Saracinesca Part 37

she said.

"That is the reason I go out," said the Prince. "It is not very gay, but it is better than nothing. It suggests cold meat served up after the dessert; but when people are hungry, the order of their food is not of much importance."

"Is there any news, Prince? I want to be amused."

"News? No. The world is at peace, and consequently given over to sin, as it mostly is when it is resting from a fit of violence."

"You seem to be inclined to moralities this evening," said Donna Tullia, smiling, and gently swaying the red fan she always carried.

"Am I? Then I am growing old, I suppose. It is the privilege of old age to censure in others what it is no longer young enough to praise in itself. It is a bad thing to grow old, but it makes people good, or makes them think they are, which in their own eyes is precisely the same thing."

"How delightfully cynical!"

"Doggish?" inquired the Prince, with a laugh. "I have heard it said by scholars, that cynical means doggish in Greek. The fable of the dog in the horse's manger was invented to define the real cynic--the man who neither enjoys life himself nor will allow other people to enjoy it. I am not such a man. I hope you, for instance, will enjoy everything that comes in your way."

"Even the cold meat after the dessert which you spoke of just now?" asked Donna Tullia. "Thank you--I will try; perhaps you can help me."

"My son despised it," said Saracinesca. "He is gone in search of fresh pastures of sweets."

"Leaving you behind."

"Somebody once said that the wisest thing a son could do was to get rid of his father as soon as possible--"

"Then Don Giovanni is a wise man," returned Donna Tullia.

"Perhaps. However, he asked me to accompany him."

"You refused?"

"Of course. Such expeditions are good enough for boys. I dislike Florence, I am not especially fond of Paris, and I detest the North Pole.

I suppose you have seen from the papers that he is going in that direction? It is like him, he hankers after originality, I suppose. Being born in the south, he naturally goes to the extreme north."

"He will write you very interesting letters, I should think," remarked Donna Tullia. "Is he a good correspondent?"

"Remarkably, for he never gives one any trouble. He sends his address from time to time, and draws frequently on his banker. His letters are not so full of interest as might be thought, as they rarely extend over five lines; but on the other hand it does not take long to read them, which is a blessing."

"You seem to be an affectionate parent," said Donna Tullia, with a laugh.

"If you measure affection by the cost of postage-stamps, you have a right to be sarcastic. If you measure it in any other way, you are wrong. I could not help loving any one so like myself as my son. It would show a detestable lack of appreciation of my own gifts."

"I do not think Don Giovanni so very like you," said Donna Tullia, thoughtfully.

"Perhaps you do not know him so well as I do," remarked the Prince.

"Where do you see the greatest difference?"

"I think you talk better, and I think you are more--not exactly more honest, perhaps, but more straightforward."

"I do not agree with you," said old Saracinesca, quickly. "There is no one alive who can say they ever knew Giovanni approach in the most innocent way to a distortion of truth. I daresay you have discovered, however, that he is reticent; he can hold his tongue; he is no chatterer, no parrot, my son."

"Indeed he is not," answered Donna Tullia, and the reply pacified the old man; but she herself was thinking what supreme reticence Giovanni had shown in the matter of his marriage, and she wondered whether the Prince had ever heard of it.

CHAPTER XXII.

Anastase Gouache worked hard at the Cardinal's portrait, and at the same time did his best to satisfy Donna Tullia. The latter, indeed, was not easily pleased, and Gouache found it hard to instil into his representation of her the precise amount of poetry she required, without doing violence to his own artistic sense of fitness. But the other picture progressed rapidly. The Cardinal was a restless man, and after the first two or three sittings, desired nothing so much as to be done with them altogether. Anastase amused him, it is true, and the statesman soon perceived that he had made a conquest of the young man's mind, and that, as Giovanni Saracinesca had predicted, he had helped Gouache to come to a decision. He was not prepared, however, for the practical turn that decision immediately took, and he was just beginning to wish the sittings at an end when Anastase surprised him by a very startling announcement.

As usual, they were in the Cardinal's study; the statesman was silent and thoughtful, and Gouache was working with all his might.

"I have made up my mind," said the latter, suddenly.

"Concerning what, my friend?" inquired the great man, rather absently.

"Concerning everything, Eminence," answered Gouache "concerning politics, religion, life, death, and everything else which belongs to my career. I am going to enlist with the Zouaves."

The Cardinal looked at him for a moment, and then broke into a low laugh.

"_Extremis malis extrema remedial!_" he exclaimed.

"Precisely--_aux grands maux les grands remedes,_ as we say. I am going to join the Church militant. I am convinced that it is the best thing an honest man can do. I like fighting, and I like the Church--therefore I will fight for the Church."

"Very good logic, indeed," answered the Cardinal. But he looked at Anastase, and marking his delicate features and light frame, he almost wondered how the lad would look in the garb of a soldier. "Very good logic; but, my dear Monsieur Gouache, what is to become of your art?"

"I shall not be mounting guard all day, and the Zouaves are allowed to live in their own lodgings. I will live in my studio, and paint when I am not mounting guard."

"And my portrait?" inquired Cardinal Antonelli, much amused.

"Your Eminence will doubtless be kind enough to manage that I may have liberty to finish it."

"You could not put off enlisting for a week, I suppose?"

Gouache looked annoyed; he hated the idea of waiting.

"I have taken too long to make up my mind already," he replied. "I must make the plunge at once. I am convinced--your Eminence has convinced me--that I have been very foolish."

"I certainly never intended to convince you of that," remarked the Cardinal, with a smile.

"Very foolish," repeated Gouache, not heeding the interruption. "I have talked great nonsense,--I scarcely know why--perhaps to try and find where the sense really lay. I have dreamed so many dreams, so long, that I sometimes think I am morbid. All artists are morbid, I suppose. It is better to do anything active than to lose one's self in the slums of a sickly imagination."

"I agree with you," answered the Cardinal; "but I do not think you suffered from a sickly imagination,--I should rather call it abundant than sickly. Frankly, I should be sorry to think that in following this new idea you were in any way injuring the great career which, I am sure, is before you; but, on the other hand, I cannot help wis.h.i.+ng that a greater number of young men would follow your example."

"Your Eminence approves, then?"

"Do you think you will make a good soldier?"

"Other artists have been good soldiers. There was Cellini--"