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COLLECTION
OF
GERMAN AUTHORS.
VOL. 27.
* * * * *
BARBAROSSA AND OTHER TALES BY P. HEYSE.
IN ONE VOLUME.
BARBAROSSA
AND
OTHER TALES
BY
PAUL HEYSE.
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
L. C. S.
_Authorized Edition._
LEIPZIG 1874
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW & SEARLE.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
PARIS: C. REINWALD & Cie, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PERES.
CONTENTS.
BARBAROSSA
THE EMBROIDERESS OF TREVISO
LOTTKA
THE LOST SON
THE FAIR KATE
GEOFFROY AND GARCINDE
BARBAROSSA.
BARBAROSSA.
I had only intended to spend one day up in the mountains, and this one
day grew into two weeks, which I found pass more rapidly in that
high-perched ruinous nest on the confines of the Albano and Sabine
range--the name I will not give--than was often the case in the whirl
of great cities. What I actually did with myself during the sweet long
days I hardly know how to tell. But in Rome a mighty hunger after
solitude had fallen on me. I could satisfy it here to the full. It was
early spring-time, the leaves of the chestnut trees shone in luxuriant
freshness; the ravines were filled by the song of birds, and the murmur
of brooks; and as of late a large body of banditti who had rendered
this wild district insecure, had been in part captured, and in part
driven into the Abruzzi, it ensued that a lonely wanderer might without
any apprehension climb the remotest crags, and there give himself up
undisturbed to profoundest meditations.
From the first I declined all intercourse with the German artists, a
good number of whom had taken possession of both miserable inns the
village possessed, and as to the desire of every now and then hearing
one's own voice, which impels hermits to converse with their domestic
animals, I could gratify it quite sufficiently within my own walls. For
as it happened I lodged with the apothecary, and he had the utmost
indulgence for my very defective Italian. True he indemnified himself
for his outlay in patience by not unfrequently taking advantage of
mine, for as soon as the first shyness had worn off, he showered a
whole cornucopia of his own verses on me, confessing that despite his
fifty and five years he was still unable entirely to shake off this
childish malady. "What would you have?" he pleaded, "when at evening I
step to my window and see the moon coming up behind the rocks, and the
fire-flies on the wing about my little garden,--why I must be a brute
if it does not set me off poetising." And indeed he was anything but a
brute this good Signor Angelo, whom owing to a natural tonsure--a rim
of black hair still circling his smooth bald head--his friends were
wont to nickname Fra Angelico. He had never indeed left his native
place more than twice in his life, nor on either occasion gone further
than Rome. But then Rome is the world, he would say. He who has seen
Rome, has seen everything. And forthwith he proceeded to speak of
everything, partly according to the very miscellaneous and chaotic
knowledge he owed to a few books accidentally picked up, partly from
the audacity of unbridled poetical fancy. Of all the worthies who
according to old Italian custom were wont to gather at evening in his
apothecary's shop: priest, schoolmaster, surgeon, tax-gatherer, and a
few unofficial well-to-do proprietors, whose faces beamed with the
profits of their rich olive and vine yards,--of all these notabilities
not one ventured to contradict Fra Angelico, not at least, when
previous to one of his longer harangues, he polished his large silver
spectacles on his coat-sleeve and began, "_Ecco signori miei_, the
matter stands thus." But all the same he was the best and most harmless
creature in the world, and the most amiable landlord one could
desire, provided one had no wish beyond a hard bed, and two ricketty
arm-chairs! He was certainly fond of me, although, or perhaps _because_
he had not the faintest idea that I was a brother poet. I was discreet
enough to confine myself to playing the part of a grateful public, and
it was not until after the four-and-twentieth sonnet that I would
gently lay my hand on his arm and say, "Bravo, Signor Angelo! But I
fear this is too much of a good thing. Your poetry, is you know,
potent, and flies to the head. To-morrow you shall fill me up a new
flask from your Hippocrene." Whereupon with the most good-humoured look
imaginable he would close his volume and say, "What avail if I read you
to sleep, night after night a whole year through? I should still not
have come to an end! Here we have another Peru!" And tapping on his
bald forehead he would sigh, offer a pinch of snuff, and wish me a good
night.
The majority of these poems were of course devoted to love, and when
the little man recited them with sparkling eyes and all the pathos
common to his nation, it was easy to forget his five and fifty years.
Nevertheless, he lived a bachelor's life, with one old maid-servant and
a boy who helped him with his salves and potions, and it seemed strange
that with all his love for the beautiful and his comfortable means, he
should never have married, nor even now in his sunny autumn seem
inclined to make up for lost time. One evening, when we sat smoking
together over the good home-grown wine, and I jokingly asked him why he
took his monkish nickname so much in earnest, and whether none of the
pretty girls that daily passed his shop had contrived to touch his
heart, he suddenly looked up at me with a strange expression, and said,
"Pretty girls? Well, I daresay they are not so far from it either, and
marriage may be better than is reported. But I am too old for a young
man, and too young for an old one, or rather let me say too much of a
poet. The older the bird, the harder to catch. And then you see, my
friend, I was once devoted to a girl who did not care for me--one I
tell you the like of whom will never be seen again. So now I am too
proud, or whatever it may be called, to be flattered even if some
common-place creature--of whom there are twelve to the dozen--were to
fancy me. I prefer to dream myself happy in my verses, and to shape
myself a perfect beauty out of a hundred incomplete ones, like the
Grecian painter--was his name Apelles?--who took for his Venus the eyes
of one neighbour, the nose of another, and thus got the best together
bit by bit. But as for her who really did unite all perfections, and
was so beautiful that you would not believe me if I tried to describe
her, she paid dear for her beauty, and many know the story as correctly
as I do, though if you were to ask any of the older people in the place
about Erminia, they would all bear me out that she was a wonder of the
world, and that during the twenty years that have passed by since then,
nothing has ever happened that made such an impression as her fate and
all connected with it. Come now, I will tell it you, as you already
know the sonnets to her--I allude to the sixty-seven that I keep in the
blue portfolio, of which you said that they really had much of
Petrarch's manner; they all date from the time when the wound was still
fresh; and when once, you have heard the story you can hear them over
again. It is only so that you will thoroughly understand them."
After which, with a sigh that sounded to me rather comic than tragic,
he snuffed the candle, leant back in the arm-chair behind his counter,
half-closed his eyes, and buried his hands in the side-pockets of his
worn-out paletot. It was about nine o'clock in the evening. The Piazza
before the house was still as death, one heard only the prattling of
the brook, and the heavy breathing of the apprentice asleep in the next
room. Then after a long pause he began with his usual exordium.
"_Ecco amico mio_, the matter stands thus. Somewhere about the year
'30--you are too young to remember so far back--this said Erminia lived
here in the village with a mother and sister who are also dead and
buried long ago. If when you leave this door, you turn to the right up
the little street leading to the old ruin on the summit of our hill,
you will come to a small house, or rather hovel, roofless now except
for two worm-eaten beams, and even then it was not much better
protected from sun and rain; only that the great fig-tree that is
withered now, used at that time to spread its broad thick-leaved
branches over it just at the season when shade was most needed. In
those bare stone walls that had formerly served as a shelter to wild
creatures, Erminia lived. Her father had been dead for years, her
mother had no idea of management, so that the family had come down
wofully, and were glad enough to be allowed to nestle down in those
ruins. There were, indeed, many who would have been glad to support the
widow for her husband's sake. But you know how the proverb runs:
'Sacco rotto non tien miglio.
Pover uomo non va a consiglio.'[1]
It was all in vain. The girls who were thoroughly well-behaved, might
work their fingers to the bone, spinning and lace-making, and the
neighbours might do their part as well as they could, the old woman
drank everything up, and if she was not raging like a fury, she would
lie on the hearth and sleep, and leave her daughters to find food and
clothing for all. I do believe if their next neighbour, the fig-tree,
had not done its part so gallantly, that Erminia and her sister
Maddalena would both have died of hunger, for they were too proud to
beg. Raiment, indeed, the tree could not afford them, since we no
longer live in Paradise. Consequently everybody was astonished to see
the poor things come to church so neatly dressed, the more that there
was not a word to be said against them. True the younger of the two,
Maddalena was thoroughly safe from temptation, for she was as ugly as
sin, a short, unkempt, club-footed creature, with long arms and short
legs, having a gait much like that of a toad, and frightening the
children in the street if she came upon them unexpectedly.
"But she knew quite well how unsightly she was, and for the most part
kept at home, doing, however, no harm to anyone, which is not often the
case with such afflicted creatures, who are generally envious and
spiteful by way of revenging themselves for their misfortune. She, on
the contrary, seemed to look upon it as in the order of things that her
mother, after bringing into the world one child so boundlessly
beautiful as Erminia, should have had nothing but nature's refuse left
for a second. Instead of looking askance at her elder sister, and
wishing to poison her, she made so perfect an idol of her, that none of
the young men about were more in love with Erminia than the poor fright
Maddalena. And indeed Erminia was one that to see was to love. I for my
part had seen all the statues in Rome, Muses, Venuses, Minervas, no
small master-pieces, but such triumphs of art as the world cannot
equal. And yet, between ourselves, utter failures compared to what
nature had done. Look you, friend,"--and so saying the little man
jumped up and raised his arm--"she was so tall, about a head taller
than I am, but so beautifully formed; her little head so gracefully set
on her magnificent bust, that no one found out how tall she was. And
then her face, chiselled as it were, with large eyes richly eyelashed,
and an expression proud and sweet both; a mouth red as a strawberry,
or rather the inside of a white fig, and her brow crowned with thick
blue-black curly hair, which she bound up behind into such a heavy nest
of ringlets that it needed as stately a throat as hers to bear their
burden. And then when she moved, walked, raised her arms to steady the
basket she carried on her head, with her taper fingers turned, as
it were, out of ivory; and her little feet in their coarse wooden
shoes--_amico mio_, if I had not been a poet, that girl would have made
me one. As for the others who had not a drop of poet blood in their
veins, at least she made them mad, which is half-way to the Temple of
Apollo. There was not a young fellow in the place who would not have
had his left hand cut off, if only he might have worn her ring on the
right. But she would listen to none of them, which was the more
surprising when you considered the poverty she lived in, and that of
the offers made to her, the very worst would at least have saved her,
her mother, and her sister from any further distress. Of myself I will
not speak. Madly in love as I was, I had still sense enough left to see
that I was not worthy of her, and after I had in some degree got over
the pain of my rejection, I told her that I would at least be her
friend at all times, and she gave me her hand, and thanked me with such
a smile. Sir, at that moment I was more crazy than ever! But there was
another that everybody thought would outbid us all, and although we
might have grudged her to him, still we should not have had a word to
say against her choice. This was the son of the landlord of the _Croce
d'oro_, a handsome fellow, rolling in money, and about two-and-twenty,
a couple of inches taller than Erminia; generally called Barbarossa, or
merely _Il Rosso_, on account of his having with light curly hair, a
fine red beard of his own; but his real name was Domenico Serone. He
paid his court to Erminia in such a way that nothing else was talked
of, went on like one distracted, while she dismissed him just as she
had done the rest of us, without positive disdain. She only gave him to
understand that he might spare himself any further trouble, that she
could not marry him, for a good girl like her would not awaken any
false hopes. Many thought that her own country-people were not
distinguished enough for her, that it must be some foreigner, a milord,
or a Russian, and that her mind was set on distant lands and fabulous
adventures. But no, sir, that too was a bad shot. I myself knew a rich
English count, or marquis, or whatever he might be, who told me that he
had thrown a couple of thousand pounds or so into her apron, and
implored her on his knees to accompany him to England. But she just
shook off the bank-notes as though they had been dead leaves, and
threatened if he ever spoke another word to her, to strike him across
the face, even if it were on the public market-place. And so we went
on exhausting ourselves in conjectures as to what her motives could
be; whether she had made a vow to die unmarried; and I even once
summoned up courage to ask her--such was the friendly footing we stood
on--whether she had a hatred to men in general. Not so, she quietly
replied, but as yet she had not found one whom she could love. In this
way two years passed, she still with the same calm face, Red-beard
looking more and more gloomy, and it was plain to see how consumed he
was by the fire within, for the handsome youth went creeping about like
a ghost.
"One day, however, a stranger came here, a Swedish captain, who had
left the service because his promotion had been unfairly delayed, and
who, since then, having means of his own, had travelled by land and by
sea half over the world, shooting elephants and tigers, crocodiles and
sea-serpents, and carrying about with him half-a-dozen most beautiful
guns and rifles, and a great Newfoundland dog, who had more than once
saved his life. If I remember rightly this stranger's name was _Sture_,
or something of the sort, but I myself called him Sor Gustavo, and the
village-folk just 'the Captain.' He took up his quarters here because
he liked my little garden, had the very room you now occupy, and he and
I were soon as thick as thieves. He was not a man of many words, nor
indeed would he listen to my verses, for he cared only for one poet,
Lord Byron, whose adventures he had set himself to emulate. Well, and
he was quite up to the task. He was as brave as a lion, with more
money than he knew what to do with, and as for the women, they ran
after him go where he would, for he was wonderfully stately in his
bearing and figure, and yet had so good-humoured an expression that
they all thought it would be easy to play the part of Omphale to this
Hercules. In Rome he seemed to have been pretty wild, at least so this
one and the other pretended to know; he himself never touched on his
love-affairs, and here in our village, he never appeared to care
whether there was any other race in the world than that of men. With
these he went about continually; would sit--if he were not prowling
along the ravines with his rifle--whole afternoons at the cafe, playing
billiards to perfection, and when he had won everybody's money, he
would order a barrel of the best wine, and insist upon everybody
partaking. So all began as with one mouth to sing his praises, and to
rejoice that such a travelled gentleman should have taken such a craze
for our little spot above all others, that he even talked of buying a
vineyard, and of yearly spending a couple of months among us.
"Domenico Serone was the only one who kept aloof from our captain,
would get up as soon as ever he saw him enter the cafe, and pass him by
in the street as a thief does the gallows. No one wondered though at
this, for to see himself eclipsed by a foreigner--he who was accustomed
to be cock of the walk--must naturally have mortified him. It never
even occurred to me that Erminia might have something to do with it. I
had been present when Signor Gustavo met the fair creature for the
first time. 'Now look here, _amico mio_,' I had said, 'never--if only
you will honestly admit it, never have you seen anything like her in
either of the Indies, Turkey, or Golconda.' But he after a mere glance,
without a look of surprise, merely said, 'Hum!' biting his blonde
moustache so hard, you heard the crunching of the hair. 'Not amiss, Sor
Angelo, not amiss indeed.' '_Possareddio_,' said I to myself, 'this is
the only man who can look without blinking at the sun.' It crossed me
that I would engage Erminia in conversation, that he might see more of
her, and be punished for his cold-blooded 'not amiss,' by falling over
head and ears into love. But she, usually so calm and unembarrassed
when she met any one, turned strangely red, and hurried away, so that I
thought at once, 'Hollo! at length her hour has struck,' but I said not
a word, and the meeting went out of my head.
"But about a week later, I stood before my shop-door in the twilight
deciphering a letter I had just received, in which a friend in Rome
told me he had read aloud my sonnets at a meeting of a poetical
society--the 'Arcadia'--and that amidst general approval I had been
elected honorary member, which so surprised and pleased me, that for
the moment I was not aware of what was going on about me, till I heard
_Il Rosso's_ voice so loud and threatening that it woke me out of all
my cogitations. Looking up I saw him standing by the fountain not ten
yards from my door, pale as a corpse, and quite unlike the smart fellow
he used to be, and not far from where he was,--the pitcher that she had
intended to fill left standing on the edge of the fountain, and her
left hand pressing her side,--stood Erminia, and as it happened no one
else was in sight. I wondered what both could be about, as they had
avoided each other for months past. But _Il Rosso_ did not keep me long
in suspense. 'Hear me, Erminia,' he said, as though he were reading out
a sentence of death to some convicted criminal in the hearing of all
the world: 'It is lucky that we have met here. True we have no longer
any dealings with each other, but as I once loved you, even though you
trampled my love under your feet, I would still warn you. Take heed to
yourself, Erminia, and be careful what you do. I know one who has sworn
your death if any stranger ever carries off what you have refused to
your own people; and if we are not good enough to make you an
honourable wife, we are at least men enough to help a lost girl out of
the world; and so tell your fine gentleman to look out against
accidents, for the bullets we cast hereabouts can hit as well as those
of Swedish lead; and so God be with you, Erminia. I have nothing
further to say.'
"He pressed his hat on his brows, threw a glance around, and went off
with a quick step. The girl said not a word, and as for me I was so
bewildered by his passionate outburst, that not till she had lifted her
pitcher to her head, and was preparing to leave, did I regain the power
of speech. 'Erminia,' I said, going close up to her, 'who does he mean
by the stranger?' 'He is a fool,' she replied without looking at me,
but blushing deeply. 'I hope so indeed,' said I, 'for if there were any
meaning in his words I should be sorry for you, Erminia.' 'I want no
one's pity,' was her curt reply; and then she went off without so much
as good night, and from the defiance of her manner I first discovered
that she was really implicated. And being sincerely her well-wisher I
hurried after her, so as to walk on by her side. 'You know me to be
your friend,' said I, 'if you will not believe Domenico, believe me
Erminia, it will be your ruin if you have anything to do with the
captain. He is a fine fellow, but he will not marry you, Erminia, for
all that; indeed, he cannot, for he is a Lutheran, but, in addition, he
would not wish it. Therefore, even if Il Rosso did not make good his
threat, nothing but mischief could come of the affair,' and so on,
according as my friendship for the girl inspired me. She, meanwhile,
walked straight on in silence without once raising her eyes. So at
length I left her with a faint hope of having made some impression on
her mind. The great dog came to meet me at the door of my house, which
told me that his master was returned from shooting. I went up to his
room at once, and found him with his English rifle in his hand, having
taken it to pieces to clean, and a couple of dead birds before him.
'You have lost something, Sor Gustavo,' said I, 'there on the market
place your secrets have been discussed so loudly, that all the gossips
in the village are acquainted with them.' And I went on to tell him of
Redbeard's threats, adding that he did not know our people if he
supposed they were not in earnest, and that if he really had triumphed
and won Erminia's coy heart, he ought for both their sakes to be on his
guard and break it off, and get out of the scrape the best way he
could. And being once fairly started I could not refrain from taking
Domenico's part, and declaring that all friendship would be at an end
between us if he made Erminia unhappy. There were plenty of others who
would be no great loss. But to see the Pearl of the whole Sabina
trampled in the mire was what I could not endure, and so I told him to
his face that if I discovered him going after Erminia, I could no
longer be his host, and that he might look out for some other quarters.
To all this he answered nothing further than what Erminia had once told
me, 'You are not over wise, Fra Angelico,' and continued polishing up
the locks and barrel of his rifle, and puffing the blue smoke of his
cigar through his fair moustachios. At last I left him even more
disgusted with his cunning cold-bloodedness than with the affair
itself, and I did not see him till the noon of the next day, when he
entered my room with a letter in his hand which he told me necessitated
his immediate departure, and as it was too late for the mail, he
requested me to lend him my little vehicle. There was nothing I was
more glad to do, not indeed that I laid much stress upon the letter,
but rather believed that it was my own eloquence that had induced him
to leave us, and to break off that luckless love-affair in good time.
And so I let him have my apprentice, as I myself had no time to drive
him to Rome, and we parted the best of friends.
"It was his intention, he told me, to travel to Greece in order to
visit Lord Byron's grave, and he promised to write to me as soon as he
got there. The rogue! He thought as little of Greece as I of a journey
to the moon. But what would you have? A mighty spell was on him, and
held him down with a hundred meshes in the Evil One's net, so that he
could look me, his best friend, in the face and tell me so confounded a
lie as this!
"That evening I went to bed with the consciousness of having done my
duty, and saved two human lives. Nay I was even planning a lyric on the
subject, which would have been by no means one of my worst, though a
convincing proof that poets are no prophets. For would you believe it,
on the following afternoon my lad returned home with the vehicle, and
the first thing he did after taking the horse to the stable and feeding
him, was to ask me if Signor Gustavo had told me they were to take a
stranger with them, for that about two miles from the village, where
the evergreen oak stands near the old tomb, this stranger had beckoned
to them, and then jumped so quickly into the conveyance, that he,
Carlino, never got a good look at his features. But in spite of that
alacrity, and of the manly attire,--which by the way belonged to Signor
Gustavo's wardrobe,--he was ready to take his oath that this stranger
was no other than Erminia.
"I will not detain you by describing the effect this discovery had on
me. I bound the youth down most solemnly to hold his peace about it.
But what could that avail! The very next day there was not an old woman
who entered my shop for a penny-worth of anything who did not inform me
that Erminia had gone off to Rome with the captain, and had sent a
message to her mother to the effect that she should not indeed return,
but would never forget that she was her daughter. And, moreover, she
had left behind for her sister Maddalena whom she must have taken
into her confidence, all her clothes and other effects, and a bag of
money--probably from the Captain--so that their mother might want for
nothing.
"That this news should work upon the young village-folk like valerian
upon cats, you, my friend, will easily believe. Had we been in the old
times of Greeks and Trojans, Domenico would easily have assembled an
army to pursue and recover his lost Helen. But in spite of all that was
said and shrieked, spite of fury and curses, nothing came of it, and
soon it seemed as though these braggadocios were ashamed of even
uttering the name of the girl who had refused them all to go off at
last with a heretic and barbarian. There were only two who could not
forget her. I was one, and it was in vain I sought consolation from the
muses. The other was Domenico Il Rosso, in whose eyes anybody with an
insight into human nature might easily have read that he was brooding
over desperate deeds.
"And too surely before a month had elapsed since Erminia's flight all
my fears were realised. I remember the day as tho' it were yesterday:
it was on a Thursday--and the heat was such that the flies on the wall
were giddy, and at noon no Christian soul ventured out. I had closed my
shop-door, and all the shutters, and lay between sleeping and waking in
this very chair where I now sit. There was nothing to be heard but the
sleepy drip-drop of the fountain, and the rustling of dry herbs on the
counter, over which my tame canary-bird was hopping to-and-fro.
Suddenly I fancied I heard some one knock at the shop-door, and call my
name, and annoyed at being disturbed, I rubbed my eyes awake, and
prepared to see whether any one had really been taken suddenly ill. The
knocking was repeated, louder and quicker, as if in urgent haste, and I
had my hand on the door-handle when I heard a dreadful scream, 'Jesus,
Maria, have mercy on me!' I tore open the door, and saw a woman sink on
the threshold, from whose breast there gushed such a stream of blood,
that while I stooped to raise her I was reddened from top to toe. Three
steps off with a face like ashes stood Domenico, with eyes wide-opened
as though his crime had killed him too. 'Domenico,' I cried, 'what hast
thou done? Cursed be thy hand which has wrought this horrible deed.'
'Amen,' he replied, 'it was her fate. Now let him come.' And so saying
he turned round--for some horror-stricken faces began to appear at the
windows--and slowly traversed the sun-lit piazza till he reached the
gateway, where he disappeared like a spectre.
"Meanwhile I held the poor gasping frame in my arms, almost swooning
myself from grief and terror. I called to my maid-servant, the
neighbours rushed out, and so we carried her in, and laid her on a bed.
But I saw too plainly that there was nothing to be done, and so I sent
the lad off as fast as he could go to fetch a priest. I scarcely hoped
though that she would live long enough to see him, so bending down I
asked her if she had anything to communicate. She husbanded her last
breath to ask me how her mother was. 'Just the same as for a month
past,' I replied. Then her dying breast heaved a deep sigh, and she
gasped out: 'Then he deceived me!' 'Who?' said I. She felt for her
pocket, and drew out a letter, the tenor of which was that if she
wished to find her mother still alive she must set out without delay,
for that the illness was a mortal one. This letter bore the priest's
signature, but was not in his handwriting. I made out from the few
words that she with difficulty whispered, that a youth from our village
had secretly delivered it to her the evening before. How he had found
out her lodging in Rome she had no idea, for she was living most
privately, and not in the same house as her lover, who had been to see
her as usual in the evening, and on reading the letter had forbidden
her to go home, saying that it was only a plot to allure her to
destruction, and she herself had taken that view of it, and promised
him not to go. But in the morning when she was alone, a fear came over
her that it might after all turn out to be true, and if so, her mother
would die and would curse her own child on her death-bed. So she took a
carriage, and promised the driver a double fare if he would take her in
half the usual time. She got out, however, at the foot of the hill,
wishing to reach her mother's house alone and unobserved. But as soon
as she neared the first houses she had a sense of some one following
her, and for protection she ran rather than walked towards my door,
when suddenly Domenico appeared behind her, and called out, without
however looking at her: 'What, Erminia, do we see you here again? That
is well, it was time you should come to your senses!' 'What have you to
do with my senses?' she replied; 'you have no hold upon me for good or
bad.' 'Indeed!' said he, drawing closer and closer, 'all the same one
does not like the disgrace to attach to our village of having no young
man worthy of such a jewel. Probably you have now found out that your
foreigner was but a poor make-believe, like the rest, and that you
would do better to remain at home.' And she. 'What I think of _him_ is
my affair. Why do you always come after me? You knew long ago what I
think of you.' Then seizing her arm he said in a hoarse voice, 'For the
last time, Erminia, I give you warning. Renounce him, or both you and
he will have to rue it. I cannot prevent your loving him, but that he
should rob you of honour and happiness, that as sure as GOD lives I
_will_ prevent and that shortly. Do you understand me?' Then she stood
still, looked him full in the face, and said, 'You and no one else
wrote that letter.' And he, without answering, went on as before. 'Will
you give him up and remain here?' Then when she continued silent, and
shook her head resolutely, he three times repeated the same question.
'Will you, Erminia, give him up and remain here?' And when she
pretended not even to be aware that any one was speaking to her, but
quickened her steps fearing that he might do her some violence in the
deserted piazza, she suddenly felt his hand grasp her arm as in a vice,
heard the words, 'To hell, then, with your Lutheran,' and in the same
moment fell down mortally wounded close to my door.
"And now she had no wish, she said, but that her lover should forgive
her for leaving him against his will; she expiated it dearly enough. He
had meant to make her his wife, and take her to his own home. Instead
of that she must go down into the grave, and who could say whether the
Virgin Mary would intercede for her; and whether she should ever pass
out of the pains of purgatory into the Heavenly Paradise!
"That was the last sentence that crossed her lips, then her head sank
back, and she was dead!"
When the little man had got so far, he stretched himself back in his
arm-chair, and closed his eyes with a deep sigh. After some minutes so
spent he sprang up, walked several times to and fro in his dark shop,
and seemed to make a strong effort to recover his self-control. At
length he stood still beside me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and
said, "What after all is human life, _amico mio!_ A fleeting nothing!
grass that is green in the field to-day, and to-morrow dry and
withered. Hay, that the insatiable monster death crams his maw with!
_Basta!_ There is no waking the dead! She was a wonder of the world
while she lived, she was wondrous still when her fair silent form was
no longer warmed by a drop of life-blood, and her soul no more
susceptible of joy or of sorrow. There she lay in the room yonder, and
until she was buried I never left her night or day. When sleep overcame
me, I still held a corner of her dress in my hand, and thought myself
highly favoured in that at least in death I was nearer to her than any
other. But by the second night another came. The door opened, and the
captain stole in on tip-toe, as though he might still run a risk of
disturbing her sleep. We did not exchange a word, only I began to weep
like a child when he so mutely, and with such a look of despair in his
eyes, approached the bier. Then he sat down beside her and gazed
steadily upon her face. I went out, I could not endure his presence any
more than if I myself had been her murderer.
"The next day when the funeral took place and the whole village was
gathered in the church-yard, even before the priest had blessed the
coffin, there rose a murmur and a stir among the dense crowd. And the
captain, whom no one knew to be in the place, was seen striding through
the people with a look on his face that terrified them all. He took his
station close beside the grave, and threw two handsfull of earth on the
coffin. Then he knelt down, and every one else was on his homeward way
while he remained prostrate on the newly-made grave, as though he would
force himself through the earth, and make his bed there. I was obliged
to drag him away into my house, where for some days he remained as
though in a trance, and I could hardly get him to take a spoonful of
soup or a drop of wine. Four days passed before he seemed to come to
himself at all, but even then he continued silent, and it was only in
bidding me farewell, before he went off again in my little conveyance,
that he begged me to oblige him by buying for him the house with the
vineyard that he had once before looked at. In eight days he said he
should return, and then make his home with us for life.
"I did not dare to remonstrate, although I could not approve the
plan--partly because, of Domenico, of whom it was known that he had
fled to the mountains, and joined a party of banditti, and partly
because I had always been fond of the Swede; and could have wished that
he should not by living near this grave keep the wound in his heart for
ever bleeding. But, however, I knew well that he must have his own way,
let Heaven or Hell oppose him, and so I laid myself out to render him
any service that I could, for her sake who had been dear to me too, and
to whom even beyond the grave I could still prove my good-will by
befriending her beloved.
"And in a week's time he actually came and took possession of the house
which stood about a mile from the village in a tolerably large
vineyard, not far from the ravine where the chestnuts are; a lovely,
solitary spot for a man at least who had no fear, good weapons at hand,
and a faithful dog for companion. But the latter was not the only
living creature that joined him. Erminia's sister Maddalena insisted on
doing so, that she might wash and cook for him, and keep his house
while he was on his rambles. Nothing could have suited him better,
though people in general shunned her. But he knew that her dead sister
had bequeathed her own love and fidelity towards him to this poor
creature. And so the singular pair lived on in their solitude, and
never seemed to concern themselves about the rest of the world.
"I went to see him a few days after his arrival. The house had once
belonged to a Roman noble, and was still in tolerable condition, though
the old furniture was covered with dust and cobwebs which Maddalena
never disturbed. She had been used to worse in her mother's ruinous
hovel under the roof of the fig-tree. But in the neglected garden she
had somewhat bestirred herself, and planted a few beds with vegetables,
and the locks of all the doors had been repaired and new bolts added.
'She insisted upon it,' said the captain; 'she is continually dreaming
of an attack upon us.' 'Dreams are not always mere moonshine,' returned
I, but he paid no attention. He went before me up the stone steps, and
opened the door of the familiar salon, the balcony of which looked on
the garden. This was the only room that he inhabited; he had made a bed
out of an old divan, and cleaned the rubbish out of the corners
singlehanded, but he could not stop up the countless holes in the walls
through which bats and squirrels went in and out. My first glance fell
on a stand against the wall, from which his beautiful fire-arms shone
out, and as I was always fond of them I fell to examining these
master-pieces one by one. 'Just turn round Angelo,' he said; 'there is
something in the room that will interest you more.' It was a life-size
picture of Erminia, and so strikingly like, that it gave me, as it
were, a blow on the heart. During their early days in Rome, a
first-rate painter and friend of his had begun this wondrous picture,
and finished it with the exception of one hand and part of the dress.
The head, which looked over the shoulder with an indescribable
expression of proud bliss--actually beaming with love and beauty--was
highly finished, and as I said, one fancied one saw the exquisite
creature breathe. I could not speak a word, but I stood a full
half-hour motionless before it, from time to time wiping away the tears
which obscured the picture. It was then he told me for the first time,
that on the very day when she left him he had received a letter from an
old uncle, his only remaining relative, on whose consent to his
marriage he had laid great stress. Then he tried to tell me something
about those happy weeks in Rome, but his voice suddenly gave way, and
he went into the next room. I could not venture to follow him, and as
he did not return I concluded I was not wished for any longer, and
quietly crept down the steps accompanied only by the great dog, who
looked into my face as much as to say that he knew all about his
master's grief.
"I now resolved to wait until he should seek me out, but I might have
waited long! However, I sometimes saw Maddalena in the market or one of
the shops, and twice I spoke to her, asked for Signor Gustavo, and
heard that he was well, and if not out shooting was always reading
books, and allowed no one to enter, not even the priest, who had felt
it his duty to enquire for the mourner. In our village, where everyone
had been so enraged against him, the tide turned gradually in his
favour. People remembered the merry evenings over the wine-barrel, and
his courteous and sociable ways, and in time the women who had been the
most violent were quite conquered by his solitary sorrow. Many a one, I
suspect, would not have required much pressing to lend him her company
in that lonely villa, if he had only held up a finger. But month after
month passed by, and all went on in the old way.
"One night towards the end of August I had a headache, having drunk
more wine than usual, and the mosquitoes were more unconscionable than
ever: so that I sat up in bed, and began to think whether I had not
better strike a light and write some verses. All of a sudden through
the stillness of night I heard two shots, then again others, and from
the direction in which they came I judged that they must be somewhere
near the captain's villa. '_Corpo della Madonna!_' thought I, 'what can
he be about! Is he shooting bats or owls?' But they did not sound like
the English rifle of Signor Gustavo, and they succeeded each other too
rapidly and irregularly to be fired by any one man, and all at once
I jumped horrified out of bed, for I no longer had any doubt about
it,--what I had long silently feared had happened: Il Rosso and his
banditti had fallen upon the lonely man, and they were fighting there
in the vineyard for life and death. I got on my clothes, snatched a
pair of old pistols from the wall, wakened up my apprentice, and told
him to run through the streets, and call out 'help! murder!' as loud as
ever he could. I myself knocked up a couple of neighbours, and
encouraged all who were already roused to follow me. When we came down
from the village we were a party of ten or twelve, each armed with
rifle or pistol. And to be sure the firing did come from the vineyard,
and we to whom the moon fortunately served instead of lanterns,
scrambled over hedge and ditch towards the house, where we saw firing
going on from the windows. That comforted me somewhat. He had withdrawn
then into his fortress, and those rascals had to content themselves
with firing into the room at him at random. I was just about to explain
my plan of operations to our party,--how we were to form four
divisions, surround the enemy, and attack him in the rear; but some
out-post must have observed us, for there was a shrill whistle, and at
the same moment the attack came to an end, and here and there where the
moon shone on the open space between the rocks and the wood, we saw the
band scatter, some of them so lame that we might have captured them if
that had been our aim--over and above defending the captain--to take Il
Rosso, our own fellow-citizen, prisoner. But we wished to spare his
father the pain of that, and thanked God that we had come just in time,
for at our loud call we saw Signor Gustavo step out on the balcony into
the bright moonlight, and wave a white handkerchief to us. But when we
saw the handkerchief nearer, it proved by no means pure white, but had
large spots of blood, from a bullet having grazed his temple. It was
nothing of any consequence, and did not prevent the captain sitting out
of doors with me the next morning when all the rest had gone to their
homes. Only Maddalena in her passionate way, besotted with the man in
spite of her sister's story, could not be tranquillised, and went on
searching for one healing herb after the other, and he had to apply
them all to prevent her becoming quite frantic. The good creature,
whose sleep was like a cat's, was aware of footsteps creeping about the
house even before the dog heard them; and she ran up to wake her
master. On the first bandit who placed a ladder against the balcony,
she bestowed such a blow on the head with the barrel of a gun, that he
fell backwards, and the ladder with him. And so there she was at hand
to load one rifle after the other, and indeed every now and then she
herself took a shot through the window, and swore with might and main
that she had sent a ball through the coat of the murderous villain Il
Rosso himself, and that he gave a great start but went on firing. As
for the room, it had a ruinous aspect, not a pane was whole, the
plaster had fallen in great sheets from the ceiling, and Erminia's
picture had been struck in two places, but fortunately only the dress
and the frame were injured. When the day began to break, the Captain
and the dog too did get a few hours sleep, but Maddalena would not hear
of it, although for the present the cut-throats had been scared away.
"I spent the next day at the villa, and kept imploring my friend to
leave the district. Indeed all the reasonable people from the village
who came to see the battle-field gave the same advice. He most
obstinately refused to do so. It was only on the following day when the
Roman Prefect of Police came over to keep up appearances, and draw up a
protocol, by way of doing something, that he let himself be turned from
his foolhardy resolve. 'I most earnestly advise you,' said the
official, a monsignore N----, 'as soon as possible to leave the
mountains, and indeed the country itself. A youth who witnessed the
attack of the bandits--if indeed he were not one of them--has told me
that more than one bullet has been cast for you; that Il Rosso has
sworn upon the host that he will pay you off. Were I to remain here I
could only protect you so long as you kept by my side. But if you took
again to your lonely wanderings through the ravines you might expect
out of every bush a shot that would consign you to another world.'
"And so at last he made up his mind to leave, and that at once, in the
carriage of the Prefect of Police. When I pressed his hand at parting,
'Now then, Signor Gustavo,' said I, 'this will certainly be the last
time we two ever meet on earth.' 'Who knows?' he replied. 'After all I
am half a countryman of yours, and have no other home.' Then he gave me
some directions with regard to Maddalena. She was not to leave the
villa, nor did the captain think of selling it. If he failed to return
within a certain number of years, she was to consider the house and
garden her own property, and meanwhile to appropriate their profits. To
the priest he gave in token of gratitude for the assistance rendered
him by the villagers, a considerable sum for the poor. On me he
bestowed a small picture of Lord Byron, which he had always carried
about with him. The portrait of Erminia he had rolled up in a tin
cylinder, and that and his fire-arms were all that he took away with
him. So we parted, and as I believed, never to meet again, and
Maddalena, who insisted upon going with him, and clung like a wild cat
to the carriage, had to be forcibly dragged off and locked into the
house till it had rolled far away.
"However that very night, so soon as they left off watching her, she
vanished, and for days ran up and down the streets of Rome like a
maniac, looking in vain for her master. At last she returned, and
hobbled about the villa alone, but she let everything go to waste; the
grapes might rot on the vines, and the fruit on the trees, rather than
she take the trouble of gathering them and carrying them to market. She
had always been idle, indeed, as a toad--a creature she resembled in
appearance too--and it was only when it concerned the captain that she
could work and bestir herself like three people in one.
"Of him, however, we heard nothing more; of his mortal foe Barbarossa
we heard far too much. Since that night he and his band had lingered
about our neighbourhood, and he seemed to have conceived a hatred
against his countrymen, because they had gathered to the assistance of
the foreigner. But for the company of papal gendarmes who were sent us
as a permanent support from Rome, I do believe he would have fallen
upon his own native village and taken a bloody revenge.
"Accordingly no one who had been present on the occasion, ever ventured
himself a rifle-shot from the last houses without taking his fire-arms
with him, and such as had to go into the mountains always begged for
two gendarmes as escort. Those were sad times, _amico mio_, and I even
lost my pleasure in rhyming, for I knew that he had a special spite
against me. Twice there were great expeditions undertaken against the
bandits, but not much came of them, for they had their scouts posted
everywhere; they knew every crag and cranny of the mountains as
intimately as the devil does his own den, and they were merely driven
for awhile a little further back into the Sabina.