Orsino Saracinesca's education was almost completed. It had been of the
modern kind, for his father had early recognised that it would be a
disadvantage to the young man in after life if he did not follow the
course of study and pass the examinations required of every Italian
subject who wishes to hold office in his own country. Accordingly,
though he had not been sent to public schools, Orsino had been regularly
entered since his childhood for the public examinations and had passed
them all in due order, with great difficulty and indifferent credit.
After this preliminary work he had been at an English University for
four terms, not with any view to his obtaining a degree after completing
the necessary residence, but in order that he might perfect himself in
the English language, associate with young men of his own age and
social standing, though of different nationality, and acquire that final
polish which is so highly valued in the human furniture of society's
temples.
Orsino was not more highly gifted as to intelligence than many young men
of his age and class. Like many of them he spoke English admirably,
French tolerably, and Italian with a somewhat Roman twang. He had
learned a little German and was rapidly forgetting it again; Latin and
Greek had been exhibited to him as dead languages, and he felt no more
inclination to assist in their resurrection than is felt by most boys in
our day. He had been taught geography in the practical, continental
manner, by being obliged to draw maps from memory. He had been
instructed in history, not by parallels, but as it were by tangents, a
method productive of odd results, and he had advanced just far enough in
the study of mathematics to be thoroughly confused by the terms
"differentiation" and "integration." Besides these subjects, a multitude
of moral and natural sciences had been made to pass in a sort of
panorama before his intellectual vision, including physics, chemistry,
logic, rhetoric, ethics and political economy, with a view to
cultivating in him the spirit of the age. The Ministry of Public
Instruction having decreed that the name of God shall be for ever
eliminated from all modern books in use in Italian schools and
universities, Orsino's religious instruction had been imparted at home
and had at least the advantage of being homogeneous.
It must not be supposed that Orsino's father and mother were satisfied
with this sort of education. But it was not easy to foresee what social
and political changes might come about before the boy reached mature
manhood. Neither Giovanni nor his wife were of the absolutely
"intransigent" way of thinking. They saw no imperative reason to prevent
their sons from joining at some future time in the public life of their
country, though they themselves preferred not to associate with the
party at present in power. Moreover Giovanni Saracinesca saw that the
abolition of primogeniture had put an end to hereditary idleness, and
that although his sons would be rich enough to do nothing if they
pleased, yet his grandchildren would probably have to choose between
work and genteel poverty, if it pleased the fates to multiply the race.
He could indeed leave one half of his wealth intact to Orsino, but the
law required that the other half should be equally divided among all;
and as the same thing would take place in the second generation, unless
a reactionary revolution intervened, the property would before long be
divided into very small moieties indeed. For Giovanni had no idea of
imposing celibacy upon his younger sons, still less of exerting any
influence he possessed to make them enter the Church. He was too broad
in his views for that. They promised to turn out as good men in a
struggle as the majority of those who would be opposed to them in life,
and they should fight their own battles unhampered by parental authority
or caste prejudice.
Many years earlier Giovanni had expressed his convictions in regard to
the change of order then imminent. He had said that he would fight as
long as there was anything to fight for, but that if the change came he
would make the best of it. He was now keeping his word. He had fought as
far as fighting had been possible and had sincerely wished that his
warlike career might have offered more excitement and opportunity for
personal distinction than had been afforded him in spending an afternoon
on horseback, listening to the singing of bullets overhead. His amateur
soldiering was over long ago, but he was strong, brave and intelligent,
and if he had been convinced that a second and more radical revolution
could accomplish any good result, he would have been capable of devoting
himself to its cause with a single-heartedness not usual in these days.
But he was not convinced. He therefore lived a quiet life, making the
best of the present, improving his lands and doing his best to bring up
his sons in such a way as to give them a chance of success when the
struggle should come. Orsino was his eldest born and the results of
modern education became apparent in him first, as was inevitable.
Orsino was at this time not quite twenty-one years of age, but the
important day was not far distant and in order to leave a lasting
memorial of the attaining of his majority Prince Saracinesca had decreed
that Corona should receive a portrait of her eldest son executed by the
celebrated Anastase Gouache. To this end the young man spent three
mornings in every week in the artist's palatial studio, a place about as
different from the latter's first den in the Via San Basilio as the
Basilica of Saint Peter is different from a roadside chapel in the
Abruzzi. Those who have seen the successful painter of the nineteenth
century in his glory will have less difficulty in imagining the scene of
Gouache's labours than the writer finds in describing it. The workroom
is a hall, the ceiling is a vault thirty feet high, the pavement is of
polished marble; the light enters by north windows which would not look
small in a good-sized church, the doors would admit a carriage and pair,
the tapestries upon the walls would cover the front of a modern house.
Everything is on a grand scale, of the best period, of the most genuine
description. Three or four originals of great masters, of Titian, of
Reubens, of Van Dyck, stand on huge easels in the most favourable
lights. Some scores of matchless antique fragments, both of bronze and
marble, are placed here and there upon superb carved tables and shelves
of the sixteenth century. The only reproduction visible in the place is
a very perfect cast of the Hermes of Olympia. The carpets are all of
Shiraz, Sinna, Gjordez or old Baku--no common thing of Smyrna, no
unclean aniline production of Russo-Asiatic commerce disturbs the
universal harmony. In a full light upon the wall hangs a single silk
carpet of wonderful tints, famous in the history of Eastern collections,
and upon it is set at a slanting angle a single priceless Damascus
blade--a sword to possess which an Arab or a Circassian would commit
countless crimes. Anastase Gouache is magnificent in all his tastes and
in all his ways. His studio and his dwelling are his only estate, his
only capital, his only wealth, and he does not take the trouble to
conceal the fact. The very idea of a fixed income is as distasteful to
him as the possibility of possessing it is distant and visionary. There
is always money in abundance, money for Faustina's horses and carriages,
money for Gouache's select dinners, money for the expensive fancies of
both. The paint pot is the mine, the brush is the miner's pick, and the
vein has never failed, nor the hand trembled in working it. A golden
youth, a golden river flowing softly to the red gold sunset of the
end--that is life as it seems to Anastase and Faustina.
On the morning which opens this chronicle, Anastase was standing before
his canvas, palette and brushes in hand, considering the nature of the
human face in general and of young Orsino's face in particular.
"I have known your father and mother for centuries," observed the
painter with a fine disregard of human limitations. "Your father is the
brown type of a dark man, and your mother is the olive type of a dark
woman. They are no more alike than a Red Indian and an Arab, but you are
like both. Are you brown or are you olive, my friend? That is the
question. I would like to see you angry, or in love, or losing at play.
Those things bring out the real complexion."
Orsino laughed and showed a remarkably solid set of teeth. But he did
not find anything to say.
"I would like to know the truth about your complexion," said Anastase,
meditatively.
"I have no particular reason for being angry," answered Orsino, "and I
am not in love--"
"At your age! Is it possible!"
"Quite. But I will play cards with you if you like," concluded the young
man.
"No," returned the other. "It would be of no use. You would win, and if
you happened to win much, I should be in a diabolical scrape. But I wish
you would fall in love. You should see how I would handle the green
shadows under your eyes."
"It is rather short notice."
"The shorter the better. I used to think that the only real happiness in
life lay in getting into trouble, and the only real interest in getting
out."
"And have you changed your mind?"
"I? No. My mind has changed me. It is astonishing how a man may love his
wife under favourable circumstances."
Anastase laid down his brushes and lit a cigarette. Reubens would have
sipped a few drops of Rhenish from a Venetian glass. Teniers would have
lit a clay pipe. Dürer would perhaps have swallowed a pint of Nüremberg
beer, and Greuse or Mignard would have resorted to their snuff-boxes. We
do not know what Michelangelo or Perugino did under the circumstances,
but it is tolerably evident that the man of the nineteenth century
cannot think without talking and cannot talk without cigarettes.
Therefore Anastase began to smoke and Orsino, being young and imitative,
followed his example.
"You have been an exceptionally fortunate man," remarked the latter, who
was not old enough to be anything but cynical in his views of life.
"Do you think so? Yes--I have been fortunate. But I do not like to think
that my happiness has been so very exceptional. The world is a good
place, full of happy people. It must be--otherwise purgatory and hell
would be useless institutions."
"You do not suppose all people to be good as well as happy then," said
Orsino with a laugh.
"Good? What is goodness, my friend? One half of the theologians tell us
that we shall be happy if we are good and the other half assure us that
the only way to be good is to abjure earthly happiness. If you will
believe me, you will never commit the supreme error of choosing between
the two methods. Take the world as it is, and do not ask too many
questions of the fates. If you are willing to be happy, happiness will
come in its own shape."
Orsino's young face expressed rather contemptuous amusement. At twenty,
happiness is a dull word, and satisfaction spells excitement.
"That is the way people talk," he said. "You have got everything by
fighting for it, and you advise me to sit still till the fruit drops
into my mouth."
"I was obliged to fight. Everything comes to you naturally--fortune,
rank--everything, including marriage. Why should you lift a hand?"
"A man cannot possibly be happy who marries before he is thirty years
old," answered Orsino with conviction. "How do you expect me to occupy
myself during the next ten years?"
"That is true," Gouache replied, somewhat thoughtfully, as though the
consideration had not struck him.
"If I were an artist, it would be different."
"Oh, very different. I agree with you." Anastase smiled good-humouredly.
"Because I should have talent--and a talent is an occupation in itself."
"I daresay you would have talent," Gouache answered, still laughing.
"No--I did not mean it in that way--I mean that when a man has a talent
it makes him think of something besides himself."
"I fancy there is more truth in that remark than either you or I would
at first think," said the painter in a meditative tone.
"Of course there is," returned the youthful philosopher, with more
enthusiasm than he would have cared to show if he had been talking to a
woman. "What is talent but a combination of the desire to do and the
power to accomplish? As for genius, it is never selfish when it is at
work."
"Is that reflection your own?"
"I think so," answered Orsino modestly. He was secretly pleased that a
man of the artist's experience and reputation should be struck by his
remark.
"I do not think I agree with you," said Gouache.
Orsino's expression changed a little. He was disappointed, but he said
nothing.
"I think that a great genius is often ruthless. Do you remember how
Beethoven congratulated a young composer after the first performance of
his opera? 'I like your opera--I will write music to it.' That was a
fine instance of unselfishness, was it not. I can see the young man's
face--" Anastase smiled.
"Beethoven was not at work when he made the remark," observed Orsino,
defending himself.
"Nor am I," said Gouache, taking up his brushes again. "If you will
resume the pose--so--thoughtful but bold--imagine that you are already
an ancestor contemplating posterity from the height of a nobler age--you
understand. Try and look as if you were already framed and hanging in
the Saracinesca gallery between a Titian and a Giorgione."
Orsino resumed his position and scowled at Anastase with a good will.
"Not quite such a terrible frown, perhaps," suggested the latter. "When
you do that, you certainly look like the gentleman who murdered the
Colonna in a street brawl--I forget how long ago. You have his portrait.
But I fancy the Princess would prefer--yes--that is more natural. You
have her eyes. How the world raved about her twenty years ago--and raves
still, for that matter."
"She is the most beautiful woman in the world," said Orsino. There was
something in the boy's unaffected admiration of his mother which
contrasted pleasantly with his youthful affectation of cynicism and
indifference. His handsome face lighted up a little, and the painter
worked rapidly.
But the expression was not lasting. Orsino was at the age when most
young men take the trouble to cultivate a manner, and the look of
somewhat contemptuous gravity which he had lately acquired was already
becoming habitual. Since all men in general have adopted the fashion of
the mustache, youths who are still waiting for the full crop seem to
have difficulty in managing their mouths. Some draw in their lips with
that air of unnatural sternness observable in rough weather among
passengers on board ship, just before they relinquish the struggle and
retire from public life. Others contract their mouths to the shape of a
heart, while there are yet others who lose control of the pendant lower
lip and are content to look like idiots, while expecting the hairy
growth which is to make them look like men. Orsino had chosen the least
objectionable idiosyncrasy and had elected to be of a stern countenance.
When he forgot himself he was singularly handsome, and Gouache lay in
wait for his moments of forgetfulness.
"You are quite right," said the Frenchman. "From the classic point of
view your mother was and is the most beautiful dark woman in the world.
For myself--well in the first place, you are her son, and secondly I am
an artist and not a critic. The painter's tongue is his brush and his
words are colours."
"What were you going to say about my mother?" asked Orsino with some
curiosity.
"Oh--nothing. Well, if you must hear it, the Princess represents my
classical ideal, but not my personal ideal. I have admired some one else
more."
"Donna Faustina?" enquired Orsino.
"Ah well, my friend--she is my wife, you see. That always makes a great
difference in the degree of admiration--"
"Generally in the opposite direction," Orsino observed in a tone of
elderly unbelief.
Gouache had just put his brush into his mouth and held it between his
teeth as a poodle carries a stick, while he used his thumb on the
canvas. The modern painter paints with everything, not excepting his
fingers. He glanced at his model and then at his work, and got his
effect before he answered.
"You are very hard upon marriage," he said quietly. "Have you tried it?"
"Not yet. I will wait as long as possible, before I do. It is not every
one who has your luck."
"There was something more than luck in my marriage. We loved each other,
it is true, but there were difficulties--you have no idea what
difficulties there were. But Faustina was brave and I caught a little
courage from her. Do you know that when the Serristori barracks were
blown up she ran out alone to find me merely because she thought I might
have been killed? I found her in the ruins, praying for me. It was
sublime."
"I have heard that. She was very brave--"
"And I a poor Zouave--and a poorer painter. Are there such women
nowadays? Bah! I have not known them. We used to meet at churches and
exchange two words while her maid was gone to get her a chair. Oh, the
good old time! And then the separations--the taking of Rome, when the
old Princess carried all the family off to England and stayed there
while we were fighting for poor France--and the coming back and the
months of waiting, and the notes dropped from her window at midnight and
the great quarrel with her family when we took advantage of the new law.
And then the marriage itself--what a scandal in Rome! But for the
Princess, your mother, I do not know what we should have done. She
brought Faustina to the church and drove us to the station in her own
carriage--in the face of society. They say that Ascanio Bellegra hung
about the door of the church while we were being married, but he had not
the courage to come in, for fear of his mother. We went to Naples and
lived on salad and love--and we had very little else for a year or two.
I was not much known, then, except in Rome, and Roman society refused to
have its portrait painted by the adventurer who had run away with a
daughter of Casa Montevarchi. Perhaps, if we had been rich, we should
have hated each other by this time. But we had to live for each other in
those days, for every one was against us. I painted, and she kept
house--that English blood is always practical in a desert. And it was a
desert. The cooking--it would have made a billiard ball's hair stand on
end with astonishment. She made the salad, and then evolved the roast
from the inner consciousness. I painted a chaudfroid on an old plate. It
was well done--the transparent quality of the jelly and the delicate
ortolans imprisoned within, imploring dissection. Well, must I tell you?
We threw it away. It was martyrdom. Saint Anthony's position was
enviable compared with ours. Beside us that good man would have seemed
but a humbug. Yet we lived through it all. I repeat it. We lived, and we
were happy. It is amazing, how a man may love his wife."
Anastase had told his story with many pauses, working hard while he
spoke, for though he was quite in earnest in all he said, his chief
object was to distract the young man's attention, so as to bring out his
natural expression. Having exhausted one of the colours he needed, he
drew back and contemplated his work. Orsino seemed lost in thought.
"What are you thinking about?" asked the painter.
"Do you think I am too old to become an artist?" enquired the young man.
"You? Who knows? But the times are too old. It is the same thing."
"I do not understand."
"You are in love with the life--not with the profession. But the life is
not the same now, nor the art either. Bah! In a few years I shall be out
of fashion. I know it. Then we will go back to first principles. A
garret to live in, bread and salad for dinner. Of course--what do you
expect? That need not prevent us from living in a palace as long as we
can."
Thereupon Anastase Gouache hummed a very lively little song as he
squeezed a few colours from the tubes. Orsino's face betrayed his
discontentment.
"I was not in earnest," he said. "At least, not as to becoming an
artist. I only asked the question to be sure that you would answer it
just as everybody answers all questions of the kind--by discouraging my
wish do anything for myself."
"Why should you do anything? You are so rich!"
"What everybody says! Do you know what we rich men, or we men who are to
be rich, are expected to be? Farmers. It is not gay."
"It would be my dream--pastoral, you know--Normandy cows, a river with
reeds, perpetual Angelus, bread and milk for supper. I adore milk. A
nymph here and there--at your age, it is permitted. My dear friend, why
not be a farmer?"
Orsino laughed a little, in spite of himself.
"I suppose that is an artist's idea of farming."
"As near the truth as a farmer's idea of art, I daresay," retorted
Gouache.
"We see you paint, but you never see us at work. That is the
difference--but that is not the question. Whatever I propose, I get the
same answer. I imagine you will permit me to dislike farming as a
profession."
"For the sake of argument, only," said Gouache gravely.
"Good. For the sake of argument. We will suppose that I am myself in all
respects what I am, excepting that I am never to have any land, and only
enough money to buy cigarettes. I say, 'Let me take a profession. Let me
be a soldier.' Every one rises up and protests against the idea of a
Saracinesca serving in the Italian army. Why? Remember that your father
was a volunteer officer under Pope Pius Ninth.' It is comic. He spent an
afternoon on the Pincio for his convictions, and then retired into
private life. 'Let me serve in a foreign army--France, Austria, Russia,
I do not care.' They are more horrified than ever. 'You have not a spark
of patriotism! To serve a foreign power! How dreadful! And as for the
Russians, they are all heretics.' Perhaps they are. I will try
diplomacy. 'What? Sacrifice your convictions? Become the blind
instrument of a scheming, dishonest ministry? It is unworthy of a
Saracinesca!' I will think no more about it. Let me be a lawyer and
enter public life. 'A lawyer indeed! Will you wrangle in public with
notaries' sons, defend murderers and burglars, and take fees like the
old men who write letters for the peasants under a green umbrella in
the street? It would be almost better to turn musician and give
concerts.' 'The Church, perhaps?' I suggest. 'The Church? Are you not
the heir, and will you not be the head of the family some day? You must
be mad.' 'Then give me a sum of money and let me try my luck with my
cousin San Giacinto.' 'Business? If you make money it is a degradation,
and with these new laws you cannot afford to lose it. Besides, you will
have enough of business when you have to manage your estates.' So all my
questions are answered, and I am condemned at twenty to be a farmer for
my natural life. I say so. 'A farmer, forsooth! Have you not the world
before you? Have you not received the most liberal education? Are you
not rich? How can you take such a narrow view! Come out to the Villa and
look at those young thoroughbreds, and afterwards we will drop in at the
club before dinner. Then there is that reception at the old Principessa
Befana's to-night, and the Duchessa della Seccatura is also at home.'
That is my life, Monsieur Gouache. There you have the question, the
answer and the result. Admit that it is not gay."
"It is very serious, on the contrary," answered Gouache who had listened
to the detached Jeremiah with more curiosity and interest than he often
shewed.
"I see nothing for it, but for you to fall in love without losing a
single moment."
Orsino laughed a little harshly.
"I am in the humour, I assure you," he answered.
"Well, then--what are you waiting for?" enquired Gouache, looking at
him.
"What for? For an object for my affections, of course. That is rather
necessary under the circumstances."
"You may not wait long, if you will consent to stay here another quarter
of an hour," said Anastase with a laugh. "A lady is coming, whose
portrait I am painting--an interesting woman--tolerably
beautiful--rather mysterious--here she is, you can have a good look at
her, before you make up your mind."
Anastase took the half-finished portrait of Orsino from the easel and
put another in its place, considerably further advanced in execution.
Orsino lit a cigarette in order to quicken his judgment, and looked at
the canvas.
The picture was decidedly striking and one felt at once that it must be
a good likeness. Gouache was evidently proud of it. It represented a
woman, who was certainly not yet thirty years of age, in full dress,
seated in a high, carved chair against a warm, dark background. A mantle
of some sort of heavy, claret-coloured brocade, lined with fur, was
draped across one of the beautiful shoulders, leaving the other bare,
the scant dress of the period scarcely breaking the graceful lines from
the throat to the soft white hand, of which the pointed fingers hung
carelessly over the carved extremity of the arm of the chair. The lady's
hair was auburn, her eyes distinctly yellow. The face was an unusual one
and not without attraction, very pale, with a full red mouth too wide
for perfect beauty, but well modelled--almost too well, Gouache thought.
The nose was of no distinct type, and was the least significant feature
in the face, but the forehead was broad and massive, the chin soft,
prominent and round, the brows much arched and divided by a vertical
shadow which, in the original, might be the first indication of a tiny
wrinkle. Orsino fancied that one eye or the other wandered a very
little, but he could not tell which--the slight defect made the glance
disquieting and yet attractive. Altogether it was one of those faces
which to one man say too little, and to another too much.
Orsino affected to gaze upon the portrait with unconcern, but in reality
he was oddly fascinated by it, and Gouache did not fail to see the
truth.
"You had better go away, my friend," he said, with a smile. "She will be
here in a few minutes and you will certainly lose your heart if you see
her."
"What is her name?" asked Orsino, paying no attention to the remark.
"Donna Maria Consuelo--something or other--a string of names ending in
Aragona. I call her Madame d'Aragona for shortness, and she does not
seem to object."
"Married? And Spanish?"
"I suppose so," answered Gouache. "A widow I believe. She is not Italian
and not French, so she must be Spanish."
"The name does not say much. Many people put 'd'Aragona' after their
names--some cousins of ours, among others--they are Aranjuez
d'Aragona--my father's mother was of that family."
"I think that is the name--Aranjuez. Indeed I am sure of it, for
Faustina remarked that she might be related to you."
"It is odd. We have not heard of her being in Rome--and I am not sure
who she is. Has she been here long?"
"I have known her a month--since she first came to my studio. She lives
in a hotel, and she comes alone, except when I need the dress and then
she brings her maid, an odd creature who never speaks and seems to
understand no known language."
"It is an interesting face. Do you mind if I stay till she comes? We
may really be cousins, you know."
"By all means--you can ask her. The relationship would be with her
husband, I suppose."
"True. I had not thought of that; and he is dead, you say?"
Gouache did not answer, for at that moment the lady's footfall was heard
upon the marble floor, soft, quick and decided. She paused a moment in
the middle of the room when she saw that the artist was not alone. He
went forward to meet her and asked leave to present Orsino, with that
polite indistinctness which leaves to the persons introduced the task of
discovering one another's names.
Orsino looked into the lady's eyes and saw that the slight peculiarity
of the glance was real and not due to any error of Gouache's drawing. He
recognised each feature in turn in the one look he gave at the face
before he bowed, and he saw that the portrait was indeed very good. He
was not subject to shyness.
"We should be cousins, Madame," he said. "My father's mother was an
Aranjuez d'Aragona."
"Indeed?" said the lady with calm indifference, looking critically at
the picture of herself.
"I am Orsino Saracinesca," said the young man, watching her with some
admiration.
"Indeed?" she repeated, a shade less coldly. "I think I have heard my
poor husband say that he was connected with your family. What do you
think of my portrait? Every one has tried to paint me and failed, but my
friend Monsieur Gouache is succeeding. He has reproduced my hideous nose
and my dreadful mouth with a masterly exactness. No--my dear Monsieur
Gouache--it is a compliment I pay you. I am in earnest. I do not want a
portrait of the Venus of Milo with red hair, nor of the Minerva Medica
with yellow eyes, nor of an imaginary Medea in a fur cloak. I want
myself, just as I am. That is exactly what you are doing for me. Myself
and I have lived so long together that I desire a little memento of the
acquaintance."
"You can afford to speak lightly of what is so precious to others," said
Gouache, gallantly. Madame d'Aranjuez sank into the carved chair Orsino
had occupied.
"This dear Gouache--he is charming, is he not?" she said with a little
laugh. Orsino looked at her.
"Gouache is right," he thought, with the assurance of his years. "It
would be amusing to fall in love with her."