III.

It was the afternoon of Christmas-day, six weeks after Cranbrook's

arrival at the villa. The air was soft and balmy and the blooming

rose-bushes under the windows sent up from time to time delicious

whiffs of fragrance. The sky was strangely clear, and long, cool

vistas opened to the sight among the cloud-banks that hung over the

tops of the Alban Mountains. Cranbrook was sitting out on the _loggia_

reading the scene in the Odyssey where the shipwrecked Ulysses steps

out from the copse where he has been sleeping and interrupts the

ball-play of Nausicaa and her maidens. How pure and sweet the air that

breathed from these pages! What a noble and dignified maiden was this

Nausicaa! At this moment the merry voice of Annunciata was heard in

the garden below. The young man let his book drop and leaned out over

the wall. There she stood, tall and stately, receiving, with the

manner of a good-natured empress, a white-haired priest who came

waddling briskly toward her.

"_Bona festa_, Padre Gregorio," she cried, seizing the old man's hand.

"Mother is going to have macaroni for supper and she was just going to

send Pietro after you. For you know you promised to be with us this

blessed day."

"_Bona festa_, child," responded the priest, smiling all over his

large, benevolent face. "Padre Gregorio never forgets his promises,

and least of all on a holy Christmas-day."

"No, I knew you would not forget us, padre; but you are all out of

breath. You have been mounting the stairs to the terrace again instead

of going round by the vineyard. Come and sit down here in the sun, for

I wish to speak to you about something important."

And she led the priest by the hand to a stone bench by the door and

seated herself at his side.

"Padre," she began, with a great earnestness in her manner, "is it true

that the Holy Virgin hates heretics and that they can never go to

heaven?"

The good padre was evidently not prepared for such a question. He

gazed at Annunciata for a moment in helpless bewilderment, then

coughed in his red bandanna handkerchief, took a deliberate pinch of

snuff and began:

"The Holy Virgin is gracious, child, and she hates no one. But little

girls should not trouble their heads with things that do not concern

them."

"But this does concern me, padre," retorted the girl eagerly. "I went

this morning with Signore Giovanni, the stranger who is lodging with

us,--for he is a very good and kind man, padre; I went with him to the

Aracoeli to see the blessed Bambino and the shepherds and the Holy

Virgin. But he did not kneel, and when I told him of the wonderful

things which the Bambino had done, he would not believe me, padre, and

he even once laughed in my face."

"Then he is not a good man," said the padre emphatically, "and he will

not go to heaven, unless he changes his faith and his conduct before

God takes him away."

Cranbrook, who had made several vain attempts to call attention to his

presence, now rose and through the window re-entered his room. The

snatch of the conversation which he had overheard had made him uneasy

and had spoiled his happy Homeric mood. He was only too willing to put

the most flattering construction upon Annunciata's solicitude for his

fate in the hereafter, but he had to admit to himself, that there was

something in her tone and in the frank directness of her manner which

precluded such an interpretation. He had floated along, as it were, in

a state of delicious semi-consciousness during the six weeks since he

first entered this house. He had established himself firmly, as he

believed, in the favor of every member of the family, from Antonio

himself to the two-year-old baby, Babetta, who spent her days

contentedly in running from one end to the other of a large marble

sarcophagus, situated under a tall stone pine, a dozen steps from the

house. Monna Nina could then keep watch over her from the window while

at work, and the high, sculptured sides of the sarcophagus prevented

Babetta from indulging her propensity for running away. Pietro, a

picturesque vagabond of twelve, who sold patriotic match-boxes with

the portraits of Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuele, had been bribed into

the stanchest partisanship for the foreigner by a ticket to the monkey

theatre in the Piazza delle Terme, and had excited his sister's

curiosity to a painful pitch by his vivid descriptions of the

wonderful performance he had witnessed. Antonio, who was a quiet and

laborious man, listened with devout attention to Cranbrook's accounts

of the foreign countries he had visited, while Monna Nina sometimes

betrayed an invincible scepticism regarding facts which belonged to

the A B C of transatlantic existence, and unhesitatingly acquiesced in

statements which to an Italian mind might be supposed to border on the

miraculous. She would not believe, for instance, that hot and cold

water could be conducted through pipes to the fifth and sixth story of

a house and drawn _ad libitum_ by the turning of a crank; but her

lodger's descriptions of the travelling palaces in which you slept and

had your dinner prepared while speeding at a furious rate across the

continent, were listened to with the liveliest interest and without

the slightest misgiving. She had, moreover, well-settled convictions

of her own concerning a number of things which lay beyond Cranbrook's

horizon. She had a great dread of the evil eye and knew exactly what

remedies to apply in order to counteract its direful effects; she wore

around her neck a charm which had been blessed by the pope and which

was a sure preventive of rheumatism; and under the ceiling of her

kitchen were suspended bunches of medicinal herbs which had all been

gathered during the new moon and which, in certain decoctions, were

warranted to cure nearly all the ailments to which flesh is heir.

To Cranbrook the daily companionship with these kind-hearted,

primitive people had been a most refreshing experience. As he wrote to

a friend at home, he had shaken off the unwholesome dust which had

accumulated upon his soul, and had for the first time in his life

breathed the undiluted air of healthful human intercourse. Annunciata

was to him a living poem, a simple and stately epic, whose

continuation from day to day filled his life with sonorous echoes.

She was a modern Nausicaa, with the same child-like grandeur and

unconscious dignity as her Homeric prototype. It was not until to-day

that he had become aware of the distance which separated him from her.

They had visited together the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, where

a crude tableau of the Nativity of Christ is exhibited during

Christmas week. Her devoutness in the presence of the jewelled doll,

representing the infant Saviour, had made a painful impression upon

him, and when, with the evident intention of compelling his reverence,

she had told him of the miracles performed by the "Bambino," he had

only responded with an incredulous smile. She had sent him a long,

reproachful glance; then, as the tears rose to her eyes, she had

hurried away and he had not dared to follow her.

While pursuing these sombre meditations, Cranbrook was seated--or

rather buried--in a deep Roman easy-chair, whose faded tapestries

would have been esteemed a precious find by a relic-hunter. Judging by

the _baroque_ style of its decorations, its tarnished gilding, and its

general air _a la_ Pompadour, it was evident that it had spent its

youthful days in some princely palace of the last century, and had by

slow and gradual stages descended to its present lowly condition. A

curious sense of the evanescence of all earthly things stole over the

young man's mind, as his thoughts wandered from his own fortunes to

those of the venerable piece of furniture which was holding him in its

ample embrace. What did it matter in the end, he reasoned, whether he

married his Nausicaa or not? To marry a Nausicaa with grace was a feat

for the performance of which exceptional qualities were required. The

conjugal complement to a Nausicaa must be a man of ponderous presence

and statuesque demeanor--not a shrill and nervous modern like himself,

with second-rate physique, and a morbidly active intellect. No, it

mattered little what he did or left undone. The world would be no

better and no worse for anything he could do. Very likely, in the arms

of this chair where he was now sitting, a dozen Roman Romeos, in

powdered wigs and silk stockings, had pined for twice that number of

Roman Juliets; and now they were all dust, and the world was moving on

exactly as before. And yet in the depth of his being there was a voice

which protested against this hollow reasoning; he felt to himself

insincere and hypocritical; he dallied and played with his own

emotions. Every mood carried in itself a sub-consciousness of its

transitoriness.

The daylight had faded, and the first faint flush of the invisible

moon was pervading the air. The undulating ridge of the Sabine

mountains stood softly denned against the horizon, and here and there

a great, flat-topped stone pine was seen looming up along the edges

of the landscape. Cranbrook ate hurriedly the frugal dinner which was

served him from a neighboring _trattoria_, then lighted a cigar, and

walked out into the garden. He sat for a while on the balustrade of

the terrace, looking out over the green campagna, over which the moon

now rose large and red, while the towers and domes of the city stood,

dark and solemn, in the foreground. The bells of Santa Maria Maggiore

were tolling slowly and pensively, and the sound lingered with long

vibrations in the still air. A mighty, shapeless longing, remotely

aroused or intensified by the sound of the bells, shook his soul; and

the glorious sight before him seemed to weigh upon him like an

oppressive burden. "Annunciata," came in heavy, rhythmic pulses

through the air; it was impossible not to hear it. The bells were

tolling her name: "Annun-ciata, Annun-ciata." Even the water that was

blown from the Triton's mouth whispered softly, as it fell,

"Annunciata, Annunciata."

Cranbrook was awakened from his reverie by the sound of approaching

footsteps. He turned his head and recognized, by the conspicuous

shovel-hat, the old priest who had prophesied such a cheerful future

for him in the hereafter. And was that not Annunciata who was walking

at his side? Surely, that was her voice; for what voice was there in

all the world with such a rich, alluring cadence? And that firm and

splendidly unconscious walk--who, with less than five generations'

practice could even remotely imitate it? Beloved Annunciata! Wondrous

and glorious Annunciata! In thy humble disguise thou art nevertheless

a goddess, and thy majestic simplicity shames the shrill and

artificial graces of thy sisters of the so-called good society. But

surely, child, thou art agitated. Do not waste those magnificent

gestures on the aged and callous priest!

"Thou art hard-hearted and cruel, Padre Gregorio!" were the words that

reached Cranbrook's ears. "The Holy Virgin would not allow any one to

suffer forever who is good and kind. How could he help that his father

and his mother were not of the right faith?"

The padre's answer he could not distinguish; he heard only an eager

murmur and some detached words, from which he concluded that the

priest was expostulating earnestly with her. They passed down the long

staircase into the lower garden, and, though their forms remained

visible, their voices were soon lost among the whispering leaves and

the plashing waters. Cranbrook followed them steadily with his eyes,

and a thrill of ineffable joy rippled through his frame. He had at

last, he thought, the assurance for which he had yearned so long.

Presently he saw Annunciata stop, plunge her hands into a side-pocket,

and pull out something which he imagined to be a key; then she and

the padre disappeared for a few moments in the gloom of a deep portal,

and when Annunciata re-appeared she was alone. She walked rapidly back

through the garden, without being apparently in the least impressed by

the splendor of the night, mounted the stairs to the terrace, and

again passed within a dozen yards of where Cranbrook was sitting,

without observing him.

"Annunciata," he called softly, rising to follow her.

"Signore Giovanni," she exclaimed wonderingly but without the

slightest trace of the emotion which had so recently agitated her.

"You should not sit here in the garden so late. The air of the night

is not good for the foreigner."

"The air is good for me wherever you are, Annunciata," he answered

warmly. "Come and walk with me here down the long plane tree avenue.

Take my arm. I have much to say to you:

'* * * In such a night as this,

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,' etc.

'In such a night,

Troilus, methinks, mounter! the Trojan walls,

And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents

Where Cressid lay that night.'"

She took the arm which he offered her silently, but with a simple

dignity which a princess might have envied her.

"I cannot stay out long," she said. "My mother would miss me."

"I shall not detain you long. I have only a confession to make to you.

I was sitting on the _loggia_ this afternoon when Padre Gregorio came,

and I heard what you said to him."

He had expected her to blush or show some sign of embarrassment. But

she only lifted her calm, clear countenance toward him and said:

"You were kinder and better than all the men I had known, and it gave

me trouble to think that you should be unhappy when you die. Therefore

I asked the padre; but I do not believe any more that the padre is

always right. God is better and wiser than he, and God will find a way

where a priest would find none."

There was something inexpressibly touching in the way she uttered

these simple words. Cranbrook, although he was, for reasons of his

own, disappointed at her perfect composure, felt the tears mounting to

his eyes, and his voice shook as he answered:

"I am not afraid of my lot in the next world, Annunciata; and although

it is kind of you to be troubled about it, I fear you can do nothing

to improve it. But my fate in this world I yearn to lay in your hands.

I love you very dearly, Annunciata, and all I need to make me what I

aspire to be is to have you give me a little affection in return.

What do you say, Annunciata? do you think you could? Would you be my

wife, and go with me to my own country and share my life, whatever it

may be."

"But signore," she replied, after a moment's deliberation; "my mother

would not like it, and Babetta would cry the whole day long when I was

gone."

"I am speaking seriously, Annunciata, and you must not evade my

question. It all depends upon you."

"No, it also depends upon mother and Babetta. But I know you would be

good and kind to me, Signore Giovanni, and you would always treat me

well; for you are a good and kind man. I should like to be your wife,

I think, but I do not know whether I should like to go with you across

the great sea."

Cranbrook was hopelessly perplexed, and for an instant even inclined

to question whether she might not be ridiculing him; but a glance at

her puzzled face showed him that she was grappling earnestly with the

great problem, and apparently endeavoring to gain time by uttering the

first thought that suggested itself to her mind. The gloom of the

plane-trees now enveloped them, and only here and there a quivering

ray of moonlight pierced through the dense roof of leaves. The marble

phantoms of the Cæsars gazed sternly at the daring intruders who had

come to disturb their centuries' repose, and the Roman senator at the

end of the avenue held his outstretched hand toward them, as if

warning them back from the life that lay beyond the moment's great

resolution. And yet, before the moon had faded out of the sky, the

great resolution was irrevocably taken. When they parted in the hall,

leading up to Cranbrook's room, Annunciata consented with the faintest

show of resistance to being kissed, and she even responded, though

vaguely and doubtingly, to his vehement caresses. "_Felicissima

notte_, Signore Giovanni," she murmured, as she slowly disengaged

herself from his embrace. "You are a dear, good man, and I will go

with you across the great sea."