ANDREA FINDS CHRISTINE
“I must have continued in my occupation for some hours, excellency,
when at last I found Christine. My walk had carried me across the
island to that north-westerly point of it which looks over towards the
city of Venice. Here there is a great slope of the grassy cliffs to
the beach, which is of the finest sand, soft as silk and sparkling as
pure gold. A creek of the sea running inland has formed a haven, to
which the trees dip down their branches and the bushes their leaves. I
had not thought that the child would find a home in any such spot as
this; nor should I have gone down to it had not the music of a violin,
exquisitely played, as only one of my own countrymen can play it,
drawn me thither. In the hope of learning something from the player I
descended the slope of the cliff; and when I had walked, it might be,
the third of a mile I came suddenly upon a hut built cunningly of wood
and thatch in the full shelter of the grassy ravine. A garden that was
no bigger than a carpet girt the hut about; and the lawn before its
door led straight to the bank of that little creek I made mention of.
Here the musician, whoever he was, had his home, and here he now played
a wild, haunting melody, whose harmonies gathered beauty as they echoed
in the hills. Nay, the spell of the strain was not to be resisted, and
long I stood listening like one bewitched, until the theme died away in
trembling chords, and mingled its notes with the throb of the ebbing
seas. Then, and then only, I knocked upon the door of the cottage, and
Christine herself opened to me.
“Aye, it was Christine. Though four years had passed since I had seen
her, the face was still the face of the child of Sebenico. I can see
her in my memory now, excellency, standing there with a timid, hunted
look in her eyes, and her violin pressed close against her side. Wan
and wistfully she looked at me, covering her breast with the tattered
chemise, glancing at her bare and browned legs and arms as though to
make excuse for them. There had been none to tell her in those days
that beauty like hers was a rare gift, and to be prized. The words she
heard everywhere were words of scorn and of rebuke. And yet, I vow, no
more lovely thing has existed on God’s earth than the little musician I
saw in the hut of Zlarin that summer evening five years ago.
“She came to the door, as I say, excellency, and it was plain to me
from the look in her eyes that she had expected another, and was not a
little vexed to find an old man come to trouble her. All recollection
of my face--perhaps my very existence--had left her long ago. She
could only stare at me questioningly, a flush upon her fair skin, an
exclamation of surprise upon her lips.
“‘_Corpo dell’ anima tua_, do you not know me, little one?’ asked I,
nettled to see her indifferent.
“She looked at me the closer when I spoke thus, signor, the light of
recognition leaping suddenly into her eyes.
“‘It is Father Andrea,’ she cried at last; and then she put her hand
into mine. But there was no gladness in her word or greeting; and while
the surprise of this was still upon me, she led the way into the hut
which was her home. Never was there a cleaner or prettier place in
Zlarin. A little bed with the whitest sheets stood in one corner of it;
a big cupboard of mahogany contained unlooked-for possessions; there
was a crucifix and an old gilt mirror; a clock to tick merrily, and
a table set out with cup and platter. Even a stove, with the embers
of a fire in it, had come by some magic into this house of marvels. I
remembered when I saw it that the priest had spoken of Christine as a
beggar--a vagrant of the hills--worthless and idle, and to be avoided.
His words were not to be reconciled with that which I observed all
about me in the hut; and when I had seen all that was to be seen I sat
down upon her rough-hewn bench and began to question her.
“‘Child,’ said I, ‘how comes it that all these months have passed and
you have not written to me?’
“She was sitting upon her bed, thumbing the strings of her fiddle; but
now she looked up at me very frankly, and with no fear.
“‘What was news of me to you, Father Andrea, who broke your promise to
me from the first?’
“‘Christine,’ said I, ‘it is true that I broke my promise; yet
necessity carried me to Pola, and so kept me from you. But I wrote
often to ask of you, and have sent you many gifts, as you know----’
“‘Nay,’ cried she, and there was truth in her voice, ‘no gifts have I
received. Nicolò and the priest must answer for those.’
“‘Speak not so lightly of one who serves Christ,’ said I; ‘as for
Nicolò, they tell me that he did well to you here, and that you
rewarded him but ill.’
“Now, at this question, excellency, she did not answer me directly, but
laughed with much bitterness; and presently, tearing the chemise off
her arms and back, she shewed me her flesh scarred and riven where the
blows of whip or staff had fallen upon it.
“‘God help me,’ said she, ‘if that were well! Look for yourself and
see what Nicolò did for the sister who was left to him. Oh, I have
suffered, Andrea--I, the child that loved all and was loved by none--I
have suffered, as the Blessed Mother is my witness. Think you that
there can be any room in my heart for love now?’
“Excellency, my tongue was busy indeed with complaint against myself
when thus she spoke to me, for I knew that I had left her alone; and
what cry of bitterness can go up to Heaven like the cry of a lonely
child?
“‘Christine,’ said I, ‘they have done ill to you; yet remember that no
more. Am I not come back to take you to the city, where new friends
await you, and a new home?’
“‘To take me to the city--to Sebenico, Andrea?’ she answered, with
astonishment in her eyes. ‘Why should you take me there?’
“‘That you may leave this vagrant’s life, and become what your father
would have made you if life had been spared to him.’
“She thought upon it for a moment, and then she said:
“‘Nay, let me be where I am--it is well with me here, Andrea.’
“‘Well with you!’ I cried, for her ingratitude angered me, ‘well with
you--to have no clothes upon your body; to run in the woods like a
savage who knows not God; well with you to rot in such a kennel as
this----’
“This I said, for my anger went near to choking me; but she heard me
out in a savage silence, neither word nor gesture escaping her.
“‘I shall not go to Sebenico, Andrea,’ she answered very quietly,
‘until Ugo takes me there.’
“‘Until Ugo takes you there! And who, then, is Ugo that he should order
and you should obey?’
“‘He is my lover.’
“‘Your lover--you can tell me that with no shame upon your cheek! Your
lover! Now for a truth did the priest speak well.’
“Again she heard me with indifference, plucking like a petulant child
at the strings of her fiddle. I saw that anger would not avail with
her; yet, as I live, I had rather that a man had struck me a blow than
that she had spoken as she did.
“‘Child,’ said I, when I had been silent a long time, ‘God is witness
that I love you. Tell me--who is this man, and how came he here?’
“‘He is Ugo Klun, the son of the woodlander. He sailed often from Zara
when Nicolò lived. His hands built me this hut when I had no other
home. I had starved but for Ugo, Andrea!’
“‘You are his wife, then?’
“‘He will come at the feast of the Rosary to marry me, if he is free
then.’
“‘He has promised that?’
“‘Surely--he has promised it often. It is I who have held back.’
“She spoke very simply, not fearing to look me in the face, excellency.
I began to think that I had judged her in haste, and so put another
question to her.
“‘Christine,’ said I, ‘what has Ugo asked of thee for all that he has
done?’
“‘That I should be a wife to him--what should he ask more, Andrea?’
“I did not answer her, for I had learnt that which I wished to know.
Vagrant that she was, she remained the child in heart, in thought, in
speech. Though no guiding voice had said to her here is right and there
is wrong, the spirit of evil had not breathed upon her mind or withered
her innocence. Nor could I help but feel kindly towards a man who,
having these things in his influence, had used that influence to such
honest ends.
“‘Little one,’ said I, presently, ‘we will talk more of Ugo to-morrow;
but what means he by this saying “free”? Is he not free as I am free
and you are free?’
“‘Nay,’ she said, ‘has he not yet his years to serve? They will make a
hussar of him, Andrea, and I shall see him no more.’
“She said this with so much unconcern, signor, that I looked
searchingly at her, asking her the question which had long been in my
mind.
“‘You love him, child?’ I said.
“She shook her head, rising from her seat that she might watch the sun
setting in a great ring of red and golden light above Venice and the
west.
“‘Do I love him?’ she exclaimed presently. ‘_Madonna mia_, how shall I
answer you! There are days when I say that it would be happiness to be
with him always; other days when I tremble at his touch. Is it love to
draw away your lips when he holds them in kisses--love, to tremble when
he puts his arms about you? If that be so, I love him well. Yet he is
the only friend I have ever known; when he is away I hear no voice and
see no face. They have turned me even from the church door in Zlarin.
Oh, I am very lonely, Andrea!’
“There were tears in her eyes now, excellency, for the first time since
I had come to her, and I drew her head down upon my shoulder, putting
my arms about her as I had done in the olden time.
“‘Little Christine,’ said I, ‘you shall be lonely no more. To-morrow we
will find a new home and new friends. God be praised that I have found
you again.’
“The burst of weeping comforted her. She began, after a while, to laugh
through her tears; and remembering that I had come far, and had eaten
nothing since midday, she put bread and fruit upon her table, and a
bottle of the wine of Mostar. And at this she fell to telling me how
she lived by her needle, doing work that Ugo brought her from the city,
and existing on the pence which would have been starvation to a beggar.
She pointed also to the little fishing-boat anchored in the creek,
letting me know that it had come to her from her brother together with
the furniture of the cabin and the old violin she played so sweetly.
“‘Pietro taught me,’ said she, as she busied herself to serve me,
‘Pietro, who comes to sing the Mass on Sundays. He promised me that I
should play in Vienna some day--but look you, Andrea, he is like the
rest now.’
“‘Child,’ asked I, ‘how came it that they speak so of you in the
village?’
“‘It was the word of Nicolò, my brother. He whined to the priest, and
would have sent me as a servant to the Sisters at Zara. But I ran from
him and hid myself in the woods. Oh, it is good to be free, good to lie
in the shade of the trees and to look over the sea and dream of the
city and the people beyond. I have read of it in books, and I think
sometimes that I shall wake from my sleep to see the things I read of.
Can you not understand, Andrea?’
“I told her that I could; yet, God knows, I understood Christine but
ill. She was not a peasant, excellency, for her father had been a man
of some little learning, and her mother was a musician of rare gifts.
Had I thought upon it, this remembrance would have led me to discern
the double nature which was then my stumbling-block. For here was one
reared as a savage, yet controlled at every turn by the birthright
of natural culture; a vagrant in name, yet a little queen in gesture
and in speech. The visions which deluded her were the visions of a past
growing up and magnifying with the years; carrying one whose world was
a few acres of thicket and of sand out to the life across the sea.
Isolated as she was, friendless, homeless, never once did she cease
to dream of a greater world, where triumph and love and that pride of
self which is victory awaited her. The same spirit, I doubt not, held
her back from the embraces of the peasant who worshipped her. She was
grateful to the man in that he was a friend to her. But at his touch
she trembled; his kisses were like coals of fire upon her lips.
“Something of these thoughts, signor, passed through my mind as the
child waited upon me so prettily in her cottage. I knew that her
beauty would be riches to her wherever she might carry it; I could
feel instinctively that conscious superiority which birth may give and
circumstance cannot check. And this was odd to recognise in one whose
legs were bare and whose hands and arms were burnt almost black with
her labour in the sun. Yet she had but to speak and her rags were
forgotten; but to take her crazy violin in her hand to awaken the mind
to passionate dreams or to all the sweets of languorous rest. Long I
listened to her that night, as the dark came down upon the Adriatic,
and the sea moaned upon the beach before her door. It was as though she
had put some spell upon me with her wild, untrained music; had carried
me back to remember forgotten days of my own childhood; had peopled the
island with unnumbered men and women, or had set before my eyes visions
of the greater cities themselves, with all their world of sound and
light and struggle and death. The whole of her soul was in the music,
excellency; it awakened her to laughter, to tears, to joy. Her face was
the face of one transformed while she played; yet she had but to set
down her violin, and indifference, silence, nay, almost the shadow of
hate, were to be read in her eyes.
“I speak of these things, excellency, that you, when you come to hear
of the whole life of the woman you have seen to-day living in luxury
and in the light of gratified desire, may know of the impulses which
led her to the path she followed, and of that surpassingly curious
childhood which fate decreed should be her portion. When I left her
that night in her cottage, to lie myself at the house of the priest,
my chief thought was of her future, and of the man to whom it would be
given to hold her in his arms.
“‘For,’ said I, ‘that man will either pluck a thorn for his pillow or
take treasure to his house--yet which of these he is to do the God
above us alone can tell.’
“Next day I rose at an early hour from my bed, and, having heard Mass
in the little church, set out upon my journey to the eastern shore.
There were many of the islanders now ready to help me, for the news
that I had money in my pocket was quick to be noised abroad, and one
old woman tottered far upon her stick that she might look at a piece of
gold again. But I listened to none of them--neither to their tales of
the love they had treasured secretly for the child nor to their offers
of service.
“‘Fools and hypocrites,’ cried I, ‘who would drain the oil from the
wounds of him that fell among thieves; even as you did unto the little
one so will I do to you. Begone! or I will lay my staff upon your
backs!’
“They ran at my words, signor, but still cried for alms in the Name
of God; and when no alms were given to them, they cursed me until the
woods echoed with their voices. Nevertheless, I turned a deaf ear to
them; and going my way I came at length to the creek of the sea, and
to the hut where I had found Christine again. It was my expectation
that she would be up and looking for my coming; but I heard no voice
when I called out to her from the garden, and when I would have knocked
upon her door I saw that it was open, and that the cottage was empty.
My first thought was that she had gone out to the sea to fish, for I
saw that her boat no longer lay at anchor in the creek; but when I had
looked a second time, and had observed the disorder which had fallen
upon the place, the truth was not to be hidden from me. Everything in
the cottage bore the stamp of her flight. The drawers were opened and
rifled. There was an empty coffee-pot upon the rough wooden table, and
two cups by it. The bed was stripped of its blankets and sheets; the
crucifix was gone; the gilt mirror was cracked, as if broken in the
haste of her leaving. No need of words to tell me the story. She had
surrendered at last, I said, to the will of the man, and had fled--God
knew to what home or to what fate.
“I said this, excellency, moved at the first to remember all my abiding
love for her; the memory of her childhood and that which she had been
to me then. But anon, and as I stood looking out upon the sea and the
empty creek, a great anger against the man came upon it, and I vowed
that wheresoever he had gone, there would I follow him, until the truth
should be known and right should be done. For that she had gone away
with Ugo, the son of the woodlander, I never doubted. Or had I done so,
the lie would not have deceived me long. Scarce, indeed, had I turned
my face again towards the house of the priest, when a hag burst out
from the shelter of the woods and gave me the news.
“‘Ho, ho, Father Andrea, seekest thou thy little one? Nay, but thou
shalt find her with the woodcutter. Thou wilt not forget that I have
told thee. The Mother of God bless thee! She left with him at daybreak.
I saw them sail. Thou wilt remember me--oh! there was jade’s blood in
her veins--jade’s blood! What! do you not hear me?--I spit upon your
face in hell!’
“I left her croaking; but the news was then round the island, and those
who before had begged of me now came out from their holes to whine
upon my misfortunes. Even the priest, who in his own way had wished
well to her, could not help me. Christine’s flight was in some way a
vindication of himself, a justification of that which he had done. It
remained only for him to raise his hands in condemnation--to cry that
the fault was none of his.
“‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘one who travels upon the devil’s road must come
at last to the devil’s house. Did she not cross the yule-log at the
feast of the Nativity? What else was to be expected, friend? She was
a hussy from her birth up. Santa Maria! the words I have wasted upon
her!’”
He spoke thus; but I was in no mood to war with him.
“‘Friend,’ said I, ‘there is a Gospel which teaches us that we love
our neighbours as we love ourselves. If you believe in that, how great
must your love of Christine be! Waste yet a few more words upon her,
I beseech you, and tell me what you know of the woodlander who has
carried her to the city?’
“‘That will I do,’ exclaimed he, ‘though little there is of good in the
telling. The man is the son of Alvise, the steward of Jajce. His father
would have made a priest of him and sent him to help the Catholics of
the mountain towns. But he fled from the seminary, and has lived where
he could, though chiefly upon a neighbouring island. A man of hot blood
and temper, friend, neither Christian nor infidel--a savage, and yet
not a savage, since he can read from the book and hold a pen in his
hands. _Per Baccho!_ the devil hath paired them finely!’
“‘Is he not, then,’ I asked, ‘such a one as might win a woman’s love?’
“‘_Accidente_--is that a question to put to a priest? What is a woman’s
whim to me that I should scan the face of every lout who comes lusting
to the village?’
“‘Nay,’ said I, ‘but you must have seen him often if he lived as you
say.’
“‘Oh, surely, I saw him often--a gloomy, silent man, who gave few civil
words that he might hear few. Yet I have heard that he was the friend
of the children here and was beloved of them.’
“‘And where, think you, must I seek him now?’
“He shrugged his shoulders, as though he pitied me.
“‘Where must you seek him? Nay, how shall I tell you? Am I his keeper?
Be advised of me, and go back to your work in Pola. She would only mock
you for your pains, as she has mocked me for mine.’
“This was his counsel, excellency, but his words fell on deaf ears. I
had determined already that I would know how it fared with Christine.
‘At least,’ said I, ‘he shall stand before the altar with her; and if
he will not do that--did she not tell me that they would make a hussar
of him?’ Nay, I knew that he had drawn an unlucky number, and that I
had only to raise my finger to send a corporal and troopers to the
work. We are all soldiers in Austria, excellency. If Ugo Klun refused
to answer the summons to serve his time with a regiment, a prison
instead of a wife awaited him. I said that he should come to that
if ill befell Christine; and with this rod in my hand I set out for
Sebenico.”