The Italians Part 25

"My niece has a headache; leave her alone," answers the marchesa, curtly. "Do not speak to her, Mr. Sindaco. She will visit Corellia another day; meanwhile, adieu."

The marchesa waves her hand majestically, and signs for him to retire.

This the sindaco does with an inward groan at the thought of what is coming on him.

Poor Enrica, feeling as if a curse were on her, cutting her off from all her former life, shrinks back deeper into the corner of the carriage, draws the black veil closer about her face, and sobs aloud.

The marchesa turns her head away. The driver cracks his long whip over the steaming horses, which move feebly forward with a jerk. Thus the coach slowly traverses the whole length of the piazza, the wheels rumbling themselves into silence out in a long street leading to another gate on the farther side of the town.

Not another word more is said that night among the townsfolk; but there is not a man at Corellia who does not curse the marchesa in his heart. Ser Giacomo, the notary, folds up his newspaper in dead silence, puts it into his pocket, and departs. The lights in the dark _cafe_, which burn sometimes all day when it is cloudy, are extinguished. The domino-players disappear. Oreste and Pilade shut up their shop despondingly. The baker Pietro comes out no more to cool at the door. Anyway, there must be bakers, he reflects, to bake the bread; so Pietro retreats, comforted, to his oven, and works frantically all night. He is safe, Pietro hopes, though he has paid no rent for two whole years, and has sold some of the corn which ought to have gone to the marchesa.

Meanwhile the heavy carriage, with its huge leather hood and double rumble, swaying dangerously to and fro, descends a steep and rugged road embowered in forest, leading to a narrow ledge upon the summit of a line of cliffs. On the very edge of these cliffs, formed of a dark-red basaltic stone, the marchesa's villa stands. A deep, dark precipice drops down beneath. Opposite is a range of mountains, fair and forest-spread on the lower flanks, rising above into wild crags, and broken, blackened peaks, that mock the soft blue radiance of the evening sky.

CHAPTER II.

WHAT SILVESTRO SAYS.

Silvestro, the steward, is a man "full of conscience," as people say, deeply sensible of his responsibilities, and more in dread of the marchesa than of the Church. It is this dread that makes him so emaciated--hesitate when he speaks, and bend his back and shoulders into a constant cringe. But for this dread, Silvestro would forgive the poor people more. He sees such pinching misery every day--lives in it--suffers from it; how can he ask those for money who have none?

It is like forcing blood out of a stone. He is not the man to do it.

Silvestro lives at hand; he hears the rattle of the hail that burns the grapes up to a cinder--the terrible din of the thunder before the forked lightning strikes the cattle; he sees with his own eyes the griping want of bread in the savage winter-time; his own eyes behold the little lambs, dead of hunger, lying by the road-side. Worse still, he sees other lambs--human lambs with Christian souls--fade and pine and shrink into a little grave, from failing of mother's milk, dried up for want of proper food. He sees, too, the aged die before G.o.d calls them, failing through lack of nourishment--a little wine, perhaps, or a mouthful of soup; the young and strong grow old with ceaseless striving. Poor Silvestro! he sees too much. He cannot be severe. He is born merciful. Silvestro is honest as the day, but he hides things from the marchesa; he is honest, but he cannot--no, he cannot--grind and vex the poor, as she would have him do. Yet she has no one to take his place in that G.o.d-forgotten town--so they pull on, man and mistress--a truly ill-matched pair--pull on, year after year. It is a weary life for him when the great lady comes up for her villeggiatura--Silvestro, divided, cleft in twain, so to say, as he is, between his awe and respect for the marchesa and her will, and his terrible sympathy for all suffering creatures, man or beast.

As to the marchesa, she despises Silvestro too profoundly to notice his changing moods. It is not her habit to look for any thing but obedience--absolute obedience--from those beneath her. A thousand times she has told herself such a fool would ruin her; but, up to this present time, she has borne with him, partly from convenience, and partly because she fears to get a rogue in his place. She does not guess how carefully Silvestro has hid the truth from her; she would not give him credit for the power of concealing any thing.

The sindaco having sent a boy up to Silvestro's house with the marchesa's message, "that he is to attend her," the steward comes hurrying down through the terraces cut in the steep ground behind the villa--broad, stately terraces, with bal.u.s.trades, and big empty vases, and statues, and grand old lemon-trees set about. Great flights of marble steps cross and recross, rest on a marble stage, and then recross again. Here and there a pointed cypress-tree towers upward like a green pyramid in a desert of azure sky. Bright-leaved autumn flowers lie in ma.s.ses on the rich brown earth, and dainty streamlets come rus.h.i.+ng downward in little sculptured troughs.

What a dismal sigh Silvestro gave when he got the marchesa's message, and knew that she had arrived! How he wrung his hands and looked hopelessly upward to heaven with vacant, colorless eyes, the big heat-drops gathering on his bald, wrinkled forehead! He has so much to tell her!--It must be told too; he can hide the truth no longer. She will be sure to ask to see the accounts. Alas! alas! what will his mistress say? For a moment Silvestro gazes wistfully at the mountains all around with a vacant stare. Oh, that the mountains would cover him! Anyway, there are caves and holes, he thinks, where the marchesa's wrath would never reach him; caves and holes where he might live hidden for years, cared for by those who love him. Shall he flee, and never see his mistress's dark, dreadful eyes again? Folly!

Silvestro rouses himself. He resolves to meet his fate like a man, whatever that may be. He will not forsake his duty.--So Silvestro comes hurrying down by the terraces, upon which the shadows fall, to the house--a gray mediaeval tower, machicolated and turreted--the only remains of a strong fortress that in feudal times guarded these pa.s.ses from Modena into Tuscany. To this gray tower is attached a large modern dwelling--a villa--painted of a dull-yellow color, with an overlapping roof, the walls pierced full of windows. The tower, villa, and the line of cliffs on which they stand, face east and west; on one side the forest and Corellia crowning a rocky height, on the other side mountains, with a deep abyss at the foot of the cliffs, yawning between. It is the marchesa's pleasure to inhabit the old tower rather than the pleasant villa, with its big windows and large, cheerful rooms.

Being tall and spare, Silvestro stoops under the low, arched doorway, heavily clamped with iron and nails, leading into the tower; then he mounts very slowly a winding stair of stone to the second story. The sound of his footsteps brings a whole pack of dogs rus.h.i.+ng out upon the gravel.

(On the gravel before the house there is a fountain springing up out of a marble basin full of gold-fish. Pots are set round the edge with the sweetest-smelling flowers--tuberoses, heliotropes, and gardenias.) The dogs, barking loudly, run round the basin and upset some of the pots. One n.o.ble mastiff, with long white hair and strong straight limbs--the leader of the pack--pursues Silvestro up the dark, tiring stairs. When the mastiff has reached him and smelt at him he stands still, wags his tail, and thrusts his nose into Silvestro's hand.

"Poor Argo!" says the steward, meekly. "Don't bark at me; I cannot bear it now."

Argo gives a friendly sniff, and leaves him.

At a door on the right, Silvestro stops short, to collect his thoughts and his breath. He has not seen his mistress for a year. His soul sinks at the thought of what he must tell her now. "Can she punish me?" he asks himself, vaguely. Perhaps. He must bear it if she does.

He has done all he can. Consoled by this reflection, he knocks. A well-known voice answers, "Come in." Silvestro's clammy hand is on the lock--a worm-eaten door creaks on its hinges--he enters.

The marchesa nods to Silvestro without speaking. She is seated before a high desk of carved walnut-wood, facing the door. The desk is covered with papers. A file of papers is in her hand; others lie upon her lap. All round there are cupboards, shelves, and drawers, piled with papers and doc.u.ments, most of them yellow with age. These consist of old leases, contracts, copies of various lawsuits with her tenants, appeals to Barga, mortgages, accounts. The room is low, and rounded to the shape of the tower. Naked joists and rafters of black wood support the ceiling. The light comes in through some loop-holes, high up, cut in the thickness of the wall. Some tall, high-backed chairs, covered with strips of faded satin, stand near the chimney. A wooden bedstead, without curtains, is partly concealed behind a painted screen, covered with G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, much consumed and discolored from the damp.

As the room had felt a little chilly from want of use, a large fire of unbarked wood had been kindled. The fire blazes fiercely on the flat stones within an open hearth, unguarded by a grate.

Having nodded to Silvestro, the marchesa takes no further notice of him. From time to time she flings a loose paper from those lying before her--over her shoulder toward the fire, which is at her back.

Of these papers some reach the fire; others, but half consumed, fall back upon the floor. The flames of the wood-fire leap out and seize the papers--now one by one--now as they lie in little heaps. The flames leap up; the burning papers crumple along the floor, in little streaks of fire, catching others that lie, still farther on in the room, still unconsumed. Ere these papers have sunk into ashes, a fresh supply, thrown over her shoulder by the marchesa, have caught the flames. All the s.p.a.ce behind her chair is covered with smouldering papers. A stack of wood, placed near to replenish the fire, has caught, and is smouldering also. The fire, too, on the hearth is burning fiercely; it crackles up the wide open chimney in a ma.s.s of smoke and sparks.

The marchesa is far too much absorbed to notice this. Silvestro, standing near the door--the high desk and the marchesa's tall figure between him and the hearth--does not perceive it either. Still the marchesa bends over her papers, reading some and throwing others over her shoulders into the flames behind.

Silvestro, who had grown hot and cold twenty times in a minute, standing before her, his book under his arm--thinking she had forgotten him--addresses her at last.

"How does madama feel?" Silvestro asks most humbly, turning his lack-l.u.s.tre eyes upon her, "Well," is the marchesa's brief reply. She signs to him to lay his book upon her desk. She takes it in her hand.

She turns over the pages, following line after line with the tip of her long, white forefinger.

"There seems very little, Silvestro," she says, running her eyes up and down each page as she turns it slowly over. Her brow knits until her dark eyebrows almost meet--"very little. Has the corn brought in so small a sum, and the olives, and the grapes?"

"Madama," begins Silvestro, and he bends his head and shoulders, and squeezes his skinny hands together, in a desperate effort to obliterate himself altogether, if possible, in the face of such mishaps--"madama will condescend to remember the late spring frosts.

There is no corn anywhere. Upon the lowlands the frost was most severe; in April, too, when the grain was forward. The olives bore a little last season, but Corellia is a cold place--too cold for olives; the trees, too, are very old. This year there will be no crop at all.

As for the grapes--"

"_Accidente_ to the grapes!" interrupts the marchesa, reddening. "The grapes always fail. Every thing fails under you."

Silvestro shrinks back in terror at the sound of her harsh voice. Oh, that those purple mountains around would cover him! The moment of her wrath is come. What will she say to him?

"I wish I had not an acre of vineyard," the marchesa continues.

"Disease, or hail, or drought, or rain, it is always the same--the grapes always fail."

"The peasants are starving, madama," Silvestro takes courage to say, but his voice is low and m.u.f.fled.

"They have chestnuts," she answers quickly, "let them live on chestnuts."

Silvestro starts violently. He draws back a step or two nearer the door.

"Let the gracious madama consider, many have not even a patch of chestnuts. There is great misery, madama--indeed, there is great misery." Silvestro goes on to say. He must speak now or never.

"Madama"--and he holds up his bony hands--"you will have no rent at all from the peasants. They must be kept all the winter."

"Silvestro, you are a fool," cries the marchesa, eying him contemptuously, as she would a troublesome child--"a fool; pray how am I to keep the peasants, and pay the taxes? I must live."

"Doubtless, excellent madama." Silvestro was infinitely relieved at the calmness with which the marchesa received his announcement. He could not have believed it. He feels most grateful to her. "But, if madama will speak with Fra Pacifico, he will tell her how bitter the distress must be this winter. The Town Council"--Silvestro, deceived by her apparent calmness, has made a mistake in naming the Town Council. It is too late. The words have been spoken. Knowing his mistress's temper, Silvestro imperceptibly glides toward the door as he mentions that body--"The Town Council has decreed--" His words die away in his throat at her aspect.

"Santo dei Santi!" she screams, boiling over with rage, "I forbid you to talk to me of the Town Council!"

Silvestro's hand is upon the lock to insure escape.

"Madama--consider," pleads Silvestro, wellnigh desperate. "The Town Council might appeal to Barga," Silvestro almost whispers now.

"Let them--let them; it is just what I should like. Let them appeal.

I will fight them at law, and beat them in full court--the ruffians!"

She gives a short, scornful laugh. "Yes, we will fight it out at Barga."

Suddenly the marchesa stops. Her eyes have now reached the balance-sheet on the last page. She draws a long breath.

"Why, there is nothing!" she exclaims, placing her forefinger on the total, then raising her head and fixing her eyes on Silvestro--"nothing!"

Silvestro shrinks, as it were, into himself. He silently bows his head in terrified acquiescence.

"A thousand francs! How am I to live on a thousand francs!"