THE DISCOVERY
I was to dine that night with the Prior of Saint Mark's, a former
acquaintance of mine, and I kept my engagement, though I left the party
early. My wound, which was painful but not dangerous, was not the cause
of that. The fact is that I was arrested while we were sitting over our
fruit and wine, at a moment when I was enunciating a favourite theory of
mine that this world is a garden for every man alive of us who happens
to be a gardener, and for no other; and that he only is a gardener who
lives for the joy of his labour and not for the material profit he can
make out of his toil. The Grand Inquisitor--that pock-marked Dominican
who had treated me with uncharitable harshness upon my first visit to
Florence--was present at table, and was upon the point of denouncing my
argument as perverse, unchristian and I know not what else; he had said,
"It is my deliberate opinion that detestable beliefs as are Atheism,
Calvinism, Mahometanism and the tenets of the Quietists, it were better
for a man to embrace all of them in one vast, comprehensive blasphemy,
than depend for their refutation upon any argument which Mr. Strelley
can advance----" when a friar opened the door and ushered in a
lieutenant of police and his guard. The officer saluted the company in
general and myself in particular. "Sir," he said politely to me, "I have
the honour to arrest you, in the Grand Duke's name, for the barbarous
murder of the most illustrious Marchese Deifobo Semifonte, for the
attempted murder of his Excellency Count Amadeo Giraldi, and for
contravention of the law of duelling. By express command of the Syndic I
am to put your honour in irons. Corporal, do your duty."
I said nothing in reply, but took leave of my host with all the proper
form of society, assuring him that I should take with me whithersover I
went a grateful memory of his beautiful and peaceful retirement; I bowed
to my fellow-guest, and then suffered the corporal to chain my hands
behind me. A coach was awaiting me at the gate; I entered it with the
lieutenant and was driven to the Bargello.
I was not ill-treated by any means. I had a small but decent chamber
assigned to me, and I was alone. When I demanded that my accusation
should be read over, in order that I might engage a lawyer for my
defence, I was assured that this would not be at all necessary, as there
would be no trial. In that case, I begged them to leave me to repose and
meditation, which they were so good as to do. I had an excellent night's
rest, and was very ready for my chocolate at eight o'clock in the
morning.
Whilst I was sipping this, expecting every moment the arrival of my
servant with my clothes, clean linen, letters, and a barber, I heard the
key turn in the lock, and made sure that it was Federigo. But the warder
introduced a muffled figure of a woman, who, when he had retired, came
quickly towards me, as if she was about to stab me. "Miserable young
man!" she said fiercely. It was Aurelia!
I sprang up, took, saluted her hand, "Madam," I said, "this is a
condescension which I am far from deserving. I have done nothing but my
duty."
Her eyes were very bright, and she was distressed for breath; but there
was an intensity in her manner--a fire, a flame--which made her
vehement.
"Your duty, indeed!" she cried. "When may I expect you to find your duty
elsewhere than in my affairs? Am I never to have paid off my original
debt to your lordship? It is not enough, it appears, that you make love
to me--but you must tell my husband all about it! It is not enough that
he drives me out of doors and that you refuse to come with me--no, but
you must wander about by yourself, telling all the world what you have
done. It is not enough that you make me love you, but you must needs
intrigue with a low-born girl, a thing of naught! And now, finally, you
come galloping into Florence again, and you--you----Oh, Heavens, I have
no patience left to speak of such things! How did you dare"--she stamped
her foot furiously, her cheeks were flame-red--"How did you dare do such
deeds? You have killed the marchese--dead; you have given Count Amadeo
three dangerous wounds and a fever; you are in every mouth, and not you
only, you wicked boy, but myself and my husband--and--and----" She wrung
her hands, she shook with anger, but at last she was silent. I ventured
to say that she did me wrong, though any wrong she did me would be
benevolence compared to my trespasses against her. I said that I had not
killed the marchese, who, on the contrary, had done his best to murder
me twice; and that as for the count, who had slandered her vilely and
deserved a felon's death, I had spared his life upon his retractation of
his calumny. "I hope," I said in conclusion, "that he told you to whom
he actually owed his life."
"He did, sir," said she haughtily; "he told me that you had been very
absurd, and had made him feel a fool--which he did not at all relish.
Oh, oh, oh!" she broke out with a little burst of laughter, "how could
you be so mad as to spare him for his pocket-handkerchief!"
"For a reason, madam," I said, "which does not amuse me at all."
"Nor should it," she agreed. "That was a serious thing that you did,
Checho. It was more serious than you seem to suppose. The wounds in his
person are nothing compared to what you did beside. He is a proud man,
and you have wounded his vanity. I doubt if he will ever be healed of
that stroke. Do you know what he said to me just now?"
She was perfectly friendly now, by my side, almost touching me with her
quick beautiful hands. With what seemed to me a levity no longer
becoming the woman she was grown to be, she talked of serious things
with sparkling eyes, and would give me confidences which she had
received from an impudent liar. In reply to her question I shook my
head. I could not speak to her just then, nor could I look at her.
She told me her story. "Count Amadeo said to me this morning, 'My
friend, the fact that I owe you this preposterous debt of initials makes
it more than doubtful whether I can ever endure to pay it off. I could
have had no objection to stand indebted to Don Francis for my life, but
I am a man of honour, with a name which I have some reason to value, and
I assure you that it is not tolerable to me that I should owe its
continuance in my person to the fact that my mistress's maiden name
began with the same letters.' He said also----"
But I had caught her by the arm. "No more," I cried, "No more, O God!"
She was alarmed. "You are ill, you are ill, Checho?"
I said, "I stand at a death-bed. Love lies dying down there. Hush. We
should be on our knees."
She was now weeping bitterly. "O lasso! O lasso! What have I done to
you?"
"I fought in your honour, madam," I said, commanding myself, "I dared a
murder in your defence. I would have stormed Hell's ramparts and put the
baleful city to the sword in the same cause. From that accursed day on
which I first saw you until now I have held you high before my face as
the glory of womanhood. And now you repeat the slander for which that
monster lay at my mercy. You repeat it--you allowed him to say it in
your ear!"
She was pale, her eyes were wide; but she did not retreat. "But," she
said, "but it is true, Checho. It is true. What he said to you was true--
and now--" she frowned as she pondered out what was to come; clouds
gathered over her beautiful, soulless face; she folded her arms,
clenched her teeth and stormed at me.
"You fool, you fool, you fool!" she said fiercely, panting for breath
with which to end me. "Oh, you dream-child, you moonraker, what are you
doing in a world where men work for their pleasures and women have to
cringe for the scraps? What was I to do when Porfirio shut me out of
doors, and you--you, who had caused it, refused to come with me? Was I
to spread my wings and fly straight into the lap of the Madonna? You
would say so, I suppose! Your flights were very fine, but one cannot
live on the wind. Any man but a poet would have picked me up at the door
and taken care of me with a 'Come, my beloved, we will fly together.'
But no! You were making eyes at the stars, and protesting that two of
them were my eyes, and the moon my forehead. And then--O Dio! and then,
when you found me again in Florence, what did you do? I was at my wit's
ends, and you kissed my hands! There! That was all--all--all--on the
word of a Christian! Did I not try to get more from you? Any one but a
poet would know that I did. I heard your long poems, I touched you, I
ran to meet you, I was kind, I was cross, I called you to me and then
turned my back upon you. And then I found out, sir, what your baciar-di-
mani, and bowings and reverences were worth. They were worth--myself.
You had your Virginia snug at home, in a brocaded gown, and a fan, my
word! Do you think I could not guess the truth of your story about her?
Her honour indeed! What have such rubbish to do with honour? A Virginia,
a baggage for your arms--and I, to have my hand kissed, and to yawn over
dreary verses! By the Madonna, but I did my best to stop that play. Let
me tell you, Don Francis, that it was I--I--I"--she struck her bosom
with each naming of herself--"who told Semifonte where he could lay
hands upon his chattel. You believed it was the count--it was I!"
Quivering, breathing fire and anger, beautiful as a goddess and wicked
as a fiend--what was I to say to this terrible witness? She had stayed
for lack of breath, panting, tapping her foot, her bosom heaving like
the sea under her close arms--and I was face to face with her, alone,
with ruin between us. So with a stamp of her little foot, so with a
flick of the fingers, it seems, she had broken her own image and killed
love outright. There and then love died, and his funeral knell was the
horrid barking laughter with which I greeted this end of her story.
"Madam," I said, when I had laughed hatefully and long, "I have robbed
you of a lover, and you, in return, have robbed me of my love. You ought
to be as much obliged to me as I am to you."
She scowled at me darkly. I think she would have stabbed me gladly, but
just then the warder entered with my servant, and an official from the
palace. This latter, with a profound salutation, handed me a letter from
the count. Asking leave, I opened it and read as follows:
MY DEAR DON FRANCIS,--I have just learned, with concern, that you are in
prison upon two charges--one false, and another which is trumpery. I
hasten to assure you that orders have been given which will satisfy your
sense of justice, and, I hope, improve your opinion of myself. I believe
that by this time you will have been assured that it was not I who
betrayed your confidences to Semifonte--who, between you and me, has got
his deserts, or (according to the orthodox) must now be getting them. As
for my more recent offence--the real ground of our little encounter--I
can assure you of this, that if I ever make any such assertion again,
and you again call me a liar, I shall not resent it; for a liar I shall
be. I kiss your hands and am, with the most perfect esteem,
"My dear Don Francis,
"Your most obedient, faithful, humble servant,
"COUNT AMADEO GIRALDI.
"P. S.--It may be discreet in you to repair to Lucca for the summer
heats. Pray command me in any occasion you may have."
My doors were set open. The first use I made of my freedom was to escort
Donna Aurelia to her chair. Without a word spoken between us, I handed
her in and shut to the door. The chairman asked me for a direction.
"To the house of Dr. Lanfranchi the learned judge," I said.