. I like to look at
jewels, and, also, to touch them, as hens turn over with their claws
anything shiny that they see on the ground. But I prefer to see them on
somebody's else's neck and arms rather than my own. I should be so
embarrassed by them that even if I owned them I should never use them."
"And you take no account whatever of the pleasure of owning them?"
queried the bandit, amazed at the result of his experiment.
"To own things for which one has no use seems to me a very embarrassing
thing," said she; "and I cannot understand one's burdening one's life
with such gew-gaws, unless they are given to one as a sacred trust."
"And yet you wear a very beautiful ring!" said the Piccinino, kissing
her hand.
"Oh! monsignor," said the girl, withdrawing her hand with an offended
air, "are you worthy to kiss that ring? Forgive me for speaking to you
so, but it is not mine, as you see, and I must return it to Princess
Agatha to-night; she sent me to the jeweller's to get it."
"I will wager," said the Piccinino, scrutinizing Mila with distrust and
suspicion, "that Princess Agatha overwhelms you with presents, and that
that is the reason why you despise mine!"
"I despise nothing and nobody," replied Mila; "and when Princess Agatha
drops an embroidery needle or a bit of silk, I pick them up and treasure
them as relics. But if she should attempt to overwhelm me with handsome
presents, I should beg her to keep them for those who need them. But I
must tell the truth: she once gave me a beautiful locket in which I
carry some of my brother's hair. But I keep it out of sight, for I do
not care to wear any ornaments unsuited to my station in life."
"Tell me, Mila," rejoined the Piccinino, after a moment's silence, "you
are no longer afraid, are you?"
"No, my lord," she replied, confidently; "when I saw you on the road,
near this house, my fear left me. Before that I confess that I was
trembling all over, that I fancied that I saw that horrid abbé's face
behind every bush, and that I don't quite know how I ever got here. When
I saw how far good Bianca was carrying me, when I finally spied this
tower and these trees, I said to myself: 'Great God! suppose my
protector was unable to come! suppose that wicked abbé, who is capable
of anything, has had him arrested by the _campieri_, or murdered on the
road, what will become of me?' Then I was terrified, not only on my own
account, but because I look on you as our guardian angel, and because it
seems to me that your life is much more valuable than mine."
The Piccinino, who had felt very cold, and, as it were, displeased with
Mila ever since her arrival, felt a slight thrill of emotion, and took
his seat beside her on the tiger's skin.
XXXVIII
A COUP DE MAIN
"So you really feel a little sincere interest in me, do you, my child?"
he said, fastening upon her that dangerous glance of which he well knew
the power.
"Sincere? yes, upon my soul!" replied the girl, "and I surely owe you
that much, after the interest you have displayed in my family."
"And do you think that your family has the same feeling that you have?"
"Why--how could it be otherwise? However, to tell the truth, no one has
ever mentioned you to me, and I do not know your secrets; they have
treated me like a tattling little girl; but you do me more justice, for
you see that I am not inquisitive, and that I do not even ask you who
you are."
"And have you no desire to know? Isn't this one way of asking me?"
"No, monsignor, I should not dare to ask you questions, and I prefer not
to know what my father has thought best not to tell me. I feel very
proud to work with you to ensure their safety, without trying to remove
the bandage with which they have covered my eyes."
"That is very noble of you, Mila," said the Piccinino, beginning to feel
somewhat piqued by the girl's perfect tranquillity; "it is too noble,
perhaps!"
"Why and how is it noble?"
"Because you run great risks with unexampled imprudence."
"What risks, monsignor? did you not promise me before God that you would
protect me from all danger?"
"So far as that vile monk is concerned, I promise you on my life. But
have you no suspicion of other people?"
"Yes, I have," said Mila, after a moment's reflection. "You mentioned at
the fountain a name that frightened me terribly. You spoke as if you had
some relations with the Piccinino. But you said to me again after that:
'Come without fear,' and I came. Not without fear, I admit, so long as I
was alone on the road. I fancy that I shall be afraid again when I go
away from here; but, as long as I am with you, I am not afraid of
anything; I feel very brave, and it seems to me that, if we were
attacked, I could help in defending ourselves."
"Even against the Piccinino?"
"Ah! I don't know about that. But, great heaven! is he likely to come
here?"
"If he should come, it would be to punish the monk and protect you. Why
in heaven's name are you so terribly afraid of him?"
"Really, I don't know; but among us, when a girl goes out into the
country alone, people make sport of her and say: 'Look out for the
Piccinino!'"
"So you think that he murders young maids, do you?"
"Yes, monsignor; for they say that they never come back from the place
he takes them to; or, if they do come back, that it would have been
better for them to have stayed."
"And you hate him, I suppose?"
"No, I do not hate him, because they say that he inflicts much injury on
the Neapolitans, and that if people only had the courage to help him he
would do the country a great deal of good. But I am afraid of him, which
is not the same thing by any means."
"You have been told that he was very ugly, I suppose?"
"Yes, because he has a long beard, and I think that he must resemble the
monk I detest so. But isn't the monk coming? When he has come I can go
away, can I not, monsignor?"
"Are you in a hurry to go, Mila? do you find it so very unpleasant
here?"
"Oh! not at all; but I should be afraid to go home after dark."
"I will take you home."
"You are very good, monsignor; I ask nothing better, provided that
nobody sees us. But about this Abbé Ninfo, are you going to do him any
injury?"
"No injury. I presume that it would give you no pleasure to hear him
shriek?"
"God in heaven! I do not want to see or be the cause of any cruel
treatment of the man; but if the Piccinino comes here, I am terribly
afraid there will be bloodshed. You smile, monsignor," said Mila,
turning pale. "Oh! now I am afraid! Pray send me away as soon as the
abbé has set foot in the house."
"Mila, I swear to you that the abbé shall suffer no cruelty at my
hands. As soon as I have made sure of his person, the Piccinino will
come and take him away, a prisoner."
"And is all this done by the Princess Agatha's orders?"
"You ought to know."
"In that case, my mind is at ease. She would not desire the death of the
lowest of men."
"You are very compassionate, Mila; I thought that you were stronger and
prouder. So you would not have the courage to kill that man if he should
come here and insult you?"
"Excuse me, monsignor," rejoined Mila, taking from her bosom a dagger
which the princess had given to Magnani the day before, and of which she
had succeeded in gaining possession without his knowledge: "I could not
see a man killed in cold blood without fainting, I think; but if I were
insulted, I think that my anger would carry me a long way."
"So you prepared for war, did you, Mila? You had no confidence in me, I
see."
"As in God, monsignor; but God is everywhere, and some unforeseen
accident might have prevented you from being here."
"Do you know that it was very brave in you to come, Mila? and that if
people knew it----"
"Well, my lord?"
"Instead of admiring your heroism, they would blame your rashness."
"There is one thing I know very well," said Mila, with a sort of playful
excitement, "and that is that, if people knew of my being closeted here
with you, I should be lost."
"Doubtless! Slander----"
"Slander and calumny! Half as much would be enough to cause a young girl
to be cried down and degraded forever."
"And you felt sure that this expedition of yours would be enveloped
forever in impenetrable mystery?"
"I relied upon your prudence, and I left the rest in God's hands. I know
very well that there are many risks to run; but did you not tell me that
it was a question of saving my father's life and the Princess Agatha's
honor?"
"And you carried your devotion to the point of endangering your own
honor, without regret?"
"Endangering it in public opinion? I prefer that to allowing those whom
I love to be killed and dishonored. As between them and myself, isn't it
better that I should be the victim? But what does all this mean,
monsignor? You speak to me in a very strange way; one would think that
you were rebuking me for believing in you and for doing what you advised
me to do."
"No, Mila, I am questioning you. Forgive me for trying to understand you
and know you, so that I may esteem you as much as you deserve."
"Very good; I will answer you frankly."
"Well, my child, tell me everything. Did it not occur to you that I
might be setting a trap for you, and be luring you hither to insult you,
or, at least, to try to seduce you?"
Mila looked the Piccinino in the face, trying to discover what could
possibly induce him to put forward such a supposition. If it was a
method of testing her, she considered it insulting; if it was a jest,
she considered it in very bad taste on the part of one who seemed to be
a man of superior intellect and of exalted rank. This was the decisive
moment for her and for him. If she had felt the slightest fear--and she
was not the woman to conceal it, like Princess Agatha--the Piccinino
would have grown bolder; for he knew that fear is the beginning of
weakness. But she looked him in the face with such frank fearlessness,
and with so brave an air of displeasure, that he was convinced at last
that he was dealing with a really strong and sincere character; and
thereafter he had not the slightest desire to open hostilities. He felt
that a battle of ruses with so straightforward a creature could have no
other result for him than shame or remorse.
"Well, my child," he said, giving her hand a frank and friendly
pressure, "I see that you had a confidence in me which does honor to us
both. Will you permit me to ask you one more question? Have you a
lover?"
"A lover? no, monsignor," replied Mila, blushing crimson; but she added,
without hesitation: "I may tell you, however, that there is a man whom I
love."
"Where is he now?"