their linen on a line stretched across the street, over the heads of the
passers-by. Michel stooped, as he would not have done the day before; he
would have thrust the obstacle aside with an impatient hand. The two
pretty girls who held the line to keep it taut were grateful to him and
smiled upon him; but when Michel had passed this first curtain of the
_biancheria_, and as he stooped to pass under a second, he heard the old
laundress say to her apprentices in the tone of an angry sibyl: "Lower
your eyes, Ninetta; don't turn your head like that, Rosalina! that's
little Michelangelo Lavoratori, who sets himself up for a great painter,
but he will never be the man his father is! A fig for children who turn
up their noses at their father's trade!"
"I absolutely must adopt the profession of prince," thought Michel with
a smile, "for the profession of artist would have drawn too much blame
upon me."
He entered his house, and for the first time it seemed to him
picturesque and attractive in its wretched disorder. "It is a genuine
artist's house of the Middle Ages," he said to himself; "I have lived
here only a few days, but I shall always remember them as among the
sweetest and purest days of my life." It seemed to him that he already
regretted that humble family nest, and the vague longing he had felt the
day before for a less prosaic, a more splendid abode seemed to him an
unhealthy, insane longing, so true it is that one exaggerates the value
of the good things of life when one has them not.
"I could have passed years here very comfortably," he thought, "as happy
as I shall be in a palace, provided that my conscience was always as
well satisfied with itself as it was when Pier-Angelo said to me: 'Well,
you are a man of heart, that you are!' All the portraits of the
Palmarosas and Castro-Reales may tell me that they are pleased with me;
they will afford me no more joy than those words from my father the
artisan."
He entered as a prince that house from which he had gone forth an
artisan but a few hours earlier, and he crossed the threshold with a
feeling of profound respect. Then he hurried to his father's bedside,
thinking to find him asleep. But Pier-Angelo was with Mila, who had not
slept at all she was so disturbed because her brother had not returned.
The old man suspected that the princess had kept him; but he was unable
to make Mila assent to the probability of that supposition. Michel threw
himself into their arms and wept tears of joy. Pier-Angelo understood
what had taken place, and why the young Prince of Castro-Reale called
him _father_ so effusively, and would not allow him to call him Michel,
but made him say _my son_ whenever he spoke.
Mila was greatly surprised when Michel, instead of embracing her with
his usual familiarity, kissed her hand again and again, calling her his
darling sister.
"What's the matter, Michel?" she said, "and why this act of respect with
me? You say that nothing extraordinary has happened, that you have been
in no danger during the night, and yet you bid us good-morning like a
man who has just escaped death, or who brings us paradise in the hollow
of his hand. Well, well! now that you are here, we are as happy as the
saints in heaven, it is true! for I had many bad dreams while I was
waiting for you. I woke poor Magnani two hours before daylight and sent
him in search of you; and he is searching still. He must have gone to
Bel Passo, to see if you were not with our uncle."
"Dear, good Magnani!" cried Michel; "I will go out and find him, in
order to set your mind at rest and to see him the sooner. But first I
want to breakfast with you two at our cosy little table; I want to eat
some of the rice that you cook so deliciously, Mila, and the water-melon
that nobody can select so well as you."
"See how sweet he is whenever he doesn't choose to be capricious!" said
Mila, looking at her brother. "When he is in one of his fits of temper,
nothing is good, the rice is cooked too much and the water-melons are
over-ripe. To-day everything is delicious, even before he tastes it."
"I shall be like this every day henceforth, my darling sister," said
Michel; "I shall have no more bad temper, I shall ask you no more
impertinent questions, and I trust that you will have no better friend
in the world than me."
As soon as he was alone with Pier-Angelo, Michel knelt before him. "Give
me your blessing," he said, "and forgive me for not having been worthy
of you always. I will be hereafter, and if I should hesitate a moment on
the path of duty, promise that you will scold me and lecture me more
severely than you have ever done."
"Prince," said Pier-Angelo, "I should have been more severe perhaps if I
had been your father; but--"
"O father," cried Michel, "never call me by that name, and never say
that I am not your son. Of course I am the happiest of men to be
Princess Agatha's son, but it would be mingling gall with my happiness
to try to accustom myself to the thought that I am not yours; and if you
call me prince, I will never be one; I will insist on remaining a
mechanic!"
"Very well, so be it!" said Pier-Angelo, embracing him; "let us continue
to be father and son, as we were; I like that better, especially as I
should cling to the old habits in spite of myself, even if you had been
offended. Now, listen; I know beforehand what you will say to me in a
moment. You will want to make me a rich man. I want to say to you
beforehand that I beg you not to torment me on that subject. I prefer to
remain as I am; I am very happy. Money brings anxiety; I have never been
able to keep it. The princess will do what she thinks best for your
sister; but I doubt whether the little one cares to rise above her
condition, for if I am not mistaken, she is in love with our neighbor,
Antonio Magnani, and has no idea of marrying anybody else. Magnani will
not consent to accept anything from you, I know; he is a man like me,
who loves his trade and would blush to be assisted when he earns all he
needs. Don't be angry, my son; I accepted your sister's marriage-portion
yesterday. That was not the gift of a prince, it was the wages of a
workman, the sacrifice of a loving brother. I was proud of it, and your
sister, when she knows about it, won't be ashamed; but I did not think
it best to tell her yet. She would never have accepted it, she is so
accustomed to look upon your artistic future as a sacred thing; and the
child is obstinate, as you know.
"As for me, Michel, you know me too. If I were rich, I should be ashamed
to work. People would think I did it from avarice, and to add a little
to my savings. Nor could I work if I were not driven to it; I am a
creature of habit, a routine workman; every day would be Sunday to me,
and it would be as injurious for me to amuse myself all the week as it
is advantageous for me to enjoy myself a little at table on the blessed
day of rest. Ennui would lay hold of me, and melancholy after that. I
should try to escape from it by intemperance perhaps, as most men do who
don't know how to read and so can't keep up their spirits with beautiful
written stories. But one must feed one's brain when the body is at rest,
and they feed it with wine. That is worse than nothing, I know by
experience. When I go to a wedding festival I enjoy myself the first
day, I am bored the second, and sick the third. No, no! I must have my
apron, my ladder, my glue-pot, and my ballads, or each hour seems as
long as two. If you blush for me--But no, I won't finish, it is
insulting to you; you will never blush for me. In that case, let me live
as I please, and when I am too old and feeble to work, you shall take me
in and take care of me; I agree to that, I give you my word on it. I can
do nothing better for you, I am sure."
"Your wishes shall be sacred to me," Michel replied, "and I realize
fully that it is impossible for me to pay my debt to you with money; it
would be altogether too easy to be able to liquidate a debt running
through one's whole lifetime in an instant and without the slightest
trouble. Ah! if I could only double the duration of your life, and
restore, at the expense of my blood, the strength you have expended in
supporting and educating me!"
"Do not hope to pay me otherwise than by affection," replied the old
decorator. "Youth cannot return, and I desire nothing that is contrary
to the divine laws. If I have worked for you, I have done it with
pleasure and without ever relying upon any other reward than that of
seeing you make a wise use of your good fortune. The princess knows my
way of thinking in that respect. If she should pay me for your
education, she would deprive me of all my merit and pride; for I have a
certain pride of my own, and I shall be proud to hear people say as they
will before long: 'What a loyal Sicilian and good prince this
Castro-Reale is! And yet it was that old fool of a Pier-Angelo who
brought him up.' Come, give me your hand, and let us say no more about
it. It would hurt me a little, I confess. It seems that the cardinal is
dying. I want you to say a prayer with me for him, for he needs it
sadly; he was a wicked man, and the woman who was taking you to the
hospital, when my brother the monk and I snatched you from her arms,
looked as if she would much rather throw you into the sea than into the
orphan's crib. So let us pray with a good heart! Come, Michel, it won't
be long."
And Pier-Angelo, uncovering, said in a loud voice and in a tone of the
deepest sincerity: "O my God! forgive us our sins, and forgive Cardinal
Hieronimo, as we ourselves forgive him. In the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.--Michel, you didn't say _amen_, did you?"
"Amen, with all my heart," replied Michel, filled with respect for the
artless piety with which Pier-Angelo forgave his persecutor.
For Monsignor Hieronimo had been very cruel to the poor mechanic. He had
had only suspicions against him, and yet he had prosecuted him, thrown
him into prison, ruined him, and finally forced him to exile himself,
which last was the greatest sorrow that could have been inflicted upon
honest Pier-Angelo.
As Mila was beginning to be anxious concerning Magnani, who did not
return, Michel started out in search of him. All the bells in the city
were tolling for the dying cardinal; prayers were being said in all the
churches, and the poor people who were oppressed, held to ransom and
punished by him at the slightest symptom of rebellion, knelt devoutly on
the steps of the churches to ask God to absolve him. Doubtless one and
all rejoiced inwardly at the first stroke of the bell, and would rejoice
still more at the last. But the terrors of hell acted so powerfully on
those vivid imaginations that mortal resentment vanished in face of the
threat which those clanging bells seemed to hold suspended over every
head.
Michel, as he did not hear the final knell announcing that death had
seized his prey, and, as he felt sure that his mother would not leave
the deathbed until that decisive moment had arrived, bent his steps
toward the hill of Mal Passo. He wished to embrace his friend and his
uncle once more before they saluted him as Prince of Castro-Reale. He
dreaded especially the moment when Magnani would put on the armor of
pride, and perhaps of coldness, in his unjust fear of contemptuous
treatment by Michel. He was determined to stipulate in advance for the
continuance of their friendship, to demand his solemn promise to that
effect, and to inform him first of all of his new position after he had
cemented that sacred brotherhood in Fra Angelo's presence.
And then, too, Michel thought of the Piccinino. He said to himself that
it was not so far from the convent to Nicolosi that he could not go and
visit his brother before he had taken any measures against the princess
and himself. He could not make up his mind to defy and await schemes of
revenge which might attack his mother before himself; and, though he
should find the bastard in a paroxysm of rage worse than that in which
he had last seen him, he looked upon it as his duty as a man and a son
to meet alone its first consequences.
On the way Michel remembered that he was a painter on seeing the rising
sun illumine the landscape. A feeling of profound sadness suddenly took
possession of him. His artistic future seemed to be at an end, and as he
passed the gate of Villa Palmarosa--as he glanced at that niche with its
madonna, from which he had saluted the steeples of Catania for the first
time--his heart was heavy, as if twenty years, instead of half as many
days, had elapsed between this dénouement of his life and his
adventurous youth, overflowing with poetic aspirations, with fears and
hopes. The absolute security of his new position frightened him, and he
asked himself in dismay if a painter's genius would not be inadequately
accommodated in the brain of a rich man and a prince. What would become
of ambition, wrath, terror, the frenzy for work, obstacles to be
overcome, triumphs to be defended--those powerful and necessary
stimulants? Instead of enemies to spur him on, he would have only
flatterers to corrupt his judgment and his taste; instead of poverty to
force him to hard work and to sustain him in the fever of composition,
he would be surfeited in advance with all the advantages which art
pursues at least as eagerly as it pursues renown.
He heaved a deep sigh, but soon took courage, saying to himself that he
would prove himself worthy to have friends who would tell him the truth,
and that, while pursuing that nobler object--renown--he could renounce
more completely the material profits of the profession and the vulgar
judgment of the multitude.
Reflecting thus, he reached the monastery. The bells were ringing in
response to those of the city, and that monotonous and depressing
dialogue was carried on in the crisp morning air amid the songs of the
birds and the murmuring of the breezes.
XLVII
THE VULTURE
Magnani knew all, for Agatha had at least suspected his passion, if she
had not actually divined it; and she had told him the story of her life.
She had described her blighted, desolate past, and her present, devoted
to serious pursuits and absorbed by maternal affections. By thus
displaying her confidence in him and her regard for him, she had at all
events healed the secret wound inflicted upon his plebeian pride. She
had with delicate tact pointed out to him that the obstacle between them
was not the difference in rank and in their ideas, but the difference
between their ages and the decree of an inflexible destiny. In a word,
she had raised him to her own level by treating him as a brother, and if
she had not effected a complete cure at the first attempt, she had
removed all the bitterness of his suffering. Then she had adroitly
brought Mila's name into the conversation, and, when he realized that
the princess desired their union, Magnani had deemed it to be his duty
to comply with her desire.
That duty he determined to set about performing at once, and he fully
appreciated the fact that Agatha, to punish him for his madness, had
pointed out to him the easiest, not to say the most delightful of
expiations. As he had not shared Mila's uneasiness with respect to
Michel's absence, he had gone out simply to please her, with no idea
that there was any need of going in search of him. He had called upon
Fra Angelo, to consult him concerning the girl's sentiments, and to ask
for his advice and support. When he reached the monastery, the monks
were reciting prayers for the cardinal's soul, and he was obliged to
wait in the garden, with its paths of earthenware and its borders of
lava, until Fra Angelo could come to him. The doleful chanting depressed
him, and he could not avoid a presentiment of evil to come as he thought
that he was cherishing the hope of a happy betrothal in the midst of a
funeral ceremony.
On the preceding evening, before he parted from Pier-Angelo on their
return from the Della Serra palace, he had sounded the old artisan
concerning his daughter's feelings. Pier-Angelo, delighted by that
overture, had ingenuously replied that he believed that she loved him;
but as Magnani distrusted his good fortune, and hardly dared hope,
Pier-Angelo had advised him to consult his brother the Capuchin, whom,
although younger than himself, he was accustomed to look upon as the
head of the family.
Magnani was very uncertain and disturbed in mind. And yet a mysterious
voice told him that Mila loved him. He recalled her furtive glances, her
sudden blushes, her concealed tears, her deathly pallor, aye, and her
words, which denoted an affectation of indifference prompted by pride.
He hoped; he awaited impatiently the end of the prayers, and when Fra
Angelo joined him he begged him to give him his attention, to advise
him, and above all things to tell him the truth without concealment.
"This is a serious matter," the good monk replied; "I have always had
the friendliest feeling for your family, my son, and a very high regard
for you. But are you sure that you know me and love me well enough to
believe me if the advice that I give you is contrary to your secret
desires? For we monks are often consulted, and very little heed is paid
to our counsel. Everyone comes and confides his thoughts and passions,
even his business affairs to us, because it is commonly supposed that
men with no direct interest in life have a keener insight than others.
That is a mistake. In most cases our advice is either too complaisant to
be worth following or so severe that it is impossible to follow it. For
my part I dislike to give advice."
"Very well," said Magnani, "if you do not consider me capable of making
the most of your counsel, will you promise to answer, without
hesitation, and with perfect frankness, a question I am going to ask
you?"
"Hesitation is not a failing of mine, my friend. But for lack of careful
handling one may inflict much pain on those whom one loves, and do you
want me to be cruel to you? You subject my affection to a painful test!"
"You frighten me beforehand, Padre Angelo. It seems to me that you have
already guessed the question I am going to ask you."
"Ask it, so that I may see if I am not mistaken."
"And you will answer?"
"I will answer."
"Well," said Magnani, in a trembling voice, "should I do well to ask
your brother to give me Mila's hand?"
"Precisely, that is what I expected. My brother has already spoken to me
about it. He thinks that his daughter loves you; he thinks that he has
detected it."
"Great God! if it were true!" said Magnani, clasping his hands.
But Fra Angelo's face maintained its cold, sad expression.
"You do not consider me worthy to be Mila's husband," continued the
modest Magnani. "It is true that I am not, padre; but if you knew how
firmly I have resolved to become worthy!"
"My friend," rejoined the monk, "the day on which you should become
Mila's husband, if you love each other fervently and sincerely, would be
the happiest day in Pier-Angelo's life and mine; for we monks know that
a man must love with his whole soul the spouse to whom he gives his
life, whether that spouse be the family or the church. I believe that
you love Mila, since you seek her hand; but I do not know whether Mila
loves you or whether my brother is mistaken."
"Alas!" replied Magnani, "nor do I know myself."
"You do not know?" said Fra Angelo, drawing his eyebrows together; "she
has never told you so?"
"Never!"
"But she has granted you some innocent favors, has she not? She has been
alone with you?"
"Only by chance or from necessity."
"She has never made an appointment with you?"
"Never!"
"Not yesterday? was she not walking with you, in this neighborhood, last
night at sunset?"
"Last night, in this neighborhood?" repeated Magnani, turning pale; "no,
padre."
"On your salvation?"
"On my salvation and my honor!"
"In that case, Magnani, you must not think about Mila. Mila loves
someone, and you are not that some one. And the worst of it is that
neither her father nor I can guess who it is. Would to God that a girl
so devoted to her duties, so hard-working, and down to this very day so
modest, might have taken a fancy to a man like you! You would have
brought up a family nobly, and your union would have edified your
neighbors. But Mila is a child, and a romantic child, I fear. Hereafter
we must watch her more carefully; I will warn her father, and you, being
a man of heart, will say nothing and forget her."
"What!" cried Magnani, "can it be that Mila, the personification of
honesty, courage, and innocence, already has a misstep upon her
conscience? Great God! have chastity and truth ceased to exist on
earth?"
"I do not say that," the monk replied: "I trust that Mila is still pure;
but she is on the road to her destruction if someone does not hold her
back. Last night, at sunset, she passed here, all alone, and dressed in
her best clothes; she tried to avoid me, she refused to account for
herself, she tried to lie. Ah! I prayed earnestly for her last night,
and I slept but little."
"I will keep Mila's secret, and I will think no more about her," said
Magnani, utterly confounded.
But he continued to think of her. It was natural to his character, grave
and strong, but incapable of boastful confidence, to go forward to meet
obstacles, and to halt when he reached them, unable to surmount them or
to make up his mind to turn his back upon them.
At that moment Michel arrived; he seemed to have undergone a magical
transformation since the preceding day, although he still wore his
artisan's jacket; his forehead and his eyes seemed larger, his nostrils
inhaled the air more freely, his chest seemed to have developed in a
different atmosphere. The pride, the conscious strength, the
tranquillity of the free man shone in his face.
"Ah!" said Magnani, throwing himself into the arms the young prince held
out to him, "your dream has come true already, Michel! It was a
beautiful dream! the awakening is still more beautiful. I have been
struggling with a nightmare which your good fortune has driven away, but
which has left me bewildered and crushed by fatigue."
Fra Angelo blessed them both, and said, addressing the prince:
"I hail with joy your accession to greatness and power, when I see you
embrace a man of the common people of your native country. Michel de
Castro-Reale, Michelangelo Lavoratori, I shall always love you as my
nephew, while loving you as my prince. Will you tell me now, _your
excellency_, that it is an imposition for those of my class to love and
serve yours?"
"Do not remind me of my heresies, my excellent uncle," replied Michel.
"I no longer know to what class I belong; I feel that I am a man and a
Sicilian, that is all."
"Long live Sicily!" cried the Capuchin, saluting Ætna.
"Long live Sicily!" echoed Michel, saluting Catania.
Magnani was deeply moved and his manner was most affectionate. He
rejoiced sincerely in Michel's good fortune; but, for his own part, he
was sorely distressed by the obstacle that had arisen between Mila and
him, and he trembled lest he should fall anew under the empire of his
former passion. But the mother is something more than the woman, and the
thought of Agatha in that new aspect made Magnani's adoration calmer and
more solemn than it had been before. He felt that he should blush in
Michel's presence if he retained the slightest trace of his madness. He
determined to banish it altogether, and, happy in the thought that he
could always say to himself that he had devoted his youth, by a solemn
vow, to the loveliest saint in heaven, he retained her image and her
memory in his heart like a divine perfume.
Magnani was cured; but what a sad cure, to renounce, at twenty-five, all
the dreams of love! He was resigned to his fate; but from that moment
life was to him nothing more than a stern and passionless duty.
The reveries and torments which had made that duty dear to him no longer
existed. Never was there a man on earth more utterly alone, more
disgusted with all earthly things, than Magnani on the day of his
deliverance.
He left Fra Angelo and Michel, who proposed to go at once to Nicolosi,
and passed the rest of the day walking alone by the seashore, opposite
the basaltic isles of Acireale.
The young prince and the monk started immediately after making up their
minds to visit the Piccinino. They were approaching the ill-omened
_Destatore's_ Cross when the bells of Catania, changing their rhythm,
rang the knell that announces death. Fra Angelo crossed himself without
stopping; Michel thought of his father, who had perhaps been
assassinated by order of that wicked prelate, and quickened his pace in
order to kneel upon the grave of Castro-Reale.
He did not as yet feel the courage to examine that fatal cross, where he
had experienced such painful emotions, even before he knew of the tie of
blood that bound him to the bandit of Ætna. But a huge vulture,
starting up suddenly from the very foot of the cross, forced him
involuntarily to turn his eyes in that direction. For a moment he
thought that he was the victim of a ghastly hallucination. A dead body
lay in a pool of blood at the spot from which the vulture had fled.