Baldassarre makes an Acquaintance.
When Baldassarre was wandering about Florence in search of a spare
outhouse where he might have the cheapest of sheltered beds, his steps
had been attracted towards that sole portion of ground within the walls
of the city which is not perfectly level, and where the spectator,
lifted above the roofs of the houses, can see beyond the city to the
protecting hills and far-stretching valley, otherwise shut out from his
view except along the welcome opening made by the course of the Arno.
Part of that ground has been already seen by us as the hill of Bogoli,
at that time a great stone-quarry; but the side towards which
Baldassarre directed his steps was the one that sloped down behind the
Via de’ Bardi, and was most commonly called the hill of San Giorgio.
Bratti had told him that Tito’s dwelling was in the Via de’ Bardi; and,
after surveying that street, he turned up the slope of the hill which
he had observed as he was crossing the bridge. If he could find a
sheltering outhouse on that hill, he would be glad: he had now for some
years been accustomed to live with a broad sky about him; and,
moreover, the narrow passes of the streets, with their strip of sky
above, and the unknown labyrinth around them, seemed to intensify his
sense of loneliness and feeble memory.
The hill was sparsely inhabited, and covered chiefly by gardens; but in
one spot was a piece of rough ground jagged with great stones, which
had never been cultivated since a landslip had ruined some houses there
towards the end of the thirteenth century. Just above the edge of this
broken ground stood a queer little square building, looking like a
truncated tower roofed in with fluted tiles, and close by was a small
outhouse, apparently built up against a piece of ruined stone wall.
Under a large half-dead mulberry-tree that was now sending its last
fluttering leaves in at the open doorways, a shrivelled, hardy old
woman was untying a goat with two kids, and Baldassarre could see that
part of the outbuilding was occupied by live stock; but the door of the
other part was open, and it was empty of everything but some tools and
straw. It was just the sort of place he wanted. He spoke to the old
woman; but it was not till he got close to her and shouted in her ear,
that he succeeded in making her understand his want of a lodging, and
his readiness to pay for it. At first he could get no answer beyond
shakes of the head and the words, “No—no lodging,” uttered in the
muffled tone of the deaf. But, by dint of persistence, he made clear to
her that he was a poor stranger from a long way over seas, and could
not afford to go to hostelries; that he only wanted to lie on the straw
in the outhouse, and would pay her a quattrino or two a week for that
shelter. She still looked at him dubiously, shaking her head and
talking low to herself; but presently, as if a new thought occurred to
her, she fetched a hatchet from the house, and, showing him a chump
that lay half covered with litter in a corner, asked him if he would
chop that up for her: if he would, he might lie in the outhouse for one
night. He agreed, and Monna Lisa stood with her arms akimbo to watch
him, with a smile of gratified cunning, saying low to herself—
“It’s lain there ever since my old man died. What then? I might as well
have put a stone on the fire. He chops very well, though he does speak
with a foreign tongue, and looks odd. I couldn’t have got it done
cheaper. And if he only wants a bit of straw to lie on, I might make
him do an errand or two up and down the hill. Who need know? And sin
that’s hidden’s half forgiven. (‘Peccato celato e mezzo perdonato.’)
He’s a stranger: he’ll take no notice of _her_. And I’ll tell her to
keep her tongue still.”
The antecedent to these feminine pronouns had a pair of blue eyes,
which at that moment were applied to a large round hole in the shutter
of the upper window. The shutter was closed, not for any penal reasons,
but because only the opposite window had the luxury of glass in it: the
weather was not warm, and a round hole four inches in diameter served
all the purposes of observation. The hole was, unfortunately, a little
too high, and obliged the small observer to stand on a low stool of a
rickety character; but Tessa would have stood a long while in a much
more inconvenient position for the sake of seeing a little variety in
her life. She had been drawn to the opening at the first loud tones of
the strange voice speaking to Monna Lisa; and darting gently across her
room every now and then to peep at something, she continued to stand
there until the wood had been chopped, and she saw Baldassarre enter
the outhouse, as the dusk was gathering, and seat himself on the straw.
A great temptation had laid hold of Tessa’s mind; she would go and take
that old man part of her supper, and talk to him a little. He was not
deaf like Monna Lisa, and besides she could say a great many things to
him that it was no use to shout at Monna Lisa, who knew them already.
And he was a stranger—strangers came from a long way off and went away
again, and lived nowhere in particular. It was naughty, she knew, for
obedience made the largest part in Tessa’s idea of duty; but it would
be something to confess to the Padre next Pasqua, and there was nothing
else to confess except going to sleep sometimes over her beads, and
being a little cross with Monna Lisa because she was so deaf; for she
had as much idleness as she liked now, and was never frightened into
telling white lies. She turned away from her shutter with rather an
excited expression in her childish face, which was as pretty and
pouting as ever. Her garb was still that of a simple contadina, but of
a contadina prepared for a festa: her gown of dark-green serge, with
its red girdle, was very clean and neat; she had the string of red
glass beads round her neck; and her brown hair, rough from curliness,
was duly knotted up, and fastened with the silver pin. She had but one
new ornament, and she was very proud of it, for it was a fine gold
ring.
Tessa sat on the low stool, nursing her knees, for a minute or two,
with her little soul poised in fluttering excitement on the edge of
this pleasant transgression. It was quite irresistible. She had been
commanded to make no acquaintances, and warned that if she did, all her
new happy lot would vanish away, and be like a hidden treasure that
turned to lead as soon as it was brought to the daylight; and she had
been so obedient that when she had to go to church she had kept her
face shaded by her hood and had pursed up her lips quite tightly. It
was true her obedience had been a little helped by her own dread lest
the alarming stepfather Nofri should turn up even in this quarter, so
far from the Por’ del Prato, and beat her at least, if he did not drag
her back to work for him. But this old man was not an acquaintance; he
was a poor stranger going to sleep in the outhouse, and he probably
knew nothing of stepfather Nofri; and, besides, if she took him some
supper, he would like her, and not want to tell anything about her.
Monna Lisa would say she must not go and talk to him, therefore Monna
Lisa must not be consulted. It did not signify what she found out after
it had been done.
Supper was being prepared, she knew—a mountain of macaroni flavoured
with cheese, fragrant enough to tame any stranger. So she tripped
down-stairs with a mind full of deep designs, and first asking with an
innocent look what that noise of talking had been, without waiting for
an answer, knit her brow with a peremptory air, something like a kitten
trying to be formidable, and sent the old woman upstairs; saying, she
chose to eat her supper down below. In three minutes Tessa with her
lantern in one hand and a wooden bowl of macaroni in the other, was
kicking gently at the door of the outhouse; and Baldassarre, roused
from sad reverie, doubted in the first moment whether he were awake as
he opened the door and saw this surprising little handmaid, with
delight in her wide eyes, breaking in on his dismal loneliness.
“I’ve brought you some supper,” she said, lifting her mouth towards his
ear and shouting, as if he had been deaf like Monna Lisa. “Sit down and
eat it, while I stay with you.”
Surprise and distrust surmounted every other feeling in Baldassarre,
but though he had no smile or word of gratitude ready, there could not
be any impulse to push away this visitant, and he sank down passively
on his straw again, while Tessa placed herself close to him, put the
wooden bowl on his lap, and set down the lantern in front of them,
crossing her hands before her, and nodding at the bowl with a
significant smile, as much as to say, “Yes, you may really eat it.”
For, in the excitement of carrying out her deed, she had forgotten her
previous thought that the stranger would not be deaf, and had fallen
into her habitual alternative of dumb show and shouting.
The invitation was not a disagreeable one, for he had been gnawing a
remnant of dry bread, which had left plenty of appetite for anything
warm and relishing. Tessa watched the disappearance of two or three
mouthfuls without speaking, for she had thought his eyes rather fierce
at first; but now she ventured to put her mouth to his ear again and
cry—
“I like my supper, don’t you?”
It was not a smile, but rather the milder look of a dog touched by
kindness, but unable to smile, that Baldassarre turned on this round
blue-eyed thing that was caring about him.
“Yes,” he said; “but I can hear well—I’m not deaf.”
“It is true; I forgot,” said Tessa, lifting her hands and clasping
them. “But Monna Lisa is deaf, and I live with her. She’s a kind old
woman, and I’m not frightened at her. And we live very well: we have
plenty of nice things. I can have nuts if I like. And I’m not obliged
to work now. I used to have to work, and I didn’t like it; but I liked
feeding the mules, and I should like to see poor Giannetta, the little
mule, again. We’ve only got a goat and two kids, and I used to talk to
the goat a good deal, because there was nobody else but Monna Lisa. But
now I’ve got something else—can you guess what it is?”
She drew her head back, and looked with a challenging smile at
Baldassarre, as if she had proposed a difficult riddle to him.
“No,” said he, putting aside his bowl, and looking at her dreamily. It
seemed as if this young prattling thing were some memory come back out
of his own youth.
“You like me to talk to you, don’t you?” said Tessa, “but you must not
tell anybody. Shall I fetch you a bit of cold sausage?”
He shook his head, but he looked so mild now that Tessa felt quite at
her ease.
“Well, then, I’ve got a little baby. Such a pretty bambinetto, with
little fingers and nails! Not old yet; it was born at the Nativita,
Monna Lisa says. I was married one Nativita, a long, long while ago,
and nobody knew. O Santa Madonna! I didn’t mean to tell you that!”
Tessa set up her shoulders and bit her lip, looking at Baldassarre as
if this betrayal of secrets must have an exciting effect on him too.
But he seemed not to care much; and perhaps that was in the nature of
strangers.
“Yes,” she said, carrying on her thought aloud, “you are a stranger;
you don’t live anywhere or know anybody, do you?”
“No,” said Baldassarre, also thinking aloud, rather than consciously
answering, “I only know one man.”
“His name is not Nofri, is it?” said Tessa, anxiously.
“No,” said Baldassarre, noticing her look of fear. “Is that your
husband’s name?”
That mistaken supposition was very amusing to Tessa. She laughed and
clapped her hands as she said—
“No, indeed! But I must not tell you anything about my husband. You
would never think what he is—not at all like Nofri!”
She laughed again at the delightful incongruity between the name of
Nofri—which was not separable from the idea of the cross-grained
stepfather—and the idea of her husband.
“But I don’t see him very often,” she went on, more gravely. “And
sometimes I pray to the Holy Madonna to send him oftener, and once she
did. But I must go back to my bimbo now. I’ll bring it to show you
to-morrow. You would like to see it. Sometimes it cries and makes a
face, but only when it’s hungry, Monna Lisa says. You wouldn’t think
it, but Monna Lisa had babies once, and they are all dead old men. My
husband says she will never die now, because she’s so well dried. I’m
glad of that, for I’m fond of her. You would like to stay here
to-morrow, shouldn’t you?”
“I should like to have this place to come and rest in, that’s all,”
said Baldassarre. “I would pay for it, and harm nobody.”
“No, indeed; I think you are not a bad old man. But you look sorry
about something. Tell me, is there anything you shall cry about when I
leave you by yourself? _I_ used to cry once.”
“No, child; I think I shall cry no more.”
“That’s right; and I’ll bring you some breakfast, and show you the
bimbo. Good-night.”
Tessa took up her bowl and lantern, and closed the door behind her. The
pretty loving apparition had been no more to Baldassarre than a faint
rainbow on the blackness to the man who is wrestling in deep waters. He
hardly thought of her again till his dreamy waking passed into the more
vivid images of disturbed sleep.
But Tessa thought much of him. She had no sooner entered the house than
she told Monna Lisa what she had done, and insisted that the stranger
should be allowed to come and rest in the outhouse when he liked. The
old woman, who had had her notions of making him a useful tenant, made
a great show of reluctance, shook her head, and urged that Messer Naldo
would be angry if she let any one come about the house. Tessa did not
believe that. Naldo had said nothing against strangers who lived
nowhere; and this old man knew nobody except one person, who was not
Nofri.
“Well,” conceded Monna Lisa, at last, “if I let him stay for a while
and carry things up the hill for me, thou must keep thy counsel and
tell nobody.”
“No,” said Tessa, “I’ll only tell the bimbo.”
“And then,” Monna Lisa went on, in her thick undertone, “God may love
us well enough not to let Messer Naldo find out anything about it. For
he never comes here but at dark; and as he was here two days ago, it’s
likely he’ll never come at all till the old man’s gone away again.”
“Oh me! Monna,” said Tessa, clasping her hands, “I wish Naldo had not
to go such a long, long way sometimes before he comes back again.”
“Ah, child! the world’s big, they say. There are places behind the
mountains, and if people go night and day, night and day, they get to
Rome, and see the Holy Father.”
Tessa looked submissive in the presence of this mystery, and began to
rock her baby, and sing syllables of vague loving meaning, in tones
that imitated a triple chime.
The next morning she was unusually industrious in the prospect of more
dialogue, and of the pleasure she should give the poor old stranger by
showing him her baby. But before she could get ready to take
Baldassarre his breakfast, she found that Monna Lisa had been employing
him as a drawer of water. She deferred her paternosters, and hurried
down to insist that Baldassarre should sit on his straw, so that she
might come and sit by him again while he ate his breakfast. That
attitude made the new companionship all the more delightful to Tessa,
for she had been used to sitting on straw in old days along with her
goats and mules.
“I will not let Monna Lisa give you too much work to do,” she said,
bringing him some steaming broth and soft bread. “I don’t like much
work, and I daresay you don’t. I like sitting in the sunshine and
feeding things. Monna Lisa says, work is good, but she does it all
herself, so I don’t mind. She’s not a cross old woman; you needn’t be
afraid of her being cross. And now, you eat that, and I’ll go and fetch
my baby and show it you.”
Presently she came back with the small mummy-case in her arms. The
mummy looked very lively, having unusually large dark eyes, though no
more than the usual indication of a future nose.
“This is my baby,” said Tessa, seating herself close to Baldassarre.
“You didn’t think it was so pretty, did you? It is like the little
Gesu, and I should think the Santa Madonna would be kinder to me now,
is it not true? But I have not much to ask for, because I have
everything now—only that I should see my husband oftener. You may hold
the bambino a little if you like, but I think you must not kiss him,
because you might hurt him.”
She spoke this prohibition in a tone of soothing excuse, and
Baldassarre could not refuse to hold the small package. “Poor thing!
poor thing!” he said, in a deep voice which had something strangely
threatening in its apparent pity. It did not seem to him as if this
guileless loving little woman could reconcile him to the world at all,
but rather that she was with him against the world, that she was a
creature who would need to be avenged.
“Oh, don’t you be sorry for me,” she said; “for though I don’t see him
often, he is more beautiful and good than anybody else in the world. I
say prayers to him when he’s away. You couldn’t think what he is!”
She looked at Baldassarre with a wide glance of mysterious meaning,
taking the baby from him again, and almost wishing he would question
her as if he wanted very much to know more.
“Yes, I could,” said Baldassarre, rather bitterly.
“No, I’m sure you never could,” said Tessa, earnestly. “You thought he
might be Nofri,” she added, with a triumphant air of conclusiveness.
“But never mind; you couldn’t know. What is your name?”
He rubbed his hand over his knitted brow, then looked at her blankly
and said, “Ah, child, what is it?”
It was not that he did not often remember his name well enough; and if
he had had presence of mind now to remember it, he would have chosen
not to tell it. But a sudden question appealing to his memory, had a
paralysing effect, and in that moment he was conscious of nothing but
helplessness.
Ignorant as Tessa was, the pity stirred in her by his blank look taught
her to say—
“_Never_ mind: you are a stranger, it is no matter about your having a
name. Good-bye now, because I want my breakfast. You will come here and
rest when you like; Monna Lisa says you may. And don’t you be unhappy,
for we’ll be good to you.”
“Poor thing!” said Baldassarre again.