Four Phases of Love Part 13

"I am thinking how my mice will bear their fate when the old palace is pulled about their ears, and the bright daylight peeps into all their private holes and comers. I know that they have had a family lately.

Poor fools! to love to linger under the same roof without learning anything from one! How I rejoice that I am poor, and free, and alone, and can carry all my belongings with me in a hand-cart!" He stretched out his arms, and waved them in the sir, as if he poised the burden that awaited them. He looked younger and fresher than he had ever done before.

In the evening he asked Theodore to accompany him to a tavern, in which, before his accident, he had spent many a night. "You shall see what good Roman society is, and the remains of n.o.bler races," he said.

"They are a little mistrustful of foreign elements, that step in without knowing what they want, or perhaps who know only too well. They say that it is not much better in n.o.bler houses. Let them do what they like, and drink your wine without making much fuss: they let me do as I please, even if I bring a German with me, for they rather look up to me."

He led him a few streets distant from the Sistine, to the beautiful fountain of Bernini, the Fontana di Trivi. Opposite the lofty grottoed and niched facade, in the centre of which the water-G.o.d stands above the artificial rocks, and rules the streams, which burst out from all sides into the deep bason, there stood a mean-looking old house, with a smoky lantern over the door. They entered the s.p.a.cious chamber, which occupied the whole breadth of the house, and served as a drinking-room.

At the further end the fire on the hearth played against the blackened wall, and to the right a flight of steps led to the upper story. No furniture was to be seen except benches and tables, on and around which a mixed, silent company was gathered. A boy bore plates of fried fish, salad, and macaroni, and disappeared from time to time through a trap-door, to rise to the surface again, bearing fresh-filled flasks.

A joyous welcome resounded from the lower end of the room as the two friends entered. "Eccolo!" cried a portly woman, who forced her way through the crowd towards the door, drying her hands on her ap.r.o.n.

"Eccolo! welcome a thousand times, Ser Carlo!" and she gave him her hand heartily. "A mezzo of Frascati, Chico; of the new, that came in yesterday. Only think, Ser Carlo! who do you think that I was just talking about to my Domenico this very moment? I said to him, 'Domenicuccio,' said I, 'you are a bear and a brute, never to go and see how it fares with our Ser Carlo; for I, as you well know, have my hands full with the children and the guests, and you yourself to look after, you stupid animal! And it will seem a thousand years till I see him again, fine fellow that he is!' 'Lalla mia!' says he, 'to-morrow I will see about it; and,' says he, 'if you have no objection, Lalla, I think that he won't refuse a little drop of the new wine, just a barilotto!' Said I, 'Well, Cuccio, that is just the very best idea you have had all these ten years that we have been married!' And just then Girolamo came in, and said that he had seen you on the Pincio, and I said, 'Blessed be the Virgin! then it won't be long before we see him here;' and just at that moment you opened the door and stood before us!

And really it has done you good--you have grown handsomer, Ser Carlo. I would not believe Girolamo, but positively the Madonna has wrought a miracle on you. I have not prayed all through my rosary for nothing!"

"So I have to thank you, Sera Lalla, that I have not gone mad, and am quit for a little lameness? You have got the best wife in Rome, Domenico,--a saint! a real treasure of grace! Ay, here I am once more!"

and he shook the host, a heavy-looking, insinuating sort of fellow, vehemently by the hand; "and this gentleman that you see here is my friend, who saved me from the jaws of the dogs. But, holla! there sits my n.o.ble Gigi over there, and eats and drinks, and can't even give his throat time to say 'Good evening.' Shame on you, Gigi! to treat old friends, and one, moreover, who has risen, like Saint Lazarus, from the dead, in such a frosty fas.h.i.+on!"

"He has asked after you more than all the others put together,"

whispered the hostess. "He could not take his gla.s.s for a week at a time when they began to talk about you. He was only afraid of visiting you."

The man of whom the good woman spoke sat at one of the centre tables, propped up tightly against the wall, and continued steadily thrusting large pieces of food into his mouth. He was good-looking, his bald head covered with a little skull-cap, his black coat b.u.t.toned up to his throat, and a certain air of decency about him, which distinguished him from the others, without showing, at the same time, any particular pretension.

Bianchi stepped up to him, and greeted him across the table with a wave of the hand. "Dear Ser Gigi," he said, "do not distress yourself--we understand each other." He remarked now for the first time that the worthy man's eyes were glimmering moistly, and that he only continued eating in order to prevent his joyous embarra.s.sment being marked.

"He is a singer," whispered Bianchi to his companion; "he keeps to the churches, and sings on festal days. They wanted to give him the tonsure, because he has some education and is decent-looking, but it did not quite suit him. They are all free men, as many as sit here.

Come, my friend Gigi will make room for us near himself."

Meanwhile, the boy brushed down the table with a by no means clean napkin, and placed a large open flask before them. Theodore seated himself, whilst Bianchi had to shake hands and answer questions about the room. A reeking bra.s.s lamp flared with its thin, redly-burning wicks over the table. It took Theodore some time to become accustomed to the atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and rancid oil, but he soon forgot all, at the sight of a striking couple, who sat at the table directly opposite to him. One was a young girl in the costume of Albano--the red jacket closed neatly round the just ripening bosom, above it was folded the lace collar, and large silver pins held the flat white handkerchief, which did not conceal the shape of her head, firmly on her hair. Her face was in the fresh bloom of youth, beauty, and health--three virtues which love to be kept together in such a situation. Only the expression of the mouth had a shy softness and yieldingness about it, almost irresolute and sorrowful, and the large eyelids so entirely covered the eyes that only a narrow dark gleaming line betrayed that they slept not.

She ate from the plate before her, slowly and indifferently, and drank but little wine, whilst her brown cheeks glowed ever with the same fire.

Beside her sat an old woman in a Roman costume, blinking vivaciously about her, but silent, and busied with her wine and food, which she enjoyed greedily. They had nothing whatever in common, and yet seemed to belong to each other.

When Bianchi at last came to take his seat, and had emptied his first gla.s.s, he started back with an almost comic expression of astonishment, and cried, "Madonna Santa! what beauty! How did you come by such a neighbour, Ser Gigi? A niece of yours? or only a forgotten child, that appeared before your eyes by chance? Blessed be her mother."

"Che, Che!"' said the singer, seriously. "I wish you were right. Ask her yourself where she comes from. The sweet little mouth would not bestow a word upon me."

Bianchi cast a keen glance on the old woman, and growled to himself, "So, so, I fancy we understand each other." The old woman remarked it, and said, as she emptied the rest of the bottle into her gla.s.s,

"A bashful thing, gentlemen! a poor shy orphan; lived with the wicked people up in the mountains when I found her, and took pity on the young creature. How easily one is lost, when one gets into wrong hands. I brought her with me to Rome, for the Virgin's sake, and keep her here as well as a poor old woman can, in all honour and virtue--poor thing.

Look up, Caterina, when the gentlemen speak to you."

The girl obeyed, and let her large calm eyes rest for a moment on Bianchi, and let them sink again almost immediately. The artist half-raised himself from his seat and bent over towards her.

"You are called Caterina?"

"Yes," she answered, in a deep but soft voice.

"How old are you?"----"Eighteen years."

"You have left a lover behind in Albano, or perhaps more than one?"

She shook her head.

"How you talk!" interrupted the old woman, hastily. "'Tis a good girl, I tell you, and as innocent as the Madonna. Should I have got so fond of her else?"

"Well, well! If I believe it, I believe her face, and not yours, mother. Can she dance? The gentleman here is a stranger, and I should like him to learn what a real salterello is like."

Theodore said a few words--"that it would be a great favour." The old woman beckoned to the hostess; Caterina arose silently. Soon the nearest tables were pushed aside, to leave a small s.p.a.ce clear, and Lalla brought the tambourine. Whilst the old woman seated herself in a corner with it, the other guests crowded round one after the other, and the boy who had been serving them prepared himself for his part in the dance, Bianchi whispered in his friend's ear: "Look at that form, and the delicacy of the hands and feet, and how she stands there, a perfect figure! such as I never saw before--blameless even to the darling little ears--and as yet hardly knowing herself! To be obliged to let Checo dance with her! I understood it pretty well once. But now, I conjure you, let your eyes do their best. A miracle will be performed."

Theodore needed not the prompting. He leaned against a table, and turned not his eyes from Caterina. At the first vehement notes of the tambourine the girl began the dance; Lalla stood near he old woman and clattered the castanets. Senor Luigi, the singer, sat immovable behind his table, and began to hum an air with the first notes. Soon he sang the song and the words cheerily out. The words, which Theodore could not understand, the feverish restlessness of the monotoned instruments, and above all, the strange witchery of the dancing girl, by degrees so confused his ideas, that he felt as if he had been gazing into a new and unknown world. All that he had known, loved, possessed, retreated into a vacuous gloom, which deprived it of all colouring; forms, thoughts, wishes, and hopes whirled through his soul to the dull notes of the tambourine, as to a great review. He cast them all aside. It was as though a voice called within him, "They are all worthless and dead.

Here alone is life and bliss."

When the dance ceased he awoke from his dream, and looked wildly around. He seized his hat. "Are you going? Already? Now?" asked Bianchi, astonished. "I see that you don't enjoy yourself amongst my friends here."

"You mistake me," answered Theodore, looking gloomily before him. "How gladly would I remain. How gladly--but I have given a promise. I must pay a visit--we shall see each other to-morrow, Bianchi."

"Oh!" murmured Bianchi. "Pity, pity! how you will amuse yourselves, you and the others! Pity, pity!"

He laughed sharply and bitterly as Theodore turned away, and yet he did not seem sorry at his going.

On getting into the open air, the young man stood long opposite the fountain, and drew into his confused soul the breath of the water, and the living rus.h.i.+ng of its fall. The moon lighted up the head and part of the chest of the water G.o.d, below the drops only glanced out of the darkness. He descended the steps, and drank as if to wash away the intoxication of his soul, and then seated himself upon the edge of the bason. He remembered the old saying, that whoever drank of this fountain would lose his home-longing for Rome; and then he fell into painful reveries. When the noise of the tambourine reached his ear anew from the osteria, he started up in terror, with difficulty he forced himself to pa.s.s the door, and to follow one of the neighbouring streets. When in the distance, the deadened sound again reached him, he paused for a moment and seemed to wrestle with himself; then he went resolutely farther down into the town to Mary's house.

CHAPTER IV.

There was a pause in the conversation when he entered. His bride arose, advanced to meet him, and took his hand warmly. He let a keen pa.s.sing glance rest for a moment on the n.o.ble face which looked up so frankly to his, and then approached her mother, who greeted him heartily, and bent forward in her easy-chair to shake his hand. Like her daughter, she was still dressed in black; but wore her hair gathered under a grey gauze cap, whilst Mary's brown locks were kept in order by a narrow black ribbon across her brow. Her father, too, received him kindly, and introduced him to two gentlemen, strangers, who were seated at the brightly-lighted table. They were Englishmen, brothers, old friends of the house, who had arrived from England but shortly before. For their convenience, the conversation was carried on in English.

"You are late, dear Theodore," said the mother; "we wanted you whilst we were describing to our friends the last hours of poor Edward. My poor eyes did their duty but feebly then, and Mary and her father were both ill, as you know. We all felt the loss more than you did, for you hardly knew him; and so you were the most self-possessed, and better able to realize what rests upon our memories only as a horrible agitated dream, even now almost incredible!"

Theodore felt a reluctance to talk. The quiet, of the room, the feeling of agitation with which he entered, strange faces, and a strange tongue, all oppressed him in the highest degree. And now, at this same moment, when he had but just been face to face with an existence so full of magical bliss, he was expected to describe the death-bed of poor Edward to strangers.

They thought that it was his sorrow that prevented his answering. He had seated himself near Mary, and gazed long on her delicate, pale brow. Its unruffled, snowy stillness disturbed him. Her blue eyes, that beamed clear, and happy, and calmly, had to-day lost their power over him. He felt distinctly that it was his own incapacity which prevented his enjoying this n.o.ble face as formerly, that made him no longer wait longingly for each word from those charming lips, or feel each smile penetrate into his inmost soul. He struggled for awhile against this insensibility, which caused him bitter agony,--it was in vain!

She was conscious of the existence of some struggle going on within him; but the presence of the others prevented her grasping closer, by her fervent partic.i.p.ation in its sorrows, the heart which was separating itself from her.

One of the strangers asked about the monument which was intended to be erected to Edward. Theodore roused himself, and mentioned that that very day he had entrusted the work to a friend, of whose character and circ.u.mstances he gave a slight sketch. Mary's parents knew more of him; but the disjointed picture did not seem to satisfy the stranger.

"It were to be wished,"' he said, "that this man could be conscious of some trace of Edward's inner nature in his own being, so that he might be able to identify himself with the delicate form and short blessed life of our lost friend, as something beloved. He seems to be, from your description, a violent, inflexible man, to whom nothing can be more incomprehensible than our Edward's idea of living only for others, and of shaping his last sigh into a wish for the happiness of those he loved."

"He is rough and energetic," answered Theodore; "but the beautiful affects him, and he looks upon what is n.o.ble with reverence and awe. I remarked, when I read Homer to him, how powerfully the idyllic, I might say the feminine, pa.s.sages of the poem moved him."

"Possibly because they accorded more with his artistic fulness than the barren uniformity of battle and danger. And yet it is one thing to possess a mind capable of being affected by certain common-place, natural, heathen emotions, and another to have one by which the blessings of our religion are appreciated. Edward was a Christian; your friend at best is but a professing Roman Catholic."

"I cannot deny," interrupted the mother, "that I have thought much on this point already. Before we intrust a work like this, which we have all so much at heart, to a stranger, it were at least advisable to have a sketch made which we could discuss and decide upon."

"I know him, dearest mother," said Theodore, emphatically. "If it were his custom to throw his first ideas upon a sc.r.a.p of paper, it would be easy enough to discuss the matter with him; but he always prefers, first, to work up his subject in clay of the intended size; and he has, besides, particularly entreated that in this case he may be permitted to labour for a time without letting any one see it. That it depends upon your approval, he knows already."