old, so I remember.
"Rosa was the girl's name. She lived with her father and mother in a
little house above Menaggio. And every day in the warm sunlight of the
open fields she sang as she watched the goats for the old people, and
her voice was like cool water laughing in the shadows of a little brook.
"She was always singing, little Rosa; for she was young, and the sun had
never stopped shining for her. People used to call her beautiful.
"And there was Giovanni. Each morning he would pass her home where the
yellow roses with the pink hearts grew so sweetly, and always she would
blow him a kiss from the little window.
"Then Giovanni would toil with all the strength of his youth, and he too
would sing while he toiled; for was it not all for her?
"Often Rosa's goats would stray toward Giovanni's vineyard as dusk
came, and they would drive them home together, always laughing, always
singing, hand in hand, as the sun slipped golden over the top of the
hills across the lake. Sometimes they would walk together in the
afterglow, and Giovanni would weave a crown of the little flowers that
grew about them, and his princess would wear it, laughing happily.
"They were like two children, Signor. There were nights spent together
on the lake, when he told her of his dreams, while the gentlest of winds
stirred her curls against his brown cheek, and the moon's wake stretched
like a golden pathway from shore to shore.
"They were to be married when the grapes were picked, people used to
whisper.
"And then one day a new force came into the girl's life. The Church,
Signor!
"No one understands when or why this comes to a young girl, I think.
She was torn with the idea that she should join her church, go into the
little nunnery across the lake, and leave the sunshine.
"She did not want to go, and it was a strange yet a beautiful thing.
This young, beautiful girl who seemed so much a part of the sunshine
and the flowers was to close the door of the Church upon it all!
"You are thinking it was strange, Signor.
"Giovanni was frantic--you can understand.
"He had dreamed so happily of that which was to be, that now to have the
cup snatched from his lips was torture. He took her little sun-kissed
hands in his and begged on his knees with tears streaming down his
cheeks. And Rosa wept also--but could not answer as he begged. I think
she loved the boy, Signor. Yet there is something stronger than the
love of a boy and a girl.
"She asked for one more night in which to decide. She would come up here
to this little church and pray for Mary to guide her. He kissed her cold
lips and came away.
"He was a boy, and he never doubted but that she would choose his strong
young arms.
"The girl came here. All night she knelt on the rough stone floor,
praying and--weeping; for she loved him. And the Virgin above the four
candles looked down with the great, wistful eyes you see--and bound
the girl's soul faster and faster to her own.
"And when morning came she entered the white walls across the lake
without seeing her lover again.
"Giovanni went mad, I think, when they told him. He screamed out his
hate for the world and his God, and rushed up the little white path to
where we are sitting now, Signor.
"Once here, he drew the dagger you see beneath the Virgin and stabbed
with an oath on his lips. That is why I did not let you touch it."
Blagden nodded, and the old monk was silent for a moment before he went
on.
"Giovanni disappeared for two days. When he came back his face was that
of a madman still. He was met by a white funeral winding up the little
path. You understand, Signor,--a virgin's funeral. Giovanni was hurrying
blindly past when they stopped him.
"There was no reproach spoken for what he had done, no bitterness; only
a kind of awe--and pity.
"Rosa had died on her knees in the nunnery at the exact time he stabbed
yonder picture. And they told him months afterward that her face was
strangely like that of the Virgin when they found her,--beautiful and
pleading and sad. There was no given cause for her death--there are
things we cannot understand. She was praying for strength, the sisters
said."
The monk ceased speaking, and for a long moment they sat silent, Blagden
and the withered, white-haired man, staring mutely up at the beautiful
face above them. It was Blagden who broke the silence.
"What do you think happened?" he asked slowly.
"I do not know," said the monk.
There was another pause, then Blagden spoke again.
"Anyway," he said, brushing his hand across his eyes, "she paid in part
the debt Giovanni owed his God."
"Yes?" said the monk softly. "I wonder, Signor! For I am Giovanni."
THE WHALE AND THE GRASSHOPPER[14]
BY SEUMAS O'BRIEN
From _The Illustrated Sunday Magazine_
[14] Copyright, 1915, by The Illustrated Sunday Magazine. Copyright,
1916, by Seumas O'Brien.
When Standish McNeill started talking to his friend Felix O'Dowd as they
walked at a leisurely pace towards the town of Castlegregory on a June
morning, what he said was: "The world is a wonderful place when you come
to think about it, an' Ireland is a wonderful place an' so is America,
an' though there are lots of places like each other there's no place
like Ballysantamalo. When there's not sunshine there, there's moonshine
an' the handsomest women in the world live there, an' nowhere else
except in Ireland or the churchyards could you find such decent people."
"Decency," said Felix, "when you're poor is extravagance, and bad
example when you're rich."
"And why?" said Standish.
"Well," said Felix, "because the poor imitate the rich an' the rich give
to the poor an' when the poor give to each other they have nothing of
their own."
"That's communism you're talking," said Standish. "an' that always comes
from education an' enlightenment. Sure if the poor weren't dacent they'd
be rich an' if the rich were dacent they'd be poor an' if everyone had a
conscience they'd be less millionaires."
"'Tis a poor bird that can't pick for himself."
"But suppose a bird had a broken wing an' couldn't fly to where the
pickings were?" said Felix.
"Well, then bring the pickings to him. That would be charity."
"But charity is decency and wisdom is holding your tongue when you don't
know what you're talking about."
"If the people of Ballysantamalo are so decent, how is it that there are
so many bachelors there? Do you think it right to have all the young
women worrying their heads off reading trashy novels an' doin' all sorts
of silly things like fixin' their hair in a way that was never intended
by nature an' doin' so for years an' years an' havin' nothin' in the end
but the trouble of it all."
"Well, 'tis hard blamin' the young men because every young lady you
meet looks better to you than the last until you meet the next an' so
you go on to another until you're so old that no one would marry you at
all unless you had lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky heart."
"An old man without any sense, lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky
heart can always get a young lady to marry him," said Felix, "though
rheumatics, gout, an' a wooden leg are just as good in such a case."
"Every bit," said Standish, "but there's nothin' like a weak
constitution, a cold climate, an' a tendency to pneumonia."
"Old men are quare," said Felix.
"They are," said Standish, "an' if they were all only half as wise as
they think they are then they'd be only young fools in the world. I
don't wonder a bit at the suffragettes. An' a time will come when we
won't know men from women unless some one tells us so."
"Wisha, 'tis my belief that there will be a great reaction some day,
because women will never be able to stand the strain of doin' what
they please without encountering opposition. When a man falls in love
he falls into trouble likewise, an' when a woman isn't in trouble you
may be sure that there's something wrong with her."
"Well," said Standish, "I think we will leave the women where the devil
left St. Peter--"
"Where was that?" asked Felix.
"Alone," answered Standish.
"That would be all very fine if they stayed there," said Felix.
"Now," said Standish, "as I was talking of me travels in foreign
parts, I want to tell you about the morning I walked along the beach
at Ballysantamalo, an' a warm morning it was too. So I ses to meself,
'Standish McNeill,' ses I, 'what kind of a fool of a man are you? Why
don't you take a swim for yourself?' So I did take a swim, an' I swam
to the rocks where the seals goes to get their photograph's taken an'
while I was havin' a rest for meself I noticed a grasshopper sittin' a
short distance away an' 'pon me word, but he was the most sorrowful
lookin' grasshopper I ever saw before or since. Then all of a sudden a
monster whale comes up from the sea and lies down beside him an' ses:
'Well,' ses he, 'is that you? Who'd ever think of finding you here.
Why, there's nothing strange under the sun but the ways of woman.'
"''Tis me that's here, then,' said the grasshopper. 'Me grandmother died
last night an' she wasn't insured either.'
"'The practice of negligence is the curse of mankind and the root of
sorrow,' ses the whale. 'I suppose the poor old soul had her fill of
days, an' sure we all must die, an' 'tis cheaper to be dead than alive
at any time. A man never knows that he's dead when he's dead an' he
never knows he's alive until he's married.'
"'You're a great one to expatiate on things you know nothing about, like
the barbers and the cobblers,' said the grasshopper. 'I only want to
know if you're coming to the funeral to-morrow?'
"'I'm sorry I can't,' ses the whale. 'Me grandfather is getting married,
for the tenth time, an' as I was in China on the last few occasions I
must pay me respects by being present at to-morrow's festivities,' ses
he.
"'I'm sorry you can't come,' ses the grasshopper, 'because you are
heartily welcome an' you'd add prestige to the ceremony besides.'
"'I know that,' ses the whale, 'but America doesn't care much about
ceremony.'
"'Who told you that?' ses the grasshopper.
"'Haven't I me eyesight, an' don't I read the newspapers,' ses the
whale.
"'You mustn't read the society columns, then,' ses the grasshopper.
"'Wisha, for the love of St. Crispin,' ses the whale 'have they society
columns in the American newspapers?'
"'Indeed they have,' ses the grasshopper, 'and they oftentimes devote a
few columns to other matters when the dressmakers don't be busy.'
"'America is a strange country surely, a wonderful country, not to say
a word about the length and breadth of it. I swam around it twice last
week without stoppin,' to try an' reduce me weight, an' would you
believe me that I was tired after the journey, but the change of air
only added to me proportions.'
"'That's too bad,' said the grasshopper.
"'Are you an American?' said the whale.
"'Of course I am,' ses the grasshopper. 'You don't think 'tis the way
I'd be born at sea an' no nationality at all like yourself. I'm proud
of me country.'
"'And why, might I ask?'
"'Well don't we produce distinguished Irishmen? Don't we make Americans
of the Europeans and Europeans of the Americans? Think of all the
connoisseurs who wouldn't buy a work of art in their own country when
they could go to Europe and pay ten times its value for the pot-boilers
that does be turned out in the studios of Paris and London.'
"'There's nothin' like home industry,' ses the whale, 'in a foreign
country, I mean.'
"'After all, who knows anything about a work of art but the artist? and
very little he knows about it, either. A work of art is like a flower,
it grows, it happens. That's all. An' unless you charge the devil's own
price for it, people will think you are cheating them.'
"'Wisha, I suppose the best anyone can do is to take all you can get an'
if you want to be a philanthropist, give away what you don't want,' ses
the grasshopper.
"'All worth missing I catches,' ses the whale, 'an' all worth catchin'
I misses, like the fisherwoman who missed the fish and caught a crab.
How's things in Europe? I didn't see the papers this morning.'
"'Europe is in a bad way,' ses the grasshopper. 'She was preaching
civilization for centuries so that she might be prepared when war came
to annihilate herself.'
"'It looks that way to me,' ses the whale. 'Is there anything else worth
while going on in the world?'
"'There's the Irish question,' ses the grasshopper.
"'Where's that, Ireland is?' ses the whale. 'Isn't that an island to the
west of England?'
"'No,' ses the grasshopper, 'but England is an island to the east of
Ireland.'
"'Wisha,' ses the whale, 'it gives me indigestion to hear people talking
about Ireland. Sure, I nearly swallowed it up be mistake while I was on
a holiday in the Atlantic last year, an' I'm sorry now that I didn't.'
"'An' I'm sorry that you didn't try,' ses the grasshopper. 'Then you'd
know something about indigestion. The less you have to say about Ireland
the less you'll have to be sorry for. Remember that me father came from
Cork.'
"'Can't I say what I like?' ses the whale.
"'You can think what you like,' ses the grasshopper, 'but say what other
people like if you want to be a good politician.'
"'There's nothin' so much abused as politics,' ses the whale.
"'Except politicians,' ses the grasshopper. 'Only for the Irish they'd
be no one bothering about poetry and the drama to-day. Only for fools
they'd be no wise people an' only for sprats, hake, and mackerel there
'ud be no whales an' a good job that would be, too.'
"'What's that you're saying?' ses the whale very sharply.
"'Don't have me to lose me temper with you,' ses the grasshopper.
"'Wisha, bad luck to your impudence an' bad manners, you insignificant
little spalpeen. How dare you insult your superiors?' ses the whale.
"'Who's me superior?' ses the grasshopper. 'You, is it?'
"'Yes, me then,' ses the whale.
"'Another word from you,' ses the whale, 'an' I'll put you where
Napoleon put the oysters.'
"'Well,' ses the grasshopper, 'there's no doubt but vanity, ignorance
and ambition are three wonderful things an' you have them all.'
"'Neither you nor Napoleon, nor the Kaiser himself an' his hundred
million men could do hurt or harm to me. You could have every soldier
in the German Army, the French Army, an' the Salvation Army lookin'
for me an' I'd put the comether on them all.'
"'I can't stand this any longer,' ses the whale, an' then and there
he hits the rock a whack of his tail an' when I went to look for the
grasshopper, there he was sitting on the whale's nose as happy an'
contented as if nothing happened. An' when he jumped back to the rock
again he says: 'A little exercise when 'tis tempered with discretion,
never does any harm, but violent exertion is a very foolish thing if
you value your health. But it is only people who have no sinse but
think they have it all who make such errors.'
"'If I could get a hold of you,' ses the whale, 'I'd knock some of the
pride out of you.'
"'That would be an ungentlemanly way of displaying your displeasure,'
ses the grasshopper.
"'I'd scorn,' ses he, 'to use violent means with you, or do you physical
injury of any kind. All you want is self-control and a little education.
You should know that quantity without quality isn't as good as quality
without quantity.'
"'Sure 'tis I'm the fool to be wasting me time listening to the likes of
you,' ses the whale. 'If any of me family saw me now, I'd never hear the
end of it.'
"'Indeed,' ses the grasshopper, 'no one belonging to me would ever
recognize me ever again if they thought I was trying to make a whale
behave himself. There would be some excuse for one of my attainments
feeling proud. But as for you!--'
"'An' what in the name of nonsense can you do except give old guff out
of you?'
"'I haven't time to tell you all,' ses the grasshopper. 'But to
commence with, I can travel all over the world an' have the use of
trains, steamers, sailing ships and automobiles and will never be asked
to pay a cent, an' I can live on dry land all me life if I choose, while
you can't live under water, or over water, on land or on sea, and while
all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't catch me if they
were trying till the crack of doom, you could be caught be a few poor,
harmless sailors, who wouldn't know a crow from a cormorant, and who'd
sell your carcass to make oil for foolish wives to burn an' write
letters to other people's husbands an' fill the world with trouble.'
An' what about all the whalebone we supplies for ladies' corsets an'
paper knives, and what about all the stories we make for the novelists
an' the moving pictures an'--'"
"We're at the Sprig of Holly now," said Felix. "Is it a pint of porter
or a bottle you'll have?"
"I'll have a pint, I think," said Standish.
IN BERLIN[15]
BY MARY BOYLE O'REILLY
From _The Boston Daily Advertiser_
[15] Copyright, 1915, by The Boston Daily Advertiser.
The train crawling out of Berlin was filled with women and children,
hardly an able-bodied man. In one compartment a gray-haired Landsturm
soldier sat beside an elderly woman who seemed weak and ill. Above
the click-clack of the car wheels passengers could hear her counting:
"One, two, three," evidently absorbed in her own thoughts. Sometimes she
repeated the words at short intervals. Two girls tittered, thoughtlessly
exchanging vapid remarks about such extraordinary behavior. An elderly
man scowled reproval. Silence fell.
"One, two, three," repeated the obviously unconscious woman. Again the
girls giggled stupidly. The gray Landsturm leaned forward.
"Fräulein," he said gravely, "you will perhaps cease laughing when I
tell you that this poor lady is my wife. We have just lost our three
sons in battle. Before leaving for the front myself I must take their
mother to an insane asylum."
It became terribly quiet in the carriage.
THE WAITING YEARS[16]
BY KATHARINE METCALF ROOF
From _The Century Magazine_
[16] Copyright 1915, by The Century Co. Copyright, 1916, by Katharine
Metcalf Roof.
The shadow on the sun-dial, blue upon its white-marble surface, marked
four o'clock, but its edge was broken by the irregular silhouette of
an encroaching rose-bush. The sun-dial in the midst of the wide, sunny
garden, the old red-brick house among the elms--these were the most
sharply defined elements of Mark Faraday's picture of home. Born in
Italy, for most of his young life a sojourner in foreign lands, he yet
remembered being utterly happy at "Aunt Lucretia's" when at seven he
had made his first visit to his mother's country. That memory had never
faded. He had recalled and reclaimed each detail of its serene charm at
his second visit ten years later, after his mother's death. And now in
America again, he had naturally gravitated toward the old place.
The young man gave a careless friendliness to his faded little aunt,
and spent long hours with his dreams, creative and subjective, in her
garden. For the most part they were dreams of unheard melodies, for Mark
Faraday was a composer. So little of his life had been spent in his own
country that outside the garden he felt less at home in America than in
Florence or Vienna. Yet place mattered little to him. An artist and a
creator, his kingdom was within. Of his environment he demanded only
harmony and space.
A bee buzzed into the open heart of a rose, bending it with his weight.
A little breeze wafted its perfume toward him. His eyes wandered over
the delicate, riotous color of the sweet-pea hedge and rested in content
upon the mignonette border. A circular path of white gravel surrounded
the grass plot about the dial. From it as a center curved paths wandered
outward dividing the flower-beds. The flowers were planted without much
regularity except for the borders of four o'clock and mignonette. It was
this spot that had inspired Mark's song cycle, "The Sun-dial." A certain
quality of youth and freshness as natural as a spring in the woods had
won for it quick recognition. Mark's artistic tendency was not exotic.
Although not retrogressive, he had drunk deep at the springs of Bach,
Schubert, and Mozart, and the basis of his work was sound.
Alone in the fragrant silence, he began dreaming sounds. The notes
of the bee's drone, one high, one low, combining in uneven rhythm,
had given him a suggestion for an accompaniment. His mind was far
away, working out his pattern of harmony, when another sound, actual,
familiar, broke into his reverie--the preliminary chords of one of
the songs of his "Sun-dial" cycle, "Youth and Crabbéd Age." Then a
woman began to sing. It was Stella's voice; he recognized it at once,
pleasant, sufficiently trained. Stella was a fair musician and was
fond of trying over new music, but to-day she was playing in a more
musicianly manner than he had believed her capable of playing. He
had expected that his aunt would ask her over for tea. He enjoyed
the girl's companionship. He had not known many of his own countrywomen.
Their naturalness and freedom from the personal attitude of the
Continental woman interested him. It was perhaps this quality in
Stella that most appealed to him. He was aware that his Aunt Lucretia
hoped for a romantic conclusion to the friendship. He himself had given
the matter an occasional thought. Yet somehow Stella's definiteness
left no room for the imaginative element to become active. It was
difficult for him to visualize her as an established factor in his
life, either as the restful center of a home or the adaptable companion
of his nomadic wanderings. The precise nature of her lack he had not
felt the necessity to characterize.
The concluding chords of his song vibrated into silence. With the
ceasing of the actual sounds, his imagined music began to move again
along its interrupted course; then a crash of Brahms broke into his
creative weavings, and he frowned, not only for the interruption:
Stella should not attempt Brahms. The hazardous attempt broke off
as abruptly as it had begun. There was something fragmentary, or
perhaps more correctly, something unfinished about Stella. She never
had just fulfilled the promise of their first meeting. The bee theme
drifted into his mind again, and had progressed a few measures, when
the evolving harmonic pattern was again invaded by an alien presence,
a soft one of dim outline and faded voice, his Aunt Lucretia.
"You are coming in for tea, Mark." She paused, characteristically
tentative, wavering, fearful of intruding, a gentle, kindly, ineffectual
presence. "And Stella is here," she added.
"I heard her." Mark rose to his excellent height and stood an instant
looking down at the little old lady shading her eyes from the sunlight.
They had been large and dark once; now the filmy rim of age was visible
about the iris. Her white hair lay in neat ringlets upon her brow, which
was wrinkled like a fine parchment. Her skin, bleached to a bloodless
whiteness, retained still some of the soft texture of youth.
"And Allison Clyde," she finished her announcement: "but you won't mind
her," she added, recalling the restiveness of the present generation
under boredom.
"Allison Clyde?" he repeated. He remembered the name vaguely as one of
some old friend of the family. "An old lady." He had not reckoned his
indifferent label a question, but his aunt took it up.
"We never think of her as that. She is younger," Lucretia Hall conceded,
"than I am. Allison is universally admired. Mrs. Herrick"--she quoted
the oracle of her circle in that last-generation manner that proclaims
the accepted--"says that Allison is a personage."
Miss Lucretia turned toward the house; her nephew followed her.
"Any relation to the historian, bane of my youth?" he asked.
"His daughter," Lucretia gladly expounded; "and her brother, the poet,
died young. Allison herself--very gifted musically." The fragments
came back to him as his aunt preceded him with her small, hesitating
steps up the narrow path. The picture of an old lady playing the "Songs
without Words" passed through Mark's mind, and he began to plan flight.
"But she was obliged to give up her music to care for her invalid
father."
"I heard Stella playing," Mark commented.
His aunt rejoined after a moment:
"She doesn't seem at all nervous. Young people aren't in these days. At
her age, if any one asked me to play, I was terrified."
Her nephew smiled down at her, hooking her with an affectionate arm.