XX

In their sitting-room in the Hôtel de Rome, at Vallanza, Anthony and

Adrian were waiting for their breakfast. It is evident, therefore,

that Susanna's will had prevailed, and a fool's errand was in process

of accomplishment. The fool, no doubt, to the last moment, had renewed

his protests, his pleadings, his refusals; but, at each fresh outburst,

coldly, firmly, the lady had reiterated her ultimatum, "Then all is

over between you and me." And in the end, very conscious of his folly,

very much incensed by her perversity, disgusted, dejected, and, as his

travelling-companion had occasion to observe, in the very devil of a

temper, he had left Victoria by the eleven o'clock Continental express.

"Never forget," Miss Sandus whispered in his ear, as he paid her his

adieux, "never forget that sound old adage--'journeys end in lovers

meeting.'" This was oracular, and he had no opportunity to press for

an interpretation; but it was clearly intended as of good omen. At the

same time, in another part of the room, Susanna was whispering to

Adrian. As Adrian never again expressed the slightest curiosity anent

the motive of their hegira, I am led to wonder whether Susanna had

admitted him to her confidence. She had intimated that she should n't

especially mind doing so; and it is certain that he, from that time

forth, now and then smiled at the sky with an eye that looked very

knowing.

Those who have recently visited Sampaolo will remember the Hôtel de

Rome as a small, new, spick-and-span establishment, built at the corner

of the Piazza San Guido and the Riva Vittorio Emmanuele, and presenting

none of that "local colour in the shape of dirt and discomfort" which

we are warned to expect in Italy, if we depart from the track beaten by

the tourist. I am told that the modern Italian commercial gentleman

(who is often a German, and not infrequently a Jew) has learned some of

the tourist's exactions. It is thanks to him, presumably, that even at

out-of-the-way Vallanza there exists a decent inn.

Our friends' sitting-room was on the first floor, a corner room, having

two sets of windows. One set commanded the Piazza, with its grey old

church (the Cathedral of St. Paul and St. Guy), its detached campanile,

its big central fountain, and, occupying the entire eastern side, the

crumbling frescoed front of the Palazzo Rosso. The other set looked

across the Riva, and its double row of palms, out upon the bay, with

its anchored ships, its fishing-boats, its encircling olive-covered

hills, dotted high and low by villages and villas, and its embosomed

Islets, Isola Nobile, Isola Fratello, Isola Sorella, the whole wide

prospect glowing in the sun.

The Piazza, which opens to the north, lay in cool blue shadow; and just

now a market was in progress there, a jumble-scene of merchandise,

animals, and humanity; men, women, and children, dogs and donkeys,

goats, calves, pigs, poultry; vegetables and fruit--quartered melons,

with green rind, black seeds, and rosy flesh, great golden pumpkins,

onions in festoons, figs in pyramids; boots, head-gear, and rough

shop-made clothing, for either sex; cheap jewellery also; and every

manner of requisite for the household, from pots and pans of wrought

copper, brass lamps, iron bedsteads and husk-filled bedding, to

portraits in brilliant oleograph of King and Queen and the inevitable

Garibaldi. The din was stupendous. Humanity hawked, chaffered,

haggled, laughed, vituperated. Donkeys brayed, calves mooed, dogs

barked, ducks quacked, pigs squealed. A dentist had set up his chair

near the fountain, and was brawling proffers of relief to the

tooth-distressed. Sometimes a beglamoured sufferer would allow himself

to be taken in hand; and therewith, above the general blare and blur of

noise, rose clear and lusty a series of shameless Latin howls. The

town-crier, in a cocked hat, wandered hither and thither, like a soul

in pain, feebly beating his drum, and droning out a nasal proclamation

to which, so far as was apparent, no one listened. The women, for the

most part, wore bright-coloured skirts,--striped green and red, or blue

and yellow,--and long black veils, covering the head, and falling below

the waist; the men, dark jerseys, corduroy trousers, red belts in lieu

of braces, and red fishers' caps with tassels that dangled over the

ear. Two such men, at this moment, passed up the Piazza arm-in-arm,

singing. I don't know what their song was, but they had good voices,

and while one of them carried the melody, the other sang a second.

Anthony, morose and listless, Adrian, all agog with excitement, had

been looking down upon this spectacle for some minutes in silence. It

was their first glimpse of daylit Sampaolo. They had arrived from

Venice last night after dark.

But now, as the men passed singing, Adrian was moved to utterance.

"Italia, oh, Italia!" he exclaimed. "I thought I knew my Italy. I

thought I had visited my Italy every year or two, for more years than

you could shake a stick at. But this is too Italian to be true. This

is not Italy--this is Italian opera."

Anthony gloomed.

"It's an infernal bore, whatever it is," he declared.

"Fie, fie," Adrian chid him. "Infernal? That is not at all a nice

word. Don't let me hear it a second time. How animated and southern

and picturesque that _arracheur-de-dents_ is, is n't he? What

distinction he confers upon the scene. Have you no teeth that need

attending to? I should love to see you operated on by a practitioner

like that, in the fresh air, under the azure canopy of heaven, in the

eye of the world, fearless and unashamed. The long, rather rusty

building opposite, with the pictures fading from its walls, is none

other than the Palazzo Rosso, the cradle of your race. It can be

visited between ten and four. I 've had a talk with our landlord's

daughter--such a pretty girl. Her name--what do you suppose her name

is? Her name is Pia. She has nice hair and eyes, and is a perfect

cornucopia of information.--Ah, at last!" he sighed, pressing his hand

to his heart, as the door opened, and the waiter appeared, bearing a

tray.

Then, as the waiter set out the contents of his tray upon the table,

Adrian, bending forward, examined them with the devoutness, with the

intentness, of an impassioned connoisseur.

"Grilled ham, gallantine of chicken _aux truffes_, mortadella, an

omelette _aux fines herbes_, coffee, hot milk, whipped cream, bread,

figs, apricots," he enumerated. "And if it had n't been for my talk

with the landlord's daughter, do you know what we should have had? We

should have had coffee and bread and _praeterea nihil_. That's what we

should have had," he pronounced tragically, shaking his head in

retrospective consternation at the thing escaped. "Oh, these

starveling Continental breakfasts! But I threw myself upon Pia's

clemency. I paid her compliments upon her hair, upon her toilet. I

called her Pia mia. I said that if I had only met her earlier in life,

I should have been a very different person. I appealed to the _woman_

in her. I explained to her that my hollow-cheeked companion, with the

lack-lustre eye, was a star-crossed lover, and must be treated with

exceptional tenderness. I said that nothing mitigated the _tormento

d'amore_ like beginning the day with a sustaining meal. I said you

were a man of an unbounded stomach. I said you were subject to

paroxysms of the most violent rage, and if you did n't get the proper

variety and quantity of food, you 'd smash the furniture. I smiled

upon her with my bonniest, blithest eyne. I ogled her. I chucked her

under the chin. I did nothing of the sort. I was extremely dignified.

But I told her of a dream I had last night--oh, such a lovely

dream--and she was melted. What do you suppose I dreamed of? I

dreamed of plump, juicy English sausages."

His face grew wistful, his voice sank. He piled his plate with ham and

omelette.

"You 'd better write a song about it," fleered Anthony. "'The Homesick

Glutton's Dream.'" Then, making a face, "Why did you order coffee?" he

grumbled. "Why did n't you order tea?"

"Tut, don't be peevish," said Adrian. "Sit up, and tie your

table-napkin round your neck, and try to be polite when the kind

gentleman speaks to you. I did order tea. But tea at Sampaolo is

regarded in the light of a pharmaceutical preparation. Pia said she

thought I might be able to procure some at the _farmacia_. This

omelette really is n't bad. You 'd better take some--before it

disappears in the darkness."

But Anthony declined the omelette--and it disappeared in the darkness.

"Come, cheer up, goodman Dull," Adrian exhorted him, selecting the

truffled portions from a plateful of gallantine. "'Men have died, and

worms have eaten them, but not for love.' Ginger is still hot in the

mouth, and there are more fish in the sea than have ever yet nibbled at

your bait and spurned it. Do you know why there are no mosquitoes at

Sampaolo, and no bandits? There are none--Pia gave me her word for it,

Pia mia gave me her pretty feminine word. But do you know why? Pia

told me why. The wind, Signore. The wind blows them away--away, away,

and far away, over the bright blue sea. Every afternoon we get a wind,

sweeping in from the north. Sometimes it is only a _venticello_,

sometimes a _temporale_, sometimes an _orogano terribile_, but it is

always sufficient to blow away the mosquitoes and the bandits. Pia

told me so. Sweet Pia."

"Humph," said Anthony.

"Humph, by all means," Adrian hastened to agree. "I have a sort of

humphy feeling myself--a sort of unsatisfied yearning, that is scarcely

akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.

I think it may be imputed to inadequate nourishment. I think I will

try some of that mortadella, if you 'll be so good as to pass it.

Thank you. And another cup of coffee, with plenty of whipped cream on

top, please. How cruel dairymaids must be, to whip such nice stuff as

cream. But they 're cruel only to be kind, are n't they?--cruel to the

cream, to be kind to us, the dear creatures. If you 'd give up smoking

and drinking, you 'd have a healthy appetite yourself. Come! Be

comforted. Cast off this green and yellow melancholy. Take me for

your exemplar. I too, when I first visited my ancestral home, I too

was filled with horror and resentment. I entered it screaming, as I am

credibly informed, kicking and screaming, protesting with all the

passion of latent genius, with all the force of a brand-new pair of

lungs. But I 've enjoyed it very well ever since. Ah, the strange

tale of Man. Conceived in sin, brought forth in pain, to live and

amuse himself in an impenetrable environment of mystery--in an

impenetrable fog. And never to see, of all things, his own face! To

see the faces of others, to see the telescopic stars and the

microscopic microbes, yet never to see his own face. And even the

reflection, the shadow of it, which he can see in a looking-glass, even

that he perforce sees _à rebours_. You can't deny it's rum. But if I

had a face as long as yours, I solemnly believe, I should deem it

likewise providential."

"To think, to think," Anthony, long-faced, was brooding, "that she in

mere wilfulness has condemned me to a whole mortal week of this."

"We lunch," said Adrian, "at one, though Pia suggested twelve, and dine

at seven, though Pia suggested six. At four we shall have a little

_goûté_--_caffé con pasticceria_--to take the place of tea. And now,

if you can tear yourself from the pleasures of the table, let's be up

and doing. We 'll begin with the Cathedral, and if we look sharp, we

'll be in time to hear a Mass. There are Masses every half hour till

ten. Then the Palazzo Rosso. After luncheon and a brief siesta, Isola

Nobile. And after our _caffé con pasticceria_, a donkey-ride in the

country."

When they had heard their Mass, they were approached by the Sacristan,

a little, shrunken, brown old man in a cassock, who offered to serve

them as a guide. The church was very dim and very silent. Here and

there a woman knelt at prayer; here and there a candle burned. The

Sacristan removed the frontal from the High Altar, to show them the

golden reliquary that enshrines the dust of San Guido, and unveiled the

three fine altar-pieces, attributed to Giacomo Fiorentino, "San Guido

Shipwrecked," "San Guide's Return," and "The Good Death of San Guido."

He showed them also, in its glass case, the Sword of the Golden Thorn,

reciting its history; and finally he conducted them to the crypt,

where, under masses of sculptured ner'-antico, emblazoned with their

armorials, some five-and-twenty generations of Valdeschi lie entombed.

What were Anthony's emotions? He must have had emotions.

At the Palazzo Rosso they were invited to write their names and

nationality in the visitors' book; and then a silver-haired,

soft-voiced, gentle-mannered servitor in livery led them up the grand

marble staircase and through an endless suite of airy, stately

rooms--rooms with floors of polished concrete, displaying elaborate

patterns, with tapestried walls and frescoed ceilings, with sparse but

ancient and precious articles of furniture, chandeliers of Venetian

glass, Venetian mirrors, and innumerable paintings, many of them

portraits.

"It's astonishing," said Adrian, "how, by some occult process of

selection, in spite of perpetual marriage with new blood, in spite of

the thousand vicissitudes of time and circumstance, in a given family a

particular feature will persist. There 's the Habsburg lip, for

instance. And here is the Valdeschi nose. From generation to

generation, from century to century, one can recognize in these dead

forefathers of yours the identical nose that is on your face to-day."

It was quite true. Again and again you saw repeated the same

high-bridged, slenderly aquiline nose.

"Sala del trono," announced their cicerone (only, he pronounced it _Sa'

do truno_).

And there, sure enough, at the end of a vast chamber, was "the great

scarlet throne, with the gilded coronet topping the canopy above," just

as Susanna had described it. What were Anthony's emotions?

But the white-haired serving-man (as Adrian noticed) from time to time

allowed his eyes to fix themselves studiously upon Anthony's face, and

appeared to fall into a muse. Now he stopped before a high

white-and-gold double-door. "The entrance to the private apartments,"

he said, and placed his hand upon the fancifully-wrought ormolu

door-knob.

"Are the public admitted to the private apartments," Anthony doubted,

holding back.

"No, Signore," said the old man. "But I think, if the Signore will

pardon me, that the Signore's Excellency will be a connection of the

family."

Anthony all but jumped.

"Why on earth should you think that?" he wondered.

"It's the persistent feature," said Adrian, in English, with a chuckle.

"The Signore's Excellency is betrayed by the Signore's Excellency's

beak."

"If the Signore will pardon me, I observed that the Signore's name,

when he wrote in the visitors' book, was Crahforrdi of England," the

old man explained. "But the Crahforrdi of England are a house cognate

to ours. The consort of the Conte who was Conte when I had the honour

of entering the family, nearly sixty years ago, was a Crahforrdi of

England, a lordessa. Moreover it is in the Signore's face. If the

Signori will favour me, it will give me great pleasure to show them

what they will think is the Signore's own portrait."

In size and shape the private apartments were simply a continuation of

the state apartments, but they were furnished in modern fashion, with a

great deal of luxury, and, in so far as the enveloping brown hollands

would permit one to opine, with a great deal of taste. "The family

occupy this palace during the cold months only. In summer they make a

villegglatura to Isola Nobile. Therefore you do not see these rooms at

their best," the old man apologized. In what he described as the

_gabine'o segre'o_ of the Countess, over the fireplace, hung the

full-length, life-size portrait of a gentleman, in the dress of

eighteen-forty-something--high stock, flowered waistcoat, close-fitting

buff trousers, and full-bottomed blue frock-coat, very tight above the

hips.

"Count Antonio the Seventeenth, the last of our tyrants. The Signori

will be aware that we were tyrants of Sampaolo for many centuries,"

said the old man, not without a touch of pride. Then, bowing to

Anthony, "One would think properly the portrait of your Excellency."

Indeed, the face of the last of the tyrants and his grandson's face

were surprisingly alike.

"Conte Antonio Decimose'mo was Conte when, as a lad, I had the honour

to join the family," the old servant went on. "It was he who had for

consort the Lordessa Crahforrdi of England. After his death, there was

the Revolution, by which we annexed to Sampaolo another island called

Sardinia. The Lordessa was taken prisoner in these rooms, with the

Conte-figlio, and banished from the country. Then the King of Sardinia

was elected tyrant of both islands, and the government was removed from

Vallanza to Turin. That was many years ago, fifty years ago. When the

Pope died, the government was again removed, and now it is at Rome."

"Oh? Is the Pope dead?" Adrian questioned.

"Che sì, Signore--dupo lung' anni," the old man assured him.

They strolled about the town for a little, before returning to the

hotel--through the narrow cobble-paved streets, with their alternations

of splendour and squalor, their palaces, churches, hovels, their dark

little shops, their neglected shrines, their vociferous population,

their heterogeneous smells--and along the Riva, with its waterside

bustle, its ships loading and unloading, and its unexampled view of bay

and mountains.

"Do you see this stick?" asked Adrian, holding up his walking-stick.

"What about it?" asked Anthony.

"I 'm coming to that," said Adrian. "But first you must truthfully

answer a question. Which end of this stick would you prefer to be--the

bright silver handle or the earth-stained ferrule?"

"Don't know," said Anthony, with an air of weariness.

"Don't you?" marvelled Adrian. "How funny. Well, then, you must

understand that this stick is but an emblem--a thing's sign. Now for

the thing signified. Have you ever paused to moralize over the irony

that determines the fates of families? Take, for example, a family

that begins with a great man--a great soldier, a great saint, for

instance--and then for evermore thereafter produces none but

mediocrities. I hope you perceive the irony of that. But

contrariwise, take a family that goes on for centuries producing

mediocrities, and suddenly ends with the production of a genius. Take

my family, just for a case in point. Here I come of a chain of

progenitors reaching straight back to Adam; and of not one of them save

Adam and myself, has the world ever heard. And even Adam owes his

celebrity not in the least to his personal endowments, but solely to

the unique character of his position. The First Man could n't help

getting a certain reputation, would he, n'ould he. But from Adam to

Adrian--silence. Then sudden silvery music. And Adrian--mark the

predestination--Adrian is childless. He is the last link. With him

the chain, five thousand years long, stops. He is the sudden brilliant

flare-up of the fire before it goes out. Well, now, tell me--which end

of this stick would you prefer to be? The shining silver handle, or

the dull iron other end?"

They were conveyed to Isola Nobile in one of those long slender

Sampaolese _vipere_--boats that are a good deal like gondolas, except

that they have no felze, and carry a short mast at the bow, with a sail

that is only spread when the wind is directly aft. I suppose the

palace at Isola Nobile is one of the most beautiful in the world, with

its four mellow-toned marble façades rising sheer out of the water,

with its long colonnades, its graceful moresque windows, and the

variety, profusion, and lace-like delicacy of its carved and incised

details. Here again they had to write their names in the visitors'

book, and again a servant (this time a young and rather taciturn

person) led them through countless vast and splendid rooms, far more

splendid than those at the Palazzo Rosso, rooms rich with porphyry,

alabaster, mosaics, gilded flourishes and arabesques of stucco, and

containing many treasures of painting and sculpture, some of which, I

believe, even the sceptical Morellists allow to be actually the

handiwork of the artists to whom they are ascribed. But so far from

there being any question of their visiting the private apartments at

Isola Nobile, their guide, at one point in their progress, sprang

forward and hurriedly closed a door that had stood open, and through

which they had caught a glimpse of a pleasantly furnished library. By

and by they were passed on to a gardener, who showed them the gardens

on Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella, with their camphor-trees and

cedars, their oranges, oleanders, magnolias, laurels, their terraces,

whence thousands of lizards whisked away at the approach of Man, their

fountains, grottoes, temples, their peacocks, flamingoes, and tame

ring-doves, and always, always, with that wonderful outlook upon the

bay and its girdle of sun-bathed hills. The gardener plucked many

flowers for them, so that they returned to Vallanza with armfuls of

roses, lilies, oleanders, and jessamine.

Later that afternoon, Adrian having gone alone for his donkey-ride in

the country (more power to the back of the donkey!), Anthony was seated

by the open window of his bedroom, in a state of deep depression. All

at once, between the two promontories that form the entrance to the

bay, the Capo del Papa and the Capo del Turco, appeared, heading for

Vallanza, a white steamer, clearly, from its size and lines, a yacht--a

very bright and gay object to look upon, as it gleamed in the sun and

crisped the blue waters. And all at once, his eye automatically

following it, Anthony experienced a perfectly inexplicable lightening

of the heart,--as if, indeed, the white yacht were bringing something

good to him. It was absurd, but he could not help it. Somehow, his

depression left him, and a feeling almost of joyousness took its place.

"She said she loved me--she said she loved me," he remembered. "And at

the farthest," he reflected, "at the farthest I shall be with her again

in nine little days."

He got out the fan that he had stolen, and pressed it to his face. He

got out his writing-materials, and wrote her a long, cheerful,

impassioned letter.

His change of mood was all the more noteworthy, perhaps, because the

yacht chanced to be the _Fiorimondo_, bearing the Countess of Sampaolo

and her suite from Venice, whither it had proceeded two days before,

upon orders telegraphed from Paris.