The Picture's tale. It was so well painted--that was why it
could hear four hundred years ago. How its painter
hungered and thirsted for its original, and _vice versa_. How
old January hid in a spy-hole, to watch May, and saw it
all. Of Pope Innocent's penetration. Of certain bells,
unwelcome ones. How two _innamorati_ tried to part
without a kiss, and failed. Nevertheless assassins stopped it
when it had only just begun. But Giacinto got at January's
throat. How the picture was framed, and hung where May
could only see it by twisting. Of the dungeon below her,
where Giacinto might be. How January dug at May with
a walking-staff. How the picture was in abeyance, but
loved a firefly; then was interred in furniture, and three
centuries slipped by. How it sold for six fifty, and was
sent to London, to a picture-restorer, which is how it comes
into the tale. How Mr. Pelly woke up.
You ask me to tell you what is earliest in my
recollection. I will do so, and will also endeavour
to narrate as much as I can remember of the life of
the lady I was painted from; whose memory, were
she now living, would be identical with my own.
The very first image I can recall is that of my
artist, at work. He is the first human being I ever
saw, as well as the first visible object I can call to
mind. He is at work--as I am guided to understand
by what I have learned since--upon my right
eye. It is a very dim image indeed at the outset,
but as he works it becomes clearer, and at last I see
him quite plainly.
He is a dark young man, with hair of one thickness
all over, like a black door-mat, and a beautiful
olive skin. As he turns round I think to myself
how beautiful his neck is at the back under the hair,
and that I should like to kiss it. But that is
impossible. I can recall my pleasure at his fixed
gaze, and constant resolute endeavour. Naturally
I want him to paint my other eye. Then I shall see
him still better.
I am not surprised at his saying nothing--for
remember!--I did not know what speech was then.
He had painted my mouth, only, of course, I did
not know what to do with it. Needless also to say
that I had not heard a word, for I had no ear at all.
I have only one now, but it has heard all that has
been spoken near it for four hundred years. I
heard nothing then--nothing at all! I only gazed
fixedly at the fascinating creature before me who
was trying his best to make me beautiful too--to
make me as beautiful as something that I could not
see--something his eyes turned round to at intervals,
something to my right and his left. What I recall
most vividly now is my curiosity to know what this
thing or person was that took his eyes off me at
odd moments; to which he made, now and again,
slight deprecatory signs and corrective movements
with his left hand; from which he received some
response I could not guess at, which he acknowledged
by a full-spread smile of grateful recognition.
But always in perfect silence, though I saw, when
his brush was not in front of my incomplete eye,
that his lips moved, showing his beautiful white
teeth; and that he paused and listened--a thing
I have learned about since--with a certain air of
deference, as towards a social superior. Oh, how I
longed to see this unseen being, or thing! But I
was not to do so, yet awhile.
My recollection goes no farther than the fact of
this young artist, working on in a strange, systematic
way, quite unlike what I have since understood to
be the correct method for persons of genius, until at
the end of some period I cannot measure, he paints
my other eye, and I rejoice in a clearer image of
himself; of the huge bare room he works in; of
the small window, high up, with its cage of grating
against the sky; of the recess below it, in which,
at the top of two steps, an old woman sits plaiting
straws, and beside her a black dog, close shaved,
except his head, all over. But I get no light upon
the strange attraction that takes my creator's
attention off me, until after a second experience,
as strange as my first new-found phenomenon of
sight--to wit, my hearing of sound. As he painted
my ear, it came.
At first, a musical, broken murmur--then another,
that mixes with it. As one rises, the other falls;
then both together, or as the threads of a cascade
cross and intersect in mid-air. Then a third sound,
a sound with a musical ring that makes my heart
leap with joy--a sound that comes back to me now,
when in the early mornings of summer, I hear,
through the window of this room opened outwards
to let in the morning air, the voice of the little brown
bird that springs high into the blue heaven, and
unpacks its tiny heart in a flood of song. And
then I think to myself that _that_ is the language in
which I too should have laughed, had laughter been
possible to me.
For what I heard then from behind the easel I
stood on as the young artist painted me was the
laughter of Maddalena Raimondi, from whom he
was working; whom I may describe myself as being.
For ought not the name written on the frame below
me to be hers also, with the date of her birth and
death? Are not my eyes that I see with now hers?
Is not the nostril with the lambent curve--that is
what a celebrated Art-Critic has called it--hers,
and the little sea-shell ear hers that heard you say,
but now, that my original cannot have been more
than twenty?...
More than twenty! No, indeed!--for in those
days a girl of twenty was a woman. And the girl
that one day a little later came round at a signal
from behind the panel, to see the portrait that I now
knew had received its last touch from its maker,
was one who at eighteen had been threatened,
driven, goaded into harness with an old Devil of
high rank, to whom she had been affianced in her
babyhood; and who is now, we may hope, in his
proper Hell, as God has appointed. Yet it may
well be he is among the Saints; for his wealth was
great, and he gave freely to Holy Church. But to
Maddalena, that was myself--for was I not
she?--he was a Devil incarnate.
For mark you this: that all she had known I too
knew, in my degree, so soon as ever I was completed.
Else had I been a bad portrait. It all came to my
memory at once. I remembered my happy girlhood,
the strange indifference of my utter innocence
when I was first told I was destined to marry the
great Duke, whose vassal my father was, and how
my marriage would somehow--I am, maybe, less
clear about details than my original would have
been--release my father from some debt or
obligation to the Raimondi which otherwise would have
involved the forfeiture of our old home. So
ignorant was I that I rejoiced to think that I should
be the means of preserving for my family the long
stretches of vine-clad hills and the old Castello in the
Apennines that had borne our name since the first
stone was laid, centuries ago. So ignorant, innocent,
indifferent--call it what you will!--that the moment
I was told my destiny I went straight to Giacinto,
the page, with whom I had grown from infancy, to
tell him the good news, that he might rejoice too.
But he would not rejoice at my bidding, and he
was moody and reserved, and I wondered. I was
but twelve and he thirteen. Although a girl may
be older than a boy, even at those years, her eyes are
not so wide open to see some things, and it may be
he saw plainer than I. I know not.
This, then, was what had happened to the beautiful
creature that came round into my sight on that day
when I first saw and heard and knew her for myself,
and hoped I was well done, and very like. And
thus, also, it all came back to me, so soon as I was
finished and was really Maddalena Raimondi, how
the great Venetian artist, Angelo Allori, whom
they called _Il Bronzino_, came to the Castello to
paint my mother, and how he took a fancy to
Giacinto, and would have him away to his studio,
and taught him how to use brushes and colours, and
how to grind and prepare these last, and to make
canvas ready for the painter. And it ended by his
taking him as an apprentice, at his own wish and
Giacinto's. And they went away together to
Venice, and I could recall now that Maddalena had
not seen Giacinto after that for six years.
That is to say: she had not seen him till he came
to the Villa Raimondi in the first year of her
unhappy marriage, an unhappy bride with all the
deadly revelation of the realities of life that an
accursed wedlock must needs bring. The girl was
no longer a girl; she knew what she had lost. And
I knew it too, and all that she had known up to the
moment of that last brush-touch, when Giacinto
said, "Now, _carissima Signora_, you may come round
and see!"
And the ringing laugh came round, and _she_ came
round, that had been me. Then I too saw what I
had been--what I was still. And after that, I will
tell you what I saw and heard--but presently!
For I want you first to know what Maddalena
was when her old owner told her that he had
commanded a young Venetian artist, of rising fame, to
come at once, under penalty of his displeasure, to
paint her portrait in a dress of yellow satin brocade
well broidered in gold thread, and a _gorgiera_ of fine
linen turned back over it, that had belonged to his
first wife, Vittoria Fanfani, who was much of the
size and shape of la Maddalena, as who could
tell better than he? And for this portrait she was
to sit or stand, as the painter should arrange, in
front of the tapestry showing Solomon's Judgment
in the _Stanza delle Quattro Corone_; which is, as you
would say, The Room of the Four Crowns, so called
because it was said four Kings had met there in old
days, three of whom had slain the fourth, which
was accounted of great fame to the Castello
Raimondi. And the time for this painting was to be
each day after the sun had passed the meridian;
for the room looked south-east, and one must study
the sun. And Marta Zan would always be in
attendance, as a serious person who would keep a
check on any pranks such young people might
choose to play. For as I too now knew and could
well remember, it was a wicked touch of this old
_birbante's_ character that he was never tired of a
wearisome pretence that this young Maddalena,
whose heart was truly broken if ever girl's heart
was, was still full of joyousness and youth and
kittenish tricks. And he would rally her waggishly
before his retinue for pranks she had never played,
and pretended youthful escapades she could have
had no heart for. For in truth she was filled up
with sorrow, and shame of herself and her kind, and
intense loathing of the old man her master; but
she was forced to reply to his unwelcome _badinage_
by such pretence as might be of gaiety in return.
And this, although she knew well all the while that
there was not a scullion among them all but could
say how little she loved this eighty-year-old lord
of hers; though none could guess, not even the
women, what good cause she had to hate him.
But the sly old fox knew well enough; and when
he made his edict that Marta Zan--an old crone,
who had been, some said, his mistress in his
youth--should keep watch and ward over his young wife's
demeanour with this new painting fellow, he knew
too that in the thick wall of the _Stanza delle Quattro
Corone_ was a little, narrow entry, where one might
lie hid at any time, approaching from without, and
see all that passed in the chamber below. And so
he would see and know for himself; for he knew
Marta Zan too well to place much faith in her.
You may guess, then, that Maddalena, when _il
Duca_ first informed her of his gracious pleasure
about the portrait, was little inclined to take an
interest in that, or any other scheme of his
Highness; but to avoid incurring his resentment, she
was bound to affect an interest she did not feel, and
in this she succeeded, so far as was necessary. But
my lord Duke was growing suspicious of her; only
he was far too wily an old fox to show his mistrust
openly. Be sure that when, after Maddalena's
first sitting with my young artist, he noticed that
the roses had returned to her cheeks, and that her
step was light again upon the ground, he said never
a word to show his thought, and only resolved in
his wicked old heart to spy upon the two young
people from his eyrie in the wall.
It was little to be wondered at that Maddalena
should show pleasure when she saw who after all
was the young Venetian painter; who, still almost
a boy, had climbed so high in fame that it was
already held an honour to be painted by him. For
he was her old friend Giacinto, and she in her languid
lack of interest in all about her, had never asked
what was the actual name of _lo Spazzolone_. For
by this nickname only had he been spoken of in her
presence, and it may easily be he was known by no
other to the old _Duca_ himself, so universal is the
practice of nicknaming among the artists of Italy.
But he was Giacinto himself, sure enough!--only
grown so tall and handsome. And you may fancy
how gladly the poor Maddalena would have flung
her arms round the boy she had known from her
cradle, and kissed her welcome into his soul--only
there! was she not a wife, and the wife too of the
thing men called the Duke? What manner of
thing was he, that God should have made him, there
in the light of day?
But if it was difficult for Maddalena to keep her
embrace of welcome in check, you may fancy how
strong a constraint my young painter had to put
on himself when he saw who the great lady was
whom he was come to paint. For none had told
him, and till she came suddenly upon him in all the
beauty of her full and perfect womanhood, he had no
idea that she would be la Maddalena--_la sua sorellaccia_
(that is, his ugly sister), as he would call her in
jest in those early days--because there was no doubt
of her beauty, and the joke was a safe one. Only
mind you!--this would be when they were alone,
as might be, in the court of the old Castello, looking
down into the deep well and dropping stones to
hear them splash long after, or gathering the green
figs in the _poderi_ when the great heat was gone from
August, and they could ramble out in the early
mornings. When her sisters or brothers were there,
she was _la Signorina_ Maddalena. _I_ can remember
it all now! One does not lightly forget these
hours--the hours before the ugly dawn of the real World.
Nor the little joys one takes as a right, without a
rapture or a thought of gratitude; nor the little
pangs one thinks so hard to bear, and so soon
forgets.
If you should ask me how it came about that the
two of them should have so completely parted
during all those six years, that La Maddalena should
not even have known the nickname of the young
painter, nor his fame, I must beg that you will
remember that these were not the days of daily
posts, of telegraphs, and railways; nor of any of
the strange new things I hear of now, and find so
hard to understand. Moreover, my own opinion is
that the parents of Maddalena judged shrewdly that
this young stripling was no friend to be encouraged
for a little daughter that was to be the salvation of
their property. The less risk, the less danger!
The fewer boys about, the fewer fancies of a chit.
They managed it all, be sure of that! It was for
the girl's own best interest.
But--dear me![#]--if you know anything of life
in youth, and of the golden thread of Love that is
shot though it in the weft, and starts out
somewhere always, here or there, whatever light you
hold it in--if you know this, there is no more to
be said of why, when they met again, in the _Stanza
delle Quattro Corone_, each heart should leap out to
meet the other, and then shrink back chilled, at
the thought of what they were now that they were
not once, and of what perforce they had to be
hereafter. But the moment was their own, and
none pauses in the middle of a draught of nectar
because, forsooth, the cup will soon be empty. La
Maddalena became, in one magic instant, a Maddalena
whose laugh rang out like the song of the little
brown bird I told you of but now, and filled the
wicked old room with its music. And as for our
poor Giacinto--well!--are you a man, and were
you ever young? He could promise the withered
old _Duca_ that he would make a merry picture of _la
Duchessa_; none of your sinister death's-head
portraits, but with the smile of _sua Altezza_. For
all Maddalena's heart was in her face, and that face
wore again the smile of the old, old days, the days
long before her bridal. And you see that face before
you now.
[#] Probably the words Mr. Pelly heard were "_Dio mio!_" which
some consider the original of the English "Dear me!" Many
of the expressions are evidently literal translations.--EDITOR.
Now, if only this old shrunken mummy will
begone! If he will only go away to count over his
gold, to rack his tenantry for more than his share
of the oil-crop, to get absolution for his sins, or,
better still, to go to expiate them in the proper
place! If he will only take his venerable presence
and his cold firm eye away--if it be but for an
hour!...
He went--sooner than we had hoped. And then
when he was quite, quite gone, and the coast was
clear, then the laughter broke out. And Marta
Zan wondered was this really the new _Duchessa_?--she
who had brought from her bridal no smile
but a sad one, no glance unhaunted by the memory
or the forecast of a tear, no word of speech but had
its own resonance of a broken heart. The beldam
chuckled to herself, and saw money to come of it,
if she winked skilfully enough, and at the right time.
But in this she was wrong, for she judged these
young people by her bad old self; and indeed they
thought no harm, of her sort. Neither could she
see their souls, nor they hers. But the laughter
and the voices filled the place, and each felt a
child again, and back in the old Castello in the
hills.
"And was it really you, Giacinto? You, your
very self--the little Giacintino grown so great a
man! _Dio mio_, how great a man you have grown!"
"And was the _Duchessa_ then _la nostra Maddalena_,
grown to be a great Signora! Was it all true?"
And then old Marta scowled from the steps below
the window, for was not this saucy young painter
bold enough to kiss the little hand her mistress let
him hold so long; and most likely she was ready
enough to guess that the poor boy had much ado
to be off kissing the lips that smiled on him as well.
But then, when the Maddalena saw through his
heart, and saw all this as plain as I tell it you now,
she flinched off with a little sigh, and a chill came.
For now, she said, they were grown-up people,
responsible and serious, and must behave! And
Marta Zan would not be cross; for look you, Marta
_cara_, was not this Giacinto, her foster-brother, and
had they not been rocked to sleep in the same
cradle? And had they not eaten the grapes of a
dozen vintages at her father's little castle in the
hills, and heard the dogs bark all across the plain
below in the summer nights?
So Marta, though she looked mighty glum over
it, kept her thoughts for her own use, with due
consideration how she might get most profit from
what she foresaw, and yet keep her footing firm
with her great Duke. She was a cunning old black
spot, was Marta, and quick to scheme her own
advantage, for all she was near seventy. But she
saw no reason for meddling to check her young
_Duchessa's_ free flow of spirits, and she invented a
good apology for letting her alone. _She_ was not
going to mar the portrait by making the sitter cry
and look sulky: red eyes and swelled cheeks were
no man's joy. So she told her employer. And
she thought to herself, see how content the old man
is, and how clever am I to hoodwink him so!
Be sure, though, that she did not know how he
was passing his time, more and more, in that little
chapel of knavery in the wall, but a few yards from
the two happy young folk, as they laughed and
talked over their old days. Only, in this you may
believe me, that never a word passed between
them--for all that so many came to the lips of both and
were disallowed--that might not have been spoken,
almost, in the presence of the gracious Duke
himself--nay, quite!--if he had not been so corrupt
and tainted an old curmudgeon that he would have
found a scutch on the leaf of a lily new-blown, and
read dishonour into innocence itself. So there he
sits in his evil eyrie, day by day, hatching false
interpretation of every word and movement, but
all silence and caution, for come what may he will
not spoil the portrait. It will be time enough
when it is quite done. Time enough for what?
We shall see. Meanwhile, as well to keep his eye
on them! Small trust to be placed in Marta Zan!
So, all this while, I grew and grew. And the
laugh that you see on my lips is Maddalena's as she
sat looking down on her young painter, and the joy
and content of my eyes are her joy and content;
and the loose lock of hair that ripples, a stream of
golden red, over the red-gold of the brocaded
gilliflower on the bosom of my bodice, is the lock of
hair Maddalena had almost told Giacinto he might
cut away and take, to keep for her sake. But she
dared not, because of that dried old fig, old Marta,
and the grim eye of her owner. Yet she might
never see Giacinto again! She suspected, in her
heart, that he would be schemed away from her once
more, as before.
But I grew and grew. And now the hour is near
when no pretence can prolong the sittings that have
been the happiness--the more than happiness--of
six whole Autumn weeks. How quick they had
run away! Could it be six weeks? Yes, it was.
And there was an ugly, threatening look in the
Duke's old eye; but he said little enough. No
doubt _Messer il Pittore_ knew best how long was
needed to paint a portrait; but he had said three
weeks, at the outset. So it must needs be. And
this, to-day, was the last sitting; and the
picture--that was I--would be complete, and have a
frame, and hang on the wall in the great room of
state, where already were hanging the two portraits
of the former wives of his Excellency; whereof the
last one died three years before, and left the old
miscreant free to affiance himself to the little
Maddalena, who was then too young to marry, being but
fourteen years old. So at least said her mother,
and his Excellency was gracious enough to defer
his nuptials, in spite of his years. And our most
Holy Father Pope Alexander was truly convinced
by this that the charge of the Duke's enemies made
against him of having poisoned his second wife was
groundless. For with so young a bride in view,
would not any man have deferred poisoning a lady
who was still young and comely, at least until the
object of his new passion was old enough to take
her place? So said his Holiness, and for my part
I think he showed in this his penetration and his
wide insight and understanding of his fellow-men.
For Man is, as saith Scripture, created in the Image
of God, and it is but seemly and reasonable that
His Vicar on Earth should know the inner secrets
of the human heart; albeit he may have small
experience himself of Love, as is the manner of
Ecclesiastics.
I will now tell you all I saw on that day of the
last sitting, being now as it were full-grown and able
to see and note all; besides being, as I have tried
to show, able to feel all the lady Maddalena had
felt and to follow her inmost thought.
When they were come to the end of the work I
could see that both were heavy at heart for the
parting that was to come; and I knew of myself
that Maddalena had slept little, and I knew, too, that
this was not because _sua Eccellenza_ the Duke snored
heavily all night, for had that been so, poor
Maddalena would have been ill off for sleep at the
best of times. No!--she had lain awake thinking
of Giacinto; and he of her, it may be. But what
do I know? I could see he was not happy: could
you expect it? And his hand shook, and he did
no good to me. And he would not touch my
face and hands with the colour, and I well knew why.
Therefore, when he had tried for a little and could
not work to any purpose, my lady _la Duchessa_ says,
as one who takes courage--for neither had yet
spoken of how they must part--"Come, my Giacinto,
let us be of better cheer, and not be so downcast.
For who knows but the good God may let
us meet again one happy day when His will is?
Let us be grateful for the little hour of our felicity,
and make no complaint now that it was not longer.
But you cannot work, my Giacinto, and are doing
no good to the beautiful picture. Leave it and come
and sit here by me, and we will talk of the old days,
the dear old time. And as for the old Marta, she is
sound asleep and snoring; only not so loud as my
old pig of a husband all last night!" Indeed, it was
true of old Marta, but for my own part I think she
was only pretending to be asleep, for my Maddalena
had talked to her of how this would be the last time,
and softened her, and given her ten Venetian ducats
and a cap of lace. But, for the snoring of the old
Duke, it had done some service; for the little joke
about it had made Maddalena speak more cheerfully,
and Giacinto could find a laugh for it, though he
had little heart to laugh out roundly at anything.
La Maddalena went near to make him, though!
For she talked of how thirteen little puppies all
came at once of three mothers, and she christened
them all after the Blessed Apostles and Judas
Iscariot, and every one was drowned or given away
except Judas Iscariot; and how she would hold
up Judas for Giacinto to kiss, saying he was a safe
Judas this time, as how could he be else with that
little fat stomach, and not a month old.
So I was finished, and Giacinto would have put
his signature in one corner had he not thought it
best to wait until _sua Eccellenza_ the Duke had seen
it, for who could say he would not have it altered?
Messer Angelo Allori had finished a portrait of _la
Principessa_ Gonzaga, and just as he was thinking
to sign it, what does her ladyship do but say she
would rather have been painted in her _camorra di
seta verde_; and thereat he had to paint out the old
dress and paint in the new, for none might say nay
to _la Principessa_. So that is how it comes that
this picture--that I am--is unsigned; and that
the Art Critics, for once, are not unanimous about
who was the author.
But _I_ know who that author was, and I can see
him still as he sits at the feet of his lady, _la Duchessa_
Maddalena, and his thick, black hair that had got
him the nickname of _Spazzolone_; which is, or
would be as speech goes now, the scrubbing-brush.
And I can see his beautiful olive-tinted throat,
more fair than tawny, like ivory, and his great black
eyes, like an antelope's. I can see her, la Maddalena,
seated above him--for he is on the ground--her
two white hands encircling her knees, with many
rings on them, one a great opal, the one you see on
my finger now; and her face, with the red-gold hair,
you see on my head, but somewhat fallen about it,
for it had shaken down; and the face it hedged in
was white--so white! It was not as you see me
now; rather, indeed, the face of the sad Maddalena
before ever she saw _lo Spazzolone_, than mine as I
have it before you. Look awhile upon my face,
and then figure it to yourself as it would be if the
lips wanted to tremble, and the eyes to weep,
but neither would do so, from sheer courage and
strength of heart against an evil cloud. Then you
will see la Maddalena as she sat there with eyes
fixed on Giacinto, knowing each minute nearer the
end; but all the more taking each minute at the
most, as one condemned to die delays over his last
meal on earth. The gaoler will come, and the
prison-guard, and he knows it.
How long, do you ask me, did the pair sit thus,
the eyes of each devouring the face of the other;
the lips of each replying to the other in a murmured
undertone I could not have heard from where I
stood on my easel, had it not been that I too, myself,
was la Maddalena, and spoke her words and heard
his voice? I can only tell you the time seemed too
short--though it was none so short a time, neither!
But I do not know. I do know this, though--and
I wish you too to know it, that you may think no
thought of blame of my Maddalena--that never a
word passed her lips that any young wife might not
fairly and honestly speak to her husband's friend.
And scarce a word of his in return that might not
have been fairly and honestly spoken back; and
for such a slight forgetfulness, as it seemed to me,
of what was safe for both--will you not forgive the
poor boy? Remember, he was but a boy at best,
for all his marvellous skill. And was not his skill
marvellous? For look at my lips, and see how
they are drawn! Look at my eyes and say, have
they moved or not--or will they not move, in an
instant? Look at the little bright threads of gold
in my cloud of hair! And then say, was he not a
wondrous boy?
But a boy for all that! And to my thinking it
was _because_ he was a boy, or was only just a man
having his manhood forced painfully upon him by
sorrow, that he gave the rein for one moment to his
tongue. And it was such a little moment, after all!
Listen, and I will tell you, if you will not blame
him. Promise me!
They had talked, the two of them--or of us, as
you choose to have it--over and over of the old
days at the Castello, of the old Cappellano who
winked at all their misdeeds, and stood between
them and the anger of her parents, many a time.
How they had frightened him half to death by
making believe they had the Venetian plague upon
them, by dropping melted wax on their skins with
little strawberries in the middle. And how Giacinto
undeceived him by eating the strawberries. And
what nasty little monkeys they were in those days,
to be sure! That made them laugh, and they were
quite merry for a while. But then they got sad
again when la Maddalena told how Fra Poco--that
was what they called _il padre_ Buti the Cappellano,
for he was a little man--was the only one of
them all that had had a word to say against her
marriage, and how he had denounced her father one
day as for a crime, and invoked the vengeance of
God upon the old Duke's head for using his power
to defraud a young virgin of her life, and saying let
him have the lands and enjoy them as he would,
and rather go out and beg on the highways for alms
than sacrifice his own flesh and blood. And how
she had overheard all this speech of Fra Poco, and
had said to herself that, come what might, she would
save the old domain for her father and her brother.
And how that very day her brother, who was but
young, had beaten her with her own fan, and then
run away with it; and little he knew what she was
to suffer for him! But in truth _she_ knew little
enough herself, for what does a girl-chit know!
And it may have been _her_ fault, too, or mine, for
talking thus of her marriage, and none of the boy's
own, that my Giacinto should have, as I say, half
forgotten himself. For it was but just after she
had spoken thus, and they had sat sad and silent
for a space, that the big bells of San Felice hard by
must needs clang out suddenly in the evening air,
and then they knew their parting had come, too
soon, and that then they might never meet again.
And on that my Giacinto cried out as one whose
heaviness of heart is too sore to be borne, "_O
sorellaccia mia_! _Mia carina--mio tesoro_! Oh if it
might but be all a dream, and we might wake and
find it so, at the old Castello in the hills, and hear
the croaking of the frogs and the singing of the
nightingales when the sun had gone to bed, and be
punished for staying out too late to listen to them!
Oh, Maddalena _mia_!--the happy days when there
were no old Dukes!..." But la Maddalena stopped
him in his speech, saying, but as one says words
that choke in his throat, "Enough--enough, Signore
Giacinto! Remember what we are now--remember
what I am!--what you are!" For this, said she,
was not how _sua Eccellenza_ the Duke should be
spoken of in his own house. And then the great
bells, that were so near they went nigh to deafen
you, stopped jangling; but the biggest had
something to say still, a loud word at a time, and far
apart. And what he said was, that now the hour
had come, and they should meet no more. And
then he paused, and they thought he was silent.
But he came back suddenly once again, to cry out
"Never!" and was still.
Then comes the old Marta from her corner, rubbing
her eyes, for she had been very sound asleep. And
her mistress, as one who will not be contradicted,
points her on in front, and she passes out, and her
black dog. Then says my Maddalena to the painter,
"And now, farewell, my friend," and holds out her
hand for him to kiss, for is she not the Duchess?
And he kisses it without speech, but with a sort of
sob, and she gathers up her train, and turns to go.
But as she reaches the door, she hears behind her
the voice that tries to speak, but cannot.
Then she turns, and her despair is white in her
face. And Giacinto's eyes are in his hands--he
dares not look up. But she goes back and he hears
her, and his name as she speaks it. And then he
looks up, and see!--they are locked in each other's
arms, as though never to part. And then Maddalena
knows, and I know with her, what Love is, and
what Life might have been. To think now, at such
a moment, of the abhorred caresses that must be
endured, later! no, my Maddalena, nothing to be
thought of now, nothing said, nothing seen nor
heard, just for those few moments that will never
come again!
That was so, and therefore neither of these
imprudent young people heard the gasp or snarl of
anger that came through the little slot in the wall
above. Down comes my Lord, unheard; reaches
the room, unheard. But not alone! For there are
behind him two of his retinue, rough troopers,
buff-jerkined and morion-capped with steel, ready for
any crime at their master's noble bidding. So
silently have they come that the first sound that
rouses the young artist and his _sorellaccia_ from their
little moment of rapture--for which I for one see
little reason to blame them--and brings them back
to conscious life and the knowledge of their lot, is
the slight ring of the short sword-dagger one of
them draws from the scabbard. Their eyes are
opened now, and _lo Spazzolone_ sees his executioners;
while Maddalena and I see a cold, hard old
face to which all pleading for mercy--if there had
been a crime--would have been vain; and which
would make a crime, inexorably, of what was none,
from inborn cruelty and jealous rage. It is all over!
All over! Yes, for any chance of life for Giacinto,
for any chance of happiness for la Maddalena for
the rest of her term of life. But it may give pleasure
to you to know--as it gives me pleasure--however
little!--that our young painter, who was strong and
active as a wild cat, got at the old man's wicked
throat and wellnigh choked him before his assassins
could cover the three or four steps between them;
and before the one whom Maddalena did not stop--for
she flung herself bodily on the man with the
sword--could strike with a mace he had. And the
blow fell on the olive-tinted neck I had loved so
well, and the poor Giacinto fell with a thud and
lay, killed or senseless. But the old Devil had felt
his grip with a vengeance, and the two men-at-arms
looked pleased, and lifted up and bore away the
seeming dead Giacinto with admiration. The old
man choked awhile, and la Maddalena remained
marble-white as a new cut block at Massa Carrara,
and as motionless, until her old owner had drunk
some wine and done his choking; and then he
pinched her tender white wrist savagely--I could
show you where he made his mark, but I cannot
move--and drew her away, saying, "You come
with me, young mistress!" But first he goes and
stands opposite the picture, still gripping her wrist.
Then says he, "_Non c'e male_"--not bad--and leads
her away, dumb. And they leave me alone in the
_Stanza delle Quattro Corone_, and I hear the door
locked from the outside. And the night comes, and
I hear the voices of the frogs in the flat land, and
think of the boy and girl that heard them together
in that other old Castello I remember so well, but
have never seen. And the sun comes again and
shines upon some blood upon the floor. It is not
Giacinto's--it is Maddalena's, where she cut herself
on the man with the sword.
After that I remember no more till two men came
to measure for the frame I now have on. They
came next day, accompanied by the old Marta, who
unlocked the door. But her little dog came with
them, too, and no sooner had he run once all round
the room, to see for cats or what might be else, than
he goes straightway to the blood-mark on the floor.
And so shrewd is he to guess what it is--remember,
he had gone away with Marta when all the riot came
about--that he looks round from one to the other
for explanation, and tries hard to speak, as a dog
does. Whereat each of the three also looks to the
other two, and makes believe the dog is gone mad,
to be making little compassionate whines and cries,
and then, going to each one in turn to tell of it,
touching them with his fore-paws, and then back
again to the blood. But none would give him a
good word, and as for la Marta, she must needs
slap him, to the best of her withered power, on his
clean-shaved body; which very like hurt but little,
but the poor dog cried out upon the injustice! For
he knew well this that he smelt was blood. As I
believe, so did the three of them; however, in that
household each knew that blood, anywhere, was best
not seen by whoever wished to keep his own in his
veins. So they took the measure for my frame,
and went their way. And presently, when they
have gone back, comes the old woman, but no dog,
and brings with her burnt wood-ash, such as the
fire leaves in the open grate, quite white and dry.
And she makes a heap on the blood-stain with it,
and water added, and goes away again and locks
the door without, as before. After which the sun
goes many times across the brick floor, stopping
always to look well upon the blood-spot; and the
night comes back, and I see a little sharp edge of
silver in the sky, beyond the window-grating, and I
remember that it was the new moon, in the days of
the old Castello; and I say to myself, now I shall
see it grow again, as it grew in those old days when
Giacinto watched it with me. And it grows to
be a half-moon before la Marta comes again and
gathers up the ashes, and leaves the floor clean.
But then I know they will soon come with the
frame. So it happens; and then I am in my frame
and am carried away to the great old Castle in the
Apennines, and hanged upon the wall in the State
banqueting-room; and after a while, I know not
how long, the old Duke comes to see, and is pleased
to approve. And my Maddalena comes, or rather
he leads her, stark dumb, and white as the ashes
that dried up the drops of her blood upon the floor.
And then day follows day, and each day my lord
leads a thinner and a whiter Maddalena to the head
of his board, and each day she answers him less
when he speaks to her, which he does with an evil
discourtesy when none other is there to check it;
and a courtesy, even worse to bear, when they are
in the presence of the household, or of noble guests
on a visit. He sees, as I see, that her eyes are
always fixed on me, as I hang behind his chair, for
well he knows she would not be giving him her
eyes--not she! So he tells the _primo maggiordomo_, who
is subservient, but dropsical, and goes on a stick,
to see that I am moved to a place in a bay to the
left of his mistress; the old Devil having indeed
chosen this place cleverly so that la Maddalena
might not easily see me by turning her eyes only;
but when she gives a little side turn to her head as
well, then she may see me plainly. And, of course,
it fell out as the cunning fox had foreseen, and the
poor Maddalena's eyes wandered more and more to
her picture, and then, as they came back, they
would be caught in the cold gaze that came at her
from the other table-end, and would fall down to
look on the food she was fain to send away
untasted. This goes on awhile, and then my Duke
speaks out when they are alone. _He_ knows, he
says, what all these sly glances mean--all this
furtive peeping round the corner--we are hankering
after that old lover of ours, are we not? And there
are things it is not easy to forget--ho, ho! And
he laughs out at the poor girl and her sorrow. But
she is outspoken, as one in despair may well be, and
says to her old tormentor that if he means by the
word "lover" that she has in any way whatever
made light of her wifely duty to his lordship, it is
false, and he knows it; for the boy was no more
to her than any foster-brother might have been,
brought up with her from the cradle. Only, let him
not suppose, for all that, that she held him, husband
as he was, and all his lands and hoarded wealth,
and titles from his Holiness the Pope, one tithe as
dear as the shoelace or the button on the coat of
the boy he had murdered. On that his _Eccellenza_
sniggered and was amused. "I should have thought
so much," says he, "from the good round buss you
gave him at parting. But who has told you your
so precious treasure is dead? None has said so to
me, so far. When last I heard of him, he was down
below, beneath your feet, '_con rispetto parlando_,'"
which is a phrase folk use in Tuscany, not to be
too plain-spoken for delicacy about feet and the like.
But now I must tell you something the old
miscreant meant when he said this, and pointed down
below the great table, which else might be hard to
understand. For this great table stood over a trap
or well-hole in the floor, and this well-hole went
straight down to the dungeons under the Castle,
where, if all tales told were true, there was still
living a very old man who was first incarcerated
forty years since, and had lived on, God knows how!
And others as well, though little was known of them
by those above in the daylight. But this old man
had made some talk, seeing that he was first
confined there in the days of the old Duke, our Duke's
father, a just man and well-beloved, for a crime
committed near by, on the evidence of his wife and
his brother. Of whom, having lived some while _par
amours_, the brother having died by poison, and the
woman having died in sanctity as Mother Superior
of the nuns of Monte Druscolo in Umbria, it was
known that the latter made confession on her
death-bed that her paramour was truly, but unknown to
her, the author of the crime for which his brother
was condemned. Now, this came to her knowledge
by a chance, later. On which she, learning with
resentment the concealment of this from herself; and
seeing that the victim of this crime had been a
young girl under her care and charge, had compassed
the death of the real culprit for justice' sake,
but had not thought it well to proclaim the truth
about her husband's innocence, for she might have
found it hard to look him in the face. So he was
left where he was, the more that it was thought he
might die if brought out into the sun; and, indeed,
he was very old, and the Holy Abbess in extreme
old age when she made her confession. But he is
not in my tale, nor she, and I speak of him only
because of the chance by which he made known to
me the existence of this same well-hole beneath my
lord's dining-table. For it was the telling of this
story at the banquet that caused it to be spoken of,
and also how in old days its use was to be opened
after the meal, that the guests might of their
_gentilezza_ throw what they had not cared to eat
themselves to the prisoners below. And the Prince
Cosmo dei Medici, who was graciously present, was
pleased to say it would have been a pretty tale for
Boccaccio--or perhaps even the great Lodovico
Ariosto might not scorn to try his hand upon it?
But now you may see, plain enough, what the
wicked old man meant when he pointed down in
that way. He thought to make his young wife
believe that her lover--as he would call him;
though he knew the word, as he used it, was a lie--was
still living, and that, too, underground, where a
ray of light might hardly penetrate, at high-noon;
and almost surely, too, the victim of starvation and
tortures she shuddered to think of; even for
witches or Jews--aye, even for heretics! She
could see the whole tale in the cruelty of her princely
husband's eyes; except, indeed, his victim was
really dead, slain by the cruel blow she herself had
seen; and seeing it, what wonder was it that she
longed only to know that he was dead; for then
she could die too? But to slip away and leave
Giacinto still alive!--in a damp vault with the old
bones of those who had died and been buried there,
so that none should know of them; and neither
day nor the coming of night, but only one long
darkness, and not one word from her, and ignorance
of whether she herself still lived or died. Surely,
if she were to die and leave him thus in ignorance,
her ghost would rise from the grave to be beside
him in the darkness of his dungeon; and then how
her heart would break to speak with him, and be--as
might chance--half-heard, and serve only to
add a new terror to his loneliness.
Such things I could guess she felt in her heart. I
could not feel them now myself, not being la Maddalena
as she was at this moment. I am still, as I was
then, the Maddalena as she laughed back, from the
daïs she sat on, her delight in response to the
pleasure in her young painter's eye; and all she
became after is--to me--like a tale she might have
heard, or some sad pretty ballad one gives a tear
to and forgets. But I can fancy, and maybe you
can too, how her whole young soul was wrenched
as she flung herself at her old tormentor's feet, and
besought him in words that I would myself have
wept for gladly--had God not made me as I am--to
tell her truly, only to tell her, was he living or
dead? She would ask no more than just that much
of his clemency. What wrong had she done
him?--what had Giacinto?--that he should make her
think the sun itself a nightmare; for it would shine
on her, but never reach the black pit below them,
where, for all she knew, Giacinto might be now, at
this very moment? Oh, would he not tell her?
It was so little to ask!
But the old miscreant had not paid her yet for
that kiss, and he would have his account discharged
in full. So he takes her face in his two old hands,
and pats her on the cheek, and tells her, smiling, to
be of good cheer, for she will never know any more
of the young _maestro_, nor whether he be alive or dead.
But if she wishes to throw down some dainty
titbits from the dinner-leavings, on the chance they
shall reach the lips she kissed, why it is but telling
Raouf and Stefano to lift the trap. It may be a
bit rusty, but if it were oiled on the hinges this time,
the less trouble the next! At this _la Duchessa_ gave
a long shriek, holding her head tight on, on either
side, and then fell backward on the floor, and lay so,
stark motionless. And then my great Duke seats
himself on the nearest chair; and he has in his
hand his crutched stick, to lean on against the gout
in his foot. He takes it in his left hand, and just
digs with it at the girl's body on the ground, either
to rouse her or see if she be dead. But she does not
move, and he has her carried away to bed; and his
face is contented, as is that of a man who has
worked well and deserved his fee.
I wish I could remember more of this old tale of
four hundred years ago, but I had no chance to do
so; for, after the scene I have just described, the
noble Duke, hobbling a short space about the hall,
brings up short just facing the bay where I have
been hanged by his orders to spite la Maddalena;
and then, after choking a little--as indeed he often
did since that fierce grip of my young _maestro, lo
Spazzolone_--he calls out to his fat _maggiordomo_,
and bids him to see that I am removed to his own
private room and hanged under the picture of
Ganymede. But now he must only take it down
and remove it to the old stone chamber, where the
figs are put to dry on trays; and so leave it, to be
hanged in his room when he is away at Rome, as
will be shortly. So he hobbles away and I hear
him getting slowly up the little stair that goes to
his private room, and his attendants following him.
The dropsical _maggiordomo_ stays to see that another
man should come, with a ladder and a boy, to help,
and they get me down from my hooks, and carry
me off; and I can smell the dried figs, and the _stoia_
that is rolled up in a stack, and the empty
wine-flasks. But I can see nothing, for they place me
with my face against the wall, and cover me over
with a sacking; and I can hear little more; and
then the great door clangs to and is locked, and I
am alone in the dark, without feeling or measurement
of time, and only catching faint sounds from
far-off.
I could guess, rather than hear, the sound of a
footstep when one came, rarely enough, in the long
corridor without. I could feel its rhythm in the
shaken floor, but I could be scarcely said to hear it.
I was aware of a kind of scratching close to me, that
may have been some kind of beetle or scorpion, but
of course it was quite invisible. There was one sort
of _scaraflaggio_ that would come, even between me
and the wall one time, and make a noise like a
thousand whirlwinds, and beat against me with his
wings, and I should have liked to be able to ask him
to come often. But he seemed not to care about
me; and I could just hear him boom away in the
darkness, joyous at heart and happy in his freedom.
Oh, if he could have known how different was my
lot! I thought of how he would float out into the
sunlight, whirring all the while like the wheels of the
great _orologio_ at the old Castello when Fra Poco let
it run down at noon so that he might reset it fair
from the sundial on the wall in the Cortile where
the well was--_our_ well!
It may have been days, or it may have been
weeks or months, before a change came, and I
again heard human voices. But it would not be
longer than two or three months at most; seeing
that it was immediately, as far as I could judge, on
the top of a little chance that is dear to my memory
now, after--so I gather--some four hundred years.
For a sweet firefly came, by the blessing of God,
between me and the dry wall, and paused and hung
a moment in the air that I might get a sight of his
beauty. You have seen them in the corn, how they
stop to think, and then shoot on ahead, each to seek
his love, or hers: so it is taught by those who say
they know, and may be truly. This one also must
needs go on, though I would have prayed him to
stay, that _I_ might be his love. Yet this could not
be, for neither did I know his tongue, nor was aught
else fitting. So he went away and left me
sad-hearted. He was a spot of light between a gloom
behind and a gloom before, even as the Star of
Bethlehem.
But about this that I was telling of. I had a
sense of half-heard turmoil without. Then the lock
in the door, and the imprecations of a man that
could not turn the key. He swore roundly at him
who made it, and at all locksmiths soever, as persons
who from malevolence scheme to exclude all folk
from everywhere; and I wished to rebuke him for
his injustice, for how can a locksmith do less than
make a key? And it was for him to choose the right
key, not to keep on twisting at the wrong one, and
swearing, which is what he was doing. But he was
a noisy, blustering person, for when he did get in,
being helped to the right key by a clever young boy
who saw his error, he was much enraged with that
boy for telling him; and he was ill-satisfied with
such a place as this to stow away the furniture, but
he supposed they must make it do.
Then came much moving in of goods. And I
could gather this, but no more, from the conversation
of those who brought it in--that it was the
furniture of someone who was little loved, and only
spoken of as "he" or "_il Vecchiostro_"--that he
was gone on a journey, and much they cared how
soon he arrived at the end of it. The boy, who was
young and inquisitive, then asking whither this was
that he had gone, they told him with a laugh that
it was to his oldest friend, another like himself; to
whom he had given his whole soul, and who would
not care to part with him in a hurry. They hoped
he would have a cool bed to sleep in. And when the
boy hoped this too, they were very merry. But they
worked hard, and brought in a great mass of
furniture, which they stacked against the wall where I
was, so that I was quite hidden away. There
would be new fittings all through the castle now,
they said. But one said no--no! it would only be
in the _Vecchiostro's_ own private rooms. "'Tis done
that he should be soonest forgotten," said one of
them. But it was only just when they had brought
in the last of it that this same one said that if ever
he--this _Vecchiostro_--came back from Hell there
would be all his gear ready for him. And then I
saw this was some dead man's property that his
successor would have put out of his sight.
Then says my young boy to his father, who was
the man who had sworn at the key, why did they
not take the Signora's portrait down instead of
leaving it there, because everyone loved her; and
for his part, she kissed him once, and said he was
_carino_. Then says his father, what portrait?
And he answers, "In there--behind." For he had
peeped in round my frame thinking he knew me
again; being in fact the same that had helped to
get me down in the banqueting-hall, how long since
I could not say. But his father calls him a young
fool not to say so before it was too late; and as for
him, it was time for his supper and bed, and whoever
else liked the job might move all the chairs and
tables again to fish her ladyship out. And as all
were of one mind they laughed over this and went
noisily away. And the door was locked and I
heard no more. And the darkness was darker still
and the silence deeper. And I longed for the
_scaraffaggio_ to come and whirr once more, and for
the sweet light of the _lucciola_. But there was none
such for me. And my Maddalena must be surely
dead, I thought, else that young boy would tell her
I was here, and she would come to find the
picture Giacinto painted of her in that merry time.
But I waited for her voice in vain, and had nothing
for myself but the darkness and the silence.
Just as the diver holds his breath and longs for
the sudden air that he must surely meet--in a
moment--in another moment!--so I held as it
were the breath of expectation, and believed in the
coming of those who could not but seek me; for at
first I felt certain they would come. They would
never leave me here, to decay! But there came no
voice, no glimmer of light, and I fell into a stupor
in which all memory grew dim, even that of my
Maddalena.
What I suffered through that long period of
silence and darkness I cannot tell, nor could you
understand. The prisoner in his solitude is grateful
for each thing that enables him to note the flight of
time; and the fewer such things are the drearier is
the sameness of his lot. Can you imagine it if they
were all removed--a condition of simple existence
in black space, with no means of marking time at
all? Would you become, on that account,
unconscious altogether of weariness from the long
unalleviated hours? No, indeed! Take my word
for it. Rather, you would find it, as I found it, a
state of bondage such as one would long and pray
might be the lot of such as had been, in this life,
devils against the harmless; but going on through
all eternity, no nearer the end now than when it
started countless ages ago, an absolute monotone
of dulled sense without insensibility--even pain
itself almost an alleviation.
That is what my life, if you can call it life, was
to me through all that term; but, as thought is
dumb, though I know the time goes on, how long
it goes on I know not. When I next hear human
speech, the voices are new and the words strange
and barbarous. Also, when I am taken from the
wall and turned round to the light, I can see
nothing, and I know not why. Perhaps it is all
dark here at all times, and they have brought no
light. I shall see, though, well enough when I am
hanged up under Ganymede, and see my bad old
Duke again, and even my other self, my Maddalena.
I have a longing on me to see her once more, and to
see her more like me, if it may be. It seems so
long! So much longer than the time when I was
left alone in the _Stanza delle Quattro Corone_. But
what you may find hard to understand is this, that
though I could not know how long this dreadful
waking sleep had been, neither could I be sure it
had not been a few hours only. I now know, for I
have learned since, that it was over three hundred
years. Yet when the end came it found me not
without a hope of Maddalena; or if not Maddalena,
at least the Duke.
But I do not see them, either of them. Nor old
Marta Zan and her little dog. Nor the dropsical
old _maggiordomo_. That there is no Giacinto is little
wonder to me. For I believe him dead, killed by
that fell blow on the olive neck I loved so well,
just behind the ear. I wonder, though, that
I see none of the others. But indeed I have
much ado to see anything. All is in a mist of
darkness.
Also, I am presently stunned by the clash of many
voices. I can catch from the words of those who
speak Maddalena's language, the tongue that I can
follow, that there is a great wranglement over me
and my sale price. For I am to be sold, and the
foreigners who wish to buy me are loud in their
dispraise of me; so much so that I do not
understand why they should wish to possess me at all.
In fact, they do actually go away after much heated
discussion, speaking most scornfully of pictures as
things no man in his senses would ever buy, and of
pictures with frames like mine as the most valueless
examples. I gather all this from repetitions made
by others, in Maddalena's tongue, nearly but not
exactly.
Presently back comes one of them to say he will
go to six hundred pounds, but not a penny more.
Then says a woman's voice, "Ah, Signore! Six
hundred and fifty!" Then he, six hundred and
twenty-five. And then some price between the
two. And so we are agreed at last. And I am to
be put in a box and sent to a place whose name I
have never heard, that sounds like L'Ombra, a
name that frightens me, for it sounds like the
Inferno of the great poet, Dante.
But I should tell you that, before this riot, and
noise, and disputation over me and my price, I had
heard the unpacking and removal of the great stack
of furniture that hid me. Only, as the persons who
removed it have no interest for us, and did not seem
from their conversation to be especially cultivated
or intelligent, but rather the reverse, I have not
said anything of them, nor of their valuations in
_lire_ of each article as it was brought to light. Their
voices were the very first that I heard; but though
their words sounded strange to me, they only made
me think that maybe they were from Milan or
Genoa or some other place in Italy. I should not
have guessed them Tuscans; that is all. Indeed,
I hardly distinguished much of what they said until
they had removed the last of the furniture and I
was turned round to the light. Then I saw things
in a cloud, and heard indistinctly. I made out,
however, that I was thick with dust, and must be
brought out and cleaned before anyone could see
what I was like. Then I was carried away down
some stairs, and in the end I was aware, but dimly,
as in a dream, that I was again in the great chamber
where I last saw la Maddalena lying on the ground
insensible, while the old Duke prodded at her with
a stick. I could see there were many people in the
room, talking volubly. But I could not catch their
words well until a Signora, who seemed to take the
lead, wiped my face over with a wet sponge; and
then I heard more. Her voice was clearest, and
what she said was "_Ecco, Signori_! Now you can
see the ear quite plain. _Ma com'e bella_! _Bella
bella_!"--And then it was I came to hear all the
clamour of voices of a sudden.
Then follows all the bargaining I told you of.
The Signora's husband would not sell an old
picture--not he!--for a thousand pounds in gold; not till
all the dirt was off and he could see it fairly. All
applauded this, and said in chorus neither would
they! Who could tell what might not be, under
the dirt? However, they knew so little about it
that they would not mind buying this one, on the
chance. But for a decently reasonable price--say
five thousand Italian lire. On which the owner
said, "_Come mai_! _E pochissimo_!" Then the
_Signori Inglesi_ took another tone, and would have
none of the picture, nor any picture, at any price!
They would not know where to hang it. They did
not like pictures on their walls. All the walls were
covered with pictures already, all favourites, that
must not be moved. But why need I tell you all
this? You have heard folk make bargains, and the
lies they tell.
The English Signori departed, having bought me
for near six hundred and fifty English pounds. And
then my lady and gentleman are mightily delighted,
and dance about the room with joy. Now they will
go to Monte Carlo and win back all they lost last
year. Then I hear them talking in an undertone,
thus:--
(He) "I hope they never suspected it was none
of ours----"
(She) "Ah, _Dio mio_! And I had told them we
were only _inquilini_"--that is, tenants.
(He) "_Non ti confondi_? Don't fret about that.
They don't know what _inquilini_ means. They can
only say '_mangia bene, quanto costa_!'"
(She) "_Speriamo_! But what a fine lot of old
furniture! Couldn't we sell some of it, too?" And
this young Signora, who was very pretty and
impudent, and what I have since heard called
svelte, danced about the room in high glee. But
the good gentleman stopped her.
(He) "_Troppo pericolo_! The fat old Marchesa
would find out. No, no! The picture is quite
another thing----"
(She) "_Perche?_"
(He) "Can't you see, thickhead? If the old
_strega_"--the old witch, that is--"had known the
picture was there, do you suppose she wouldn't have
had it out, long ago? And that other picture in
front of it, with the eagle.... Don't dance, but
listen!"
(She) "... Picture in front of it, with the eagle
... yes, go on!" But she won't quite stop dancing,
and makes little quick tiptoe movements, not to
seem over-subservient and docile.
(He) "I would have sold that, too, only it's too big
for safety. This one will go in a small case. The
_famiglia_ will have to be well paid. What was it
la Filomena told you first of all about the room and
the furniture? Do stop that dancing!"
(She) "There, see now, I've stopped! But you
_have_ been told, once!"
(He) "Then tell again!"
(She) "It wasn't la Filomena. It was that old,
old Prisca who knows all about the Castello--more
than the Marchesa herself. She told me there was
an old room in the great tower that had not been
open for hundreds of years, as no one dared to go
near it for fear of the wicked old Duke's ghost. I
told her we were _liberi pensatori_"--that is to say,
free-thinkers--"and he would not hurt us, and
where was the key? We would not touch
anything--only look in!"
(He) "Won't she tell about it all?"
(She) "Not till we go! Besides, she doesn't
know. La Filomena won't tell her; she knows I
know all about her and Ugo Pistrucci. And she's
the only person that goes near the old Prisca, who
hasn't been off her bed for months. Oh no!
_She's_ all right. As for the man, I told them
la Prisca said the _mobiglia_ was to be taken out
and dusted and placed in the passage. _Stia
tranquillo, mio caro_!"
(He) "What a happy chance these pig-headed
rich milords happened to come in just as we got it.
They might have gone before we found it! Only
to think of it! _Seicento e cinquante lire_...!"
And so they went on rejoicing, and thinking of
new schemes, and how they would get me packed
off the very next day, and not a soul in the Castle
would ever know I had ever been there. They were
certainly very bad, unprincipled adventurers. You
should have heard them talk of what fun they would
have telling the old Marchesa about the great
discovery of treasures they had made, and the care
they had taken nothing should be lost. And then
who knows but she might trust them to get a sale
for all her old rubbish in England, and what a lot
of money they might make, with a little discretion.
If I had remained there I should have been longing
always for a chance of telling the old _strega_, as they
called her, what a nice couple she had let her Castle
to for the summer months. For I am convinced,
not only that they were thieves, but that they were
not even lawfully married. However it may have
been, I saw no more of them. For next day the
same man that had done the removal of the
furniture came with a box, and I was carefully packed,
and saw nothing more, and distinguished little
sound, for weeks it may have been, even months.
As the solidity of the box absorbed all sight and
hearing, and I knew nothing till I found myself on
an easel in a sort of Studio in a town that I at once
perceived to be L'Ombra. For what else could it
have been?
At this point Mr. Pelly, who had been listening
intently, interrupted the speaker. "I think you
have got the name of the place wrong," he said. "I
imagine it must have been London--_Londra_--the
English Metropolis--not L'Ombra. The sounds
are very similar, and easy to mistake."
"Possibly I was misled by the darkness. It made
the name seem so appropriate. But it was not
exactly night. There was a window near me, and
I could see there was a kind of yellow smoke over
everything. But there was music in the street,
and children appeared to be running and shouting.
Other things gave me the impression the time had
been intended for morning, but that something had
come in the way. It was a terrible place, much
like to that dark third circle in Hell, where Dante
and Virgilio saw the uncouth monster Cerberus.
"But let us forget it! Why should such a place
be remembered or spoken of? I was there for no
great length of time: long enough only for the
picture-cleaner, in whose workshop I was, to remove
the obscurations of four hundred years, and safeguard
me with a glass from new deposits. For I understood
him to say that I should be just as bad as
ever in a very short space of time, in this beastly
sooty hole, but for such protection.
"And yet this place was not entirely bad, nor in
darkness at all times, for at intervals a phenomenon
would occur which I supposed to be a peculiarity of
the climate, causing the lady of the house to say,
'There--the sun's coming out. I shall get my
Things on. Are you going to stay for ever in the
house, and get fustier and fustier, or are you going
to have a turn on the Embankment? You might
answer me, instead of smoking, Reginald!' But I
noticed that this phenomenon, whatever its cause,
never seemed to attain fruition, the lady always
saying she knew how it would be--they had lost
all the daylight. I only repeat her words. I
observed another thing worthy of remark, that it
very seldom held up. I am again repeating a
phrase that was to me only a sound. I have no
idea what 'it' was, nor what it held up, nor why.
I am only certain that the performance was a rare
one, however frequently it was promised. But the
gentleman who restored me seemed to have confidence
in its occurrence, conditionally on his taking
his umbrella. Otherwise, he said, it was cocksure
to come down cats and dogs, and they would be in
for a cab, and he only had half a crown.
"These persons were of no interest in themselves,
and I should never remember or think of them at all
but for having been the unwilling witness of a
conjugal misunderstanding, which may quite
possibly have led to a permanent breach between them.
It is painful to think that the whole difference might
have been made in the lady's jealous misinterpretation
of her husband's behaviour towards a maiden
named _La Sera_--who, as I understood, came in
by the week at nine shillings, and always had her
Sunday afternoons, whatever those phrases mean;
no doubt you will know--if I had been able to add
my testimony to her husband's disclaimer of amorous
intent. For it was most clear that the whole thing
was but an innocent joke throughout, however
ill-judged and stupid. I saw the whole from my place
on the easel, and heard all that passed. I cannot
tell you how I longed to say a word on his behalf,
when, some days later, two friends paid him a visit,
who had evidently been taken into his confidence,
but who seemed to think that he had withheld
something from them, not treating them so frankly
as old friends deserved. Whereupon he warmly
protested that his wife had no solid ground of
complaint against him, having gone off, unreasonably,
in what he called "a huff"; but that he had just
paid _La Sera_ her wages and sent her packing, so
that now he had to make his own bed and black
his own shoes.
"I am sorry to say that these two friends showed
only an equivocal sympathy, winking at each other,
and each digging the other in the ribs with strange
humorous sounds, as of a sort of fowl. Also, they
shook their heads at their friend, though not, as
I think, reproaching him seriously, yet implying
thus, as by other things said, that he was of a gay
and sportive disposition that might easily be misled
by the fascinations of beauty, which they were
pleased to ascribe to _La Sera_. This was, however,
scarcely spoken with an earnest intent, since this
maiden, despite the beauty of her name--for one
might conceive it to ascribe to her the tender
radiance and sad loveliness of the sunset--was
wanting in charm of form and colour, and had not
successfully cultivated such other fascinations as
sometimes make good their deficiency; as sweetness
and fluency of speech, or a quick wit, or even the
artificial seductions of well-ordered dress. I derived,
too, a most unfavourable impression from a comment
of her employer--to the effect that if, when she
cleaned herself of a Sunday morning, she couldn't
do it without making the whole place smell of yellow
soap, she might as well chuck it and stop dirty.
"But I should grieve to think that this Signore's
wife should have left him permanently for so foolish
a quarrel. For, though their lives seemed filled
with a silly sort of bickering, I believed from what
I saw that there was really no lack of love between
them, and I cannot conceive that they will be any
happier apart. Indeed, had she been indifferent to
her husband, could she have felt a trivial
inconstancy, implying no grievous wrong, of such
importance? But, indeed, it is absurd to use the
word _inconstancy_ at all in such a case, though we
may condemn the ill-taste of all vulgar trifling with
the solemn obligations of conjugal duty. I wish I
might have spoken, to laugh in their faces and make
a jest of the whole affair. But silence was my lot.
"I have hung here, as I suppose, for six months
past, and have often striven to speak, but none has
heard me till now. Think, dear Signore, how I
have suffered! Think how I have longed to speak
and be heard, when my Madeline, my darling--who
loves me, and says she loves me--has talked to her
great dog of her lover that was killed in the war...."
Mr. Pelly interrupted. "Are you referring to
young Captain Calverley?" he said. "Because, if
so, it is not certain that he _is_ dead. Besides, I
suppose you know that Miss Upwell and the Captain
were not engaged?" And then the old gentleman
fancied he heard a musical laugh come from the
picture.
"How funny and cold you English are!" said the
voice. "Was _I_ engaged to my darling, my love,
that only time he pressed me to his bosom; that only
time I felt his lips on mine? Was I not the bond-slave
for life to the evil heart and evil will of that
old monument of Sin, soaked deep in every stain of
Hell? Was I not called his _wife_? Yet my heart
and my soul went out to my love in that kiss, and
laughed in their freedom in mockery of the laws
that could put the casket that held them in bond,
and yet must perforce leave them free. And when
that young soldier tore himself away from my
Madeline--I saw them here myself; there by the
shiny fish, in the glass case--was their parting kiss
less real than ours was, that hour when I saw him
last, my own love of those years gone by?"
"A--it isn't a subject I profess to understand
much about," said Mr. Pelly. He blew his nose and
wiped his spectacles, and was silent a moment. Then
he said, "But whatever the sentiment of the young
lady herself may be, there can be no doubt about
her mother's. In fact, she has herself told me that
she is most anxious that it should not be supposed
that there was any engagement. So I trust--if
you ever do have the opportunity of speaking to
anyone on the subject--that you will be careful not
to give the impression that such was the case. I do
not, perhaps, fully realise the motives that influence
Lady Upwell--a--and Sir Stopleigh,--of course it's
the same thing...."
Mr. Pelly stopped with a jerk. He found himself
talking uncomfortably and inexplicably to space,
beside the embers of a dying fire, and in the distance
he could hear the carriage bringing the absentees
back through the wintry night, and the ringing
tread of the horses on the hard ground.
"Poor Uncle Christopher all by himself, and the
fire out!" said the first comer into the Library. It
was the young lady who came to see the Italian
picture at the restorer's Studio in Chelsea, a little
over six months past. She had changed for the older
since then, out of measure with the lapse of time.
But her face was beautiful--none the less that it
was sad and pale--in the glow as she brought the
embers together to make life worth living to one or
two more faggots, just for a little blaze before we
went to bed.
"I was asleep and dreaming," said the old gentleman.
"Such a queer dream!"
"You must tell it us to-morrow, Uncle Christopher.
I like queer dreams." This young lady,
Madeline Upwell, always made use of this mode of
address, although the old gentleman was no uncle of
hers, but only a very old friend of the family who
knew her father before she was born, and called him
George, which was his Christian Christian-name, so
to speak, "Stopleigh" being outside family
recognitions--a mere Bartitude!
But the picture, which might reasonably have
protested against Mr. Pelly's statement, remained
silent. So, when his waking judgment set the whole
down as a dream, it was probably right.