"Go and get a breath of fresh air, Magnani, and don't involve me in the
vagaries that your excitement suggests to you. Signora Agatha is
sleeping peacefully at this moment, remembering neither your name nor
mine. If she honored me with a kindly glance, it was because she loves
painting and is pleased with my work.--Look, my friend," added the young
artist, pointing to the figures of his fresco, upon which a rosy beam of
the morning sun shone through the open windows. "There are the only
intoxicating realities of my life. Let the lovely princess marry the
Marquis della Serra. I shall be very glad; he is a courteous gentleman,
and I like his face. I, when I choose, will paint a more perfect and
less problematical divinity than the pale-cheeked Agatha."
"You, wretched boy? Never!" exclaimed Magnani, indignantly.
"I agree that she is beautiful," rejoined Michel, with a smile. "I have
scrutinized her, and I have profited by that scrutiny. I have obtained
from her all that I should never ask her for, the spectacle of her grace
and her charms, to reproduce them and idealize them at my pleasure."
"I have always been told that artists had hearts of ice," said Magnani,
staring at Michel in blank amazement. "You have seen the storm which
drives me wild, and you remain cold--you laugh at me! Ah! I blush to
think that I have betrayed my madness to you, and I am going away to
hide my head!"
Magnani disappeared, frantic with excitement, and Michel was left alone
in the almost deserted ball-room. Visconti was extinguishing the last
candles, and Pier-Angelo, before taking his leave, was assisting to
restore order temporarily in that structure which was to be entirely
removed before evening.
Michel also assisted, but languidly. His own reflections having cooled
his excitement, he felt utterly exhausted, mentally and physically.
Magnani's abrupt outbreak disturbed him. He reproached himself because,
after undergoing in silence the rebound of the young mechanic's
agitation, he had not succeeded better in sympathizing with his trouble,
but had allowed him to go away uncomforted. On the other hand, he could
not avoid a slight feeling of irritation. It seemed to him that Magnani
had carried his effusiveness too far in seeking to convince him that he,
Michel, was the object of a sudden passion on the part of the princess.
It was so absurd, so improbable, that Michel, who was more
self-possessed, more of a man of the world at eighteen than Magnani
could ever be, shrugged his shoulders pityingly.
And yet, self-esteem is such a persistent and impertinent adviser that
Michel now and again heard a voice within him saying: "Magnani has
guessed aright. Jealousy gives him a keenness of vision which you
yourself have not. Agatha loves you; she took fire at first sight. And
why should she not love you?"
Michel was intoxicated and abashed at once by these flushes of vanity
which rose to his cheeks. He was in haste to return home and recover his
tranquillity altogether with sleep. And yet he desired to wait for his
father, who was still at work, zealous and indefatigable, attending to a
thousand minute details, a thousand apparently unnecessary precautions.
"Patience!" said the excellent Pier-Angelo. "I shall have finished in a
minute; but I want our dear princess to be able to sleep in peace, and I
don't propose that anybody shall come here and make a racket before
to-night. Above all things, I don't propose to leave a single candle
lighted in any corner. Now is the time when there is most danger of
fire! Look! that idiot of a Visconti has left the lamp in the grotto
burning; I can see it from here. Go and put it out, Michel, and take
care not to spill oil on the couch."
Michel went into the grotto of the naiad; but, before extinguishing the
lamp, he could not resist the temptation to gaze for a moment at the
beautiful statue, the lovely foliage with which he had decorated it, and
the couch whereon he had seen Agatha as in a dream. "How young she
looked and how lovely she was!" he thought; "and how that man who loves
her gazed at her, with an adoration which betrayed itself in spite of
him, and which infected the most immaterial portion of my heart! I
noticed others during the ball who stared at her with an insolence born
of desire, which made my whole being quiver with indignation! All these
great nobles love her, each in his own way, and she loves no one of
them!"
And Agatha's glance passed through his memory like a lightning-flash,
its dazzling brilliancy putting to flight all reason, all fear of
ridicule, all self-distrust.
While musing thus, he had extinguished the lamp, and had sunk upon the
cushions of the divan, expecting that his father would call him and that
he might enjoy one last moment of comfort before leaving that
fascinating grotto.
But fatigue overpowered him. He could contend no longer against the
chimeras of his imagination. Half-reclining comfortably on the couch,
and alone for the first time in twenty-four hours, he rapidly lost
consciousness. For one moment he dreamed with his eyes open. The next
moment he was sleeping soundly.
XVIII
THE MONKS
How many minutes,--or was it seconds only?--passed while Michel was
overpowered by that irresistible lassitude, he had no idea. The power of
the imagination, when transported into the domain of dreams, travels so
fast and surmounts so many obstacles at a single bound, that time is an
inadequate measure of it, especially in the first sleep.
Michel had a strange dream. A woman softly entered the grotto, walked to
where he sat, leaned over him and gazed at him for a long time; he felt
her fragrant breath caress his brow, he fancied that he felt also the
fire of her glance fastened passionately upon him. But he could not see
her, for it was dark in the grotto, and, moreover, it was impossible for
him to raise his heavy eyelids; but it was Agatha; Michel's heart,
inflamed by that woman's presence, told him so plainly enough.
At last, as he tried to rouse himself in order to speak to her, she
placed her cool, soft lips on his forehead and imprinted a kiss thereon,
so long, but so light, that he could not summon the strength to reply to
it, overcome as he was by joy, and at the same time by the fear that it
was only a dream.
"But it is a dream, alas! it is nothing but a dream," he said to
himself, still sleeping; and yet the fear of waking caused him to wake.
So it is that, in sleep, the instinctive, frantic desire to prolong the
illusion causes it to vanish more quickly.
But what a strange and persistent dream! Michel, with his eyes open,
sitting half erect, supported by his trembling arm, saw and heard that
woman fly. The curtain at the entrance of the grotto being lowered, he
could distinguish only an indistinct figure; he felt the touch of a silk
dress; the curtain opened and closed again so quickly that it seemed to
him that the phantom passed through without touching it.
He started to follow her; but all his blood rushed back to his heart so
violently that he could not stand erect, but was compelled to fall back
on the divan, and it was a full minute before he was able to rush to the
blue velvet portière that separated him from the ball-room.
He drew it aside with a convulsive gesture and found himself face to
face with his father, who said, with a jocose and placid air:
"So it seems that we have been having a nap, eh, my boy? Now, everything
is in order; let us go home and see if little Mila is awake."
"Mila?" cried Michel, "is Mila here, father?"
"It may well be that she isn't far away," replied the old man. "I'll bet
that she hasn't closed her eyes all night; she was so anxious to come to
see the ball! But I forbade her to leave the house before daylight."
"It is daylight now," said Michel, "and Mila is probably here! Tell me,
father, did some woman, my sister, perhaps, just come into the grotto?"
"Did you dream it? I saw no one. To be sure, my eyes weren't looking in
that direction all the time, and I saw some striped skirts prowling
about outside, which meant that some curious creatures had stolen into
the garden. Can Mila have come in while my back was turned?"
"Why, this very instant, father, just as you came to the opening,
someone went out, a woman; I am certain of it!"
"You are talking at random now, for I saw nothing but my shadow on the
curtain. Come, you need a good nap, let us go home. They are just
closing the last door. If your sister is here we shall find her."
Michel was about to follow his father; but as he was turning away he saw
something glistening in the grotto and was led to cast a last glance
inside. Was it a spark that had fallen on the carpet, near the couch? He
stooped: it was a piece of jewelry, which he picked up and examined by
daylight. It was the gold locket, surrounded with diamonds and bearing
the princess's crest, which she had given Mila. He opened it to make
sure that it was the same. He recognized a lock of his own hair inside.
"I knew that Mila came into the grotto," he said to his father, as they
walked toward the garden; "she gave me a kiss which woke me."
"She evidently must have gone in there," rejoined Pier-Angelo,
indifferently; "but I didn't see her."
At that instant Mila emerged from a clump of magnolias, and came
forward, laughing and capering, to meet her father, whom she kissed
affectionately, as she did Michel.
"It is high time for you to come home and rest," she said; "I came to
tell you that your breakfast is waiting. I was so impatient to see you!
Are you terribly tired, father, dear?"
"Not at all," the good man replied, "I am used to these things, and a
sleepless night is all pleasure when you sup till morning. Your
breakfast will go begging, Mila; but your brother here is asleep on his
legs. Come, children; let us be off; see, they are closing the garden
gates now."
But, instead of continuing to close the gates, the servants suddenly
threw them wide open again, and Michel saw a procession of monks file
in, monks of divers orders, all carrying wallets and purses; they were
the begging brothers of all the mendicant orders, which have numerous
establishments in Catania and its neighborhood. They were making their
usual round and had come to collect for their respective communities the
broken meat left from the fête. Some two score of them passed slowly
through the gate; most of them had asses to carry away the avails of
their quest. There was something so surprising and comical in their
obsequious manner and their solemn bearing when they entered the
gardens, escorted by their asses,--strange guests at a ball--that
Michel, diverted from his emotion, had much ado to keep from laughing.
But no sooner were they fairly inside the gates than they broke ranks,
and, shaking off their consequential, discreet manner, began to run
toward the ball-room, each striving to outstrip his neighbors, beating
their asses to make them move faster, hurrying, jostling, and freely
exhibiting their greed and their jealousy. They overran the ball-room,
almost breaking down the fragile doors, and attempted to ascend the main
staircase of the peristyle, or to force their way into the kitchens. But
the butler and his _officers_, being prepared for the assault, and
knowing their ways, had carefully barricaded all the issues; they
brought forth the fragments destined for the monks, and distributed them
as impartially as possible. There were dishes of meat, remnants of
pastry, pitchers of wine, and even pieces of glass and porcelain which
had been broken during the fête, and which the good monks put together
with great care and mended most skilfully, for the adornment of their
own sideboards, or to sell to collectors. They quarrelled over the booty
with little decency, reviled the servants for not giving them all that
they were entitled to, for treating one better than another, for failing
in respect for the patron saints of their convents. They even threatened
them with the infirmities which those saints were supposed to be
especially skilful in curing when the afflicted person had acquired
their good-will.
"Bah! what a miserable ham you have given me!" cried one. "You are
already deaf in one ear; you can depend upon it that before long you
will not be able to hear the thunder with the other."
[Illustration: _AFTER THE FÊTE._
"_Here's a bottle half empty!" cried another.
"No prayers will be said for you under our roof,
and you'll never be cured of the stone, if you take
that terrible disease._"]
"Here's a bottle half empty!" cried another. "No prayers will be said
for you under our roof, and you'll never be cured of the stone, if you
take that terrible disease."
Others plied their trade gayly, with jests that made the distributors
laugh, and they showed so much wit and good-nature that the servants
secretly slipped the best pieces into their wallets.
At Rome Michel had seen dandified Capuchins, redolent with perfume under
their frocks, and displaying their sandals, with poetic gravity, in
close proximity to the Holy Father's consecrated slipper. The
poverty-stricken Sicilian monks seemed to him very indecent, very
laughable, and ever so little cynical, when they swooped down upon the
crumbs of that feast like a flock of greedy crows and chattering
magpies. He was attracted, however, by the high-spirited and intelligent
faces of some of them. It was the Sicilian common people again, in the
sack-cloth of the cloister--a noble race which bends beneath the yoke
but cannot be broken.
The young artist had returned to the ball-room to look on at this
curious spectacle, and he watched its various incidents with the
attention of a painter who turns everything to his own profit. He
noticed especially one of the monks, whose hood was pulled down to the
end of his beard, and who did not beg. He kept apart from the others,
and walked about the room as if he were more interested in the place
where the fête had been given than in the possible benefit he might
derive from it. Michel tried several times to see his features, and to
judge therefrom whether the intelligent mind of an artist or the regrets
of a man of the world were concealed beneath that monkish garb. He saw
him stealthily put aside his hood but once, and then he was impressed by
his repulsive ugliness. At the same instant the monk turned his eyes
upon him with an expression of malevolent curiosity; and instantly
looked away as if he feared to be surprised staring at other people.
"I have seen that ugly face somewhere," said Michel to his sister, who
was standing by his side.
"Do you call that a face?" replied the girl. "I saw nothing but a goat's
beard, the eyes of an owl, and a nose that looked like an old crushed
fig. You won't paint his portrait, I hope?"
"You said just now, Mila, that you knew several of these monks from
having seen them begging in our suburb; have you ever met that fellow?"
"I don't think so; but, if you are anxious to find out his name, it will
be very easy, for here is a brother who will tell me."
And the girl ran to meet a monk who was the last to arrive, without a
wallet, and without an ass, but with a little purse simply. He was a
tall, handsome man, of uncertain age; his beard was still as black as
ebony, although his crown of hair was beginning to turn gray. The
keenness of his black eyes, the noble contour of his aquiline nose, and
the smile that played about his red lips, indicated robust health,
conjoined with an amiable and decided character. He had neither the
unhealthy thinness nor the absurd obesity of most of his brethren. His
chestnut-colored frock was neat and clean, and he wore it with a
majestic air. He won Michel's confidence at the first glance; but it
angered the young man to see Mila almost throw her arms about the
Capuchin's neck, and take his beard in her two little hands, laughing
and pretending that she proposed to kiss him whether he would or not.
"Come, come, little one, softly, softly," said the monk, pushing her
away with fatherly gentleness. "No matter if I am your uncle, a monk
musn't be kissed."
Thereupon, Michel bethought him of the Capuchin Paolo-Angelo, of whom
his father had so often spoken to him, and whom he had never seen. _Fra
Angelo_ was Pier-Angelo's brother in affection not less than by birth.
He was the youngest of Michel's uncles. His intellect and the dignity of
his character made him the pride of the family, and as soon as
Pier-Angelo saw him, he ran to Michel to introduce him.
"Brother," said the old decorator, pressing the Capuchin's hand warmly,
"give my son your blessing; I should have brought him to your convent to
ask it before this if we had not been employed here a little beyond our
strength."
"My child," said Fra Angelo to his nephew, "I give you the blessing of a
kinsman and a friend; I am happy to see you, and your face pleases me."
"I can say the same," replied Michel, putting his hand in his uncle's.
But, to manifest his affection, the good monk, who had the muscles of an
athlete, squeezed his fingers so hard that the young man thought for a
moment that the bones were broken. He did not wish to let it appear that
that caress was a little too rough; but the perspiration stood out on
his forehead, and he said to himself with a smile, that a man of the
build of his uncle, the Capuchin, was better adapted to demand alms than
to beg.
But, as strength and gentleness almost always go hand in hand, Fra
Angelo approached the distributor of alms with a self-restraint and
reserve as marked as the eagerness and persistence of his fellows. He
saluted him with a smile, opened his purse without deigning to put out
his hand, and closed it without looking to see what had been put in it,
muttering a very laconic sentence of thanks; after which he returned to
his brother and nephew, refusing to burden himself with provisions of
any sort.
"In that case," said a very pious footman, "you have not enough money!"
"Do you think so?" rejoined the monk. "I have no idea. However little it
may be, the convent must needs be satisfied with it."
"Do you wish me to go and demand more for you, my brother? If you will
promise to pray for me every day this week, I will make them give you
more."
"Oh! don't take that trouble," replied the dignified Capuchin, with a
smile; "I will pray for you _gratis_, and my prayers will be worth all
the more. Your mistress, Princess Agatha, gives enough in charity, and I
come to her house only in obedience to my orders."
"Uncle," said little Mila, in an undertone, "there is a brother of your
order yonder, whose face puzzles my father and brother. They think that
he looks like somebody else."
"Somebody else? Whom do you mean?"
"Look at him," said Pier-Angelo. "Michel is right, he has a bad face.
You must know him. He is standing all alone, over there under the
musicians' platform."
"So far as his figure and his carriage are concerned, I don't recognize
him as any brother of our convent. And yet he wears the frock of a
Capuchin. But why does he interest you?"
"Because it seems to us," said Pier, lowering his voice, "that he
resembles Abbé Ninfo."
"In that case, off with you," said Fra Angelo, hastily. "I will go and
speak to him, and I will soon find out who he is and what he is here
for."
"Yes, yes, let us go," said Pier-Angelo. "Go first, children. I will
follow you."
Michel put his sister's arm through his, and they were soon on the way
to Catania.
"It seems that this Abbé Ninfo wishes us ill," said Mila to her
brother, "and has the power to injure us. Do you know why, Michel?"
"Not very well; but I am suspicious of a man who disguises himself,
apparently for the purpose of spying. Whether we are concerned or
somebody else, mystery conceals evil projects."
"Psha!" said the heedless Mila, after a moment's silence, "perhaps he is
only a monk, like the rest. He stood apart and lurked in corners, as
some of them often do after the crowd has passed, on days of processions
or feast-days, to see if they can't find some jewel that somebody has
lost. Then they pick it up without a word and carry it to their convent,
to be surrendered to its owner in consideration of a round sum for one
or two masses, or to be used in unearthing some love secret; for these
good fathers are very inquisitive, as a general rule!"
"You don't love the monks, do you, Mila? You are only half a Sicilian?"
"That depends. I love my uncle and those who are like him."
"By the way," said Michel, reminded by the words _lost jewel_ of the
adventure which the Capuchins had driven from his mind; "you had been in
the ball-room, hadn't you, a moment before I met you in the garden?"
"No," she replied; "if you had not taken me in with you to watch the
monks beg, I never should have dreamed of going in. Why do you ask me
that? I saw the ball-room all finished before the fête. What do I care
to see an empty room where no one is dancing? It was the ball, the
dancing, the dresses, that I wanted to see! But you wouldn't take me
even as far as the door last night!"
"Why not tell me the truth when the matter is of no importance? There is
nothing out of the way, my dear little sister, in your having come to
the naiad's grotto to wake me just now."
"Father says that you are asleep on your legs, Michel, and I see that he
is quite right. I will take my oath that since yesterday morning, when I
brought you the leaves you asked me to pick, I have not been inside the
grotto."
"Ah! Mila, this is too much. You used not to tell falsehoods, and I am
sorry to see that you have that wretched habit now."
"Hush, brother, you insult me," said Mila, proudly withdrawing her arm.
"I have never lied, and I shall not begin to-day, just to please you."
"Little sister," rejoined Michel, walking after her and quickening his
pace to keep up with her, for she was hurrying on ahead, hurt and
grieved, "will you please show me the locket Princess Agatha gave you?"
"No, Master Michelangelo," retorted the girl, "you are not worthy to
look at it. In the days when I cut a lock of your hair to wear upon my
heart, you were not unkind as you have become since."
"If I were in your place," said Michel, ironically, "I would take the
locket from my bosom and throw it in the face of the unkind brother who
teases me so!"
"Here! take it!" said Mila, pulling the locket from her bosom, and
handing it to Michel with an angry gesture; "you can take back your
hair, I don't care for it any longer. But return me the locket; I care
for that because it was given me by somebody kinder than you."
"Two lockets just alike!" said Michel to himself, placing them side by
side in his hand; "is this the sequel of my vision?"
XIX
YOUTHFUL LOVES
Michel dared not ask his sister for the explanation of such a prodigy.
He ran and shut himself up in his little room, and, seating himself upon
his bed, instead of going to sleep, he opened and compared those two
precisely similar trinkets and their contents. They were absolutely
indistinguishable, as were the two locks of hair; so that, after Michel
had examined and handled them a long while, he no longer knew which
belonged to his sister. Thereupon he recalled a remark of hers, which
had made little impression upon him, although it had seemed somewhat
strange to him for an instant. Mila declared that the lock of hair she
had entrusted to the princess had diminished by one half in the
jeweller's hands.
It was not possible to explain that curious fact. The princess did not
know Michel, she had never seen him; he had not returned to Catania when
she had taken Mila's scapulary and exchanged it for this beautiful
locket. It is difficult to believe that a woman can fall in love with a
man simply at sight of a lock of his hair. Michel cudgeled his brains to
no purpose. He could think of no explanation save this, which was far
from satisfactory to his intense curiosity: perhaps the princess had at
some time been attached to someone whose hair was of precisely the same
shade and texture as Michel's. She wore it in a locket. Observing Mila's
fervent adoration of that relic of her brother, she had ordered a locket
just like her own, and had given it to her.
But how impossible are the probabilities of life to a mind of eighteen
years! Michel thought it much more probable that he had been loved
unseen; and when he was overcome by sleep, the two lockets were still in
his half-open hand.
When he awoke about noon, he found only one of them; the other had
probably fallen among the bedclothes. He pulled his bed to pieces and
turned it upside down; passed an hour searching in all the cracks of his
floor, and all the folds of his clothes, which lay on a chair by his
pillow. One of the two talismans had disappeared.
"This is a trick of Signorina Mila," he thought. His door closed with a
latch only, and the girl was singing over her work in the room
adjoining.
"Ah! you are up at last!" she said with a pout, when he appeared in her
presence. "That is very lucky! Now will you kindly return my locket?"
"I should say, my dear, that you came and took it while I was asleep."