saw two ladies leaving the doorway at the base of the Leaning Tower;
evidently they had been making the ascent. They went across to the
baptistery to see the pulpit of Nicolo the Pisan. "Now they're going to
make the old shed howl," he said to himself. This was the disrespectful
way in which he thought of the famous echo.
At Pisa the atmosphere clothes the cathedral with a softness which no
Northern marbles can ever hope to attain. The façade, perfect in
proportion and beauty, rises with its columns and galleries from the
greensward, facing the sculptured baptistery; on the other side the
celebrated and fantastic tower for the bells stands, like a tree which
has been made to slant by the furious wind, looking across the plain
towards the sea.
Maso stretched himself on the grass under the façade of the cathedral.
After a while the ladies came from the baptistery, and crossed to the
Campo Santo. In the relaxation of the dull season the portal had been
left open behind them, and the boy went over and wandered about within,
carrying Mr. Tiber under his jacket, half concealed, as dogs are not
allowed in the sacred enclosure. He looked at the frescos of Benozzo,
at the "Last Judgment" and the "Triumph of Death." He passed the
celebrated sarcophagus without knowing what it was, his attention being
more attracted by the modern monuments, the large marble figures, seated
and standing, that stared down upon him with their unmoving white eyes.
At last he sat down at the base of one of these figures to rest, for the
air here was cool compared with the atmosphere outside. The two
strangers, in their slow progress, looking at everything, guide-book in
hand, had passed him once; now on their second round they stopped near
him at the doorway, preparing for departure. "Well, there is nothing
more to see in Pisa," said one. "Thank Heaven! Pisa's done. Now we can
go on to Lerici."
"We haven't found those plates yet," objected the other.
"What plates?"
"Why, don't you remember? They say there are old majolica plates set in
one of the campaniles here--trophies taken from the Moors ages ago. I've
stared up at every campanile, and haven't seen a sign. I wonder if that
boy would know? What a forlorn-looking creature!"
Maso, in truth, in his third-best suit, and obliged to be economical
regarding the bills of the cobbler's wife, who acted as his laundress,
did not present an attractive appearance.
The lady, turning towards him, had begun, "Sapete uno posata in
campanile--" But resenting her comment, Maso had risen and walked away.
"Evidently he isn't Italian, for he doesn't understand," said the
questioner, who was accustomed to declare that it was very easy for her
to travel abroad, as she spoke "five languages equally well." "Perhaps
he is German--with that light hair." She ran after him. "Tisch," she
called, "in thurm. Haben-sie gesehn ein?"
"I speak English," said Maso, stopping.
"You're never English, surely!"
"I'm American."
"American? We are Americans; but I should never have taken _you_ for
one!" Then she asked her question about the plates. Maso had never heard
of them; he told her so, and made his escape, going back to the grass
under the façade. "Ugly old things," he thought, "both of them! I just
wish they could see _mother_." And forgetting his own mortification, his
heart swelled with pride as he recalled her pretty face and pretty step,
and the general perfection of her appearance. Only four weeks or so and
he should be with her! "Mr. Tiber, pim here. We're going to Switzerland.
Do you hear that? I shall take you in a basket and pretend you's lunch.
The nobil empress" (this character, in the dog language, was Mrs.
Roscoe) "says you mut promit not to bark. But you can bark now. Hi! Mr.
Tiber. Hi!"
And Mr. Tiber hied. And then, at the word of command, performed every
trick he knew.
V
The cheese-shop was blazing with the light of four flaring gas-burners;
the floor had been watered a short time before, and this made the
atmosphere reek more strongly than ever with the odors of the smoked
fish and sausages, caviare and oil, which, with the cheese, formed the
principal part of the merchandise offered for sale. There was no current
of air passing through from the open door, for the atmosphere outside
was perfectly still. Tranquilly hovering mosquitoes were everywhere, but
Maso did not mind these much; he objected more to the large black
beetles that came noiselessly out at night; he hated the way they stood
on the shelves as if staring at him, motionless save for the waving to
and fro of their long antennæ. A boy came in to buy cheese. It was soft
cheese; Maso weighed it, and put it upon a grape leaf. "It just gets
hotter and hotter!" he remarked, indignantly. The Italian lad did not
seem to mind the heat much; he was buttery with perspiration from
morning until night, but as he had known no other atmosphere than that
of Pisa, he supposed that this was the normal summer condition of the
entire world. It was the 27th of August.
On the last day of July, when Maso's every breath was accompanied by an
anticipation of Switzerland, there had arrived a long disappointed
letter from his mother; the hoped-for money had not come, and would not
come: "Reuben John again!" The Swiss trip must be given up, and now the
question was, could Mr. Waterhouse keep him awhile longer? "Because if
he cannot, I shall return to the Bagni next week." Maso, though choked
with the disappointment, composed a letter in which he said that old
Longlegs was delighted to keep him, and was sorry he could not write
himself, but his arm continued stiff; "probly heel never be able to
write agane," he added, darkly, so as to make an end, once for all, of
that complicated subject. There was no need of her return, not the
least; he and Mr. Tiber were well, "and having loads of fun"; and,
besides, there was not a single empty room in the hotel or anywhere
else, and would not be until the 6th of September; there had never been
such a crowd at the Bagni before. He read over what he had written, and
perceiving that he had given an impression of great gayety at the
Italian watering-place, he added, "P.S. peple all cooks turists." (For
Mrs. Roscoe was accustomed to declare that she hated these inoffensive
travellers.) Then he signed his name in the usual way: "your
affecshionate son, Maso." He never could help blotting when he wrote his
name--probably because he was trying to write particularly well. Mrs.
Roscoe once said that it was always either blot "so," or "Ma" blot; this
time it was "Ma" blot.
This letter despatched, the boy's steadiness broke down. He did not go
back to the cheese-seller's shop; he lived upon the money he had earned,
and when that was gone he sold his clothes, keeping only those he wore
and his best suit, with a change of under-clothing. Next he sold his
trunk; then his school-books, though they brought but a few centimes.
The old fairy-book he kept; he read it during the hot noon-times, lying
on the floor, with Mr. Tiber by his side. The rest of the day he devoted
to those pleasures of which he had dreamed. He went swimming, and stayed
in for hours; and he made Mr. Tiber swim. He indulged himself as
regarded melons; he went to the puppet-show accompanied by Mr. Tiber; he
had had his hair cut so closely that it was hardly more than yellow
down; and he swaggered about the town in the evening smoking cigarettes.
After three weeks of this vagabond existence he went back to the
cheese-seller, offering to work for half-wages. His idea was to earn
money enough for his fare to the Bagni, and also to pay for the washing
of his few clothes, so that he might be in respectable condition to meet
his mother on the 6th of September; for on the 6th the four months would
be up, and she could safely return. This was his constant thought. Of
late he had spoken of the 6th in his letters, and she had agreed to it,
so there was no doubt of her coming. To-day, August 27th, he had been at
work for a week at the cheese-seller's, and the beetles were blacker and
more crafty than ever.
It was Saturday night, and the shop was kept open late; but at last he
was released, and went home. The cobbler's wife handed him his letter,
and he stopped to read it by the light of the strongly smelling
petroleum lamp. For he had only a short end of a candle up-stairs; and,
besides, he could not wait, he was so sure that he should find, within,
the magic words, "I shall come by the train that reaches Lucca at--" and
then a fixed date and hour written down in actual figures on the page.
The letter announced that his mother had put off her return for three
weeks: she was going to Paris. "As you are having such a wonderfully
good time at the Bagni this summer, you won't mind this short delay. If
by any chance Mr. Waterhouse cannot keep you so long, let him telegraph
me. No telegram will mean that he can." She spoke of the things she
should bring to him from Paris, and the letter closed with the sentence,
"I am so glad I have thought of this delightful idea before settling
down again in that deadly Casa Corti for the winter." (But the idea had
a human shape. Violet Roscoe's ideas were often personified; they took
the form of agreeable men.)
"Evil news? Tell me not so!" said the cobbler's wife, who had noticed
the boy's face as he read.
"Pooh! no," answered Maso, stoutly. He put the letter into his pocket
and went up to his room. As he unlocked his door, there was not the
usual joyful rush of Mr. Tiber against his legs; the silence was
undisturbed. He struck a match on the wall and lighted his candle-end.
There, in the corner, on his little red coverlid, lay Mr. Tiber asleep.
Then, as the candle burned more brightly, it could be seen that it was
not sleep. There was food on the tin plate and water in the bowl; he had
not needed anything. There was no sign of suffering in the attitude, or
on the little black face with its closed eyes (to Maso that face had
always been as clearly intelligible as a human countenance); the
appearance was as if the dog had sought his own corner and his coverlid,
and had laid himself down to die very peacefully without a pain or a
struggle.
The candle-end had long burned itself out, and the boy still lay on the
floor with his arm round his pet. It seemed to him that his heart would
break. "Mr. Tiber, dear little Tiber, my own little doggie--dying here
all alone!--kinnin little chellow!" Thus he sobbed and sobbed until he
was worn out. Towards dawn came the thought of what must follow. But no;
Mr. Tiber should not be taken away and thrown into some horrible place!
If he wished to prevent it, however, he must be very quick. He had one
of the large colored handkerchiefs which Italians use instead of
baskets; as the dawn grew brighter he spread it out, laid his pet
carefully in the centre, and knotted the corners together tightly;
then, after bathing his face to conceal as much as possible the traces
of his tears, he stole down the stairs, and, passing through the town,
carrying his burden in the native fashion, he took a road which led
towards the hills.
It was a long walk. The little body which had been so light in life
weighed now like lead; but it might have been twice as heavy, he would
not have been conscious of it. He reached the place at last, the house
where Giulio's wife lived, with her five children, near one of the
hill-side villages which, as seen from Pisa, shine like white spots on
the verdure. Paola came out from her dark dwelling, and listened to his
brief explanation with wonder. To take so much trouble for a dog! But
she was a mild creature, her ample form cowlike, her eyes cowlike also,
and therefore beautiful; she accompanied him, and she kept the curious
crowding children in some kind of order while the boy, with her spade,
dug a grave in the corner of a field which she pointed out. Maso dug and
dug in the heat. He was so afraid of the peasant cupidity that he did
not dare to leave the dog wrapped in the cotton handkerchief, lest the
poor little tomb should be rifled to obtain it; he gave it, therefore,
to one of the children, and, gathering fresh leaves, he made a bed of
them at the bottom of the hole; then leaning down, he laid his pet
tenderly on the green, and covered him thickly with more foliage, the
softest he could find. When the last trace of the little black head had
disappeared he took up the spade, and with eyes freshly wet again in
spite of his efforts to prevent it, he filled up the grave as quickly as
he could, levelling the ground smoothly above it. He had made his
excavation very deep, in order that no one should meddle with the place
later: it would be too much trouble.
It was now nearly noon. He gave Paola three francs, which was half of
all he possessed. Then, with one quick glance towards the corner of the
field, he started on his long walk back to Pisa.
VI
"Do you know where you'll end, Roberta! You'll end with us," said Mrs.
Harrowby.
"With you?"
"Yes; in the Church. You've tried everything, beginning with geology and
ending with music (I can't help laughing at the last; you never had any
ear), and you have found no satisfaction. You are the very kind to come
to us; they always do."
The speaker, an American who lived in Naples, had entered the Roman
Catholic Church ten years before; in Boston she had been a Unitarian. It
was the 10th of September, and she was staying for a day in Pisa on her
way southward; she had encountered Miss Spring by chance in the piazza
of Santa Caterina at sunset, and the two had had a long talk with the
familiarity which an acquaintance in childhood carries with it, though
years of total separation may have intervened.
"There is one other alternative," answered Miss Spring; "it was
suggested by a pretty little woman who used to be here. She advised me
to try crystal scent-bottles and dissipation." This being a joke, Miss
Spring had intended to smile; but at this instant her attention was
attracted by something on the other side of the street, and her face
remained serious.
"Crystal scent-bottles? Dissipation? Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Harrowby.
"What _do_ you mean?"
But her companion had gone; she was hurrying across the street. "It
isn't possible, Maso, that this is _you!_" She spoke to a ragged,
sick-looking boy.
Two hours after her question Maso was in bed in the Palazzo Rondinelli.
Madame Corti never came back till October, and the _pension_ was not
open, but servants were there. The house-keeper went through the form of
making protest: "The signora has always such great alarm about fever."
"You will refer Madame Corti to me; I will pay for her alarm," answered
Roberta, marching past her to direct the driver of the carriage, who was
assisting Maso up the stairs. "It's not infectious fever. Only
malarial." Roberta was something of a doctor herself. She superintended
in person the opening of a large, cool room on the second floor, the
making of the bed, and then the installation of Maso between linen
sheets. The servants were all fond of the boy; in addition, Madame Corti
was in Sorrento, and Miss Spring's francs were here. Her francs were
few, but she spent them for Maso as generously as though they had been
many.
The boy, as soon as he was in bed, whispered to Giulio, "Pencil--paper."
Then when Miss Spring had left the room, he scrawled on the page, Giulio
holding a book under it, "My dog is ded," and signed his name. He told
Giulio to give this to her when she came in; then, as he heard her step,
he quickly closed his eyes.
Miss Spring read, and understood. "He was afraid I would ask. And he
could not speak of it. He remembers, poor little fellow, that I did not
care for the dog."
Maso had refused to tell her where his mother was. "She's coming, on the
22d, to the Bagni di Lucca"; this was all he would say. The next morning
at daylight she left him with the nurse (for she had sent immediately
for Dr. Prior and for one of the best nurses in Pisa), and, driving to
the Street of the Lily, she ascended the unclean stairs, with her skirts
held high and her glasses on, to the room at the top of the house. Maso
had himself gathered his few possessions together after his meeting with
her in the piazza of Santa Caterina, but he had not had the strength to
carry them down to the lower door. Miss Spring took the two parcels,
which were tied up in newspapers, and after looking about to see that
there was nothing left, she descended in the same gingerly way, and
re-entered the carriage which was waiting at the door, its wheels
grazing the opposite house. "Yes, he is ill; malarial fever. But we hope
he will recover," she said to the cobbler's wife, who inquired with
grief and affection, and a very dirty face.
To find Mrs. Roscoe's address, so that she could telegraph to her, Miss
Spring was obliged to look through Maso's parcels. She could not ask his
permission, for he recognized no one now; his mind wandered. One of the
bundles contained the best suit, still carefully saved for his mother's
arrival. The other held his few treasures: his mother's letters, with
paper and envelopes for his own replies; the old fairy-book; and Mr.
Tiber's blanket, coverlid, and little collar, wrapped in a clean
handkerchief. The latest letter gave the Paris address.
* * * * *
"My dear little boy! If I could only have known!" moaned Violet Roscoe,
sitting on the edge of the bed with her child in her arms. She had just
arrived; her gloves were still on. "Oh, Maso, why didn't you tell me?"
Maso's face, gaunt and brown, lay on her shoulder; his eyes were
strange, but he knew her. "You mustn't get sick again, mother," he
murmured, anxiously, the fixed idea of the summer asserting itself. Then
a wider recollection dawned. "Oh, mother," he whispered with his dry
lips, "Mr. Tiber's dead. Little Tiber!"
His fever-hot eyes could not shed tears, but his mother cried for him,
overwhelmed by the thought of his lonely sorrow. Then she tried to
comfort him: "Tiber was an old dog, Maso; he was not young when we
bought him, and we have had him many years. Dogs do not live very long,
even the oldest; he had to die some time. And he had a very happy little
life with you, always; you loved him, and gave him everything, and he
loved you. No dog could have had more."
Roberta overheard this attempt; she came to the bedside to add her item
also to the consolation. "Perhaps you will see your pet again, Maso. For
he had his vital spark as well as we have, though in a less degree. If
ours is to reappear in a future existence, I am inclined to think that
his will also. Why not?"
Maso did not understand her; his mother's voice alone reached his dulled
intelligence. But at least Roberta had done her best.
A month later Mr. Reuben J. Coe, of Coesville, New Hampshire, said to
his brother David: "That foolish wife of Tom's is coming home at last.
In spite of every effort on my part, she has made ducks and drakes of
almost all her money."
"Is that why she is coming back?"
"No; thinks it will be better for the boy. But I'm afraid it's too late
for that."
A FLORENTINE EXPERIMENT
One afternoon, three years ago, two ladies were talking together on the
heights of Fiesole overlooking Florence. They occupied the stone bench
which bears the inscription of its donor, an appreciative Englishman,
who in a philanthropical spirit has had it placed there for the benefit
of the pilgrims from all nations who come to these heights to see the
enchanting view. The two ladies were not speaking of the view, however,
but of something more personal. It seemed to be interesting.
"He is certainly much in love with you," said one, who was taller and
darker than her companion. As she spoke, she gave back a letter which
she had been reading.
"Yes, I think he is," said the other, reflectively, replacing it in its
envelope.
"I suppose you are so accustomed to it, Beatrice, that it does not make
much impression upon you," continued the first speaker, her glance as
she spoke resting not upon her companion, but upon the lovely levels
beneath, with the violet-hued mountains rising softly up round about
them, so softly that one forgot they were mountains until the eye caught
the gleam of snow on the summits towards the east. There was a pause
after this question, and it lasted so long that the questioner at
length removed her eyes from the landscape and turned them upon her
friend; to her surprise she saw that the friend was blushing.
"Why, Beatrice!" she exclaimed, "is it possible--"
"No," said Beatrice, "it is not possible. I know that I am blushing; but
you must not think too much of that. I am not as strong as I was, and
blush at everything; I am taking iron for it. In the present case, it
only means that--" She paused.
"That you like him," suggested the other, smiling.
"I like a number of persons," said Mrs. Lovell, tranquilly, gazing in
her turn down the broad, slightly winding valley, dotted with its little
white villages, and ending in a soft blue haze, through which the tawny
Arno, its course marked by a line of tall, slender, lightly foliaged,
seemingly branchless trees, like tall rods in leaf, went onward towards
the west.
"I know you do," said the first speaker. "And I really wish," she added,
with a slight touch of vehemence, "that your time would come--that I
should see you at last liking some one person really and deeply and
jealously, and to the exclusion of all the rest."
"I don't know why you should wish me unhappiness, Margaret. You have
beautiful theories, I know; but in my _experience_" (Mrs. Lovell
slightly underlined this word as if in opposition to the "theories" of
her friend) "the people who have those deeper sort of feelings you
describe are almost always very unhappy."
Margaret turned her head, and looked towards the waving line of the
Carrara mountains; in her eyes there was the reflection of a sudden
inward pain. But she knew that she could indulge in this momentary
expression of feeling; the mountains would not betray her, and the
friend by her side did not realize that anything especial could have
happened to "Margaret." In excuse for Mrs. Lovell it may be said that so
much that was very especial had always happened, and still continued to
happen, to her, that she had not much time for the more faintly colored
episodes of other people.
Beatrice Lovell was an unusually lovely woman. The adjective is here
used to signify that she inspired love. Not by an effort, word, action,
or hardly interest of her own; but simply because she was what she was.
Her beauty was not what is called striking; it touched the eye gently at
first, but always grew. People who liked to analyze said that the secret
lay in the fact that she had the sweetness, the tints, the surface
texture as it were, and even sometimes the expression, of childhood
still; and then, when you came to look deeper, you found underneath all
the richer bloom of the woman. Her golden hair, not thick or long, but
growing in little soft wavelets upon her small head; her delicate
rose-leaf skin, showing the blue veins; her little teeth and the shape
of her sweet mouth--all these were like childhood. In addition, she was
dimpled and round, with delicately cut features, and long-lashed violet
eyes, in whose soft depths lay always an expression of gentle trust.
This beautiful creature was robed to-day in widow's mourning-garb made
in the severest fashion, without one attempt to decorate or lighten it.
But the straight-skirted, untrimmed garments, the little close bonnet,
and the heavy veil pinned over it with straight crape-pins, only brought
out more vividly the tints of her beauty.
"No," she continued, as her companion did not speak, "I by no means wish
for the feelings you invoke for me. I am better off as I am; I keep my
self-possession. For instance, I told this Sicily person that it was in
very bad taste to speak to me in that way at such a time--so soon after
Mr. Lovell's death; and that I was much annoyed by it."
"It has not prevented his writing," said Margaret, coming back slowly
from the Carrara mountains, and letting her eyes rest upon the tower of
the Palazzo Vecchio below, springing above the city roofs like the stem
of a flower.
"They always write, I think," said Mrs. Lovell, simply.