"Is he rich--well-born?"
"He has a noble heart and two stout arms."
"And he loves you as you deserve to be loved?"
"That does not concern you, monsignor; I will not answer that question."
"However, you came here at the risk of losing his love?"
"As you see, alas!" said Mila, with a sigh.
"O women! are you really so much nobler than we men?" exclaimed the
Piccinino, rising. But he had no sooner glanced out of doors than he
took Mila by the hand.
"Here's the abbé!" he said; "follow me. Why do you tremble so?"
"Not with fear," she replied, "but with disgust and displeasure; but I
will follow you."
They went down to the garden.
"You will not leave me alone with him a single minute, will you?" said
Mila, as they left the house: "if he should so much as kiss my hand, I
should be forced to burn the place with a red-hot iron."
"And I should be forced to kill him," rejoined the Piccinino.
They walked under the arbor to an opening, where the Piccinino glided
behind the trellis, and so followed Mila to the garden gate. Emboldened
by his presence, she opened it and motioned to the abbé to enter.
"Are you alone?" he said, making haste to put aside his monk's frock and
show how gallantly he was arrayed in black--a veritable musk-laden
abbé.
She made no other reply than: "Come in quickly." No sooner had she
secured the gate than the Piccinino made his appearance, and never was
there a more disappointed face than Abbé Ninfo's. "Excuse me,
monsignor," said the Piccinino, assuming an air of simplicity which
surprised his companion; "I learned from my cousin Mila that you wished
to see my poor garden, and I determined to admit you myself. Excuse me,
it is only a peasant's garden, but the fruit trees are so old and so
fine that people come from all directions to see them. Unluckily, I have
an engagement, and I must go away in five minutes; but my cousin has
promised to do the honors of the house, and I will retire, with your
lordship's permission, as soon as I have offered you some wine and
fruit."
"Do not put yourself out, my good man!" replied the abbé, reassured by
this speech. "Go about your business, and do not stand on ceremony. Go,
go at once, I say, I do not propose to incommode you."
"I will go as soon as I can see you at table. Lord God! you will die of
the heat. Our roads are so rough! Come to the house; I will pour the
first glass for you, and then I will go, as your lordship kindly permits
me to do so."
"My cousin will not go away until you are in the house," said Mila, in
obedience to a meaning glance from the Piccinino.
The abbé, seeing that he could not get rid of his obsequious host
except by complying with his wish, passed through the arbor without an
opportunity to address a word or a glance to Mila; for the Piccinino,
still playing the part of a respectful peasant and zealous host, walked
between them. The abbé was ushered into a cool, dark room, where a
collation was served. But, as they entered, the Piccinino said in Mila's
ear: "Let me fill your glass, but do not so much as smell it."
A topaz-hued muscatel glistened in a large decanter which stood in a
terra-cotta vessel filled with cold water. The abbé, who was somewhat
disturbed by the peasant's presence, emptied at a single draught,
without hesitation, the glass that was offered him.
"Now," he said, "off with you at once, my boy! I should never forgive
myself for having caused you to break your engagement."
"Come with me, Mila," said the Piccinino. "You must lock the gate after
me, for, if it should be left open, even for a moment, the children
would come in and steal my peaches."
Mila did not wait to be asked twice to hurry after the Piccinino; but he
went no farther than the door of the room, and when he had closed it
behind him, he put his finger on his lips, and, applying his eye to the
keyhole, remained absolutely motionless. After two or three minutes he
rose, saying aloud: "It is all over!" And he threw the door wide open.
Mila saw the abbé lying on the floor, with a purple face, and breathing
heavily.
"Oh! my God!" she cried, "have you poisoned him, monsignor?"
"No, indeed," replied Carmelo; "for we need a few words from him later.
He is only asleep, the dear man, but very sound asleep!"
"Oh! do not speak so loud, monsignor: he sees us and hears us! His eyes
are open and staring at us."
"And yet he doesn't know who we are, he has no comprehension of
anything. What good does it do him to see and hear, when nothing conveys
any meaning to his poor brain? Do not come near, Mila, if the paralyzed
viper still frightens you; for my part, I must study the effects of this
narcotic a little. They vary in different individuals."
He walked calmly to the abbé's side, while Mila, completely bewildered,
remained in the doorway and watched him with dismay. He touched his
victim as the wolf sniffs before devouring. He made sure that the head
and hands passed speedily from intense heat to icy cold, that the face
lost its flush, that the respiration became regular and weak.
"This is a good result," he said, as if speaking to himself; "and such a
weak dose! I am well satisfied with the experiment. This is very
preferable to blows, a struggle, shrieks stifled by a gag, isn't it,
Mila? A woman can look on at this sort of thing without an attack of
hysterics. This is the sort of method I like, and if it were well known,
nobody would use any other. But you must never mention it, Mila, do you
hear? for it might easily be abused, and no one, you see, no one could
protect himself against it. If I had chosen to put you to sleep like
this, it was entirely in my power to do it. Would you take a glass of
water from my hand now, if I should offer it to you?"
"Yes, monsignor, I would accept it," replied Mila, taking this challenge
for a jest.--"He jests on all subjects," she said to herself. "He has a
satirical bent like Michel."
"So you would be no more suspicious than this poor abbé?" continued the
Piccinino, in a preoccupied tone; for he was busily searching his
sleeper, with perfect self-possession.
"You forbade me even to smell that wine," replied Mila; "so you
evidently had no purpose to play me a trick!"
"Ah! here it is!" muttered the bandit, taking a wallet from the abbé's
pocket. "Don't be impatient, Mila; I must examine this."
Seating himself at the table, he opened the wallet and took therefrom
divers papers, over which he cast his eye with tranquil celerity.
"A report against Marc-Antonio Ferrara!--an obscure man; doubtless some
husband whose wife he wished to seduce! Here, Mila, here is my flint and
steel. Will you light the lamp and burn this? This Marc-Antonio will
never suspect that your fair hand saved him from imprisonment.
"And this? Ah! this is more important; an anonymous warning, addressed
to the captain of the city, that the Marquis della Serra is planning a
conspiracy against the government! The dear abbé proposed to get rid of
the princess's cicisbeo, or to give him something to think about at all
events! The idiot! he doesn't even know enough to disguise his
handwriting! Burn it up, Mila; it shall not go to its address.
"Another warning!" continued the Piccinino, still examining the wallet.
"The wretch! he proposed to have the gallant champion arrested who
brought him into relation with the Piccinino! This is worth saving.
Malacarne will see that he did well not to trust this hound's promises,
and that he would have been well punished for not reporting to his
chief.
"I am surprised to find nothing against your father, Mila. Ah! yes, here
it is! The signor abbé's measures were all taken to strike his great
blow. This evening Pier-Angelo Lavoratori and--Fra Angelo too!--Ah! you
reckoned without your host, my friend! You did not know that the
Piccinino will never allow a finger to be laid on that shaven head! How
ill-informed you were! Why, Mila, this man, whom people look upon as a
monster of iniquity, is nothing but an idiot, upon my word!"
"Of what did he accuse my father and my uncle?"
"Of conspiring--always the same refrain; it is so worn out! There is one
thing that surprises me, and that is that the police continue to pay any
attention to this venerable nonsense. The police are as stupid as the
people who set them on."
"Give me that, give me that, and I will burn it with right good will!"
cried Mila.
"Here's another! Who is--Antonio Magnani?"
Mila did not answer. She put out her hand so eagerly to seize and burn
this last denunciation, that the Piccinino turned and saw that her
cheeks were suffused with a sudden flush.
"I understand," he said, giving her the paper. "But he ought to have
forwarded this denunciation before venturing to pay court to you. Always
too late, always beside the mark, poor man!"
He opened and ran through several other papers which mentioned none but
unknown names, and which Mila burned without looking at them. But
suddenly he started and exclaimed:
"Can it be? This in his hands? Good! I did not believe you capable of
making this capture. Excuse me, my dear abbé," he continued, putting in
his pocket a paper much more bulky than the others, with an ironical bow
to the miserable wretch lying at his feet, his mouth half-open and his
eye glassy and lifeless. "I honor you with my esteem to a certain point.
Really, I did not believe you capable of it!"
Ninfo's eyes seemed to rekindle. He tried to move, and there was a sort
of rattle in his throat.
"Ah! have we reached that stage?" said the Piccinino, putting the mouth
of the decanter of narcotized wine to his lips.
"Did that wake you up? You set more store by that than by the fair Mila,
eh? In that case, you should have let love-making go, and should not
have come here instead of attending to your business! Sleep, I pray you,
your excellency, for if you understand what is going on, you will have
to die!"
The abbé fell back upon the floor; his vitreous stare remained fastened
like that of a dead man on the Piccinino's ironical face.
"He needs rest," said the latter to Mila, with a cruel smile; "let us
not disturb him any more."
He secured the stout shutters at the windows with heavy padlocked iron
bars, and left the room with Mila, locking the door and putting the key
in his pocket.
XXXIX
AN IDYLL
The Piccinino returned with his young companion to the garden, and,
having suddenly become pensive, sat down upon a bench and apparently
forgot her presence. And yet he was thinking of her, and this is what he
was saying to himself:
"Would it not be an idiotic performance to allow this lovely creature to
go hence as calm and serene as she came? Yes, it would be an idiotic
performance for a man who was resolved upon her ruin; but I simply
wished to test the power of my glance and my voice to lure her into my
cage, like a beautiful bird whom one likes to examine close at hand, and
to whom one then restores its liberty, because one does not wish it to
die. There is always a touch of hatred in the violent desires a woman
arouses in us."--The Piccinino is still musing and meditating upon his
impressions.--"For victory, in such cases, is a matter of pride, and it
is impossible to fight, even in play, without a little temper.--But
there is no more of hatred than of anger or desire in the feeling this
child arouses in me. It does not even occur to her to be coquettish with
me. She is not afraid of me; she looks me in the face without blushing;
she is not agitated in my presence. If I abuse her isolation and her
weakness, she will defend herself badly perhaps, but she will go away
from here all in tears, and it may be will kill herself--for there are
some who kill themselves.--At all events she will detest the thought of
me and blush to have belonged to me. Now, a man like myself cannot
afford to be despised. Women who do not know him must fear him; they who
do know him must esteem him or love him; they who have known him must
regret him. To be sure, there is, on the border-line between presumption
and violence, an infinite enjoyment, a complete consciousness of
victory; but that is so on the border-line only: a hair's-breadth
beyond, and it is all bestiality and brutality. The moment that a woman
can accuse you of having resorted to force, she resumes her sway,
although conquered, and you risk becoming her slave because you have
been her master against her will. I have heard that there was something
of that sort in my father's life, although Fra Angelo would never tell
me anything definite about it. But everybody knows that my father lacked
patience and that he drank heavily. Those were the failings of his time.
We are more civilized and more adroit to-day. More moral? no, but more
refined, and, consequently, more irresistible. Would there be much skill
or much merit involved in obtaining from this girl what she has not as
yet accorded her lover? She is so trustful that the first half of the
road would be easy enough. Indeed, I have already gone halfway. She was
fascinated by my air of chivalrous virtue. She came here, she entered my
house, she sat by my side. But the other half is not simply difficult;
it is impossible. I could never make her desire to struggle with me; it
would never occur to her to yield in order to obtain. If she were mine,
I would dress her as a boy and take her with me hunting. At need she
would hunt the Neapolitan as she has hunted the abbé to-day. She would
soon be hardened. I should love her as a page; I should not look upon
her as a woman at all."
"Well, monsignor," said Mila, a little annoyed by her host's long
silence, "are you waiting for the Piccinino to come? Can I not go away
now?"
"Do you want to go?" replied the Piccinino, looking at her with a
distraught air.
"Why not? You managed the affair so quickly that it is still early, and
I can return alone by daylight. I shall not be afraid now that I know
where the abbé is, and that he is incapable of coming after me."
"Wouldn't you like me to escort you, at least as far as Bel-Passo?"
"It seems to me quite unnecessary for you to put yourself out."
"Very well, go, Mila; you are free, since you are in such haste to leave
me, and are so uncomfortable in my company."
"No, signor, do not say that," replied the girl, artlessly. "I am highly
honored to be with you, and if it were not for the danger, which you
realize, of being spied upon and falsely accused, I should enjoy staying
with you; for it seems to me that you are sad, and I might at least
divert your thoughts. Sometimes Princess Agatha is sad too, and when I
would leave her alone, she says to me: 'Stay with me, little Mila; even
if we don't speak, your presence does me good.'"
"Princess Agatha is sad sometimes? Do you know the reason?"
"No; but I have an idea that she is bored to death."
Thereupon the Piccinino asked many questions, which Mila answered with
her usual ingenuousness, but neither would nor could tell him anything
more than he had already heard; that is to say, that she lived a
virtuous, retired life, that she was very charitable, that she read a
great deal, that she loved the arts, and that she was gentle and placid,
almost to the point of apathy, in her external relations. But the
unsuspecting Mila added that she was sure that her dear princess was
more ardent and self-sacrificing in her affections than people thought;
that she had often known her to be moved to tears by the story of some
misfortune, or even by some touchingly simple anecdote.
"For instance?" said the Piccinino; "give me an example."
"Very well," said Mila; "one day I told her that there was a time when
we were very poor in Rome. I was only five or six years old then, and as
we had almost nothing to eat, I used sometimes to tell my brother Michel
that I was not hungry, so that he would eat my share. But Michel,
suspecting my motive, began to say that he was not hungry either; so
that we often kept our bread over night, neither of us being willing to
admit that we longed to eat it. And the result of that performance was
that we made ourselves more unhappy than we really were. I told the
princess this laughingly; suddenly she burst into tears and pressed me
to her heart, saying: 'Poor children! poor dear children!'--Tell me,
signor, if that shows the cold heart and dull mind that people say she
has?"
The Piccinino took Mila's arm in his and walked about the garden with
her, leading her on to talk of the princess. His imagination was
engrossed by that woman who had made so deep an impression on him, and
he entirely forgot that Mila had occupied his thoughts and disturbed his
senses during a part of the day.
Honest Mila, still convinced that she was talking to a sincere friend,
abandoned herself to the pleasure of praising the woman whom she loved
with enthusiasm, and _forgot that she was forgetting herself_, as she
expressed it, after walking about for an hour under the magnificent
trees in the garden at Nicolosi.
The Piccinino had an impressionable brain and a fickle humor. His whole
life was a constant alternation of meditation and curiosity. The simple
and graceful conversation of Mila, her kindly thoughts, the generous
outflow of her affections, and an indefinable touch of grandeur of soul,
courage, and cheeriness of temperament, which she inherited from her
father and uncle, gradually fascinated the brigand. New horizons opened
before him, as if he were passing from the contemplation of a painful
and fatiguing drama to that of a placid and lightsome idyll. He was too
intelligent not to understand everything, even those things which were
most opposed to his instincts and habits. He had devoured Byron's poems.
In his dreams he had raised himself to the level of Don Juan and Lara;
but he had read Petrarch too, and knew him by heart; indeed he had
smiled instead of yawning, as he murmured to himself the _concetti_ of
_Aminta_ and the _Pastor Fido_. He felt soothed by his frank converse
with little Mila, even more than he ordinarily was when he resorted to
that sentimental nonsense to allay the tempests of his passions.
But at last the sun began to sink. Mila thought of Magnani, and asked
leave to go.
"Very well, _addio_, my sweet Mila," said the Piccinino; "but as we walk
back to the garden gate I propose to do for you in all seriousness what
I have never done for any woman, except from some selfish motive or in
mockery."
"What is that, monsignor?" queried Mila, in amazement.
"I propose to pluck a bouquet for you, a virginal bouquet, from the
flowers in my garden," he answered, with a smile, in which, if there was
a suspicion of mockery, it was directed at himself alone.
To Mila this attention seemed much less surprising than it seemed to the
Piccinino. He plucked with care white roses, myrtle, and orange
blossoms; he picked the thorns from the roses; he selected the finest
flowers; and with more taste and skill than he would have given himself
credit for, he made a superb bouquet for his amiable guest.
"Ah!" he said as he presented it to her, "we must not forget the
cyclamen. There must be some among this grass. No, no, Mila, do not
look; I want to pick them myself, so that the princess may enjoy
inhaling the perfume of my bouquet. For you must tell her that it comes
from me, and that it was the only attention which I ventured to offer
you, after a tête-à-tête of two hours in my house."
"Then you do not forbid me to tell Princess Agatha that I have been
here?"
"You must tell her, Mila. You must tell her everything. But her alone,
do you understand? Swear it on your salvation, for you believe in that,
do you not?"
"Why, do not you believe in it, signor?"
"I believe that I have earned the right to go to Paradise to-day, if I
should die at once; for my heart is as pure as a little child's since
you have been with me."
"But, suppose the princess asks me who you are, monsignor, and whom I am
talking about--how shall I describe you so that she may know?"
"You will tell her what I wish you also to know, Mila. But perhaps there
will be times hereafter when my face and my name will no longer be in
accord. Then you must hold your peace, and, at need, pretend that you
never saw me, for with a word you could cause my death."
"God forbid!" cried Mila, effusively. "Ah! monsignor, rely on my
prudence and my discretion as if my life were bound to yours!"
"Very well; say to the princess that it was Carmelo Tomabene who rescued
you from Abbé Ninfo, and who kissed your hand as respectfully as he
would kiss her own."
"It is for me to kiss your hand, monsignor," replied the guileless
child, putting the brigand's hand to her lips, firmly persuaded that it
was at least a king's son who treated her with such condescending
courtesy; "for you are deceiving me," she continued. "Carmelo Tomabene
is a _villano_, and this house is no more yours than his name is. You
might live in a palace, if you chose, but you disguise yourself for
political reasons which I ought not to know, and do not wish to. I have
an idea that you will be King of Sicily some day. Ah! how I would like
to be a man and fight for your cause! for you will bring about the
happiness of your people, I am sure of it!"
Mila's jesting extravagance caused a momentary madness in the brigand's
audacious brain. He had a touch of vertigo, and felt almost the same
emotion as if she had guessed the truth instead of dreaming a dream. But
instantly he laughed an almost bitter laugh, which did not dispel Mila's
illusions. She thought that it was an attempt to banish her rash
suspicions, and she frankly asked his forgiveness for the words that had
escaped her.
"My child," he replied, kissing her on the brow and assisting her to
mount the white mule, "Princess Agatha will tell you who I am. I
authorize you to ask her; but, when you find out, remember that you are
my accomplice, or that you must send me to the gallows."
"I would rather go myself!" said Mila, as she rode away, calling his
attention to the respectful kiss she bestowed upon his bouquet.
"Well!" said the Piccinino to himself, "this has been the pleasantest
and most romantic adventure of my whole life. I have played the part of
a king in disguise, without showing it, without taking the trouble to
prepare for it, without making any arrangements to afford myself that
amusement. Unexpected pleasures are the only genuine ones, they say; I
begin to believe it. Perhaps it is because I have premeditated my
actions too much, and laid out my life beforehand too carefully, that I
have so often found ennui and distaste at the end of my undertakings.
Fascinating Mila! What a wealth of poesy, what freshness of the
imagination in your young brain! Oh! if only you were a youth of my own
sex! if I could keep you beside me without causing you to lose any of
your pleasant illusions and your blessed purity! I should find the sweet
companionship of a wife in a faithful comrade, without danger of
arousing or feeling the passion which poisons and destroys all
friendships! But such mortals do not exist. Woman cannot fail to be
treacherous; man cannot cease to be brutal. Ah! I always have missed--I
always shall miss--the being able to love some one. I should have had to
fall in with a mind different from all other minds and even more
different from my own--which is impossible!
"Am I then an exceptional character?" he asked himself, following with
his eyes the prints of Mila's little feet on the gravelled paths of his
garden. "It seems to me that I am, when I compare myself with the
mountaineers with whom I am compelled to live, and with these bandits
whose leader I am. I have more than one brother among them, so it is
said. The fact that they have none of my qualities, makes it impossible
for me to believe it. The passions which serve as a bond between us
differ as much as our features and our bodily strength. They desire
booty in order to convert into money everything that is not money; and I
care for nothing which is not of value by reason of its beauty or its
rarity. What they succeed in obtaining they hoard because they are
miserly; I use it sparingly, so that I may be able to bear myself
royally with them on occasion, and extend my power and influence over
everyone about me.