We left the Molo, and paused at a retired street corner leading from
the Chiaja.
“You remember Carmelo Neri?” I asked.
Andrea shrugged his shoulders with an air of infinite commiseration.
“Ah! _povero diavolo_! Well do I remember him! A bold fellow and brave,
with a heart in him, too, if one did but know where to find it. And now
he drags the chain! Well, well, no doubt it is what he deserves; but I
say, and always will maintain, there are many worse men than Carmelo.”
I briefly related how I had seen the captured brigand in the square at
Palermo and had spoken with him. “I mentioned you,” I added, “and he
bade me tell you Teresa had killed herself.”
“Ah! that I well know,” said the little captain, who had listened to me
intently, and over whose mobile face flitted a shadow of tender pity,
as he sighed. “_Poverinetta_! So fragile and small! To think she had
the force to plunge the knife in her breast! As well imagine a little
bird flying down to pierce itself on an uplifted bayonet. Ay, ay! women
will do strange things—and it is certain she loved Carmelo.”
“You would help him to escape again if you could, no doubt?” I inquired
with a half smile.
The ready wit of the Sicilian instantly asserted itself.
“Not I, _eccellenza_,” he replied, with an air of dignity and most
virtuous honesty. “No, no, not now. The law is the law, and I, Andrea
Luziani, am not one to break it. No, Carmelo must take his punishment;
it is for life they say—and hard as it seems, it is but just. When the
little Teresa was in the question, look you, what could I do? but
now—let the saints that choose help Carmelo, for I will not.”
I laughed as I met the audacious flash of his eyes; I knew, despite his
protestations, that if Carmelo Neri ever did get clear of the galleys,
it would be an excellent thing for him if Luziani’s vessel chanced to
be within reach.
“You have your brig the ‘Laura’ still?” I asked him.
“Yes, _eccellenza_, the Madonna be praised! And she has been newly
rigged and painted, and she is as trig and trim a craft as you can meet
with in all the wide blue waters of the Mediterranean.”
“Now you see,” I said, impressively, “I have a friend, a relative, who
is in trouble: he wishes to get away from Naples quietly and in secret.
Will you help him? You shall be paid whatever you think proper to
demand.”
The Sicilian looked puzzled. He puffed meditatively at his cigar and
remained silent.
“He is not pursued by the law,” I continued, noting his hesitation. “He
is simply involved in a cruel difficulty brought upon him by his own
family—he seeks to escape from unjust persecution.”
Andrea’s brow cleared.
“Oh, if that is the case, _eccellenza_, I am at your service. But where
does your friend desire to go?”
I paused for a moment and considered.
“To Civita Vecchia,” I said at last, “from that port he can obtain a
ship to take him to his further destination.”
The captain’s expressive face fell—he looked very dubious.
“To Civita Vecchia is a long way, a very long way,” he said,
regretfully; “and it is the bad season, and there are cross currents
and contrary winds. With all the wish in the world to please you,
_eccellenza_, I dare not run the ‘Laura’ so far; but there is another
means—”
And interrupting himself he considered awhile in silence. I waited
patiently for him to speak.
“Whether it would suit your friend I know not,” he said at last, laying
his hand confidentially on my arm, “but there is a stout brig leaving
here for Civita Vecchia on Friday morning next—”
“The day after Giovedi Grasso?” I queried, with a smile he did not
understand. He nodded.
“Exactly so. She carries a cargo of Lacrima Cristi, and she is a swift
sailer. I know her captain—he is a good soul; but,” and Andrea laughed
lightly, “he is like the rest of us—he loves money. You do not count
the francs—no, they are nothing to you—but we look to the _soldi_. Now,
if it please you I will make him a certain offer of passage money, as
large as you shall choose, also I will tell him when to expect his one
passenger, and I can almost promise you that he will not say no!”
This proposal fitted in so excellently with my plans that I accepted
it, and at once named an exceptionally munificent sum for the passage
required. Andrea’s eyes glistened as he heard.
“It is a little fortune!” he cried, enthusiastically. “Would that I
could earn as much in twenty voyages! But one should not be
churlish—such luck cannot fall in all men’s way.”
I smiled.
“And do you think, _amico_, I will suffer you to go unrewarded?” I
said. And placing two twenty-franc pieces in his brown palm I added,
“As you rightly said, francs are nothing to me. Arrange this little
matter without difficulty, and you shall not be forgotten. You can call
at my hotel to-morrow or the next day, when you have settled
everything—here is the address,” and I penciled it on my card and gave
it to him; “but remember, this is a secret matter, and I rely upon you
to explain it as such to your friend who commands the brig going to
Civita Vecchia. He must ask no questions of his passenger—the more
silence the more discretion—and when once he has landed him at his
destination he will do well to straightway forget all about him. You
understand?”
Andrea nodded briskly.
“_Si, si, signor_. He has a bad memory as it is—it shall grow worse at
your command! Believe it!”
I laughed, shook hands, and parted with the friendly little fellow, he
returning to the Molo, and I slowly walking homeward by way of the
Villa Reale. An open carriage coming swiftly toward me attracted my
attention; as it drew nearer I recognized the prancing steeds and the
familiar liveries. A fair woman clad in olive velvets and Russian
sables looked out smiling, and waved her hand.
It was my wife—my betrothed bride, and beside her sat the Duchess di
Marina, the most irreproachable of matrons, famous for her piety not
only in Naples but throughout Italy. So immaculate was she that it was
difficult to imagine her husband daring to caress that upright,
well-dressed form, or venturing to kiss those prim lips, colder than
the carven beads of her jeweled rosary. Yet there was a story about her
too—an old story that came from Padua—of how a young and handsome
nobleman had been found dead at her palace doors, stabbed to the heart.
Perhaps—who knows—he also might have thought—
“Che bella cosa è de morire accisa,
Nnanze a la porta de la nnamorata!”
Some said the duke had killed him; but nothing could be proved, nothing
was certain. The duke was silent, so was his duchess; and Scandal
herself sat meekly with closed lips in the presence of this stately and
august couple, whose bearing toward each other in society was a lesson
of complete etiquette to the world. What went on behind the scenes no
one could tell. I raised my hat with the profoundest deference as the
carriage containing the two ladies dashed by; I knew not which was the
cleverest hypocrite of the two, therefore I did equal honor to both. I
was in a meditative and retrospective mood, and when I reached the
Toledo the distracting noises, the cries of the flower-girls, and
venders of chestnuts and confetti, the nasal singing of the
street-rhymers, the yells of punchinello, and the answering laughter of
the populace, were all beyond my endurance. To gratify a sudden whim
that seized me, I made my way into the lowest and dirtiest quarters of
the city, and roamed through wretched courts and crowded alleys, trying
to discover that one miserable street which until now I had always
avoided even the thought of, where I had purchased the coral-fisher’s
clothes on the day of my return from the grave. I went in many wrong
directions, but at last I found it, and saw at a glance that the old
rag-dealer’s shop was still there, in its former condition of
heterogeneous filth and disorder. A man sat at the door smoking, but
not the crabbed and bent figure I had before seen—this was a younger
and stouter individual, with a Jewish cast of countenance, and dark,
ferocious eyes. I approached him, and seeing by my dress and manner
that I was some person of consequence, he rose, drew his pipe from his
mouth, and raised his greasy cap with a respectful yet suspicious air.
“Are you the owner of this place?” I asked.
“_Si, signor_!”
“What has become of the old man who used to live here?”
He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and drew his pipe-stem across his
throat with a significant gesture.
“So, _signor_!—with a sharp knife! He had a good deal of blood, too,
for so withered a body. To kill himself in that fashion was stupid: he
spoiled an Indian shawl that was on his bed, worth more than a thousand
francs. One would not have thought he had so much blood.”
And the fellow put back his pipe in his mouth and smoked complacently.
I heard in sickened silence.
“He was mad, I suppose?” I said at last.
The long pipe was again withdrawn.
“Mad? Well, the people say so. I for one think he was very
reasonable—all except that matter of the shawl—he should have taken
that off his bed first. But he was wise enough to know that he was of
no use to anybody—he did the best he could! Did you know him,
_signor_?”
“I gave him money once,” I replied, evasively; then taking out a few
francs I handed them to this evil-eyed, furtive-looking son of Israel,
who received the gift with effusive gratitude.
“Thank you for your information,” I said coldly. “Good-day.”
“Good-day to you, _signor_,” he replied, resuming his seat and watching
me curiously as I turned away.
I passed out of the wretched street feeling faint and giddy. The end of
the miserable rag-dealer had been told to me briefly and brutally
enough—yet somehow I was moved to a sense of regret and pity. Abjectly
poor, half crazy, and utterly friendless, he had been a brother of mine
in the same bitterness and irrevocable sorrow. I wondered with a half
shudder—would my end be like his? When my vengeance was completed
should I grow shrunken, and old, and mad, and one lurid day draw a
sharp knife across my throat as a finish to my life’s history? I walked
more rapidly to shake off the morbid fancies that thus insidiously
crept in on my brain; and as before, the noise and glitter of the
Toledo had been unbearable, so now I found it a relief and a
distraction. Two maskers bedizened in violet and gold whizzed past me
like a flash, one of them yelling a stale jest concerning _la
’nnamorata_—a jest I scarcely heard, and certainly had no heart or wit
to reply to. A fair woman I knew leaned out of a gayly draped balcony
and dropped a bunch of roses at my feet; out of courtesy I stooped to
pick them up, and then raising my hat I saluted the dark-eyed donor,
but a few paces on I gave them away to a ragged child. Of all flowers
that bloom, they were, and still are, the most insupportable to me.
What is it the English poet Swinburne says—
“I shall never be friends again with roses!”
My wife wore them always: even on that night when I had seen her
clasped in Guido’s arms, a red rose on her breast had been crushed in
that embrace—a rose whose withered leaves I still possess. In the
forest solitude where I now dwell there are no roses—and I am glad! The
trees are too high, the tangle of bramble and coarse brushwood too
dense—nothing grows here but a few herbs and field flowers—weeds unfit
for wearing by fine ladies, yet to my taste infinitely sweeter than all
the tenderly tinted cups of fragrance, whose colors and odors are
spoiled to me forever. I am unjust, say you? the roses are innocent of
evil? True enough, but their perfume awakens memory, and—I strive
always to forget!
I reached my hotel that evening to find that I was an hour late for
dinner, an unusual circumstance, which had caused Vincenzo some
disquietude, as was evident from the relieved expression of his face
when I entered. For some days the honest fellow had watched me with
anxiety; my abstracted moods, the long solitary walks I was in the
habit of taking, the evenings I passed in my room writing, with the
doors locked—all this behavior on my part exercised his patience, I
have no doubt, to the utmost limit, and I could see he had much ado to
observe his usual discretion and tact, and refrain from asking
questions. On this particular occasion I dined very hastily, for I had
promised to join my wife and two of her lady friends at the theater
that night.
When I arrived there, she was already seated in her box, looking
radiantly beautiful. She was attired in some soft, sheeny, clinging
primrose stuff, and the brigand’s jewels I had given her through
Guido’s hands, flashed brilliantly on her uncovered neck and arms. She
greeted me with her usual child-like enthusiasm as I entered, bearing
the customary offering—a costly bouquet, set in a holder of
mother-of-pearl studded with turquois, for her acceptance. I bowed to
her lady friends, both of whom I knew, and then stood beside her
watching the stage. The _comedietta_ played there was the airiest
trifle—it turned on the old worn-out story—a young wife, an aged,
doting husband, and a lover whose principles were, of course, of the
“noblest” type. The husband was fooled (naturally), and the chief
amusement of the piece appeared to consist in his being shut out of his
own house in dressing-gown and slippers during a pelting storm of rain,
while his spouse (who was particularly specified as “pure”) enjoyed a
luxurious supper with her highly moral and virtuous admirer. My wife
laughed delightedly at the poor jokes and the stale epigrams, and
specially applauded the actress who successfully supported the chief
role. This actress, by the way, was a saucy, brazen-faced jade, who had
a trick of flashing her black eyes, tossing her head, and heaving her
ample bosom tumultuously whenever she hissed out the words _Vecchiáccio
maladetto_[6] at her discomfited husband, which had an immense effect
on the audience—an audience which entirely sympathized with her, though
she was indubitably in the wrong. I watched Nina in some derision as
she nodded her fair head and beat time to the music with her painted
fan. I bent over her.
[6] Accursed, villainous old monster.
“The play pleases you?” I asked, in a low tone.
“Yes, indeed!” she answered, with a laughing light in her eyes. “The
husband is so droll! It is all very amusing.”
“The husband is always droll!” I remarked, smiling coldly. “It is not a
temptation to marry when one knows that as a husband one must always
look ridiculous.”
She glanced up at me.
“Cesare! You surely are not vexed? Of course it is only in plays that
it happens so!”
“Plays, _cara mia_, are often nothing but the reflex of real life,” I
said. “But let us hope there are exceptions, and that all husbands are
not fools.”
She smiled expressively and sweetly, toyed with the flowers I had given
her, and turned her eyes again to the stage. I said no more, and was a
somewhat moody companion for the rest of the evening. As we all left
the theater one of the ladies who had accompanied Nina said lightly:
“You seem dull and out of spirits, _conte_?”
I forced a smile.
“Not I, _signora_! Surely you do not find me guilty of such
ungallantry? Were I dull in _your_ company I should prove myself the
most ungrateful of my sex.”
She sighed somewhat impatiently. She was very young and very lovely,
and, as far as I knew, innocent, and of a more thoughtful and poetical
temperament than most women.
“That is the mere language of compliment,” she said, looking straightly
at me with her clear, candid eyes. “You are a true courtier! Yet often
I think your courtesy is reluctant.”
I looked at her in some surprise.
“Reluctant? _Signora_, pardon me if I do not understand!”
“I mean,” she continued, still regarding me steadily, though a faint
blush warmed the clear pallor of her delicate complexion, “that you do
not really like us women; you say pretty things to us, and you try to
be amiable in our company, but you are in truth averse to our ways—you
are sceptical—you think we are all hypocrites.”
I laughed a little coldly.
“Really, _signora_, your words place me in a very awkward position.
Were I to tell you my real sentiments—”
She interrupted me with a touch of her fan on my arm, and smiled
gravely.
“You would say, ‘Yes, you are right, _signora_. I never see one of your
sex without suspecting treachery.’ Ah, _Signor_ _Conte_, we women are
indeed full of faults, but nothing can blind our instinct!” She paused,
and her brilliant eyes softened as she added gently, “I pray your
marriage may be a very happy one.”
I was silent. I was not even courteous enough to thank her for the
wish. I was half angered that this girl should have been able to probe
my thoughts so quickly and unerringly. Was I so bad an actor after all?
I glanced down at her as she leaned lightly on my arm.
“Marriage is a mere _comedietta_,” I said, abruptly and harshly. “We
have seen it acted to-night. In a few days I shall play the part of the
chief buffoon—in other words, the husband.”
And I laughed. My young companion looked startled, almost frightened,
and over her fair face there flitted an expression of something like
aversion. I did not care—why should I?—and there was no time for more
words between us, for we had reached the outer vestibule of the
theater.
My wife’s carriage was drawn up at the entrance—my wife herself was
stepping into it. I assisted her, and also her two friends, and then
stood with uncovered head at the door wishing them all the
“_felicissima notte_.” Nina put her tiny jeweled hand through the
carriage window—I stooped and kissed it lightly. Drawing it back
quickly, she selected a white gardenia from her bouquet and gave it to
me with a bewitching smile.
Then the glittering equipage dashed away with a whirl and clatter of
prancing hoofs and rapid wheels, and I stood alone under the wide
portico of the theater—alone, amid the pressing throngs of the people
who were still coming out of the house—holding the strongly scented
gardenia in my hand as vaguely as a fevered man who finds a strange
flower in one of his sick dreams.
After a minute or two I suddenly recollected myself, and throwing the
blossom on the ground, I crushed it savagely beneath my heel—the
penetrating odor rose from its slain petals as though a vessel of
incense had been emptied at my feet. There was a nauseating influence
in it; where had I inhaled that subtle perfume last? I remembered—Guido
Ferrari had worn one of those flowers in his coat at my banquet—it had
been still in his buttonhole when I killed him!
I strode onward and homeward; the streets were full of mirth and music,
but I heeded none of it. I felt, rather than saw, the quiet sky bending
above me dotted with its countless millions of luminous worlds; I was
faintly conscious of the soft plash of murmuring waves mingling with
the dulcet chords of deftly played mandolins echoing from somewhere
down by the shore; but my soul was, as it were, benumbed—my mind,
always on the alert, was for once utterly tired out—my very limbs
ached, and when I at last flung myself on my bed, exhausted, my eyes
closed instantly, and I slept the heavy, motionless sleep of a man
weary unto death.