consider that this is no mere commonplace sacrifice of money that you
propose to make. If it were simply a matter of depriving yourself of
some little pleasure, it would be of little consequence, and I should
not hesitate. But your artistic future, the cultivation of your
intellect, the very essence of your life, are contained in this little
silk net! It means a year of study in Rome! And who knows when you will
be able to earn as much more? Perhaps the princess won't give any more
balls. The other nobles are neither so rich nor so generous as she. Such
opportunities are not often met with, and are very likely not to happen
twice in a lifetime. I am growing old; I may fall from my ladder
to-morrow and cripple myself; then how would you resume the life of an
artist? Aren't you at all alarmed at the idea that, for the pleasure of
giving your sister a marriage portion, you run the risk of becoming a
mechanic again, and remaining a mechanic all your life?"
"So be it!" exclaimed Michel; "that no longer frightens me, father. I
have reflected. It seems to me that there is as much honor and pleasure
in being a mechanic as in being rich and proud. I love Sicily! Is it not
my native land? I do not propose to leave my sister again. She needs a
protector until she is married, and I propose that she shall be able to
make her choice deliberately. You are old, you say! you may be crippled
to-morrow! Well then! who would take care of you, pray,--who would
support you, who would comfort you,--if I were away? Would it be
possible for my sister to do it when she has a family of her own? A
son-in-law? but why should I leave it for another to fulfill my duties?
Why should he steal my honor and my glory? for this is wherein I choose
to establish them henceforth, and my chimeras have given place to
reality. Tell me, father, am not I, too, in a cheerful mood this
morning? Would you like me to sing a second to the old ballad you were
singing just now? Do I seem to you to have the despairing look of a man
who is sacrificing himself? Do you not love me, I pray to know, that you
refuse to be my employer?"
"Very well!" replied Pier-Angelo, gazing at him with glistening eyes,
and with a trembling of the hands that indicated extraordinary emotion.
"You are a man of heart! and I shall never regret what I have done for
you!"
As he spoke, Pier-Angelo removed his cap, uncovering his bald head, and
stood erect in the attitude, at once proud and respectful, of an old
soldier before his young officer. It was the first time in his life that
he had adopted the more formal mode of address with Michel,[7] and that
change, which might have seemed to denote coldness and dissatisfaction
in other fathers, assumed in his mouth a peculiarly affectionate and
majestic meaning. It seemed to the young painter that he had been hailed
as a man by his father at last, and that that form of address--that
uncovered head and those few calm and serious words--rewarded and
honored him more abundantly than the most eloquent academic eulogy.
While they worked together, Mila busied herself preparing their
breakfast. She went back and forth from one room to another, but passed
more frequently than was absolutely necessary along the gallery of which
we have spoken. She had a secret reason for this. Magnani's chamber,
which, to tell the truth, was only a wretched garret with a window in
which there was no glass--the warm climate making that luxury
unnecessary for people in good health--was at the corner of the house
nearest to the gallery, and by leaning over the rail one could talk with
a person who happened to be sitting at the window of that modest
apartment. Magnani was not in his room; he only passed the night there,
and at daylight went to his work elsewhere, or worked out-of-doors on
the gallery opposite the one on which Mila often sat at her work. From
there she could watch him without looking at him, for hours at a time,
and not lose a single one of his movements, although she did not seem to
lift her eyes from her work.
But on this morning she walked back and forth to no purpose. He was not
on the gallery, although he had promised her, as well as the princess,
not to go away from home. Had he allowed himself to be overcome by
sleep, after two sleepless nights? That was hardly consistent with what
she knew of his stoical determination and of his inexhaustible strength.
Doubtless he was breakfasting with his parents. But Mila, who had
stopped more than once to listen to the tumultuous voices of the Magnani
family, could not distinguish the grave, manly tones which she knew so
well.
She looked at the window of his garret. The room was dark and empty as
usual. Magnani had no luxurious habits as Michel had, and he had always
crushed within himself any craving for refinement in his surroundings.
Whereas Pier-Angelo and his daughter, in anticipation of the cardinal's
death and the young painter's arrival, had made ready for that beloved
child a neat, clean, airy attic chamber, furnished with the best that
they could spare from their own furniture, Magnani slept on a rug thrown
on the floor by his window, to make the most of the little air which
could find its way in through that loophole, recessed as it was between
two walls. The only embellishment which he had introduced consisted of a
box which he had placed on the outer edge of that yawning aperture, and
in which he had sown a few pretty convolvuli which formed a frame of
fresh flowers for the window.
He watered them every day; but during the last forty-eight hours he had
been so engrossed that he had forgotten them; the pretty white bells had
closed and drooped languidly upon their half-withered leaves.
Mila, carrying one of her earthen jugs perched lightly on her head, an
enormous braid of hair thrice twisted acting as a cushion, noticed that
her neighbor's convolvuli were dying of thirst; that would have afforded
a pretext for speaking to him if he had been anywhere about; but there
was nobody in that retired and sheltered corner. Mila tried, by
stretching her arm over the rail, to reach the poor plants and give them
a few drops of water. But her arm was too short, and the jug did not
reach the box. Children cannot bear the impossible, and when they have
undertaken a thing they go on with it at the peril of their lives. How
many times have we climbed upon a window to reach a swallow's nest, and
counted with the tips of our fingers the little warm eggs on their bed
of down!
Little Mila spied a stout branch of grapevine which hung along the wall
like a bell-rope and was twisted about the rail of the gallery. To climb
over the rail and cling to the vine did not seem to her very difficult.
In this way she reached the window. But, as she raised her lovely arm to
water the convolvuli, a strong hand seized her slender wrist, and a
brown face, wearing a smile that displayed two rows of large white
teeth, stooped toward hers.
Magnani, not wishing to sleep, nor, on the other hand, to seem to be
watching what was taking place in the house, as Agatha had ordered, had
lain down on his rug to rest his weary limbs. But his mind and his eyes
were wide open, and, at every risk, he had seized that stealthy arm
whose shadow passed across his face.
"Let me go, Magnani," said the girl, more deeply moved by the meeting
than by the risk she might be incurring; "you will throw me down! this
vine is giving way under me."
"Throw you down, my dear child!" replied the young man, passing a
powerful arm about her waist. "Unless this arm is cut off, and then the
other, you shall never fall!"
"Never? that is saying a good deal, for I love to climb, and you won't
always be with me."
"Happy the man who will be with you always and everywhere, sweet little
Mila! But what are you doing here with the birds?"
"I saw from my window that this lovely plant was thirsty. See how its
pretty head droops and how its leaves are falling. I thought that you
were not here, and I was going to give the poor roots something to
drink. Here is the jug. You can bring it back to me by and by. I am
going back to my work."
"Already, Mila?"
"Especially as I am very uncomfortable perched up here. I have had
enough of it. Let me go, so that I can return the way I came."
"No, no, it is too dangerous. The vine is bending, and my arms aren't
long enough to hold you till you reach the gallery. Let me lift you in
here, Mila, and then you can go out through my chamber."
"I can't do that, Magnani; the neighbors would say unkind things of me,
if they saw me go into your room either by the window or by the door."
"Very well, stay there, hold on tight; I will come out through the
window and help you to go back."
But it was too late: the vine suddenly gave way; Mila shrieked, and if
Magnani had not grasped her with both hands and seated her on the edge
of the window, crushing his dear convolvuli a little in the act, she
would have fallen.
"Now," he said, "my imprudent young lady, you cannot go out any other
way than through my room. Come in quickly, for I hear steps under the
gallery, and no one has seen you yet."
He drew her hastily into his poor room, and she walked to the door as
swiftly as she had come in through the window; but the door was ajar,
and as she looked out she saw that the door of the cobbler's room on the
same landing was wide open, and that the cobbler himself, the most
evil-tongued of all the neighbors, was sitting there, singing over his
work, so that it was impossible to go out without exposing herself to
his unpleasant witticisms.
[Footnote 7: That is to say, had called him _you_ instead of _thou_.]
XXXIII
THE RING
"There!" said the girl, closing the door with a touch of vexation, "the
evil spirit has a grudge against me! Just because I took it into my head
to water a poor flower, I am in danger of being torn to pieces by evil
tongues and scolded by my father--and above all by Michel, who is such a
tease with me!"
"Dear child," said Magnani, "people would not dare to speak of you as
they speak of others; you are so different from all the other girls in
our suburb! Everybody loves you and respects you as no one of them will
ever be loved and respected. Besides, as it is on my account--or rather
on account of my poor flowers--that you have run this risk, you need not
have the slightest fear. Woe to the man who dares to speak ill of you!"
"All the same, I shall never dare to pass that horrible cobbler."
"You are quite right. It is his breakfast time. His wife has called him
twice already. He will go directly. Wait here a few seconds, perhaps a
minute--especially as I should like to say a word to you, Mila."
"What have you to say to me, pray?" she replied, taking a chair which he
offered her, and which was the only one in the room. She was trembling
with violent inward excitement, but she affected a careless air which
her position seemed to impose upon her. It was not that she was afraid
of Magnani; she knew him too well to fear that he would take advantage
of the tête-à-tête; but she feared, more than ever before, that he
would guess the secret of her heart.
"I don't know just what I have to say to you," rejoined Magnani. "It
seemed to me that it would be for you to say something to me."
"I!" cried proud little Mila, rising. "I have nothing to say to you, I
give you my word, Signor Magnani!"
And she was about to leave the room, preferring the gossip of the
neighborhood to the danger of being found out by the man she loved, when
Magnani, surprised by her movement, and observing her sudden flush,
began to suspect the truth.
"Dear Mila," he said, placing himself in front of the door, "one
moment's patience, I beg you. Do not let people see you, and do not be
angry with me if I detain you a moment. The consequences of a pure
accident may be very serious to a man who is determined to kill or be
killed to defend the honor of a woman."
"In that case, do not speak so loud," said Mila, struck by Magnani's
expression; "for that miserable cobbler may overhear us. I know," she
continued, allowing him to lead her back to her chair, "that you are
brave and generous, and that you would do for me what you would do for
your own sister. But I am not anxious that that should happen, for you
are not my brother, and you cannot justify me by fighting my battles.
People would say all the more evil of me, or else we should be compelled
to marry, which would not suit either of us."
Magnani gazed into Mila's black eyes, and, seeing how proud they were,
he speedily renounced the presumptuous idea that had caused him both
fear and pleasure as it flashed through his mind.
"I understand perfectly well that you do not love me, my dear Mila," he
said with a sad smile. "I am not lovable, and it would be the most
melancholy thing on earth, after being compromised by me, to pass your
life with such an unsociable being."
"That is not what I meant to say," replied the crafty maiden. "I have
much esteem and friendship for you; I have no reason for concealing that
fact from you; but I have an inclination for another. That is why I am
so distressed and tremble so at being shut up in this room with you."
"If that is so, Mila," said Magnani, bolting his door and closing the
window-shutter so hastily that he nearly consummated the ruin of his
convolvulus, "let us take all necessary precautions to prevent anyone
knowing that you are here. I swear to you that you shall go out without
anybody suspecting it, though I have to put all the neighbors out of the
way by force--though I have to stand guard until night."
Magnani tried to be playful, and imagined that he was very much relieved
to find that he was not called upon to defend himself against Mila's
love; but it saddened him to hear the girl declare her affection for
another, and his candid face expressed, despite his efforts, a painful
disappointment. Had she not previously confessed it to him during their
long vigil, and had she not by that confidence invested him in a certain
sense with the duties of a brother? He was determined to execute
worthily that sacred mission; but how did it happen that a moment before
it had startled him to see her in anger, and why had his heart,
nourished so long upon an insane and bitter passion, felt suddenly
revivified and rejuvenated by the unexpected presence of this child who
had entered through his window like a sunbeam?
Mila was stealthily watching him. She saw that she had struck home. "O
untamed heart," she said to herself, with silent but intense joy, "I
have you now; you shall not escape me."
"My dear neighbor," said the artful minx, "pray do not be offended at
what I have just told you, and do not look upon it as an affront to your
merit. I know that any other than myself would be flattered to be
compromised by you, with the hope of becoming your wife; but I am
neither a liar nor a flirt. I am in love, and, as I have confidence in
you, I tell you of it. I know that it cannot cause you any pain, since
you have given up all thought of marriage, and since you detest all
women, except a single one who is not myself."
Magnani made no reply. The cobbler was still singing. "It is my fate,"
thought Magnani, "not to be loved by any woman and never to be cured of
my love."
Mila, inspired by that species of divination which love gives to women,
even to those who have had no experience and have read but little, said
to herself--and justly--that Magnani, being stimulated in his passion by
suffering and absence of hope, would be alarmed and repelled at the idea
of love being offered to him unasked--a too-ready, alluring love;
consequently she represented herself as invulnerable and protected
against him by another attachment. In that way she lured him by making
him suffer, and that was, in truth, the only way in which he could be
lured. By changing the form of his torture, she paved the way for his
cure.
"Mila," he said to her at last, pointing to a heavy ring of chased gold
which he wore on his finger, and which she had already noticed, "can you
tell me the source of this beautiful present?"
"That?" she said, looking at the ring with feigned astonishment. "It is
impossible for me to tell you anything about it. But I no longer hear
your neighbor; farewell. By the way, Magnani, you look very tired. You
were resting when I came in; you would do well to rest a little more.
None of us are in any danger at this moment. I am not, because my father
and brother are about the house. They are not, because it is broad
daylight and the house is full of people. Sleep, my dear neighbor. If it
is only for an hour, that will give you strength to go on with your
rôle of guardian of the family."
"No, no, Mila. I shall not sleep, and, indeed, I have no desire to; for,
say what you will, there are some strange, inexplicable things still
going on in this house. I confess that I lost myself a moment, just as
day was breaking. You were asleep; you were locked into your room; the
man in the cloak had gone. I had sat down under your gallery, saying to
myself that the first step that shook it would wake me instantly if I
should happen to fall asleep. And thereupon I did actually fall asleep.
For five minutes perhaps, not more, for it was not perceptibly lighter
when I woke again. Well! when I opened my eyes, I fancied that I saw a
corner of a dress or a black veil, which flitted by me and disappeared
like a flash. I made a vague, fruitless effort to seize that vision with
the hand that lay half open on the bench at my side. But in my hand, or
beside it--I don't know which--was an object which I dropped at my feet,
and instantly picked up again: it was this ring. Have you any idea to
whom it belongs?"
"Such a fine ring cannot belong to anyone in the house," Mila replied;
"but I think I know it."
"And I know it, too," said Magnani; "it belongs to Princess Agatha. For
five years I have seen it on her finger, and it was there the day she
came into my mother's room."
"It is a ring that came to her from her own mother, she told me so! But
how does it happen to be on your hand to-day?"
"I relied upon you to explain that prodigy to me, Mila; that is what I
wanted to ask you."
"Upon me? Why upon me?"
"You are the only one in this house in whom the princess is sufficiently
interested to have given her so handsome a present."
"And if she had given it to me," she said, in a superb and mocking tone,
"do you suppose that I would have deprived myself of it in your favor,
Signor Magnani?"
"No, surely not; you should not and would not have done it; but you
might have passed along the gallery and dropped it, for I was just under
the rail."
"No, I did not! Besides, didn't you see a black dress beside you? Am I
dressed in black?"
"I thought, however, that you might have gone down into the yard during
that moment that I was asleep, and that, to punish me or to make sport
of me, you played that joke on me. If that is the case, Mila, you must
agree that the punishment was too light, and you ought to have poured
water on my face instead of keeping it for my flowers. But take your
ring, I don't want to keep it any longer. It wouldn't be a suitable
thing for me to wear, and I should be afraid of losing it."
"I swear to you that that ring was never given to me, that I did not go
into the yard while you were asleep; and I will not take what belongs to
you."
"As it is impossible that Princess Agatha should have come here this
morning----"
"Oh! to be sure, that is impossible!" said Mila, with mischievous
gravity.
"And yet she did come here!" said Magnani, thinking that he could read
the truth in her gleaming eyes. "Yes, yes, Mila, she came here this
morning! You are impregnated with the perfume that her clothes exhale;
either you touched her cape, or she kissed you, not more than an hour
ago."
"Great heaven!" thought the girl, "how well he knows everything that has
any connection with Princess Agatha! how shrewdly he guesses, when she
is in question! Suppose it were she with whom he is in love? Well! God
grant that it may be, for she will help me to cure him; she loves me so
dearly!"
"You don't answer me, Mila," continued Magnani. "Since you are found
out, confess."
"I do not even know what you said," she replied; "I was thinking about
something else--about going away!"
"I will help you; but first I will beg you to put this ring on your
finger so that you may return it to Princess Agatha; for she surely lost
it when she passed me."
"And supposing that she did come here, which is absurd, my dear
neighbor, why should she not have made you this present?"
"Because she must know me well enough to be sure that I would not accept
it."
"You are proud!"
"Very proud, you have said it, my dear Mila! It is not in the power of
any person to put a material price on the devotion which my heart gives
joyfully. I can conceive that a great nobleman may present a gold chain
or a diamond to the artist who has delighted him for an hour by his
genius, but I could never understand why he should want to pay the man
of the people from whom he feels justified in asking a proof of
affection. Moreover, that would not be the case here. In notifying me
that your brother was in some danger, Princess Agatha simply pointed out
to me a duty, which I should have performed as zealously if anyone else
had given me the same warning. It seems to me that I am sufficiently her
friend and your father's, and I might also venture to say yours, to be
ready to stand guard, to fight, and to go to prison for one of you,
without being hired to do so by anyone. Don't you believe it, Mila?"
"I do believe it, my friend," she replied; "but I believe also that you
misinterpret this gift altogether, if it is a gift. Princess Agatha
knows better than you or I that friendship is not to be bought with
money and jewels. But she probably feels, as you and I do, that when
friendly hearts unite to aid one another, esteem and sympathy increase
in proportion to the zeal which each one displays. In many cases a ring
is a pledge of friendship, not payment for service rendered; for you
have rendered the princess a service by protecting us, that is certain;
although I do not know how it comes about, her cause is bound up with
ours, and our enemies are hers. If you reflect on what I have told you,
you will realize that this ring has a sentimental value in the
princess's eyes, not a material value, as you say; for it is a trinket
not especially valuable in itself."
"You told me that it came to her from her mother, did you not?" said
Magnani, deeply moved.
"And you yourself noticed that she always wore it! If I were in your
place, and were sure that that ring had been given to me, I would never
part with it. I would not wear it on my finger, where it would attract
too much attention from envious creatures, but on my heart, where it
would be like a blessed relic."
"In that case, my dear Mila," said Magnani, touched by the extreme
delicacy with which the girl tried to allay the bitterness of his heart,
and to make him accept her rival's gift with pleasure, "in that case,
take this ring back to her, and if she really meant to give it to me, if
she insists upon my keeping it, I will keep it."
"And you will wear it on your heart as I told you?" asked Mila, looking
him through and through with courageous but anxious eyes. "Remember,"
she added, vehemently, "that it is the pledge of a patron saint; that
the woman whom you love, whoever she may be, cannot deserve that you
should sacrifice it to her, and that it would be far better to throw it
into the sea than to profane it by an act of ingratitude!"
Magnani was dazzled by the flame that flashed from Mila's great black
eyes. Did she guess the truth? Perhaps! but if she simply relied upon
Magnani's gratitude for the woman who had saved his mother, she was no
less noble and generous in seeking to procure for him the pleasure of
believing in that good fairy's friendship. He began to feel infected by
the chaste and deep-rooted ardor which she carried concealed in her
heart, and that proud and passionate heart revealed itself against its
will, amid its efforts to subdue itself or to keep quiet.
An impulsive outburst of gratitude and tenderness brought Magnani to his
knees at the girl's feet.
"Mila," he said, "I know that Princess Agatha is a saint, and I do not
know whether my heart is worthy to receive a relic from her. But I do
know that there is but a single other heart in the world to which I
would be willing to entrust it; so never fear; no woman, except you,
will ever seem to me pure enough to wear this ring. Put it on your
finger now, in order to give it back to the princess or to keep it for
me."
Mila, when she had returned to her room, had a moment's dizziness, as if
she were going to faint. Her heart throbbed wildly with mingled feelings
of consternation and delirious joy. At last she heard her father, who
was impatient for his breakfast, crying:
"Well, little one, we are hungry, and thirsty above all! for it's hot
already and the paints make your throat dry."
Mila hastened to wait upon them; but when she placed her jug on the
table at which they were breakfasting, she noticed that it was empty.
Michel offered to go and refill it, after making fun of her
absent-mindedness. Sensitive to the reproof, and making it a point of
honor to be her old father's only servant, Mila snatched the jug from
him and ran lightly to the fountain.