diff options
Diffstat (limited to '42944-8.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 42944-8.txt | 7232 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 7232 deletions
diff --git a/42944-8.txt b/42944-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6ace7d8..0000000 --- a/42944-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7232 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Rainy June and Other Stories, by Ouida - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: A Rainy June and Other Stories - -Author: Ouida - -Release Date: June 14, 2013 [EBook #42944] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A RAINY JUNE AND OTHER STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by David Edwards, Charlie Howard, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - A RAINY JUNE - - ETC. - - - - -OUIDA'S NOVELS - - Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 3_s._ 6_d._ each; post 8vo, illustrated - boards, 2_s._ each. - - _Held in Bondage._ - _Tricotrin._ - _Strathmore._ - _Chandos._ - _Cecil Castlemaine's Gage._ - _Under Two Flags._ - _Puck._ - _Idalia._ - _Folle-Favine._ - _A Dog of Flanders._ - _Pascarel._ - _Signa._ - _Two Little Wooden Shoes._ - _In a Winter City_. - _Ariadne._ - _Friendship._ - _Moths._ - _Pipistrello._ - _A Village Commune._ - _In Maremma._ - _Bimbi._ - _Syrlin._ - _Wanda._ - _Frescoes._ - _Othmar._ - _Princess Napraxine._ - _Guilderoy._ - _Ruffino._ - _Santa Barbara._ - _Two Offenders._ - - POPULAR EDITIONS, medium 8vo, 6_d._ each. - - _Under Two Flags._ - _Held in Bondage._ - _Strathmore._ - _Chandos._ - _Moths._ - _Puck._ - _Tricotrin._ - _The Massarenes._ - -_A Rainy June, etc._ Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._ - -_The Massarenes._ Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._ - -_Syrlin._ Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._; post 8vo, - - picture cloth, flat back, 2_s._; illustrated boards, 2_s._ - -_Two Little Wooden Shoes._ LARGE TYPE EDITION. - - Fcp. 8vo, cloth, 1_s._ net; leather, 1_s._ 6_d._ net. - -_The Waters of Edera._ Crown 8vo, cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._; - - picture cloth, flat back, 2_s._ - - _Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos_, selected from the Works of OUIDA by - F. SYDNEY MORRIS. Post 8vo, cloth extra, 5_s._; CHEAP EDITION, - illustrated boards, 2_s._ - - -London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 111 St. Martin's Lane, W.C. - - - - - A RAINY JUNE - - - AND OTHER STORIES - - BY - - OUIDA - - AUTHOR OF 'PUCK,' 'TRICOTRIN,' 'THE MASSARENES,' ETC. - - [Illustration] - - - A NEW EDITION - - - LONDON - CHATTO & WINDUS - 1905 - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - A RAINY JUNE 1 - - DON GESUALDO 89 - - THE SILVER CHRIST 215 - - A LEMON-TREE 305 - - - - - A RAINY JUNE - - - - -A RAINY JUNE - - - _From the Principe di San Zenone, Claridge's, London, to the - Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Monterone, near Val d'Aosta, Italy._ - -'CARISSIMA TERESA--I received your letter, which is delightful to me -because it is yours, and terrible to me because it scolds me, abuses -me, flies at me, makes me feel like a schoolboy who has had a scolding. -Yes; it is quite true. I cannot help it. She has bewitched me. She is a -lily made into a woman. I feared you would be angry, especially angry -because she is a foreigner; but the hour of fate has struck. You will -not wonder when you see her. She is as blonde as the dawn and as pure -as a pearl. It seems to me that I have never loved any woman at all in -my life before. To love her is like plunging one's hand in cool spring -water on a midsummer noon. She is such repose; such innocence; such -holiness! In the midst of this crowded, over-coloured, vulgar London -life--for it is very vulgar at its highest--she seems like some angel -of purity. I saw her first standing with a knot of roses in her hand -under a cedar tree, at one of their afternoon clubs on the river. She -was drinking a cup of tea; they are always drinking tea. And she is so -white. I never saw anything so white except the snow on the Leonessa. -She is not in the least like the fast young ladies of England, of whom -one sees so much in the winter at Rome. I do not like their fast young -women. If you want a woman who is fast, a Parisienne is best, or even -an American. Englishwomen overdo it. She is just like a primrose; like -a piece of porcelain; like a soft, pale star shining in the morning. -I write all kinds of poetry when I think of her. And then, there is -something _Sainte Nitouche_ about her which is delicious, because it is -so real. The only thing which was wanting in her was that she ought to -have been shut up in a convent, and I ought to have had to imperil my -soul for all eternity by getting her over a stone wall with a silken -ladder. But it is a prosaic age, and this is a very prosaic country. -London amuses me, but it is such a crowd, and it is frightfully ugly. -I cannot think how people who are so enormously rich as the English -can put up with such ugliness. The houses are all too small, even -the big ones. I have not seen a good ballroom; they say there are -good ones in the country houses. The clubs are admirable, but life in -general seems to me hurried, costly, ungraceful, very noisy, and almost -entirely consecrated to eating. It is made up of a scramble and a mass -of food. People engage themselves for dinners a month in advance. -Everybody's engagement book is so full that it is the burden of their -days. They accept everything, and, at the eleventh hour, pick out what -they prefer, and, to use their own language, "throw over" the rest. -I do not think it is pretty behaviour, but nobody seems to object to -it. I wonder that the women do not do so, but they seem to be afraid -of losing their men altogether if they exact good manners from them. -People here are not at all well-mannered, to my taste; neither the men -nor the women. They are brusque and negligent, and have few _petits -soins_. You should have come over for my marriage to show them all -what an exquisite creature a Venetian patrician beauty can be. Why -_would_ you marry that Piedmontese? Only two things seem to be of any -importance in England--they are, eating and politics. They eat all -day long, and are always talking of their politics. Half of them say -some person I never heard of is the destruction of England, the other -half say the same person is the salvation of England. Myself, I don't -care the least which he is; only I know they cannot keep him out of -their conversation, one way or another, for five minutes; which, to -an unprejudiced foreigner, is a _seccatura_. But to-morrow I go down -into the country with my primrose--all alone; to-morrow she will be -mine altogether and unalterably, and I shall hear nothing about their -detestable politics or anything that is tiresome. Of course, you are -wondering that I should take this momentous step. I wonder myself, -but then if I did not marry I should be compelled to say an eternal -farewell to the Lenten Lily. She has such a spiked wall around her -of male relatives and family greatness! It is not the convent wall; -there is no ladder that will go over it; one must enter by the big -front door, or not at all. Felicitate me, and yet compassionate me! I -am going to Paradise, no doubt; but I have the uncomfortable doubt as -to whether it will suit me, which all people who are going to Paradise -always do feel. Why? Because we are mortal or because we are sinners? -_A reverderci, cara mia Teresina!_ Write to me at my future Eden: it is -called Coombe Bysset, near Luton, Bedfordshire. We are to be there a -month. It is the choice of my primrose.' - - - _From the Lady Mary Bruton, Belgrave Square, London, to Mrs - d'Arcy, British Embassy, Berlin._ - -'The season has been horribly dull; quantities of marriages--people -always will marry, however dull it is. The one most talked about is -that of the Cowes' second daughter, Lady Gladys, with the Prince of -San Zenone. She is one of the beauties, but a very simple girl, quite -old-fashioned, indeed. She has refused Lord Hampshire, and a good many -other people, and then fallen in love in a week with this Roman, who is -certainly as handsome as a picture. But Cowes didn't like it at all; -he gave in because he couldn't help it, but he was dreadfully vexed -that the Hampshire affair did not come off instead. Hampshire is such -a good creature, and his estates are close to theirs. It is certainly -very provoking for them that this Italian must take it into his head to -spend a season in London, and lead the cotillon so beautifully that all -the young women talked of nothing else but his charms.' - - - _From the Lady Mona St Clair, Grosvenor Square, London, to Miss - Burns, Schooner-yacht Persephone, off Cherbourg._ - -'The wedding was very pretty yesterday. We had frocks of tussore silk, -with bouquets of orchids and Penelope Boothby caps. She looked as -white as her gown--such a goose!--it was ivory satin, with _point de -Venise_. He is quite too handsome, and I cannot think what he could -see in her! He gave us each a locket with _her_ portrait inside. I -wished it had been _his_! I daresay Hampshire would have been better -for her, and worn longer than Romeo. Lord Cowes is furious about Romeo. -He detests the religion and all that, and he could hardly make himself -look pleasant even at church. Of course, there were two ceremonies. The -Cardinal had consented at last, though I believe he had made all kinds -of fuss first. Lady Gladys, you know, is very, _very_ High Church, and -I suppose that reconciled a little the very irreconcilable Prelate. She -thinks of nothing but the Church and her missions and her poor people. -I am afraid the Roman Prince will get dreadfully bored. And they are -going down into Bedfordshire, of all places, to be shut up for a month! -It is very stupid of her, and such a wet season as it is! They are -going to Coombe Bysset, her aunt, Lady Caroline's place. I fancy Romeo -will soon be bored, and I don't think Coombe Bysset at all judicious. I -would have gone to Homburg, or Deauville, or Japan.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, - Beds., to the Countess of Cowes, London._ - -'DEAREST MOTHER,--I am too, too, too happy. It is no use writing about -it. I would if I could, but I _can't_. He is delighted with Coombe, -and says the verdure is something wonderful. We got here just as the -sun was setting. There were all Aunt Carrie's school children out to -meet us, with baskets of roses. Piero said they looked like bigger -roses themselves. He is enchanted with our rural England. It is very -fine to-day, and I do so hope it won't rain, but the glass is falling. -Forgive a hurried word like this. I am going to take Piero on the lake. -I know you haven't liked it, dear; but I am sure when you see how happy -I am you will say there was never anyone like him on earth. - -'He is an angel. We ride in the morning, we sing and play in the -evening. We adore each other all the twenty-four hours through. I -wonder however I could have lived without him. I am longing to see all -he tells me about his great marble palaces, and his immense dreamlike -villas, and his gardens with their multitude of statues, and the -wonderful light that is over it all. He protests it is always twilight -with us in England. It seems so absurd, when nowadays everybody knows -everything about everywhere, that I should never have been to Italy. -But we were such country mice down at dear, old, dull, green, muddy -Ditchworth. Lanciano, the biggest of all their big places, must be like -a poem. It is a great house, all of different coloured marbles, set -amidst ilex groves on the mountain side, with cascades like Terni, and -gardens that were planned by Giulio Romano, and temples that were there -in the days of Horace. I long to see it all, and yet I hope he will not -want to leave Coombe yet. There is no place like the place where one -is _first_ happy. And somehow, I fancy I look better in these homely, -low rooms of Aunt Carrie's, with their Chippendale furniture and their -smell of dry rose leaves, than I shall do in those enormous palaces -which want a Semiramis or a Cleopatra. They were kind enough to make a -fuss about me in London, but I never thought much of myself, and I am -afraid I must feel rather dull to Piero, who is so brilliant himself, -and has all kinds of talents.' - - - _From the Countess of Cowes, Cowes House, London, to the - Duchess of Dunne, Wavernake, Worcestershire._ - -'No, I confess I do not approve of the marriage; it will take her away -from us, and I am afraid she won't be happy. She has always had such -very exaggerated ideas. She is not in the least the girl of the period. -Of course, she was taken by his picturesque face and his admirable -manners. His manners are really wonderful in these days, when our men -have none at all; and he has charmingly caressing and deferential ways -which even win me. I cannot wonder at her, poor child, but I am afraid; -candidly, I am afraid! He makes all our men look like ploughboys. And -it was all done in such tremendous haste that she had no time to reason -or reflect; and I don't think they have said two serious words to each -other. If only it had been dear old Hampshire, whom we have known all -our lives, and whose lands march with ours! But that was too good to -be, I suppose, and there was no positive objection we could raise to -San Zenone. We could not refuse his proposals merely because he is -too good-looking, isn't an Englishman, and has a mother who is reputed -_maîtresse femme_! Gladys writes from Coombe as from the seventh -heaven. They have been married three days! But I fear she will have -trouble before her. I fear he is weak and unstable, and will not back -her up amongst his own people when she goes amongst them; and though, -now-a-days, a man and woman, once wedded, see so little of each other, -Gladys is not quite of the time in her notions. She will take it all -very seriously, poor child, and expect the idyl to be prolonged over -the honeymoon. And she is very English in her tastes, and has been so -very little out of England. However, every girl in London is envying -her; it is only her father and I who see these little black specks on -the fruit she has plucked. They are gone to Coombe by her wish. I think -it would have been wiser not to subject an Italian to such an ordeal as -a wet English June in an utterly lonely country house. You know, even -Englishmen, who can always find such refuge and comfort in prize pigs -and strawyards, and unusually big mangolds, get bored if they are in -the country when there is nothing to shoot, and Englishmen are used to -being drenched to the skin every time they move out. He is not. Lord -Cowes says love is like a cotton frock--very pretty as long as the sun -shines, but it won't stand a wetting. I wish you had been here; Gladys -looked quite lovely. The Cardinal most kindly relented, and the whole -thing went off very well. Of the San Zenone family, there was only -present Don Fabrizio, the younger son, a very good-looking young man. -The terrible Duchess didn't come, on account, I think, of her sulks. -She hates the marriage on her side as much as we do on ours, I am sure. -Really, one must believe a little bit in fate. I do think that Gladys -would soon have resigned herself to accepting Hampshire, out of sheer -fatigue at saying "No," and, besides, she knew that we are so fond of -him, and to live in the same county was such an attraction. But this -irresistible young Roman must take it into his head that he wished to -see a London season, and when once they had met (it was one afternoon -at Ranelagh) there was no more chance for our poor, dear, good, stupid -neighbour. Well, we must hope for the best!' - - - _From the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the - Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Rome._ - -'CARISSIMA MIA,--There are quantities of birds in little green nests -at this season. I am in a green nest. I never saw anything so green as -this Paradise of mine. It is certainly Paradise. If I feel a little -like a fish out of water instead of a happy bird in it, it is only -because I have been such a sinner. No doubt it is only that. Paradise -is chilly; this is its only fault. It is the sixth of June and we have -fires. Fires in the dressing-rooms, fires in the drawing-rooms, fires -at both ends of the library, fires on both sides of the hall, fires -everywhere; and with all of them I shiver. I cannot help shivering, -and I feel convinced that in my rapture I have mistaken the month--it -must be December! It is all extraordinarily trim and neat here; the -whole place looks in such perfect order that it might have been taken -out of a box of German toys last night. I have a little the sensation -of being always at church. That, no doubt, is the effect of the first -step towards virtue that I have ever made. Pray do not think that I -am not perfectly happy. I should be more sensible of my happiness, no -doubt, if I had not quite such a feeling, due to the dampness of the -air, of having been put into an aquarium, like a jelly-fish. But Gladys -is adorable in every way; and if she were not quite so easily scared, -would be perfection. It was that little air of hers, like that of some -irresistible Alpine flower, which bewitched me. But when one has got -the Alpine flower, one cannot live for ever on it!--however _ma basta_! -I was curious to know what a northern woman was like; I know now. She -is exquisite, but a little monotonous, and a little prudish. Certainly -she will never compromise me; but then, perhaps, she will never let -me compromise myself, and that will be terrible! I am ungrateful; all -men are ungrateful; but, then, is it not a little the women's fault? -They do keep so very close to one. Now, an angel, you know, becomes -tiresome if one never gets out of the shadow of its wings--here, at -Coombe Bysset, the angel fills the horizon, and one's distance is a -Botticelli picture!' - - - _From the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Rome, to - the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds., - England._ - -'CARO MIO PIERINO,--Are you sure you have an angel? People have a trick -of always calling very commonplace women angels. "She is an angel" is -a polite way of saying "she is a bore." I am not sure either that I -should care to live with a veritable angel. One would see too much of -the wings, as you say; and even a guardian angel must be the _terzo -incommodo_ sometimes. Why _would_ you marry an English girl? I daresay -she is so good-tempered that she never contradicts you, and you grow -peevish out of sheer weariness at having everything your own way. If -you had married Nicoletta, as I wanted you to do, she would have flown -at you, like a little tigress, a dozen times a week, and kept you on -the _qui vive_ to please her. We know what our own men want. I have -half a mind to write to your wife and tell her that no Italian is -comfortable unless he has his ears boxed twice a day. If your wife -would be a little disagreeable, probably you would adore her. But it -is a great mistake, _Pierino mio_, to confuse marriage and love. In -reality, they have no more to do with one another than a horse chestnut -and a chestnut horse; than the _zuccone_ that means a vegetable, and -the _zuccone_ that means a simpleton. I should imagine that your -wet English bird's-nest will force you to realise this truth with -lamentable rapidity.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, - Beds., to Lady Gwendoline Dormer, British Embassy, Vienna._ - -'DEAREST GWEN,--I did promise, I know, to write to you at once, and -tell you everything; and a whole week is gone and I couldn't do it, I -really couldn't; and even now I don't know where to begin. I suppose -I am dreadfully _vieux jeu_. I suppose you will only laugh at me, and -say "spoons." How glad I am Piero cannot say a word of English, and -so I never hear that dreadful jargon which I do think so ugly and so -vulgar, though you are all so fond of it. I ought not to have come to -Coombe Bysset; at least, they all said it was silly. Nessie Fitzgerald -was back in London before the week was out, and doing a play. To be -sure she was married in October, and she didn't care a bit about him, -and I suppose that made all the difference. To me, it seems so much -more natural to shut one's self up, and Piero thought so too; but I -am half afraid he finds it a little dull now. You see, we knew very -little of one another. He came for a month of the London season, and he -met me at Ranelagh, and he danced the cotillon with me at a good many -houses, and we cared for one another in a week, and were married in a -month, as you know. Papa hated it because it wasn't Lord Burlington or -Lord Hampshire. But he couldn't really object, because the San Zenone -are such a great Roman family, and all the world knows them; and they -are Spanish dukes as well as Italian princes. And Piero is such a -grand gentleman, and made quite superb settlements; much more, Papa -said, than he could have expected, so poor as we are. But what I meant -was, meeting like that in the rush of the season, at balls and dinners -and garden parties, and luncheons at Hurlingham, and being married to -one another just before Ascot, we really knew nothing at all of each -other's tastes or habits or character. And when, on the first morning -at Coombe, we realised that we were together for life, I think we both -felt very odd. We adored one another, but we didn't know what to -talk about; we never had talked to each other; we never had time. And -I am afraid there is something of this feeling with him. I am afraid -he is dreadfully bored, and I told him so, and he answered, "My dear -little angel, your admirable countrymen are not bored in the country -because they are always eating. They eat a big breakfast, they eat a -big luncheon, they eat a big dinner, they are always eating. Myself, I -have not that resource. Give me a little coffee and a little wine, and -let me eat only once a day. You never told me I was expected to absorb -continually food like the crocodiles." What would he say if he saw a -hunting breakfast in the shires? I suppose life _is_ very material in -England. I think it is why there is so much typhoid fever. Do you know, -he wasn't going to dress for dinner because we were alone. As if that -was any reason! I told him it would look so odd to the servants if he -didn't dress, so he has done so since. But he says it was a _seccatura_ -(this means, I believe, a bore), and he told me we English sacrifice -our whole lives to fuss, form and the outside of things. There is a -good deal of truth in this. What numbers of people one knows who are -ever so poor, and who yet, for the sake of the look of the thing, get -into debt over their ears! And then, quantities of them go to church -for the form of the thing, when they don't _believe_ one atom; they -will tell you at luncheon that they don't. I fancy Italians are much -more honest than we are in this sort of way. Piero says if they are -poor, they don't mind saying so, and if they have no religion, they -don't pretend to have any. He declares we English spoil all our lives -because we fancy it is our duty to pretend to be something we are -not. Now, isn't that really very true? I am sure you would delight in -all he says. He is so original, so unconventional; our people think -him ignorant, because he doesn't read, and doesn't care a straw about -politics. But I assure you he is as clever as anything can be; and he -doesn't get his ideas out of newspapers; nor repeat like a parrot what -his chief of party tells him. I do wish you could have come over and -could have seen him. It was so unkind of you to be ill just at the -very time of my marriage. You know that it is only to you that I ever -say quite what I feel about things. The girls are too young, and Mamma -doesn't understand. She never could see why I would not marry poor -Hampshire. She always said that I should care for him in time. I don't -think Mamma can ever have been in love with anybody. I wonder what -_she_ married for--don't you?' - - - _From the Principe Piero di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the - Count Zazzari, Italian Legation, London._ - -'CARO GIGI,--Pray send me all the French novels you can find, and a -case of Turkish cigarettes. I am in Paradise, but Paradise is a little -dull, and exceedingly damp, at least in England. Does it always rain in -this country? It has rained here without stopping for seventeen days -and a half. I produce upon myself the impression of being one of those -larks who sit behind wires on a little square of wet grass. I should -like to run up to London. I see you have Sarah and Coquelin and the -others; but I suppose it would be against all the unwritten canons of a -honeymoon. What a strange institution. A honeymoon! Who first invented -it?' - - - _From the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, Beds., - to the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Palazzo Fulva, Milano._ - -'CARA TERESINA,--I ought to have written to you long since, but you -know I am not fond of writing. I really, also, have nothing to say. -Happy the people who have no history! I am like that people. I was -made happy two weeks ago; I have been happy ever since. It is slightly -monotonous. How can you vary happiness, except by quarrelling a little? -And then it would not be happiness any longer. It seems to me that -happiness is like an omelette, best impromptu. - -'Do not think that I am ungrateful, however, either to fate or to the -charming innocent who has become my companion. We have not two ideas -in common. She is lovely to look at, to caress, to adore; but what to -say to her I confess I have no notion. Love ought never to have to find -dinner-table conversation. He ought to climb up by a ladder, and get -over a balcony, and, when his ecstasies are ended, he ought to go the -same way. I fancy she is much better educated than I am, but, as that -would be a discovery fatal to our comfort, I endeavour not to make -it. She is extraordinarily sweet-tempered: indeed, so much so, that -it makes me angry; it gives one no excuse for being impatient. She is -divine, exquisite, nymph-like; but, alas, she is a prude! - -'Never was any creature on earth so exquisitely sensitive, so easily -shocked. To live with her is to walk upon eggshells. Of course, it is -very nice in a wife; very "proper," as the English say; but it is not -amusing. It amused me at first, but now it seems to me a defect. She -has brought me down to this terribly damp and very green place, where -it rains every day and night. There is a library without novels; there -is a cellar without absinthe; there is a _cuisine_ without tomatoes, or -garlic, or any oil at all; there is an admirably-ordered establishment, -so quiet that I fancy I am in a penitentiary. There are some adorably -fine horses, and there are acres of glasshouses used to grow fruits -that we throw in Italy to the pigs. By the way, there are also several -of our field flowers in the conservatories. We eat pretty nearly all -day; there is nothing else to do. Outside, the scenery is oppressively -green, the green of spinach; there is no variety, there are no ilexes -and there are no olives. I understand now why the English painters give -such staring colours; unless the colours scream, you don't see them in -this aqueous, dim atmosphere. That is why a benign Providence has made -the landscape a _purée aux epinards_. - -'I think the air here, inside and out, must weigh heavily; it lies on -one's lungs like a sponge. I once went down in a diving-bell when I -was a boy; I have the sensation in this country of being always down -in a diving-bell. The scamp Toniello, whom you may remember as having -played Leporello to my Don Giovanno ever since we were lads, amuses -himself with making love to all the pretty maidens in the village; but, -then, I must not do that--now. They are not very pretty either. They -have very big teeth, and very long upper lips. Their skins, however, -are admirable. For a horse's skin and a woman's, there is no land -comparable to England. It is the country of grooming.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to Lady - Gwendolen Chichester, British Embassy, Petersburg._ - -'He laughed at me because I went to church yesterday, and really I only -went because I thought it _right_. We have been here a fortnight, and -I have never been to church at all till yesterday, and you know how -very serious dear Aunt Carrie is. To-day, as it is the second Sunday -I have been here, I thought I ought to go just once, and I did go; -but it was dreadfully pompous and lonely in the big red pew, and the -villagers stared so, and all the little girls of the village giggled, -and looked at me from under their sun-bonnets. Dear Mr Coate preached a -sermon on Marriage. It was very kind of him; but, oh, how I wished he -hadn't! When I got back, Piero was playing billiards with his servant. -I wondered what Mr Coate would have thought of him. To be sure, English -clergymen have to get used to fast Sundays now, when the country houses -are full. It is such a dear little yew walk to the church from the -house here, not twenty yards long, and all lined with fuchsia. Do you -remember it? Even Piero admits that it is very pretty, only he says it -is a vignette prettiness, which, I suppose, is true. "You can see no -horizon, only a green wall," he keeps complaining; and his beautiful, -lustrous eyes look as if they were made to gaze through endless -fields of light. When I asked him yesterday what he really thought of -England, what do you suppose he said? He said, "_Mia cara_, I think -it would be a most delightful country if it had one-fifth of its -population, one-half of its houses, a tithe of its dinners, a quarter -of its machinery, none of its factories, none of its tramways, and a -wholly different atmosphere!" I suppose this means that he dislikes -it. I think him handsomer than ever. I sent you his photograph, but -that can give you no idea of him. He is like one of his own marble -statues. We came to Coombe Bysset directly after the ceremony, and we -are here still. I could stay on for ever. It is so lovely in these -Bedfordshire woods in mid-June. But I am afraid--just the very least -bit afraid--that Piero may get bored with me--me--me--nothing but me. - -'You know I never was clever, and really--really--I haven't an idea -what to talk to him about when we don't talk about ourselves. And -then the weather provokes him. We have hardly had one fine day since -we came; and no doubt it seems very grey and chilly to an Italian. -"It cannot be June!" he says a dozen times a week. And when the whole -day is rainy, as it is very often, for our Junes are such wet ones -nowadays, I can see he gets impatient. He doesn't care for reading; -he is fond of billiards, but I don't play a good enough game to be -any amusement to him. And though he sings divinely, as I told you, he -sings as the birds do; only just when the mood is on him. He does not -care about music as a science in the least. He laughed when I said -so. He declared it was no more a science than love is. Perhaps love -ought to be a science too, in a way, or else it won't last? There has -been a scandal in the village, caused by his servant, Toniello. An -infuriated father came up to the house this morning about it. He is -named John Best; he has one of Aunt Carrie's biggest farms. He was in -such a dreadful rage, and I had to talk to him, because, of course, -Piero couldn't understand him. Only when I translated what he said, -Piero laughed till he cried, and offered him a cigarette, and called -him "_figlio mio_," which only made Mr John Best purple with fury, -and he went away in a greater rage than he had been in when he came, -swearing he "would do for the Papist." I have sent for the steward. -I am afraid Aunt Carrie will be terribly annoyed. It has always been -such a model village. Not a public-house near for six miles, and all -the girls such demure, quiet little maidens. This terrible Roman -valet, with his starry eyes and his mandoline, and his audacities, has -been like Mephistopheles in the opera to this secluded and innocent -little hamlet. I beg Piero to send him away, but he looks unutterably -reproachful, and declares he really cannot live without Toniello; and -what can I say?' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the - Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._ - -'You are quite in the wrong, my poor pet. If you were only a little -older, and ever so much wiser, you would have telegraphed to the -libraries yourself for the French books; you would have laughed at them -when he laughed, and instead of taking Mr John Best as a tragedy, you -would have made him into a little burlesque, which would have amused -your husband for five minutes, as much as Gyp or Jean Richepin. I begin -to think I should have married your Roman prince, and you should have -married my good, dull George, whom a perverse destiny has shoved into -diplomacy. Your Roman scandalises you, and my George bores me. Such is -marriage, my dear, all the world over. What is the old story? That Jove -split all the walnuts in two, and each half is always uselessly seeking -its fellow.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, Luton, - Beds., to the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, British Embassy, S. - Petersburg._ - -'But, surely, if he loved me, he would be as perfectly happy with me -alone as I am with him alone? I want no other companion--no other -interest--no other thought.' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, British Embassy S. - Petersburg, to the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, - Luton, Beds._ - -'Of course you do not, because you are a woman. San Zenone is your -god, your idol, your ideal, your universe. But _you_ are only one out -of the many women who have pleased him, and attached to the pleasure -you afford him is the very uncomfortable conviction that he will never -be able to get away from you. My dear child, I have no patience with -any woman when she says, "He does not love me." If he does not, it is -probably the woman's fault. Probably she has worried him. Love dies -directly it is worried, quite naturally. Poor Gladys! You were always -such a good child; you were always devoted to your old women, and -your queer little orphans, and your pet cripples, and your East-End -missions. It certainly is hard that you should have fallen into the -hands of a soulless Italian, who reads naughty novels all day long and -sighs for the flesh-pots of Egypt! But, my child, in reason's name, -what did you expect? Did you think that all in a moment he would sigh -to hear Canon Farrar; the excellent vicar's sermons; take his guitar to -a village concert, and teach Italian to the lodge-keeper's children? -Be reasonable, and let your poor caged bird fly out of Coombe Bysset; -which will certainly be your worst enemy if you shut him up in it much -longer.' - - - _From the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the - Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Monterone, Val d'Aosta._ - -'I am still in my box of wet moss. I have been in it two weeks, four -days, and eleven hours, by the calendar and the clocks. I have read all -my novels. I have spelled through my _Figaro_, from the title to the -printer's address, every morning. I have smoked twenty cigarettes every -twenty minutes, and I have yawned as many times. This is Paradise, I -know it; I tell myself so; but still I cannot help it--I yawn. There -is a pale, watery sun, which shines fitfully. There is a quantity of -soaked hay, which they are going to dry by machinery. There is a great -variety of muddy lanes in which to ride. There is a post-office seven -miles off, and a telegraph station fifteen miles further off. The -_ensemble_ is not animated. When you go out you see very sleek cattle, -very white sheep, very fat children. You may meet, at intervals, -labouring people, very round shouldered and very sulky. You also -meet, if you are in luck's way, with a traction engine; and wherever -you look you perceive a church steeple. It is all very harmless, -except the traction engine; but it is not animated or enlivening. You -will not wonder that I soon came to the end of my French novels. The -French novels have enabled me to discover that my angel is very easily -ruffled. In fact, she is that touchy thing--a saint. I had no idea that -she was a saint when I saw her drinking her cup of tea in that garden -on the Thames. True, she had her lovely little serene, holy, _noli me -tangere_ air, but I thought that would pass; it does not pass. And -when I wanted her to laugh with me at Gyp's '_Autour du Mariage_', she -blushed up to the eyes, and was offended. What am I to do? I am no -saint. I cannot pretend to be one. I am not worse than other men, but -I like to amuse myself. I cannot go through life singing a _miserere_. -I am afraid we shall quarrel. You think that very wholesome. But there -are quarrels and quarrels. Some clear the air like thunderstorms. Ours -are little irritating differences which end in her bursting into tears, -and in myself looking ridiculous and feeling a brute. She has cried -quite a number of times in the last fortnight. I daresay if she went -into a rage, as you justly say Nicoletta would do, and you might have -added you have done, it would rouse me, and I should be ready to strike -her, and should end in covering her with kisses. But she only turns -her eyes on me like a dying fawn, bursts into tears, and goes out of -the room. Then she comes in again--to dinner, perhaps, or to that odd -ceremony, five o'clock tea--with her little sad, stiff, reproachful -air as of a martyr; answers meekly, and makes me again feel a brute. -The English sulk a long time, I think. We are at daggers drawn one -moment, but then we kiss and forget the next. We are more passionate, -but we are more amiable. I want to get away, to go to Paris, Homburg, -Trouville, anywhere; but I dare not propose it. I only drop adroit -hints. If I should die of _ennui_, and be buried under the wet moss for -ever, weep for me.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to Lady - Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._ - -'Coombe is quite too lovely now. It does rain sometimes, certainly, -but between the showers it is so delicious. I asked Piero to come out -and hear the nightingale; there really is one in the home wood, and -he laughed at the idea. He said, "We have hundreds of nightingales -shouting all day and all night at Lanciano. We don't think about -them, we eat them in _pasta_; they are very good." Fancy eating a -nightingale! You might as well eat Romeo and Juliet. Piero has got a -number of French books from London, and he lies about on the couches -and reads them. He wants me to listen to naughty bits of fun out of -them, but I will not, and then he calls me a prude, and gets angry. I -don't see why he shouldn't laugh as much as he likes himself without -telling me why he laughed. I dislike that sort of thing. I am horribly -afraid I shall care for nothing but him all my life, while he--he -yawned yesterday! Papa said to me, before we were married, "My dear -little girl, San Zenone put on such a lot of steam at first, he'll -be obliged to ease his pace after a bit. Don't be vexed if you find -the thing cooling!" Now, Papa speaks so oddly; always that sort of -floundering, bald metaphor, you remember it; but I knew what he meant. -Nobody could _go on_ being such a lover as Piero was. Ah, dear, is it -in the past already? No, I don't quite mean that. He is Romeo still -very often, and he sings me the divinest love songs, lying at my feet -on cushions in the moonlight. But it is not quite the same thing as it -was at first. He found fault with one of my gowns this morning, and -said I don't know how _de me faire valoir_. I am terribly frightened -lest Coombe has bored him too much. I would come here. I wanted to be -utterly out of the world, and so did he; and I'm sure there isn't a -lover's nest anywhere comparable to Coombe in midsummer. You remember -the rose garden, and the lime avenues, and the chapel ruins by the -little lake? When Aunt Carrie offered it to us for this June I was so -delighted, but now I am half afraid the choice of it was a mistake, -and that he does not know what to do with himself. He is _dépaysé_. -I cried a little yesterday; it was too silly, but I couldn't help it. -He laughed at me, but he got a little angry. "_Enfin que veux tu?_" he -said impatiently; "_je suis à toi, bien à toi, beaucoup trop à toi!_" -He seemed to me to regret being mine. I told him so; he was more angry. -It was, I suppose, what you would call a scene. In five minutes he was -penitent, and caressed me as only he can do; and the sun came out, and -we went into the woods and heard the nightingale; but the remembrance -of it alarms me. If he can say as much as this in a month, what can he -say in a year? I do not think I am silly. I had two London seasons, -and all those country houses show one the world. I know people, when -they are married, are always glad to get away from one another--they -are always flirting with other people. But I should be miserable if I -thought it would ever be like that with Piero and me. I worship his -very shadow, and he does--or he did--worship mine. Why should that -change? Why should it not go on for ever, as it does in poems? If it -can't, why doesn't one die?' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the - Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._ - -'What a goose you are, you dearest Gladys! You were always like that. -To all you have said I can only reply, _connu_. When girls are romantic -(and you always were, though it was quite gone out ages before our -time), they always expect husbands to remain lovers. Now, my pet, you -might just as well expect hay to remain grass. Papa was quite right. -When there is such a lot of steam on, it must go off by degrees. I am -afraid, too, you have begun with the passion, and the rapture, and the -mutual adoration, and all the rest of it, which is _quite, quite gone -out_. People don't feel in that sort of way nowadays. Nobody cares -much; a sort of good-humoured liking is the utmost one sees. But you -were always such a goose! And now you must marry an Italian, and expect -it all to be balconies and guitars and moonlight for ever and ever. -I think it quite natural he should want to get to Paris. You should -never have taken him to Coombe. I do remember the rose gardens, and -the lime avenues, and the ruins; and I remember being sent down there -when I had too strong a flirtation with Philip Rous, who was in F. O., -and had nothing a year. You were a baby then, and I remember that I was -bored to the very brink of suicide; that I have detested the smell of a -lime tree ever since. I can sympathise with the Prince, if he longs to -get away. There can't be anything for him to do, all day long, except -smoke. The photo of him is wonderfully handsome, but can you live all -your life, my dear, on a profile?' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the Lady - Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._ - -'Because almost all Englishmen have snub noses, Englishwomen always -think there is something immoral and delusive about a good profile. -At all events, you will admit that the latter is the more agreeable -object of contemplation. It still rains, rains dreadfully. The meadows -are soaked, and they can't get the hay in, and we can't get out of the -house. Piero does smoke, and he does yawn. He has been looking in the -library for a French novel, but there is nothing except Mrs Craven's -goody-goody books, and a boy's tale by Jules Verne. I am afraid you and -Mamma are right. Coombe, in a wet June, is not the place for a Roman -who knows his Paris by heart, and doesn't like the country anywhere. -We seem to do nothing but eat. I put on an ulster and high boots, -and I don't mind the rain a bit; but he screams when he sees me in -an ulster. "You have no more figure in that thing than if you were a -Bologna sausage," he says to me; and certainly ulsters are very ugly. -But I had a delicious fortnight with the Duchess in a driving tour in -Westmeath. We only took our ulsters with us, and it poured all the -time, and we stayed in bed in the little inns while our things dried, -and it was immense fun; the Duke drove us. But Piero would not like -that sort of thing. He is like a cat about rain. He likes to shut the -house up early, and have the electric light lit, and forget that it -is all slop and mist outside. He declares that we have made a mistake -in the calendar, and that it is November, not June. I change my gowns -three times a day, just as if there were a large house party, but I -feel I look awfully monotonous to him. I am afraid I never was amusing. -I always envy those women who are all _chic_ and "go," who can make -men laugh so at rubbish. They seem to carry about with them a sort of -exhilarating ether. I don't think they are the best sort of women, but -they do so amuse the men. I would give twenty years of my life if I -could amuse Piero. He adores me, but that is another thing. That does -not prevent him shaking the barometer and yawning. He seems happiest -when he is talking Italian with his servant, Toniello. Toniello is -allowed to play billiards with him sometimes. He is a very gay, merry, -saucy, brown-eyed Roman. He has made all the maids in the house, and -all the farmers' daughters round Coombe, in love with him, and I told -you how he had scandalised one of the best tenants, Mr John Best. -The Bedford rustics all vow vengeance against him, but he twangs his -mandoline, and sings away at the top of his voice, and doesn't care -a straw that the butler loathes him, the house steward abhors him, -the grooms would horsewhip him if they dare, and the young farmers -audibly threaten to duck him in the pond. Toniello is very fond of his -master, but he does not extend his allegiance to me. Do you remember -Mrs Stevens, Aunt Caroline's model housekeeper? You should see her face -when she chances to hear Piero laughing and talking with Toniello. I -think she believes that the end of the world has come. Piero calls -Toniello "_figliolo mio_" and "_caro mio_," just as if they were -cousins or brothers. It appears this is the Italian way. They are very -proud in their own fashion, but it isn't our fashion. However, I am -glad the man is there when I hear the click of the billiard balls, and -the splash of the raindrops on the window panes. "We have been here -just three weeks. _Dio!_ It seems three years," Piero said, when I -reminded him of it this morning. For me, I don't know whether it is -like a single day's dream or a whole eternity. You know what I mean. -But I wish--I wish--it seemed either the day's dream or the eternity -of Paradise to him! I daresay it is all my fault in coming to these -quiet, bay-windowed, Queen Anne rooms, and the old-fashioned servants, -and the dreary look-out over the drenched hay-fields. But the sun does -come out sometimes, and then the wet roses smell so sweet, and the wet -lime blossoms glisten in the light, and the larks sing overhead, and -the woods are so green and so fresh. Still, I don't think he likes it -even then, it is all too moist, too windy, too dim for him. When I -put a rose in his button-hole this morning, it shook the drops over -him, and he said, "_Mais quel pays!--même une fleur c'est une douche -d'eau froide!_" Last month, if I had put a dandelion in his coat, he -would have sworn it had the odour of the magnolia and the beauty of -the orchid! It is just twenty-two days ago since we came here, and -for the first four or five days, he never cared whether it rained or -not; he only cared to lie at my feet, really, literally. We were all in -all to each other, just like Cupid and Psyche. And now--he will play -billiards with Toniello to pass the time, and he is longing for his -_petits théâtres_! Is it my fault? I torment myself with a thousand -self-accusations. Is it possible I can have been tiresome, dull, -over-exacting? Is it possible he can be disappointed in me?' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the - Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._ - -'No, it isn't your fault, you dear little donkey; it is only the -natural sequence of things. Men are always like that when the woman -loves them; when she don't, they behave much better. My dear, this is -just what is so annoying about love; the man's is always going slower -and slower towards a dead stop, as the woman's is "coaling" and getting -steam up. I borrow Papa's admirably accurate metaphor, nothing can be -truer. It is a great pity, but I suppose the fault is Nature's. _Entre -nous_, I don't think Nature ever contemplated marriage, any more than -she did crinolettes, pearl powder, or the electric light. There is -no doubt that Nature intended to adjust the thing on the butterfly -and buttercup system; on the _je reste, tu t'en vas_, principle. And -nothing would be easier or nicer, only there are children and poverty. -So the butterfly has to be pinned down by the buttercup. That is why -the Communists and Anarchists always abolish Property and Marriage -together. The one is evolved out of the other, just as the dear -scientists say the horse was evolved out of a bird, which I never can -see makes the matter any easier of comprehension; but, still--what -was I saying? Oh, I meant to say this: you are only lamenting, as a -special defalcation and disloyalty in San Zenone, what is merely his -unconscious and involuntary and perfectly natural alteration from a -lover into a husband. The butterfly is beginning to feel the pin, which -has been run through him to stick him down. It is not your fault, my -sweet little girl; it is the fault, if at all, of the world, which has -decreed that the butterfly, to flirt legitimately with the buttercup, -must suffer the corking pin. Now, take my advice: the pin is in, don't -worry if he writhe on it a little bit! It is only what the beloved -scientists again call automatic action. And do try and beat into your -little head the fact that a man may love you very dearly, and yet yearn -a little for the _petits théâtres_ in the silent recesses of his manly -breast. Of course, I know this sort of rough awakening from delightful -dreams is harder for you than it is for most, because you began at -such tremendous altitudes. You had your Ruy Blas and Petrarca, and -the mandoline and the moonlight, and the love-philtres, all mixed -up in an intoxicating draught. You have naturally a great deal more -disillusion to go through than if you had married a country squire, or -a Scotch laird, who would never have suggested any romantic delights. -One cannot go near Heaven without coming down with a crash, like the -poor men in the balloons. You have been up in your balloon, and you -are now coming down. Ah, my dear, everything depends on _how_ you come -down. You will think me a monster for saying so, but it will rest so -much in your own hands. You won't believe it, but it will. If you come -down with tact and good-humour, it will all be right afterwards; but -if you show temper, as men say of their horses, why, then, the balloon -will lie prone, a torn, empty, useless bag, that will never again -get off the ground. To speak plainly, dear, if you will receive with -resignation and sweetness the unpleasant discovery that San Zenone is -mortal, you won't be unhappy, and you will soon get used to it; but if -you perpetually fret about it, you won't alter him, and you will both -be miserable; or, if not miserable, you will do something worse; you -will each find your amusement in somebody else. I know you so well, -my poor, pretty Gladys; you want such an immense quantity of sympathy -and affection, but you won't get it, my dear child. I quite understand -that the Prince looks like a picture, and he has made life an erotic -poem for you for a month, and the inevitable reaction which follows -seems dull as ditch water, you would even say as cruel as the grave. -But it is _nothing new_. Do try and get that well in your mind. Try, -too, and be as light-hearted as you can. Men hate an unamusable woman. -Make believe to laugh at the French novels, if you can't really do it; -if you don't, dear, he will go to somebody else who will. Why do those -_demi-monde_ women get such preference over us? Only because they don't -bore their men. A man would sooner we flung a champagne glass at his -head than cried for five minutes. We can't fling champagne glasses; -the prejudices of our education are against it. It is an immense loss -to us; we must make up for it as much as we can by being as agreeable -as we know how to be. We shall always be a dozen lengths behind those -others who _do_ fling the glasses. By the way, you said in one of -your earliest notes that you wondered why our mother ever married. I -am not sufficiently _au courant_ with pre-historic times to be able -to tell you why, but I can see what she has done since she did marry. -She has always effaced herself in the very wisest and most prudent -manner. She has never begrudged Papa his Norway fishing, or his August -yachting, though she knew he could ill afford them. She has never bored -him _with_ herself, or _about_ us. She has constantly urged him to go -away and enjoy himself, and when he is down with her in the country -she always takes care that all the women he admires, and all the men -who best amuse him, shall be invited in relays, to prevent his being -dull or feeling teased for a moment. I am quite sure she has never -cared the least about her own wishes, but has only studied his. This -is what I call being a clever woman and a good woman. But I fear such -women are as rare as blue roses. Try and be like her, my dear. She was -quite as young as you are now when she married. But unfortunately, -in truth, you are a terrible little egotist. You want to shut up this -beautiful Roman all alone with you in a kind of attitude of perpetual -adoration--of yourself. That is what women call affection; you are -not alone in your ideas. Some men submit to this sort of demand, and -go about for ever held tight in a leash, like unslipped pointers. The -majority--well, the majority bolt. And I am sure I should if I were one -of them. I do not think you could complain if your beautiful Romeo did. -I can see you so exactly, with your pretty, little, grave face, and -your eyes that have such a fatal aptitude for tears, and your solemn -little views about matrimony and its responsibilities, making yourself -quite odious to this mirthful Apollo of yours, and innocently believing -all the while that you are pleasing Heaven and saving your own dignity -by being so remarkably unpleasant! Are you _very_ angry with me? I am -afraid so. Myself, I would much sooner have an unfaithful man than a -dull one; the one may be bored _by_ you, but the other bores _you_, -which is immeasurably worse.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the Lady - Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._ - -"DEAR GWEN,--How can you _possibly_ tell what Mamma did when she was -young? I daresay she fretted dreadfully. Now, of course, she has got -used to it--like all other miserable women. If people marry only to -long to be with other people, what is the use of being married at all? -I said so to Piero, and he answered, very insolently, "_Il n'y a point! -Si on le savait!_" He sent for some more dreadful French books, Gyp's -and Richepin's and Gui de Maupassant's, and he lies about reading them -all day long when he isn't asleep. He is very often asleep in the -daytime. He apologises when he is found out, but he yawns as he does -so. You say I should amuse him, but I _can't_ amuse him. He doesn't -care for any English news, and he is beginning to get irritable because -I cannot talk to him in Italian, and he declares my French detestable, -and there is always something dreadful happening. There has been such -a terrible scene in the village. Four of the Coombe Bysset men, two -blacksmiths, a carpenter, and a labourer, have ducked Toniello in -the village pond on account of his attention to their womenkind; and -Toniello, when he staggered out of the weeds and the slime, drew his -knife on them and stabbed two very badly. Of course, he has been taken -up by the constables, and the men he hurt moved to the county hospital. -The magistrates are furious and scandalised; and Piero!--Piero has -nobody to play billiards with him. When the magistrates interrogated -him about Toniello, as, of course, they were obliged to do, he got into -a dreadful passion because one of them said that it was just like a -cowardly Italian to carry a knife and make use of it. Piero absolutely -_hissed_ at the solemn old gentleman who mumbled this. "And your -people," he cried, "are they so very courageous? Is it better to beat -a man into a jelly, or kick a woman with nailed boots, as your English -mob does? Where is there anything cowardly? He was one against four. -In my country there is not a night that goes by without a _rissa_ of -that sort, but nobody takes any notice. The jealous persons are left to -fight it out as best they may; after all, it is the women's fault." -And then he said some things that really I cannot repeat, and it was -a mercy that, as he spoke in the most rapid and furious French, the -old gentleman did not, I think, understand a syllable. But they saw -he was in a passion, and that scandalised them, because, you know, -English people always think that you should keep your bad temper for -your own people at home. Meantime, of course, Toniello is in prison, -and I am afraid they won't let us take him out on bail, because he has -hurt one of the blacksmiths dreadfully. Aunt Carrie's solicitors are -doing what they can for him, to please me, but I can see they consider -it all _peines perdues_ for a rogue who ought to be hanged. "And to -think," cries Toniello, "that in my own country I should have all the -populace with me. The very carabineers themselves would have been -with me! _Accidente a tutti quei grulli_," which means, "may apoplexy -seize these fools." "They were only the women's husbands," he adds, -with scorn; "they are well worth making a fuss about, certainly!" Then -Piero consoles him, and gives him cigarettes, and is obliged to leave -him sobbing and tearing his hair, and lying face downward on his bed -of sacking. I thought Piero would not leave the poor fellow alone in -prison, and so I supposed he would give up all idea of going from here, -and so I began to say to myself, "_A quelque chose malheur est bon._" -But to-day, at luncheon, Piero said "_Sai carina!_ It was bad enough -with Toniello, but without him, I tell you frankly, I cannot stand -any more of it. With Toniello one could laugh and forget a little. -But now--_anima mia_, if you do not wish me to kill somebody, and be -lodged beside Toniello by your worthy law-givers, you must really let -me go to Trouville." "Alone!" I said; and I believe it is what he did -mean, only the horror in my voice frightened him from confessing it. -He sighed and got up. "I suppose I shall never be alone any more," he -said impatiently. "If only men knew what they do when they marry--_on -ne nous prendrait jamais_. No--no. Of course, I meant that you will, I -hope, consent to come away with me somewhere out of this intolerable -place, which is made up of fog and green leaves. Let us go to Paris -to begin with; there is not a soul there, and the theatres are _en -rélache_, but it is always delightful, and then in a week or so we will -go down to Trouville, all the world is there." I couldn't answer him -for crying. Perhaps that was best, for I am sure I should have said -something wicked, which might have divided us for ever. And then what -would people have thought?' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the - Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._ - -'MY POOR LITTLE DEAR,--Are you already beginning to be miserable about -what people will think? Then, indeed, your days of joy are numbered. -If I were to write to you fifty times I could only repeat what I have -always written. You are not wise, and you are doing everything you -ought not to do. _Of two people who are married, there is always one -who has the delusion that he or she is necessary and delightful to -the life of the other. The other generally thinks just the contrary._ -The result is not peace. This gay, charming, handsome son of Rome has -become your entire world, but don't suppose for a moment, my child, -that you will ever be his. It is not in reason, not in Nature, that -you should be. _If_ you have the intelligence, the tact, and the -forbearance required, you _may_ become his friend and counsellor, -but I fear you never will have these. You fret, you weep, and you -understand nothing of the masculine temperament. "I see snakes," as -the Americans observe; and you will not have either the coolness or the -wisdom required to scotch a snake, much less to kill it. Once for all, -my poor pet, go cheerfully to Paris, Trouville, and all the pleasure -places in the world. Affect enjoyment if you feel it not, and try to -remember, beyond everything, that affection is not to be retained or -revived by either coercion or lamentation. Once dead, it is not to be -awakened by all the "crooning" of its mourner. It is a corpse, for ever -and aye. Myself, I fail to see how you could expect a young Italian, -who has all the habits of the great world, and the memories of his _vie -de garçon_, to be cheerful or contented in a wet June in an isolated -English country house, with nobody to look at but yourself. Believe -me, my dear child, it is the inordinate vanity of a woman which makes -her imagine that she can be sufficient for her husband. Nothing but -vanity. The cleverer a woman is, the more fully she recognises her own -insufficiency for the amusement of a man, and the more carefully (if -she be wise) does she take care that this deficiency in her shall never -be forced upon his observation. Now, if you shut a man up with you in -a country house, with the rain raining every day, as in Longfellow's -poem, you do force it upon him most conspicuously. If you were not his -wife, I daresay he would not tire of you, and he might even prefer a -grey sky to a blue one. But as his wife!--oh, my dear, why, why don't -you try and understand what a terrible penalty-weight you carry in -the race? Write and tell me all about it. I shall be anxious. I am so -afraid, my sweet little sister, that you think love is all moonlight -and kisses, and forget that there are clouds in the sky and quarrels -on earth. May Heaven save you from both. _P.S._--Do remember that this -same love requires just as delicate handling as a cobweb does. If a -rough touch break the cobweb, all the artists in the world can't mend -it. There is a wholesome truth for you. If you prevent his going to -Paris now, he will go in six months' time, and perhaps, then, he will -go without you. You are not wise, my poor pet; you should make him feel -that you sympathise with his pleasures, not that you and his pleasures -are enemies. But it is no use to instil wisdom into you; you are very -young, and very much in love. You look on all the natural distractions -which he inclines to, as on so many rivals. So they may be, but _we -don't beat our rivals by abusing them_. The really wise way is to -tacitly show that we can be more attractive than they; if we cannot be -so, we may sulk or sigh as we will, we shall be vanquished by them. You -will think me very preachy-preachy, and, perhaps, you will throw me in -the fire unread; but I must say just one word more. Dear, you are in -love with Love, but underneath Love there is a real man, and real men -are far from ideal creatures. Now, it is the real man that you want to -consider, to humour, to study. If the real man be pleased, Love will -take care of himself; whereas if you bore the real man, Love will fly -away. If you had been wise, my poor pet, I repeat, you would have found -nothing so delightful as Gyp and Octave de Mirbeau, and you would have -declared that the Paris asphalte excelled all the English lawns in the -world. He does not love you the less because he wants to be _dans le -mouvement_, to hear what other men are saying, and to smoke his cigar -amongst his fellow-creatures.' - - - _From the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Hotel des Roches Noires, - Trouville, France, to the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe - Bysset, Luton, Beds., England._ - -'Poor flower, in your box of wet moss, what has become of you? Are you -dead, and dried in your wife's _hortus siccus_? She would be quite -sure of you _then_, and I daresay much happier than if you were set -forth in anybody else's bouquet. I try in vain to imagine you in that -"perfectly proper" atmosphere (is not that correct English, "perfectly -proper"?) Will you be dreadfully changed when one sees you again? There -is a French proverb which says that "the years of joy count double." -The days of _ennui_ certainly count for years, and give us grey hairs -before we are five-and-twenty. But you know I cannot pity you. You -_would_ marry an English girl because she looked pretty sipping her -tea. I told you beforehand that you would be miserable with her, once -shut up in the country. The episode of Toniello is enchanting. What -people!--to put him in prison for a little bit of _chiasso_ like that! -You should never have taken his bright eyes and his mandoline to that -doleful and damp land of precisians. What will they do with him? And -what can you do without him? The weather here is admirable. There are -numbers of people one knows. It is really very amusing. I go and dance -every night, and then we play--usually "bac" or roulette. Everybody is -very merry. We all talk often of you, and say the _De Profundis_ over -you, my poor Piero. Why did your cruel destiny make you see a _Sainte -Nitouche_ drinking tea under a lime tree? I suppose _Sainte Nitouche_ -would not permit it, else, why not exchange the humid greenness of your -matrimonial prison for the Rue des Planches and the Casino?' - - - _From the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the - Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Trouville._ - -'CARISSIMA MIA,--I have set light to the fuse! I have frankly declared -that if I do not get out of this damp and verdant Bastile, I shall -perish of sheer inanition and exhaustion. The effect of the declaration -was for the moment such, that I hoped, actually hoped, that she was -going to get into a passion! It would have been so refreshing! After -twenty-six days of dumb acquiescence and silent tears, it would have -been positively delightful to have had a storm. But, no! For an instant -she looked at me with unspeakable reproach; the next her dove's eyes -filled, she sighed, she left the room! Do they not say that feather -beds offer an admirable defence against bullets? I feel like the -bullet which has been fired into the feather bed. The feather bed is -victorious. I see the Rue des Planches through the perspective of the -watery atmosphere; the Casino seems to smile at me from the end of the -interminable lime tree avenue, which is one of the chief beauties of -this house; but, alas! they are both as far off as if Trouville were in -the moon. What could they do to me if I came alone? Do you know what -they could do? I have not the remotest idea, but I imagine something -frightful. They shut up their public-houses by force, and their -dancing places. Perhaps they would shut up me. In England, they have a -great belief in creating virtue by Act of Parliament. In myself, this -enforced virtue creates such a revolt that I shall _tirer sur le mors_, -and fly before very long. The admired excellence of this beautiful -estate is that it lies in a ring-fence. I feel that I shall take a leap -over that ring-fence. Do not mistake me, _cara mia Teresina_, I am -exceedingly fond of my wife. I think her quite lovely, simple, saintly, -and truly womanlike. She is exquisitely pretty, and entirely without -vanity, and I am certain she is immeasurably my superior morally, and -possibly mentally too. But--there is always such a long and melancholy -"but" attached to marriage--she does not amuse me in the least. She is -always the same. She is shocked at nearly everything that is natural -or diverting. She thinks me unmanly because I dislike rain. She buttons -about her a hideous, straight, waterproof garment, and walks out in a -deluge. She blushes if I try to make her laugh at _Figaro_, and she -goes out of the room when I mention Trouville. What am I to do with a -woman like this? It is an admirable type, no doubt. Possibly if she had -not shut me up in a country-house in a wet June, with the thermometer -at 10 R., and the barometer fixedly at the word _Rainy_, I might have -been always charmed with this S. Dorothea-like attitude, and never have -found out the monotony of it. But, as it is--I yawn till I dislocate my -neck. She thinks me a heathen already. I am convinced that very soon -she will think me a brute. And I am neither. I only want to get out, -like the bird in the cage. It is a worn simile, but it is such a true -one!' - - - _From the Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva, Roches Noires, Trouville, - to the Principe di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._ - -'PIERO MIO,--In marriage, the male bird is always wanting to get out -when the female bird does not want him to get out; also, she is for -ever tightening the wires over his head, and declaring that nothing -can be more delightful than the perch which she sits on herself. Come -to us here. There are any quantities of birds here who ought to be -in their cages, but are not, and manage to enjoy themselves _quand -même_. If only you had married Nicoletta! She might have torn your -hair occasionally, but she would never have bored you. There is only -one supreme art necessary for a woman: it is to thoroughly understand -that she must never be a _seccatura_. A woman may be beautiful, -admirable, a paragon of virtue, a marvel of intellect, but if she be -a _seccatura--addio_! Whereas, she may be plain, small, nothing to -look at in any way, and a very monster of sins, big and little, but if -she know how to amuse your dull sex, she is mistress of you all. It is -evident that this great art is not studied at Coombe Bysset.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the Lady - Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._ - -'OH, MY DEAR GWEN,--It is too dreadful, and I am so utterly wretched. I -cannot tell you what I feel. He is quite determined to go to Trouville -by Paris at once, and just now it is such exquisite weather. It has -only rained three times this week, and the whole place is literally -a bower of roses of every kind. He has been very restless the last -few days, and at last, yesterday, after dinner, he said straight out, -that he had had enough of Coombe, and he thought we might be seen at -Homburg or Trouville next week. And he pretended to want every kind of -thing that is to be bought at Paris and nowhere else. Paris--when we -have been together just twenty-nine days to-day! Paris--I don't know -why, but I feel as if it would be the end of everything! Paris--we -shall dine at restaurants; we shall stay at the Bristol; we shall go -to theatres; he will be at his club, he belongs to the Petit Cercle -and the Mirliton; we shall be just like anybody else; just like all -the million and one married people who are always in a crowd! To take -one's new-born happiness to an hotel! It is as profane as it would be -to say your prayers on the top of a drag. To me, it is quite horrible. -And it will be put in _Galignani_ directly, of course, that the "Prince -and Princess San Zenone have arrived at the Hotel Bristol." And then, -all the pretty women who tried to flirt with him before will laugh, and -say: "There, you see, she has bored him already." Everybody will say -so, for they all know I wished to spend the whole summer at Coombe. -If he would only go to his own country I would not say a word. I am -really longing to see his people, and his palaces, and the wonderful -gardens with their statues and their ilex woods, and the temples -that are as old as the days of Augustus, and the fire-flies and the -magnolia groves, and the peasants who are always singing. But he won't -go there. He says it is a _seccatura_. Everything is a _seccatura_. He -only likes places where he can meet all the world. "Paris will be a -solitude, too, never fear," he said, very petulantly; "but there will -be all the _petits théâtres_ and the open-air concerts, and we can -dine in the Bois and down the river, and we can run to Trouville. It -will be better than rain, rain, rain, and nothing to look at except -your amiable aunt's big horses and big trees. I adore horses, and -trees are not bad if they are planted away from the house, but, viewed -as eternal companions, one may have too much of them." And I am his -eternal companion, but it seems already I don't count! I have not said -anything. I know one oughtn't. But Piero saw how it vexed me, and it -made him cross. "_Cara mia_," he said, "why did you not tell me before -we married that you intended me to be buried for ever in a box under -wet leaves like a rose that is being sent to the market? I should -have known what to expect, and I do not like wet leaves." I could not -help reminding him that he had been ever, ever so anxious to come to -Coombe. Then he laughed, but he was very cross too. "Could I tell, -_anima mia_," he cried, "that Coombe was situated in a succession of -lagoons, contains not one single French novel, is seven miles asunder -from its own railway station, and is blessed with a population of sulky -labourers? What man have I seen since I have been here except your -parish priest, who mumbles, wears spectacles, and tries to give me a -tract against the Holy Father? In this country you do not know what -it is to be warm. You do not know what sunshine is like. You take an -umbrella when you go in the garden. You put on a waterproof to go and -hear one little, shivering nightingale sing in a wet elder bush. I tell -you I am tired of your country, absolutely tired. You are an angel. No -doubt you are an angel; but you cannot console me for the intolerable -emptiness of this intolerable life, where there is nothing on earth to -do but to eat, drink, and sleep, and drive in a dog-cart." All this he -said in one breath, in a flash of forked lightning, as it were. Now -that I write it down, it does not seem so very dreadful; but as he, -with the most fiery scorn, the most contemptuous passion, said it, I -assure you it was terrible. It revealed, just as the flash of lightning -would show a gravel pit, how fearfully bored he has been all the time I -thought he was happy!' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the - Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset._ - -'Men are very easily bored, my dear, if they have any brains. It is -only the dull ones who are not.' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone to the Lady Gwendolen - Chichester._ - -'If I believed what your cynical letter says, I should leave him -to-morrow. I would never live through a succession of disillusions and -of insults.' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester to the Principessa di San - Zenone._ - -'Where are your principles? Where are your duties? My dear little -girl, you have married him; you must submit to him as he is. Marriages -wouldn't last two days if, just because the man yawned, the woman ran -away. Men always yawn when they are alone with their wives. Hitherto, -all San Zenone's faults appear to consist in the very pardonable fact -that, being an Italian, he is not alive to the charms of bucolic -England in rainy weather, and that, being a young man, he wants to -see his Paris again. Neither of these seem to me irreparable crimes. -Go to Paris and try to enjoy yourself. After all, if his profile be -so beautiful, you ought to be sufficiently happy in gazing at it -from the back of a _baignoir_. I grant that it is not the highest -amatory ideal--to rush about the boulevards in a daument, and eat -delicious little dinners in the cafés, and laugh at naughty little -plays afterwards; but _l'amour peut se nicher_ anywhere. And Love -won't be any the worse for having his digestion studied by good -cooks, and his possible _ennui_ exorcised by good players. You see -for yourself that the great passion yawns after a time. Turn back to -what you call my cynical letter, and re-read my remarks upon Nature. -By the way, I entirely deny that they are cynical. On the contrary, -I inculcate on you patience, sweetness of temper, and adaptability -to circumstances; three most amiable qualities. If I were a cynic, I -should say to you that Marriage is a Mistake, and two capital letters -could hardly emphasise this melancholy truth sufficiently. But, as -there are men and women, and, as I before observed, property in the -world, nothing better for the consolidation of rents and freeholds has, -as yet, been discovered. I daresay some Anarchist in his prison could -devise something better, but they are afraid of trying Anarchism. So -we all jog on in the old routine, vaguely conscious that we are all -blunderers, but indisposed for such a drastic remedy as would alone -cure us. Just you remark to any lawyer that marriage is a mistake, as I -have said before, and see what answer you will get. He will certainly -reply to you that there is no other way of securing the transmission -of property safely. I confess that this view of wealth makes me, for -one, a most desperate Radical. Only think, if there were no property we -should all be frisking about in our happy valleys as free and as merry -as little kids. I shouldn't now be obliged to put on all my war-paint -and beads, like a savage, and go out to a dreadful Court dinner, four -hours long, because George has a "career," and thinks my suffering -advances it. Oh, you happy child, to have nothing worse to do than to -rattle down the Bois in a _milord_, and sup off a _matelote_ by the -lake with your Romeo!' - - - _From the Principessa di San Zenone, Coombe Bysset, to the Lady - Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg._ - -'We are to leave for Paris and Trouville to-morrow. I have yielded--as -you and Mamma seemed to think it was my _duty_ to do. But my life is -over. I shall say farewell to all happiness when the gates of Coombe -Bysset close upon me. Henceforth we shall be like everybody else. -However, you cannot reproach me any longer with being selfish, nor can -he. There is a great friend of his, the Duchess of Aquila Fulva, at -Trouville. She writes to him very often, I know. He never offers to -show me her letters. _I believe the choice of Trouville is her doing._ -Write to me at Paris, at the Windsor.' - - - _From the Lady Gwendolen Chichester, S. Petersburg, to the - Principessa di San Zenone, Hotel Windsor, Paris._ - -'MY POOR CHILD,--Has the green-eyed monster already invaded your -gentle soul because he doesn't show you his own letters? My dear, no -man who was not born a _cur_ would show a woman's letters to his wife. -Surely you wish your hero to know the A B C of gentle manners? I am -delighted you are going into the world; but if you only go as "a duty," -I am afraid the results won't be sunshiny. "Duty" is such a _very_ -disagreeable thing. It always rolls itself up like a hedgehog with all -its prickles out, turning for ever round and round on the axle of its -own self-admiration. If you go to Trouville (and wherever else you do -go) as a martyr, my dear, you will give the mischievous Duchess, if -she be mischievous, a terrible advantage over you at starting. If you -mean to be silent, unpleasant, and enwrapped in a gloomy contemplation -of your own merits and wrongs, don't blame _him_ if he spend his time -at the Casino with his friend, or somebody worse. I am quite sure you -_mean_ to be unselfish, and you fancy you are so, and all the rest of -it, quite honestly; but, in real truth, as I told you before, you are -only an egotist. You would rather keep this unhappy Piero on thorns -beside you, than see him enjoy himself with other people. Now, I call -that shockingly selfish, and if you go in that spirit to Trouville, -he will soon begin to wish, my dear child, that he had never had a -fancy to come over to a London season. I can see you so exactly! Too -dignified to be cross, too offended to be companionable; silent, -reproachful, terrible!' - - - _From the Lady Mary Bruton, Roches Noires, Trouville, to Mrs - d'Arcy, British Embassy, Berlin._ - - _'15th July._ - -'... Amongst the new arrivals here are the San Zenone. You remember my -telling you of their marriage some six weeks ago. It was quite _the_ -marriage of the season. They really were immensely in love with each -other, but that stupid month down in the country has done its usual -work. In a rainy June, too! Of course, any poor Cupid would emerge -from his captivity bedraggled, dripping and disenchanted. She is -really very pretty, quite lovely, indeed; but she looks fretful and -dull; her handsome husband, on the contrary, is as gay as a lark which -has found the door of its cage wide open one morning. There is here -a great friend of his, a Duchessa dell'Aquila Fulva. _She_ is very -gay, too; she is always perfectly dressed, and chattering from morning -to night in shrill Italian or voluble French. She is the cynosure of -all eyes as she goes to swim in a rose-coloured _maillot_, with an -orange and gold eastern burnous flung about her artistically. She has -that wonderful Venetian colouring, which can stand a contrast and glow -of colour which would simply kill any other woman. She is very tall, -and magnificently made, and yet uncommonly graceful. Last night she -was persuaded to dance a _salterello_ with San Zenone at the Maison -Persane, and it was marvellous. They are both such handsome people, and -threw such wonderful _brio_, as they would call it, into the affair. -The poor, little, pretty Princess, looking as fair and as dull as a -primrose in a shower, sat looking on dismally. Stupid little thing!--as -if _that_ would do her any good! A few days ago Lord Hampshire arrived -off here in his yacht. He was present at the _salterello_, and as I -saw him out in the gardens afterwards with the neglected one, sitting -beside her in the moonlight, I presume he was offering her sympathy and -consolation. He is a heavy young fellow, but exceedingly good-humoured -and kind-hearted. _He_ would have been in Heaven in the wet June at -Coombe Bysset--but she refused him, silly little thing! I am quite -angry with her; she has had her own way and she won't make the best of -that. I met her, and her rejected admirer, riding together this morning -towards Villerville, while the beautiful Prince was splashing about -in the water with his Venetian friend. I see a great many eventual -complications ahead. Well, they will all be the fault of that Rainy -June!' - - - - -DON GESUALDO - - - - -DON GESUALDO - - -I - -It was a day in June. - -The crickets were chirping, the lizards were gliding, the butterflies -were flying above the ripe corn, the reapers were out amongst the -wheat, and the tall stalks were swaying and falling under the sickle. -Through the little windows of his sacristy, Don Gesualdo, the young -vicar of San Bartolo, in the village of Marca, looked with wistful eyes -at the hill-side which rose up in front of him, seen through a frame of -cherry-boughs in full fruit. The hill-side was covered with corn, with -vines, with mulberry trees; the men and women were at work amongst the -trees (it was the first day of harvest); there was a blue, happy sky -above them all; their voices, chattering and calling to one another -over the sea of grain, came to his ears gaily and softened by air and -distance. He sighed as he looked and as he heard. Yet, interrogated, he -would have said that he was happy and wanted for nothing. - -He was a slight, pale man, still almost a youth, with a delicate -face, without colour and beardless, his eyes were brown and tender -and serious, his mouth was sensitive and sweet. He was the son of a -fisherman away by Bocca d'Arno, where the river meets the sea, amidst -the cane and cactus brakes which Costa loves to paint. But who could -say what fine, time-filtered, pure Etruscan, or Latin, blood might not -run in his veins? There is so much of the classic features and the -classic forms amongst the peasants of Tyrrhene seashores, of Cimbrian -oak woods, of Roman grass plains, of Maremana marshes. - -It was the last day of peace which he was destined to know in Marca. - -He turned from the window with reluctance and regret, as the old woman, -who served him as housekeeper and church-cleaner in one, summoned him -to his frugal supper. He could have supped at any hour he had chosen; -there were none to say him nay, but it was the custom at Marca to sup -at the twenty-third hour, and he was not a person to violate custom; -he would as soon have thought of spitting on the blessed bread itself. -Habit is a masterful ruler in all Italian communities. It has always -been so. It is a formula which excuses all things and sanctifies all -things, and to none did it do so more than to Don Gesualdo. Often he -was not in the least hungry at sunset, often he grudged sorely the -hours spent in breaking black bread, and eating poor soup, when Nature -was at her fairest, and the skies giving their finest spectacle to a -thankless earth. Yet never did he fail to meekly answer old Candida's -summons to the humble repast. To have altered the hour of eating would -have seemed to him irreligious, revolutionary, altogether impossible. - -Candida was a little old woman, burnt black by the sun, with a whisp -of grey hair fastened on the crown of her head, and a neater look -about her kerchief and her gown than was usual in Marca, for she was a -woman originally from a northern city. She had always been a servant -in priests' houses, and, if the sacristan were ill or away, knew as -well as he where every book, bell, and candle were kept, and could -have said the offices herself had her sex allowed her. In tongue she -was very sharp, and in secret was proud of the power she possessed of -making the Vice-Regent of God afraid of her. The priest was the first -man in this parish of poor folks, and the priest would shrink like a -chidden child if she found out that he had given his best shirt to a -beggar, or had inadvertently come in with wet boots over the brick -floor, which she had just washed and sanded. It was the old story of so -many sovereignties. He had power, no doubt, to bind and loose, to bless -and curse, to cleanse, or refuse to cleanse, the sinful souls of men; -but for all that he was only a stupid, forgetful baby of a man in his -servant's eyes, and she made him feel the scorn she had for him, mixed -up with a half-motherly, half-scolding admiration, which saw in him -half a child, half a fool, and maybe she would add in her own thoughts, -a kind of angel. - -Don Gesualdo was not wise or learned in any way; he had barely been -able to acquire enough knowledge to pass through the examinations -necessary for entrance into the priesthood. That slender amount of -scholarship was his all; but he was clever enough for Marca, which had -very little brains of its own, and he did his duty most faithfully, as -far as he saw it, at all times. As for doubts of any sort as to what -that duty was, such scepticism never could possibly assail him. His -creed appeared as plain and sure to him as the sun which shone in the -heavens, and his faith was as single-hearted and unswerving as the -devoted soul of a docile sheep dog. - -He was of a poetic and retiring nature; religion had taken entire -possession of his life, and he was as unworldly, as visionary, and as -simple as anyone of the _peccarelle di Dio_ who dwelt around Francesco -d'Assissi. His mother had been a German servant girl, married out -of a small inn in Pisa, and some qualities of the dreamy, slow, and -serious Teutonic temperament were in him, all Italian of the western -coast as he was. On such a dual mind the spiritual side of his creed -had obtained intense power, and the office he filled was to him a -Heaven-given mission which compelled him to incessant sacrifice of -every earthly appetite and every selfish thought. - -'He is too good to live,' said his old housekeeper. - -It was a very simple and monotonous existence which was led by him in -his charge. There was no kind of change in it for anybody, unless they -went away, and few people born in Marca ever did that. They were not -forced by climate to be nomads, like the mountaineers of the Apennines, -nor like the men of the sea-coast and ague-haunted plains. Marca was -a healthy, homely place on the slope of a hill in a pastoral country, -where its sons and daughters could stay and work all the year round, if -they chose, without risk of fever worse than such as might be brought -on by too much new wine at close of autumn. - -Marca was not pretty, or historical, or picturesque, or uncommon in any -way; there are five hundred, five thousand villages like it, standing -amongst corn lands and maize fields and mulberry trees, with its little -dark church, and its white-washed presbytery, and its dusky, red-tiled -houses, and its one great, silent, empty villa that used to be a -fortified and stately palace, and now is given over to the rats and the -spiders and the scorpions. A very quiet, little place, far away from -cities and railways, dusty and uncomely in itself, but blessed in the -abundant light and the divine landscape which are around it, and of -which no one in it ever thought, except this simple young priest, Don -Gesualdo Brasailo. - -Of all natural gifts, a love of natural beauty surely brings most -happiness to the possessor of it; happiness altogether unalloyed and -unpurchasable, and created by the mere rustle of green leaves, the -mere ripple of brown waters. It is not an Italian gift at all, nor an -Italian feeling. To an Italian, gas is more beautiful than sunshine, -and a cambric flower more beautiful than a real one; he usually thinks -the mountains hateful and a city divine; he detests trees and adores -crowds. But there are exceptions to all rules; there are poetic natures -everywhere, though everywhere they are rare. Don Gesualdo was the -exception in Marca and its neighbourhood, and evening after evening saw -him in the summer weather strolling through the fields, his breviary -in his hand, but his heart with the dancing fire-flies, the quivering -poplar leaves, the tall green canes, the little silvery fish darting -over the white stones of the shallow river-waters. He could not have -told why he loved to watch these things; he thought it was because they -reminded him of Bocca d'Arno and the sand-beach and the cane-brakes; -but he did love them, and they filled him with a vague emotion; half -pleasure and half pain. - -His supper over, he went into his church; a little red-bricked, -white-washed passage connected it with his parlour. The church was -small, and dark, and old; it had an altar-piece, said to be old, and by -a Sienese master, and of some value, but Gesualdo knew nothing of these -matters. A Raphael might have hung there and he would have been none -the wiser. He loved the church, ugly and simple as it was, as a mother -loves a plain child or a dull one because it is hers; and now and then -he preached strange, passionate, pathetic sermons in it, which none of -his people understood, and which he barely understood himself. He had a -sweet, full, far-reaching voice, with an accent of singular melancholy -in it, and as his mystical, romantic, involved phrases passed far -over the heads of his hearers, like a flight of birds flying high up -against the clouds, the pathos and music in his tones stirred their -hearts vaguely. He was certainly, they thought, a man whom the saints -loved. Candida, sitting near the altar with her head bowed and her -hands feeling her rosary, would think as she heard the unintelligible -eloquence: 'Dear Lord, all that power of words, all that skill of the -tongue, and he would put his shirt on bottom upwards were it not for -me!' - -There was no office in his church that evening, but he lingered about -it, touching this thing and the other with tender fingers. There was -always a sweet scent in the little place; its door usually stood -open to the fields amidst which it was planted, and the smell of the -incense, which century after century had been burned in it, blended -with the fragrance from primroses, or dog-roses, or new-mown hay, or -crushed ripe grapes, which, according to the season, came into it from -without. Candida kept it very clean, and the scorpions and spiders were -left so little peace there by her ever-active broom, that they betook -themselves elsewhere, dear as the wooden benches and the crannied -stones had been to them for ages. - -Since he had come to Marca, nothing of any kind had happened in it. -There had been some marriages, a great many births, not a few burials; -but that was all. The people who came to confession at Easter confessed -very common sins; they had stolen this or that, cheated here, there, -and everywhere; got drunk and quarrelled, nothing more. He would give -them clean bills of spiritual health, and bid them go in peace and sin -no more, quite sure, as they were sure themselves, that they would have -the self-same sins to tell of the next time that they should come there. - -Everybody in Marca thought a great deal of their religion, that is, -they trusted to it in a helpless but confident kind of way as a fetish, -which, being duly and carefully propitiated, would make things all -right for them after death. They would not have missed a mass to save -their lives; that they dozed through it, and cracked nuts, or took a -suck at their pipe stems when they woke, did not affect their awed -and unchangeable belief in its miraculous and saving powers. If they -had been asked what they believed, or why they believed, they would -have scratched their heads and felt puzzled. Their minds dwelt in a -twilight in which nothing had any distinct form. The clearest idea ever -presented to them was that of the Madonna: they thought of her as of -some universal mother who wanted to do them good in the present and -future if they only observed her ceremonials: just as in the ages gone -by, upon these same hill-sides, the Latin peasant had thought of the -great Demeter. - -Don Gesualdo himself, despite all the doctrine which had been instilled -into him in his novitiate, did not know much more than they; he -repeated the words of his offices without any distinct notion of all -that they meant; he had a vague feeling that all self-denial and -self-sacrifice were thrice blessed, and he tried his best to save his -own soul and the souls of others; but there he ceased to think; outside -that, speculation lay, and speculation was a thrice damnable offence. -Yet he, being imaginative and intelligent in a humble and dog-like -way, was at times infinitely distressed to see how little effect this -religion, which he taught and which they professed, had upon the lives -of his people. His own life was altogether guided by it. Why could not -theirs be the same? Why did they go on, all through the year, swearing, -cursing, drinking, quarrelling, lying, stealing? He could not but -perceive that they came to him to confess their peccadilloes, only that -they might pursue them more completely at their ease. He could not -flatter himself that his ministrations in Marca, which were now of six -years' duration, had made the village a whit different to what it had -been when he had entered it. - -Thinking of this, as he did think of it continually night and day, -being a man of singularly sensitive conscience, he sat down on a marble -bench near the door and opened his breviary. The sun was setting behind -the pines on the crest of the hills; the warm orange light poured -across the paved way in front of the church, through the stems of the -cypresses, which stood before the door, and found its way over the -uneven slates of the stone floor to his feet. Nightingales were singing -somewhere in the dog-rose hedge beyond the cypress trees. Lizards ran -from crack to crack in the pavement. A tendril of honeysuckle came -through a hole in the wall, thrusting its delicate curled horns of -perfume towards him. The whole entrance was bathed in golden warmth and -light; the body of the church behind him was quite dark. - -He had opened his breviary from habit, but he did not read; he sat and -gazed at the evening clouds, at the blue hills, at the radiant air, -and listened to the songs of the nightingales in that dreamy trance -which made him look so stupid in the eyes of his housekeeper and his -parishioners, but which were only the meditations of a poetic temper, -cramped and cooped up in a narrow and uncongenial existence, and not -educated or free enough to be able even to analyse what it felt. - -'The nightingale's song in June is altogether unlike its songs of -April and May,' thought this poor priest, whom Nature had made a poet, -and to whom she had given the eyes which see and the ears which hear. -'The very phrases are wholly different; the very accent is not the -same; in spring it is all a canticle, like the songs of Solomon; in -midsummer--what is it he is singing? Is he lamenting the summer? or is -it he is only teaching his young ones how they should sing next year?' - -And he fell again to listening to the sweetest bird that gladdens -earth. One nightingale was patiently repeating his song again and -again, sometimes more slowly, sometimes more quickly, seeming to lay -stress on some phrases more than on others, and another voice, fainter -and feebler than his own, repeated the trills and roulades after him -fitfully, and often breaking down altogether. It was plain that there -in the wild-rose hedge he was teaching his son. Anyone who will may -hear these sweet lessons given under bays and myrtle, under arbutus and -pomegranate, through all the month of June. - -Nightingales in Marca were only regarded as creatures to be trapped, -shot, caged, eaten, sold for a centime like any other small bird; -but about the church no one touched them; the people knew that their -_parocco_ cared to hear their songs coming sweetly through the -pauses in the recitatives of the office. Absorbed, as he was now, in -hearkening to the music lesson amongst the white dog-roses, he started -violently as a shadow fell across the threshold, and a voice called to -him, 'Good evening, Don Gesualdo!' - -He looked up and saw a woman whom he knew well, a young woman scarcely -indeed eighteen years old; very handsome, with a face full of warmth, -and colour, and fire, and tenderness, great flashing eyes which could -at times be as soft as a dog's, and a beautiful ruddy mouth with teeth -as white as a dog's are also. She was by name Generosa Fè; she was the -wife of Tasso Tassilo, the miller. - -In Marca, most of the women by toil and sun were black as berries by -the time they were twenty, and looked old almost before they were -young; with rough hair and loose forms and wrinkled skins, and children -dragging at their breasts all the year through. Generosa was not like -them; she did little work; she had the form of a goddess; she took -care of her beauty, and she had no children, though she had married at -fifteen. She was friends with Don Gesualdo; they had both come from the -Bocca d'Arno, and it was a link of common memory and mutual attachment. -They liked to recall how they had each run through the tall canes and -cactus, and waded in the surf, and slept in the hot sand, and hidden -themselves for fright when the king's camels had come towards them, -throwing their huge mis-shapen shadows over the seas of flowering reeds -and rushes and grey spiked aloes. - -He remembered her a small child, jumping about on the sand and laughing -at him, a youth, when he was going to college to study for entrance -into the Church. 'Gesualdino! Gesualdino!' she had cried. 'A fine -priest he will make for us all to confess to!' And she had screamed -with mirth, her handsome little face rippling all over with gaiety, -like the waves of the sea with the sunshine. - -He had remembered her and had been glad when Tasso Tassilo, the miller, -had gone sixty miles away for a wife, and had brought her from Bocca -d'Arno to live at the mill on the small river, which was the sole water -which ran through the village of Marca. - -Tasso Tassilo, going on business once to the sea coast, had chanced to -see that handsome face of hers, and had wooed and won her without great -difficulty; for her people were poor folk, living by carting sand, and -she herself was tired of her bare legs and face, her robust hunger, -which made her glad to eat the fruit off the cactus plants, and her -great beauty, which nobody ever saw except the seagulls, and carters, -and fishers, and cane-cutters, who were all as poor as she was herself. - -Tasso Tassilo, in his own person, she hated; an ugly, dry, elderly man, -with his soul wrapped up in his flour-bags and his money-bags; but -he adored her, and let her spend as she chose on her attire and her -ornaments; and the mill-house was a pleasant place enough, with its -walls painted on the outside with scriptural subjects, and the willows -drooping over its eaves, and the young men and the mules loitering -about on the land side of it, and the peasants coming up with corn to -be ground whenever there had been rain in summer, and so water enough -in the river bed to turn the mill wheels. In drought, the stream was -low and its stones dry, and no work could be done by the grindstones. -There was then only water enough for the ducks to paddle in, and the -pretty teal to float in, which they would always do at sunrise unless -the miller let fly a charge of small shot amongst them from the -windows under the roof. - -'Good evening, Don Gesualdo,' said the miller's wife now, in the midst -of the nightingale's song and the orange glow from the sunset. - -Gesualdo rose with a smile. He was always glad to see her; she had -something about her for him of boyhood, of home, of the sea, and of -the careless days before he became a seminarist. He did not positively -regret that he had entered the priesthood, but he remembered the -earlier life wistfully, and with wonder that he could ever have been -that light-hearted lad who had run through the cane-brakes to plunge -into the rolling waters, with all the wide, gay, sunlit world of sea -and sky and river and shore before him, behind him, and above him. - -'What is wrong, Generosa?' he asked her, seeing as he looked up that -her handsome face was clouded. Her days were not often tranquil; her -husband was jealous, and she gave him cause for jealousy. The mill -was a favourite resort of all young men for thirty miles around, and -unless Tasso Tassilo had ceased to grind corn he could not have shut -his doors to them. - -'It is the old story, Don Gesualdo,' she answered, leaning against the -church porch. 'You know what Tasso is, and what a dog's life he leads -me.' - -'You are not always prudent, my daughter,' said Gesualdo, with a faint -smile. - -'Who could be always prudent at my years?' said the miller's young -wife. 'Tasso is a brute, and a fool too. One day he will drive me out -of myself; I tell him so.' - -'That is not the way to make him better,' said Gesualdo. 'I am sorry -you do not see it. The man loves you, and he feels he is old, and he -knows that you do not care; that knowledge is always like a thorn in -his flesh; he feels you do not care.' - -'How should he suppose that I care?' said Generosa, passionately. 'I -hated him always; he is as old as my father; he expects me to be shut -up like a nun; if he had his own way I should never stir out of the -house. Does one marry for that?' - -'One should marry to do one's duty,' said Gesualdo, timidly; for he -felt the feebleness of his counsels and arguments against the force and -the warmth and the self-will of a woman, conscious of her beauty, and -her power, and her lovers, and moved by all the instincts of vanity and -passion. - -'We had a terrible scene an hour ago,' said Generosa, passing over what -she did not choose to answer. 'It cost me much not to put a knife into -him. It was about Falko. There was nothing new, but he thought there -was. I fear he will do Falko mischief one day; he threatened it; it is -not the first time.' - -'That is very grave,' said Gesualdo, growing paler as he heard. 'My -daughter, you are more in error than Tassilo. After all, he has his -rights. Why do you not send the young man away? He would obey you.' - -'He would obey me in anything else, not in that,' said the woman, with -the little conscious smile of one who knows her own power. 'He would -not go away. Indeed, why should he go away? He has his employment here. -Why should he go away because Tasso is a jealous fool?' - -'Is he such a fool?' said Gesualdo, and he raised his eyes suddenly and -looked straight into hers. - -Generosa coloured through her warm, tanned skin. She was silent. - -'It has not gone as far as you think,' she muttered, after a pause. - -'But I will not be accused for nothing,' she added. 'Tasso shall have -what he thinks he has had. Why would he marry me? He knew I hated him. -We were all very poor down there by Bocca d'Arno, but we were gay and -happy. Why did he take me away?' - -The tears started to her eyes and rolled down her hot cheeks. It was -the hundredth time that she had told her sorrows to Gesualdo, in the -confessional and out of it; it was an old story of which she never -tired of the telling. Her own people were far away by the seashore, and -she had no friends in Marca, for she was thought a 'foreigner,' not -being of that countryside, and the women were jealous of her beauty, -and of the idle life which she led in comparison to theirs, and of the -cared-for look of her person. Gesualdo seemed a countryman, and a -relative and a friend. She took all her woes to him. A priest was like -a woman, she thought; only a far safer confidant. - -'You are ungrateful, my daughter,' he said, now, with an effort to be -severe in reprimand. 'You know that you were glad to marry so rich a -man as Tassilo. You know that your father and mother were glad, and you -yourself likewise. No doubt, the man is not all that you could wish, -but you owe him something; indeed, you owe him much. I speak to you now -out of my office, only as a friend. I would entreat you to send your -lover away. If not, there will be crime, perhaps bloodshed, and the -fault of all that may happen will be yours.' - -She gave a gesture, which said that she cared nothing, whatever might -happen. She was in a headstrong and desperate mood. She had had a -violent quarrel with her husband, and she loved Falko Melegari, the -steward of the absent noble who owned the empty, half-ruined palace -which stood on the banks of the river. He was a fair and handsome young -man, with Lombard blood in him; tall, slender, vigorous, amorous and -light-hearted; the strongest of contrasts in all ways to Tasso Tassilo, -taciturn, feeble, sullen, and unlovely, and thrice the years of his -wife. - -There was not more than a mile between the mill-house and the deserted -villa. Tassilo might as well have tried to arrest the sirocco, or the -sea winds when they blew, as prevent an intercourse so favoured and so -facilitated by circumstances. The steward had a million reasons in the -year to visit the mill, and when the miller insulted him and forbade -him his doors, the jealous husband had no power to prevent him from -fishing in the waters, from walking on the bank, from making signals -from the villa terraces, and appointments in the cane-brakes and the -vine-fields. Nothing could have broken off the intrigue except the -departure of one or other of the lovers from Marca. - -But Falko Melegari would not go away from a place where his interests -and his passions both combined to hold him; and it never entered the -mind of the miller to take his wife elsewhere. He had dwelt at the mill -all the years of his life, and his forefathers for five generations -before him. To change their residence never occurs to such people as -these; they are fixed, like the cypress trees, in the ground, and dream -no more than they of new homes. Like the tree, they never change till -the heeder, Death, fells them. - -Generosa continued to pour out her woes, leaning against the pillar of -the porch, and playing with a twig of pomegranate, whose buds were not -more scarlet than her own lips; and Gesualdo continued to press on her -his good counsels, knowing all the while that he might as well speak -to the swallows under the church eaves for any benefit that he could -effect. In sole answer to the arguments of Gesualdo, she retorted in -scornful words. - -'You may find that duty is enough for you, because you are a saint,' -she added with less of reverence than of disdain, 'but I am no saint, -and I will not spend all my best days tied to the side of a sickly and -sullen old man.' - -'You are wrong, my daughter,' said Gesualdo, sternly. - -He coloured; he knew not why. - -'I know nothing of these passions,' he added, with some embarrassment, -'but I know what duty is, and yours is clear.' - -He did not know much of human nature, and of woman nature nothing; -yet he dimly comprehended that Generosa was now at that crisis of her -life when all the ardours of her youth, and all the delight in her -own power, combined to render her passionately rebellious against the -cruelties of her fate; when it was impossible to make duty look other -than hateful to her, and when the very peril and difficulty which -surrounded her love-story made it the sweeter and more irresistible to -her. She was of a passionate, ardent, careless, daring temperament, and -the dangers of the intrigue which she pursued had no terrors for her, -whilst the indifference which she had felt for years for her husband -had deepened of late into hatred. - -'One is not a stick nor a stone, nor a beam of timber nor a block of -granite, that one should be able to live without love all one's days!' -she cried, with passion and contempt. - -She threw the blossoms of pomegranate over the hedge; she gave him a -glance half-contemptuous and half-compassionate, and left the church -door. - -'After all, what should he understand!' she thought. 'He is a saint, -but he is not a man.' - -Gesualdo looked after her a moment as she went over the court-yard, -and between the stems of the cypresses out towards the open hill-side. -The sun had set; there was a rosy after-glow which bathed her elastic -figure in a carmine light; she had that beautiful walk which some -Italian women have who have never worn shoes in the first fifteen years -of their lives. The light shone on her dusky auburn hair, her gold -earrings, the slender column of her throat, her vigorous and voluptuous -form. Gesualdo looked after her, and a subtle warmth and pain passed -through him, bringing with it a sharp sense of guilt. He looked away -from her, and went within his church and prayed. - -That night Falko Melegari had just alighted from the saddle of his good -grey horse, when he was told that the _Parocco_ of San Bartolo was -waiting to see him. - -The villa had been famous and splendid in other days, but it formed -now only one of the many neglected possessions of a gay young noble, -called Ser Baldo by his dependants, who spent what little money he had -in pleasure-places out of Italy, seldom or never came near his estates, -and accepted, without investigation, all such statements of accounts as -his various men of business were disposed to send to him. - -His steward lived on the ground floor of the great villa, in the -vast frescoed chambers, with their domed and gilded ceilings, their -sculptured cornices, their carved doors, their stately couches, with -the satin dropping in shreds, and the pale tapestries wearing away -with the moths and the mice at work in them. His narrow camp-bed, his -deal table and chairs, were sadly out of place in those once splendid -halls, but he did not think about it; he vaguely liked the space and -the ruined grandeur about him, and all the thoughts he had were given -to his love, Generosa, the wife of Tasso Tassilo. From the terraces of -the villa he could see the mill a mile further down the stream, and he -would pass half the short nights of the summer looking at the distant -lights in it. - -He was only five-and-twenty, and he was passionately in love, with all -the increased ardour of a forbidden passion. - -He was fair-haired and blue-eyed, was well made, and very tall. In -character he was neither better nor worse than most men of his age; but -as a steward he was tolerably honest, and as a lover he was thoroughly -sincere. He went with a quick step into the central hall to meet his -visitor. He supposed that the vicar had come about flowers for the -feast of SS. Peter and Paul, which was on the morrow. Though the villa -gardens were wholly neglected, they were still rich in flowers which -wanted no care--lilies, lavender, old-fashioned roses, oleanders red -and white, and magnolia trees. - -'Good evening, Reverend Father, you do me honour,' he said, as he saw -Gesualdo. 'Is there anything that I can do for you? I am your humble -servant.' - -Gesualdo looked at him curiously. He had never noticed the young man -before. He had seen him ride past; he had seen him at mass; he had -spoken to him of the feasts of the Church; but he had never noticed -him. Now he looked at him curiously as he answered, without any -preface whatever,---- - -'I am come to speak to you of Generosa Fè, the wife of Tasso Tassilo.' - -The young steward coloured violently. He was astonished and silent. - -'She loves you,' said Gesualdo, simply. - -Falko Melegari made a gesture as though he implied that it was not his -place either to deny or to affirm. - -'She loves you,' said Gesualdo again. - -The young man had that fatuous smile which unconsciously expresses the -consciousness of conquest. But he was honest in his passion and ardent -in it. - -'Not so much as I love her,' he said, rapturously, forgetful of his -hearer. - -Gesualdo frowned. - -'She is the wife of another man,' he said with reproof. - -Falko Melegari shrugged his shoulders; that did not seem any reason -against it to him. - -'How will it end?' said the priest. The lover smiled. - -'These things always end in one way.' - -Gesualdo winced, as though someone had wounded him. - -'I am come to bid you go out of Marca,' he said simply. - -The young man stared at him; then he laughed angrily. - -'Reverend Vicar,' he said impatiently; 'you are the keeper of our -souls, no doubt; but not quite to such a point as that. Has Tassilo -sent you to me, or she?' he added, with a gleam of suspicion in his -eyes. - -'No one has sent me.' - -'Why then--' - -'Because, if you do not go, there will be tragedy and misery. Tasso -Tassilo is not a man to make you welcome to his couch. I have known -Generosa since she was a little child; we were both born on the Bocca -d'Arno. She is of a warm nature, but not a deep one; and if you go away -she will forget. Tassilo is a rude man and a hard one; he gives her all -she has; he has many claims on her, for in his way he has been generous -and tender. You are a stranger; you can only ruin her life; you can -with ease find another stewardship far away in another province; why -will you not go? If you really loved her you would go.' - -Falko laughed. - -'Dear Don Gesualdo, you are a holy man, but you know nothing of love.' - -Gesualdo winced a little again. It was the second time this had been -said to him this evening. - -'Is it love,' he said, after a pause, 'to risk her murder by her -husband? I tell you Tassilo is not a man to take his dishonour quietly.' - -'Who cares what Tassilo does?' said the young steward, petulantly. 'If -he touch a hair of her head I will make him die a thousand deaths.' - -'All those are mere words,' said Gesualdo. 'You cannot mend one -crime by another, and you cannot protect a woman from her husband's -vengeance. There is only one way by which to save her from the danger -you have dragged her into. It is for you to go away.' - -'I will go away when this house walks a mile,' said Falko, 'not before. -Go away!' he echoed, in wrath. 'What! run like a mongrel dog before -Tassilo's anger? What! leave her all alone to curse me as a faithless -coward? What! go away when all my life and my soul, and all the light -of my eyes is in Marca? Don Gesualdo, you are a good man, but you are -mad. You must pardon me if I speak roughly. Your words make me beside -myself.' - -'Do you believe in no duty, then?' - -'I believe in the duty of every honest lover!' said Falko, with -vehemence, 'and that duty is to do everything that the loved one -wishes. She is bound to a cur; she is unhappy; she has not even any -children to comfort her; she is like a beautiful flower shut up in a -cellar, and she loves me--me!--and you bid me go away! Don Gesualdo, -keep to your Church offices, and leave the loves of others alone. What -should you know of them? Forgive me, if I am rude. You are a holy man, -but you know nothing at all of men and women.' - -'I do not know much,' said Gesualdo, meekly. - -He was depressed and intimidated. He was sensible of his own utter -ignorance of the passions of life. This man, nigh his own age, -but so full of vigour, of ardour, of indignation, of pride in his -consciousness that he was beloved, and of resolve to stay where that -love was, be the cost what it would, daunted him with a sense of power -and of triumph such as he himself could not even comprehend, and yet -wistfully envied. It was sin, no doubt, he said to himself; and yet it -was life, it was strength, it was virility. - -He had come to reprove, to censure, and to persuade into repentance -this headstrong lover, and he could only stand before him feeble and -oppressed, with a sense of his own ignorance and childishness. All the -stock, trite arguments which his religious belief supplied him seemed -to fall away and to be of no more use than empty husks of rotten nuts -before the urgency, the fervour, and the self-will of real life. This -man and woman loved each other, and they cared for no other fact than -this on earth or in heaven. He left the villa grounds in silence, with -only a gesture of salutation in farewell. - - -II - -'Poor innocent, he meant well!' thought the steward, as he watched -the dark, slender form of the priest pass away through the vines and -mulberry trees. The young man did not greatly venerate the Church -himself, though he showed himself at mass and sent flowers for the -feast days because it was the custom to do so. He was, like most young -Italians who have had a smattering of education, very indifferent on -such matters, and inclined to ridicule. He left them for women and old -men. But there was something about his visitant which touched him; a -simplicity, an unworldliness, a sincerity which moved his respect; and -he knew in his secret heart that the _parocco_, as he called him, was -right enough in everything that he had said. - -Don Gesualdo himself went on his solitary way, his buckled shoes -dragging wearily over the dusty grass of the wayside. He had done no -good, and he did not see what good he could do. He felt helpless -before the force and speed of an unknown and guilty passion, as he once -felt before a forest fire which he had seen in the Marches. All his -Church books gave him homilies enough on the sins of the flesh and the -temptings of the devil, but none of these helped him before the facts -of this lawless and godless love, which seemed to pass high above his -head like a whirlwind. He went on slowly and dully along the edge of -the river-bed; a sense of something which he had always missed, which -he would miss eternally, was with him. - -It was now quite night. He liked to walk late at night. All things were -so peaceful, or at the least seemed so. You did not see the gashes in -the lopped trees, the scars in the burned hill-side, the wounds in the -mule's loins, the bloodshot eyes of the working ox, the goitered throat -of the child rolling in the dust. Night, kindly friend of dreams, cast -her soft veil over all woes, and made the very dust seem as a silvered -highway to the throne of a beneficent God. - -He went now through the balmy air, the rustling canes, the low-hanging -boughs of the fruit-laden peach trees, and the sheaves of cut corn -leaning one up against another under the maples, or the walnut trunks. -He followed the course of the water, a shallow thread at this season, -glistening under the moon in its bed of shingle and sand. He passed the -mill-house perforce on his homeward way; he saw the place of the weir, -made visible even in the dark by the lanterns which swung on a cord -stretched from one bank to another, to entice any such fish as there -might still be in the shallows. The mill-walls stood down into the -water, a strong place built in olden days; the great black wheels were -now perforce at rest; the mules champed and chafed in their stalls, -inactive, like the mill; for the next three months there would be -nothing to do unless a storm came and brought a freshet from the hills. -The miller would have the more leisure to nurse his wrongs, thought Don -Gesualdo; and his heart was troubled. He had never met with these woes -of the passions; they oppressed and alarmed him. - -As he passed the low mill windows, protected from thieves by their iron -gratings, he could see the interior, lighted as it was by the flame -of oil lamps, and through the open lattices he heard voices, raised -high in stormy quarrel, which seemed to smite the holy stillness of the -night like a blow. The figure of Generosa stood out against the light -which shone behind her. She was in a paroxysm of rage; her eyes flashed -like the lightnings of the hills, and her beautiful arms were tossed -above her head in impassioned imprecation. Tasso Tassilo seemed for the -moment to crouch beneath this rain of flame-like words; his face, on -which the light shone full, was deformed with malignant and impotent -fury, with covetous and jealous desire; there was no need to hear -her words to know that she was taunting him with her love for Falko -Melegari. Don Gesualdo was a weak man and physically timid, but here he -hesitated not one instant. He lifted the latch of the house door and -walked straightway into the mill kitchen. - -'In the name of Christ, be silent!' he said to them, and made the sign -of the cross. - -The torrent of words stopped on the lips of the young woman; the miller -scowled and shrank from the light, and was mute. - -'Is this how you keep your vows to Heaven and to each other?' said -Gesualdo. - -A flush of shame came over the face of the woman; the man drew his -hat farther over his eyes, and went out of the kitchen silently. The -victory had been easier than their monitor had expected. 'And yet of -what use was it?' he thought. They were silent out of respect for him. -As soon as the restraint of his presence should be removed they would -begin afresh. Unless he could change their souls it was of little avail -to bridle their lips for an hour. - -There was a wild, chafing hatred on one side, and a tyrannical, -covetous, dissatisfied love on the other. Out of such discordant -elements what peace could come? - -Gesualdo shut the wooden shutters of the windows that others should not -see, as he had seen, into the interior; then he strove to pacify his -old playmate, whose heaving breast and burning cheeks, and eyes which -scorched up in fire their own tears, spoke of a tempest lulled, not -spent. He spoke with all the wisdom with which study and the counsels -of the Fathers had supplied him, and with what was sweeter, and more -likely to be efficacious, a true and yearning wish to save her from -herself. She was altogether wrong, and he strove to make her see the -danger and the error of her ways. But he strove in vain. She had one of -those temperaments--reckless, vehement, pleasure-loving, ardent, and -profoundly selfish--which see only their own immediate gain, their own -immediate desires. When he tried to stir her conscience by speaking of -the danger she drew down on the head of the man she professed to love, -she almost laughed. - -'He would be a poor creature,' she said proudly, 'if all danger would -not be dear to him for me!' - -Don Gesualdo looked her full in the eyes. - -'You know that this matter must end in the death of one man or of the -other. Do you mean that this troubles you not one whit?' - -'It will not be my fault,' said Generosa, and he saw in her the woman's -lust of vanity which finds food for its pride in the blood shed for -her, as the tigress does, and even the gentle hind. - -He remained an hour or more with her, exhausting every argument which -his creed and his sympathy could suggest to him as having any possible -force in it to sway this wayward and sin-bound soul; but he knew that -his words were poured on her ear as uselessly as water on a stone -floor. She was in a manner grateful to him as her friend, in a manner -afraid of that vague majesty of some unknown power which he represented -to her; but she hated her husband, she adored her lover;--he could -not stir her from those two extremes of passion. He left her with -apprehension and a pained sense of his own impotence. She promised -him that she would provoke Tassilo no more that night, and this poor -promise was all that he could wring from her. It was late when he left -the mill-house. He feared Candida would be alarmed at his unusual -absence; and hastened, with trouble on his soul, towards the village, -lying white and lonely underneath the midsummer moon. He had so little -influence, so slender a power to persuade or warn, to counsel or -command; he felt afraid that he was unworthy of his calling. - -'I should have been better in the cloister,' he thought sadly; 'I have -not the key to human hearts.' - -He went on through a starry world of fire-flies, making luminous -the cut corn, the long grass, the high hedges, and, entering his -presbytery, crept noiselessly up the stairs to his chamber, thankful -that the voice of his housekeeper did not cry to him out of the -darkness to know why he had so long tarried. He slept little that -night, and was up, as was his wont, by daybreak. - -It was still dark when the church bell was clanging above his head for -the first office. - -It was the day of Peter and of Paul. Few people came to the early mass; -some peasants who wanted to have the rest of the day clear; some women, -thrifty housewives who were up betimes; Candida herself; no others. -The lovely morning light streamed in, cool and roseate; there were a -few lilies and roses on the altar; some red draperies floated in the -doorway; the nightingales in the wild-rose hedge sang all the while, -their sweet voices crossing the monotonous Latin recitatives. The mass -was just over, when into the church from without there arose a strange -sound, shrill and yet hoarse, inarticulate and yet uproarious; it -came from the throats of many people, all screaming, and shouting, and -talking, and swearing together. The peasants and the women, who were on -their knees, scrambled to their feet, and rushed to the door, thinking -the earth had opened and the houses were falling. Gesualdo came down -from the altar and strove to calm them, but they did not heed him, and -he followed them despite himself. The whole village seemed out--man, -woman, and child--the nightingales grew dumb under their outcry. - -'What is it?' asked Gesualdo. - -Several voices shouted back to him, 'Tasso Tassilo has been murdered!' - -'Ah!' - -Gesualdo gave a low cry, and leaned against the stem of a cypress tree -to save himself from falling. What use had been his words that night? - -The murdered man had been found lying under the canes on the wayside -not a rood from the church. A dog smelling at it had caused the body -to be sought out and discovered. He had been dead but a few hours; -apparently killed by a knife, thrust under his left shoulder, which -had struck straight under his heart. The agitation in the people was -great; the uproar deafening. Someone had sent for the carabineers, but -their nearest picket was two miles off, and they had not yet arrived. -The dead man still lay where he had fallen; everyone was afraid to -touch him. - -'Does his wife know?' said Don Gesualdo, in a strange, hoarse voice. - -'His wife will not grieve,' said a man in the crowd, and there was a -laugh, subdued by awe, and the presence of death and of the priest. - -The vicar, with a strong shudder of disgust, held up his hand in horror -and reproof, then bent over the dead body where it lay amongst the -reeds. - -'Bring him to the sacristy,' he said, to the men nearest him. 'He must -not lie there like a beast, unclean, by the roadside; go, fetch a -hurdle, a sheet, anything.' - -But no one of them would stir. - -'If we touch him they will take us up for murdering him,' they muttered -as one man. - -'Cowards! Stand off; I will carry him indoors,' said the priest. - -'You are in full canonicals!' cried Candida, twitching at his sleeve. - -But Don Gesualdo did not heed her. He was brushing off with a tender -hand the flies which had begun to buzz about the dead man's mouth. -The flies might have stung and eaten him all the day through for what -anyone of the little crowd would have cared; they would not have -stretched a hand even to drag him into the shade. - -Don Gesualdo was a weakly man; he had always fasted long and often, and -had never been strong from his birth; but indignation, compassion, and -horror for the moment lent him a strength not his own. He stooped down -and raised the dead body in his arms, and, staggering under his burden, -he bore it the few roods which separated the place where it had fallen -from the church and the vicar's house. - -The people looked on open-mouthed with wonder and awe. 'It is against -the law,' they muttered, but they did not offer active opposition. The -priest, unmolested, save for the cries of the old housekeeper, carried -his load into his own house and laid it reverently down on the couch -which stood in the sacristy. He was exhausted with the great strain and -effort; his limbs shook under him, the sweat poured off his face, the -white silk and golden embroideries of his cope and stole were stained -with the clotted blood which had fallen from the wound in the dead -man's back. He did not heed it, nor did he hear the cries of Candida -mourning the disfigured vestments, nor the loud chattering of the crowd -thrusting itself into the sacristy. He stood looking down on the poor, -dusty, stiffening corpse before him with blind eyes and thinking in -silent terror, 'Is it her work?' - -In his own soul he had no doubt. - -Candida plucked once more at his robes. - -'The vestments, the vestments! You will ruin them; take them off--' - -He put her from him with a gesture of dignity which she had never seen -in him, and motioned the throng back towards the open door. - -'I will watch with him till the guards come,' he said; 'go, send his -wife hither.' - -Then he scattered holy water on the dead body, and kneeled down beside -it and prayed. - -The crowd thought that he acted strangely. Why was he so still and -cold, and why did he seem so stunned and stricken? If he had screamed -and raved, and run hither and thither purposelessly, and let the corpse -lie where it was in the canes, he would have acted naturally in their -estimation. They hung about the doorways, half afraid, half angered; -some of them went to the mill-house, eager to have the honour of being -the first bearer of such news. - -No one was sorry for the dead man, except some few who were in his -debt, and knew that now they would be obliged to pay, with heavy -interest, what they owed to his successors. - -With the grim pathos and dignity which death imparts to the commonest -creature, the murdered man lay on the bench of the sacristy, amidst the -hubbub and the uproar of the crowding people; he and the priest the -only mute creatures in the place. - -Don Gesualdo kneeled by the dead man in his blood-stained, sand-stained -canonicals; he was praying with all the soul there was in him, not for -the dead man, but the living woman. - -The morning broadened into the warmth of day. He rose from his knees, -and bade his sacristan bring linen, and spread it over the corpse to -cheat the flies and the gnats of their ghastly repast. No men of law -came. The messengers returned. The picket-house had been closed at dawn -and the carabineers were away. There was nothing to be done but to -wait. The villagers stood or sat about in the paved court, and in the -road under the cypresses. They seldom had such an event as this in the -dulness of their lives. They brought hunches of bread and ate as they -discoursed of it. - -'Will you not break your fast?' said Candida to Don Gesualdo. 'You will -not bring him to life by starving yourself.' - -He made a sign of refusal. - -His mouth was parched, his throat felt closed; he was straining his -eyes for the first sight of Generosa on the white road. 'If she were -guilty she would never come,' he thought, 'to look on the dead man.' - -Soon he saw her coming, with swift feet and flying skirts and bare -head, through the boles of the cypresses. She was livid; her unbound -hair was streaming behind her. - -She had passed a feverish night, locking her door against her husband, -and spending the whole weary hours at the casement where she could -see the old grey villa where her lover dwelt, standing out against the -moonlight amongst its ilex and olive trees. She had had no sense of the -beauty of the night; she had been only concerned by the fret and fever -of a first love and of a guilty passion. - -She was not callous at heart, though wholly untrained and undisciplined -in character, and her conscience told her that she gave a bad return -to a man who had honestly and generously adored her, who had been -lavish to her poverty out of his riches, and had never been unkind -until a natural and justified jealousy had embittered the whole -current of his life. She held the offence of infidelity lightly, yet -her candour compelled her to feel that she was returning evil for -good, and repaying in a base manner an old man's unwise but generous -affection. She would have hesitated at nothing that could have united -her life to her lover; yet, in the corner of her soul she was vaguely -conscious that there was a degree of unfairness and baseness in -setting their youth and their ardour to hoodwink and betray a feeble -and aged creature like Tasso Tassilo. She hated him fiercely; he was -her jailer, her tyrant, her keeper. She detested the sound of his -slow step, of his croaking voice, of his harsh calls to his men and -his horses and mules; the sight of his withered features, flushed and -hot with restless, jealous pains, was at once absurd and loathsome -to her. Youth has no pity for such woes of age, and she often mocked -him openly and cruelly to his face. Still, she knew that she did him -wrong, and her conscience had been more stirred by the vicar's reproof -than she had acknowledged. She was in that wavering mood when a woman -may be saved from an unwise course by change, travel, movement, and -the distractions of the world; but there were none of these for the -miller's young wife. So long as her husband lived, so long would she -be doomed to live here, with the roar of the mill-wheels and the -foaming of the weir water in her ear, and before her eyes the same -thickets of cane, the same fields with their maples and vines, the same -white, dusty road winding away beyond the poplars, and with nothing to -distract her thoughts, or lull her mind away from its idolatry of her -fair-haired lover at the old grey palace on the hill above her home. - -She had spent the whole night gazing at the place where he lived. He -was not even there at that moment; he had gone away for two days to a -grain fair in the town of Vendramino, but she recalled with ecstasy -their meetings by the side of the low green river, their hours in the -wild flowering gardens of the palace, the lovely evenings when she had -stolen out to see him come through the maize and canes, the fire-flies -all alight about his footsteps. Sleepless but languid, weary and yet -restless, she had thrown herself on her bed without taking off her -clothes, and in the dark, as the bells for the first mass had rung over -the shadowy fields, she had, for the first time, fallen into a heavy -sleep, haunted by dreams of her lover, which made her stretch her arms -to him in the empty air, and murmur sleeping wild and tender words. - -She had been still on her bed, when the men of the mill had roused her, -beating at the chamber door and crying to her: - -'Generosa, Generosa, get up! The master is murdered, and lying dead at -the church!' - -She had been lying dreaming of Falko, and feeling in memory his kisses -on her mouth, when those screams had come through the stillness of the -early day, breaking through the music of the blackbirds piping in the -cherry boughs outside her windows. - -She had sprung from off her bed; she had huddled on some decenter -clothing, and, bursting through the detaining hands of the henchmen and -neighbours, had fled as fast as her trembling limbs could bear her to -the church. - -'Is it true? Is it true?' she cried, with white lips, to Gesualdo. - -He looked at her with a long, inquiring regard; then, without a word, -he drew the linen off the dead face of her husband and pointed to it. - -She, strong as a colt, and full of life as a young tree, fell headlong -on the stone floor in a dead swoon. - -The people gathered about the doorway and watched her suspiciously and -without compassion. There was no one there who did not believe her to -be the murderess. No one except Don Gesualdo. In that one moment when -he had looked into her eyes, he had felt that she was guiltless. He -called Candida to her and left her, and closed the door on the curious, -cruel, staring eyes of the throng without. - -The people murmured. What title had he more than they to command and -direct in this matter? The murder was a precious feast to them; why -should he defraud them of their rights? - -'He knows she is guilty,' they muttered, 'and he wants to screen her -and give her time to recover herself and to arrange what story she -shall tell.' - -In a later time they remembered against the young vicar all this which -he did now. - -Soon there came the sound of horses' feet on the road, and the jingling -of chains and scabbards stirred the morning air; the carabineers had -arrived. Then came also the syndic and petty officers of the larger -village of Sant' Arturo, where the Communal Municipality in which Marca -was enrolled had its seat of justice, its tax offices and its schools. -There were a great noise and stir, grinding of wheels and shouting -of orders, vast clouds of dust and ceaseless din of voices, loud -bickerings of conflicting authorities at war with one another, and -rabid inquisitiveness and greedy excitement on all sides. - -The feast of SS. Peter and Paul had been a day of disaster and -disorder, but to the good people of Marca both these were sweet. They -had something to talk of from dawn till dark, and the blacker the -tragedy the merrier wagged the tongues. The soul of their vicar alone -was sick within him. Since he had seen the astonished, horrified eyes -of the woman Generosa, he had never once doubted her, but he felt that -her guilt must seem clear as the noonday to all others. Her disputes -with her husband, and her passion for Falko Melegari, were facts known -to all the village, and who else had any interest in his death? The -whole of Marca pronounced as with one voice against her; the women had -always hated her for her superior beauty, and the men had always borne -her a grudge for her saucy disdain of them, and that way of bearing -herself as though a beggar from Bocca d'Arno were a queen. - -'Neighbours put up with her pride while she was on the sunny side of -the street,' said Candida, with grim satisfaction, 'but now she is in -the shade they'll fling the stones fast enough,' and she was ready to -fling her own stone. Generosa had always seemed an impudent jade to -her, coming and talking with Don Gesualdo, as she did, at all hours, -and as though the church and the sacristy were open bazaars! - -How that day passed, and how he bore himself through all its functions, -he never knew. It was the dead of night, when he, still dressed, and -unable even to think calmly, clasping his crucifix in his hands, and -pacing to and fro his narrow chamber with restless and uneven steps, -heard his name called by the voice of a man in great agitation, and, -looking out of his casement, saw Falko Melegari on his grey horse, -which was covered with foam and sweating as from a hard gallop. - -'Is it true?' he cried, a score of times. - -'Yes, it is all true,' said Gesualdo. His voice was stern and cold; he -could not tell what share this man might not have had in the crime. - -'But she is innocent as that bird in the air,' screamed her lover, -pointing to a scops owl which was sailing above the cypresses. - -Don Gesualdo bowed his head and spread out his hands, palm downwards, -in a gesture, meaning hopeless doubt. - -'I was away at dark into the town to buy cattle,' said the steward, -with sobs in his throat. 'I rode out by the opposite road; I knew -nought of it. Oh, my God, why was I not here? They should not have -taken her without it costing them hard.' - -'You would have done her no good,' said Don Gesualdo, coldly. 'You have -done her harm enough already,' he added, after a pause. - -Falko did not resent the words; the tears were falling like rain down -his cheeks, his hands were clenched on his saddle-bow, the horse -stretched its foam-flecked neck unheeded. - -'Who did it? Who could do it? He had many enemies. He was a hard man,' -he muttered. - -Don Gesualdo gave a gesture of hopeless doubt and ignorance. He looked -down on the lover's handsome face and head in the moonlight. There was -a strange expression in his own eyes. - -'Curse you for a cold-hearted priest,' thought the young steward, with -bitterness. Then he wheeled his horse sharply round, and, without any -other word, rode off towards his home in the glistening white light, to -stable his weary horse, and to saddle another to ride into the larger -village of Sant' Arturo. It was past midnight; he could do no good; he -could see no one; but it was a relief to him to be in movement. He felt -that it would choke him to sit and sup, and sleep, and smoke as usual -in his quiet house amongst the magnolias and the myrtles, whilst the -love of his life lay alone in her misery. - -All gladness, which would at any natural death of Tasso Tassilo's -have filled his soul, was quenched in the darkness of horror in which -her fate was snatched from him and plunged into the mystery and the -blackness of imputed crime. - -He never actually suspected her for a moment; but he knew that others -would, no doubt, do more than suspect. - -'Perhaps the brute killed himself,' he thought, 'that the blame of the -crime might lie on her and part her from me.' - -Then he knew that such a thought was absurd. Tasso Tassilo had loved -his life, loved his mill, and his money, and his petty power, and -his possession of his beautiful wife; and besides, what man could -stab himself from behind between the shoulders? It was just the blow -that a strong yet timid woman would give. As he walked to and fro -on the old terrace, whilst they saddled the fresh horse, he felt a -sickening shudder run through him. He did not suspect her. No, not for -an instant. And yet there was a dim, unutterable horror upon him which -veiled the remembered beauty of her face. - -The passing of the days which came after this feast of the two apostles -was full of an unspeakable horror to him, and in the brief space of -them he grew haggard, hollow-cheeked, almost aged, despite his youth. -The dread formalities and tyrannies of law seized on the quiet village, -and tortured every soul in it; everyone who had seen or heard or known -aught of the dead man was questioned, tormented, harangued, examined, -suspected. Don Gesualdo himself was made subject to a searching and -oft-repeated interrogation, and severely reproved that he had not let -the body lie untouched until the arrival of the officers of justice. -He told the exact truth as far as he knew it, but when questioned -as to the relations of the murdered man and his wife, he hesitated, -prevaricated, contradicted himself, and gave the impression to the -judicial authorities that he knew much more against the wife than -he would say. What he tried to do was to convey to others his own -passionate conviction of the innocence of Generosa, but he utterly -failed in doing this, and his very anxiety to defend her only created -an additional suspicion against her. - -The issue of the preliminary investigation was, that the wife of Tasso -Tassilo, murdered on the morning of the day of SS. Peter and Paul, was -consigned to prison, to be 'detained as a precaution' under the lock -and key of the law, circumstantial evidence being held to be strongly -against her as the primary cause, if not the actual executant, of the -murder of her lord. - -Everyone called from the village to speak of her, spoke against her, -with the exception of Falko Melegari, who was known to be her lover, -and whose testimony weighed not a straw; and Don Gesualdo, himself -a priest, indeed, but the examining judge was no friend of priests, -and would not have believed them on their oaths, whilst the strong -friendship for her and the nervous anxiety to shield her, displayed so -unwisely, though so sincerely by him, did her more harm than good, and -made his bias so visible, that his declarations were held valueless. - -'You know I am innocent!' she cried to him, the day of her arrest; and -he answered her with the tears falling down his cheeks: 'I am sure of -it; I would die to prove it! For one moment I did doubt you--pardon -me--but only one. I am sure you are innocent as I am sure that the sun -hangs in the skies.' - -But his unsupported belief availed nothing to secure that of others; -the dominant feeling amongst the people of Marca was against her, and -in face of that feeling and of the known jealousy of her which had -consumed the latter days of the dead man, the authorities deemed that -they could do no less than order her provisional arrest. Her very -beauty was a weapon turned against her. It seemed so natural to her -accusers that so lovely and so young a woman should have desired to -rid herself of a husband, old, ill-favoured, exacting and unloved. -In vain--utterly in vain--did Falko Melegari, black with rage and -beside himself with misery, swear by every saint in the calendar that -his relations with her had been hitherto absolutely innocent. No one -believed him. - -'You are obliged to say that,' said the judge, with good-humoured -impatience. - -'But, God in Heaven, why not, when it is true?' shouted Falko. - -'It is always true when the _damo_ is a man of honour,' said the -ironical judge, with an incredulous, amused smile. - -So, her only defenders utterly discredited, she paid the penalty of -being handsomer and grander than her neighbours, and was taken to the -town of Vendramino, and there left to lie in prison until such time as -the majesty of the law should be pleased to decide whether or no it -deemed her guilty of causing the death of her husband. The people of -Marca were content. They only could not see why the law should take -such a time to doubt and puzzle over a fact which to them all was as -clear as the weather-vane on their church tower. - -'Who should have killed him if not she or her _damo_?' they asked, and -no one could answer. - -So she was taken away by the men of justice, and Marca no more saw -her handsome head, with the silver pins in its coiled hair, leaning -out from the square mill windows, or her bright-coloured skirts going -light as the wind up the brown sides of the hills, and through the -yellow-blossomed gorse in the warm autumn air, to some trysting-place -under the topmost pines, where the wild pigeons dwelt in the boughs -above, and the black stoat ran through the bracken below. - -The work of the mill went on the same, being directed by the brother of -Tassilo, who had always had a share in it, both of labour and profit. -The murder still served for food for people's tongues through vintage -and onward until the maize harvest and the olive-gathering. As the -nights grew long, and the days cold, it ceased to be the supreme theme -of interest in Marca; no one ever dreamed that there could be a doubt -of the absent woman's guilt, or said a good word for her; and no one -gave her any pity for wasting her youth and fretting her soul out in a -prison cell, though they were disposed to grant that what she had done -had been, after all, perhaps only natural, considering all things. - -Her own family were too poor to travel to her help, indeed, only heard -of her misfortunes after many days, and then only by chance, through -a travelling hawker. They could do nothing for her, and did not try. -She had never sent them as much of her husband's money as they had -expected her to do, and now that she was in trouble she might get out -of it as she could, so they said. She had always cared for her earrings -and breastpins, never for them; she would see if her jewels would help -her now. When any member of a poor family marries into riches, the -desire to profit by her marriage is, if ungratified, quickly turned -into hatred of herself. Why should she have gone to eat stewed kid, and -fried lamb, and hare baked with fennel, when they had only a bit of -salt fish and an onion now and then? - -The authorities at Vendramino had admitted the vicar of San Bartolo, -once or twice, to visit her, the jailer standing by, but he had been -unable to do more than to weep with her and assure her of his own -perfect belief in her innocence. The change he found in her shocked him -so greatly that he could scarcely speak; and he thought to himself, -as he saw how aged and wasted and altered she was, 'If she lose her -beauty and grow old before her time, what avail will it be to her even -if they declare her innocent? Her gay lover will look at her no more.' - -Falko Melegari loved her wildly, ardently, vehemently indeed; but Don -Gesualdo, with that acute penetration which sometimes supplies in -delicate natures that knowledge of the world which they lack, felt that -it was not a love which had any qualities in it to withstand the trials -of time or the loss of physical charms. Perchance, Generosa herself -felt as much, and the cruel consciousness of it hurt her more than her -prison bars. - - -III - -The winter passed away, and with February the corn spread a green -carpet everywhere; the almond trees blossomed on the hill-sides, the -violets opened the ways for the anemones, and the willows budded beside -the water-mill. There were braying of bugles, twanging of lutes, -cracking of shots, drinking of wines on the farms and in the village as -a rustic celebration of carnival. Not much of it, for times are hard -and men's hearts heavy in these days, and the sunlit grace and airy -gaiety natural to it are things for ever dead in Italy, like the ilex -forests and the great gardens that have perished for ever and aye. - -Lent came, with its church bells sounding in melancholy iteration over -the March fields, where the daffodils were blowing by millions and the -young priest of San Bartolo fasted and prayed and mortified his flesh -in every way that his creed allowed, and hoped by such miseries, pains -and penances to attain grace in heaven, if not on earth, for Generosa -in her misery. All through Lent he wearied the saints with incessant -supplication for her. - -Day and night he racked his brain to discover any evidence as to who -the assassin had been. He never once doubted her; if the very apostles -of his Church had all descended on earth to witness against her, he -would have cried to them that she was innocent. - -The sickening suspicions, the haunting, irrepressible doubts, which now -and then came over the mind of her lover as he walked to and fro by the -edge of the river at night, looking up at what had been the casement -of her chamber, did not assail for an instant the stronger faith of -Gesualdo, weak as he was in body, and, in some ways, weak in character. - -The truth might remain in horrid mystery, in impenetrable darkness, for -ever; it would made no difference to him; he would be always convinced -that she had been innocent. Had he not known her when she was a little -barefooted child, coming flying through the shallow green pools and the -great yellow grasses and the sunny cane-brakes of Bocca d'Arno? - -Most innocent, indeed, had been his relations with the wife of Tassilo, -but to him it seemed that the interest he had taken in her, the -pleasure he had felt in converse with her, had been criminal. There had -been times when his eyes, which should have only seen in her a soul to -save, had become aware of her mere bodily beauty, had dwelt on her with -an awakening of carnal admiration. It sufficed to make him guilty in -his own sight. This agony, which he felt for her, was the sympathy of a -personal affection. He knew it, and his consciousness of it flung him -at the feet of his crucifix in tortures of conscience. - -He knew, too, that he had done her harm by the incoherence and the -reticence of his testimony, by the mere vehemence with which he had -unwisely striven to affirm an innocence which he had no power to -prove; even by that natural impulse of humanity which had moved him -to bring her husband's corpse under the roof of the church and close -the door upon the clamorous and staring throng who saw in the tragedy -but a pastime. He, more than any other, had helped to cast on her the -darkness of suspicion; he, more than any other, had helped to make -earthly peace and happiness for ever denied to her. - -Even if they acquitted her in the house of law yonder, she would be -dishonoured for life. Even her lover, who loved her with all the -sensual, coarse ardour of a young man's uncontrolled desires, had -declared that he would be ashamed to walk beside her in broad day so -long as this slur of possible, if unproven, crime were on her. Don -Gesualdo mused on all these things until his sensitive soul began to -take alarm lest it were not a kind of sin to be so occupied with the -fate of one to the neglect and detriment of others. Candida saw him -growing thinner and more shadow-like every day with ever-increasing -anxiety. To fast, she knew, was needful above all for a priest in Lent, -but he did not touch what he might lawfully have eaten; the new-laid -eggs and the crisp lettuces of her providing failed to tempt him, and -no mortal man, she told him, could live on air and water as he did. - -'There should be reason in all piety,' she said to him, and he assented. - -But he did not change his ways, which were rather those of a monk of -the Thebaid than of a vicar of a parish. He had the soul in him of a -St Anthony, of a St Francis, and he had been born too late; the world -as it is was too coarse, and too incredulous, for him, even in a little -rustic primitive village hidden away from the eyes of men under its -millet and its fig trees. - -The people of Marca, like his old servant, noticed the great change -in him. Pale he had always been, but now he was the colour of his -own ivory Christ; taciturn, too, he had always been, yet he had ever -had playful words for the children, kind words for the aged; these -were silent now. The listless and mechanical manner with which he -went through the offices of the Church contrasted with the passionate -and despairing cries which seemed to come from his very soul when he -preached, and which vaguely frightened a rural congregation who were -wholly unable to understand them. - -'One would think the good _parocco_ had some awful sin on his soul,' -said a woman to Candida one evening. - -'Nay, nay; he is as pure as a lamb,' said Candida, twirling her -distaff, 'but he was always helpless and childlike, and too much taken -up with heavenly things--may the saints forgive me for saying so. He -should be in a monastery along with St Romolo and St Francis.' - -But yet, the housekeeper, though loyalty itself, was, in her own secret -thoughts, not a little troubled at the change she saw in her master. -She put it down to the score of his agitation at the peril of Generosa -Fè; but this in itself seemed to her unfitting in one of his sacred -calling. A mere light-o'-love and saucebox, as she had always herself -called the miller's wife, was wholly unworthy to occupy, even in pity, -the thoughts of so holy a man. - -'There could not be a doubt that she had given that knife-stroke -amongst the canes in the dusk of the dawn of SS. Peter and Paul,' -thought Candida, amongst whose virtues charity had small place; 'but -what had the _parocco_ to do with it?' - -In her rough way, motherly and unmannerly, she ventured to take her -master to task for taking so much interest in a sinner. - -'The people of Marca say you think too much about that foul business; -they do even whisper that you neglect your holy duties,' she said to -him, as she served the frugal supper of cabbage soaked in oil. 'There -will always be crimes as long as the world wags on, but that is no -reason why good souls should put themselves about over that which they -cannot help.' - -Don Gesualdo said nothing, but she saw the nerves of his mouth quiver. - -'I have no business to lecture your reverence on your duties,' she -added, tartly; 'but they do say that so much anxiety for a guilty woman -is a manner of injustice to innocent souls.' - -He struck his closed hand on the table with concentrated expression of -passion. - -'How dare you say that she is guilty?' he cried. 'Who has proved her to -be so?' - -Candida looked at him with shrewd, suspicious eyes as she set down the -bottle of vinegar. - -'I have met with nobody who doubts it,' she said, cruelly, 'except your -reverence and her lover up yonder at the villa.' - -'You are all far too ready to believe evil,' said Don Gesualdo, with -nervous haste; and he arose and pushed aside the untasted dish and went -out of the house. - -'He is beside himself for that jade's sake,' thought Candida, and after -waiting a little while to see if he returned, she sat down and ate the -cabbage herself. - -Whether there were as many crimes in the world as flies on the pavement -in summer, she saw no reason why that good food should be wasted. - -After her supper, she took her distaff and went and sat on the low -wall which divided the church ground from the road, and gossiped with -anyone of the villagers who chanced to come by. No one was ever too -much occupied not to have leisure to talk in Marca, and the church -wall was a favourite gathering place for the sunburnt women with faces -like leather under their broad summer hats, or their woollen winter -kerchiefs, who came and went to and from the fields or the well or the -washing reservoir, with its moss-grown stone tanks brimming with brown -water under a vine-covered pergola, where the hapless linen was wont -to be beaten and banged as though it were so many sheets of cast-iron. -And here with her gossips and friends, Candida could not help letting -fall little words and stray sentences which revealed the trouble her -mind was in as to the change in her master. She was devoted to him, -but her devotion was not so strong as her love of mystery and her -impatience of anything which opposed a barrier to her curiosity. She -was not conscious that she said a syllable which could have affected -his reputation, yet her neighbours all went away from her with the idea -that there was something wrong in the presbytery, and that, if she had -chosen, the priest's housekeeper could have told some very strange -tales. - -Since the days of the miller's murder, a vague feeling against Don -Gesualdo had been growing up in Marca. A man who does not cackle, and -scream, and roar, till he is hoarse, at the slightest thing which -happens, is always unnatural and suspicious in the eyes of an Italian -community. The people of Marca began to remember that he had some -fishermen's blood in him, and that he had always been more friendly -with the wife of Tasso Tassilo than had been meet in one of his calling. - -Falko Melegari had been denied admittance to her by the authorities. -They were not sure that he, as her lover, had not some complicity in -the crime committed; and, moreover, his impetuous and inconsiderate -language to the Judge of Instruction at the preliminary investigation -had been so fierce and so unwise that it had prejudiced against him all -officers of the law. This exclusion of him heightened the misery he -felt, and moved him also to a querulous impatience with the vicar of -San Bartolo for being allowed to see her. - -'Those black snakes slip and slide in anywhere,' he thought, savagely; -and his contempt for and dislike of ecclesiastics, which the manner and -character of Don Gesualdo had held in abeyance, revived in its pristine -force. - -In Easter-time, Don Gesualdo was always greatly fatigued, and, when -Easter came round this year, and the sins of Marca were poured into -his ear--little, sordid, mean sins of which the narration wearied and -sickened him--they seemed more loathsome to him than they had ever -done. There was such likeness and such repetition in the confessions of -all of them--greed, avarice, dishonesty, fornication; the scale never -varied, and the story told kept always at the same low level of petty -and coarse things. Their confessor heard, with a tired mind, and a sick -heart, and, as he gave them absolution, shuddered at the doubts of the -infallibility of his Church, which for the first time passed with dread -terror through his thoughts. The whole world seemed to him changing. He -felt as though the solid earth itself were giving way beneath his feet. -His large eyes had a startled and frightened look in them, and his face -grew thinner every day. - -It was after the last office in this Easter week, when a man came -through the evening shadows towards the church. His name was Emilio -Raffagiolo, but he was always known as the _girellone_, the rover. Such -nicknames replace the baptismal names of the country people till the -latter are almost forgotten, whilst the family name is scarcely ever -employed at all in rural communities. The _girellone_ was a carter, -who had been in service at the water-mill for some few months. He was -a man of thirty or thereabouts, with a dusky face and a shock head of -hair, and hazel eyes, dull and yet cunning. He was dressed now in his -festal attire, and he had a round hat set on one side of his head; he -doffed it as he entered the church. He could not read or write, and his -ideas of his creed were hazy and curious. The Church represented to -him a thing with virtue in it, like a charm or a bunch of herbs; it was -only necessary, he thought, to observe certain formulæ of it to be safe -within it; conduct outside it was of no consequence. Nothing on earth -can equal in confusion and indistinctness the views of the Italian -rustic as regards his religion. The priest is to him as the medicine -man to the savage; but he has ceased to respect his councils whilst -retaining a superstitious feeling about his office. - -This man, doffing his hat, entered the church and approached the -confessional, crossing himself as he did so. Don Gesualdo, with a sigh, -prepared to receive his confession, although the hour was unusual, and -the many services of the day had fatigued him, until his head swam and -his vision was clouded. But at no time had he ever availed himself of -any excuse of time or physical weakness to avoid the duties of his -office. Recognising the carter, he wearily awaited the usual tale of -low vice and petty sins, some drunkenness, or theft, or lust, gratified -in some unholy way, and resigned himself wearily to follow the confused -repetitions with which the rustic of every country answers questions -or narrates circumstances. His conscience smote him for his apathy. -Ought not the soul of this clumsy and wine-soddened boor to be as dear -to him as that of lovelier creatures? - -The man answered the usual priestly interrogations sullenly and at -random; he could not help doing what he did, because superstition drove -him to it, and was stronger for the time than any other thing; but he -was angered at his own conscience, and afraid; his limbs trembled, and -his tongue seemed to him to swell and grow larger than his mouth, and -refused to move as he said at length in a thick, choked voice: - -'It was I who killed him!' - -'Who?' asked Don Gesualdo, whilst his own heart stood still. Without -hearing the answer he knew what it would be. - -'Tasso, the miller; my master,' said the carter; and, having confessed -thus far, he recovered confidence and courage, and, in the rude, -involved, garrulous utterances common to his kind, he leaned his mouth -closer to Gesualdo's ear, and told, with a curious sort of pride in the -accomplishment of it, why and how it had been done. - -'I wanted to go to South America,' he muttered. 'I have a cousin there, -and he says one makes money fast and works little. I had often wished -to take Tassilo's money, but I was always afraid. He locked it up as -soon as he took any, were it ever so little, and it never saw light -again till it went to the bank, or was paid away for her finery. He -wasted many a good fifty franc note on her back. Look you, the night -before the feast of Peter and Paul, he had received seven hundred -francs in the day for wheat, and I saw him lock it up in his bureau, -and say to his wife that he should take it to the town next day. -That was in the forenoon. At eventide they had a worse quarrel than -usual. She taunted him and he threatened her. In the late night I lay -listening to hear him astir. He was up before dawn, and he unbarred -and opened the mill-house himself, and called to the foreman, and he -said he was going to the town, and told us what we were to do. 'I shall -be away all day,' he said. It was still dusky. I stole out after him -without the men seeing. I said to myself I would take this money from -him as he went along the cross roads to take the diligence at Sant' -Arturo. I did not say to myself I would kill him, but I resolved to -get the money. It was enough to take one out to America, and keep one -awhile when one got out there. So I made up my mind. Money is at the -bottom of most things. I followed him half a mile before I could get -my courage up. He did not see me because of the canes. He was crossing -that grass where the trees are so thick, when I said to myself, 'Now -or never!' Then I sprang on him and stabbed him under the shoulder. He -fell like a stone. I searched him, but there was nothing in his pockets -except a revolver loaded. I think he had only made a feint of going to -the town, thinking to come back and find the lovers together. I buried -the knife under a poplar a few yards off where he fell. I could have -thrown it in the river, but they say things which have killed people -always float. You will find it if you dig for it under the big poplar -tree that they call the Grand Duke's, because they say Pietro Leopoldo -sat under it once on a time. There was a little blood on the blade, -but there was none anywhere else, for he bled inwardly. They do, if -you strike right. I was a butcher's lad once, and I used to kill the -oxen, and I know. That is all. When I found the old rogue had no money -with him, I could have killed him a score of times over. I cannot think -how it was that he left home without it, unless it was, as I say, that -he meant to go back unknown and unawares, and surprise his wife with -Melegari. That must have been it, I think. For, greedy as he was over -his money, he was greedier still over his wife. I turned him over on -his back, and left him lying there, and I went home to the mill and -began my day's work, till the people came and wakened her and told the -tale; then I left off work and came and looked on like the rest of -them. That is all.' - -The man who made the confession was calm and unmoved; the priest who -heard it was sick with horror, pale to the lips with agitation and -anguish. - -'But his wife is accused! She may be condemned!' he cried, in agony. - -'I know that,' said the man, stolidly. 'But you cannot tell of me. I -have told you under the seal of confession.' - -It was quite true; come what would, Don Gesualdo could never reveal -what he had heard. His eyes swam, his head reeled, a deadly sickness -came upon him; all his short life simple and harmless things had been -around him; he had been told of the crimes of men, but he had never -been touched by them; he had known of the sins of the world, but he had -never realised them. The sense that the murderer of Tasso Tassilo was -within a hand's breadth of him, that these eyes which stared at him, -this voice which spoke to him, were those of the actual assassin, that -it was possible, and yet utterly impossible, for him to help justice -and save innocence--all this overcame him with its overwhelming burden -of horror and of divided duty. He lost all consciousness as he knelt -there and fell heavily forward on the wood-work of the confessional. - -His teachers had said aright in the days of his novitiate, that he -would never be of stern enough stuff to deal with the realities of life. - -When he recovered his senses, sight and sound and sensibility all -returning to him slowly and with a strange, numb pricking pain in his -limbs, and his body and his brain, the church was quite dark, and the -man who had confessed his crime to him was gone. - -Gesualdo gathered himself up with effort, and sat down on the wooden -seat and tried to think. He was bitterly ashamed of his own weakness. -What was he worth, he, shepherd and leader of men, if at the first word -of horror which affrighted him, he fainted as women faint, and failed -to speak in answer the condemnation which should have been spoken? Was -it for such cowardice as this that they had anointed him and received -him as a servitor of the Church? - -His first impulse was to go and relate his feebleness and failure -to his bishop; the next he remembered that even so much support as -this he must not seek; to no living being must he tell this wretched -blood-secret. - -The law which respects nothing would not respect the secrets of the -confessional; but he knew that all the human law in the world could not -alter his own bondage to the duty he had with his own will accepted. - -It was past midnight when, with trembling limbs, he groped his way out -of the porch of his church and found the entrance of the presbytery, -and climbed the stone stairs to his own chamber. - -Candida opened her door, and thrust her head through the aperture, and -cried to him: - -'Where have you been mooning, reverend sir, all this while, and the -lamp burning to waste and your good bed yawning for you? You are not a -strong man enough to keep these hours, and for a priest they are not -decent ones.' - -'Peace, woman,' said Don Gesualdo in a tone which she had never heard -from him. He went within and closed the door. He longed for the light -of dawn, and yet he dreaded it. - -When the dawn came, it brought nothing to him except the knowledge that -the real murderer was there, within a quarter of a mile of him, and yet -could not be denounced by him to justice even to save the guiltless. - -The usual occupations of a week-day claimed his time, and he went -through them all with mechanical precision, but he spoke all his words -as in a dream, and the red sanded bricks of his house, the deal table, -with the black coffee and the round loaf set out on it, the stone -sink at which Candida was washing endive and cutting lettuces, the old -men and women who came and went telling their troubles garrulously and -begging for pence, the sunshine which streamed in over the threshold, -the poultry which picked up the crumbs off the floor, all these homely -and familiar things seemed unreal to him, and were seen as through a -mist. - -This little narrow dwelling, with the black cypress shadows falling -athwart it, which had once seemed to him the abode of perfect peace, -now seemed to imprison him, till his heart failed and died within him. - -In the dead of night, at the end of the week, moved by an unconquerable -impulse which had haunted him the whole seven days, he rose and lit a -lanthorn and let himself out of his own door noiselessly, stealthily, -as though he were on some guilty errand, and took the sexton's spade -from the tool-house and went across the black shadows which stretched -over the grass, towards the place where the body of Tasso Tassilo had -lain dead. In the moonlight there stood, tall and straight, a column of -green leaves, it was the stately Lombardy poplar, which was spared by -the hatchet because Marca was, so far as it understood anything, loyal -in its regret for the days that were gone. Many birds which had been -for hours sound asleep in its boughs flew out with a great whirr of -wings, and with chirps of terror, as the footfall of the vicar awakened -and alarmed them. He set his lanthorn down on the ground, for the rays -of the moon did not penetrate as far as the deep gloom the poplars -threw around them, and began to dig. He dug some little time without -success, then his spade struck against something which shone amidst -the dry clay soil: it was the knife. He took it up with a shudder. -There were dark red spots on the steel blade. It was a narrow, slightly -curved, knife, about six inches long, such a knife as every Italian of -the lower classes carries every day, in despite of the law, and with -which most Italian murders are committed. - -He looked at it long. If the inanimate thing could but have spoken, -could but have told the act which it had done! - -He, kneeling on the ground, gazed at it with a sickening fascination, -then he replaced it deeper down in the ground, and with his spade -smoothed the earth with which he covered it. The soil was so dry that -it did not show much trace of having been disturbed. Then he returned -homeward, convinced now of the truth of the confession made to him. -Some men met him on the road, country lads driving cattle early to a -distant fair; they saluted him with respect, but laughed when they had -passed him. - -What had his reverence, they wondered, been doing with a spade this -time of night? Did he dig for treasure? There was a tradition in the -country side, of sacks of ducal gold which had been buried by the river -to save them from the French troops in the time of the invasion by the -First Consul. - -Don Gesualdo, unconscious of their comments, went home, put the spade -back in the tool-house, unlocked his church, entered and prayed long; -then waking his sleepy sexton, bade him rise, and set the bell ringing -for the first mass. The man got up grumbling because it was still quite -dark, and next day talked to his neighbours about the queer ways of -his vicar; how he would walk all night about his room, sometimes get -up and go out in the dead of night even; he complained that his own -health and patience would soon give way. An uneasy feeling grew up in -the village, some gossips even suggested that the bishop should be -spoken to in the town; but everyone was fearful of being the first to -take such a step, and no one was sure how so great a person could be -approached, and the matter remained in abeyance. But the disquietude, -and the antagonism, which the manner and appearance of their priest -had created, grew with the growth of the year, and with it also the -impression that he knew more of the miller's assassination than he -would ever say. - -A horrible sense of being this man's accomplice grew also upon himself; -the bond of silence which he kept perforce with this wretch seemed -to him to make him so. His slender strength and sensitive nerves ill -fitted him to sustain so heavy a burden, so horrible a knowledge. - -'It has come to chastise me because I have thought of her too often, -have been moved by her too warmly,' he told himself; and his soul -shrank within him at what appeared the greatness of his own guilt. - -Since receiving the confession of the carter, he did not dare to seek -an interview with Generosa. He did not dare to look on her agonised -eyes and feel that he knew what could set her free and yet must never -tell it. He trembled, lest in sight of the suffering of this woman, who -possessed such power to move and weaken him, he should be untrue to his -holy office, should let the secret he had to keep escape him. Like all -timid and vacillating tempers, he sought refuge in procrastination. - -All unconscious of the growth of public feeling against him, and -wrapped in that absorption which comes from one dominant idea, he -pursued the routine of his parochial life, and went through all the -ceremonials of his office, hardly more conscious of what he did than -the candles which his sacristan lighted. The confession made to him -haunted him night and day. He saw it, as it were, written in letters of -blood on the blank, white walls of his bed-chamber, of his sacristy, of -his church itself. The murderer was there, at large, unknown to all; -at work like any other man in the clear, sweet sunshine, talking and -laughing, eating and drinking, walking and sleeping, yet as unsuspected -as a child unborn. And all the while Generosa was in prison. There was -only one chance left, that she should be acquitted by her judges. But -even then the slur and stain of an imputed, though unproven, crime -would always rest upon her and make her future dark, her name a by-word -in her birth-place. No mere acquittal, leaving doubt and suspicion -behind it, would give her back to the light and joy of life. Every -man's hand would be against her; every child would point at her as the -woman who had been accused of the assassination of her husband. - -One day he sought Falko Melegari, when the latter was making up the -accounts of his stewardship at an old bureau in a deep window-embrasure -of the villa. - -'You know that the date of the trial is fixed for the tenth of next -month?' he said, in a low, stifled voice. - -The young man, leaning back in his wooden chair, gave a sign of assent. - -'And you?' said Don Gesualdo, with a curious expression in his eyes, -'if they absolve her, will you have the courage to prove your own -belief in her innocence? Will you marry her when she is set free?' - -The question was abrupt and unlooked for; Falko changed colour; he -hesitated. - -'You will not!' said Don Gesualdo. - -'I have not said so,' answered the young man, evasively. 'I do not know -that she would exact it.' - -Exact it! Don Gesualdo did not know much of human nature, but he knew -what the use of that cold word implied. - -'I thought you loved her! I mistook,' he said, bitterly. A rosy flush -came for a moment on the wax-like pallor of his face. - -Falko Melegari looked at him insolently. - -'A churchman should not meddle with these things! Love her! I love -her--yes. It ruins my life to think of her yonder. I would cut off my -right arm to save her; but to marry her if she come out absolved--that -is another thing; one's name a by-word, one's credulity laughed at, -one's neighbours shy of one--that is another thing, I say. It will -not be enough for her judges to acquit her; that will not prove her -innocence to all the people here, or to my people at home in my own -country.' - -He rose and pushed his heavy chair away impatiently; he was ashamed of -his own words, but in the most impetuous Italian natures, prudence and -self-love are oftentimes the strongest instincts. The priest looked at -him with a great scorn in the depths of his dark, deep, luminous eyes. -This handsome and virile lover seemed to him a very poor creature; a -coward and faithless. - -'In the depths of your soul you doubt her yourself!' he said, with -severity and contempt, as he turned away from the writing table, and -went out through the windows into the garden beyond. - -'No, as God lives, I do not doubt her,' cried Falko Melegari. 'Not for -an hour, not for a moment. But to make others believe--that is more -difficult. I will maintain her and befriend her always if they set her -free; but marry her--take her to my people--have everyone say that my -wife had been in gaol on suspicion of murder--that I could not do; no -man would do it who had a reputation to lose. One loves for love's -sake, but one marries for the world's.' - -He spoke to empty air; there was no one to hear him but the little -green lizards who had slid out of their holes in the stone under -the window-step. Don Gesualdo had gone across the rough grass of -the garden, and had passed out of sight beyond the tall hedge of -rose-laurel. - -The young man resumed his writing, but he was restless and uneasy, and -could not continue his calculations of debit and credit, of loss and -profit. He took his gun, whistled his dog, and went up towards the -hills, where hares were to be found in the heather and snipe under the -gorse, for close time was unrecognised in the province. His temper was -ruffled, and his mind in great irritation against his late companion; -he felt angrily that he must have appeared a poltroon, and a poor and -unmanly lover in the eyes of the churchman. Yet he had only spoken, he -felt sure, as any other man would have done in his place. - -In the sympathy of their common affliction, his heart had warmed for -awhile to Gesualdo, as to the only one who, like himself, cared for the -fate of Tasso Tassilo's wife; but now that suspicion had entered into -him, there returned with it all his detestation of the Church and all -the secular hatreds which the gentle character of the priest of Marca -had for a time lulled in him. - -'Of course he is a liar and a hypocrite,' he thought, savagely. -'Perhaps he was a murderer as well!' - -He knew that the idea was a kind of madness. Don Gesualdo had never -been known to hurt a fly; indeed, his aversion to even see pain -inflicted had made him often the laughing-stock of the children of -Marca when he had rescued birds, or locusts, or frogs, from their -tormenting fingers, and forbade them to throw stones at the lambs or -kids they drove to pasture. 'They are not baptised,' the children had -often said, with a grin, and Gesualdo had often answered: 'The good God -baptised them Himself.' - -It was utter madness to suppose that such a man, tender as a woman, -timid as a sheep, gentle as a spaniel, could possibly have stabbed -Tasso Tassilo to the death within a few roods of his own church, -almost on holy ground itself. And yet, the idea grew and grew in -the mind of Generosa's lover until it acquired all the force of an -actual conviction. We welcome no supposition so eagerly as we do one -which accords with and intensifies our own prejudices. He neglected -his duties and occupations to brood over this one suspicion, and put -together all the trifles which he could remember in confirmation of -it. It haunted him wherever he was; at wine fair, at horse market, at -cattle sale, in the corn-field, amongst the vines, surrounded by his -peasantry at noonday, or alone in the wild, deserted garden of the -villa by moonlight. - -In his pain and fury, it was a solace to him to turn his hatred on to -some living creature. As he sat alone and thought over all which had -passed (as he did think of it night and day always), many a trifle -rose to his mind which seemed to him to confirm his wild and vague -suspicions of the vicar of San Bartolo. Himself a free-thinker, it -appeared natural to suspect any kind of crime in a member of the -priesthood. The sceptic is sometimes as narrow and as arrogant in his -free-thought as the believer in his bigotry. Falko Melegari was a -good-hearted young man, and kind, and gay, and generous by nature; but -he had the prejudices of his time and of his school. These prejudices -made him ready to believe that a priest was always fit food for the -galleys, or the scaffold, a mass of concealed iniquity covered by his -cloth. - -'I believe you know more than anyone,' he said, roughly, one day when -he passed the vicar on a narrow field-path, while his eyes flashed -suspiciously over the downcast face of Don Gesualdo, who shrank a -little as if he had received a blow, and was silent. - -He had spoken on an unconsidered impulse, and would have been unable to -say what his own meaning really was; but as he saw the embarrassment, -and observed the silence, of his companion, what he had uttered at -hazard seemed to him curiously confirmed and strengthened. - -'If you know anything which could save her, and you do not speak,' he -said, passionately, 'may all the devils you believe in torture you -through all eternity!' - -Don Gesualdo still kept silent. He made the sign of the cross -nervously, and went on his way. - -'Curse all these priests,' said the young man, bitterly, looking -after him. 'If one could only deal with them as one does with other -men!--but, in their vileness and their feebleness, they are covered by -their frock like women.' - -He was beside himself with rage and misery, and the chafing sense of -his own impotence; he was young, and strong, and ardently enamoured, -and yet he could do no more to save the woman he loved from eternal -separation from him than if he had been an idiot or an infant, than if -he had had no heart in his breast, and no blood in his veins. - -Whenever he met the vicar afterwards, he did not even touch his hat, -but scowled at him in scorn, and ceased those outward observances -of respect to the Church which he had always given before to please -his master, who liked such example to be set by the steward to the -peasantry. - -'If Ser Baldo send me away for it, so he must do,' he thought. 'I -will never set foot in the church again. I should choke that accursed -_parocco_ with his own wafer.' - -For suspicion is a poisonous weed which, if left to grow unchecked, -soon reaches maturity, and Falko Melegari soon persuaded himself that -his own suspicion was a truth, which only lacked time, and testimony, -to become as clear to all eyes as it was to his. - - -IV - -Meantime Don Gesualdo was striving with the utmost force that was in -him to persuade the real criminal to confess publicly what he had told -under the seal of confession. He saw the man secretly, and used every -argument with which the doctrines of his Church and his own intense -desires could supply him. But there is no obstinacy so dogged, no -egotism so impenetrable, no shield against persuasion so absolute, as -the stolid ignorance and self-love of a low mind. The carter turned a -deaf ear to all censure as to all entreaty; he was stolidly indifferent -to all the woe that he had caused and would cause if he remained -silent. What was all that to him? The thought of the miller's widow -shut up in prison pleased him. He had always hated her as he had seen -her in what he called her finery, going by him in the sunshine, with -all her bravery of pearl necklace, of silver hairpins, of gold breast -chains. Many and many a time he had thirsted to snatch at them and -pull them off her. What right had she to them, she, a daughter of -naked, hungry folks, who dug and carted sea and river sand for a living -even as he carted sacks of flour. She was no better than himself! Now -and then, Generosa had called him, in her careless, imperious fashion, -to draw water or carry wood for her, and when he had done so she never -had taken the trouble to bid him good day or to say a good-natured -word. His pride had been hurt, and he had had much ado to restrain -himself from calling her a daughter of beggars, a worm of the sand. -Like her own people, he was pleased that she should now find her fine -clothes and her jewelled trinkets of no avail to her, and that she -should weep the light out of her big eyes, and the rose-bloom off her -peach-like cheeks in the squalor and nausea of a town prison. - -Don Gesualdo, with all the force which a profound conviction that he -speaks the truth lends to any speaker, wrestled for the soul of this -dogged brute, and warned him of the punishment everlasting which would -await him if he persisted in his refusal to surrender himself to -justice. But he might as well have spoken to the great millstones that -rest in the river water. Why, then, had this wretch cast the burden of -his vile secret on innocent shoulders? It was the most poignant anguish -to him that he could awaken no sense of guilt in the conscience of the -criminal. The man had come to him partly from a vague superstitious -impulse, remnant of a credulity instilled into him in childhood, -and partly from the want to unburden his mind, to tell his story to -someone, which is characteristic of all weak minds in times of trouble -and peril. It had relieved him to drag the priest into sharing his own -guilty consciousness; he was half proud and half afraid of the manner -in which he had slain his master, and bitterly incensed that he had -done the deed for nothing; but, beyond this, he had no other emotion -except that he was glad that Generosa should suffer through and for it. - -'You will burn for ever if you persist in such hideous wickedness,' -said Don Gesualdo again and again to him. - -'I will take my chance of that,' said the man. 'Hell is far off, and -the galleys are near.' - -'But if you do not believe in my power to absolve you or leave you -accursed, why did you ever confess to me?' cried Don Gesualdo. - -'Because one must clear one's breast to somebody when one has a thing -like that on one's mind,' answered the carter, 'and I know you cannot -tell of it again.' - -From that position nothing moved him. No entreaties, threats, -arguments, denunciations, stirred him a hair's-breadth. He had -confessed _per sfogarsi_ (to relieve himself): that was all. - -But one night after Gesualdo had thus spoken to him, vague fears -assailed him, terrors material, not spiritual; he had parted with his -secret; who could tell that it might not come out like a sleuth hound, -and find him and denounce him? He had told it to be at peace, but he -was not at peace. He feared every instant to have the hand of the law -upon him. Whenever he heard the trot of the carabineers' horses going -through the village, or saw their white belts and cocked hats in the -sunlight of the fields, a cold tremor of terror seized him lest the -priest should after all have told. He knew that it was impossible, and -yet he was afraid. - -He counted up the money he had saved, a little roll of filthy and -crumpled bank notes for very small amounts, and wondered if they would -be enough to take him across to America. They were very few, but his -fear compelled him to trust to them. He invented a story of remittances -which he had received from his brother, and told his fellow-labourers -and his employer that he was invited to join that brother, and then he -packed up his few clothes and went. At the mill and in the village they -talked a little of it, saying that the fellow was in luck, but that -they for their parts would not care to go so far. Don Gesualdo heard of -his flight in the course of the day. - -'Gone away! Out of the country?' he cried involuntarily, with white -lips. - -The people who heard him wondered what it could matter to him that a -carter had gone to seek his fortunes over the seas. - -The carter had not been either such a good worker, or such a good boon -companion, that anyone at the mill or in the village should greatly -regret him. - -'America gets all our rubbish,' said the people, 'much good may it do -her.' - -Meantime, the man took his way across the country, and, sometimes by -walking, sometimes by lifts in waggons, sometimes by helping charcoal -burners on the road, made his way, first to Vendramino to have his -papers put in order, and then to the sea coast, and in the port of -Leghorn took his passage in an emigrant ship then loading there. The -green cane-brakes and peaceful millet fields of Marca saw him no more. - -But he had left the burden of his blood-guiltiness behind him, and it -lay on the guiltless soul with the weight of the world. - -So long as the man had remained in Marca, there had been always a -hope present with Don Gesualdo that he would persuade him to confess -in a court of justice what he had confessed to the church, or that -some sequence of accidents would lead up to the discovery of his -guilt. But with the ruffian gone across the seas, lost in that utter -darkness which swallows up the lives of the poor and obscure when -once they have left the hamlet in which their names mean something to -their neighbours, this one hope was quenched, and the vicar, in agony, -reproached himself with not having prevailed in his struggle for the -wretch's soul; with not having been eloquent enough, or wise enough, or -stern enough to awe him into declaration of his ghastly secret to the -law. - -His failure seemed to him a sign of Heaven's wrath against himself. - -'How dare I,' he thought, 'how dare I, feeble and timid and useless as -I am, call myself a servant of God, or attempt to minister to other -souls?' - -He had thought, like an imbecile, as he told himself, to be able to -awaken the conscience and compel the public confession of this man, -and the possibility of flight had never presented itself to his mind, -natural and simple as had been such a course to a creature without -remorse, continually haunted by personal fears of punishment. He, he -alone on earth, knew the man's guilt; he, he alone had the power to -save Generosa, and he could not use the power because the secrecy of -his holy office was fastened on him like an iron padlock on his lips. - -The days passed him like nightmares; he did his duties mechanically, -scarcely consciously; the frightful alternative which was set before -him seemed to parch up the very springs of life itself. He knew that -he must look strangely in the eyes of the people; his voice sounded -strangely in his own ears; he began to feel that he was unworthy to -administer the blessed bread to the living, to give the last unction to -the dying; he knew that he was not at fault, and yet he felt that he -was accursed. Choose what he would, he must, he thought, commit some -hateful sin. - -The day appointed for the trial came; it was the tenth of May. A hot -day, with the bees booming amongst the acacia flowers, and the green -tree-frogs shouting joyously above in the ilex tops, and the lizards -running in and out of the china-rose hedges on the highways. Many -people of Marca were summoned as witnesses, and these went to the town -in mule carts or crazy chaises, with the farm-horse put in the shafts, -and grumbled because they would lose their day's labour in their -fields, and yet were pleasurably excited at the idea of seeing Generosa -in the prisoner's dock, and being able themselves to tell all they -knew, and a great deal that they did not know. - -Falko Melegari rode over at dawn by himself, and Don Gesualdo, with -his housekeeper and sacristan, who were all summoned to give testimony, -went by the diligence, which started from Sant' Arturo, and rolled -through the dusty roads and over the bridges, and past the wayside -shrines, and shops, and forges, across the country to the town. - -The vicar never spoke throughout the four weary hours during which the -rickety and crowded vehicle, with its poor, starved, bruised beasts, -rumbled on its road through the lovely shadows and cool sunlight of -the early morning. He held his breviary in his hand for form's sake, -and, seeing him thus absorbed in holy meditation as they thought, -his garrulous neighbours did not disturb him, but chattered amongst -themselves, filling the honeysuckle-scented air with the odours of -garlic and wine and coarse tobacco. - -Candida glanced at him anxiously from time to time, haunted by a vague -presentiment of ill. His face looked very strange, she thought, and -his closely-locked lips were white as the lips of a corpse. When the -diligence was driven over the stones of the town, all the passengers -by it descended at the first wine-house which they saw on the piazza -to eat and drink, but he, with never a word, motioned his housekeeper -aside when she would have pressed food on him, and went into the -cathedral of the place to pray alone. - -The town was hot and dusty and sparsely peopled. It had brown walls -and large brick palaces untenanted, and ancient towers, also of brick, -pointing high to heaven. It was a place dear to the memory of lovers -of art for the sake of some fine paintings of the Sienese school which -hung in its churches, and was occasionally visited by strangers for -sake of these; but, for the most part, it was utterly forgotten by -the world, and its bridge of many arches, said to have been built by -Augustus, seldom resounded to any other echoes than those of the heavy -wheels of the hay or corn waggons coming in from the pastoral country -around. - -The Court-house, where all great trials took place, stood in one of -the bare, silent, dusty squares of the town. It had once been the -ancient palace of the Podesta, and had the machicolated walls, the -turreted towers, and the vast stairways and frescoed chambers of a -larger and statelier time than ours. The hall of justice was a vast -chamber pillared with marble, vaulted and painted, sombre and grand. -It was closely thronged with country folks; there was a scent of hay, -of garlic, of smoking pipes hastily thrust into trouser pockets, of -unwashed flesh steaming hotly in the crowd, and the close air. The -judge was there with his officers, a mediæval figure in black square -cap and black gown. The accused was behind the cage assigned to such -prisoners, guarded by carabineers and by the jailers. Don Gesualdo -looked in once from a distant doorway; then with a noise in his ears -like the sound of the sea, and a deadly sickness on him, he stayed -without in the audience-chamber, where a breath of air came to him up -one of the staircases, there waiting until his name was called. - -The trial began. Everything was the same as it had been in the -preliminary examination which had preceded her committal on the charge -of murder. The same depositions were made now that had then been made. -In the interval, the people of Marca had forgotten a good deal, so -added somewhat of their own invention to make up for the deficiency; -but, on the whole, the testimony was the same given with that -large looseness of statement, and absolute indifference to fact, so -characteristic of the Italian mind, the judge, from habit, sifting the -chaff from the wheat in the evidence with unerring skill, and following -with admirable patience the tortuous windings and the hazy imagination -of the peasants he examined. - -The examination of the vicar did not come on until the third day. These -seventy or eighty hours of suspense were terrible to him. He scarcely -broke his fast, or was conscious of what he did. The whole of the time -was passed by him listening in the court of justice, or praying in -the churches. When at last he was summoned, a cold sweat bathed his -face and hair; his hands trembled; he answered the interrogations of -the judge and of the advocates almost at random; his replies seemed -scarcely to be those of a rational being; he passionately affirmed her -innocence with delirious repetition and emphasis, which produced on the -minds of the examiners the contrary effect to that which he endeavoured -to create. - -'This priest knows that she is guilty,' thought the president. 'He -knows it--perhaps he knows even more--perhaps he was her accomplice.' - -His evidence, his aspect, his wild and contradictory words, did as -much harm to her cause as he ignorantly strove to do good. From other -witnesses of Marca, the Court had learned that a great friendship had -always been seen to exist between the vicar of San Bartolo and Generosa -Fè, and that on the morning when the murder was discovered, the priest -had removed the body of the dead man to the sacristy, forestalling the -officers of justice and disturbing the scene of the murder. A strong -impression against him was created beforehand in the audience and on -the bench, and his pallid, agitated countenance, his incoherent words, -his wild eyes, which incessantly sought the face of the prisoner, -all gave him the appearance of a man conscious of some guilt himself -and driven out of his mind by fear. The president cross-examined him -without mercy, censured him, railed at him, and did his uttermost to -extract the truth which he believed that Don Gesualdo concealed, but to -no avail; incoherent and half-insane as he seemed, he said no syllable -which could betray that which he really knew. Only when his eyes -rested on Generosa, there was such an agony in them that she herself -was startled by it. - -'Who would ever have dreamt that he would have cared so much?' she -thought. 'But he was always a tender soul; he always pitied the birds -in the traps, and the oxen that went to the slaughter.' - -Reproved, and censured without stint, for the president knew that to -insult a priest was to merit promotion in high quarters, Don Gesualdo -was at last permitted to escape from his place of torture. Blind and -sick he got away through the crowd, past the officials, down the -stairs, and out into the hot air. The piazza was thronged with people -who could not find standing room in the Court-house. The murmur of -their rapid and loud voices was like the noise of a sea on his ears; -they had all the same burden. They all repeated like one man the same -words: 'They will condemn her,' and then wondered what sentence she -would receive; whether a score of years of seclusion or a lifetime. - -He went through the chattering, curious cruel throng, barbarous with -that barbarity of the populace, which in all countries sees with glee a -bull die, a wrestler drop, a malefactor ascend the scaffold, or a rat -scour the streets soaked in petroleum and burning alive. The dead man -had been nothing to them, and his wife had done none of them any harm, -yet there was not a man or a woman, a youth or a girl in the crowd, who -would not have felt that he or she was defrauded of his entertainment -if she were acquitted by her judges, although there was a general sense -amongst them that she had done no more than had been natural, and no -more than had been her right. - -The dark, slender, emaciated figure of the priest glided through the -excited and boisterous groups; the air had the heat of summer; the -sky above was blue and cloudless; the brown brick walls of church and -palace seemed baking in the light of the sun. In the corner of the -square was a fountain relic of the old times when the town had been -a place of pageantry and power; beautiful pale green water, cold and -fresh, leaping and flowing around marble dolphins. Don Gesualdo stooped -and drank thirstily, as though he would never cease to drink, then -went on his way and pushed aside the leathern curtain of the cathedral -door and entered into the coolness and solitude of that place of refuge. - -There he stretched himself before the cross in prayer, and wept bitter, -burning, unavailing tears for the burden which he bore of another's sin -and his own helplessness beneath it, which seemed to him like a greater -crime. - -But even at the very altar of his God, peace was denied him. Hurried, -loud, impetuous steps from heavy boots fell on the old, worn, marble -floor of the church, and Falko Melegari strode up behind him and laid a -heavy hand upon his shoulders. The young man's face was deeply flushed, -his eyes were savage, his breath was quick and uneven; he had no heed -for the sanctity of the place or of his companion. - -'Get up and hear me,' he said, roughly. 'They all say the verdict will -be against her; you heard them.' - -Don Gesualdo made a gesture of assent. - -'Very well, then,' said the steward, through his clenched teeth, 'if it -be so, indeed, I swear, as you and I live, that I will denounce you to -the judges in her stead.' - -Don Gesualdo did not speak. He stood in a meditative attitude with -his arms folded on his chest. He did not express either surprise or -indignation. - -'I will denounce you,' repeated Melegari, made more furious by his -silence. 'What did you do at night with your spade under the Grand -Duke's poplars? Why did you carry in and screen the corpse? Does not -the whole village talk of your strange ways and your altered habits? -There is more than enough against you to send to the galleys a score of -better men than you. Anyhow, I will denounce you if you do not make a -clean breast of all you know to the president to-morrow. You are either -the assassin or the accomplice, you accursed, black-coated hypocrite!' - -A slight flush rose on the waxen pallor of Don Gesualdo's face, but he -still kept silence. - -The young man, watching him with eyes of hatred, saw guilt in that -obstinate and mulish dumbness. - -'You dare not deny it, trained liar though you be!' he said, with -passionate scorn. 'Oh, wretched cur, who ventures to call yourself a -servitor of heaven, you would let her drag all her years out in misery -to save your own miserable, puling, sexless, worthless life! Well! hear -me and understand. No one can say that I do not keep my word, and here, -by the cross which hangs above us, I take my oath that if you do not -tell all you know to-morrow, should she be condemned, I will denounce -you to the law, and if the law fail to do justice, I will kill you as -Tasso Tassilo was killed. May I die childless, penniless, and accursed -if my hand fail!' - -Then, with no other word, he strode from the church, the golden -afternoon sunshine streaming through the stained windows above and -falling on his fair hair, his flushed face, his flaming eyes, till his -common humanity seemed all transfigured. He looked like the avenging -angel of Tintoretto's Paradise. - -Don Gesualdo stood immovable in the deserted church; his arms crossed -on his breast, his head bent. A great resolve, a mighty inspiration, -had descended on him with the furious words of his foe. Light had come -to him as from heaven itself. He could not give up the secret which -had been confided to him in the confessional, but he could give up -himself. His brain was filled with legends of sacrifice and martyrdom. -Why might he not become one of that holy band of martyrs? - -Nay, he was too humble to place himself beside them even in thought. -The utmost he could do, he knew, would be only expiation for what -seemed to him his ineffaceable sin in letting any human affection, -however harmless, unselfish, and distant, stain the singleness and -purity of his devotion to his vows. He had been but a fisher-boy, until -he had taken his tender heart and his ignorant mind to the seminary, -and he had been born with the soul of a San Rocco, of a S. John, out -of place, out of time, in the world he lived in; a soul in which the -passions of faith and of sacrifice were as strong as are the passions -of lust and of selfishness in other natures. The spiritual world was to -him a reality, and the earth, with its merciless and greedy peoples, -its plague of lusts, its suffering hearts, its endless injustice, an -unreal and hideous dream. - -To his temper, the sacrifice which suddenly rose before him as his -duty, appeared one which would reconcile him at once to the Deity he -had offended, and the humanity he was tempted to betray. To his mind, -enfeebled and exhausted by long fasting of the body and denial of every -natural indulgence, such sacrifice of self seemed an imperious command -from heaven. He would drag out his own life in misery, and obloquy, -indeed, but what of that? Had not the great martyrs and founders of his -Church endured as much or more? Was it not by such torture, voluntarily -accepted and endured on earth, that the grace of God was won? - -He would tell a lie, indeed; he would draw down ignominy on the name -of the Church; he would make men believe that an anointed priest was -a common murderer, swayed by low and jealous hatreds; but of this he -did not think. In the tension and perplexity of his tortured soul, the -vision of a sacrifice in which he would be the only sufferer, in which -the woman would be saved, and the secret told to him be preserved, -appeared as a heaven-sent solution of the doubts and difficulties in -his path. Stretched in agonised prayer before one of the side altars of -the cathedral, he imagined the afternoon sunbeams streaming through -the high window on his face to be the light of a celestial world, and -in the hush and heat of the incense-scented air, he believed that he -heard a voice which cried to him, 'By suffering all things are made -pure.' - -He was not a wise, or strong, or educated man. He had the heart of a -poet, and the mind of a child. There was a courage in him to which -sacrifice was welcome, and there was a credulity in him which made all -exaggeration of simple faith possible. He was young and ignorant and -weak; yet at the core of his heart there was a dim heroism: he could -suffer and be mute, and in the depths of his heart he loved this woman -better than himself, with a love which in his belief made him accursed -for all time. - -When he at last arose and went out of the church doors, his mind was -made up to the course that he would take; an immense calm had descended -upon the unrest of his soul. - -The day was done, the sun had set, the scarlet flame of its afterglow -bathed all the rusty walls and dusty ground with colours of glory. The -crowd had dispersed; there was no sound in the deserted square except -the ripple of the water as it fell from the dolphins' mouths into the -marble basin. As he heard that sweet, familiar murmur of the falling -stream, the tears rose in his eyes and blotted out the flame-like pomp -and beauty of the skies. Never again would he hear the water of the -Marca river rushing, in cool autumn days, past the poplar stems and the -primrose roots upon its mossy banks; never again would he hear in the -place of his birth the grey-green waves of Arno sweeping through the -cane-brakes to the sea. - -At three of the clock on the following day the judgment was given in -the court. - -Generosa Fè was decreed guilty of the murder of her husband, and -sentenced to twenty years of solitary confinement. She dropped like a -stone when she heard the sentence, and was carried out from the court -insensible. Her lover, when he heard it, gave a roar of anguish like -that of some great beast in torment, and dashed his head against the -wall and struggled like a mad bull in the hands of the men who tried to -hold him. Don Gesualdo, waiting without, on the head of the staircase, -did not even change countenance; to him this bitterness, as of the -bitterness of death, had been long past; he had been long certain what -the verdict would be, and he had, many hours before, resolved on his -own part. - -A great calm had come upon his soul, and his face had that tranquillity -which comes alone from a soul which is at peace within itself. - -The sultry afternoon shed its yellow light on the brown and grey and -dusty town; the crowd poured out of the Court-house, excited, contrite, -voluble, pushing and bawling at one another, ready to take the side -of the condemned creature now that she was the victim of the law. The -priest alone of them all did not move; he remained sitting on the -upright chair under a sculptured allegory of Justice and Equity which -was on the arch above his head, and with the golden light of sunset -falling down on him through the high casement above. He paid no heed -to the hurrying of the crowd, to the tramp of guards, to the haste of -clerks and officials eager to finish their day's work and get away -to their wine and dominoes at the taverns. His hands mechanically -held his breviary; his lips mechanically repeated a Latin formula of -prayer. When all the people were gone, one of the custodians of the -place touched his arm, telling him that they were about to close the -doors; he raised his eyes like one who is wakened from a trance, and to -the man said quietly: - -'I would see the president of the court for a moment, quite alone. Is -it possible?' - -After many demurs and much delay, they brought him into the presence of -the judge, in a small chamber of the great palace. - -'What do you want with me?' asked the judge, looking nervously at the -white face and the wild eyes of his unbidden visitant. - -Don Gesualdo answered: 'I am come to tell you that you have condemned -an innocent woman.' - -The judge looked at him with sardonic derision and contempt. - -'What more?' he asked. 'If she be innocent, will you tell me who is -guilty?' - -'I am,' replied the priest. - -At his trial he never spoke. - -With his head bowed and his hands clasped, he stood in the cage where -she had stood, and never replied by any single word to the repeated -interrogations of his judges. Many witnesses were called, and all they -said testified to the apparent truth of his self-accusation. Those who -had always vaguely suspected him, all those who had seen him close -the door of the sacristy on the crowd when he had borne the murdered -man within, the mule drivers who had seen him digging at night under -the great poplars, the sacristan who had been awakened by him that -same night so early, even his old housekeeper, though she swore that -he was a lamb, a saint, an angel, a creature too good for earth, a -holy man whose mind was distraught by fasting, by visions, these -all, either wilfully or ignorantly, bore witness which confirmed his -own confession. The men of law had the mould and grass dug up under -the Grand Duke's poplar, and when the blood-stained knife was found -therein, the very earth, it seemed, yielded up testimony against him. - -In the end, after many weeks of investigation, Generosa was released -and Don Gesualdo was sentenced in her place. - -Falko Melegari married her, and they went to live in his own country in -the Lombard plains, and were happy and prosperous, and the village of -Marca and the waters of its cane-shadowed stream knew them no more. - -Sometimes she would say to her husband: 'I cannot think that he was -guilty; there was some mystery in it.' - -Her husband always laughed, and said in answer: 'He was guilty, be -sure; it was I who frightened him into confession; those black rats of -the Church have livers as white as their coats are black.' - -Generosa did not wholly believe, but she thrust the grain of doubt and -of remorse away from her and played with her handsome children. After -all, she mused, what doubt could there be? Did not Don Gesualdo himself -reveal his guilt, and had he not always cared for her, and was not the -whole population of Marca willing to bear witness that they had always -suspected him and had only held their peace out of respect for the -Church? - -He himself lived two long years amongst the galley-slaves of the -western coast; all that time he never spoke, and he was considered by -the authorities to be insane. Then, in the damp and cold of the third -winter, his lungs decayed, his frail strength gave way, he died of -what they called tuberculosis, in the spring of the year. In his last -moments there was seen a light of unspeakable ecstasy upon his face, a -smile of unspeakable rapture on his mouth. - -'Domine Deus libera me!' he murmured, as he died. - -A bird came and sang at the narrow casement of his prison cell as his -spirit passed away. It was a nightingale: perchance one of those who -had once sung to him in the summer nights from the wild-rose hedge at -Marca. - - - - -THE SILVER CHRIST - - - - -THE SILVER CHRIST - - -I - -Genistrello is a wild place in the Pistoiese hills. - -Its name is derived from the genista or broom which covers many an acre -of the soil, and shares with the stone pine and the sweet chestnut the -scanty earth which covers its granite and sandstone. It is beautiful -exceedingly; but its beauty is only seen by those to whom it is a dead -letter which they have no eyes to read. It is one of the many spurs -of the Apennines which here lie overlapping one another in curve upon -curve of wooded slopes with the higher mountains rising behind them; -palaces, which once were fortresses, hidden in their valleys, and -ruined castles, or deserted monasteries, crowning their crests. - -From some of these green hills the sea is visible, and when the sun -sets where the sea is and the red evening glows behind the distant -peaks, it is lovely as a poet's dream. - -On the side of this lonely hill, known as Genistrello, there dwelt -a man of the name of Castruccio Lascarisi. He was called 'Caris' by -the whole countryside; indeed, scarcely any knew that he had another -patronymic, so entirely amongst these people does the nickname -extinguish, by its perpetual use, the longer appellative. - -His family name was of Greek extraction undoubtedly; learned Greeks -made it familiar in the Italian Renaissance, at the courts of Lorenzo -and of Ludovico; but how it had travelled to the Pistoiese hills to be -borne by unlearned hinds none knew, any more than any know who first -made the red tulip blossom as a wild flower amidst the wheat, or who -first sowed the bulb of the narcissus amongst the wayside grass. - -He lived miles away from the chapel and the hamlet. He had a little -cabin in the heart of the chestnut woods, which his forefathers had -lived in before him; they had no title which they could have shown -for it except usage, but that had been title enough for them, and was -enough for Caris. - -It had been always so. It would be always so. His ideas went no -further. The autumnal migration was as natural and inevitable to him -as to the storks and herons and wild duck which used to sail over his -head, going southward like himself as he walked through the Tuscan to -the Roman Maremma. But his dislike to the Maremma winters was great, -and had never changed in him since he had trotted by his father's -side, a curly-pated baby in a little goatskin shirt looking like a -Correggio's St. John. - -What he longed for, and what he loved, were the cool heights of -Genistrello and the stone hut with the little rivulet of water gushing -at its threshold. No one had ever disturbed his people there. It was -a square little place built of big unmortared stones in old Etruscan -fashion; the smoke from the hearth went out by a hole in the roof, and -a shutter and door of unplaned wood closed its only apertures. - -The lichen and weeds and mosses had welded the stones together, and -climbed up over its conical rush roof. No better home could be needed -in summer-time; and when the cold weather came, he locked the door and -went down with his pack on his back and a goatshair belt round his -loins to take the familiar way to the Roman Maremma. - -Caris was six-and-twenty years old; he worked amongst the chestnut -woods in summer and went to the Maremma for field labour in the winter, -as so many of these husbandmen do; walking the many leagues which -separate the provinces, and living hardly in both seasons. The songs -they sing are full of allusions to this semi-nomadic life, and the -annual migration has been a custom ever since the world was young--when -the great Roman fleets anchored where now are sand and marsh, and -stately classic villas lifted their marble to the sun where now the -only habitation seen is the charcoal-burner's rush-roofed, moss-lined -hut. - -Caris was a well-built, lithe, slender son of the soil, brown from -sun and wind, with the straight features and the broad low brows of -the classic type, and great brown eyes like those of the oxen which -he drove over the vast plains down in the Maremma solitudes. He knew -nothing except his work. - -He was not very wise, and he was wholly unlearned, but he had a love -of nature in his breast, and he would sit at the door of his hut at -evening time, with his bowl of bean-soup between his knees, and often -forget to eat in his absorbed delight as the roseate glow from the -vanished sunrays overspread all the slopes of the Pistoiese Apennines -and the snow-crowned crests of the Carara mountains. - -'What do you see there, goose?' said a charcoal-burner, once passing -him as he sat thus upon his threshold with the dog at his feet. - -Caris shrugged his shoulders stupidly and half-ashamed. He could not -read the great book outspread upon the knees of the mountains, yet he -imperfectly felt the beauty of its emblazoned pages. - -The only furniture in the cabin was a table made of a plank, two rude -benches, and one small cupboard; the bed was only dried leaves and -moss. There were a pipkin, two platters, and a big iron pot which swung -by a cord and a hook over the stones where the fire, when lighted, -burned. They were enough; he would not have known what to do with more -if he had had more. He was only there from May to October; and in the -fragrant summers of Italian chestnut woods, privation is easily borne. -The winter life was harder and more hateful; yet it never occurred to -him to do else than to go to Maremma; his father and grandfather had -always gone thither, and as naturally as the chestnuts ripen and fall, -so do the men in autumn join the long lines of shepherds and drovers -and women and children and flocks and herds which wind their way down -the mountain slopes and across the level wastes of plain and marsh to -seek herbage and work for the winter-time. - -It never entered the head of Caris, or of the few who knew him or -worked with him, to wonder how he and his had come thither. They were -there as the chestnut-trees were, as the broom was, as the goats and -squirrels and wood-birds were there. The peasant no more wonders -about his own existence than a stone does. For generations a Lascaris -had lived in that old stone hut which might itself be a relic of an -Etruscan tomb or temple. No one was concerned to know further. - -The peasant does not look back; he only sees the road to gain his daily -meal of bread or chestnuts. The past has no meaning to him, and to -the future he never looks. That is the reason why those who want to -cultivate or convince him fail utterly. If a man cannot see the horizon -itself, it is of no use to point out to him spires or trees or towers -which stand out against it. - -The world has never understood that the moment the labourer is made -to see, he is made unhappy, being ill at ease and morbidly envious -and ashamed, and wholly useless. Left alone, he is content in his own -ruminant manner, as the buffalo is when left untormented amidst the -marshes, grazing at peace and slumbering amidst the rushes and the -canes. - -Caris was thus content. He had health and strength, though sometimes -he had a fever-chill from new-turned soil and sometimes a frost-chill -from going out on an empty stomach before the sun had broken the deep -shadows of the night. But from these maladies all outdoor labourers -suffer, and he was young, and they soon passed. He had been the only -son of his mother; and this fact had saved him from conscription. As -if she had lived long enough when she had rendered him this service, -she died just as he had fulfilled his twenty-third year; and without -her the stone hut seemed for awhile lonely; he had to make his fire, -and boil or roast his chestnuts, and mend holes in his shirts, and make -his own rye loaves; but he soon got used to this, and when in Maremma -he always worked with a gang, and was fed and lodged--badly, indeed, -but regularly--at the huge stone burn which served such purposes on -the vast tenuta where the long lines of husbandmen toiled from dusk of -dawn to dusk of eve under the eye and lash of their overseer; and when -on his native slopes of Genistrello he was always welcome to join the -charcoal-burners' rough company or the woodsmen's scanty supper, and -seldom passed, or had need to pass, his leisure hours alone. And these -were very few. - -His mother had been a violent-tempered woman, ruling him with a rod of -iron, as she had ruled her husband before him; a woman loud of tongue, -stern of temper, dreaded for miles around as a witch and an evil-eye; -and although the silence and solitude which reigned in the cabin after -her death oppressed him painfully at first, he soon grew used to these, -and found the comfort of them. He brought a dog with him after his -winter in Maremma which followed on his mother's loss--a white dog of -the Maremma breed, and he and the dog kept house together in the lonely -woods in fellowship and peace. Caris was gentle and could never beat or -kick a beast as others of his kind do; and the oxen he drove knew this. -He felt more akin to them and to the dogs than he did to the men with -whom he worked. He could not have expressed or explained this, but he -felt it. - -He had little mind, and what he had moved slowly when it moved at all; -but he had a generous nature, a loyal soul, and a simple and manly -enjoyment of his hard life. It did not seem hard to him. He had run -about on his bare feet all his childhood until their soles were as hard -as leather, and he was so used to his daily meal of chestnuts in cold -weather, and of maize or rye-bread with cabbage, or bean-soup, in the -hot season, that he never thought of either as meagre fare. In summer -he wore rough hempen shirt and trousers; in winter goatskin and rough -homespun wool. In appearance, in habits, in clothing, in occupation, he -differed little from the peasant who was on that hillside in the times -of Pliny and of Properticus. Only the gods were changed; Pan piped no -more in the thicket, the Naiad laughed no longer in the brook, the -Nymph and Satyr frolicked never beneath the fronds of the ferns. - -In their stead there was only a little gaudy chapel on a stony slope, -and a greasy, double-chinned, yellow-cheeked man in black, who frowned -if you did not give him your hardly-earned pence, and lick the uneven -bricks of the chapel floor when he ordered you a penance. - -Caris cared little for that man's frown. - -He sat thus at his door one evening when the sun was setting behind the -many peaks and domes of the Apennine spurs which fronted him. The sun -itself had sunk beyond them half an hour before, but the red glow which -comes and stays long after it was in the heavens and on the hills. - -Genistrello was a solitary place, and only here and there a hut or cot -like his own was hidden away under the saplings and undergrowth. Far -away down in the valley were the belfries and towers of the little -strong-walled city which had been so often as a lion in the path to the -invading hosts of Germany; and like a narrow white cord the post-road, -now so rarely used, wound in and out until its slender thread was lost -in the blue vapours of the distance, and the shadows from the clouds. - -Bells were tolling from all the little spires and towers on the hills -and in the valleys, for it was a vigil, and there was the nearer tinkle -of the goats' bells under the heather and broom as those innocent -marauders cropped their supper off the tender chestnut-shoots, the -trails of ground ivy, and the curling woodbine. Caris, with his bowl -of bean-soup between his knees and his hunch of rye-bread in his hand, -ate hungrily, whilst his eyes filled themselves with the beauty of -the landscape. His stomach was empty--which he knew, and his soul was -empty--which he did not know. - -He looked up, and saw a young woman standing in front of him. She was -handsome, with big, bright eyes, and a rosy mouth, and dusky glossy -hair coiled up on her head like a Greek Venus. - -He had never seen her before, and her sudden apparition there startled -him. - -'Good-even, Caris,' she said familiarly, with a smile like a burst of -sunlight. 'Is the mother indoors, eh?' - -Caris continued to stare at her. - -'Eh, are you deaf?' she asked impatiently. 'Is the mother in, I want to -know?' - -'My mother is dead,' said Caris, without preamble. - -'Dead! When did she die?' - -'Half a year ago,' said Caris, with the peasant's confusion of dates -and elongation of time. - -'That is impossible,' said the young woman quickly. 'I saw her myself -and spoke with her here on this very spot in Easter week. What makes -you say she is dead?' - -'Because she is dead!' said Caris doggedly. 'If you do not believe it, -go and ask the sacristan and sexton over there.' - -He made a gesture of his head towards the belfry of an old hoary -church, dedicated to St. Fulvo, which was seven miles away amongst the -chestnut woods of an opposing hillside, and where his mother had been -buried by her wish, because it was her birthplace. - -The girl this time believed him. She was dumb for a little while -with astonishment and regret. Then she said, in a tone of awe and -expectation, 'She left her learning and power with you, eh?--and the -books?' - -'No,' said Caris rudely. 'I had all the uncanny things buried with -her. What use were they? She lived and died with scarce a shift to her -back.' - -'Oh!' said the girl, in a shocked tone, as though she reproved a -blasphemy. 'She was a wonderful woman, Caris.' - -Caris laughed a little. - -'Eh, you say so. Well, all her wisdom never put bit nor drop in her -mouth nor a copper piece in her hand that I did not work for; what use -was it, pray?' - -'Hush. Don't speak so!' said the maiden, looking timidly over her -shoulder to the undergrowth and coppice growing dim in the shadows of -the evening. - -'Tis the truth!' said Caris stubbornly. 'I did my duty by her, poor -soul; and yet I fear me the Evil One waited for her all the while, -for as soon as the rattle came in her throat, a white owl flapped and -screeched on the thatch, and a black cat had sat on the stones yonder -ever since the sun had set.' - -'The saints preserve us!' murmured the girl, her rich brown and red -skin growing pale. - -There was silence; Caris finished munching his bread; he looked now -and then at his visitor with open-eyed surprise and mute expectation. - -'You have buried the things with her?' she asked him, in a low tone, at -length. - -He nodded in assent. - -'What a pity! What a pity!' - -'Why that?' - -'Because if they are underground with her nobody can use them.' - -Caris stared with his eyes wider opened still. - -'What do you want with the devil's tools, a fresh, fair young thing -like you?' - -'Your mother used them for me,' she answered crossly. 'And she had told -me a number of things--ay, a vast number! And just in the middle uncle -spied us out, and he swore at her and dragged me away, and I had never -a chance to get back here till to-night, and now--now you say she is -dead, and she will never tell me aught any more.' - -'What can you want so sore to know?' said Caris, with wonder, as he -rose to his feet. - -'That is my business,' said the girl. - -'True, so it is,' said Caris. - -But he looked at her with wonder in his dark-brown, ox-like eyes. - -'Where do you live?' he asked; 'and how knew you my name?' - -'Everybody knows your name,' she answered. 'You are Caris, the son of -Lisabetta, and when you sit on your doorstep it would be a fool indeed -would not see who you are.' - -'So it would,' said Caris. 'But you,' he added after a pause, 'who are -you? And what did you want with Black Magic?' - -'I am Santina, the daughter of Neri, the smith, by the west gate in -Pistoia,' she said in reply to the first question, and making none to -the second. - -'But what wanted you of my mother?' he persisted. - -'They said she knew strange things,' said the girl evasively. - -'If she did she had little profit of them,' said Caris sadly. - -The girl looked at him with great persuasiveness in her face, and -leaned a little nearer to him. - -'You did not really bury the charms with her? You have got them inside? -You will let me see them, eh?' - -'As the saints live, I buried them,' said Caris truthfully; 'they were -rubbish, or worse; accursed maybe. They are safe down in the ground -till the Last Day. What can such a bright wench as yourself want with -such queer, unhallowed notions?' - -The girl Santina glanced over her shoulders to make sure that no one -was listening; then she said in a whisper: - -'There is the Gobbo's treasure in these woods somewhere--and Lisabetta -had the wand that finds gold and silver.' - -Caris burst into a loud laugh. - -'Ah, truly! That is a good jest. If she could find gold and silver, why -did we always have iron spoons for our soup, and a gnawing imp in our -stomachs? Go to, my maiden. Do not tell such tales. Lisabetta was a -poor and hungry woman all her days, and scarce left enough linen to lay -her out in decently, so help me Heaven!' - -The girl shook her head. - -'You know there is the treasure in the woods,' she said angrily. - -'Nay, I never heard of it. Oh, the Gobbo's? Che-che! For hundreds of -years they have grubbed for it all over the woods, and who ever found -anything, eh?' - -'Your mother was very nigh it often and often. She told me.' - -'In her dreams, poor soul!' - -'But dreams mean a great deal.' - -'Sometimes,' said Caris seriously. 'But what is it to you?' he added, -the suspicion always inherent to the peasant struggling with his -admiration of the girl, who, unbidden, had seated herself upon the -stone before the door. With feminine instinct she felt that to make him -do what she wished, she must confide in him, or appear to confide. - -And thereon she told him that unless she could save herself, her family -would wed her to a wealthy old curmudgeon who was a cart-maker in -the town; and to escape this fate she had interrogated the stars by -means of the dead Lisabetta and of the astrologer Faraone, who dwelt -also in the hills, but this latter reader of destiny would tell her -nothing, because he was a friend of her father's, and now the witch of -Genistrello was dead and had left her fate but half told! - -'What did she tell you?' said Caris, wincing at the word witch. - -'Only that I should go over the mountains to some city and grow rich. -But it was all dark--obscure--uncertain; she said she would know more -next time; and how could I tell that before I came again she would have -died?' - -'You could not tell that, no,' said Caris absently. - -He was thinking of the elderly well-to-do wheelwright in the town, -and he felt that he would have liked to brain him with one of his -own wooden spokes or iron linchpins. For the girl Santina was very -beautiful as she sat there with her large eyes shining in the shadows -and the tears of chagrin and disappointment stealing down her cheeks. -For her faith in her charms and cards had been great, and in her bosom -there smouldered desires and ideas of which she did not speak. - -She saw the effect that her beauty produced, and said to herself: 'He -shall dig up the things before he is a week older.' - -She got up with apparent haste and alarm; seeing how dark it had grown -around her, only a faint red light lingering far away above the lines -of the mountains. - -'I am staying at the four roads with my aunt, who married Massaio,' -she said as she looked over her shoulder and walked away between the -chestnut sapling and the furze. - -Caris did not offer to accompany or try to follow her. He stood like -one bewitched watching her lithe, erect figure run down the hill and -vanish as the path wound out of sight amongst the pines. No woman had -ever moved him thus. He felt as if she had poured into him at once -scalded wine and snow-water. - -She was so handsome and bold and lissom, and yet she made his flesh -creep talking of his mother's incantations, and bidding him knock at -the door of the grave. - -'What an awful creature for tempting a man is a woman,' he thought, -'and they will scream at their own shadows one minute and dare the -devil himself the next!' - -That night Caris sat smoking his black pipe on the stone before the -door where she had sat, and the scalded wine and the snow-water coursed -by turns feverishly through his veins, as once through Cymon's. - - -II - -'Where hast been, hussy?' said Massaio crossly, yet jokingly, to his -niece when she went home that night. - -The four roads was a place where the four cart-tracks at the foot of -that group of hills met and parted; the man was a seller of wood, and -his cottage and his wood-yards and sheds thatched with furze stood -where the four roads met under some huge stone pines. The aunt of -Santina had married there many years before. - -They were people well-off, who ate meat, drank wine, and had a house -full of hardware, pottery, and old oak: people as far removed from -Caris and his like as if they had been lords or princes. He knew them -by sight, and doffed his hat to them in the woods. - -The thought that she was the niece of Massaio, the man who paid for his -wood and charcoal with rolls of banknotes, and sent his own mules to -bring the loads down from the hills, placed Santina leagues away from -and above him. - -The only women with whom he had ever had any intercourse had been the -rude wenches who tramped with the herds, and dug and hoed and cut grass -and grain on the wastes of the Maremma; creatures burnt black with the -sun and wrinkled by the winds, and with skin hard and hairy, and feet -whose soles were like wood--'la femelle de l'homme,' but not so clean -of hide or sweet of breath as the heifers they drove down along the -sea-ways in autumn weather. - -This girl who called herself Santina was wholesome as lavender, fresh -as field thyme, richly and fairly odoured as the flower of the wild -pomegranate. - -When supper was over and the house was on the point of being bolted and -barred, Santina threw her brown soft round arm round her uncle's neck. - -'I went down to see Don Fabio, and he was out, and I sat talking with -his woman and forgot the time,' she said penitently. - -Don Fabio was the priest of the little gaudy church low down in the -valley where the post-road ran. - -Massaio patted the cheek, which was like an apricot, and believed her. - -Her aunt did not. - -'There is still snow where the man of God lives up yonder, and there is -no water, only dust, on her shoes,' thought the shrewd observer. - -But she did not say so; for she had no wish to put her husband out of -humour with her kinsfolk. - -But to Santina, when with her alone, she said testily: - -'I fear you are going again to the black arts of that woman Lisabetta; -no good ever is got of them; it is playing with fire, and the devil -breathes the fire out of his mouth!' - -'I cannot play with it if I wished,' said Santina innocently; -'Lisabetta is dead months ago.' - -'That is no loss to anybody if it be true,' said Eufemia Massaio -angrily. - -Lisabetta had been such an obscure and lonely creature, that her -death had been taken little note of anywhere, and the busy, bustling -housewife of Massaio had had no heed of such an event. She had not even -known the woman by sight; had only been cognizant of her evil repute -for powers of sorcery. - -Santina went up to her room, which she shared with three of the Massaio -children. Long after they were sleeping in a tangle of rough hair and -brown limbs and healthy rosy nudity, the girl, their elder, sat up on -the rude couch staring at the moon through the little square window. - -She was thinking of words that Lisabetta had said, as she had dealt out -the cards and gazed in a bowl of spring water, 'Over the hills and far -away; wealth and pleasure and love galore--where? how? when?--ay, that -is hid; but we shall see, we shall see; only over the hills you go, and -all the men are your slaves.' - -How? when? where? That was hidden with the dead fortune-teller under -the earth. - -Santina did not for a moment doubt the truth of the prophecy, but she -was impatient for its fulfilment to begin. She knew she was of unusual -beauty, and the organist at the duomo in Pistoia had told her that her -voice was of rare compass, and only wanted tuition to be such a voice -as fetches gold in the big world which lay beyond these hills. But that -was all. - -She could sing well and loudly, and she knew all the 'canzoe' and -'stornelli' of the district by heart; but there her knowledge stopped; -and no one had cared to instruct or enlighten her more. Her own family -thought the words of the organist rubbish. - -There are so many of these clear-voiced, flute-throated girls and boys -singing in their adolescence in the fields and woods and highways; but -no one thinks anything of their carols, and life and its travail tell -on them and make them hoarse, and their once liquid tones grow harsh -and rough from exposure to the weather, and from calling so loudly -from hill to hill to summon their children, or their cattle, or their -comrades, home. - -The human voice is a pipe soon broken. The nightingale sings on and -on and on, from youth to age, and neither rain nor wind hurt his -throat; but men and women, in rough, rustic lives, soon lose their gift -of song. They sing at all ages, indeed, over their furrows, their -washing-tank, their yoked oxen, their plait of straw or hank of flax; -but the voice loses its beauty as early as the skin its bloom. - -Santina had no notion in what way she could make hers a means to reach -those distant parts in which her fate was to await her if the cards -spake truly. Only to get away somewhere, somehow, was her fixed idea; -and she would no more have married the sober, well-to-do wheelwright -her people picked out for her, than she would have thrown her vigorous -and virgin body down the well. - -'He shall get me the cards and the treasure wand out of her grave -before this moon is out,' she said, between her white teeth, with which -she could crack nuts and bite through string and grind the black bread -into powder. - -Caris took no definite shape in her eyes except as an instrument to get -her will and ways. She was but a country girl just knowing her letters, -and no more; but the yeast of restless ambition was fermenting in her. - -She sat staring at the moon, while the tired children slept as -motionless as plucked poppies. The moon was near its full. Before it -waned she swore to herself that she would have Lisabetta's magic tools -in her hands. Could she only know more, or else get money! She was -ignorant, but she knew that money was power. With money she could get -away over those hills which seemed drawn like a screen between her fate -and her. - -Marry Matteo! She laughed aloud, and thought the face in the moon -laughed too. - -The outfit was made, the pearls were bought, the 'stimatore' who -is called in to appraise every article of a marriage corredo had -fingered and weighed and adjudged the cost of every single thing, and -the wheelwright had bought the bed and the furniture, and many other -matters not usual or incumbent on a bridegroom, and her parents had -said that such a warm man and so liberal a one was never seen in their -day: and very little time was there now left wherein she could escape -her fate. - -All unwillingness on her part would have been regarded by her parents -as an insanity, and would have only seemed to her bridegroom as the -spice which is added to the stewed hare. There was no chance for her -but to use this single fortnight which she had been allowed to spend -in farewell at the four roads of Genistrello. - -Her uncle and aunt had helped generously in the getting together of -the corredo; and their wish to have her with them had been at once -conceded. Her parents were poor, and the woodsman was rich as rubies -are esteemed, amongst the oak scrub and chestnut saplings of the -Pistoiese Apennines. - -The Massaio people liked her and indulged her; but had they dreamed -that she meant to elude her marriage they would have dragged her by -the hair of her head, or kicked her with the soles of their hob-nailed -boots down the hillside into her father's house, and given her up to -punishment without pity, as they would have given a runaway horse or -dog. - -The day for the ceremony had not been fixed, for in this country, where -love intrigues speed by as swift as lightning, matrimonial contracts -move slowly and cautiously; but the word was passed, the goods were -purchased, the house was ready; and to break a betrothal at such a -point would have been held a crime and a disgrace. - -Santina herself knew that; she was well aware that decent maidens do -not do such things when the dower clothing and linen are all stitched, -and the marriage-bed bought by the bridegroom. She knew, but she did -not care. She was headstrong, changeable, vain and full of thirst for -pleasure and for triumph and for wealth. She would not pass her life in -her little native town, in the wheelwright's old house with a jealous -rheumatic curmudgeon, for all the saints in heaven and all the friends -on earth. - -'Not I! Not I! Oh, why did Lisabetta go underground for ever with half -the cards unread?' she thought, as she sat upon her couch of sacking -and dry maize leaves, and she shook her clenched hands at the moon with -anger at its smiling indifference. The moon could sail where it chose -and see what it liked; and she was chained down here by her youth, and -her sex, and her ignorance, and her poverty; and her only one faint -hope of escape and aid lay in the closed grave of a dead old woman. - -Though she was voluble and garrulous and imprudent and passionate, she -could keep her own counsel. - -Under her Tuscan volubility there was also the Tuscan secretiveness. -Nobody saw inside her true thoughts. Her mind was like a little locked -iron box into which no one could peep. - -The Tuscan laughs quickly, weeps quickly, rages, fumes, smiles, jumps -with joy; seems a merely emotional creature, with his whole heart -turned inside out; but in his inmost nature there is always an ego -wholly different to that which is shown to others, always a deep -reserve of unspoken intents and calculations and desires. - -It resembles a rosebush all bloom and dew and leaf and sunshine, inside -which is made the nest of a little snake, never seen, but always there; -sometimes, instead of the snake, there is only a flat stone; but -something alien there always is under the carelessly blowing roses. - -The Tuscan never completely trusts his nearest or dearest, his oldest -friend, his truest companion, his fondest familiar; be he gentle or -simple, he never gives himself away. - -The homeliest son and daughter of the soil will always act as though he -or she were cognizant of the axiom of the fine philosopher of courts: -'Deal with your friend at all times as though some day he would become -your enemy.' - -Santina, therefore, had told her secret intent to no living soul, and -only Caris's old weird mother had been shrewd enough to guess it in -the girl's flashing eyes and in her eager questioning of Fate. - -The house of Massaio was a very busy house, especially so at this -season of the year, when the purchasing and fetching and stacking of -wood for the coming winter was in full vigour, and all the boys and -girls were up in the woods all day long, seeking out and bringing down -brushwood and pines and cut heather. - -Santina with wonderful alacrity entered into the work, although usually -she was averse to rough labour, fearing that it would spoil her hands -and her skin before she could get to that unknown life of delight which -she coveted. - -But going with the heedless and unobservant children up on the -hillsides where the heather and chestnut scrub grew, and farther up -still where the tall stone pines grew, she had chances of meeting Caris -or of again getting away to his hut unnoticed. He was usually at this -season occupied in carrying wood or helping the charcoal-burners, and -was now in one place, now in another, as men who have no fixed labour -must be. - -Moreover, her just estimate of her own attraction for him made her -guess that this year he would choose to labour nearer the four roads -than usual, if he could get employment, and she was in no manner -surprised when she saw him amongst a group of men who were pulling at -the ropes of one of her uncle's wood-carts, to prevent the cart and the -mules harnessed to it from running amuck down the steep incline which -led to that green nook at the foot of Genistrello, where the woodman's -buildings and sheds were situated. - -She gave him a sidelong glance and a shy smile as she passed them, and -Caris, colouring to the roots of his hair, let his rope slacken and -fall, and was sworn at fiercely by his fellow-labourers, for the cart -lurched, and one of the wheels sunk up to its hub in the soft wet sand. - -'Get away, lass!' shouted the carter roughly. 'Where women are men's -work is always fouled.' - -'You unmannerly churl!' shouted Caris; and he struck the carter sharply -across the shoulders with his end of the rope. - -The man flung himself round and tried to strike his assailant in return -with the thong of his long mule-whip; but Caris caught it in his grip -and closed with him. - -They wrestled savagely for a moment, then the carter, freeing his -right arm, snatched out of his breeches belt the knife which every man -carries, however severely the law may denounce and forbid such a habit. -It would have buried its sharp, narrow blade in the ribs or the breast -of Caris had not the other men, at a shout from Massaio, who came -hurrying up, thrown themselves on the two combatants, and pulled them -apart. - -'To ---- with you both!' cried Massaio, furious to see his cart stuck -in the sand, its load of wood oscillating, and the time wasted of men -whom he paid by the day. - -Santina had stood quietly on the bank above the mules and the men, -watching with keen interest and pleasure. - -'Why did you stop them, uncle?' she cried to Massaio pettishly. 'I do -love to see two good lads fight. 'Tis a sight that warms one's blood -like good communion wine.' - -But no one heeded what she said. - -On these hills women are used but never listened to by any man. - -'The cows give milk, not opinions,' the men said to their womenkind. - -Only Caris had seen in the sunlight that lithe erect figure amongst the -gorse, and those two burning, melting, shining eyes, which had incited -him to combat. - -He was deeply angered with Massaio for stopping the duello. - -A knife? What mattered a knife? He had one, too, in his breeches band; -in another second he, too, would have had his out, and then Santina -would have seen work fit for a brave, bold woman to watch, with the red -blood running merrily through the thirsty sand and the tufted heather. - -He was not quarrelsome or bloodthirsty; but any man who goes down into -Maremma through the 'macchia,' where the 'mal-viventi' hide, learns -to know very well how to sell his own life dearly, and hold the lives -of others cheaply; and these contraband knives, which the law forbids -so uselessly, cost very little to buy, and yet do their work surely, -quickly, and well. - -He cast one longing look up at Santina standing above amongst the -gorse, and moved on sullenly with the other men and the mule, when -the cart with rare effort had been pulled erect and dragged out of the -sand. It was then only an hour or two after daybreak. - -The day came and ended without Caris seeing his goddess again. - -During the repose at noontide, when he with others broke bread and ate -soup at the big table in Massaio's kitchen, she was not there. They -were served by her aunt Eufemia. He had only accepted this work of -fetching and stacking for sake of the vicinity to her which it offered; -and his heart was heavy and his blood was turned, as he would himself -have expressed it. - -Chagrin and irritation, in the Italian's opinion, turns the blood as -tempest changes milk. He was too shy and tongue-tied to venture to -inquire for her; and the instinct of secrecy which characterizes all -passion was joined to his natural hesitation in speech. - -Massaio's people seemed, too, to him to be very grand folks, with -their byres and stalls filled with beasts, and their casks of wine and -great earthen jars of oil standing there for anybody to read in mute -declaration of their prosperity. - -A barrel of wine had never entered the hut of the Lascarises within the -memory of man. No one took any notice of him. He was a 'bracciante,' -paid by the day, nothing more. Had Eufemia known that he was the old -witch's son he would have attracted her attention; but she did not know -it. When there is quick rough work to be done, nobody notices who does -it. - -When the last wood of the day was brought in, Caris went home by -himself, by ways he knew. He was downcast and dull. He had been baulked -of his knife-play with the carter, and he had not seen Santina. - -At a bend in the hill-path, where the chestnut saplings grew taller -than usual, and aged pines with scaly scarred trunks were left -standing, he heard a laugh amongst the leafy scrub, and in the dusk of -the moonless evening a slender straight figure shot up from its screen -of heather. - -'Eh, Caris!' cried the girl to him. 'What a poor day's work! Have you -left Black Simon without an inch of steel in him? Fie for shame! A man -should always write his name large when he has a stiletto for his pen.' - -Caris gazed at her dumb and agitated, the veins in his throat and -temples throbbing. - -'It was your uncle stopping the play,' he muttered; 'and I could not -begin to brawl in his house.' - -Santina shrugged her shoulders. 'Brave men don't want excuses,' she -said unkindly. - -'Ask of me in Maremma,' said Caris sullenly. 'They will tell you -whether men taste my blade.' - -'Maremma is far,' said Santina, sarcastic and jeering; 'and the men -there are weak!' - -'You shall see what you shall see,' muttered Caris, growing purple, -red, and then pale. 'Tell me a man you have a quarrel with--nay, one -who stands well with you--that will be better.' - -'Those are words,' she said, with curt contempt. - -'You shall see deeds. Who is it stands well with you?' - -'No one. Many wish it.' - -'Your promised man should; but he is old, and a poor creature. 'Twould -be no credit to do away with him.' - -'He is a poor creature,' said Santina, her lips curling. 'So are you, -when to do a woman a pleasure you will not open a grave.' - -'Open a grave! Nay, nay, the saints forbid.' - -'The saints! That is how all weaklings and cowards talk. What harm -could it do any saint in heaven for you to get those magic things? If -they be the devil's toys and tools, as you say, more reason to pluck -them out of holy ground.' - -'How you go on!' muttered Caris, whose slower brain was scared and -terrified by his companion's rapid and fearless strides of thought. -'Heaven have mercy on us! You would have me commit sacrilege! Rifle a -tomb! Holy Christ! and that tomb my mother's!' - -The sweat stood on his brow, and made the chestnut curls of his hair -wet as with dew or rain. - -Santina poured into his all the magnetic force and fire of her own -eyes, shining in the dusk like some wild cat of the woods. - -'Sacrilege! whew! Where got you that big word? You put the things in; -you can take the things out. Your mother will sleep sounder without -them. I want them, my lad, do you understand? I want them. And what I -want I get from those who love me; and those who deny me, hate me, and -I hate them.' - -Caris shuddered as he heard. - -'I love you,' he stammered. 'Do not hate me--for pity's sake, do not -hate me.' - -'Obey me, then,' she said, with her dark level brows contracting over -her luminous eyes. - -'In anything else!' - -'Oh, ay! It is always anything else, except the one thing which is -wanted!' - -'But what is it you want?' - -'I want the charms and the wand and the book out of your mother's -grave.' - -'What could you do with them? Without the knowledge, they are no more -than a dry twig and a few dirty play-cards.' - -'How know you what knowledge I have? I want the things, that is all, I -tell you.' - -'They were accursed if they had any use in them. And what use had they? -She who understood them lived and died all but a beggar. If they had -any power in them, they cheated and starved her.' - -The speech was a long one for Caris, whose thoughts were so little used -to fit themselves to utterance. - -Santina heard him with the passionate impatience and intolerance of a -swift mind with a dull one, of a bold will with a timid nature. - -She had set her soul on possessing these magic things; she was -convinced that she should find the way to make them work; superstition -was intense and overwhelming in her, and allied to a furious ambition, -all the more powerful because given loose rein through her complete -ignorance. - -'Oh, you white-livered ninny!' she cried to him, with boundless scorn. -'Would to Heaven Black Simon had buried his blade into you! It would -have rid the earth of a dolt and a dastard!' - -'Then let me be, if I be worth so little,' said Caris sullenly, whilst -his eyes devoured her beauty half seen in the darkness which preceded -the late rising of the moon. Then she saw that she had mistaken her -path, and she changed it. She let great tears come into her eyes, and -her mouth trembled, and her bosom heaved. - -'This was the lad I could have loved!' she murmured. 'This was -the strong bold youth whom I thought would be my brave and bonny -damo before all the countryside. Oh, what fools are women--what -fools!--taken by the eye, with a falcon glance and a sheaf of nut-brown -curls and a broad breast that looks as if the heart of a true man beat -in it. Oh, woe is me! Oh, woe is me! I dreamed a dream, and it has no -more truth in it than the slate shingle here has of silver.' - -She kicked downward scornfully as she spoke the crumbling slate and mia -which showed here and there betwixt the heather plants in the tremulous -shadow relics of a quarry worked long centuries before, and forsaken -when the fires of the camp of Hun and Goth had blazed upon those -hillsides. - - -III - -Caris stared at her as she spoke, his whole frame thrilling and all his -senses alive as they had never been before under a woman's glamour. -He heeded not the derision, he thought not of the strangeness of the -avowal; delicacy is not often a plant which grows in uncultured soil, -and he had none of the intuition and suspicion which an educated man -would have been moved by before such an avowal and such an upbraiding. -He only knew, or thought he was bidden to know, that he had the power -in him to please her fancy and awaken her desire. - -'You love me! You can love me!' he shouted in a loud, vibrating, -exultant voice which wakened all the echoes of the hills around him, -and he sprang forward to seize her in his arms. But Santina, agile and -strong, pushed him back, and stood aloof. - -'Nay, nay, stand off!' she cried to him. 'Ne'er a coward shall touch -me. All I said was, you might have won me.' - -'I am no coward,' said Caris hotly. 'And why do you fool and tempt one -so? 'Tis unfair. 'Tis unfair. You may rue it.' - -His face was convulsed, his eyes were aflame, he breathed like a bull -in a hard combat. - -Santina smiled; that was how she liked to see a man look. - -She had all the delight in watching and weighing the effects of the -passion which she excited that moved the great queens of Asia and the -empresses of Rome. She was only a poor girl, but the love of dominance -and the violence of the senses were in her strong and hot and reckless. - -In her was all that ferment of ambition and vanity and discontent which -drives out from their hamlets those who are born with something in them -different to their lot and alien to their fellows. She had never been -anywhere farther afield than the hills and woods about Pistanse, but -she knew that there were big cities somewhere, where men were made of -money, and women wore satin all day long, and everybody ate and drank -out of gold plates and silver vessels. She knew that; and to get to -these kingdoms of delight was the one longing which possessed her day -and night. - -She wanted to get one thing out of this man--the means of liberty--and -she cared nothing how she won it. Besides, he was so simple, so -malleable, so credulous, it diverted her to play on him as one could -play on a chitarra, making the strings leap and sigh and thrill and -groan. And he was good to look at, too, with his tanned, fresh face, -and his clustering curls, and his strong, straight, cleanly limbs. - -'I only said you might have won me,' she repeated--'nay, you may still, -if you have the heart of a man and not of a mouse. Hearken!' - -'Do not fool me,' said Caris sternly, 'or as the Lord lives above -us----' - -She laughed airily. - -'Oh, big oaths cannot frighten me. It shall lie with you. I want those -things of your mother's. When you bring them I will thank you--as you -choose.' - -He grew gray under his brown, bright skin. - -'Always that,' he muttered--always that!' - -'Naturally, it is what I want.' - -'Go, get them, since you think it holy work.' - -'I will,' said Santina, 'and then good-night to you, my good Caris; you -will never see me more.' - -She turned on her heel and began to run down the slope in the moonlight. - -Santina would not have ventured inside the graveyard at night to get -mountains of gold. She would not have passed after nightfall within a -mile of its gate without crossing herself and murmuring Aves all the -way. Superstition was born and bred in every inch of her bone and every -drop of her blood, and she would no more have carried out her threat -than she would have carried the mountain upon her shoulders. - -But he did not know that. She was so bold, so careless, so -self-confident, if she had told him she would split open the earth to -its centre he would have believed her. - -He overtook her as she fled down the slope and seized her in his arms. - -'No, no!' he cried, close in her ear. 'It is not work for you. If it -must be done I will do it. Will you swear that you will give yourself -to me if I bring you the unholy things?' - -'I love you!' she said breathlessly, while her lips brushed his -throat--'yes, I do love you! Go, get the things, and bring them hither -at dawn. I will meet you. Oh, I will find the way to use them, never -fear. That is my business. Get you gone. They are calling below. They -shut the house at the twenty-four.' - -No one was calling, but she wished to get rid of him. He was strong, -and he was on fire with her touch and her glance; he strained her in -his arms until her face was bruised against the hairy sinews and bones -of his chest. - -She thrust him away with a supreme effort, and ran down the stony side -of the hill, and was swallowed up in the duskiness of the tangled scrub. - -A little scops owl flitted past, uttering its soft, low note, which -echoes so far and long in the silence of evening in the hills. - -Caris shook himself like a man who has been half stunned by a heavy -fall. He was on fire with the alcohol of passion, and chilled to the -marrow by the promise he had made. - -Open a tomb! Rifle a grave! See his mother again in her cere -clothes--see all the untold and untellable horrors of which the dead -and the earth make their secrets! - -Oh, why had he ever admitted that he had sealed up the uncanny things -in the coffin! He could have bitten his tongue out for its tell-tale -folly. - -He had thrust them in almost without consciousness of his act as he had -hammered the lid down on the deal shell all alone with it in his cabin. - -The things had been always under his mother's pillow at night; it had -seemed to him that they ought to go with her down to the grave. He had -had a secret fear of them, and he had thought that their occult powers -would be nullified once thrust in sacred soil. He had been afraid to -burn them. - -The churchyard in which his mother lay was on the topmost slope of -Genistrello, where the brown brick tower of the massive medieval church -of St. Fulvo rose amongst the highest pines, upon a wind-swept and -storm-scarred scarp. - -Few were the dead who were taken there; meagre and miserable were the -lot and the pittance of its poor Vicar, and weather-beaten and worn by -toil were the score of peasants who made up its congregation, coming -thence from the scattered huts and farmhouses of the hillside. - -It was seven miles off from the chestnut wood where he dwelt, and twice -seven from the four roads; a lonely and not over-safe tramp across the -hills and the water-courses and the brushwood. - -But it was not the distance which troubled him, nor any possible -danger. He knew his way through all that country, and the full round -moon was by now showing her broad disc over the edge of the farther -mountains on the south-east. But the thought of what he would have to -do at the end of his pilgrimage made him sick with fear not altogether -unmanly. - -He knew that what he would do would be sacrilege and punishable by -law, but it was not of that he thought: his mind was filled with those -terrors of the nether world, of the unknown, of the unseen, which a -lonely life and a latent imagination made at once so indistinct and so -powerful to him. - -'Had she but asked me anything else! 'he thought piteously. -'Anything!--to cut off my right hand or to take the life of any man!' - -But she had set him this task; inexorably as women of old set their -lovers to search for the Grail or beard the Saracen in his mosque, and -he knew that he must do what she willed or never again feel those warm -red lips breathe on his own. - -He tightened the canvas belt round his loins, and went home to his -cabin to fetch a pickaxe and a spade, and, bidding his dog stay to -guard the empty hut, he set out to walk across the vast steep breadth -of woodland darkness which separated him from the church and churchyard -which were his goal. - -A labourer on those hills all his life, and accustomed also to the more -perilous and murderous thickets of Maremma, where escaped galley-slaves -hid amongst the boxwood and the bearberry, and lived in caves and -hollow trees, no physical alarm moved him as he strode on across the -uneven ground with the familiar scents and sounds of a woodland night -around him on every side. - -The moon had now risen so high that the valleys were bathed in her -light, and the sky was radiant with a brilliancy which seemed but a -more ethereal day. - -He had no eyes for its beauty. His whole soul was consumed by the -horror of his errand. He only looked up at the pointers and the -pole-star which he knew, so as to guide himself by them up the steep -slopes to the church, for he had left the cart-tracks and mule-paths -and struck perforce through the gorse and undergrowth westward, -gradually ascending as he went. - -'Poor mother! poor mother!' he kept saying to himself. It seemed -horrible to him to go and molest her out in her last sleep and take -those things which were buried with her. Would she know? Would she -awake? Would she rise and strike him? - -Then he thought of a dead woman whom he had found once in the 'macchia' -in Maremma, lying unburied under some myrtle bushes; he remembered how -hideous she had looked, how the ants and worms had eaten her, how the -wild boars had gnawed her flesh, how the jaws had grinned and the empty -eyeballs had stared, and how a black toad had sat on her breast. - -Would his mother look like that? - -No; for she was safe under ground, under sacred ground, shut up secure -from wind and weather in that deal shell which he had himself made and -hammered down; and she was in her clothes, all neat and proper, and the -holy oil had been upon her. - -No, she had been put in her grave like a Christian, witch though they -said that she was. She could not look like the woman in Maremma, who -had been a vagrant and a gipsy. - -Yet he was afraid--horribly afraid. - - -IV - -It was a soft and luminous night; there was the faintest of south winds -now and then wandering amongst the tops of the pines, and fanning their -aromatic odours out of them. The sound of little threads of water -trickling through the sand and moss, and falling downward through the -heather, was the only sound, save when a night bird called through the -dark, or a night beetle whirred on its way. - -The summit of the hillside was sere and arid, and its bold stony -expanse had seldom a living thing on it by daylight. By night, when the -priest and sacristan of St. Fulvo were sleeping, there was not a single -sign of any life, except the blowing of the pine-tops in the breeze. - -He had never been there except by broad day; his knees shook under him -as he looked up at the tall straight black tower, with the moonlit -clouds shining through the bars of its open belfry. If he had not heard -the voice of Santina crying to him, 'No coward shall win me,' he would -have turned and fled. - -He was alone as utterly as though all the world were dead. - -It was still barely midnight when he saw the bell-tower on high looming -darker than the dark clouds about it, and the pine-trees and the -presbytery and the walls of the burial-ground gathered round it black -and gaunt, their shapes all fused together in one heap of gloom. - -The guardians of the place, old men who went early to their beds, were -sleeping somewhere under those black roofs against the tower. Below, -the hills and valleys were all wrapped in the silence of the country -night. - -On some far road a tired team of charcoal-bearing mules might be -treading woefully to the swing of their heavy bells, or some belated -string of wine-carts might be creeping carefully through the darkness, -the men half-drunk and their beasts half-asleep. - -But there was no sound or sign of them in the vast brooding stillness -which covered like great soft wings the peaceful hills overlapping one -another, and the serenity of the mountains bathed in the rays of the -moon. - -There was no sound anywhere: not even the bleat of a sheep from the -flocks, nor the bark of a dog from the homesteads. - -Caris crossed himself, and mounted the steep path which led to the -church-gate. - -The last time he had come thither he had climbed up with the weight of -his mother's coffin on his shoulders; the ascent being too steep for a -mule to mount and he too poor to pay for assistance. - -The walls of the graveyard were high, and the only access to it was -through a wooden iron-studded door, which had on one side of it a -little hollowed stone for holy water, and above it a cross of iron and -an iron crown. To force the door was impossible; to climb the wall was -difficult, but he was agile as a wild cat, and accustomed to crawl up -the stems of the pines to gather their cones, and the smooth trunks of -the poplars in the valleys to lop their crowns. - -He paused a moment, feeling the cold dews run like rain off his -forehead, and wished that his dog was with him, a childish wish, for -the dog could not have climbed: then he kicked off his boots, set his -toe-nails in the first crevice in the brick surface, and began to -mount with his hands and feet with prehensile agility. - -In a few moments he was above on the broad parapet which edged the -wall, and could look down into the burial-place below. But he did not -dare to look; he shut his eyes convulsively and began to descend, -holding by such slight aids as the uneven surface and the projecting -lichens afforded him. He dropped at last roughly but safely on the -coarse grass within the enclosure. - -All was black and still; the graveyard was shut in on three sides by -its walls, and at the fourth side by the tower of the church. - -The moon had passed behind a cloud and he could see nothing. - -He stood ankle-deep in the grass; and as he stirred he stumbled over -the uneven broken ground, made irregular by so many nameless graves. He -felt in his breeches pockets for his pipe and matches, and drew one of -the latter out and struck it on a stone. - -But the little flame was too feeble to show him even whereabouts he -was, and he could not in the darkness tell one grave from another. - -Stooping and stretching out his hands, he could feel the rank grass and -the hillocks all round him; there were a few head-stones, but only a -few; of such dead as were buried in the graveyard of St. Fulvo, scarce -one mourner in a century could afford a memorial stone or even a wooden -cross. - -He stood still and helpless, not having foreseen the difficulty of the -darkness. - -He could feel the stirring of wings in the air around him. His sense -told him that they were but owls and bats, of which the old tower was -full; but he shivered as he heard them go by; who could be sure what -devilish thing they might not be? - -The horror of the place grew on him. - -Still, harmless, sacred though it was, it filled him with a terror -which fastened upon him, making his eyeballs start, and his flesh -creep, and his limbs shake beneath him. - -Yet he gripped his pickaxe closer and tighter, and held his ground, and -waited for the moon to shine from the clouds. - -Santina should see he was no white-livered boy. He would get her what -she asked, and then she would be his--his--his; and the woods would -hide their loves and the cold moss grow warm with their embrace. - -Stung into courage and impatience by her memory, he struck violently -upon one of the stones his whole handful of brimstone matches; they -flared alight with a blue, sharp flash, and he saw there at his feet -his mother's grave. - -He could not doubt that it was hers; it was a mound of clay on which no -grass had had time to grow, and there were the cross-sticks he had set -up on it as a memorial, with a bit of an old blue kerchief which had -been hers tied to them. - -It was just as he had left them there four months before, when the -summer had been green and the brooks dry and the days long and light. -She was there under his feet where he and the priest had laid her, the -two crossed chestnut sticks the only memorial she would ever have, poor -soul! - -She was there, lying out in all wind and weather alone--horribly, -eternally alone; the rain raining on her and the sun shining on her, -and she knowing nought, poor, dead woman! - -Then the wickedness of what he came to do smote him all of a sudden so -strongly that he staggered as under a blow, and a shower of hot tears -gushed from his eyes, and he wept bitterly. - -'Oh, mother, poor mother!' he cried aloud. - -She had been a hard mother to him, and had had ways which he had feared -and disliked, and a cruel tongue and a bad name on the hillside, but -she had been his mother, and when she had lain dying she had been -sorrowful to think that she would leave him alone. - -She had been his mother, and he came to rifle her grave. - -What a crime! What a foul, black crime, such as men and women would -scarce speak of with bated breath by their hearths in the full blaze of -day! What a crime! He abhorred himself for doing it, as he would have -abhorred a poisoner or a parricide seeing them pass to the gallows. - -'Oh, mother, mother, forgive me! She will have it so!' he sobbed with a -piteous prayer. - -He thought that, being dead, his mother would understand and forgive, -as she would never have understood or forgiven when living. - -Then he struck his spade down into the heavy clay on which no -bird-sown seed of blade or blossom had yet had any time to spring. - -He dug and dug and dug, till the sweat rolled off his limbs and his -shoulders ached and his arms quivered. - -He threw spadefuls of clay one after another out on the ground around, -his eyes growing used to the darkness, and his hands gripping the spade -handle harder and harder in desperation. The very horror of his action -nerved him to feverish force. - -'Oh, Santina, Santina, you give my soul to hell fires everlasting!' he -cried aloud once, as he jammed the iron spade down deeper and deeper -into the ground, tearing the stiff soil asunder and crushing the stones. - -The moon came forth from the clouds, and the burial-ground grew white -with her light where the shadows of the wall did not fall. He looked -up once; then he saw black crosses, black skulls and cross-bones, rank -grass, crumbling headstones, nameless mounds all round him, and beyond -them the tower of the church. - -But his mother's coffin he did not find. In vain he dug, and searched, -and frantically tossed aside the earth in such haste to have ended and -finished with his horrible task. - -His mother's coffin he could not find. - -Under the rays of the moon the desecrated ground lay, all broken up -and heaped and tossed together, as though an earthquake had riven the -soil. But the deal shell which he had made with his own hands and borne -thither on his own shoulders, he could not find. - -'She will never believe! she will never believe!' he thought. - -Santina would never believe that he had come there if he met her at -dawn with empty hands. He could hear in fancy her shrill, cruel, -hissing shriek of mockery and derision; and he felt that if he did so -hear it in reality it would drive him mad. - -He dug, and dug, and dug, more furiously, more blindly, going -unconsciously farther and farther away from where the two crossed -chestnut sticks had been; they had been uprooted and buried long before -under the first heap of clay which he had thrown out from the grave. - -He had forgotten that they alone were his landmarks and guides; in the -darkness which had been followed by the uncertain, misleading light of -the moon, he had gone far from them. - -His work had become almost a frenzy with him; his nerves were strung to -an uncontrollable pitch of excitation, fear, and horror, and obstinacy, -and a furious resolve to obtain what he sought, with a terrible dread -of what he should see when he should reach it, had together, in their -conflict of opposing passions, driven him beside himself. - -He dug on and on, without any consciousness of how far he had gone from -his goal, and no sense left but the fury of determination to possess -himself of what he knew was there in the earth beneath him. - -He stood up to his knees in the yawning clay, with the heavy clods of -it flung up on either side of him, and the moon hanging up on high in -the central heavens, her light often obscured by drifting cloud wrack, -and at other times shining cold and white into his face, as though by -its searching rays to read his soul. - -How long he had been there he knew not; time was a blank to him; his -supernatural terrors were lost in the anguish of dread lest he should -be unable to do Santina's will. - -He felt as though he strove with the fiend himself. - -Who but some hideous power of evil could have moved the corpse and -baffled and beaten him thus? Perhaps truly the charms had been things -born of the devil, and the devil had taken them both to himself, -and the body of his mother with them. He dug on and on frantically, -deriving relief from the fever within him through that violent exertion -which strained every vein and muscle in his body, till he felt as -though beaten with iron rods. - -He did not see, in the confusion of his mind and the gloom of the -night, that he had come close under the graveyard wall, and was digging -almost at its base. He believed himself still to be on the spot where -he had buried his mother; and he had deepened the pit about him until -he was sunk up to his loins. He never remembered the danger of the -priest or the sacristan waking and rising and seeing him at his occult -labour. - -He never remembered that the bell would toll for matins whilst the -stars would be still in their places, and the hills and the valleys -still dark. All sense had left him except one set, insane resolve to -obtain that by which the beauty of a woman was alone to be won. - -Of crime he had grown reckless, of emotion he had none left; he was -only frantically, furiously determined to find that which he had come -to seek. Standing in the damp, clogging soil, with the sense of moving -creatures about him which his labours had disturbed in the bowels of -the earth, he dug and dug and dug until his actions had no purpose or -direction in them, only hurling clod upon clod in breathless, aimless, -senseless monotony and haste. - -At last his spade struck on some substance other than the heavy soil -and the slimy worms; he thrilled through all his frame with triumph and -with terror. - -At last! At last! He never doubted that it was the coffin he sought; he -did not know that his mother's grave lay actually yards away from him. -Oh, were there only light, he thought; it was so dark, for the moon had -now passed down behind the wall of the graveyard, and there would be -only henceforth growing ever darker and darker that dense gloom which -precedes the dawn. He dared not go on digging; he was afraid that the -iron of his spade should stave in the soft wood of the coffin, and cut -and maim the body within it. He stooped and pushed the clay aside with -his hands, trying to feel what the tool had struck. - -What met his touch was not wood, but metal--rounded, smooth, polished; -though clogged and crusted with the clay-bed in which it lay. He pushed -the earth farther and farther away, and the object he had reached -seemed to lie far down, under the soil, and to be held down by it. - -He was himself hemmed in by the broken clods, and stood in the hole -he had dug, half imprisoned by it. But he could move enough to strike -a few remaining matches on the iron of the spade, and let their light -fall on what he had unearthed. - -Then it seemed to him that a miracle had been wrought. - -Before him lay a silver image of the Child Christ. His knees shook, -his whole frame trembled, his lips gasped for breath; the flame of the -matches died out; he was left in the dark with the image. - -'It is the Gesu! It is the Gesu!' he muttered, sure that his dead -mother, or the saints, or both, had wrought this miracle to show him -the evil of his ways. - -In truth, the statue had lain there many centuries, buried against the -wall by pious hands in times when the torch of war had been carried -flaming over all the wasted villages and ravaged fields in the plain -below. - -But no such explanation dawned on the mind of Caris. - -To him it was a miracle wrought by the saints or by the dead. In the -dark he could feel its round shoulders, its small hands folded as in -prayer, its smooth cheek and brow, its little breast; and he touched -them reverently, trembling in every nerve. - -He had heard of holy images shown thus to reward belief or to confound -disbelief. - -His faith was vague, dull, foolish, but it was deep-rooted in him. He -was a miserable sinner; and the dead and the saints turned him thus -backward on his road to hell; so he thought, standing waist-deep in the -rugged clay and clutching his spade to keep himself from falling in a -swoon. - - -V - -To Caris miracles were as possible as daily bread. - -He knew little of them, but he believed in them with his whole soul. It -seemed wonderful that the heavenly powers should create one for such -a poor and humble creature as himself; but it did not seem in any way -wonderful that such a thing should be. - -The Divine Child was there in the earth, keeping away all evil things -by its presence, and he could not doubt that the saints who were with -Mary, or perchance his own mother's purified spirit, had called the -image there to save him from the fiend. - -He sank on his knees on the clay, and said over breathlessly all the -Aves he could think of in his awe. They were few, but he repeated them -over and over again, hoping thus to find grace and mercy for his sin -for having broken into these sacred precincts and disturbed the dead in -their rest. - -But what of Santina? Would she believe him when he told her of this -wondrous thing? - -If he went to her with his hands empty, would she ever credit that he -had courage to come upon this quest? He could hear, as it were, at his -ear, her mocking, cruel, incredulous laughter. - -She had said, 'Bring me the magic toys.' What would the tale of -a miracle matter to her? She wanted treasure and knowledge. She -would care nothing for the souls of the dead or the works of the -saints--nothing. - -He knew that her heart was set on getting things which she knew were -evil, but believed were powerful for good and ill, for fate and future. - -Suddenly a thought which froze his veins with its terror arose in him, -and fascinated him with its wickedness and his daring. What if he took -the holy image to her in proof that he had tried to do her will, and -had been turned from his errand by powers more than mortal? - -Since she had believed in the occult powers of his mother's divining -tools, surely she would still more readily believe in the direct and -visible interposition of the dead? - -If he bore the Gesu to her in his arms, she could not then doubt that -he had passed the hours of this night in the graveyard of St. Fulvo. - -She could not, before its sacred testimony, be angry, or scornful, or -incredulous, or unkind. - -But could he dare to touch the holy thing? Would the image consent to -be so taken? Would not its limbs rebel, its lips open, its body blister -and blast the mortal hands which would thus dare to desecrate it? - -A new fear, worse, more unspeakable than any which had moved him -before, now took possession of him as he knelt there on the bottom of -the pit which he had dug, gazing through the blackness of the darkness -to the spot where he knew the silver body of the Christ Child lay. - -The thing was holy in his eyes, and he meant to use it for unholy -purposes. He felt that his hands would wither at the wrist if they took -up that silver Gesu from its bed of earth. - -His heart beat loudly against his ribs, his head swam. - -It was still dark, though dawn in the east had risen. - -He crawled out of the pit of clay with difficulty, holding the silver -image to his bosom with one arm, and stood erect, and gazed around him. - -If saints or friends were there beside him, they made no sign; they -neither prevented nor avenged the sacrilege. - -The sweet, sharp smell of the wet blowing grasses was in his nostrils, -and the damp clinging sods were about his feet, dragging at the soles -of his boots, that was all. - -He began to think of the way in which he could, thus burdened, climb -the wall. - -The silver Christ was heavy in his hold, and he needed to have both -hands free to ascend the height above him. - -He knew it was an image and not a living god; yet none the less was -it in his sight holy, heaven-sent, miraculous, potent for the service -of the saints, and to take it up and bear it away seemed to him like -stealing the very Hostia itself. - -True, he would bring it back and give it to the vicar, and let it, -according to the reverend man's choice, be returned to its grave or -laid on the altar of the church for the worship of the people, and the -continued working of miracles. - -Yes, he said to himself, assuredly he would bring it back. He would -only bear it in his arms most reverently to Santina, that she might see -and believe, and become his; and then he would return hither with it -and tell the priest the wondrous story. - -Yet he shook as with palsy at the thought of carrying the blessed image -as though it were a mere living human babe. - -It seemed to him as if no man could do such a deed and live. The -anointed hands of a priest might touch it, but not his--his so hard and -rough and scarred with work, never having held aught better than his -pipe of clay and his tool of wood or of iron, and the horn haft of his -pocket-knife. - -Nor was even his motive for taking it pure. He wanted through it to -justify himself in the sight of a woman, and to find favour with her, -and to gratify a strong and furious passion. His reasons were earthly, -gross, selfish; they could not redeem, or consecrate, or excuse his -act. That he knew. - -All was still, dusky, solitary; the church was wrapt in gloom, the -daybreak did not reach it; only above the inland hills the white light -spread where he could not see; behind the high wall of the graveyard, -beyond the ranges of the inland hills, the gray soft light of daybreak -had arisen. - -He thought he heard voices all around him, and amongst them that of -his mother warning him to leave untouched the sacred Child, and get up -on his feet and flee. But above these he heard the laughter of Santina -mocking him as an empty-handed, white-livered fool, who came with -foolish tales of visions to hide his quaking soul. - -Better that his arms should shrivel, that his sight should be blinded, -that his body should be shrunken and stricken with the judgment of -heaven, than that he should live to hear her red lips laugh and call -him a feckless coward. - -With all the life which was in him shrinking and sickening in deadly -fear, he stooped down, groped in the dark until he found the image, -grasped its metal breast and limbs, and dragged it upward from the -encircling earth. - -It was of the size of a human child of a year old. - -He plucked it roughly upward, for his terror made him rude and fierce, -and held it in his arms, whilst he wondered in his great awe and horror -that no judgment of affronted heaven followed on his desperate act. - -All was still well with him; he saw, he heard, he breathed, he lived; -the cool night air was blowing about him, the clouds were letting fall -a faint fine mist-like rain. - -He undid the belt about his loins--a mere piece of webbing with a -buckle--strapped it around the body of the Gesu, and taking the ends -thereof between his firm, strong teeth, sought in the dark for the -place whence he had descended, and found it. - -He climbed the wall with slow, laborious, and painful effort, the dead -weight of the silver figure encumbering him as he mounted with cat-like -skill, cutting his hands and bruising his skin against the rough, -undressed stones. - -He dropped carefully down on the earth beneath, and began the descent -of the hill. - -'When I can bring the little Christ back, I can get the tools,' he -thought. It seemed a small matter. - -He was forced to leave behind him his spade and pickaxe. - - -VI - -When at last he reached the top of the coping, he saw that it was dawn. -His heart leaped in his breast. Down in the chestnut coppice Santina -would be awaiting him; and she would believe--surely, certainly she -would believe--when she should see this holy Gesu brought out from the -tomb. - -He was in good time. It was barely day. He unslung the little Christ -and took it again in his arms, as carefully as a woman would take a -new-born child. The polished limbs grew warm in his hands; its small -face leaned against his breast; he lost his awe of it; he ceased to -fear what it might do to him; he felt a kind of love for it. - -'Oh, Gesu, dear Gesu, smile on us!' he said to it; and although it was -still too dark to see more than its outline faintly, he thought he saw -the mouth move in answer. - -Holding it to him, he started homeward down the stony slope. He was -thankful to be out of that ghostly place of tombs; he was thankful to -have escaped from that scene of terror whole in limb, and uncursed if -unpardoned; the tension of his nerves in the past hours had given place -to an unreasoning and overstrung gladness. But for his reverence for -the burden he carried, he could have laughed aloud. - -Only once now and then, as he went, his conscience smote him. His poor -mother!--he had forgotten her; he had displaced the mark set above her -grave; no one would ever now be sure where she was buried. Did it hurt -her, what he had done? Would she be jealous in her grave of the woman -for whom he did it? Was it cruel to have come away without smoothing -the rugged earth above her bed and saying an Ave for her? - -But these thoughts, this remorse, were fleeting; his whole mind was -filled with the heat of passion and its expectation. Fatigued and -overworked and sleepless as he was, he almost ran down the paths of the -hills in his haste, and tore his skin and his clothes as he pushed his -way through the brushwood and furze, guarding only the Gesu from hurt -as he went. - -The day had now fully dawned, and the sun had risen; its rosy flush -was warm over all the land and sky; the woodlarks and the linnets were -singing under the bushes; the wild doves were dabbling in the rivulets -of water; the hawks were circling high in the light. - -On the wooded hillside all was peaceful with the loveliness of the -unworn day; the air was full of the smell of heather and wet mosses and -resinous pine-cones; rain was falling above where the church was, but -in these lower woods there was a burst of sunrise warmth and light. -None of these things, however, did he note. He went on and on, downward -and downward, holding the silver image close against his breast, -scarcely feeling the boughs which grazed his cheeks or the flints which -wounded his naked feet. - -When he came within sight of the place where he had left Santina the -night before, he strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of her through -the tangle of leaves and twigs and fronds. And true enough to her -tryst she was there, waiting impatiently, fretting, wishing the time -away, blaming her own folly in setting all her hopes of freedom and -the future on a foolish, cowardly churl--for so she called him in her -angry thought, as she crouched down under the chestnut scrub and saw -the daylight widen and brighten. - -She ran a great risk in hiding there; if any of her people or their -carters saw her, their suspicions would be aroused and their questions -endless. She would say that she came for mushrooms; but they would not -believe her. She was too well known for a late riser and a lazy wench. - -Still, she had imperilled everything to keep her word with him, and she -waited for him seated on the moss, half covered with leaves, except at -such times as her impatient temper made her cast prudence to the winds -and rise and look out of the thicket upward to the hills. - -She had made herself look her best; a yellow kerchief was tied over her -head, her hair shone like a blackbird's wing, her whole face and form -were full of vivid, rich, and eager animal beauty. To get away--oh, -only to get away! She looked up at the wild doves sailing over the tops -of the tall pines and envied them their flight. - -Caris saw that eager, longing look upon her countenance before he -reached her, and he thought it was caused by love for him. - -He held the Gesu to his bosom with both hands and coursed like -lightning down the steep slope which still divided him from her; he -was unconscious of how jaded, soiled, and uncomely he looked after his -long night's work and all his ghostly fears; his feet were scratched -and bleeding, his shirt soaked in sweat, his flesh bespattered with the -clay, his hair wet and matted with moisture; he had no remembrance of -that, he had no suspicion that even in that moment of agitation, when -she believed her errand done, her will accomplished, she was saying in -her heart as she watched him draw nigh: 'He has got them, he has got -them; but, Holy Mary! what a clown!--he has all the mud of fifty graves -upon him!' - -He rushed downward to her, and held the silver image out at -arm's-length, and sobbed and laughed and cried aloud, indifferent who -might hear, his voice trembling with awe and ecstasy. - -'It is the Gesu Himself, the Gesu--and I have brought Him to you -because now you will believe--and my mother must be well with them -in heaven or they never had wrought such a miracle for me--and such -a night as I have passed, dear God! such things as I have seen and -heard--but the Child smiles--the Child is pleased--and now you will -believe in me, though I could not find the magic things--and I said -to myself when she sees the Gesu she will believe--and she will be -mine--mine--mine! The Lord forgive me, that has been all my thought, -though heaven wrought such a miracle for me!' - -The words poured out of his mouth one over another like the rush of -water let loose through a narrow channel. He was blind with his own -excess of emotion, his own breathless desire; he did not see the -changes which swept over the face of Santina in a tumult of wrath, -wonder, fury, eagerness, suspicion, cupidity, as one after another each -emotion went coursing through her soul and shining in her eyes, making -her beauty distorted and terrible. - -Her first impulse was fury at his failure to bring her what she wanted; -the second was to comprehend in a flash of instantaneous insight the -money value of that to which he only attached a spiritual merit. - -She snatched the image from him, and in the morning light she saw the -silver of it glisten through the earth which still in parts clung to -it. It might be better, surer, more quick aid to her than the uncertain -divining tools whereof she was ignorant of the full employ. Her rapid -mind swept over in a second all the uses to which it might be put, -and comprehended the superstitious adoration of it which moved Caris -and made him control his passion for herself, as he stood gazing at -it in her arms, his own hands clasped in prayer, and his whole frame -trembling with the portentous sense of the mercy of heaven which had -been made manifest to him. - -She in a second divined that it had been part of some buried treasure -which he had by accident disinterred, but she was too keen and wise to -let him see that she did so; it was her part to humour and to confirm -him in his self-deception. - -She calmed the angry, gibing words which rose to her lips, she held -back the exultant covetousness which flashed in her eyes and betrayed -itself in the clutching grasp of her fingers; she gazed on the Gesu -with a worship half real, half affected, for it was also a holy image -to her, if its sanctity were to her outweighed and outshone by its -monetary worth in precious metal. - -'Tell me how you found this?' she asked, under her breath, as one -almost speechless with awe before such a manifestation from on high. - -She was really in genuine fear. He had been into precincts which none -could enter without offending immortal and unseen powers. He had done -it at her bidding. Who could be sure that the offending spirits would -not avenge his sacrilege on her? - -But through her fears she kept her hold upon the image, whilst she -asked the question. - -Tremblingly he told her how he had passed the awful hours of the night -and failed to find his mother's tomb, but in its stead found this. - -'And I brought it that you should know that I had been there,' he said -in conclusion, 'that you might know I had been where you willed, and am -no coward; and we will take it back together and give it to the holy -man up yonder--and now--and now--and now----' - -His hands touched her, his breath was upon her, his timid yet violent -passion blazed in his eyes and quivered all over his frame: he had -dared all things for his reward, and he claimed it. But, quick as -lightning, and merciless as dishonest, she put the holy image between -her and him. The sacred silver froze his burning lips. - -His arms fell to his side as though they were paralyzed. - -'Not while the Gesu is with us,' she murmured in rebuke. 'Let us not be -unworthy--you say yourself a miracle was wrought.' - -'But----' - -He stood before her, checked, daunted, breathing heavily, like a horse -thrown back on its haunches in full flight. - -'Hush!' she said, with a scared look. 'There are people near; I hear -them. We will take the Gesu back to the church, but that cannot be till -dusk. I will keep Him safe with me. Go, you dear, and clean your skin -and your clothes, lest any seeing you should suspect what you have -done.' - -'I will not go,' he muttered; 'you promised----' - -'I promised, oh fool!' she said, with quick passion, 'and my word I -will keep, but not while the Gesu is with us. I love you for all you -have braved. I love you for all you have done. I will be yours and no -other's. See! I swear it on the Holy Child's head!' - -And she kissed the silver brow of the babe. - -He was convinced, yet irresolute and impatient. - -'Let us go back with it now, then,' he muttered. 'I did but bring him -to show you in witness of what I had done.' - -'No,' she said, with that imperious command in her voice and her gaze -which made the resolve in him melt like wax beneath a flame. 'You -cannot be seen with me in such a state as you are. I will carry the -Christ back to the church if so be that He rests uneasily in common -arms like ours, and then--well, I will pass by your cabin as I come -down. Dost complain of that, my ingrate?' - -A flood of warmth and joy and full belief swept like flame through the -whole being of Caris. Her eyes were suffused, her cheek blushed, her -lips smiled; he believed himself beloved; he thought himself on the -threshold of ecstasy; the minutes seemed like hours until he should -regain his hut and watch from its door for her coming. - -'You will go now?' he asked eagerly. - -'At once,' she answered, holding the Gesu to her as a woman would hold -a sucking child. - -Caris closed his eyes, dazed with her beauty and the wild, sweet -thought of how she would hold to her breast some child of his on some -fair unborn morrow. - -'Then go,' he muttered. 'The sooner we part, the sooner we shall meet. -Oh, my angel!' - -She gave him a smile over her shoulder, and she pushed her way upward -through the chestnut boughs, carrying the Gesu folded to her bosom. - -Watching her thus depart, a sudden and new terror struck him. - -'Wait,' he called to her. 'Will the priest be angered that I disturbed -the graves, think you?' - -'Nay, nay, not when he sees that you give him the image,' she called -backward in answer. - -Then she disappeared in the green haze of foliage, and Caris struck -onward in the opposite direction, to take the way which led to his -cabin on Genistrello. Her words had awakened him to a consciousness of -his bruised, befouled, and tattered state. - -He wished to avoid meeting anyone who might question him as to his -condition. - -He got as quickly as he could by solitary paths to his home, and was -met with rapture by his dog. He entered the house, and drank thirstily; -he could not eat; he washed in the tank at the back of the hut, and -clothed himself in the best that he had: what he wore on holy and on -festal days. - -Then he set his house-door wide open to the gay morning light which, -green and gleeful, poured through the trunks of the chestnuts and -pines; and he sat down on his threshold with the dog at his feet, and -waited. - -It would be a whole working-day lost, but what of that? A lover may -well lose a day's pay for love's crown of joy. - -Hour after hour passed by, and his eyes strained and ached with looking -into the green light of the woods. But Santina came not. - -The forenoon, and noontide and afternoon went by; and still no living -thing came up to his solitary house. The whole day wore away, and he -saw no one, heard nothing, had no visitant except the black stoat which -flitted across the path, and the grey thrushes which flew by on their -autumn flights towards lower ground. - -The long, fragrant, empty day crept slowly by, and at last ended. She -had not come. - -He was still fasting. He drank thirstily, but he could not eat, though -he fed the dog. - -He was in a state of nervous excitation almost delirious. The trees and -the hills and the sky seemed to whirl around him. He dared not leave -the hut, lest she should come thither in his absence. He stared till he -was sightless along the green path which led down to the four roads. -Now and then, stupidly, uselessly, he shouted aloud; and the mountains -echoed his solitary voice. - -The dog knew that something was wrong with his master, and was pained -and afraid. - -The evening fell. The night wore away. He put a little lamp in his -doorway, thinking she might come, through shyness, after dark; but no -one came. Of her there was no sign, or from her any word. - -When the day came he was still dressed and sleepless, seated before -his door; the flame of the little lamp burnt on, garish and yellow in -the sunshine. - -The sun mounted to the zenith; it was again noon. He went indoors, -and took a great knife which he was accustomed to carry with him to -Maremma. He put it in his belt inside his breeches, so that it was -invisible. - -Then he called the dog to him, kissed him on the forehead, gave him -bread, and motioned to him to guard the house; then he took his way -once more down the hillside to Massaio's house. - -If she had fooled him yet again, she would not live to do it thrice. -His throat was dry as sand; his eyes were bloodshot; his look was -strange. - -The dog howled and moaned as he passed out of sight. - -He went onward under the boughs tinged with their autumnal fires, until -he came to the place where the house and sheds and walls of the wood -merchant's homestead stood. He walked straight in through the open -gates, and then stood still. - -He saw that there was some unusual stir and trouble in the place: no -one was at work, the children were gaping and gabbling, the housewife -was standing doing nothing, her hands at her sides; Massaio himself was -seated drumming absently on the table. - -'Where is Santina?' asked Caris. - -They all spoke in answer, 'Santina is a jade'--Massaio's voice louder -and rougher than the rest. - -'She has gone out of the town and away, none knows where; and she has -left a letter behind her saying that none need try to follow, for she -is gone to a fine new world, where she will want none of us about her; -and my brother says it is all my fault, giving her liberty out on the -hills. And the marvel is where she got the money, for we and they kept -her so close--not a stiver--not a penny--and it seems she took the -train that goes over the mountains ever so far, and paid a power of -gold at the station wicket.' - -The voice of Caris crossed his in a loud, bitter cry. 'She sold the -Gesu! As God lives--she sold the Gesu!' - -Then the blood rushed from his nostrils and his mouth, and he fell face -downwards. - - -VII - -A few days later he was arrested for having violated and robbed the -tombs in the burial-grounds of St. Fulvo. The pickaxe and the spade had -been found with his name burned on the wood of them; he was sentenced -to three years at the galleys for sacrilege and theft. - -When the three years were ended he was an old, gray, bowed man, though -only twenty-nine years of age; he returned to his cabin, and the dog, -who had been cared for by the charcoal-burners, knew him from afar off, -and flew down the hill-path to meet him. - -'The wench who ruined you,' said the charcoal-burners around their -fire that night, 'they do say she is a fine singer and a rich madam -somewhere in foreign parts. She sold the Gesu--ay, she sold the Gesu to -a silversmith down in the town. That gave her the money to start with, -and the rest her face and her voice have done for her.' - -'Who has the Gesu?' asked Caris, hiding his eyes on the head of the dog. - -'Oh, the Gesu, they say, was put in the smelting-pot,' said the -charcoal-burner. - -Caris felt for the knife which was inside his belt. It had been given -back to him with his clothes when he had been set free at the end of -his sentence. - -'One could find her,' he thought, with a thrill of savage longing. Then -he looked down at the dog and across at the green aisles of the pines -and chestnuts. - -'Let the jade be,' said the forest-man to him. 'You are home again, and -'twas not you who bartered the Christ.' - -Caris fondled the haft of the great knife under his waistband. - -'She stole the Gesu and sold Him,' he said, in a hushed voice. 'One day -I will find her, and I will strike her: once for myself and twice for -Him.' - - - - -A LEMON-TREE - - - - -A LEMON-TREE - - -I - -It was a small lemon-tree, not more than forty inches high, growing -in its red earthen vase as all lemons are obliged to be grown further -north than Rome. There were many thousands and tens of thousands of -other such trees in the land; but this one, although so little, was -a source of joy and pride to its owner. He had grown it himself from -a slender slip cast away on a heap of rubbish, and he had saved his -pence up with effort and self-denial to purchase, second-hand, the big -pot of ruddy clay in which it grew, now that it had reached its first -fruit-bearing prime. It had borne as its first crop seven big, fragrant -lemons, hanging from its boughs amidst leaves which were as fresh and -green as a meadow in May. He had watched its first buds creep out of -the slender twigs, and swell and swell gradually into sharp-pointed -little cones, which in their turn became pale yellow fruit, 'fit for -a princess,' as he said, patting their primrose-coloured rind. They -seemed so many separate miracles to him, coming as by some magic out of -the little starry white flowers on the glossy twigs. - -He was a poor, ignorant man, by name Dario Baldassino, known as -Fringuello (or the Chaffinch) to his neighbourhood and fellow workmen. -He lived on the south side of the ferry of Royezano, and dug and carted -the river-sand; a rude labour and a thankless, taking the sinew and -spirit out of a man, and putting little in return into his pocket. The -nave or ferry is a place to please an artist. All the land around on -this south side is orchard--great pear-trees and cherry-trees linked -together by low-growing vines, and in the spring months making a sea -of blossom stretching to the river's edge. The watermills, which were -there centuries ago, stand yellow and old, and cluster like beavers' -dams upon the water. The noise of the weir is loud, but the song of -the nightingale can be heard above it. Looking along westward down -the widening, curving stream, above the fruit-trees planted thick as -woods, there arise, two miles off, the domes and spires of the city -of Florence, backed by the hills, which here take an Alpine look upon -them when the sun sets beyond the rounded summits of the more distant -Carrara range; and the spurs of the Apennines grow deeply blue with -that intense transparent colour which is never seen in northern lands. -To the north also lie the mountains, and on the east; and late into May -the snow lingers where the day breaks above Vallombrosa and Casentino. -All the vale is orchard, broken now and then by some great stone-pine, -some walnut or chestnut tree, some church spire with its statue of -its saint, some low, red-brown roofs, some grey old granary with -open-timbered lofts. It is a serene and sylvan scene--at sunset and at -sunrise grand--and the distant city rises on its throne of verdure, -seeming transfigured as Dante, exiled, may have seen it in his dreams. - -Of all this beauty outspread before his sight Fringuello saw little; -his eyes were always set on the sand and shingle into which he drove -his heart-shaped spade--all which is the pageant of the painter, the -paradise of the poet, but is nothing to the toiler of the soil. The -sweat of his fatigue drops down before his eyes, and shuts out from -him the scenes amidst which he dwells. For him the weir has no song, -the orchard no poem, the mountains no counsel, and the vales no charm. -He does but see the cart-rucks in the sand, the house-fly in the -sunlight, the coins hard-earned in his horny palm, the straw which -covers the coveted wine-flask, or the glass which holds the hot and -acid flavours of less natural drinks. Now and then Giotto looks up from -his sheepfold, and Robert Burns from his furrow, but it is only once in -a century. This poor labourer, Fringuello, lived in two little rooms -in a poor house which looked on the weir and the water-mills. He had -never been able to have a house of his own, and even the small charge -of the rooms was more than he could easily pay, miserable though they -were. His employment was intermittent, and in winter, when the river -was spread wide over its bed, covering the sand and shingle, it ceased -entirely. Some odd jobs he got elsewhere, but nothing certain. He had -no knowledge of any other work than the digging and carrying which had -been his lot. But he was always merry, with the mirth which had gained -him his nickname, and in his light-hearted poverty had done what the -poorest always do--he had married at twenty a girl as poor as himself. -She was called Lizina, the familiar corruption of Luisa, and was the -daughter of a cobbler of the adjacent village of Ripoli. - -It was an imprudent union and a foolish one, but it was happier than -many which fulfil every condition of prudence and thrift. Lizina was -a blithe, buoyant, active, and laborious creature, and whilst she -lived he never had a hole in his hempen shirt, or went without a -tablespoonful of oil to his beans and bread. They were as merry and -happy as if they had really been a pair of chaffinches in a nest in -one of the pear-trees. But of joy the gods are envious, whether it go -to roost in garret or palace, and in a few brief years Lizina died of -fever and left him all alone with one little girl, as like herself as -the bud is like the flower. - -For months he never sang as he worked, and his ruddy face was pale, -and he had long fits of weeping when he lay on his lonely bed, and -stared up at the starry skies which were visible through the square, -unshuttered window. Lizina was in the ground, in a nameless grave, -with two crossed sticks set above it, and the river rolled over the -weir, and the wide wheel turned, and the orchards blossomed, and the -people laughed on the yellow sand, and no one cared that a little -merry, glad, tender, harmless life was done for and over, stamped down -into the clay like a crushed butterfly, a broken branch, a rotten -fruit, or a dead grasshopper. Nobody cared; and after a time he, too, -ceased to care, and began to hum and whistle and carol once more as -he worked, and laughed once more at his comrades' jokes as they dug -up the heavy sand. In the lives of the poor there is little leisure -for sorrow, and toil passes over them like an iron roller over the -inequalities of a road, forcing them down into dull indifference, as -the roller forces into level nothingness alike the jagged flint and the -sprouting grass. - -Meanwhile, Lizina, as she was called after her mother, grew up apace -like the little lemon-tree which had been planted at her birth, a -lovely child like a Correggio cherub, thriving on her dry bed and -herb-soup as the lemon plant thrived on the dry earth and uncongenial -atmosphere of the attic under the roofs. - -Fringuello did his best by both of them, making up to them by -tenderness and gentleness what he was forced to refuse to both of -material comfort. Both the child and the tree went hungry often, -suffered from cold and frost in the sharp, short winters, and -languished in the scorching days, when foul odours rose from the naked -bed of the shrunken river, and white clouds of little moths hovered -over the cracked sand, and the leaves of the orchards grew yellow and -wrinkled, and curled up, and dropped in the heat before their time. - -All that he could not help; he could not help it more than he could -help the shrinking of the river in drought, and the coming of blight to -the orchards. Though it went to his soul like a knife-thrust when he -saw the child pale and thin, and the lemon-tree sickly and shrunk, he -could do nothing. But he murmured always, 'Patience, courage,' as he -coaxed the child to eat a morsel of crust, and consoled the tree with -a spray of spring-water, and he got them both safely through several -burning summers and icy winters, and when they were both sixteen years -old the tree was strong and buxom, with glossy foliage and fine fruit, -and the child was healthy and handsome, with shining eyes and laughing -mouth. - -He had worked as hard as any mule for them both, and though a young man -in years, he looked an old man from excess of toil, though his heart -was light and his smile was like sunshine. - -When he got up in the dark to go to his work, and drew his leathern -belt about his lean ribs, he always looked at the pale light of dawn -as it touched the green leaves of the tree and the closed eyes of the -child, and then he muttered an Ave, content and thankful at heart. Many -would have thought the hardness of his lot excuse enough for suicide; -he never knew what it was not to feel tired, he never knew what it was -to have a coin in his pocket for pleasure. His bones ached, and the -gnawing of rheumatism was in his nerves, from the many hours spent -knee-deep in water or damp sand, and always at the pit of his stomach -was that other still worse gnawing of perpetual insufficiency of food. -But he was content and grateful to his fate, as the birds are, though -they hunger and thirst, and every man's hand is against them. - -The child and the tree were indissolubly united in his mind and -memory. They had grown up together, and seemed part and parcel of each -other. Imagination scarcely exists in the brains of the poor; they do -not know what it is. The perpetual grind of daily want leaves no space -for or possibility of impersonal fancy in it; but, in a vague kind of -superstitious way, he associated the well-being of the one with the -welfare of the other. If the tree sickened and drooped for a day, he -always looked nervously at Lizina to see if she ailed anything also. -If the little girl coughed or grew hot with fever, he always watched -anxiously the leaves of the lemon. It was a talisman and fetish to him; -and when he came up from the river at evening when his work was done, -he looked upward always to see the green boughs of the tree at the -square little window of his garret under the deep eaves, and above an -archway of old brown-red brick. - -If it had been missing at the window, he would have told himself that -Lizina was dead. There was no likelihood that it would ever be missing -there. Lemon-trees live long, and this one would, he knew, most likely -outlive himself if he kept it from worm and fly, and rot and mildew. -Nevertheless, he always glanced upward to make sure that it was there -when he toiled up the strip of road which led to his home when his work -in the sand was done. Lizina herself did not wait at the window. She -always came jumping and dancing down the path, her auburn curls flying, -and her big brown eyes sparkling; barefooted, ill-clad, scarcely fed, -but happy and healthy, singing at the top of her voice as her father -had always done in his youth. - -When they reached their fifteenth birthday, neither she nor the -lemon-tree had ever ailed anything worse than a passing chill from a -frosty week, or a transient sickness from a sultry drought. - -The lemon-tree had given her the few little gifts she had ever -received. The pence brought in by its fruit were always laid out for -her: cake at Christmas, sugar-egg at Easter, a white ribbon for her -first Communion, a pair of shoes to wear on high feasts and holy -days--these little joys, few and far between, had all come to her -from the copper pieces gained by the pale, wrinkled, fragrant fruit -sold at five centimes each in the village or the town. '_Soldi della -Lizinanina_,' said her father whenever he put any so gained in his -trousers pocket. - -Well as he loved his pipe, and thankful as he was when he could get a -drink of watered wine, he never touched a halfpenny of the lemon money -to buy a pinch of tobacco or a glass of _mezzo-vino_. It was all saved -up carefully for his little girl's small wants. Sometimes in hard -seasons it had even to go in bread for her, but of that bread he would -never himself take a mouthful. Moreover, the pence were few, for the -lemons were not many. - -Lizina remained quite a child, though she grew fast, and her little -round breasts swelled up high and firm where the rough hempen shift -cut across them. Young as she was, the eyes of an admirer had fallen -upon her, and young Cecco, the son of Lillo, the _contadino_ where the -big pine stood (a pine three hundred years old if one), had said to -her father and to her that when he had served out his time in the army -he should say something serious about it; but Fringuello had answered -him ungraciously that he could never give her bridal clothes or bridal -linen, so that she would needs die a maid, and his own people had told -him roughly that when he should have served his time he would be in a -different mind. But Cecco, nevertheless, thought nothing would please -him ever so well as this ragged, pretty child with her blowing cloud -of short, crisp bright curls, and he said to her one evening as she -sat on the wall by the ferry, 'If you will be patient, my Lizinanina, -I will be true;' and Lizina, too young to be serious, but amused and -triumphant, laughed gaily and saucily, and replied to him: 'I will make -no promises, Cecco. You will come back with a shorn pate and soft hands -and tender soles to your feet.' - -For the soldier seems but a poor creature to the children of the soil, -and is, indeed, of but little use when the barracks vomit him out of -their jaws and send him back to his home, a poor, indifferent trooper, -but also a spoiled peasant; having learned to write indeed, but having -forgotten how to handle a spade, drive a plough, or prune a grape-vine, -and to whose feet, once hard and firm as leather, the once familiar -earth with its stones and thorns and sticks seems rough and sharp and -painful, after having marched in ill-fitting boots for three years -along smooth roads and paven streets. - -To the city lad and lass the conscript may seem somebody very fine; but -to the country ones he seems but a mere popinjay, only useful to waste -powder. Lizina, although only a river labourer's daughter, was country -born and bred, and had the prejudices and preferences of the country, -and had run about under the orchard boughs and down the vineyards of -the countryside till she thought as a peasant and spoke as one. - -Cecco was mortified, but he shared her views of the life to which he -was about to go. He was useful now to tame a steer, to milk a heifer, -to fell a tree, to mow a meadow, to reap a field, to get up in the dark -and drive the colt into the city with a load of straw and bring back -a load of manure. But in the barracks he would be nothing--worse than -nothing; a poor numb-skull, strapped up in stiff clothes with a pack on -his back, and a musket, which he must fire at nothing, on his shoulder. - -'Wait for me, Lizina,' he said sadly. 'The time will soon pass, and I -will come back and marry you, despite them all.' - -'Pooh! I shall have married a man with a mint of money by the time they -let you come back,' said the unkind child, saucily tossing the curls -out of her eyes; but through her long lashes her glance rested a moment -softly on the ruddy face of Cecco, which had looked down on her so -often through the boughs and twigs of the cherry or pear trees of his -father's farm, as he threw down fruit into her outstretched and eager -little hands where she stood in the grass of the orchard. - -She said nothing more tender then, being coy and wayward and hard to -please, as became her incipient womanhood; but before she went to bed -that night she came close to her father's side and put her hand on his. - -'Cecco says he will come back and marry me, _babbo_,' she said, with a -child's directness. Her father stroked her curls. - -'That is a joke, dear; his people would never let him marry a little -penniless chit like you.' - -Lizina shook her head sagely with a little proud smile. - -'He will not mind his people. He will do it--if I wish--when he comes -back.' - -Her father looked at her in amazement; in his eyes she was a little -child still. - -'Why, baby, you speak like a woman!' he said stupidly. 'I am glad this -lad goes away, as he puts such nonsense into your head.' - -'But if we both wish, you would not mind, _babbo_?' she asked, -persistent and serious. - -'The angels save us! She speaks like a grown woman!' cried her father. -'My poor little dear,' he thought sadly, 'you will never be able to -wed anyone. We are poor! so poor! I can never give you even a set of -shifts. Who could go to a house so naked--in rags, as one may say? My -poor little angel, you must live a maid or go to a husband as beggared -as I.' - -He wished to say all this, but the words choked him in his throat. It -seemed so cruel to set before the child the harsh, mean demands of -life, the merciless rules and habits of that narrow world of theirs, -which was bounded by the river and the sand on one side, and the -cornfields and orchards on the other. - -'Let be, let be,' he said to himself. 'She is but a child, and the -youth is going away for years; if it please her to think of this thing, -it can hurt no one. He will forget, and she will forget.' - -So he patted her pretty brown cheek, and drew her closer and kissed her. - -'You are but a baby, my treasure,' he said softly. 'Put these grave -thoughts out of your head. Many moons will wax and wane before Cecco -will be free again to come to his old home. The future can take care of -itself. I will say neither yea nor nay. We will see what the years will -bring forth.' - -'But you would not mind?' she murmured coaxingly. - -The tears started to his eyes. - -'Ah! God knows, dear, how sweet it would be to me!' - -He thought of his little girl safe and happy for her lifetime in that -pleasant and plentiful household under the red-brown roofs where the -big pine grew amongst the pear and cherry trees. The vision of it was -beautiful and impossible. It hurt him to look on it, as the sun dazzles -the eyes at noon. - -'But put it out of your head--out of your head, little one!' he said. -'Even if the boy should keep of the same mind, never would Lillo -consent.' - -'Cecco will keep in the same mind,' said Lizina, with the serene -undoubting certainty of childhood, and she broke off a little twig of -the lemon-tree, with a bud upon it and three leaves, and gave it to -Cecco that evening in the dusk as they sat again upon the river-wall. -It was all she had to give, except her little waking heart. - -The next day he went away along the dusty high-road in his father's -cart to begin his new life. He sobbed as if his heart would break, and -fastened in his shirt was the lemon shoot. - -'To break off a bud! Oh, Lizina!' cried her father, in reproof and -reproach. 'A bud means a fruit, and a fruit means a halfpenny, perhaps -a penny.' - -'It is only one,' said the child; 'and I have nothing else.' - -Lizina did not speak of him, nor did she seem to fret in any way. Her -blithe voice rang in clear carol over the green river water, as she sat -on the wall whilst her father worked below, and she ate her dry bread -with healthy and happy appetite. - -'She is only a baby. She has forgotten the boy already,' thought her -father, half disappointed, half relieved, whilst he broke up the earth -about the roots of the lemon-tree, and counted the little pointed -fruits coming out on it, green as malachite, and promising a fair crop. - -No letters could arrive to stimulate her memory, for Cecco could -scarcely scrawl his name, and Lizina could not read her A B C. Absence -to the poor is a complete rupture, an absolute blank, over which the -intelligence can throw no bridge. - -Fringuello worked early and late, worked like a willing mule, and lost -no chance of doing anything, however hard, which could bring in a -centime; and he was so tired when night fell that he could do little -except swallow his bread-soup and fling himself down on his bed of -dry leaves thrust into an old sack. So that as long as Lizina's voice -was heard in song, and her little bare feet ran busily to and fro, he -noticed nothing else, and was content, believing all was well with her. - -The winter which followed on Cecco's departure to his military service -was of unusual rigour for the vale of Arno; the waters were stormy -and dark, and the fields were frozen and brown, and snow lay on the -long lines of the mountains from their summit to their base. But the -lemon-tree flourished before its narrow window, and Lizina was well and -gay in the cold little brick-floored, plaster-walled, unceiled garret; -and her father asked nothing more of Fate, and went out to his work in -the bitter coldness and darkness of the morning dawns with an empty -stomach but a warm heart, leaving her sleeping, easily and dreamlessly, -curled up like a little dormouse in her corner of the room. - -The winter passed and the spring came, making all the orchard lands -once more become seas of white flowers, and setting the chaffinches -and linnets and nightingales to work at their nests amongst the lovely -labyrinth of bursting blossom; and one sunlit afternoon, towards the -close of April, the village priest, coming along the road by the river, -saw Fringuello, who was backing his sand-cart into the bed of the now -shallow stream, and beckoned to him. The priest had an open letter in -his hand, and his plump, smooth olive face was sad. - -'Dario,' he said gravely, 'I have some terrible news in this paper. -Lillo's son, Cecco, is dead. I have to go and tell the family. The -authorities have written to me.' - -He stopped suddenly, surprised by the effect which his news had on his -hearer. - -'Saints protect us, how you look!' he cried. 'One would think you were -the lad's father!' - -'Is it sure? Is it true?' stammered Fringuello. - -'Ay, ay, it is true and sure enough. The authorities write to me,' -answered the vicar, with some pride. 'Poor lad! Poor, good, pretty lad! -They sent him to the Marenna marshes, and the ague and fever got on -him, and he died in the fort a week ago. And only to think that this -time last year he was bringing me armfuls of blooming cherry boughs for -the altar at Easter-day! And now dead and buried. Good lack! Far away -from all his friends, poor lad! The decrees of heaven are inscrutable, -but it is of course for the best.' - -He crossed himself and went on his way. - -Fringuello doffed his cap mechanically, and crossed himself also, and -rested against the shaft of his cart with his face leaning on his -hands. His hope was struck down into nothingness; the future had no -longer a smile. Though he had told himself, and them, that children -were fickle and unstable, and that nothing was less likely than that -the lad would come back in the same mind, he had nevertheless clung -to and cherished the idea of such a fate for his little daughter with -a tenacity of which he had been unconscious until his air castle was -scattered to the winds by the words of the priest. The boy was dead; -and never would Lizina go to dwell in peace and plenty at the old -farmhouse by the great pine. - -'It was too good to be. Patience!' he said to himself, with a groan, as -he lifted his head and bade the mule between the shafts move onward. -His job had to be done; his load had to be carried; he had no leisure -to sit down alone with his regret. - -'And it is worse for Lillo than it is for me,' he said to himself, with -an unselfish thought for the lad's father. - -He looked up at the little window of his own attic which he could see -afar off; the lemon-tree was visible, and beside it the little brown -head of Lizina as she sat sewing. - -'Perhaps she will not care; I hope she will not care,' he thought. - -He longed to go and tell her himself lest she should hear it from some -gossip, but he could not leave his work. Yet, he could not bear the -child to learn it first from the careless chattering of neighbouring -gossips. - -When he had discharged the load he carried, he fastened the mule to a -post by the water-side, and said to a fellow-carter, 'Will you watch -him a moment whilst I run home?' and on the man's assenting he flew -with lightning speed along the road and up the staircase of his house. - -Lizina dropped her sewing in amazement as he burst into the room and -stood on the threshold with a look which frightened her. - -She ran to him quickly. - -'_Babbo!_ _Babbo!_ What is the matter?' she cried to him. Then, before -he could answer, she said timidly, under her breath, 'Is anything -wrong--with Cecco?' - -Then Fringuello turned his head away and wept aloud. - -He had hoped the child had forgotten. He knew now that she had -remembered only too well. All through the year which had gone by since -the departure of the youth she had been as happy as a field-mouse -undisturbed in the wheat. The grain was not ripe yet for her, but she -was sure that it would be, and that her harvest would be plenteous. She -had always been sure, quite sure, that Cecco would come back; and now, -in an instant, she understood that he was dead. - -Lizina said little then or at any time; but the little gay life of her -changed, grew dull, seemed to shrink into itself and wither up as a -flower will when a worm is at its root. She had been so sure that Cecco -would return! - -'She is so young; soon it will not matter to her,' her father told -himself. - -But the months went by and the seasons, and she did not recover her -bloom, her mirth, her elasticity; her small face was always grave and -pale. She went about her work in the same way, and was docile, and -industrious, and uncomplaining, but something was wrong with her. She -did not laugh, she did not sing; she seldom even spoke unless she was -spoken to first. He tried to persuade himself that there was no change -in her, but he knew that he tried to feed himself on falsehood. He -might as well have thought his lemon-tree unaltered if he had found it -withered up by fire. - - -II - -Once Lizina said to her father, 'Could one walk there?' - -'Where, dear? Where?' - -'Where they have put Cecco,' she answered, knowing nothing of distances -or measurements or the meaning of travel or change of place. - -She had never been farther than across the ferry to the other bank of -the river. - -Her father threw up his hands in despair. - -'Lord! my treasure! why it is miles and miles and miles away! I don't -know rightly even where--some place where the sun goes down.' - -And her idea of walking thither seemed to him so stupefying, so -amazing, so incredible, that he stared at her timorously, afraid that -her brain was going wrong. He had never gone anywhere in all his life. - -'Oh, my pretty, what should we do, you and I, in a strange place?' -moaned Fringuello, weeping with fear at the thought of change and with -grief at the worn, fevered face lifted up to his. 'Never have I stirred -from here since I was born, nor you. To move to and fro--that is for -well-to-do folks, not for us; and when you are so ill, my poor little -one, that you can scarcely stand on your feet--if you were to die on -the way----' - -'I shall not die on the way,' said the child firmly. - -'But I know nought of the way,' he cried wildly and piteously. 'Never -was I in one of those strings of fire-led waggons, nor was ever any one -of my people that ever I heard tell of. How should we ever get there, -you and I? I know not even rightly what place it is.' - -'I know,' said Lizina; and she took a crumpled scrap of paper out of -the breast of her worn and frayed cotton frock. It bore the name of the -seashore town where Cecco had died. She had got the priest to write it -down for her. 'If we show this all along as we go people will put us -right until we reach the place,' she said, with that quiet persistency -which was so new in her. 'Ask how one can get there,' she persisted, -and wound her arm about his throat, and laid her cheek against his in -her old caressing way. - -'You are mad, little one--quite mad!' said Fringuello, aghast and -affrighted; and he begged the priest to come and see her. - -The priest did come, but said sorrowfully to him: - -'Were I you, I would take her down to one of the hospitals in the town; -she is ill.' - -He did so. He had been in the town but a few times in his whole life; -she never. It was now wintry weather; the roads were wet, the winds -were cold; the child coughed as she walked and shivered in her scanty -and too thin clothes. The wise men at the hospital looked at her -hastily among a crowd of sick people, and said some unintelligible -words, and scrawled something on a piece of paper--a medicine, as it -proved--which cost to buy more than a day of a sand carter's wage. - -'Has she really any illness?' he asked, with wild, imploring eyes, of -the chemist who made up the medicine. - -'Oh no--a mere nothing,' said the man in answer; but thought as he -spoke: 'The doctors might spare the poor devil's money. When the blood -is all water like that there is nothing to be done; the life just goes -out like a wind-blown candle.' 'Get her good wine; butcher's meat; -plenty of nourishing food,' he added, reflecting that while there is -youth there is hope. - -The father groaned aloud, as he laid down the coins which were the -price of the medicine. Wine! Meat! Nourishment! They might as well have -bidden him feed her on powdered pearls and melted gold. They got home -that day footsore and wet through; he made a little fire of boughs and -vine-branches, and, for the first time ever since it had been planted, -he forgot to look at the lemon-tree. - -'You are not ill, my Lizinanina?' he said eagerly. 'The chemist told me -it was nothing.' - -'Oh no, it is nothing,' said the child; and she spoke cheerfully and -tried to control the cough which shook her from head to foot. - -Tears rolled down her father's cheeks and fell on to the smouldering -heather, which he set all right. Wine! Meat! Nourishment! The three -vain words rang through his head all night. They might as well have -bade him set her on a golden throne and call the stars down from their -spheres to circle round her. - -'My poor little baby!' he thought; 'never did she have a finger ache, -or a winter chill, or an hour's discomfort, or a moment's pain in mind -or body until now!' - -The child wasted and sickened visibly day by day. Her father looked -to see the lemon-tree waste and sicken also; but it flourished still, -a green, fresh, happy thing, though growing in a place so poor. A -superstitious, silly notion took possession of him, begotten by his -nervous terrors for his child, and by the mental weakness which came -of physical want. He fancied the lemon-tree hurt the child, and drew -nourishment and strength away from her. Perhaps in the night, in some -mysterious way--who knew how? He grew stupid and feverish, working -so hardly all day on hardly more than a crust, and not sleeping at -night through his fears for Lizina. Everything seemed to him cruel, -wicked, unintelligible. Why had the State taken away the boy who was so -contented and useful where he was born? Why had the strange, confined, -wearisome life amongst the marshlands killed him? Why was he himself -without even means to get decent food? Why, after working hard all -these years, could he have no peace? Must he even lose the one little -creature he had? The harshness and injustice of it all disturbed his -brain and weighed upon his soul. He sank into a sullen silence; he -was in the mood when good men turn bad, and burn, pillage, slay--not -because they are wicked or unkind by nature, but because they are mad -from misery. - -But she was so young, and had been always so strong, he thought; this -would pass before long, and she would be herself again--brisk, brown, -agile, mirthful, singing at the top of her voice as she ran through -the lines of the cherry-trees. He denied himself everything to get her -food, and left himself scarce enough to keep the spark of life in him. -He sold even his one better suit of clothes and his one pair of boots; -but she had no appetite, and perceiving his sacrifice, took it so -piteously to heart that it made her worse. - -The neighbours were good-natured and brought now an egg, now a fruit, -now a loaf for Lizina; but they could not bring her appetite, and were -offended and chilled by her lassitude, her apparent ignorance of their -good intentions, and her indifference to their gifts. - -Some suggested this nostrum, others that; some urged religious -pilgrimages, and some herbs, and some charms, and some spoke of a wise -woman, who, if you crossed her hand with silver, could relieve you of -any evil if she would. But amidst the multitude of counsellors, Lizina -only grew thinner and thinner, paler and paler, all her youth seeming -slowly to wane and die out of her. - -Her little sick heart was set obstinately on what her father had told -her was impossible. - -None of Cecco's own people thought of going to the place where he died. -He was dead, and there was an end to it; even his mother, although she -wept for him, did not dream of throwing away good money in a silly and -useless journey to the place where he had been put in the ground. - -Only the little girl, who had laughed at him and flouted him as they -sat on the wall by the river, did think of it constantly, tenaciously, -silently. It seemed to her horrible to leave him all alone in some -unfamiliar, desolate place, where no step was ever heard of any whom -he had ever known. She said nothing of it, for she saw that even her -father did not understand; but she brooded over the thought of it -constantly, turning to and fro in her mind the little she had ever -known or heard of the manner and means by which people transported -themselves from place to place. There were many, of course, in the -village who could have told her how others travelled, but she was -too shy to speak of the matter even to the old man of the ferry, in -whose boat, when it was moored to a _poula_ driven in the sand, she -had spent many an hour of playtime. She had always been a babbling, -communicative, merry child, chattering like a starling or a swift, -until now. Now she spoke rarely, and never of the thing of which her -heart was full. - -One day her father looked from her pinched, wan face to the bright -green leaves of the flourishing lemon-tree, and muttered an oath. - -'Day and night, for as many years as you are old, I have taken care of -that tree, and sheltered it and fed it; and now it alone is fair to see -and strong, whilst you--verily, oh verily, Lizina, I could find it in -my heart to take a billhook and hew it down for its cruelty in being -glad and full of vigour, whilst you pinch and fade, day by day, before -my sight!' - -Lizina shook her head, and looked at the tree which had been the -companion of her fifteen years of life. - -'It's a good tree, _babbo_!' she said gently. 'Think how much it has -given us; how many things you bought me with the lemon money! Oh! it -is very good; do not ever say a word against it; but--but--if you are -in anger with it, there is a thing which you might do. You have always -kept the money which it brought for me?' - -'Surely, dear. I have always thought it yours,' he answered, wondering -where her thoughts were tending. - -'Then--then,' said Lizina timidly, 'if it be as mine really, and you -see it no more with pleasure in its place there, will you sell it, and -with the price of it take me to where Cecco lies?' - -Her eyes were intensely wistful; her cheeks grew momentarily red in her -eagerness; she put both hands to her chest and tried to stop the cough -which began to choke her words. Her father stared, incredulous that he -could hear aright. - -'Sell the tree?' he asked stupidly. - -Not in his uttermost needs had the idea of selling it come to him. He -held it in a superstitious awe. - -'Since you say it is mine,' said the child. 'It would sell well. It is -strong and beautiful and bears good fruit. You could take me down where -the sun sets and the sea is--where Cecco lies in the grass.' - -'Good Lord!' said Fringuello, with a moan. - -It seemed to him that the sorrow for her lost sweetheart had turned the -child's brain. - -'Do, father--do!' she urged, her thin brown lips trembling with anxiety -and with the sense of her own powerlessness to move unless he would -consent. - -Her father hid his face in his hands; he felt helpless before her -stronger will. She would force him to do what she desired, he knew; -and he trembled, for he had neither knowledge nor means to make such a -journey as this would be to the marshlands in the west, where Cecco lay. - -'And the tree--the tree!' he muttered. - -He had seen the tree so long by that little square window, it was part -of his life and hers. The thought of its sale terrified him as if he -were going to sell some human friend into bondage. - -'There is no other way,' said Lizina sadly. - -She, too, was loth to sell the tree, but they had nothing else to -sell; and the intense selfishness of a fixed idea possessed her to the -exclusion of all other feeling. - -Then the cough shook her once more from head to foot, and a little -froth of blood came to her lips. - -Lizina, in the double cruelty of her childhood and of her ill-health, -was merciless to her father, and to the tree which had been her -companion so long. She was possessed by the egotism of sorrow. She was -a little thing, now enfeebled and broken by long nights without sleep -and long days without food, and her heart was set on this one idea, -which she did not reveal--that she would die down there, and that then -they would put her in the same ground with him. This was her idea. - -In the night she got up noiselessly, whilst her father was for awhile -sunk in the deep sleep which comes after hard manual toil, and came up -to the lemon-tree and leaned her cheek against its earthen vase. - -'I am sorry to send you away, dearie,' she said to it; 'but there is no -other way to go to him.' - -She felt as if it must understand and must feel wounded. Then she broke -off a little branch--a small one with a few flowers on it. - -'That is for him,' she said to it. - -And she stood there sleepily with the moonlight pouring in on her and -the lemon-tree through the little square hole of the window. - -When she got back to her bed she was chilled to the bone, and she -stuffed the rough sacking of her coverture between her teeth to stop -the coughing, which might wake her father. She had put the little -branch of her lemon into the broken pitcher which stood by her at night -to slake her thirst. - -'Sell it, _babbo_, quick, quick!' she said in the morning. - -She was afraid her strength would not last for the journey, but she did -not say so. She tried to seem cheerful. He thought her better. - -'Sell it to-day--quick, quick!' she cried feverishly; and she knew -that she was cruel and ungrateful, but she persisted in her cruelty and -ingratitude. - -Her father, in despair, yielded. - -It seemed to him as if he were cutting the throat of a friend. Then -he approached the tree to carry it away. He had called in one of his -fellow-carters to help to move it, for it was too heavy for one man. -With difficulty it was forced through the narrow, low door and down the -steep stair, its leaves brushing the walls with a sighing sound, and -its earthen jar grinding on the stone of the steps. Lizina watched it -go without a sigh, without a tear. Her eyes were dry and shining; her -little body was quivering; her face was red and pale in quick, uneven -changes. - -'It goes where it will be better than with us,' said Fringuello, in a -vague apology to it, as he lifted it out of the entrance of the house. - -He had sold it to a gardener in a villa near at hand. - -'Oh yes, it will be better off,' he said feverishly, in the doubtful -yet aggressive tone of one who argues that which he knows is not true. -'With rich people instead of poor; out in a fine garden half the year, -and in a beautiful airy wooden house all winter. Oh yes, it will be -much better off. Now it has grown so big it was choked where it stood -in my little place; no light, no air, no sun, nothing which it wanted. -It will be much better off where it goes; it will have rich, new earth -and every sort of care.' - -'It has done well enough with you,' said his comrade carelessly, as he -helped to shove the vase on to the hand-cart. - -'Yes, yes,' said Fringuello impatiently, 'but it will do better where -it goes. It has grown too big for a room. It would starve with me.' - -'Well, it is your own business,' said the other man. - -'Yes, it is his own business,' said the neighbours, who were standing -to see it borne away as if it were some rare spectacle. 'But the tree -was always there; and the money you get will go,' they added, in their -collective wisdom. - -He took up the handles of the little cart and placed the yoke of cord -over his shoulders, and began to drag it away. He bent his head down -very low so that the people should not see the tears which were running -down his cheeks. - -When he came back to his home he carried its price in his hands--thirty -francs in three paper notes. He held them out to Lizina. - -'All is well with it; it is to stand in a beautiful place, close to -falling water, half in shade, half in sun, as it likes best. Oh, all is -well with it, dear! do not be afraid.' Then his voice failed him, and -he sobbed aloud. - -The child took the money. She had a little bundle in her hand, and she -had put on the only pair of shoes she possessed. - -'Clean yourself, father, and come--come quickly,' she said in a little -hard, dry, panting voice. - -'Oh wait, wait, my angel!' he cried piteously through his sobs. - -I cannot wait,' said the child, 'not a minute, not a minute. Clean -yourself and come.' - -In an hour's time they were in the train. The child did -everything--found the railway-station, asked the way, paid their fares, -took their seats, pushing her father hither and thither as if he were -a blind man. He was dumb with terror and regret; he resisted nothing. -Having sold the tree, there seemed to him nothing left for him to do. -Lizina obeyed him no more--she commanded. - -People turned to look after this little sick girl with death written -on her face, who spoke and moved with such feverish decision, and -dragged after her this thin dumb man, her small lean hand shut with -nervous force upon his own. All the way she ate nothing; she only drank -thirstily of water whenever the train stopped. - -The novelty and strangeness of the transit, the crowd, and haste, and -noise, the unfamiliar scenes, the pressure of unknown people, and the -stare of unknown eyes--all which was so bewildering and terrible to her -father, had no effect upon her. All she thought of was to get to the -place of which the name was written on the scrap of paper which she had -shown at the ticket-office, and which she continued to show mutely to -anyone who spoke to her. It said everything to her; she thought it must -say everything to everyone else. - -Nothing could alarm her or arrest her attention. Her whole mind was set -on her goal. - -'Your little lady is very ill!' said more than one in a crowded -railway-waggon, where they jammed one on to another, thick as herrings -in a barrel. - -'Ay, ay, she is very ill,' he answered stupidly; and they did not -know whether he was unfeeling or daft. He was dizzy and sick with the -unwonted motion of the train, the choking dust, the giddy landscape -which seemed to run past him, earth and sky together; but on Lizina -they made no impression, except that she coughed almost incessantly. -She seemed to ail nothing and to perceive nothing. He was seized with a -panic of dread lest they should be taken in some wrong direction, even -out of the world altogether; dreaded fire, accident, death, treachery; -felt himself caught up by strong, invisible hands, and whirled away, -the powers of heaven or hell alone knew where. His awful fear grew on -him every moment greater and greater; and he would have given his soul -to be back safe on the sand of the river at his home. - -But Lizina neither showed nor felt any fear whatever. - -The journey took the whole day and part of the ensuing night; for the -slow cheap train by which they travelled gave way to others, passed -hours motionless, thrust aside and forgotten, and paused at every -little station on the road. They suffered from hunger and thirst, -and heat and draught, and fatigue and contusion, as the poor cattle -suffered in the trucks beside them. But the child did not seem to feel -either exhaustion or pain, or to want anything except to be there--to -be there. The towns, the mountains, the sea, the coast, all so strange -and wonderful to untravelled eyes, had no wonder for her. She only -wanted to get beyond them, to where it was that Cecco lay. Every now -and then she opened her bundle and looked at the little twig of the -lemon-tree. - -Alarmed at her aspect, and the racking cough, their companions shrank -away from them as far as the crowding of the waggon allowed of, and -they were left unquestioned and undisturbed, whilst the day wore on and -the sun went down into the sea and the evening deepened into night. - -It was dawn when they were told to descend; they had reached their -destination--a dull, sun-baked, fever-stricken little port, with the -salt water on one side of it, and the _machia_ and marsh on the other. - -Lizina got down from the train, holding her little bundle in one hand -and in the other her father's wrist. Their limbs were bruised, aching, -trembling, their spines felt broken, their heads seemed like empty -bladders, in which their brains went round and round; but she did -not faint or fall--she went straight onward as though the place was -familiar to her. - -Close to the desolate, sand-strewn station there was a fort of -decaying yellow stone, high walls with loopholes, mounds of sand with -sea-thistle and bryony growing in them; before these was the blue -water, and a long stone wall running far out into the water. To the -iron rings in it a few fisher boats were moored by their cables. The -sun was rising over the inland wilderness, where wild boars and buffalo -dwelt under impenetrable thickets. Lizina led her father by the hand -past the fortifications to a little desolate church with crumbling -belfry, where she knew the burial-ground must be. There were four -lime-washed walls, with a black iron door, through the bars of which -the graves within and the rank grass around them could be seen. The -gate was locked; the child sat down on a stone before it and waited. -She motioned to her father to do the same. He was like a poor steer -landed after a long voyage in which he has neither eaten nor drank, -but has been bruised, buffeted, thrown to and fro, galled, stunned, -tormented. They waited, as she wished, in the cool dust of the breaking -day. The bell above in the church steeple was tolling for the first -Mass. - -In a little while a sacristan came out of the presbytery near the -church, and began to turn a great rusty key in the church door. He saw -the two sitting there by the graveyard, and looking at them over his -shoulder, said to them, 'You are strangers--what would you?' - -Lizina rose and answered him: 'Will you open to me? I come to see my -Cecco, who lies here. I have something to give him.' - -The sacristan looked at her father. - -'Cecco?' he repeated, in a doubtful tone. - -'A lad of Royezzano, a soldier who died here,' said Fringuello, -hoarsely and faintly, for his throat was parched and swollen, and his -head swam. 'He and my child were playmates. Canst tell us, good man, -where his grave is made?' - -The sacristan paused, standing before the leathern curtain of the -church porch, trying to remember. Save for soldiers and the fisher -folk, there was no one who either lived or died there; his mind went -back over the winter and autumn months, to the last summer, in which -the marsh fever and the pestilential drought had made many sicken and -some die in the fort and in the town. - -'Cecco? Cecco?' he said doubtfully. 'A Tuscan lad? A conscript? Ay, I -do recall him now. He got the tertian fever and died in barracks. His -reverence wrote about him to his family. Yes, I remember. There were -three soldier lads died last year, all in the summer. There are three -crosses where they lie. I put them there; his is the one nearest the -wall. Yes, you can go in; I have the key.' - -He stepped across the road and unlocked the gate. He looked wonderingly -on Lizina as he did so. 'Poor little one!' he muttered, in compassion. -'How small, how ill, to come so far!' - -Neither she nor her father seemed to hear him. The child pressed -through the aperture as soon as the door was drawn ajar, and Fringuello -followed her. The burial-ground was small and crowded, covered with -rank grass, and here and there sea-lavender was growing. The sacristan -led them to a spot by the western wall where there were three rude -crosses made of unbarked sticks nailed across one another. The rank -grass was growing amongst the clods of sun-baked yellow clay; the high -white wall rose behind the crossed sticks; the sun beat down on the -place: there was nothing else. - -The sacristan motioned to the cross nearest the wall, and then went -back to the church, being in haste, as it was late for matins. Lizina -stood by the two poor rude sticks, once branches of the hazel, which -were all that marked the grave of Cecco. - -Her father, uncovering his head, fell on his knees. - -The child's face was illuminated with a strange and holy rapture. She -kissed the lemon bough which she held in her hand, and then laid it -gently down upon the grass and clay under the wall. - -'I have remembered, dear,' she said softly, and knelt on the ground -and joined her hands in prayer. Then the weakness of her body overcame -the strength of her spirit; she leaned forward lower and lower until -her face was bowed over the yellow grass. 'I came to lie with you,' -she said under her breath; and then her lips parted more widely with a -choking sigh, the blood gushed from her mouth, and in a few minutes she -was dead. - -They laid her there in the clay and the sand and the tussocks of grass, -and her father went back alone to his native place and empty room. - - * * * * * - -One day on the river-bank a man said to him: - -'It is odd, but that lemon-tree which you sold to my master never did -well; it died within the week--a fine, strong, fresh young tree. Were -there worms at its root, think you, or did the change to the open air -kill it?' - -Fringuello, who had always had a scared, wild, dazed look on his face -since he returned from the sea-coast, looked at the speaker stupidly, -not with any wonder, but like one who hears what he has long known but -only imperfectly understands. - -'It knew Lizina was dead,' he said simply; and then thrust his spade -into the sand and dug. - -He would never smile nor sing any more, nor any more know any joys of -life; but he still worked on from that habit which is the tyrant and -saviour of the poor. - - -THE END - - -BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD - - - - -Transcriber's Notes: - - -Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant -preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected, sometimes by referencing -other editions of these stories. - -Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Rainy June and Other Stories, by Ouida - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A RAINY JUNE AND OTHER STORIES *** - -***** This file should be named 42944-8.txt or 42944-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/9/4/42944/ - -Produced by David Edwards, Charlie Howard, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at - www.gutenberg.org/license. - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 -North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email -contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the -Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |