I listened to his narrative with a pained feeling at my heart, and a
shuddering sensation as of icy cold ran through my veins. Why, I had
fancied that all who beheld Nina must, perforce, love and admire her.
True, when this old man was accidentally knocked down by her horses (a
circumstance she had never mentioned to me), it was careless of her not
to stop and make inquiry as to the extent of his injuries, but she was
young and thoughtless; she could not be intentionally heartless. I was
horrified to think that she should have made such an enemy as even this
aged and poverty-stricken wretch; but I said nothing. I had no wish to
betray myself. He waited for me to speak and grew impatient at my
silence.
“Say now, my friend!” he queried, with a sort of childish eagerness,
“did I not take a good vengeance? God himself could not have done
better!”
“I think your wife deserved her fate,” I said, curtly, “but I cannot
say I admire you for being her murderer.”
He turned upon me rapidly, throwing both hands above his head with a
frantic gesticulation. His voice rose to a kind of muffled shriek.
“Murderer you call me—ha! ha! that is good. No, no! She murdered me! I
tell you I died when I saw her asleep in her lover’s arms—she killed me
at one blow. A devil rose up in my body and took swift revenge; that
devil is in me now, a brave devil, a strong devil! That is why I do not
fear the plague; the devil in me frightens away death. Some day it will
leave me”—here his smothered yell sunk gradually to a feeble, weary
tone; “yes, it will leave me and I shall find a dark place where I can
sleep; I do not sleep much now.” He eyed me half wistfully.
“You see,” he explained, almost gently, “my memory is very good, and
when one thinks of many things one cannot sleep. It is many years ago,
but every night I see _her_; she comes to me wringing her little white
hands, her blue eyes stare, I hear short moans of terror. Every night,
every night!” He paused, and passed his hands in a bewildered way
across his forehead. Then, like a man suddenly waking from sleep, he
stared as though he saw me now for the first time, and broke into a low
chuckling laugh.
“What a thing, what a thing it is, the memory!” he muttered.
“Strange—strange! See, I remembered all that, and forgot you! But I
know what you want—a suit of clothes—yes, you need them badly, and I
also need the money for them. Ha, ha! And you will not have the fine
coat of _Milord Inglese_! No, no! I understand. I will find you
something—patience, patience!”
And he began to grope among a number of things that were thrown in a
confused heap at the back of the shop. While in this attitude he looked
so gaunt and grim that he reminded me of an aged vulture stooping over
carrion, and yet there was something pitiable about him too. In a way I
was sorry for him; a poor half-witted wretch, whose life had been full
of such gall and wormwood. What a different fate was his to mine, I
thought. _I_ had endured but one short night of agony; how trifling it
seemed compared to _his_ hourly remorse and suffering! He hated Nina
for an act of thoughtlessness; well, no doubt she was not the only
woman whose existence annoyed him; it was most probably that he was at
enmity with all women. I watched him pityingly as he searched among the
worn-out garments which were his stock-in-trade, and wondered why
Death, so active in smiting down the strongest in the city, should have
thus cruelly passed by this forlorn wreck of human misery, for whom the
grave would have surely been a most welcome release and rest. He turned
round at last with an exulting gesture.
“I have found it!” he exclaimed. “The very thing to suit you. You are
perhaps a coral-fisher? You will like a fisherman’s dress. Here is one,
red sash, cap and all, in beautiful condition! He that wore it was
about your height it will fit you as well as it fitted him, and, look
you! the plague is not in it, the sea has soaked through and through
it; it smells of the sand and weed.”
He spread out the rough garb before me. I glanced at it carelessly.
“Did the former wearer kill _his_ wife?” I asked, with a slight smile.
The old rag-picker shook his head and made a sign with his outspread
fingers expressive of contempt.
“Not he!—He was a fool—He killed himself.”
“How was that? By accident or design?”
“Chè! Chè! He knew very well what he was doing. It happened only two
months since. It was for the sake of a black-eyed jade, she lives and
laughs all day long up at Sorrento. He had been on a long voyage, he
brought her pearls for her throat and coral pins for her hair. She had
promised to marry him. He had just landed, he met her on the quay, he
offered her the pearl and coral trinkets. She threw them back and told
him she was tired of him. Just that—nothing more. He tried to soften
her; she raged at him like a tiger-cat. Yes, I was one of the little
crowd that stood round them on the quay, I saw it all. Her black eyes
flashed, she stamped and bit her lips at him, her full bosom heaved as
though it would burst her laced bodice. She was only a market-girl, but
she gave herself the airs of a queen. ‘I am tired of you!’ she said to
him. ‘Go! I wish to see you no more.’ He was tall and well-made, a
powerful fellow; but he staggered, his face grew pale, his lips
quivered. He bent his head a little—turned—and before any hand could
stop him he sprung from the edge of the quay into the waves, they
closed over his head, for he did not try to swim; he just sunk down,
down, like a stone. Next day his body came ashore, and I bought his
clothes for two francs; you shall have them for four.”
“And what became of the girl?” I asked.
“Oh, _she_! She laughs all day long, as I told you. She has a new lover
every week. What should _she_ care?”
I drew out my purse. “I will take this suit,” I said. “You ask four
francs, here are six, but for the extra two you must show me some
private corner where I can dress.”
“Yes, yes. But certainly!” and the old fellow trembled all over with
avaricious eagerness as I counted the silver pieces into his withered
palm. “Anything to oblige a generous stranger! There is the place I
sleep in; it is not much, but there is a mirror—_her_ mirror—the only
thing I keep of hers; come this way, come this way!”
And stumbling hastily along, almost falling over the disordered bundles
of clothing that lay about in all directions, he opened a little door
that seemed to be cut in the wall, and led me into a kind of close
cupboard, smelling most vilely, and furnished with a miserable pallet
bed and one broken chair. A small square pane of glass admitted light
enough to see all that there was to be seen, and close to this
extemporized window hung the mirror alluded to, a beautiful thing set
in silver of antique workmanship, the costliness of which I at once
recognized, though into the glass itself I dared not for the moment
look. The old man showed me with some pride that the door to this
narrow den of his locked from within.
“I made the lock and key, and fitted it all myself,” he said. “Look how
neat and strong! Yes; I was clever once at all that work—it was my
trade—till that morning when I found her with the singer from Venice;
then I forgot all I used to know—it went away somehow, I could never
understand why. Here is the fisherman’s suit; you can take your time to
put it on; fasten the door; the room is at your service.”
And he nodded several times in a manner that was meant to be friendly,
and left me. I followed his advice at once and locked myself in. Then I
stepped steadily to the mirror hanging on the wall, and looked at my
own reflection. A bitter pang shot through me. The dealer’s sight was
good, he had said truly. I was old! If twenty years of suffering had
passed over my head, they could hardly have changed me more terribly.
My illness had thinned my face and marked it with deep lines of pain;
my eyes had retreated far back into my head, while a certain wildness
of expression in them bore witness to the terrors I had suffered in the
vault, and to crown all, my hair was indeed perfectly white. I
understood now the alarm of the man who had sold me grapes on the
highway that morning; my appearance was strange enough to startle any
one. Indeed, I scarcely recognized myself. Would my wife, would Guido
recognize me? Almost I doubted it. This thought was so painful to me
that the tears sprung to my eyes. I brushed them away in haste.
“Fy on thee, Fabio! Be a man!” I said, addressing myself angrily. “Of
what matter after all whether hairs are black or white? What matter how
the face changes, so long as the heart is true? For a moment, perhaps,
thy love may grow pale at sight of thee; but when she knows of thy
sufferings, wilt thou not be dearer to her than ever? Will not one of
her soft embraces recompense thee for all thy past anguish, and suffice
to make thee young again?”
And thus encouraging my sinking spirits, I quickly arrayed myself in
the Neapolitan coral-fisher’s garb. The trousers were very loose, and
were provided with two long deep pockets, convenient receptacles, which
easily contained the leathern bags of gold and jewels I had taken from
the brigand’s coffin. When my hasty toilet was completed I took another
glance at the mirror, this time with a half smile. True, I was greatly
altered; but after all I did not look so bad. The fisherman’s
picturesque costume became me well; the scarlet cap sat jauntily on the
snow-white curls that clustered so thickly over my forehead, and the
consciousness I had of approaching happiness sent a little of the old
fearless luster back into my sunken eyes. Besides, I knew I should not
always have this care-worn and wasted appearance; rest, and perhaps a
change of air, would infallibly restore the roundness to my face and
the freshness to my complexion; even my white locks might return to
their pristine color, such things had been; and supposing they remained
white? well!—there were many who would admire the peculiar contrast
between a young man’s face and an old man’s hair.
Having finished dressing, I unlocked the door of the stuffy little
cabin and called the old rag-picker. He came shuffling along with his
head bent, but raising his eyes as he approached me, he threw up his
hands in astonishment, exclaiming,
“_Santissima Madonna_! But you are a fine man—a fine man! Eh, eh! Holy
Joseph! What height and breadth! A pity—a pity you are old; you must
have been strong when you were young!”
Half in joke, and half to humor him in his fancy for mere muscular
force, I rolled up the sleeve of my jacket to the shoulder, saying,
lightly,
“Oh, as for being strong! There is plenty of strength in me still, you
see.”
He stared; laid his yellow fingers on my bared arm with a kind of
ghoul-like interest and wonder, and felt the muscles of it with
childish, almost maudlin admiration.
“Beautiful, beautiful!” he mumbled. “Like iron—just think of it! Yes,
yes. You could kill anything easily. Ah! I used to be like that once. I
was clever at sword-play. I could, with well-tempered steel, cut
asunder a seven-times-folded piece of silk at one blow without fraying
out a thread. Yes, as neatly as one cuts butter! You could do that too
if you liked. It all lies in the arm—the brave arm that kills at a
single stroke.”
And he gazed at me intently with his small blear eyes as though anxious
to know more of my character and temperament. I turned abruptly from
him, and called his attention to my own discarded garments.
“See,” I said, carelessly; “you can have these, though they are not of
much value. And, stay, here are another three francs for some socks and
shoes, which I dare say you can find to suit me.”
He clasped his hands ecstatically, and poured out a torrent of thanks
and praises for this additional and unexpected sum, and protesting by
all the saints that he and the entire contents of his shop were at the
service of so generous a stranger, he at once produced the articles I
asked for. I put them on—and then stood up thoroughly equipped and
ready to make my way back to my own home when I chose. But I had
resolved on one thing. Seeing that I was so greatly changed, I
determined not to go to the Villa Romani by daylight, lest I should
startle my wife too suddenly. Women are delicate; my unexpected
appearance might give her a nervous shock which perhaps would have
serious results. I would wait till the sun had set, and then go up to
the house by a back way I knew of, and try to get speech with one of
the servants. I might even meet my friend Guido Ferrari, and he would
break the joyful news of my return from death to Nina by degrees, and
also prepare her for my altered looks. While these thoughts flitted
rapidly through my brain, the old ragpicker stood near me with his head
on one side like a meditative raven, and regarded me intently.
“Are you going far?” he asked at last, with a kind of timidity.
“Yes,” I answered him, abruptly; “very far.”
He laid a detaining hand on my sleeve, and his eyes glittered—with a
malignant expression.
“Tell me,” he muttered, eagerly, “tell me—I will keep the secret. Are
you going to a woman?”
I looked down upon him, half in disdain, half in amusement.
“Yes!” I said, quietly, “I am going to a woman.”
He broke into silent laughter—hideous laughter that contorted his
visage and twisted his body in convulsive writhings.
I glanced at him in disgust, and shaking off his hand from my arm, I
made my way to the door of the shop. He hobbled quickly after me,
wiping away the moisture that his inward merriment had brought into his
eyes.
“Going to a woman!” he croaked. “Ha, ha! You are not the first, nor
will you be the last, that has gone so! Going to a woman! that is
well—that is good! Go to her, go! You are strong, you have a brave arm!
Go to her, find her out, and—_kill her_! Yes, yes—you will be able to
do it easily—quite easily! Go and kill her.”
He stood at his low door mouthing and pointing, his stunted figure and
evil face reminding me of one of Heinrich Heine’s dwarf devils who are
depicted as piling fire on the heads of the saints. I bade him “Good
day” in an indifferent tone, but he made me no answer. I walked slowly
away. Looking back once I saw him still standing on the threshold of
his wretched dwelling, his wicked mouth working itself into all manner
of grimaces, while with his crooked fingers he made signs in the air as
if he caught an invisible something and throttled it. I went on down
the street and out of it into the broader thoroughfares, with his last
words ringing in my ears, “go and kill her!”