audaciously reposing in Hannibal's basket, which had been set outside to
air. The dachshund barked angrily; the cook did not set him free, but
hurried forward himself to eject the intruder; and as he did so, in some
way his foot slipped, and he came down full length on the grass with a
thud. And then Modesta, who had appeared at the kitchen door, began to
call out in excitement: "He laughs--behold him! Annibale _laughs_!" And,
in truth, the dog had that look as, with his mouth set in a broad grin,
his tongue hanging out a little, his tail wagging, and his eyes
brilliant with glee, he surveyed his prostrate companion. Modesta ran
and took him up. "Didst thou laugh, little one? Like a human creature?
And, indeed, thou art one; 'tis a man thou art!" Peppino, as soon as he
was on his feet again, was almost as much interested as she was; between
them they took off the towel, and dried him anew with a fresh one,
watching him tenderly meanwhile with bated breath, as though they were
expecting every instant to hear him speak.
In spite of her mirth, Gray had noticed that the eyes of the waitress
were reddened, as though she had been shedding tears.
At breakfast Dennison also noticed this. "Anything the matter?" he said.
"Ah, nothing, nothing," replied Modesta, waving her hand contemptuously.
"It is only that I am of so great a carelessness--I have shame about it.
Will they figure it to themselves that I actually took off the cover of
the large pepper-jar and emptied the contents into a bowl, my face held
over it meanwhile and a breeze blowing through the pantry! That was
acting like a fool; the pepper naturally flew into my eyes. But enough;
it will pass."
After breakfast Dennison went down to Tre Ponti on business connected
with his olive-grove. But he returned very soon, and, entering the
library, rang the bell sharply.
"What's up?" said Gray, who was writing letters by the window.
"A poor old man was terribly injured while passing the house this
morning; his donkey slipped on a rolling stone and fell, and the man was
thrown from his two-wheeled cart with great violence. Peppino was out
apparently--I can't imagine where, at that hour, as it's not his day for
going to town."
"He was down at the pond washing the dog; I was with him."
"That explains it. Modesta, therefore, having the field to herself,
absolutely refused to allow them to bring the poor creature in here; she
let him go in a jolting wagon down to Tre Ponti, telling me nothing
whatever about it. What makes it worse is that the man is a contadino
who used to work for me; he worked for me, in fact, until he grew too
old to work anywhere."
"Probably she has some reason for disliking him."
"On the contrary, she likes him; I happen to know it. And she has a very
soft heart for old people, for all kinds of infirmity and suffering. She
will fly down to see him upon the very first opportunity; she will rob
herself to take him the best food and wine, and everything else she can
think of; she will take the very pillows from her bed! She had cried her
eyes out over him, that was evident. With her yarn about the pepper!"
"But why in the world, then--"
"Simply because her idea is never to speak of unpleasant subjects to her
superiors if she can possibly avoid it; if forced to tell something of
the truth, she envelops it in roundabout, optimistic phrases that would
deceive even Solomon! But you'll hear for yourself. I'll translate what
she says afterwards."
Modesta now appeared in answer to the ring.
"Two men are coming to-day to work in the olive-grove," said Dennison;
"tell Peppino to have the tools ready; they will come every afternoon
for a week. Your eyes are better, I trust?"
"Almost well, as lordship can behold. It was too much
carelessness--mine--with that pepper!"
"Pepper, indeed; I feel peppery myself," replied Dennison. "Why didn't
you tell me about the man who was injured here this morning?"
"Eh--lordship has heard? It was a slight accident."
"His leg and his arm were broken, and you know it. Also his head was
cut."
"Most surely that is an error. It was a sprain, a wrench; nothing more."
"But I have seen him myself. And it was old Niccolo."
"Lordship has seen him? It is possible that it was Niccolo; I did not
observe closely."
"You should have come to my door and wakened me, instead of taking it
upon yourself to give orders," said Dennison.
"Oh!" exclaimed the waitress, with a vivid expression of repugnance in
her eyes. "Waken lordship to tell him of a trouble--a misfortune like
that? What, then, would become of his repose--his tranquillity?"
"You need not concern yourself about my tranquillity," answered
Dennison. But he gave it up. "You may go," he said. "Stay a minute," he
added; "I have provided a nurse for Niccolo, and a doctor, and he is to
be paid so much a day for the best food and wine; he will therefore
require nothing from you."
"Save my compassion," answered the waitress, the tears now rolling
freely down her cheeks, and reddening her eyes anew. "And that I give
with all my heart!" She lifted a corner of her apron to wipe away the
drops. "It was sad to see--the masters can imagine! So old a man, and
feeble. His white hair in the dust. But he knew me when I ran out. I
wept much."
"How about the pepper?" inquired Dennison, as she left the room.
But the waitress was not disturbed by the detection of her falsehood.
"The whole thing seems to her only the most ordinary duty to me," said
Dennison, after she had gone. "And if I had not happened to see Niccolo
with my own eyes, she would have stuck to her lie to the judgment-day.
Personally it was dreadful to her to send him away; she would have liked
nothing better than to have him here, in one of those cool rooms off the
court, where she could coddle him to her heart's content."
"Do you know, then, _I_ think what she did was in one way charming,"
said Gray. "All these Italian peasants seem to me to have the most
wonderful civility; their manners are always agreeable; they are almost
polished. Think of the manners of--"
"I refuse to think of anything; the discoveries made by you new-comers
are only exceeded by your conceit. For a thorough knowledge of the
Italian character give me the man who has spent, in all, six weeks in
Italy?"
The last day of Gray's visit came. As they sat at the breakfast-table,
his host said: "There's a powwow to-night, to celebrate something or
other, at one of the poderes about a mile from here. Modesta is going if
I give her permission. If I do, she won't be back until after midnight,
and the table service at dinner will therefore be at sixes and sevens.
As the day is so fine, we might take it for a drive to that tower on the
mountain--the one which is adorned, according to you, with a winding
outside stairway!"
"There certainly is a stairway," persisted Gray.
"And then we could get something in the way of a dinner at a little
summer hotel, which is already open for the season. There is a moon for
the drive back, and we could stop and have a look at the powwow before
coming home--as you're so athirst for everything Tuscan."
"Excellent. Jar!" said Gray.
"Jar? What jar?"
"Jar. Jarr, then, since you say I always cut my r's. _You_ ought to know
Italian when you hear it. Jar is what they all say to me when they mean
yes."
"You ridiculous object, 'già' is the word."
"That's exactly what I said: jar."
It was three o'clock when they started, and a beautiful May afternoon. A
pair of horses and the rattling phaeton had been sent to Casa Colombina
from Tre Ponti. Modesta had already departed.
"The celebration begins early," said Gray, as he saw her start.
"She isn't going there now," answered Dennison. "She will go first to
the house of Goro's mother, about half a mile from here; there she will
sit braiding straw and gossiping with the old woman in a dark,
cellar-like room, until the beloved object comes home and is ready to
accompany her. I dare say she is taking him something with which to make
himself smart for the occasion--a new necktie or a silk handkerchief."
As they passed out on their way to the carriage they caught a glimpse of
the distant white figure of the cook seated with his back towards them
outside of his kitchen door in the shade, occupying his leisure in
playing the flute; his notes, which just reached them, were soft and
long-drawn as sighs.
"What is it?" said Gray, listening. "I'm sure I know it."
"'Com' è gentil'; that is, 'O summer night.' Peppino is very sentimental
in his musical tastes."
"He doesn't go to the party, then?"
"He despises parties. _He_ goes in for bombs."
It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening when, on their
return from the drive, Dennison checked his horses in a hedge-bordered
lane, and stopped. (It may be mentioned that they did not reach the
tower; no one--that is, no stranger--has ever reached it. Italians are
indifferent to its mystery.) "This is the place," he said. "The house is
a quarter of a mile from here, and I could have taken you nearer by
keeping to the main road; but in that case they might have heard the
sound of our wheels. I haven't let any one know we were coming, so that
you can have a glimpse of the scene as it really is, and not tamed by
the presence of strangers." He tied the horses to the hedge, and,
climbing over a stone wall, led the way across a broad field, freshly
ploughed. On the other side of this field the ground ascended, and the
slope was covered by an olive-grove. The sparse gray foliage of the
pruned trees cast hardly more than a lace-work of shade upon the moonlit
ground, and the two men made their way upward easily; in ten minutes
they had reached the top. Here, on a broad plateau, stood the farm-house
with its out-buildings. Beyond the plateau the ground ascended again,
decked by another grove. The door and windows of the house were open,
and sounds of laughter came forth. The two Americans drew near
cautiously, walking as quietly as they could in the shadow of the trees.
But their care was unnecessary; all were assembled within, and no one
was looking either from the door or the windows; the noise, too, was so
great that no sound outside could have been heard even by a listening
ear. Dennison, making a détour, led the way round to one of the back
casements. This window, a small one, was breast-high; its little
lattices of lead-bordered panes had been thrown back; they opened into
the room, as the exterior of the window was guarded by iron rods set
close together. The two spectators outside, by looking between these
rods, obtained a view of the scene within. The room was large, low, and
smoke-browned; it was lighted by all the lamps the house could
muster--lamps of the old Tuscan pattern for olive-oil; there were also
earthen-ware saucers filled with the same oil, and carrying a floating
wick. Two candles illumined a supper-table which was placed across one
end of the apartment. This table bore upon its white linen cloth the
dishes of the feast--dishes and little else, as everything had been
eaten save bread, of which there was still a supply (in case any one
should feel a return of hunger). There were also fresh flasks of wine
for future thirst, and over a handful of coals on the hearth there was a
long-handled coffee-pot. A game was now going on, or, rather, a
pantomime; two men in masks were jumping about like harlequins, and
every now and then they seized a person from the ranks of spectators,
and whirled him or her round and round dizzily; there was guessing
connected with it in some way, as everybody called out names loudly; the
uproar was incessant, with occasional applause and a great deal of
laughter. The feet of the harlequins had raised much dust, and at last
the room became dim. "More light, more light, Filippo. We can't see,"
called several voices.
Filippo, a sinewy little man who had been acting as harlequin himself
(for the men took turns), consulted with his wife. They had no more
candles, and no more saucers and wicks; but they could make a blaze of
brushwood on the hearth, if the company would not mind the additional
heat? The wife, a laughing ample matron who still showed a handsome face
above her rotund person, opened a door into an out-building, and, after
some rummaging, produced three fagots of small, dry twigs; one of these
she placed over the coals, and in a minute or two a blaze leaped up the
wide chimney, lighting the room brilliantly. The game now went on with
redoubled vigor and glee, and the gazers without could see all the faces
of the circle distinctly.
"There is Modesta by the table," whispered Gray. "How she does laugh! It
doesn't seem natural."
"Oh yes, it is. That is the way they laugh sometimes; they can go on for
hours like children."
"Isn't that the Swedish girl with one of the harlequins? How
light-colored she looks in that tanned, black-haired crowd! She is
rather pretty; instead of letting her go back to Stockholm, one of these
Italian youths had better marry her."
"She probably holds herself above them," answered Dennison, in the same
low tone. "But, in any case, Tuscan peasants are extremely slow to marry
a person who is not a Tuscan. They call even Romans foreigners;
generally, too, they call them brutes! Well, we've been here twenty
minutes: had enough?"
They turned, and, making a second circuit of the house, they crossed the
plateau noiselessly, and re-entered the grove. They had gone but a few
paces down the slope when the distant voices and laughter suddenly grew
louder; looking back, they saw that the whole company had come outside,
following the harlequins, each one of whom held a girl by the elbows,
and was whirling her over the grass in the brilliant moonlight.
Presently four more couples began to whirl in the same manner, and all
the others, inspired by the sight, joined hands, and made a long chain
which moved to and fro with rhythmical steps, forming now a star, now a
square, now a figure 8. The game was at an end; everybody was dancing.
One of the harlequins changed his partner every few minutes, but the
other did not loosen his grasp of the girl whom he had brought with him
from the house. After a while this second harlequin moved away from the
other dancers, and came waltzing across the plateau towards the grove
where Dennison and Gray were standing, each hidden in the shadow of a
tree trunk; at the top of the slope the man did not stop, but began to
descend, still dancing, or pretending to dance, and pulling his
unwilling partner with him.
At this instant a woman detached herself from the distant groups of
revellers and rushed towards the grove. And as she came on her figure
was such a vision of swiftness of motion and of intensity of purpose
that Gray unconsciously held his breath as he watched her. The plateau
was broad; she was a full minute in crossing it. As she drew near the
grove she lifted her head a little, and the moonlight, which had been
behind her, fell across her forehead; then he saw that it was Modesta.
The harlequin also had recognized her, for, suddenly ceasing his
gyrations, he released his companion, and ran off in the opposite
direction, bounding as he went, in accordance with his assumed
character, and joining the chain of dancers near the house with a high
leap which gained for him their loud applause. Meanwhile his partner,
freed at last, stood still for an instant with her eyes closed, dizzy
from the whirling.
It was during this instant that Modesta reached her; coming down the
slope with all the gathered impetus of her tremendous speed, she swooped
upon the girl, bore her to the ground, struck her across the cheek, and
then, holding her down with one hand, she fumbled in her own pocket with
the other.
Dennison meanwhile, as soon as he had recognized his waitress at the top
of the descent (he had not distinguished who it was before, his eyesight
not being so keen as Gray's), had left his tree, and, darting across the
intervening space, he now caught her arm tightly at the elbow, while her
hand was still in her pocket. Gray hurried to his aid, and seized her
other wrist, dragging her fingers away from the girl on the ground; thus
holding her between them, they pulled her to her feet. As they did so
her right hand came out of her pocket. It held a murderous-looking
knife.
"You devil," said Dennison, in Italian, "drop that knife!"
They held her so closely that she could not move, but her face glared at
them in the moonlight. It was like nothing human; her head was thrust
out, the eyes were narrowed and glittering, the nostrils flattened, and
the lips drawn up and back from the set, fierce teeth. Their four
figures--three standing, one on the ground--were below the slope, and no
one saw them. There had been no sound from the prostrate girl, who had
lost consciousness from fright, paralyzed by the terrible countenance of
the woman who had attacked her; and the waitress herself had made no
sound as she came. She made no sound now, save that she panted as she
breathed; she was like a wild beast who had made one spring and is about
to make another.
"Drop the knife, or you shall go to prison," said Dennison, sternly, his
hands on her shoulder like a vise.
Her fingers did not move.
"Listen. If you don't drop it, I swear to you I'll send Goro to America
by the next Leghorn steamer, with five hundred lire in his pocket."
The knife dropped.
"Pick it up," said Dennison to Gray, in English. "Now see if you can
lift that girl and carry her down the hill. Get her across the field
somehow to that stone wall where we climbed over; wait there for
me--unless she should come to on the way, in which case perhaps she will
be able to climb over the wall herself. If she does, wait there with her
by the phaeton. I sha'n't be long. But I must take this she-wolf back to
the house first."
Gray had bent down; he lifted the inert body at their feet, raising it a
little, and as he did so the head fell back, and the moonlight, shining
on the hair and temples, showed that it was the Swede. Modesta, as she
too saw the face, made a spring at it. But Dennison jerked her back.
Then, with a snarling sound in her throat, she twisted her head round,
and bit savagely at his hand where it held her shoulder.
"Do hurry. She is perfectly insane," he said to Gray.
Gray, having got the Swede off the ground, put his left arm under her
back at the shoulders, and his right under her knees, and, lifting her
in this position, he carried her down the hill with as much speed as was
possible. This was not great, because the ground was uneven, and as he
could not see where to place his steps, he was obliged to feel his way
with his feet as he advanced--to shuffle along cautiously. In time,
however, he reached the bottom of the hill. Then slowly he began to
cross the field. This, too, was difficult, owing to the soft, crumbling
earth of the freshly ploughed furrows. But here at last the girl opened
her eyes.
"Can you stand?" asked Gray, breathlessly. Then he thought, with
irritation, "None of them can speak _anything_!"
But the Swede now made of her own accord the motion of trying to get to
her feet, and gladly enough he let her slip down and stand on the
ground, as his arms were aching. He still supported her, however, lest
she should fall.
But the girl seemed to be more terrified than weak; the instant her feet
touched the earth she began to run towards the stone boundary wall,
looking back every half-minute to see that no one was following. He went
with her, trying to help her over the furrows; and as they hurried
onward side by side, her face was such a picture of deathly fear that
the feeling took possession of him also; he found himself regretting
that their figures were so plainly visible on the moonlit expanse, and
he too looked nervously over his shoulder, as though he expected to see
the Italian woman coming after them madly, with her glittering eyes and
the shining knife.
They reached the wall, and climbed over into the road outside, the Swede
needing no help, but quicker in her movements than he was. In the road
he tried to stop her, but she pulled herself from him. Still holding
her, he showed her the horses tied in the shadow of the hedge. This she
comprehended. She waited, therefore; but she kept herself several yards
away from him, so that he should not stop her in case she should again
wish to flee. She was a slender young creature, and she stood there much
as a bird poises itself on a twig; not resting, not bearing its full
weight, but perched provisionally, as it were--ready to fly away again
in an instant.
Gray, who had now recovered his composure, tried to soothe her. With his
most encouraging inflections he repeated: "All safe now. _All-ll_ safe!
Stay right here with me."
She paid not the least attention to him. Her eyes continued their
strained watch of the lower trees of the grove. At length a man's figure
emerged from these trees, and the girl gave a muffled scream. But Gray
had caught hold of her arm; pointing to the horses and then to Dennison,
he said, gesticulating energetically: "Horses are _his_. Dennison's.
_My_ friend. _Your_ friend. (Oh, what _is_ 'friend?') Amicus! Don't you
see he's alone? Nobody with him? Solo? Sola?"
And the girl could indeed see for herself that the person approaching
was alone. She had understood the fact that the horses belonged to this
person, and her hope was in the horses; they could take her away--away
from here!
As soon as Dennison was near enough he began speaking in Italian, and he
continued to talk to her as he climbed over the wall, calming her,
explaining and arranging. Then he turned the phaeton, and they all took
their places within, the Swede sitting between the two men on the broad
seat. Dennison drove down the lane, still talking encouragingly. When
they reached the main road he took a direction which led them away from
Casa Colombina and Tre Ponti. "We're in for it!" he said in English to
Gray. "I shall take her to the nearest railway station--not the one you
know, but another--and pack her off to Florence; there her consul can
see to her. I have explained it to her clearly. She is glad enough to
go."
"What was it all about, anyhow?"
"Didn't you comprehend? That harlequin (I'll mention no names, and then
she won't be startled) was no less a person than the lover of your
Madonna beauty--the youth she expects to marry. During the game he was
flirting, or trying to flirt after his fashion, with our present
companion. This was too much for the older woman. Hence the knife."
"Which I have in my pocket, by-the-bye."
"Don't take it out now; you can throw it away after we have disposed of
our Scandinavian. I suppose she has never before seen such a thing as a
brandished weapon of that sort. It's a knife used by the peasants about
here to cut hides with; your Madonna probably took it from among
Filippo's tools somehow while the festivities were going on. She must
have been jealous even then."
"I told you that her laugh wasn't natural. 'Twas an awful sight, though!
She would certainly have murdered the girl if we hadn't happened to be
standing just where we were."
"Very likely," answered Dennison. "Tchk, tchk," he added to the horses.
"I hope she is safely locked up by this time."
"Locked up! She is probably dancing with her harlequin."
"You don't mean to say that you let her go?"
"Quite so. She is all right now; she has come back to her senses. I had
six words with the youth, however; he'll treat her better--for the
present, at least; I have frightened him."
"What did you mean when you said you'd send him away?"
"That was what brought her round. He has had a hankering for a long time
to emigrate to--to the land of the free; he would go in a minute if his
passage were paid and he had a hundred dollars in his pocket--go and
never think of her again; she knows this. But the land of the free
doesn't want him--he is incorrigibly lazy; and his departure would end
her as far as I am concerned--make her perfectly useless."
"Good heavens! you're not going to take that murderess back?"
"I can't take her back without sending her away first. And that I
haven't done," answered Dennison.
"But won't she be arrested, in any case? Every one will know that she
attacked this girl, and that the girl has fled."